[river breaks] nine beaches close

Mauvaise nouvelle pour les Marseillais et les vacanciers qui comptaient profiter des plages de la cité phocéenne, leur choix va être restreint. La mairie a interdit dimanche neuf d'entre elles à la baignade. Les violents orages qui se sont abattus sur la région ont «entraîné une pollution ponctuelle parfaitement naturelle» : des rivières ont débordé de leur lit. Par précaution, la ville a donc décidé de fermer neuf de ses plages.

Badly translated, that means that due to storms which caused rivers to overflow, pollution was carried to the sea and therefore nine beaches had to be closed.

Interesting place, France. It may have altered but I remember sitting al fresco, sipping a hiedously expensive orange juice and a smell became apparent. Looking down to the right, there was an open drain running past through the square, to a hole in the cobblestoned surface.

I'm not suggesting for one moment that this was endemic in France. What I am suggesting is that I'm curious just how close we all are to the waste disposal system or lack of system breaking down under extraordinary circumstances. Just how much more household waste can we handle?

[weekend poll] closed, results here

Which three are the cutest?

1. Reincarnation (5)	23%
2. What Hormones Can Do (0)	0%
3. Baby Mopper (2)	9%
4. You Show Me Yours ... (1)	5%
5. Gordo's IT Supremo (3)	14%
6. Wotchoolookinateh (3)	14%
7 Mr Eugenides (3)	14%
8 Forty Winks (3)	14%
9 Flower of Scotland (2)	9%
10 Rubber Ducky (0)	0%

Total Votes: 22

Clear winner, n'est ce pas? Think I might drop the weekend poll until September as the numbers in the Silly Season or maybe through ennui, have dropped.

[haunted house] do you believe in ghosts

[elli medeiros] glad youtube exists

On Friday evening's post, Tom Paine drew attention to the fact that my taste in women had slipped during this year away from the Slavs. I also detected an "eyes raised to heaven" [that's not easy through the ether] from the lady visitors to this site.

So, in the tradition of "if we're treading on thin ice, we might as well dance", allow me to present More of the Same. :)

Youtube is really, really good.

Their recent scheme, allowing borders in different colours is also helpful. The way they put vids in the list on the right which are not strictly what you'd searched for lets you find new music. I looked for Niagara for Friday evening's post and in the middle of those was this Elli Medeiros thing [below].

OK, so I clicked on it and it wasn't initially impressive. The song was all right, if a bit repetitive and then certain things became apparent. Firstly, she is so energetic, with her own unique style, that she lifted the song out of all proportion to its value - and the Euro-contrived sets and Eurovision naffness is not all that watchable as a rule.

Then the camera swung round to the audience and I laughed - they were nearly all men and they were nearly all doing the gestures she was doing - obviously her way of moving was well known already. Gosh, ladies - imagine that you had hundreds of men watching you, copying your every gesture, every one of them wanting to bed you.

Then I went to the Wiki page on Elli Medeiros and it said she was born in 1956! That made her 31 years of age in this vid. Wow. Then I read about her and she's Uruguayan but went to live in France most of her life. Yet this song was most popular in Italy! Hmmmm.

Compounding that is that the verses are in French but the chorus in Spanish. Had to laugh at some of the [literate?] comments below the vid on the youtube site:

ginodetroit (3 weeks ago)

the "hey!" at the very end is what I love best.

gerdieken (1 month ago) S

She's soooo sweat....................

Sweat?

witherwack1 (1 month ago)

What a pile of dog-do

BigBadJooDooDaddy (4 months ago)

nice aerobics... even if yer lip-sinking (delib. spelling, peeps)

irrikan (3 months ago)

Dude, it was the 80s. On Italian television. During a Festibar thing. We should be glad that there's even a live audience. :)

That's the sort of thing youtube lets us do. I like it.





In poor taste? What about this then? Ha ha:

[england] home of the haggis

Just popped into the Clubhouse for a quick snifter and saw this and this, about the English inventing haggis. LOL. Personally speaking, my scots friends [and I genuinely mean real friends] can keep it north of the border. Give me a Yorkshire pud any day.

[This post is part of #Silly Week.]

[tie me kangaroo down, sport] skippy rides again

The Department of Sustainability and Environment [has to be a Labour government, doesn't it?] said there were reports of people modifying fences to encourage kangaroos to graze on their properties and handfeeding them in the outer suburbs.

Two people have been hospitalised after kangaroo attacks at Sunbury in the past 10 months. A woman in her late 60s suffered cuts to her face, chest and back after being attacked at her home in April.

In another incident late last year, a man in his 50s suffered a large gash to his head and chest and hand injuries when a large male roo attacked him at Sunbury.

Male kangaroos can become aggressive and perceive humans as potential competitors for female kangaroos and attack, DSE wildlife management project officer Ian Temby warned.

The solution?

Mr. Temby advised that anyone confronted by a large male standing up should bend down and move away as standing tall can be perceived as responding to a challenge by the animals.

[This post is part of #Silly Week.]