We were on the subject of China yesterday and once I got my scanner working, I also remembered an extraordinary sight that I caught in Xian in 1985: a very old lady with bound feet, seen here walking with a stick.
The practice was banned by the Republic of China in 1912, though not actively enforced for a while and not completely eradicated for about twenty years after that. This lady was probably born before 1912.
spikesgirl58, I've had to spend the entire afternoon trying to get my scanner to work! 
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President Trump has cancelled his trip to Denmark in September — a bit of a snub to Queen Margrethe who invited him — he says, because the Danish Prime Minister refuses to sell Greenland to him. It's autonomous Danish territory — why should they?
So could it be an excuse to hide the real reason?
Guess who else has been invited to Denmark to give a lecture next month? Yes, former President Obama.
Could it be that Trump is afraid of comparisons of the size of crowd that Obama will draw, like at his inauguration ... ?
Just asking.
It's a shame the Trumps don't check their tweets for errors (or is it ignorance?) before sending them — Ivanka's reads: "Congratulations borisjohnson on becoming the next Prime Minister of the United Kingston."
Well done Mrs Kushner, Kingston in south-west London might be united (though I doubt it), but the Kingdom definitely isn't.
With so many contemporary rulers and politicians puffed up with misguided, narcissistic self-importance and hubris, it's a relief to remember Shelley's ironic poem, Ozymandias - about a huge monument to a tyrant lying in ruins in the desert. Its inscription in the last lines of the poem:
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings/ look on my works ye mighty and despair!/ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay/ Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare/ The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Tyrants and narcissists alike come to an end. There's hope for us all. Happy Independence Day to American friends!
David McC was born in the Kelvinside/Maryhill area of Glasgow where the accent is relatively refined. The accent of the rough end of Glasgow is all but unintelligible to other English-speaking nationalities. David used to copy it to annoy his mother. You can hear it in the YouTube clip someone posted a while ago, of his appearance on a show called 'Noel's House Party' (November 1992: David appears at about 18 minutes 35 seconds into the show). It's quite convincing, but if anyone wants to hear the real thing see below in another link.
This is a lovely website based at Stonehenge. A way of seeing the sunrise (and what the stones look like at any time of day) from anywhere in the world.
You need to look at the 'About' button to see how it works but the coloured squares along the top will take you to different times of day. The view moves round 360 degrees, and up and down; you can see where the stars and planets are if you click the 'Skyscape' button. And you can see the weather in Wiltshire...
If you want to watch the sunrise at Stonehenge, for Americans it's at a fairly civilised hour. For us it's about 4.50 am. Dawn is a couple of hours earlier.
1. Kurt Vonnegut. Famously wrote a novel called 'Slaughterhouse Five', whose most well-known and quoted line is 'and so it goes'. I met him once when I was working in a bookshop in York (England). It was in the early 1980s. He was on vacation and a newly published novel of his was in our window - for the life of me, I can't remember which, though I seem to recall it had recipes in it(?). He was charming.
2. Tie-dye clothes. I think I wore tie-dyed tee-shirts when I was at university 50 years ago. Before that, I think we did some tie-dying in art class at school. It involved twisting string round a piece of cloth, and doing something with wax (God knows what) before dipping it in dye. Did we then iron it to remove the wax? No idea - I have no practical skills whatsoever.
3. I've heard of Godzilla but know nothing at all about it/him/her.
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I don't often give my nearest and dearest the opportunity to read my MFU stories, but I thought he'd be interested in the one I wrote about the Vietnam War.
He made various comments about its structure — he's an Oxford English Lit graduate, so I paid more attention than usual, and I have done some more work on it. If anyone is interested, it's still here, at:
The catastrophic fire at Notre Dame de Paris brings back memories of a near disaster at York Minster in July 1984. A lightning strike in very dry conditions, with no rain, set light to the roof timbers of the south transept.
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st_crispins and spikesgirl58. Two years to go till the next big one. But if I were to live as long as my grandfather, I would still have more than 30 years to go, which is an appalling thought!If any of the forum's cat lovers need a reason to visit this, the best of cities, have a look at the photos on this TripAdvisor website:
There are currently said to be around 22 cat sculptures on buildings in the centre of York. I think they've been breeding; there were only a few when I first came here 46 years ago. I'm pretty sure there are more than 22, because one of my neighbours has one.
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timeasmymeasure
