Saturday 22 August 2015

Man hugs dog


This is one of many unedited pictures taken for our local newspaper and, for obvious reasons, the one they found most appealing. It serves no purpose here other than to point out that I can take a passable photo using a half-decent camera if I put my mind to it.

Our paper has been going as The Bath Chronicle since the early 18th century, and has passed through the hands of quite a few proprietors in the last hundred years or so. These days, it is only printed on Thursdays, and they are so strapped for cash that they cannot even afford to send a journalist to an event, let alone a photographer. Both of them would be freelance anyway, so when this article was put out, there were no credits attached. We even had to write our own blurb.

If you make the foolish mistake of visiting the online version of the Chronic, you are bombarded - and I really mean bombarded - with hundreds - and I mean hundreds - of advertisments. Some of them pop up behind the actual window, and most of them involve moving graphics, videos or re-routing software which slows down your computer so badly that you have to switch it off and start again.

Someone told me about 'Adblock' - a free bit of kit which simply stops all this junk from coming through your virtual letterbox, but when I tried to download it, Google had got their before me and prevented me from doing so. Too much money to lose. I wouldn't mind it if it were relevant, but most of the stuff on offer was so wildly inappropriate that I cannot imagine that they sell anything but a tiny percentage to someone who has - by sheer chance - been looking for it. Everyone else just gets extremely pissed off with it. Google and the Chronic don't care  of course, because they are only hosting these adverts, not trying to actually sell the stuff.

On yesterday's post, someone has commented in a rather snotty way that two 'effing' Americans actually prevented a possible massacre on a French train by disarming a Moroccan terrorist before he had a chance to open fire. I think they were responding to previous criticisms on American foreign policy that I had made recently, which prompted some other Americans to bleat about how all us Brits do is cry 'help, help', when anything goes wrong or gets out of hand.

It is true - two off-duty American servicemen did disarm the terrorist before he had a chance to load up (the idiot thankfully went outside the toilet to load his AK47), but they also had help from a British businessman and a native Frenchman who were on the train.

Same sort of ratio since 1945.


13 comments:

  1. The other day, when you posted a photograph of early drinking glasses, I didn't think that your forté was photography but, you have redeemed yourself !!!!!! XXXX

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    1. That was a crap phone camera, but this was a 14 MP Olympus. Almost idiot-proof, but not quite.

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  2. I tried Adblock once and it was blocked. In fact it got its own back by making the adverts even worse. It must be American!!!!!! I'll just borrow some of Jack's exclamation marks if I may.

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    1. She's got lots of XXXXs to spare as well if you need them.

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    2. I prefer lower case thank you.xxx

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    3. Just leave it to the expert !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! XXXX !!!!!!!!!!!!!! XXXX

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    4. There's no competition Jackie.x

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  3. Me? I just point, click and hope for the best.

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    1. That was what the terrorist on the train thought he would do.

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    2. Well, it was hope for the worst, really.

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