Village movie night was a lively affair. The ladies of the Beautiful Byeways Committee somehow got their timing wrong. Their chocolate mousse was ready before the duck pate five ways. ' Chocolate before duck. How wonderful ' says 'The Font' to Madame Bay as if this culinary iconoclasm is all the rage in Stockholm . Angus can't help but notice that 'The Fonts' plastic plate of chocolate mousse is handed to him. The French farmers and their offspring are of the calorie insensitive ' if its in front of us we'll eat it ' school.
This morning the joiner and his wife sleep in late. So do their two teenage boys. The school bus shows up at 7:40 and waits outside their house to pick the lads up. After two minutes the driver gets impatient and beeps . Faced with no response he does so again - three times. The final beep is a long drawn out affair.
The teenage boys and their parents are apparently oblivious to the noise. The same cannot be said for the eight ponies in the field behind the barn. Alarmed by the honking they congregate by the gate which swings open. Ponies spill out onto the lane. Four head off across the village green to the churchyard where they shelter amongst the gravestones. Two charge up and down the lane. Two others explore the track that leads to the electricity substation. Angus corrals the two by the substation.
The man with anger management issues turns on the flashing warning lights on his Nissan Qashqai. This distracts the two ponies on the lane who are shepherded back towards the farmyard. Amidst much arm waving and whistling the mayor and the retired farmer with the red bulbous nose get two ponies out from the gravestones. Two, free spirited ponies, remain deaf to the mayors blandishments. Later they are seen walking slowly along the lane grazing on the wild flowers on the verges.
The alien triffid like flowers that have made an appearance on the lawn are doing well. Loic is due here later this morning. I shall make sure his half hour on the tractor ( the high point of his week ) is conducted well away from the orchids.
It goes without saying that the PONs have followed developments with keen interest. The phones are ringing early today. Men in dark suits wanting to know if todays speech to the midshipmen at Annapolis will be 'bellicose'.
Two interesting articles this morning. The first on articial intelligence ( the video is amusing and worth watching ) : https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611146/the-us-military-is-funding-an-effort-to-catch-deepfakes-and-other-ai-trickery/
And the second an interesting National Academy of Sciences analysis of voting : http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/04/18/1718155115
7 comments:
This was hilarious. Did the teens get on the bus?
As for the men in dark suits, do they really need to ask whether the speech will be bellicose? Bellicose is the new normal.
Such dramatic events in the village. And to think the world media is focussing instead on North Korea...
It's good to know that even the Ladies of the Beautiful Bye-ways Committee sometimes make the occasional culinary faux pas ! Makes me feel better about my hit and miss approach to cooking! A plastic plate full of chocolate mousse would be passed over here, too.
Duck five ways - now that is intriguing...
The teens missed the bus. While their parents were watching the movie and eating they were doing what all teenage boys do - drinking too much wine and chatting to the village girls.
Hari OM
Crikey, upside down eating, comatose families and stampedes... who needs to know about the rest of the world when all this is going down??? (Two fascinating articles today, too...) YAM xx
Thanks for getting my day started with a good laugh.
There will surely be a lot of talk at Annapolis of how much is being spent on improving our military readiness (about $1.4 trillion over two years, I believe). No doubt Obama will be criticized for his negligence.
I have visions of Loic whizzing around the garden while Angus stands guard over the orchids.
I'll bet Loic becomes a staunch protector of orchids.
Thanks for the links. The video in the first one was indeed amusing, but the article deeply troubling. The second paper was fascinating. I'd read about the 'status threat' theory before, but this really explains it in detail and why the 'economically left behind' theory doesn't fit.
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