Another cat sticker, found on my walk to work yesterday morning. Whoever this artist/cartoonist is, they've been busy. I'm seeing more and more cats all up and down Finchley Road!
I realized after I posted yesterday that I'd already told you about my political buttons in an earlier post, about five years ago. Oops! I try very hard not to be repetitive here on the ol' blog, but occasionally my mind slips a gear and it happens. Oh well. At least the sloths were new information.
We are having a blustery, rainy morning here. This is part of Storm Benjamin, apparently. It's not particularly windy from what I can tell, but I do hear rain coming down. I always dread going to work on mornings like this. If it's windy I don't want to walk, but cramming into the tube with a bunch of other damp commuters and their drippy umbrellas is no fun either.
Here's the latest on "Bench Watch." The seat of the broken bench, which had entirely come away from the anchored frame, has been removed and the cones are back, along with more warning tape. Why someone chose to carry off the seat but not the back is a bit of a mystery, and there's still no functional place to sit, after at least five months.
And here, next to Prince Head Wound, are the last of our tomatoes, which I had been ripening in a paper bag with an apple. There were more in the bag but after a week or so I took out all the ones with any sign of color and I tossed the rest. Most of the discards were too small to ever ripen, like that little green one in the middle above. Anyway, I ate the ripe ones with my dinner last night -- a scrambled egg concoction that I made with all the random leftover ingredients I could find in the fridge. Dave didn't feel like cooking and I wanted to head off any takeaway orders, because we had plenty of food on hand. Cleaning out the fridge always gives me a sense of accomplishment.
In further evidence that the world has gone insane, did you see that a woman in Richmond was handed a £150 penalty by police for pouring the dregs of her coffee down a storm drain? This is the stupidest, stupidest thing I have ever seen. If the police can't tell the difference between a harmful chemical and a harmless, organic cup of coffee, well, it doesn't bode well for our society. (To the council's credit, they dropped the fine.)
The tomatoes look good. I read about that fine and thought how ridiculous it was.
ReplyDeleteThere is so much weird stuff going on at the moment, like the lady pouring her coffee away, who knew it could be considered a crime! Tomatoes look nice, mine have finished now. That bench is a depressing sight, surely someone could remove it at the very least.
ReplyDeleteTelling her that she should have poured it into a rubbish bin!!
ReplyDeleteYes, I too was flabbergasted by that suggestion, the last thing I’d ever think of doing! I often give my dog water in a cafe and carry his bowl outside to pour down a storm drain. Is water allowed! Crazy world ….
DeleteI love the shades of colour on your tomatoes.
ReplyDeleteThose tomatoes look good. Worth saving! Did you eat the apple?
ReplyDeleteI am sure you have many new readers in five years time since you last posted about political buttons, and then you have readers who have poor memories and it is like a new post.
ReplyDeleteSomeone should put an old couch where the crumbling seat has failed.
I seem to remember that not so long ago, someone had an extra couch.
DeletePrince Head Wound made me laugh. Please do not mention it to him. I know he is sensitive about it.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that is mind boggling to me about the whole coffee thing is that if she had dumped it in the bin and it had been taken to the landfill or dump or whatever it still would end up in the ground water. What I don't find is any word on what happened to the police officers for making such a big deal out of something so trivial.
€150 for pouring coffee down a drain? Maybe they didn’t like the brand. (Idiotic.) I think the cat stickers are great art but I would be so annoyed to see them stuck to clean surfaces. Someone stuck a “cute” sticker on a marble wall in our lobby. It drove me so crazy, I went upstairs and got what I needed to peel it and clean it myself. I couldn’t wait for the cleaning person to arrive 5 days later.
ReplyDeleteYou seem a bit grumbly this morning - like a "grumpy old man". You should be more like me - chilled out, smiling like a loon and bursting with positive vibes. By the way, I think that the coffee woman should have been beheaded in a public square. What she did was outrageous.
ReplyDeleteWow, aren't you a bloody ray of sunshine.
DeleteYesterday was fridge cleaning day for me too. I found seven jars of olives, some half-full, some more, a couple less. AI says they last about 18 months if in their brine and who knows how long those were in the back of things. I tossed a few, and now what to do with LOTS of kalamata and green olives. Maybe someone wanted the seat for a herb drying rack. Or maybe I'm just perverse.
ReplyDeleteI just read about that evil woman dumping her coffee down a drain on Jablog! Insanity.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently living in a world where a president is, without any permission at all, destroying part of the White House. I'll believe anything right now. Nothing makes any sense.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why nobody steals the cone and tape from what's left of the bench. Or covers it with cat stickers. Maybe if someone spray paints an obscenity on it, the council will take the bench away.
ReplyDeleteI have to wonder what the purpose of the warning cones and tape is. It's not like anyone is going to try and sit there.
ReplyDeleteI've thought for a long time that the human race has gone insane. Too many damn people.
When it's my turn to cook dinner I try to start with whatever has been in the fridge the longest.
That bench situation is riveting to me. Such a mystery! I feel like you should set up your garden cam there to keep up with what's going on with it.
ReplyDeleteI think you should create a photo collage of the bench when/if it ever comes to an end. I think it would be a great think piece in any museum.
ReplyDeleteWhen I see such things as that article, I often think of the flip side. What would have people have said about the police who idly watched as someone poured a toxic compound into the storm drain? I'm guessing there would be an uproar too. Police often find themselves between the proverbial rock and a hard place in today's world of instant shaming on the internet. I personally think they did the right thing. They upheld the law as it was written and more so did it in a polite and humane manner. Hopefully there is an appeals process where the fine will be dismissed and we can then review the law and make sure it is still valid or perhaps needs to be tweaked so that common sense things like this don't end up making headlines.
They were not police. They were monitors hired by the council. And three of them to challenge one woman? Not enough work for them.
DeleteBenjamin is wreaking havoc in France and working its way Northwest...
ReplyDeleteTornadoes around Brittany and Paris..and even an electricity pylon with its top bent over near Limoges!
I did see that about the coffee down the drain. It does make one wonder. I also read last week about all the stolen cell phones in London and the big set of arrests. I couldn't help thinking about how I walked down the streets, cell phone in hand looking at the map app for directions.
ReplyDeleteI read about the fine for coffee down the drain on Jabblog...crazy shite! You could make a collage of the photos of cat stickers- print it out and sell them and make a bundle of cash so that you could stay well and healthy after dumping the library! Just a thought...
ReplyDeleteYour tomatoes are very pretty.
DeleteYour small tomato will ripen just fine.
ReplyDeleteIt's a strange world we live in today. We can expect anything.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder that people are on edge.
Given all the visits to the bench, it could have been replaced entirely with a new bench. Moving cones around and putting up warnings seems ridiculous.
Your tomatoes ripened nicely.
I know I commented, but it disappeared.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, your tomatoes look lovely, and stripey, too.
I think the cones are more of a hazard than the decrepit bench. Maybe the powers that be are worried someone will sit on the bench, injure themselves, and then sue.
The coffee woman was trying to do what she thought best, and the police were trying to do what they thought best, were actually told to do. A rock and a hard place. I'm glad the council dropped the fine. Sometimes the right thing is not following the rule.
ReplyDeleteI love egg scrambles. I had a cheese omelet last night and will think about a scramble with tomatoes next time! I don't have any home grown ones though, sadly. 5 years ago? That's a lifetime in blogging. If I repeat, I justify it by telling myself that I have new readers who weren't around when I first posted that. :)
ReplyDeleteIt's so 2025 that coffee and children's Tylenol are the most dangerous liquids now. Insert face palm here.
ReplyDelete