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.
ReplyDeleteThey tasted good too!
DeleteThere 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.
ReplyDeleteI think that's why the story resonates with so many people -- any of us could have done it, because who would have imagined it was a criminal act?
DeleteTelling 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 ….
DeleteYeah, who pours liquid into a bin so it can leak out all over the pavement? How is that better?
DeleteI love the shades of colour on your tomatoes.
ReplyDeleteThey are very pretty. I wish we'd planted them sooner so the rest of them could have ripened on the vine.
DeleteThose tomatoes look good. Worth saving! Did you eat the apple?
ReplyDeleteI haven't yet, but I will!
DeleteI 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.
DeleteWell, I'm sure no one would have remembered the old post had I not mentioned it again, but I wanted to show that all of us screw up!
DeleteMy old couch would be right at home out there on that sidewalk!
Prince 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.
Yes, we have tried to get him restorative surgery but I think he's beyond it now.
DeleteThe council has defended the officers. Hopefully they're using this as an example of how they need more clarity on training and expectations.
€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.
ReplyDeleteOh, sticking something to an interior lobby wall is another matter entirely!
DeleteYou 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.
DeleteMay my healing light shine forth upon your troubled soul Dov.
DeleteDo I seem grumbly? I am often a "grumbly old man" but I thought I concealed it well. LOL
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.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you can make tapenade? Throw them all in a food processor! (I'm sure there's more to it than that.)
DeleteI just read about that evil woman dumping her coffee down a drain on Jablog! Insanity.
ReplyDeleteIt really is crazy, and even crazier that it made international news!
DeleteI'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.
ReplyDeleteIt is galling to watch this destruction of the White House, so he can build this big awful white elephant of a ballroom.
DeleteI 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 should try that!
DeleteI 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.
Yeah, the cones and tape are a mystery to me, too. Maybe they think people might trip over it? Who knows.
DeleteThat 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.
ReplyDeleteHa! Bench-cam!
DeleteI 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.
DeleteWell, maybe not technically police in that they were not Met Police, but they are law enforcement officers. Police with a small "p."
DeleteI don't know how the law is written, so I don't know what leeway officers may have to discern when an offense has occurred. But they need to be able to employ their own common sense. It seems they could have talked to the woman, seen that it was coffee, and dropped the matter then and there.
The problem I have with giving people common sense is that many don't have much of it, including our country's current occupant. So where do we draw the line of giving free reign of judgement as those in charge deem fit and restricting them to just following the law and sorting things out afterwards with a group of heads more likely to exercise real common sense? Without hard and fast lines drawn in our legal codes, I think we get where my country finds itself today, pushing the boundaries of "common sense" in scary ways. It's the proverbial slippery slope.
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 saw that there were tornadoes north of Paris earlier this week, too.
DeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the cell phone theft ring bust was a big deal. I am always very careful when I have my phone out in public. I stay close to a wall or some object so there's a barrier between me and any passersby.
DeleteI 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.
DeleteHa! Well, I wouldn't want to profit off the cat artist's work, but I might make a collage of the dead bench!
DeleteYour small tomato will ripen just fine.
ReplyDeleteYou think so? I thought tiny ones like that would never ripen. Maybe I should have saved the others.
DeleteIt'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.
That's what I thought -- for all the effort they've put into blocking off the wreckage of the bench, they could easily have installed a new one!
DeleteI 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.
I probably need to check comment spam. I'm sure that lawyers are behind the barriers, but they do seem ridiculous.
DeleteThe 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 agree to a point, but I think the officers could have used common sense and headed off this whole issue. If they have been told to fine anyone who puts anything into the storm drain, then that is too extreme and the instructions need to be modified.
DeleteI 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. :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm sure if I'd never said anything, no one would have realized I'd repeated it!
DeleteIt's so 2025 that coffee and children's Tylenol are the most dangerous liquids now. Insert face palm here.
ReplyDeleteHa! So true! We have entered crazyworld.
DeleteCodex: It's a storm drain ffs. All kinds of toxic pollutants go down it off the roads. Money grab.
ReplyDeleteLol bench watch. We're back in the monthy python era.
Yes, there is something Python-esque about the bench thing. "This bench is dead! It's pushing up the daisies! It has shrugged off this mortal coil and joined the choir invisible!"
DeleteI've been to the grocery three times in the last three days and we now should have enough food in the freezer to last until the apocalypse!
ReplyDeleteHa! Well, it's good to be stocked up, but I hate storing excess food. It makes me nervous that the power will go out. I suppose that comes from growing up in Florida where it often happened.
DeleteIf you blog all these years and never forget you've already mentioned something, you're a better blogger than me. Lately I actually do it on purpose sometimes (old journal entries from years ago)!
ReplyDeleteJust remember, it's your blog, you can do no wrong.
Oh, that's a healthy perspective! I like that!
Delete