Year of the Rabbit. Some more A.I. art stuff. Cold weather wear. Language nonsense. And a bit of Brexit benefit!?

Happy Lunar New Year to one and all! 

My daughter tells me that the are not coming to dinner today as they are off to Chinatown to see the dragon dance. No doubt the small people will enjoy the spectacle. In the meantime I have two New Year’s rabbits looking for a new home. There is talk of “popping in” to collect the bunnies so that the small people can show them off at school and nursery tomorrow. I’ll wait and see what happens. 

Further to my comments yesterday about art and artificial intelligence, here is a link to a series of pictures of household appliance made in the “What would Gaudí do?” style of equipment.

All very pretty, but also pretty difficult to maintain. The more twiddly bits your kitchen machinery have, the more difficult they are to clean and maintain. Personally I prefer my kitchen equipment plain and functional but that’s just me. The article is worth looking at just to see the photos.

There were icicles hanging from one of the small industry buildings this morning. The blue sky and sunshine have disappeared, replaced by grey cloud. Maybe the warmer air is arriving after all, and bringing clouds with it. 

 

I forgot to mention yesterday that I saw a young woman in shorts in Tesco. She was wearing knee-high boots and a fluffy jacket, so her lower and upper extremities were kept warm. But the jacket was quite short so her midsection (waist to knee) was a little exposed. Maybe she wanted to show off her tanned legs. Maybe she only ever travelled by car and so did not need to worry about standing at bus stops in the cold.

Mind you, in my mini-skirt phase I too used to be oblivious to the cold on my exposed legs. Maybe my tights were warmer than I remember. And, of course, I was of an age to be more concerned with maintaining my look than with keeping warm! 

My daughter resurrected a photo of Granddaughter Number One modelling her grandfather’s “dead sheep” coat. “Dead sheep” because it is lined with sheepskin. This is a garment bought years ago on special offer from The Observer newspaper, I think. Advertised as a Swedish army greatcoat, if I remember rightly, it was not often worn as it weighs a ton. Falling over in the snow in such a garment might leave you unable to stand again. However, it hangs still in a wardrobe in the spare room. Maybe it should come out again if the cold weather continues.

Now, here’s a bit of linguistic nonsense posted originally on the Language Nerds site: 

A. How come French doesn’t have a word for lime? “Green lemon”, nice job!

B. They don’t have a word for 80. Did you expect them to do better with fruit?

A. Excuse me. I’d like to buy four twenties of green lemons please. 

It made me laugh, anyway.

I know that I have a tendency to rant on a little about Brexit but here’s something from Facebook:

“I live in France, I am a British Citizen. For over 55 years I have held a current bank account at Barclays in the UK. During this time I have been domiciled for long periods in Caribbean and African countries. Throughout these stays abroad Barclays maintained my account in the UK. Now, because I live in France, they have announced that they will close my account on 2nd February 2023. They state: "This is because we're applying limitations to the banking services we provide to customers with an address in the European Economic Area." So much for Global Britain.”

And here’s a comment in response to that post:

“I am Swedish living in the UK since 1994. I make a couple of yearly payments to Swedish accounts that used to be quick and easy to do online.

After Brexit the bank stopped online payments abroad. Now I have to phone the bank and last time it took 1 whole hour to make the payment. Poor staff!”

So it goes … on and on.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!