Mrs D Ponders Crime In Florence And "A Darkness Descending"

That Mrs D still be readin' her crime books. If ... like her... you like to travel in crime... and you like a little social, political content in your crime reading.... then she says you may well like to check out Christobel Kent's latest book featuring Florentine PI Sandro Cellini - "A Darkness Descending"  - a study of obsession and dirty dealings set against the backdrop of Florentine current popular politics. It seems that Sandro likes a quiet life but those nearest and dearest around him are determined to get him investigating deeper, or else they will .... and do.

You can read a review over on the Euro Crime website

PS.On the EuroCrime blog is a reminder and summary of the excellent Mark Lawson's series of short BBC Radio 4 programmes on foreign crime fiction "Foreign Bodies".
Like a heatwave struck idiot, Mrs D have forget to tune in. She may have to catch the Friday omnibus edition. Teach her to laze about in the sun.

Me? I still be riveted by Channel 4's "The Returned" on Sunday evenings. Even if The Old Man keeps asking me technical questions about zombies like I am some kind of expert. I keep explaining to him that this be a French series and as such there is nothing as inelegant as a piece of rotting flesh on a walking cadaver to be seen. Though.... Lena's back don't look too healthy... but she's supposed to be fully alive. Alors! Quel énigme, oui?

Yoga Lunging And Its Possible Consequences

   .... But ....

Whilst you're down there... you may as well relax. That's what yoga is for ain't it?

Yoga And The Challenge Of "Lunging"

See.... sometimes a pose is a bit.... wobbly.

It does not seem right to wobble whilst practicing "The Lunge".









But sometimes one just does feel that old wobble starting.....

Yoga And Life's Ups And Downs

Sometimes you get days when plans don't work out....

....so I am still practisin' this yoga thing in the hopes that tensions will ease and I will greet each day as a new start...

Here I am.... getting ready for something called "The Lunge".....

We could all do with a good lunge now and then.

Madame Deficit Considers The Freudian Slip.... Again

Ooh-la-la. Lord Freud is at it again.
This time the particular "droit du Seigneur" he is exercising over the poor....
.....is his view that the increased use of food banks is because (like Mount Everest) they are there.

In other words it  has nothing to do with increasing social need. Rather it  is a question of  supply and demand. Food banks are not part of this government's welfare system but - as he puts it: “If you put more food banks in, that is the supply. Clearly food from a food bank is by definition a free good and there's almost infinite demand.” (Read more of the Lord's jaw-dropping argument here).

Aaah j'adore such a grasp of reality.... from planet Zog, I think. But it is a grasp he have shown before. Remember his comment in November 2012 that the poor have the least to lose so they should take more risks?

Is Baron Freud out of touch with the problems of poverty? C'est possible? Clearly he is adrift on access to  food banks, I think. It is my understanding that one cannot just nip to the food bank in your nightie like it was a 24 hour Tesco. Mais, non..... One has to be issued with vouchers by a "care professional" who has judged one to be in need of urgent assistance.

One assumes that this care professional has a clearer grasp of reality than our Work and Pensions Minister....  Je l'espère.

Badger Digs Potatoes... Again

... the summer is starting to be fruitful in the garden. Starting to eat the strawberries and potatoes.... Peas and broad beans be setting to make fruit. I kind of like the challenge of seeing what I can make a meal of from the garden.

So I be a bit annoyed to find some flattened potato plants cos Mr Brock have rooted around in me roots.

Grumpily I do harvest the flattened plants and wonder what to do with the prematurely harvested tubers. But cleaning them up I do see that there be the start of some rot or blight going on in the largest of them.  Not to mention an excellent set of claw marks on one.

...So. I do say thank you to Mr Brock (who be after worms rather than taters, I'm sure)... cos I do realise that it's time to get those taters up and out .... before it all be truly blighted.

Bombay potatoes and leaf beet tonight I think.... wiv some black-eye beans and mushrooms... rhubarb pie for afters.

Bartoli As "Norma"... The Old Man Listens In...

......and the Celtic passion continues.

The Old Man do find  Decca's new recording of Bellini's "Norma" buried under other stuff at HMV. He be annoyed at this burying of treasure.... but he do buy it, take it home, play it .... and we both do enjoy it very much. It has taken me a long time to get to the point of enjoying such music. And talk of "revised score" and "original instruments"... be the very kind of thing to put me off for a while longer.

But then I'd miss out on what turns out to be a beautiful, energetic, passionate and very musical version of the opera. Cecilia Bartoli as doomed Druid  priestess, Norma ..... alongside John Osborn, Sumi Jo and the Orchestra La Scintilla conducted by Giovanni Antonini.

It be a cracker, ladies and gents.

Cecilia Bartoli - Bellini: NORMA - Trailer Part 1