It's All Lining Up!

On December 6th 2008 the BBC reported that Sunny von Bulow had passed away after 28 years in a coma. A lot of people, like me, were probably surprised to hear she was not already dead. Sunny von Bulow was of course the wife of Claus von Bulow who was first convicted and later cleared on appeal, of putting her in her coma. The appeal case is quite famously recounted in Alan Dershowitz’s 1986 book Reversal of Fortune or the subsequent film of the same name that had Glenn Close as Sunny and perennial baddy, Jeremy Irons, as Claus. I have always been intrigued by this case and the issues around it.

In stark contrast to the cold atmosphere of the film Reversal of Fortune, the film High Society is a warm, jolly, song filled romp and also features in my top five films. Who can resist Sinatra and Louis Armstrong pretty much playing themselves? Add to that Crosby who, despite being in his 50s by then, playing a playboy protagonist in the marriage of beautiful Grace Kelly. Finally to cap it all you get a fine, if somewhat overshadowed, performance from Celeste Holm. Well did you evah?

So why do I mention these two things? Because they are linked of course. Whilst on a very pleasant, and unseasonably mild, visit to Newport RI in March I discovered that the Sunny von Bulow owned and met her untimely fate in the very house where High Society was filmed. Clarendon Court is a typical (if there is such a thing) Newport mansion. Although High Society was filmed there some fifteen years before the von Bulows took possession it is still a bit a weird.

So there you have it; proof that everything in the universe is connected.

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Bazza

More Medic Snapshots

Just got back from visiting my mum in hospital in England, I snapped the pictures below:

For those of you who believe what well off and insured US politician say about the NHS should look at the sign in the first picture. See! the it does cater for everything. Gotta say I was sorely tempted to get a handsome man lined up for my mum.

Wonder why the machine is scared ...

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Bazza

News Roundup Last Week of May 09

I have decided that you, my loyal reader, deserves a break. So to help make your day easier I have distilled the key news headlines from the past week. The news has actually been pretty consistent across US and UK news sources. I have scoured the web, all my tweets, Facebook, my Press Association feed and talked to a couple of drunk blokes in the pub to bring you the most important stories.

Here are the key headlines in order of importance:

• Shock!!! Rather unattractive Scottish woman can sing.
• Bigger Shock!!! Rather unattractive Scottish woman who can sing, can also swear when under pressure.
• Oh BTW. Unstable despot develops & tests nuclear weapons and threatens last remaining bit of world stability. Also some of our soldiers died in some foreign country and thousands of people lost their jobs.
• Oh My God You’ll Never Believe This!!! Rather unattractive Scottish woman who can sing and swear doesn’t win pointless TV show. The world will never be the same!
  

I wonder if Obama, Gordon Brown and the rest of the G20 will step in and order the TV show producers to make Scottish woman (who can sing etc.) winner …?


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Bazza

P.S. don’t get me wrong she does have a great voice and I wish all our talents were judged on their own standing not on whether we are pretty or handsome as well. I just can’t believe all the media feeding frenzy.

Repeat Defenders

Same thing happened again today (right down to getting trounced at tennis by my wife) but this time I had a camera. The birds were quite far away but yo can clearly see the three smaller birds hassling the larger bird.

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Bazza

Harrier Harried

I was playing tennis in the high spot of the day. The ground was being bleached by the sun. I was about to hit one of my slap-patters that passes for serve, when a huge shadow shimmered across the court. The shadow was accompanied by the unmistakable shrill echoing call of an eagle. I looked up and saw the huge wings as the bird found a thermal and started circling upwards. It’s not too unusual to see very large birds in our part of Connecticut. Huge Turkey Buzzards are very common. They are easy to distinguish from other birds by the V shape of their wings as the soar. But this was no Turkey Buzzard and that call was just so distinctive. As a boy from South London I did not think I would ever see a real eagle.

Watching it circle upwards I slowly realized something strange was going on. A smaller bird, just a black silhouette against the blue sky but about the size of a Robin, was flying around the Eagle. As I watched the small bird flew underneath the eagle and bam! The bird flew straight into the eagle’s belly. The small bird fell away briefly but then darted to above and behind the bird of prey. Then the smaller bird then flew into the tail feathers of the eagle. The dark shape was joined by another similar bird and both birds continued to harass the magnificent glider. By now they had traveled some distance from us but the small birds did not seem to let up.

I’m sure the smaller birds were protecting their young by forcing the eagle away from wherever the nests were but I gotta admit it was pretty ballsy of them. Sad for me as the eagle seemed to get the message and stayed away. Mind you, that did mean it didn’t have to watch the slaughter that ensued on the court as my wife beat me in virtually every game.

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Bazza