A Bit Black Over Bill's Mother's

A weather-related blog post

You've got to feel sorry for Bill's Mother this summer. For those of you who are bemused by this statement, it is the local slang for describing that darkening sky that precedes a downpour. I have no idea where it comes from and have found a number of conflicting explanations on the Internet. If anyone knows its derivation then please do tell!

So far this summer apart from one really lovely hot day, which, if I'm not mistaken, was a Wednesday some time in June, I've lost count of the number of times I've said,

      "Ey Up! It's a bit black over Bill's Mother's!" followed by a cloud burst of rain.

The scene shown below was the state of the sky from the kitchen window about half an hour ago. This was followed by rain which was followed by sun which will, no doubt, be followed by more exclamations of regret for Bill's Mother.

I wonder what we would talk about, here in the UK, if it wasn't for the weather.

Are You Influenced by Advertising?

I’ve always insisted that advertising does not influence me. I avert my eyes during the TV adverts and, when I look at my Twitter timeline, I ignore the obligatory advert flashing up just below the top tweet. Advertising passes me by, or does it?

I belong to a monthly discussion group and this afternoon the proposal was that advertising is evil. The discussion went something like this:

Surely we can ignore advertising. No we can’t. We might think that we are ignoring it but it works its way into our psyche.

Surely advertising can't harm us. Yes, it can. In the last century there were many adverts that would now make us throw up our hands in horror; adverts for smoking that involve babies (see left), adverts using the female body to sell cars, adverts convincing us that it is good to eat sugar as it helps weight loss.

We discussed the OXO family adverts, that ‘perfect’ 1960s nuclear family. We remembered the coffee romance adverts and the bizarre Meercat phenomenon. Without adverts there would be no newspapers as they rely on the revenue but then surely prices would be lower if companies didn’t have to pay such a lot for advertising.

We talked about how annoying it is when you click on a website about, for example, Spanish holidays and then get bombarded by adverts about such holidays. It’s this type of thing that is unnerving. Advertisers are delving into our lives, finding out things about us that maybe we don’t want them to know.

What do you think about advertising?

One of my favourite TV adverts (apart from Nick Kamen in the launderette, of course) is Maureen Lipman and the ‘ology’ advert for BT. 

What’s your favourite advert?

Those Spammers

I have had to change my commenting facility on this blog. I have gone back to Registered Users and Open ID only. I apologise to all those genuine commenters who may be affected by this but I’m afraid the spammers have finally got to me.

I’m not obsessive about stats but I do occasionally look at my blog statistics. Usually there are five or six people on the blog at any one time. I don’t know who, of course, just the number of visitors. But every now and then there is a massive spike in the number of visits. I've shown an example below when some time late on 10^th July my blog received 134 visits in the space of about half an hour.

This is not a cause for rejoicing, leaping around or patting myself on the back because I run such a successful blog. It is a sign that spammers have visited and I am about to be bombarded by spam comments.

Spam comments are illogical. Quite often they are no more than a string of disconnected words. I know that they don’t read this blog but if any of them do, can I point out that I refuse to allow myself to read what they say. I look at enough to establish that this is spam and then I delete it. I never visit their website and I would never, ever click on any of the links that they might include in the comment. In other words, Spammer, “You are wasting your time!”

It’s a shame that people trawl the Internet in this way. It’s an annoyance that they have affected my blog to such an extent that I have to change my security settings. I’m sure that most of my spammers are harmless enough. I wouldn’t know because, like I say, I’ve never visited, but there are, as we know, harmful people lurking, and that’s the biggest shame of all.

I Love Jaffa

Last week I had a moderately large birthday and Daughter had her 'Major Operation First Year Anniversary' so we decided to leave the country. We went to Jaffa in Israel. This is the view of the Old Port of Jaffa from the beach:

And this is a view of Jaffa from our hotel balcony:

The Sea:

On the day that the photo on the left was taken, it was exactly a year since Daughter had been lying on the operating table but here she is lying on a lounger on a perfect sandy beach looking out to the Mediterranean. 

We had walked along the front from Jaffa to Tel Aviv. 

We had been into the sea. 

I had been knocked under the waves. 

We were soaking up the warmth. 

Bliss!

The Food: 

The food was amazing. My favourite places to eat were: 

Top Choice: Restaurant Ifrah where they filled our table with 'free' food - well, food we hadn't ordered but it was so delicious we ate it anyway. There were pots of humus and salads and freshly baked pitta breads, and after the meal plates of baclava and bowls of melon so sweet they tasted as if they had been infused with honey. On our last evening we strolled past the restaurant and the owner shook us by the hand and wished us a safe journey home. I know of no place in Leicester where they would even recognise me and I've lived here for... well... for all my life.

Second Top Choice: Dr Shakshuka. I am now in love with shakshuka. It's served in a skillet and has a tomato, onion and garlic base with two fried eggs broken into it. It makes my mouth water just looking at this photo:

The Shopping:

I had my first go at bartering. It's a good job that Daughter was with me or I'd have paid way over the odds for things.

The Hotel:

I would recommend The Market House Hotel, Jaffa, to anyone wanting to visit the area. The staff were friendly and helpful, everywhere was clean and the food was... sorry to be repetitive... the food was amazing! Here is just one of the two heavily laden breakfast tables. I love Israeli breakfasts:

But even more important than food is this, my final point:

Religions Coexisting: 

My abiding memory of Jaffa will be of the many religions living and working side by side and the feeling of being safe and welcomed. At one point we were walking along the sea front to the sound from the minarets calling Muslims to prayer, the sight of a Jewish wedding taking place under a chupah on the hill overlooking the port and a procession of Armenian Christians (I think they were Armenian Christians) walking with lanterns in their hands. Why can't the whole world get on together like that?

It was lovely to return to Israel. It was especially lovely to meet up with my friend Ann who you can visit on her blog, Anne Goldberg Writing. And yes, in spite of my wailings about the fear of flying, I rather suspect that I will be back.

(Most of the above photos were taken by Daughter. She is so much better at holidays than I am. She knew about the best places to eat and to shop and even which beach to go for a swim. She is also better at photography. And so to my lovely daughter I say, "Thanks for looking after us. Just like the food, you are amazing.")