An unusual Visitor to the Garden

Posted by Muntle on July 1, 2013
Posted in: Short 'n Sweet. Tagged: .

For a couple of days, we have been curious as to what has been munching away at the Mint plant in our garden.  Tonight we found the answer:

GMB

Two in fact – tiny little beetles, about 5-6mm long with an iridescent green colour.    So to find out what it was, I googled ‘green beetle that eats mint’ and up came the answer – Green Mint Beetle.  DOH!!

A native of this country, they are quite unusual apparently, and tend to be found more near open water and streams – which explains why they are on our mint as the pot is right next to the pond.  Of course, there was also all sorts of advice from gardeners as to what to do to get rid of them, but as we prefer the garden to be natural, we have decided to use the only sane method suggested – just grow enough mint for all of us.

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Resigned to Change

Posted by Malcolm Toogood on February 11, 2013
Posted in: Where's that Handcart?. Tagged: , , , .

There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth since Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation, through ill-health, from the job of being God’s chosen representative on earth.  The act itself may have come as a surprise, but not the reaction; after all, if any position should be considered a job for life, surely it is that of Pope.

Pope Benedict XVI announces his surprise resignation during a press conference at the Vatican

However, in these days of career plans and exit-strategies, and with the most popular method of removal in their early days, that of martyrdom (favoured by half of the first sixteen incumbents) being no longer considered  politically-correct, it was obviously time for the church to modernise its HR policies.  Continue Reading

A Facelift Too Far?

Posted by Muntle on January 10, 2013
Posted in: Short 'n Sweet. Tagged: , , , .

Got an e-mail today from our local Lexus dealer about the new IS, including “images that offer the first look at this stunning new saloon.”

IS

Is it just me,  or have Lexus employed Joan Rivers’ resident surgeon as the new head of their Styling Department?

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Album of the Year 2012

Posted by Malcolm Toogood on December 31, 2012
Posted in: Albums of the Year. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

The intriguing thing about the process for arriving at my Album of the Year 2012 is that all but one of my long-list to be whittled down to that final selection was a debut effort, and the other came from an artist that I was previously completely unaware of.  So could this be an indication of yet another changing of the guard?

the short list for album of the year 2012

I hope so, because if we did anything with our ‘Revolution’ of fifty years ago, it was to lay down a marker that the music scene should never be allowed to become predictable.  Neither should it be the domain of what purports these days to be the NME, where anything is simply uncool if produced more than five minutes earlier, or if not made by an artist considered as a legend simply because they have never submitted to a decipherable interview. Continue Reading