Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Nowruz


Back once again in the working world, after a restful weekend. My day was mostly consumed yesterday by the tornado, and probably will be today too.

Today's Google doodle (the first thing I see when I open my web browser in the morning) celebrates Nowruz, which is apparently the Iranian New Year. But the doodle also looks very spring-like and it reminded me to take note of the first day of spring, which was yesterday! How did I miss that?!

Anyway, happy spring. (And happy Nowruz, for that matter.) I'm noticing the first grape hyacinths in the garden and other signs of seasonal change. I'm ready.

There were 58 comments in my Blogger spam folder this morning -- mostly my own. WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!

(Photo: Hampstead, on Sunday.)

29 comments:

sparklingmerlot said...

That is a lovely photo. Quintessentially English.
I do hope the tornado peters out quickly with no damage to life or limb (yours in particular). People do get their knickers in a knot very easily these days. Sometimes a bit of conversation goes a long way.
Blogger is eating a lot of my comments on certain blogs and decided that you and Andrew must be selling uni degrees from India.

Moving with Mitchell said...

So awful about the tornado. I love that Hampstead ivy.

Yorkshire Pudding said...

I am the father of Virgil Rachmaninoff and last night I found Virgil reading a copy of a dreadful book by a limey guy called William Something or other. Virgil got the book from your woke library. It is called "MACDEATH". First of all the language of the book is crazy - far too hard for a sixteen year old student. But what mostly angered me was the killing and the blood. It was like a shoot out in an American shopping mall but with knives and swords. Another book I object to is called "The Bible" and that too contains a lot of violence and "begetting" which to put it bluntly means sex. Your library shelves need a real shake up man!

Ms. Moon said...

Is it ironic or just ridiculous that one parent, no doubt trying to make some sort of political point, has created such a disturbance that all of the students' and teachers' lives have been disrupted, not to mention the education of those students?

gz said...

Through Kurdish friends I know Nowruz as the Kurdish New Year...but a good reason to celebrate anyway....LIGHT!!!!!

Bob said...

That house is a must-have; so quaint.

I laughed when I saw MY own comments in Spam; the blog owner is a spammer???

Debby said...

Just curious. Are the comments in your spam folder old ones? That's the thing that puzzles me. To see blogger has pulled already published comments into the spam folder. Your observation that comment brevity seemed to be a factor was interesting too.

Boud said...

Sorry about the continued disruption. Such evil minds, determined to create strife.

Dov said...

Whenever I see "Hyacinth" I think of Hyacinth Bucket pronounced "Bouquet".

Red said...

I check my spam every few days. It seems like the same blogs have comments in spam.

Ed said...

I can imagine there is a lot going on in your world. Whenever an organization receives scathing press coverage, there is bound to be some backlash. Hopefully though everything settles down and the world moves onto other more important things.

I hope someday you are able to speak more freely on this incident. I am very curious as to how books mentioned were controlled. All I have for reference was the library of my youth where I just wrote my name on the library card and gave it to the librarian who filed it in a card holder for two weeks later.

Ellen D. said...

Well, Happy Nowruz to you too, Steve! Spring and rebirth - what's not to love about that!
Sorry for your work troubles. Hope it lets up soon.

NewRobin13 said...

Happy Spring, Steve, and Happy Nowruz. Hope returning sunlight will actually enlighten people and the tornado winds die down.

The Bug said...

Happy spring! Hopefully the tornado dies down soon & you can resume your real work - trying to get checked out items back from kids!

Sharon said...

58 comments, yikes. I don't think I've ever had that many in the spam folder. That is crazy.
I'm ready for a seasonal change too. This has been the strangest winter for our desert climate. It's chilly and raining again today when it should be hovering around 80 degrees.

Claudia said...

Those tornado creators ought to be concerned that students are reading at all. Mr. Pudding is ever so correct about the Bible. Have these people ever read it? No, and very few of them have read the books that they are so anxious to ban either.

Marcia LaRue said...

🌷Yesterday was the Spring Equinox and today, the 21st, is the first full day of Spring!🌹

ellen abbott said...

the vernal equinox seems a better start for a new year than January.

Catalyst said...

That photo looks like some mythical creature gathering visitors in with his welcoming arms. Lovely!

Kelly said...

The house with all the ivy is beautiful. I use to hear that ivy can be harmful to a building, causing the mortar between the bricks to crumble causing damage. Is that true?

John Going Gently said...

My spam folder is all over the place at the moment too

Michael said...

I hope that the tornado has twisted away.

Margaret said...

My comments are going into the spam folder of my comcast email but not my typepad spam which is usually reserved for those with unusual names.I know they're trying to be helpful but it's a pain. Since I haven't had a spam comment published in many years, I guess they're doing the job. (overdoing?)

Beth Reed said...

Happy Spring! It is rainy here with a balmy 61F right now. I look forward to the nice budding blooms and pretty days, but I live in Tornado Alley and so far, we have had a fair share of tornadoes. Not real close to me thankfully.
I hope that your Tornado twists right on out of your area. It can put you on edge and interfere with your concentration. I am so sorry you're having to deal with all of this nonsense.
Love that house. It is where I always wanted to live when growing up. It is so beautiful. I decided that I could do without the ivy when I once heard that Black Widow spiders loved it. I think it was a rumor the older I get tho. LOL. Probably my family knew how scared I was of Black Widows they had fun picking on gullible me. Have an awesome day.

Allison said...

That is beautiful ivy. In the Pacific NW it's classified as an invasive, and we're all to kill it when we see it. It does take over the trees.

River said...

I leave comments on many blogs that all seem to disappear into spam. On my own blog, I check the spam folder daily and find old, previously published comments are now in there. I just click the tick to republish them.

Steve Reed said...

Caro: I've had so many people tell me that my comments often go to spam. I have no idea why that would be happening!

Mitchell: It's wearing me out!

YP: We will henceforth allow Virgil only to check out "Encyclopedia Brown."

Ms Moon: I can't tell you how much staff time and energy has been consumed by this complaint. It just goes on and on.

GZ: Oh, interesting! I didn't know it was a Kurdish holiday as well.

Bob: I KNOW! You'd think it would be easy enough for Blogger to implement some kind of filter that prevents the blog owners' OWN COMMENTS from being designated as spam.

Debby: Yes! Many of them go back as far as 2012.

Boud: I'm sure this parent does not see himself as evil, but rather fighting the good fight. Perhaps deluded is a better word?

Dov: I LOVE THAT SHOW! I went to Coventry last year to see the neighborhood where it was filmed!

Red: Yeah, I try to check it daily.

Ellen D: Yeah, I love this time of year!

Robin: That would be nice, but sadly I don't think enlightenment is a function of sunlight. :)

Bug: Well, that's the thing! All the normal library functions that I'd usually perform have fallen by the wayside!

Sharon: It seems like winter comes later and then lingers longer.

Claudia: Yeah, it seems like the book challengers very seldom actually read the entire book. They're just familiar with online snippets.

Marcia: Oh good! I wasn't late after all! :)

Ellen: I guess starting it from the time light begins to increase made sense to some of our forebears.

Catalyst: Let's call it an "embrace" of ivy.

Kelly: If it grows unrestricted it can cause damage, but the damage usually comes when people pull it down after it's been growing for years and years.

John: They've obviously tweaked their spam-detection systems!

Michael: Not so far, but we're getting there.

Margaret: No one wants spam, certainly. But the over-sensitivity of the Blogger filter is a little extreme at the moment!

Beth: My tornado is not a literal tornado, but yeah, I hope it twists out of here too.

Allison: It does invade. It carpets some parts of the garden and it's getting up into the trees. But it's also great for pollinators when it blooms, so I don't want to rip TOO much of it out. It's a balance. (And it's not an exotic here.)

River: Yeah, that's what I do, too. I just yesterday discovered there's a single box at the top of the spam list to select all the comments and publish them again, which saves time.

Jeanie said...

Well, I'm off to learn about the tornado. Sounds like quite a day! I love that house -- and can't imagine the upkeep!

Boud said...

The evil minds I referred to were the daily mail people. Not judging the parents, don't know anything about them. But the daily mail has form, as the police say.