Ken Gargett

was not having a go at you for this. had not heard of either. you could have told me it was ozymandias webster and i would have believed you. true. on this one, we will definitely have to disagree. as evidence, we go over there for a year or two in our twenties to explore, have fun, enjoy ourselves and travel. we come home. they come over here and stay. and stay. sadly, i think you are half right. speech has gone that way everywhere. and yes, sad. but for me, the wave of an almost new language for texting and whatever kids are doing is going even further and will get worse. for me, it is most definitely not an indication of increasing intelligence. but then i am of the view that humans have not only stuffed this world, so many are determined to ignore or deny that, that the planet is doomed. so it hardly matters. not sure how we went from a little indie flick involving the boss to the end of civilisation and the destruction of the planet. he copied me!

never heard it called the daniel webster dictionary. interesting. we have the macquarie dictionary for much the same reason. although you might have deeply offended oxford, calling it the cambridge dictionary. ask the poms if we are eastern brits. not sure they'd be happy with that. we just took the very best things britain offered - cricket, rugby etc - and then improved everything. in a place where you don't need webbed feet. but churchill or shaw, depending on who you prefer, or i suspect even oscar W, had it spot on for you and the poms - two nations divided by a common language. when i lived in the states, i was regularly complimented on how well i'd learnt to speak english. usually just said nothing but finally one pompous was one too many. 'yes, and now i speak it far better than you'. but most were well meaning and in those days, 99% had never heard an aussie other than paul hogan and 95% had no idea where we were or anything about us.

no idea why the photos did not appear. pity.

Will a Long-Lost Caravaggio Sell for $170 Million? Benjamin Sutton Jun 14, 2019 12:20pm Caravaggio, Judith and Holofernes, ca. 1607. Courtesy of Eric Turquin. A painting discovered in a French family’s attic is believed to be a long-lost Caravaggio and could sell at auction for $170 million. That result for Judith and Holofernes (ca. 1607) would constitute a major coup for the family, as well as the auctioneer and dealer organizing the sale—or more than 1,100 times Caravaggio’s current auction record. The painting, thought to be the Baroque master’s long-lost second version of the bloody biblical scene of Judith beheading Holofernes, is coming to auction with an astounding presale estimate between €100 million and €150 million ($113.2 million–$169.7 million). Such sums are rare enough in Christie’s and Sotheby’s high-stakes sales of modern and contemporary trophies in New York and London, but Judith and Holofernes will be offered on the evening of June 27th in Toulouse, France. The work of art is being sold by the local family in whose attic it was found in 2014, through Toulouse-based auctioneer Marc Labarbe and Parisian Old Master dealer Eric Turquin. The rareness of this piece is also in the story of its discovery. It has been on a five-year cycle of cleaning, research, and analysis. The wondrous process has been documented with a 168-page catalogue, a dedicated website, and exhibitions of the piece in Milan, Paris, London, and New York. “Once all this background work is done, the location of the sale is of little importance and has more to do with spectacle than strategy,” Labarbe said. The sale itself may or may not turn into a historic spectacle, though the last Old Master work marketed as a rediscovered masterpiece and tagged with a nine-figure estimate—Salvator Mundi (ca. 1500)—certainly did. But no matter the outcome, the story of Judith and Holofernes is spectacular. A hidden treasure in the attic Detail of Caravaggio, Judith and Holofernes, ca. 1607. Courtesy of Eric Turquin. Judith and Holofernes could just as easily have been discovered a decade earlier, when its present owners—a family that has chosen to remain anonymous through this process, but has roots in Toulouse dating back to the 19th century—noticed their roof was leaking, and water was running into their attic. Nobody noticed the nearly 6-foot-wide painting the water had leaked onto, which was propped up against a wall behind some old mattresses and box springs. The painting might also have been discovered two years later, when thieves ransacked the attic of valuables, but missed its biggest treasure. “If those thieves should ever read these lines,” Labarbe wrote in his catalogue introduction, “they can rest assured that no single eye, while preoccupied all at once by the crime, the darkness and the clutter, could have possibly noticed a painting by a master.” Finally, the owners came across the massive, murky painting while clearing out the attic of their house, which has been in their family since 1871. They called in Labarbe, who in turn alerted Turquin; after three months of analysis by the dealer and his team in Paris, the verdict came back. Caravaggio. Since then, the painting has undergone cleaning and conservation to repair water damage and remove the varnish that blurred the composition’s crisp details. Caravaggio experts were brought in, so that by the time the discovery was made public in 2016, authorities—including the former director of the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, Nicola Spinosa—had signed off on the Caravaggio attribution. Cracking the Caravaggio case Installation view of Caravaggio, Judith and Holofernes, ca. 1607. Photo by Eva Sakellarides. Courtesy of Eric Turquin. Those who support the attribution to Caravaggio consider Judith and Holofernes to be Caravaggio’s long-lost second version of a subject he famously painted around 1599—the earlier work is housed in Barberini Palace in Rome. Caravaggio revisited the iconic subject when he was in Naples around 1607, following his exile from Rome for murdering Ranuccio Tomassoni. The existence of this second Judith and Holofernes is known from a copy of the work by the French artist and dealer Louis Finson , who lived in Naples at the beginning of the 17th century. The lost Caravaggio is mentioned in a 1607 letter sent by a Flemish painter visiting Naples to his patron, the Duke of Mantua. In the letter, the painter notes that one of two bellissimi Caravaggio paintings for sale is a Judith and Holofernes on offer for a little under 300 ducats. The seller is thought to have been Finson. When Finson died a decade later, he left the unsold painting to fellow artist-dealer Abraham Vinck in his will. Then, Caravaggio’s Judith and Holofernes disappeared. Detail of Caravaggio, Judith and Holofernes, ca. 1607. Courtesy of Eric Turquin. The big question is how the painting ended up in Toulouse. Finson is known to have passed through the city on business trips in the years before his death. The piece landed in France by the early 19th century. Its distinctly French stretcher is of a sort that was only used around that time, according to Claudio Falcucci, a scientist who analyzed the painting. Some experts remain skeptical of the Caravaggio attribution. Italian art historian Mina Gregori has suggested that Judith and Holofernes could be a work by Artemisia Gentileschi . Gianni Papi, a Caravaggio expert at the University of Florence, considers it to be a second copy of Caravaggio’s original by Finson. Caravaggio’s comeback If the attribution to Caravaggio proves strong enough to entice buyers, the June 27th Judith and Holofernes sale will be an unprecedented test for the master’s market. The current auction record for a Caravaggio is just $145,500, set in 1998 at a Sotheby’s sale of Old Master paintings. More recently, a Caravaggio considered to be his earliest surviving painting, Boy peeling a fruit (ca. 1592–93), was offered at Christie’s in 2015 with a presale estimate of $3 million to $5 million. Despite its purported art-historical significance, the painting failed to sell. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio Boy peeling fruit, 1592-1593 "Beyond Caravaggio" at National Gallery, London The short supply of sales data for Caravaggio is partially explained by the relative scarcity of his work. Of the art he produced before his death in 1610 at age 38, only 68 paintings are known to exist; of those, only five are still in private hands. Another factor is that until the middle of the 20th century, nobody cared about Caravaggio. The art historian Roberto Longhi was instrumental in tracking down and championing his work, chronicling its enormous influence on the artists known as Caravaggisti, and turning him into an Old Master brand on the same level as Rubens or Rembrandt . In fact, the recent pricing of Rembrandts was a determining factor for Labarbe and Turquin in coming up with the estimate for Judith and Holofernes. Turquin cited the Louvre and the Rijksmuseum’s joint acquisition, in 2015, of a pair of Rembrandt portraits for €160 million ($181 million), as well as the Amsterdam museum’s recent maneuvers to buy another Rembrandt for €165 million ($186.7 million). According to Turquin, there are about five times as many Rembrandt paintings in the world as there are paintings attributed to Caravaggio. “The estimate we’ve put forward is rather modest for an artist who is far more important and far more rare,” he said. We’ll find out if collectors buy that assessment on June 27th. Benjamin Sutton is Artsy’s Lead Editor, Art Market and New

well, we didn't need a war to escape, although technically, given old mate is still our head of state i guess we have not escaped. the best move that the monarchists here ever made was somehow getting that blowhard all-about-me fitzsimons as head of the repulican movement. it has no chance until someone competent and respected. as for driving, we are on the correct side. hey, you guys wanted to align yourselves with such traditional allies as china, russia and france. we held firm. and as is so often proven, merely because a slight majority (slight being a euphemism for a reasonable number) drive RHS, does not make it right. so unless we do a burma and swap because the king's astrologer had a dream, LHD it is. but the bad news i have for you is that like it or not, you guys also speak the queen's english. just a really bad version of it.

ta Nino. i have one standing in the same spot. papa H is wearing a wallabies cap and scarf. i rather think now that i have demeaned the poor bloke, doing that to him.

thanks all.

couple of pieces on the macadamia nut. interesting as when we were kids, never heard the name 'macadamia'. they were simply called queensland nuts. most backyards i knew had a tree or two. loved the nuts but they were an absolute bastard to crack open. and many people got rid of them because they caused too much damage to mowers and the mowers would also fling them out like missiles and eyes were in danger, not to mention windows. Nut of note: 70% of world's macadamia can be traced back to single Australian tree New research shows a single 19th century tree in southern Queensland gave rise to the world’s dominant plant variety Sat 1 Jun 2019 The world’s dominant commercial macadamia cultivar – grown in Hawaii – originated from a single tree in southern Queensland. Photograph: Alamy The small Queensland town of Gympie has been identified as the origin of 70% of the world’s macadamia nuts. New research into the fatty seed has revealed the world’s dominant commercial cultivar – grown in Hawaii – originated from a single tree in southern Queensland from the 19th century. Native to Australia, macadamia trees are only found naturally in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales. The Hawaiian macadamia industry was grown from one cultivar from Australia that was repeatedly cloned. This means the commercial macadamia tree has an incredibly low genetic diversity, and researchers hope their findings will spur the discovery of wild trees and more “novel genes”. Genetic diversity would improve crop productivity, increase disease resistance and enable macadamia to be grown in new places, said one of the researchers, Dr Craig Hardner. By looking at genetic markers, Hardner, from the University of Queensland, and Dr Catherine Nock, from Southern Cross University, traced the origins of Hawaii’s whole industry back to Queensland. The Hawaiian cultivar had distinctive gene markers in common with a tiny crop of trees in the small locality of Mooloo, near Gympie, 160km north of the state capital Brisbane. Historical records showed that seeds from these trees were taken to Honolulu in 1896. Despite being found in a narrow band of subtropical rainforest, Australia’s native macadamia had a rich diversity compared with the commercial crops, Hardner said. This means there is hope for diverse genes to be discovered in Australian forests and even in backyards. “There is a really strong geographic pattern,” he said. “All the diversity that exists comes from south-east Queensland and northern NSW. Certainly the Hawaiian germplasm is very narrow, so it has only come from one locality.” The researchers found that some unique genetic markers in commercial trees could not be matched with known wild trees. Hardner said this meant either those diverse genes had been lost in the wild, through land clearing, or that they continued to exist in domestic cultivated plants. “We suggested maybe some of that diversity that has been lost is in cultivated plants, parks, gardens or people’s backyards,” he said. The oldest known cultivated macadamia tree is in Brisbane’s city botanic gardens, first planted in 1858. Hardner said the next step was to focus on forest conservation. “There’s climate change happening, there is clearing happening, and about 90% of the wild population is on private property,” he said. “It’s really important to identify where there are unique genes in the wild and prioritise those populations for conservation. “Macadamias are only a few generations from the wild. They have not gone through as many cycles of selection as, for example, apples. This means there is still a lot of opportunity to improve them.” Macadamias are a major export crop for Australia. In 2017, they made up 14% of the value of all horticultural exports. 70 Percent of the World’s Macadamia Nuts Came From One Tree in Australia Call it the Genghis Khan of macadamias. by Sabrina Imbler June 03, 2019 13,486 Behold the macadamia: delicious, fatty, and frequently cloned! Jessica Merz/CC by 2.0 Last week, a shocking discovery rattled the relatively stagnant field of commercial macadamia nut research. The vast majority of the world’s commercial macadamia crops originated from a single 19th-century tree in the tiny town of Gympie in Queensland, Australia, according to a new study in Frontiers in Plant Science. It’s basically the Genghis Khan of macadamia nut trees, progeny-wise. The researchers collected hundreds of DNA samples from macadamia trees in the trees’ native habitat in Queensland and compared them to samples of commercially grown trees from Hawaiʻi, which produces 70 percent of the world’s macadamia varieties. This comparison revealed that all of Hawaiʻi’s macadamias share distinctive markers with a tiny wild grouping of trees in Gympie, suggesting that all of the state’s modern crops were likely cloned out of a single Australian tree. In other words, 70 percent of the world’s macadamia varieties can be sourced back to a single tree or a couple of trees in Gympie, according to a statement from Craig Hardner, a horticulturalist at the University of Queensland and one of the researchers leading the study. “A small collection of seeds were taken to Hawaiʻi at the end of the 19th century and historical records suggest that there was maybe six trees grown from that sample of nuts that were taken by Robert Jordan and planted in his brothers’ backyard in the suburbs of Honolulu in 1896,” Hardner told ABC News. A grove of macadamia trees in Queensland, Australia. Jenny Brown/CC by 2.0 Like many tree crops, macadamias are reproduced via grafting. So commercial orchards often contain thousands of trees but just a few individuals, according to the study. This remarkable lack of genetic diversity places macadamia crops at a higher risk of succumbing to disease or changes in climate than trees with a more diverse population, according to a report in The Guardian. In comparison, wild Australian macadamias boast a rich diversity despite their narrow habitat of subtropical forest, the study found. Macadamias are no small affair for Queensland. In the 1860s, King Jacky, the Aboriginal elder of the Logan River Clan and the world’s first “macadamia nut entrepreneur,” was the first to commercially market the nut to settlers. The world’s oldest known cultivated macadamia nut tree, planted in 1858, still grows in Brisbane’s botanic gardens. In 2017, the nuts comprised 14 percent of the Australia’s horticultural exports, according to The Guardian. Queensland has paid fitting tribute to its nut-spreading legacy in the form of the Big Macadamia Nut. The nut, which stands 52 feet tall, is one of Australia’s 50 Big Things, which include other fruits such as a Big Bunch of Bananas and a Big Avocado. Of the four wild macadamia species living in Queensland today, three are threatened and one is endangered, the study notes. While collecting samples, the researchers stumbled upon one tree grown in Hawaiʻi that they were unable to trace back to the wild. So they’ve asked local, would-be nut-spotters to get involved in identifying old, wild macadamia nut trees that could hold this missing genetic diversity. So if you happen by Queensland anytime soon and spot the telltale strands of green nuts hanging from a tree, send a leaf sample here and you may help preserve Australia’s fattiest wild nuts.

i have a feeling i may have possibly posted this ages ago so apols if so, but worth another go. unfortunately the pics did not come with it. from the roads and kingdoms site. they have some wonky stuff but also some really good pieces - really like matt goulding's writing, as an example. One Dinner in Havana Apr 11 2016 Author: José Andrés Pioneering chef José Andrés went to Cuba with President Obama’s delegation. After Obama left, José stayed on for a home-cooked night of rum, salpicón and politics. He was smiling at me. My sunglasses were next to his book on the bar. I turned away and felt a hand on my back. As if he were coming back to life. I had just finished my sixth daiquiri in less than half an hour—bartenders kick them out quicker you can drink them—but even so, he was not coming back to life. It was just another tourist jostling to get a prized photo with him. A selfie trophy-hunter, stalking the Hemingway statue next to me at the corner bar inside La Floridita. La Floridita is an almost 200-year-old institution in the old part of La Habana. I felt more excited than usual in there. I could hear the music of anxiety in the air, my anxiety. That’s the music Steinbeck referred to in The Pearl to describe situations without words. Okay, so La Floridita is a tourist attraction now, but I love to get the same view Hemingway had 70, 80 years ago. Bar packed. Salsa music in the air, live. A few tourists with no rhythm in their veins, dreaming they could dance. Fools. Decadence. But what I really couldn’t understand were the people lining up along the bar drinking daiquiris through a straw. A straw? Did you imagine Papa “strawing” a daiquiri? No way. I raised my hand. Fidel, the bar director, was ready to please with a seventh daiquiri. I took the straw out and asked for a splash of the best rum they had on top. A beautiful dark brown, with the aroma of molasses, on top of the pale, frozen citric daiquiri. I sipped it, bringing the glass carefully to the lips. That’s the way to have a daiquiri at La Floridita. Finally the chef of La Floridita came with a plastic bag. I had asked him to sell me some Brie and blue cheese. And a bottle of virgin olive oil. These are not easy ingredients to find on the streets of La Habana, so the best thing is to ask a chef. This one had brought me something else as well: I looked in the bag. Lobster tails. I puffed my cigar, a Cohiba Behike, once again. My fourth of the day and it was only 6 o’clock. I had three more at the beisbol game. Cuba and America becoming better friends through a sporting event. Historic. Legendary. Maybe life changing for many. Happiness thick enough to grab out of the air. I looked at the lobsters again. I sipped my daiquiri. Yoani, my partner in crime, my hostess for that evening’s dinner, had told me not to bring anything. “It’s better that way.” What did she mean? For the last four days I had been trying to contact her. Wifi is erratic at best in La Habana. Communications slow when available. So two nights before I had ventured late at night to her apartment in a concrete mid-rise building in the not-at-all touristy Nuevo Vedado neighborhood. To try my luck. Eleven pm. Semi-dark street. Fourteen-story building. I couldn’t believe I was there. But no luck waiting for someone to open the door; after 30 minutes, nobody came in or out. And with no way to call her, I couldn’t access the elevator that would take me to her house, or office. I left. But today was different. I had an arrival time and an invitation. I grabbed the two plastic bags—cheese, oil, and lobster. I put them inside my black backpack. Sipped the last of the daiquiri and gave the cigar one last kiss. José with the life-size statue of Ernest Hemingway propping up the bar in La Floridita. Photo courtesy of José Andrés I jumped in a taxi. I thought it was better not to attract suspicion. I had with me the Cuban national team shirt. Beautiful blue. A baseball cap. Finally we arrived at Yoani’s street. It felt good, at least, to be already familiar with the area. Still daylight shining through. I told the driver to drop me at the beginning of the street. Voy a andar! I told him. I wanted to walk. To arrive on my own. I asked him to wait for me. How long… I don’t know. Thirty minutes or hours. I left him with a bag of shirts I had bought for my daughters. Trust: give it, and you get it back. The sidewalks were cracked from years of tree roots breaking through, showing who was in charge. I turned my ankle. Pain for a second. The excitement was a good antidote to pain. I guess the daiquiris helped too. Finally I was there. I saw a man walking towards the door. I came in with him. And into the elevator. Fourteenth floor. But there were only 13 numbers. I didn’t want to ask. I wanted to look like I belong. All the stories I had heard of police, informants, dissidents taken to jail. Yoani, my hostess, is an independent journalist. A famous one, because of the way she has used technology to tell the world what was happening in Cuba. Once on the thirteenth floor, I saw some narrow stairs leading to the fourteenth floor. Great. It existed. I arrived at a closed metal gate. I rang the bell. A man came from behind a door. He asked, Are you Joe? Was that code? I said yes. He opened the fence. And gave me a big hug, like you give an old friend you haven’t seen for a long time. Even though we didn’t know each other. Finally I came into the apartment. Yoani was there. Her entire team just started clapping. It was only a year ago that I met Yoani in Washington. Her stories of Cuba, its fight for freedom, liberty. The hardships that everyday Cubans had to endure to move on. All of that resonated in my head. I had promised to visit her. And finally I was there. I was not in an apartment. It was like a Press room. The clapping, still I don’t know why. I guess it was because of the few photos I had sent her from the backstages of President Obama’s trip, which I had been invited on as an official culinary ambassador. I had sent a photo of entrepreneurs and Obama. And others. Photos were never sent to her directly but to Miami, and they somehow made it back to La Habana. By coming to dinner here during a trip I was on with Obama, I was helping to tell the story of the visit through a different lens. In my mind, I was just seeing a friend. Yoani and her team came in and out. In the air was the smell of roast chicken and oregano from three small birds in the oven. Conversations were fluid. From family to paladares, to Obama, to beer, to ice… nonstop. I made a sopa de avena with brie, chicken juice, and chicken soup powder. Yoani told me how Cubans like big portions. They had been hungry and under stress. When they can, they want to eat big. Yoani just was finishing a waffle in a electric waffle-maker she has on top the microwave. Tiny kitchen, so creativity is a must. But a waffle at 8 pm? Why didn’t they have bread? “Well, no time,” they said. “We’ve been busy.” After all, she had just finished an interview with Obama’s security adviser, Ben Rhodes. Big day for her. From a dissident to standing with a man close to the president. She was telling me how she was brave enough to ask for a interview with the president. “If you don’t dream, it doesn’t happen,” she said. The team was hungry. They had already devoured the Brie and the Stilton lookalike I put on the table. There were only two waffles. I topped them with margarine, the blue cheese I had left, olive oil, salt and pepper. The salt she had brought with her from her last trip to D.C. She was proud of how many spices she had. Not every Cuban household was so lucky. Cooks are a bit like Jesus. We can multiply anything The waffle pizza was too small. We had no more flour or eggs to make more mix. But the team seemed to like it. In Cuba we like big portions, José. There’s not much I could do. There was only one Jesus. The chicken was ready. I cut it into small portions, sprinkled with oregano and some of the chicken drippings. I brought it to the table. All around the room: smoking, drinking beer and rum, one-on-one conversations. Just after that I served a salpicón de langosta, with the lobster that I brought. Pieces of the lobster tail closest to the head, barely poached with olive oil, chopped lettuce, and vinegar. I was lucky. They thought they had nothing to cook with. But I am a kitchen survivor. I knew how to manage in a small navy ship kitchen, in gasless ones, in ingredientless ones… cooks are a bit like Jesus. We can multiply anything. They were ready to put the roasting pan with the drippings into the sink. But the juices and the caramelized skin attached to the pan were more ingredients to salvage. I turned the heat back on, added a glass of rum, and scraped the bottom. I added tomato paste they had like it was a precious sacrament. I added water and let it boil. I had some chicken stock. I added the water left over from boiling the lobster ceviche. Some garlic. The pasta was ready. Half an hour before, I had been pan frying the spaghetti. Often you burn it if you are not careful. But the fire in that home seemed to be alive, in control, and well behaved. Soft. Like a whisper. As I was toasting the pasta, Yoani was telling me about an article. About Obama arriving. How on a rainy day he came out on his own, carrying his own umbrella. How he opened it and covered Michelle as she was leaving Air Force One. A sharp contrast to the Cuban officials, who had others carrying the umbrellas for them. A sign of what freedom means. My culinary ego was saved My broth was ready, I thought. Probably the worst one I’ve ever cooked, I thought. Toasted pasta went in. Small lobster medallions went in. And I put it in the oven to crisp up the top. If anybody saw that in Catalunya or Valencia, I would be doomed. But the dish was finished. On the long table, chaotic with plates of chicken, glasses of rum and cans of beer, we made space for the tray. It was well received. The conversation turned to how you could go jail if you were a Cuban caught with lobsters. No boats allowed, so that nobody can escape the island. Too much temptation. The diners wiped their plates clean. My culinary ego saved. No one mocked me with Cubans like big portions José this time. The night was not yet finished. Yoani liked a drink I made for her the month before in DC. A cremat. A burning rum drink with coffee beans and cinnamon and lemon peel. But there was no lemon or lime available. Strange this, in this perfect citrus climate. I felt a shot of guilt, thinking of how much juice they used to make my daiquiris. I told them the story of Catalan sailors returning home after the Spanish-American war in Cuba and elsewhere. Spain lost, but drinks and traditions were created. I sang a habanera, “El meu avi se’n va anar a Cuba…” Under the light of the burning rum, all sang along.

there are scores of brilliant photos here. so many faves. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/contests/travel-photo-contest-2019/gallery/winners-all/1/

i think i have ended up with a samsung (or sony - so confused i have no idea). nightmare. first bloke has me on every upgrade imaginable till we are at about twice what i told him was my highest figure. i'm sure whatever it was could probably fly and do brain surgery. delivery and installation. sure. so much more expensive than it used to be. despite him telling me how much cheaper it was. then they have no stock except the display. so i am expected to take that one. then delivery is not for ten days or some crap. that includes connecting to the video? no, that is extra. so what is installation? turning on the switch? so all that just gets canned. i end up with something much more acceptable. i hope. but of course, they have none. i have to go across to the massive shoppingtown (one of the biggest centres in the southern hemisphere) to get it. their loading area is hidden away in the bowels, nowhere near where they say (the stores obviously love each other - "over there, they are all smucks", and then from over there, "across the road, they are all idiots"). ages to find them. won't fit. so i need delivery as just easier than getting a car from the family and pissing about. it includes connection and is less than half the cost (from the same organisation? how does that work?). and then, no problem delivery within two days. by the time i get home, no, it will be a week. we have a suitable chat. he is ringing me tomorrow. i suspect there is likely to be some unpleasantness before this is all over. hope not but it seems inevitable.

yep. bells and whistles for a tv are almost irrelevant for me. reliability, decent screen, clear picture, good definition, easy to use. and i am happy. fair value when buying, of course. apparently hisense is china's largest brand??? i usually go to JB Hifi, one of our retailers. they are normally pretty good (had the odd hiccup with stuff but overall, they seem to be pretty good at recommendations. will see what they say.

thanks. i'm seeing a lot of people seem happy with a brand called Hisense? never heard of them.

my TV decided to die last night - right in the middle of the cricket which did not make me happy. query for those with more technical knowledge than myself, which is pretty much everyone on the planet - screen went completely blank/black and now it just makes a tick tock noise. i have had it about 8 years i'd guess, give or take a couple. when i am home, i have it on most of the day, normally just as background noise. so i have certainly had a fair whack of use from it. in the old days, you'd get out a repairman to look at it. wondering if that is still worthwhile or best just to move on? any thoughts? any suggestions on what i should buy (suspect best idea is to check out JB hifi or whoever and see what they have going).

had never heard of it but just saw a review which raved. sounds like two films are must-sees.