The Bloggler

Thanks ever so much for dropping by but I've moved.   You can visit me to see new and old posts at my new site,  The Bloggler  at Wordpress.com  Thanks!  See you there.

Cecilia I'm staying on the theme of technology with this post.   I read a disturbing article on the BBC website about a technological development featuring non-human bartender called Cecilia.  She is an animated female barmaid who can be hired, or bought for £34k.  She appears on a large upright video screen and you order your drink or cocktail by using a touch screen and pay for it by tapping  your bank card or phone.  The drink is dispensed from a vending slot or placed on a collection table.  Apparently, using voice recognition and A.I. technology, she can also chat to customers and even tell jokes (although A.I.'s attempts at one liner jokes have resulted in some hilarious failures ).  Now I can see how this might go down well with customers in some establishments, i.e. cruise ships, airports, hotels, big entertainment and hospitality venues e.g. night clubs etc..  However, it would be not be welcome in my local pub, The Halfway House. T...

Hermes and Tesla owners got caught out by technology this week. Hermes the distribution company delivered a parcel for my wife the other day. We were out at the time but Hermes helpfully informed her by email that the parcel had been delivered and placed in our front porch. We wondered how that was possible as we had locked our front porch door when we went out. When we looked at the photographic evidence that our courier, Mohammed had attached to the email it was clear that he had left the parcel on a flagstone somewhere and clearly not near our porch.  We discovered after knocking on neighbours doors that he had left it unannounced outside a neighbour's front door. The technology revealed, therefore, that Mohammed wasn’t very good at his job. He couldn’t be bothered or was in too much of a rush to do his job right and didn’t care that the parcel could have been stolen or damaged. Still, I know Mohammed is a regular good guy because in the email, it says he likes watching sport...

This was the scene in my garden this morning ... a beautiful carpet of russet brown leaves leaves covering my lawn and flower beds.  But alas, more work for me and my trusty leaf blower. (See more photos below in response to  Terri's Webster's 'Sunday Stills' photo challenge  , the theme of which this week is 'Leaves and Trees'.) This is the second big leaf fall this Autumn.  The first consisted mainly of horse chestnut leaves.  I filled my composter, two big green wheelie bins and 8 big plastic sacks.  This time it is mainly beech leaves.   As you read this I have cleared the garden again although I have kept a few piles of leaves in the overgrown corners for the benefit of any local hedgehogs (I am a big hedgehog fan).  The downside is that the bloody squirrels will say "thank you very much, I'll collect some for my nest just as soon as I have finished burying conkers all over the garden and the flower tubs".   I finish with ...

This blog, leaving from Platform Blogger will hopefully arrive at WordPress in a few days.   I apologise for the delay which was due to leaves on the line and my general blogging incompetence. My brain hurts.   I have been trying to move this blog over to WordPress for weeks now and I feel it would be easier to crack the enigma code.   Currently I am blogging to a handful of WordPress and Blogger users and the number of views I get really doesn’t inspire me to continue putting finger to keyboard.    I was advised some months ago to move to wordpress to increase my visibility/views and blogging interaction and I can’t argue that this makes sense.   Trying to find and interact with bloggers using Google’s Blogger is like looking for a needle in a well hidden haystack. I’ll say this about Blogger.....   It’s really easy to set up and use.   I don’t understand all the terminology in ‘settings’ but the interface is friendly and straightforwa...

This week’s Terri's Webster's Sunday Stills photo challenge is all about fur and feathers.  Here are my furry and feathered offerings.  See other entries by visiting Terri's site .      Look at me, I'm an angel too!     Mum and kitten chilling, in hotel grounds, Sirmione, Italy     Wild cat watching tourists in Nerja, Spain Happy dog at Tandle Hill Country Park    Furtive Squirrel on my garden fence      Swan-ing about at Lake Garda, Italy    Noisy Geese in Delph, Oldham      Hungry seagulls in Aldeburgh, Suffolk (they could smell our fish and chips)    Seagull watching the boats at Walberswick, Suffolk    Duck Family  Duck central, somewhere in Lincolnshire       Feeding the pigeons, Heraklion, Crete

The subject of this week's Sunday Stills photographic challenge is the colour orange .   One of the best things about Autumn is the changing colours of the landscape and in particular the various shades of orange that appear.  My first photograph therefore is a seasonal one and was taken in Tandle Hill Country Park a couple of years ago.  I'm not sure my camera did justice to this wonderful beech tree.   Looking through my photo collections I found 'Orange' a bit of a challenge.  However, I found this photo which I took in Tatton Park, Cheshire.  This deer is such a wonderful burnt orange colour.. My last one was taken in my garden and features a beautiful orange rose. The bush is still flowering now. Sunday Stills photo challenge is hosted by Terri Webster at Second Wind Leisure Perspectives .  Check out the entries on her site and enjoy some wonderful images of orange. 

Many personal bloggers are prolific posters. They share their daily movements and family stories with such ease and abandon.   They seem chirpy, busy people with lots of interests. On the other hand, they might really be quite boring and full of their own sense of importance.   Whatever!   They’re having fun and are keen to share themselves with us through their blogs and social media.   I read and indeed subscribe to many of these bloggers but for some reason I am uncomfortable sharing my own movements, life experiences, innermost thoughts and feelings, hobbies, relationships, etc..   I’d like to think I’m no less interesting a person than the average blogger but I have doubts as to whether people would be interested in much of what I get up to and what I think.   For some, personal blogging is a more serious affair .     They may focus on something they are really passionate about, like music or politics or they may focus on a cause, like th...

 Welcome to another of my non too frequent 'My Music' Blogs.  This one features my favourite Drummers.    I used to play drums in my younger days so its not surprising that many of music heroes are drummers. But ask most people who their music heroes are and they probably wont include a drummer.  According to popular myth, drummers are Neanderthals on the scale of musical evolution.  They have a reputation for being drunks, slightly mad and getting into fights. And they are not real musicians because they are only there to keep time.  I disagree.  I say a band is only as good as its drummer.  A good drummer is musically very aware, understands song structure and melody and has a real sense of the groove.  And only some drummers are drunks, mad and get into fights. Me? Back then? I'm saying nothing. Friends ask me who do I think is/was the best drummer ever.  I say I'm not an expert and all top drummers do some things better than oth...

This week my entry to Dan Antion's  Thursday Doors photo challenge  comes from Newby Hall in North Yorkshire.  We stayed with a friend in York last weekend and took advantage of the good weather to have a drive to Newby Hall and Gardens on the Sunday.  This is one of Britain’s finest Adam Houses and is the family home of Mr & Mrs Richard Compton.  It was built in the 1690s by Sir Christopher Wren and the house was later enlarged and adapted by John Carr and subsequently Robert Adam.   The vista from the river looking up to the house and framed by the herbaceous borders is stunning but the front door is actually unremarkable. However, in the gardens we came across this.  It is the door from Newgate Prison, through which the famous highwayman Dick Turpin’s rival Jack Sheppard escaped.  I've enlarged the plaque on the wall so you can read about it.  The skull above the door is a nice touch, don't you think? All the award winning gardens...

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Colourful Murals.’ This week Natalie is hosting the challenge whilst Terri from Second Wind Leisure Perspectives takes a break. To see the entries,  click here . My first three were taken a few years ago in Madeira.  You can see more of these murals and painted doors in my post Thursday Doors, Madeira  in response to Dan's Thursday Doors Challenge The next two were taken in Granada, Spain. These fit the description of graffiti than murals but I like them. 

  I have decided that, as I get older, I understand less about the world: why people do the things they do, about technology, and the economy etc. The more I find out, the less I feel I understand. I know it’s normal to feel that we know less about things as we grow older – even though we are always gaining new knowledge to add to a lifetime of learning and experiences. But there are some things that, no matter how hard I try to understand them, they refuse to make sense. I really don’t care that I don’t understand some things, but there are some things that I feel I should understand. I don’t think my brain is slowing down (it has always been this slow - as many people will testify). I can understand some complex topics, I learn new skills and I can assemble Ikea furniture, read maps and do fractions. So why do I struggle to 'get' things that other people have no problem with. I tend to get irritated when I don’t understand some badly presented news item, ‘googled’ inform...

This week the theme of the Sunday Stills photo challenge is 'Floating'.  Natalie from Natalie the Explorer  is hosting Sunday Stills from August 22-Sept 5 whilst our usual host Terri at Second Wind Leisure Perspectives is on holiday. May I start with three photos I took at the Dubai Mall Aquarium.  These creatures may actually be swimming but 'floating' seems a more apt description.  They just 'bob' about serenely. The next one is a fishing boat moored at the harbour in St Martin de Re on the Ile de Re. This scene couldn't look more captivatingly 'French' could it? The subject of the next two are 'boats in Nice Marina'. The first shows the small brightly coloured boats and the second shows the 'floating' reflection of the some of the smaller yachts on the water. The next one was taken just a few miles from where we live.  It features Hollingworth Lake, a man-made lake which spans 118 acres and originally built as the main water sou...

I've never heard of the colour 'burlywood' but it is apparently a thing, and it has its own hexadecimal colour code #deb887.   Some definitions say it is a 'light brown, sandy colour' and some say its a 'sandy, light brown colour'.  I can live with either. But what photographs in my collection should I look up for the 'Burlywood' Sunday Stills Photo Challenge hosted by Terri at Second Wind Leisure Perspectives ?  I know! Photos with 'sand' in them. But not white sand, yellow sand or red sand....  Light brown sand. My best offer is a collection of photos taken in the desert south of Dubai.  They were taken in 2016 whilst visiting my daughter and her husband who lived there for three years.   The sand dunes are pretty impressive and we had great fun doing a desert safari in a Toyota land cruiser with a crazy driver. Driver resting whilst engine and gearbox cool down. The dunes don't look that big until you try and walk up them. My daughter...