Bloomsday

A bit off the path of my usual topics, but one couldn't let the day pass without raising a glass to Joyce's glorious and mythical summers day of 16th June 1904 as portrayed in Ulysses. Actually a rather fanciful re-invention by none other than Brian O'Nolan ( aka Miles na Gopaleen of "Third Policeman" fame) and Patrick Kavanagh ("On Raglan Road" etc.) who attempted to retrace the major scenes of the book in one day (essentially a glorified pub crawl). They ran out of steam half way as the stout got the better of them.

It still goes on in Dublin, and is a fabulous piece of nonsense with some good literature thrown in. Now it's a long way to walk from Prague to Ringsend, so a pint of the black stuff locally will have to suffice...

“Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.”

New pictures of Spanish flank company "Greens" over on Orinoco Miniatures site

I just thought I would let you know that there are new pictures of the Greens for the new nit in the Orinoco Miniature range.

You can see the rest of the images here:
http://orinoco-miniatures.blogspot.cz/2013/06/new-pictures-of-spanish-flank-company.html

I hope you like them.

Prague floods

Apart from lovely architecture, fine beer, complicated languages, history and the attendant abundance of battlefields, the one thing Central Europe can really boast of is extreme weather. Winters are long and very cold, brief Springs and Autumns are pleasant while Summers (usually) are short and very warm. But over the last 15 years, the weather seems to be more like South-East Asia. So today we have a big flood emergency in Prague after more than 4 days of non-stop rain in Bohemia.

I took these photos at lunchtime today, about 300 metres from my apartment. Thankfully I had the foresight to live on a hill given the history of floods in Prague. So the metro and most of the bridges are closed, which makes commuting a non-starter. Hopefully a bit of normality by the morning.