I've just seen something on the news about a crane collapsing on a house in Bow, east London.  I worked (and was also in a flat share for a while) in Bow and although I haven't really kept in touch with anyone from there I do hope there isn't too much damage.  There isn't a great deal of information available yet.   I was situated more in the north part of Bow, near the Roman Road and the accident seems to be more in the south part of Bow, the Bromley-by-Bow area.  Of course accidents happen up and down the country - and in other countries - all the time, but it brings it home when it's somewhere you know.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

  I had to use the subtitles with that show even though I have a working knowledge of French (allegedly).

LiR, as I mentioned also about French films (and English, only German films I can mostly watch without German subtitles)...
The French and English documentaries and news casts I can view without subtitles, as they speak in a more neutral voice and use the correct language...
Even Italian and Spanish news I mostly can follow entirely without subtitles and understand for the same reason...

Kind regards, Paul.

Again not knowing where to post. Again about a film...and I don't know why I "meet" in recent times that many Danish films...
This time it seems again a prize awarding film:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babette%27s_Feast

Danish drama film directed by Gabriel Axel. The film's screenplay was written by Axel based on the 1958 story by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen). Produced by Just Betzer, Bo Christensen, and Benni Korzen with funding from the Danish Film Institute, Babette's Feast was the first Danish cinema film of a Blixen story. It was also the first Danish film to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.^[2] The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.^[3]

As the film is French dubbed and not subtitled it is already a additional stress to follow, but I tried although I didn't like the film that much...at the end with the film playing in my back, looking to the internet for information...

I start to realize that I am not up to the level to watch high praized Oscar winning films...
Perhaps not that much "Northern" minded as I think of myself...
And I have perhaps to bow for the meaning of the 97 and 91%
on "Rotten tomatoes" 
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/babettes_feast
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092603/

Perhaps I am a kind of "philistine" (cultuurbarbaar) or a barbarian tout court

I found nothing meaningfull in English on "videos" as the film is perhaps to recent...only  parts of some minutes time...



Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

... I tried although I didn't like the film that much...

Oh Paul, how could you not like it? It's a lovely film. Subtle, gentle and yet quietly profound. And then there's the food too! Also it's hardly a recent film: I was taken to see it in a cinema in London - in the original Danish but with English subtitles - by a casual Norwegian boyfriend, ... way, way back in 1987. And while I'm thankful to him for introducing me to the film, my love of 'Babettes Gæstebud' has now outlasted him by many decades.

I once made Babette's signature dish, cailles en sarcophages (quails in pastry with truffle and foie gras, with a Périgourdine sauce) just from the details given in the film. Et voila, here's my take (in 2015) of Cailles en sarcophages à la Babette:



... and biased though I am I remember they tasted divine, even down to the crunchy little heads ...

I think Paul and MM will have to agree to disagree.  Some of the other ladies (there are men in the group also - in fact our leader is a man) in the French conversation group I belong to think I'm a Philistine because I dislike the works of the author of The Other Boleyn Girl.  Thinking of a book by another writer,I haven't read the book, The Luminaries which has a setting in New Zealand.  The BBC has recently shown an adaptation of the book as its Sunday night serial but I only managed the first episode and didn't want to watch any further.  The method of telling the story was a bit strange because they would show something from later in the story and then go back to nearer the beginning.  Some people enjoy the mental gymnastics of trying to work out the puzzle but I found it irritating.   The actress playing the young traveller who falls on hard times was engaging and the New Zealand scenery was beautiful but otherwise it wasn't for me but it appears some people liked it and I'm not the TV police.  I can't judge Babette's Feast as I've never seen it.  I'm not really a fan of the cookery reality shows on TV though I did used to watch 'Saturday Kitchen' sometimes.  I'd rather eat food than watch it being prepared I guess.  That said, I've thought about enrolling on a vegetarian cookery course (not at the moment of course).  I can follow recipes but sometimes having a real teacher present is beneficial because he/she will be able to see if I'm making any mistakes.  Sorry to go on (and summarising was one of the skills I was going to practise while confined to base during the quarantine!!!).

MM and LiR, sorry I haven't had time to reply, the whole day business up too late this evening...just entered now...yes still business...up for my eighties...but look at Trump...wanted to say Bojo...but after just two seconds on google, saw 56...and Bojo not only business, but also still in his procreative phase, as you see it...and yes perhaps Trump too with is 74 as you saw it...I suppose I am now too old for "that"...

Kind regards to both from Paul.

Here's a query for our Cordoneers of all colours. When replacing rice with quinoa, how much do you use? 100g for 100g or something else?

Meles meles wrote:

Subtle, gentle and yet quietly profound. And then there's the food too! 

I once made Babette's signature dish, cailles en sarcophages (quails in pastry with truffle and foie gras, with a Périgourdine sauce) just from the details given in the film. Et voila, here's my take (in 2015) of Cailles en sarcophages à la Babette:

 
MM,

"Subtle, gentle and yet quietly profound"

I fully agree with you that it was all in the film, but I rather like to see it in another context than the one of the film. But who am I to react from my Philistine background.

MM as I see the picture you are really a virtuoso in preparing the food and setting the table...if I once fall alone, I come to you for such a "pampering"...

Kind regards from Paul.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Some of the other ladies (there are men in the group also - in fact our leader is a man) in the French conversation group I belong to think I'm a Philistine because I dislike the works of the author of The Other Boleyn Girl. 

 
Yes LiR, if there is a hype around a certain writer or novel and you disagree with the pack, the group can look down at you, as if you are even not worth to talk to...I know the feeling from the down side...

Kind regards from Paul.

I'll watch this later, as it reaches its' conclusion on a Bastille Day:

Actually reached its' conclusion on August 25th, Liberation Day not Bastille Day.

As I watched sometime ago "Babette's feast" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babette%27s_Feast
a Danish prize awarding film I had yesterday evening a view to the French film "La graine et le mulet"
I had to look to the end this afternoon because it was such a long film: 2 hours...
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0487419/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_the_Grain

And thinking about MM...again to do with food, but this time I had a lot of trouble to see what it was all about.
The fish: "mulet" (mullet) seems not to come on the Belgian fish auction, while the Belgian fishing boats don't fish on it. In Dutch it names "harder" but I have no Flemish name from here.





 as for instance the "roodbaard" "knorhaan", which is in Dutch "rode poon" and is fished by the Belgian vessels: French grondin, perlon UK: gurnard D: roter Knurrhahn




And then "la graine" (the seed, granule, grain?)

Learned even today for the first time what "durum grain" was
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/durum-wheat-vs-whole-wheat

In my opinion the film was well made and a drama, but not in the same way as I experienced the Danish awarding film...
I have here seen every minute of the 120 minutes film, as it was such a "diepmenselijke" (deep human) film...
And it was the first time in my life that I saw the reality from the side from the Maghreb population in Southern France...really an eye opener and at the same time a kind of an anti-racist film...

And I was a whole week in Sète with the partner...and the end of the Canal du Midi...
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Midi-Canal
And I went always to the local Maghreb shops for food as it was better and only half of the price of the "grandes surfaces"...
And the people were friendly (always men), but a bit reserved to the "tourists" (was it only an impression from me)

For MM and perhaps for LiR too, the original French version (I saw it with French subtitles and I am not sure if I would have been able to follow completely if I hadn't had subtitles, perhaps the same difficulty for LiR)

For the time it remains on the web...



Paul.

Paul, you probably rarely encountered mullet in Belgium as they are primarily Mediterranean or southern North Atlantic fish, rarely if ever seen in the colder waters of the North Sea. The graine referred to is a grain of couscous (wheat semolina) rather than a grain of wheat itself. Together couscous and mullet are popular in Tunisian cuisine and hence, as you say, amongst Franco-Maghrebi communities in the South of France.

Thanks for the youtube - I've never seen the film, though had heard of it, so I'll give it a go.

EDIT
It dawned on me overnight ... in French un mulet (masculine noun) is also a mule (as in an equine animal) as well as being a mullet (the fish). French doesn't often "do" puns which are usually rather starchily calls homophones (although un calembour is the correct word when used in word play) but I wonder if in the film there isn't also an allusion to the old man's mule-like stubbornness in the face of the French authorities' equal intransigence. However as I say, I haven't watched the film yet.

From the 'Words of the Day' topic (Wed Jul 15, 2020),

LadyinRetirement wrote:

MM, I wanted to write something (though not for monetary reward) about seagoing females.  I'd thought - if I did a list of about 5 - of using Artemisia of Halicarnassus and Isabel Barreto on the list but I'd try to use some less well known ones as well.   Everybody and their auntie Martha knows about Grace O'Malley (English version of name) I think so I'd leave them off. Of course it's difficult to research anything at present - under normal circumstances I could go into the reference room at the library in my hometown.

Just for your interest LiR, today's person featured on the Google home page (at least for Google in France), is Jeanne Baret. According to wiki,

Jeanne Baret (sometimes spelled Baré or Barret; July 27, 1740 – August 5, 1807) was a member of Louis Antoine de Bougainville's colonial expedition on the ships La Boudeuse and Étoile in 1766–1769. Baret is recognized as the first woman to have completed a voyage of circumnavigation of the globe.

Jeanne Baret joined the expedition disguised as a man, calling herself Jean Baret. She enlisted as valet and assistant to the expedition's naturalist, Philibert Commerçon (anglicized as Commerson), shortly before Bougainville's ships sailed from France. According to Bougainville's account, Baret was herself an expert botanist.

Thanks MM - was this lady ever mentioned on the cross-dressing thread (not that the thread was called that)?  I'm always open to suggestions because some topics with a French connection might be suitable for a reading/discussion point for the U3A French Zoom meetings.  I've already sent off my subject for this week (a text in French about the e-typewriter) but it looks like we may be meeting via Zoom for the time being (and I'll still need texts when the meetings in person resume).

LiR, I mentioned Jeanne Baret in the first circumnavigation of the world.

https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t1448-first-french-circumnavigation-of-the-world

Kind regards from Paul.

Jeanne Baret seems to have been quite a lady!  Also she (or sites/a site) about her is worthy of being added to my list of Favourite websites on the laptop so I can find the information again quickly when I want to make use of it.

Among various French subjects I've been looking at was that of francophone comic strips.  The only ones I knew of were Asterix and Tintin.  https://regardsurlefrancais.com/2019/03/25/les-bandes-dessinees-francophones-les-plus-connues/  Quite a few had Belgian creators.  I thought perhaps Lucky Luke about a cowboy and Blake et Mortimer set in Britain were translations but no, they were indeed Belgian in origin.

This morning, while waiting I have seen on the French/German channel Arte coincidentally  a documentary among others about Perpignan.

https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/091152-026-A/invitation-au-voyage/

I immediately thought about MM's region Perpignan. And as he said many Catalan habits overthere...

While it is still available to watch on Arte MM, my question for you. In the documentaire the locals spoke I think with the Southern French accent? But was it not for the docu purpose and their "real" accent is much more another one.

With Southern accent I mean:






And yes also in the documentary quite something about the history of that region, but you already mentioned a lot overhere...

Kind regards from Paul.

I wouldn't have said Fernandel had a particularly strong southern accent, un accent du midi, in either of those film clips, although it is certainly there, and he was originally from Marseille after all. However the people interveiwed in the ARTE segment about Perpignan - particularly those talking about the castells and the sardane - do have a noticeable catalan accent. They pronounce their French more like Spanish in that they tend to vocalise all the letters in a word including those that would usually be silent or as a suppressed nasal vowel in 'proper' French, as well as putting an emphasis at the end of words. They also tend to pronounce the vowels more like in Spanish. For example a Catalan might well pronounce the French, "vingt-cinq timbres" (25 stamps) as almost "vingty-sinke timmbrez". I wonder if I speak a bit like that too as I mostly picked up my French here, although I do of course get people staying with me who come from all over France (and I'm fully aware that I still have a bit of an English accent too, although it can't be that strong as people sometimes guess that I might be Dutch, or German, or Scandinavian or Eastern European).

Thanks for posting that ARTE documentary, I was particularly interested in the bit about the signal tower at Tautavel. My house is in a valley with two such towers on the ridges to either side, one about 2km away overlooking the village, and the other about 5km away on the mountain ridge from where you can see all the way down to Perpignan on the coastal plain about 30km away. I knew the network of towers linked Perpignan, across the Pyrénées, with Barcelona, but I didn't realise the system extended in the other direction, across the Corbière mountains, all the way to Carcassone, ie a complete distance of over 200kms as the crow flies.

Somebody asked me in France (when I was a lot younger) if I was Italian. I had dark hair when I was younger but I have the sort of skin which tends to freckle and go lobster red in hot sun if I don't take preventative measures.  It was pretty obvious I was English from how I spoke I think.

During the last extended period of sunny weather we had here in England (well my part of England anyway) I ordered some online sunscreen with a high protection factor off Ebay. I had a request from the shop to review the product but of course the weather has changed somewhat and I haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

American newscasters have a tendency to talk too quickly:

The Poke: Mask Debate

Thank you MM for solving the question of the Soutern dialects as the one from Marseille and your local one. I guess, because you are that embeddded in the local dialects that you can distinguish it. Although I better understand French than English I don't hear that much difference between the Southern French ones...For English is it a complete catastrophy, as the English, Germans, Dutch have that many difficult and differing dialects, that it even for an English speaking one it is difficult to understand the other, as it is overhere as for instance between someone from the Belgian coast and one from Limburg. I guess the French dialects are more standardized to the official language as one had that strong unifying during the 19th century by the education and the army service.

I am glad that the documentary could add something to your already extensive knowledge of your region.

Kind regards from Paul.

My mum who was from north Wales who asked some Geordies (people from in or near Newcastle-on-Tyne) what part of Scotland they were from and I've had people ask me if I came from Nottingham. Notts is east midlands and my home county is west midlands.  So even people from the British Isles don't always deduce other folks' accents correctly.

In the course at Birkbeck that I didn't finish one of our tutors told us that strictly speaking there wasn't any such thing as standard French but that Napoleon had imposed it (grossly oversimplifying). I remember we discussed it on the language and cultural identity thread.  I think some of the southern group of French languages are pleasant to listen to even if I don't understand them.  I might have a whimsical notion of such languages because of their association with troubadours and trobairitz.

But I came to mention something not at all whimsical.  In the Staffordshire town of Stone there have been some Covid-19 cases reported.  It seems to centre around people who visited one of the town's pubs the week before last (I'm not sure of exact dates).

Yes LiR, perhaps the dialect differences in Britain perhaps worser than here in the North of Belgium  .
Although I think worser is not possible.

Perhaps that MM, as a strongly embedded British Frenchman (or is it the other way around?) can answer us, why in France they stick that much to the standard language...? L'Académie Française?



Kind regards from Paul.

I'm not sure about French adhering to a standard accent, Paul, though I suppose they have their equivalent of 'received pronunciation'.  I've mentioned this before on the board I'm sure, but a friend from my younger days was a twin and a good friend of the twin was married to a man who was brought up in England but his father was from Paris.  The lady spoke fluent French but she had done some time as a student doing a 'stage' somewhere in the Limousin.  The lady actually found it easier to converse with her father-in-law in English than in French with his Parisian French and her French very much affected by Limousin inflexions and cadences.

In the real world, I went into the town centre for the first time for several months equipped with my Heath-Robinson type mask to take my cat to the vet.  Her guts are somewhat gurgling at present with the effects (with which I won't regale you in glorious technicolour) you might expect.  She's eating and hasn't lost weight and her temperature was normal but the vet said her heart rate was on the fast side and she had a bad tooth.  He wanted to see her again to take some  bloods and take out a tooth so I have to take her in next Friday.  The vet thought she might have a thyroid problem or maybe something to do with the kidney or liver.  He didn't say an enlarged kidney which was something they noticed last summer about Pebbles.  I can't help being somewhat concerned after what happened last year with Pebbles.  Tilly has gone outside  to have a snooze in the back garden so she seems content enough.  Sorry to go on so much.  With the Covid-19 situation I had to ring the vet when I got there and wait and then he came and took the cat inside - when he was carrying her he said "Well it doesn't seem as if she's losing weight".

Limousin is a very rural region and there are still some people who speak Lemosin, the local variety of Occitan (langue d'oc). Unlike French or Spanish there is no single written standard language called "Occitan", but rather it is characterised by various related regional dialects, such as Lemosin, Provençal, Languedocien, Gascon etc. Generally though Occitan is closer to Catalan than to modern French, which evolved from the langues d'oïl dialects of northern France.

At about 1:17 on this clip a Lemosin song starts.  I'm not sure what 'la gerba bauda' means - something about a cereal?  The song has to do with the harvest.  I'm guessing but maybe this video depicts part of an amateur theatrical performance in Lemosin?  I remember (though it's the best part of a half century ago) there was a performance of a play in Alsatian German advertised when I was in the Alsace (a poster on a wall).  Editing because the clip wasn't showing.

La gerba bauda (Occitan) or la gerbaude (French) is the traditional large sheaf of harvested wheat decorated with ribbons and flowers (une gerbe is a bound sheaf of cut cereal stalks, but it can also mean a bound floral spray) which crowns the very last cartload of the harvest. The word is also used for the celebratory meal that is held once the harvest has been safely brought in, and in that meaning it is often used for any celebratory harvest festival meal, so near me it typically refers to the communal meal held for the workers once the vendange (the grape harvest) is completed.

I think maybe the spoken dialogue in the video including La Gerba Bauda is after all French intoned in the local accent of that language and that the song only is in the Lemosin variant of Occitan.  I suppose strictly speaking Joseph Canteloube collected and wrote arrangments for the 'Chants d'Auvergne'.  Bailero  is probably the best known of those songs but here is soprano Karina Gauvin singing Obal din lou Limousi





From the wording under the video an English translation of the song is

"Down there in Limousin, little girl,
There are lots of pretty girls, o be, o be (the 'be' should have an acute accent - that is true throughout the song)
There are lots of pretty girls here too, o be

Young man, however beautiful the girls are in your country
Our men in Limousin 
Are much better at talking of love, o be!
Here in Auvergne, in my country,
Men love you and are faithful!"

I suppose this song is in Auvergnat rather than Lemosin.

I found quite a learned text about the pronunciation of Auvergnat referencing the Canteloube collection of songs http://lyricdiction.com/auvergnat/  Thinking of what MM said in an earlier comment, I read something in my internet surfing to the effect that in medieval times there wasn't a political border between what is now the Spanish part of Catalonia and the Occitan area reaching over to around Perpignan or perhaps north of Perpignan.  Still, although I can get sidetracked by something which catches my interest on the internet, duty calls and I have to try and get some more ironing done!

I wasn't sure where to put this.  I looked at an archive
org copy of 'Tom Jones' the other night to check on the description of Sophia, the heroine.  In the description which she is said to rival the toasts of the Kit-Cat.  I wasn't sure of the reference but checking online saw thar there was a Kit-Cat drinking club in the 18th century said to have been run by a Christopher Cat or Calling.  I'd heard of kit-kat as the old name for a Snickers or a nickname for a cat but not the drinking club.

Anyone else here grow their own? It's all very well having pleasure in the daily harvest but then it sits in the kitchen or bungs up the fridge and something has to be done with it. MM gets other people to eat it, I think. A large plum/courgette/ carrot/bean/ blackberry and apple pie might not go down too well. There is something about  gravel gardens that is gaining attention.

Meles meles wrote:

EDIT
It dawned on me overnight ... in French un mulet (masculine noun) is also a mule (as in an equine animal) as well as being a mullet (the fish). French doesn't often "do" puns which are usually rather starchily calls homophones (although un calembour is the correct word when used in word play) but I wonder if in the film there isn't also an allusion to the old man's mule-like stubbornness in the face of the French authorities' equal intransigence. However as I say, I haven't watched the film yet.

 
MM,

thank you very much for this further explanation. I had seen it already in my research about "mulet" in French and had of course on internet some difficulties with "mullet", which seemed to be "mulet" in French. I never heard and of "mulet" and of "mullet".

Yes "homonyms" in French and I see now for the first time even three! homonyms...that's really for the French insiders  ...
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulet_(homonymie)

Kind regards from Paul.

Lock down has brought not only an interest in gardens but, so i am told today that home hair cuts are the thing. With sets inc  good clippers from CostCo  menfolk are getting quite brave. many elderly ladies have long locks - not always becoming, in truth.  Today we pilled leeks = now I suppose they will have to be cooked. This gardening lark may not be a good idea. today is Sunday and all the hairfressers are open. Thus is normal slowly being eroded.

Priscilla ... your post above has prompted me to do a quick tally-up (just like my dad I try to keep year-on-year records of everything planted, where, with maps/plans, when, and what the resulting yield was etc). And so I can now inform you all, should you be in the slightest bit interested, that from six courgette plants (all raised from seed, planted out at the beginning of May) to date I've harvested 11kgs of young (generally something like 9inch long) courgettes ... and they're still coming thick and fast. But so far I've been able to simply absorb them all into my daily meals and have not, as you suggested, P, fed them to others (largely because I've mostly managed to avoid having to cook evening meals this year, at least so far). After all, they are my courgettes and I wanna eat 'em.

So as I say my courgette harvest, at least so far, has been steady and consistent and so I haven't needed to refer to any of my stand-by 'glut' recipes for freezing: such as spanakopita (a greek-style, potato and courgette, cheesy gratin pie), nor the chinese-style, stir-fried mushrooms in sesame with pak-choi (but with the chinese leaves often replaced by a mix of bolted lettuce, beetroot leaves and thinly sliced courgette cut on the diagonal to give long oblong slivers). For the classic Provençal dish, ratatouille, I've got plenty of tomatoes, but my peppers and aubergines are still, as usual, some way behind, and so that dish is still impossible at least for the moment ... as is a green Thai curry, which I also often make to use up courgettes, but it again does still need green peppers and auberginen, both of which still ain't anywhere near ready just yet.

However I did incorporate a large courgette into some gazpacho soup (now frozen) which I made simply to use up the cucumber and tomatoes that had been left in the guest fridge, along with some left-over breakfast bread, because I couldn't think of any other use for a perfectly good, but unwanted cucumber. I generally hold with Dr Johnson's opinion: "Cucumber ... should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing."

Spme good ideas here, MM thanks. My harvest of courgettes is less but as you suggest, relentless. I hve found that wrapped in plastic with a note they go down well with the neighbours. The Victoria plum  has been excellent - not too many, no added insect protein and ripening in sensible order. With storms predicted, my garden helper culled the rest today.  
I do not keep records....... of anything, actually, but recall one year of fabulous runner beans - about 80 kg from one row of about 12 plants. 

I use aubergine because people here claim to like it but I'm not keen on it. Anything so tactile and of such a wonderful colour ought taste better than a wad of  kleenex.  However, it pads other stuff out and since it soaks up oil  and juices gets a flavour that way.
Loved the Dr J. quote.... keep 'em rolling out, MM.

Been watching JD Bricks Productions; this particular action I'd never heard of until I saw it represented on Lego:

That's one way of teaching history I guess, Trike.

My own day has been more mundane.  I waited for a couple of deliveries this morning and decided to stay close to base because I've been coughing (which is probably down to hayfever).  I rested this afternoon as I've been sleeping badly because of the heat when I received a phone call from a neighbour.  Apparently the door on the unoccupied property next door has been forced.  I had a look - the door was ajar rather than wide open. I wasn't going to go in the house. I tried ringing 101 for the police but I was 25th in the queue so I reported the incident via the police website and sent an email to the lady who came to see me when I had a break-in last January.  I haven't had a break-in today - mind you I am careful about keeping doors and windows locked since.  I've only had windows open if I'm home (which is most of the time with the Covid-19 situation though I have started doing my own shopping again) even in the heat.  I DID think the person who rang me could have rung the police instead of passing it on to me but maybe they are self-isolating.  Perhaps I'm getting grumpy because of the lockdown even if it's been eased slightly.

This was on Film 4 last night, the story of the Spring 1996 Everest climbing season, specifically the guided tours by New Zealander Rob Hall and his Adventure Consultants team and a rival commercial organisation, Mountain Madness headed by American Scott Fischer.
Prior to 1992, Everest had only been scaled by professional climbers, but in that year Adventure Consultants began leading amateur climbers on Everest ascents. This was a commercial proposition with AC charging a fee of $65,000 US for an ascent. In the Spring of 1996, there were twenty expeditions of various types at Everest Base Camp. The film is the story of what happened.

I might see if I can catch that on the player, Trike.  A mountaineering film I remember (though not the details) is Touching the Void where one mountaineer made the difficult decision to cut the rope when his fellow climber had fallen seemingly hopelessly but the other climber actually survived.

LiR, Film 4 are showing it again next Tuesday (25th) at 6.40pm.

The other film, I've never seen. Looks to be quite a good story:

As mentioned to VF and MM, a bit busy nowadays...
The partner has a "total" new knee and is revalidating now already the third week in the clinic...and due to Covid only one visitor and always the same allowed from a certain hour for a reduced time...
And above that still my daily landlord business, including last week installation of a new walk in shower instead of a bath tub, a urgent replacement of an electrical boiler...

Paul.

Somebody from British Gas is supposed to be coming next week to talk to me about options for a new boiler - the present one broke some time ago and I haven't used the central heating for some time.  Your time with your partner is more important than time on this site, Paul, so no need to apologise.

I've been looking at ways to increase a flat pattern in size.  The public library is open now I think so I could maybe get it increased via the photocopier there.  Unless I could rustle up a homemade pantograph.  There is always the option of the old-fashioned dividers from a geometry set combined with a straight edge and a curved edge.  Or a compass might do instead of dividers as the only difference really is that a set of dividers has two points and a compass has a point and one leg where you can insert a pencil (or whatever drawing tool you choose).

Or it shouldn't be too difficult to knock up a simple pair of scaling dividers to give the required proportional enlargement:

 

eg if the pivot is one third along (thereby dividing the arms in the ratio 1:2) as is roughly shown above, then the distance between the wider spaced points will always be twice that between the closer points, if you understand my meaning.

Although an enlarging photocopier would indeed be much simpler if dealing with a paper pattern.

Thanks LiR for the comfort about the partner.

As for the boiler you mentioned, for us  the gas installation is in the garage for the central heating and as I don't trust the gas boilers in the bath room, nor in the living space of the house, mine is an electrical one. As I have installed them for more than 30 years in the appartments for hire. Nearly each seven years you have to renew them because of the lime in the boiler due to hard water (not mine, because I have a water softener (a bit expensive and perhaps not that better than changing the electrical boiler each 7 years, although for your own it is perhaps better for the whole installation to be protected))

But times are changed. I have seen now a new installation with a by law obliged evacuation pipe with a "Nelson hood", which has to be some obliged distance above the roof edge and the modern gasboiler is well protected by a device that if the evacuation pipe is not hot, the gas is shut off. In the grandson's modern appartment, the whole gas system is in an apart room
and well protected and the maintenance I guess is for the syndic and he has only to pay   ...

Kind regards, Paul.

Today I got up, had several cups of tea. Checked the Stock Market and Res Historica (utter despair), and then pottered about in my garden. Decided to post something, although without hope of any response.

Watched Gravity a day or so ago - brilliant film. "Look for the airlock!" Well, yes, I've been doing that for twenty years now, but don't seem able to find it!!!!

Is it come to this?

PS LiR and Paul -  FFS - just buy a new boiler!!!

Oh, wow, MM! If you weren't gay, I'd propose to you!

Lovely place settings - classy and elegant. And I'd eat the birds, too!

I'll take that as a compliment Temp, although you might have second thoughts when you see the state of my wardrobe ... a family recently staying here gave me the present of a very smart polo-style tee-shirt ... because they'd seen the holes in all my shirts   . Meanwhile, just to let you know, I yesterday emailed the handsome blue-eyed Max Miller of Tasting History youtube fame (about whom I'd recently PM'd you, Temp) suggesting he have a look at some of the Reshistorica foody discussions for his research. He replied saying he particularly liked the 'Dish of the Day' thread. I doubt he's going to sign up here but at least I tried.

But though he is gay (and can cook) he's now engaged to the enigmatic José and they're intending to marry in October ... and so, ma chou, it looks like both you and I have missed out there.

Thanks for the suggestion about the adjustable dividers, MM.  I can do basic cooking but doubt I could rustle up anything like MM's photo above.  In my neck of the woods we have had some days of squally, wet weather and many of my apples (eaters) have been blown from the tree.  I've had (and still have) a cold so didn't want to venture outside in the bad weather but will need to try and collect up some of the windfalls.  Maybe I can make some form of apple preserve.  I think the school affiliated with the Vegetarian Society has some online classes (classes in person being temporarily suspended due to Covid) so maybe I can find something worthwhile there. The local library has opened now I could maybe find a suitable book there.

Temps to MM .."I'd propose to you!"


Temps, I thought you were spoken for!

A large  box of spring flower bulbs has just been delivered - along with 100 free ones that I shall be hard put to find space to plant. Is it worth it? There is doubt about surviving a viral winter and problems getting a flu jab - with vets being called in too. Possibly getting put to sleep  also then seems in the offing.   Feel doomed today as I used up an Angel Delight mix of assorted chemicals left by grandson - who didn't  like them either. This came from a friend to give him - and has probably already been in a dozen pantries and passed on.

I hesitated to add it to the Afghanistan thread as the subject is related as about the old fashioned rural way of traditional rules based on Islam and local customs in comparison with the Westernized bubble of Kabul, but now in Turkey.
Some don't like that much deviations of the subject and indeed it is too long to add as an aside...

I watched this afternoon a documentary about the making of the Franco-Turkish film: "Mustang"
https://www.indiewire.com/2015/11/meet-frances-oscar-entry-mustang-a-controversial-5-headed-monster-of-femininity-50271/
https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/079451-000-A/il-etait-une-fois-mustang/

Comment from the site:

Dans ce volet de la collection "Un film et son époque", Deniz Gamze Ergüven et ses cinq jeunes interprètes, toutes non professionnelles alors, racontent l’histoire d'un film courageux – qui a failli ne pas voir le jour –, depuis sa genèse jusqu'à sa sortie mouvementée en Turquie. Menaces et insultes ont en effet fusé à l'encontre de la jeune réalisatrice franco-turque, accusée, entre autres, de regarder son pays avec les yeux d'une étrangère. Spécialiste du droit des femmes, sa compatriote Gaye Petek souligne la scission à l'œuvre entre une frange traditionnelle, patriarcale et religieuse de la société, et une Turquie moderne, laïque et libérale. Une fracture que Deniz Gamze Ergüven a évoquée en puisant en partie dans sa propre enfance. La magistrale scène d'ouverture, qui voit les cinq sœurs quitter la lumière de l'été pour la réclusion, est ainsi directement inspirée de son vécu. Contrairement à ses héroïnes, elle avoue s'être tue face aux reproches de sa grand-mère.

And I found also the version of ARTE with English subtitles...it is a bit "langweilig" (tedious?), but what you don't want to hear you can always ommit with pushing the cursor   ...
https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/079451-000-A/once-upon-a-time/

Translation in English:
In this part of the "A film and its era" collection, Deniz Gamze Ergüven and his five young performers, all unprofessional at the time, tell the story of a courageous - which almost never saw the light of day - since its creation, genesis until its evenful release in Turkey.
Threats and insults have indeed fired against the young Franco-Turkish director, accused, among other things, of looking at her country through the eyes of a foreigner. A specilaist in women's rights, her compatriot Gaye Petek underlines the split at work between a tradional, patriarchal and religious fringe of society, and a modern, seculat and liberal Turkey. A fracture that Deniz Gamze Ergüven evoked by drawing in part from his own childhood.
The masterful opening scene, which sees the five sisters leaving the summer light for seclusion, is thus directly inspired by her own experience. Unlike her heroines she admits to having killed herself in the face of her grandmother's reproaches.

And as in the thread about Afghanistan, Istanbul stays to the traditional rural countryside as Kabul to the rest of Afghan Islamic countryside.
And in the film as you can read in the French version with English subtitles, the heritage of Ata Turk is each year more undermined by a Turkey ruled by Erdogan.

Paul.