Do you love it? Do you loathe it? Do you care?

Our children have just sent us from Polanica Zdroj this photo which they took this morning, which features two sights we have not seen here for a very long time:

a lawn,

a hole in the road with workers around it.

There’s hope for us yet:

 

Tu parles! Our oldest, dearest French friends have two lovely children who were, respectively, 5 and 7 when we first met. They're now 25 and 27 and to our undying disappointment, Margaux, after studying Marketing and Publicity, now works (I use the word loosely) for some major Company or other. She was such a nice girl, too........

 

Her consolation (if not yours) will be that she can now afford the produce of her namesake Château ... if she can get her hands on it! The dichotomous implications of the last clause illustrate what a topsy-turvy world we live in.

 

That’s very funny!

But have I misunderstood some of the Forum’s rules implying that one was not allowed to say anything derogatory about squirrels, rats, pigeons, slugs, etc.?

But, hey!, you’ve just opened my floodgates here. I would put up a plaque saying:

SQUIRRELS, DRIVE AS FAST AS YOU LIKE ... INTO THE NEAREST POST!

Mrs Lab says: “Ouh! Isn’t our true nature coming out today?!

 

When I showed her your post this morning, Mrs Lab said: Well, I could have told you that.

She used to be a Weathergirl for the Weather Channel when she was a Mademoiselle (nowadays, you have to say "Weather Presenter"!).

Since we have veered onto the subject of advertising, some of you may remember her in the Ford Escort advert (the theme tune was Louis Armstrong’s "I don’t care what the weatherman says, If the weatherman says it’s raining, You never hear me complaining ...").

She had a driving license but had hardly ever driven a car, so the evening before the shoot, I gave her a crash course (crash being the operative word) in the deserted roads behind the All-England Lawn Tennis Club. The location for the filming was what (en famille) we call “the quarry”, that steep slope approach on the M40 past the exit to Watlington, which she was supposed to turn into in order to loop back and up the hill to do as many takes as were required. But she drove so fast that she kept missing the exit and so had to go the long way round.


The voiceover and caption at the end of the ad said her name, and then “she controls the climate in hers”! (Sorry for the innuendo, shiney, but that’s advertisers for you!).

The cameraman on the back seat leaned over to me and said: I wish she could control the car instead of the climate! That made her laugh and drive even faster. We were all green, except for her, as she was completely oblivious of the danger.

Re: the caption and V/O, the truth is that the whole thing was a lie, she didn’t actually have a Ford; in fact, she didn’t even have a car!!!!! The best she had at her disposal was the backseat of my bike!

 

You are quite right, of course! Advertising is one of the crucial cogwheels driving the economy. The tragedy is that, in order to drive it to maximum efficiency (and which, ultimately, we all benefit from) they often find themselves resorting to dreadful means such as the constant use of “power phrases” and a lot more besides.

When I first came across the expression, I asked What is a “power phrase”?

I was told “a power phrase is a way of saying something which, without the punters noticing the implications, empowers us while insinuating, hooking, and persuading the victims (*) to do something they may not want to do, without them realising that they are doing it” (**). Ditto a power image: If James Bond drinks XYZ, and YOU drink XYZ, you’ll be just like JAMES BOND! ... If Marylin Monroe or Kate Moss ... say no more!

(*) yes, the very word they used
(**) If that doesn't put their attitude in a Hazelskin, I don't know what does.

 

Live in a very quiet area, no loud music ever here, Reflecting yesterday morning, enjoying my coffee in my garden room, feet up on ottoman. Looking through the glass door to the honeysuckle that adorns the railing, watching the hummers dancing about. Over to the left of me my oldest garden patch, full of phlox now, blooming yellow wax bells, and my huge hydrangea tree scanning easy 25 feet tall and 20 feet wide inviting yellow and black butterflies fluttering about . Life is good. This morning my coffee cup took me on my garden path down to my gazebo, which is 100 paces from the first garden patch I mentioned. Having seating there, watching the butterflies in the Joe Pye weed. Looking about, could see the need for the push mower to get to some places, but in all most areas are in good shape. Evening strolls with wine will bring me just as much quiet in my little kingdom of 3 acres.

 

My apprentice, when I worked in Lexmark, was a bit of a hard nut and his father even more so. A young single mum was moved in next door and the first Friday evening had all her cronies round for a party. The same happened on the Saturday night so father and son went next door, as soon as it was answered father headbutted the individual who opened it, barged straight in, grabbed the wires connecting the stereo to the mains and ripped them straight out of the plug. Another fellow stepped forward and tried to intervene but son dealt with him. There was never a cheep out of anyone in that house ever again.

 

What a lovely, gentle, and inspiring description of your garden. I am touched that you should have inserted it into this thread.

But you neither mention the apple tree, heavy with beguiling fruit, nor its strange, patterned, coiled inhabitant, barely distinguishable from the bark which is as lethal as its bite ...

Whatever you do, don’t touch any of those apples!

 

A touch of The Terminator there!

Can be tricky, though; brings to mind an encounter I had ... for when I have more time.

 

Oh no!! That not very nice behaviour..on both sides.

Being a young single mum I bet she felt very nervous about living next door to such volatile people...I know I would've.