Word of the day - SAPPHIC

The word today is Sapphic 

Sapphic is a word whose meaning is currently undergoing a metamorphosis, similar to the word gay (frivolity and light hearted fun) that came to be a collective meaning for the homosexual lifestyles of many sections of many societies. GAY has been expressed to me as "Good As You". 

Sapphic is becoming a collective term for things related to the love or adoration of women and womanhood; it's use is not exclusively in the hands of the LGBQT+ fraternity.

Sapphic is an adjective and from my research means the following:

- 4 line poetry in the style of ancient Greek female, Saffo, from Lesbos.

- Saffo wrote poems of passion for women. Such work is Sapphic.

Sapphic in modern times is acknowledged to mean the following:

- Relating to love or admiration of women, not necessarily sexual lesbianism.

- An umbrella term grouping individuals who cannot or do not practice binary sex(uality).

Are we being sapphic?

England pronounces Sapphic like Saf-ic.

A person, organisation, belief system, object, or media promoting women, sometimes in a sexual way, is said to be Sapphic.

This entry confused me (65 year old straight/binary male), but start your exploration with a few starters: This or this, or this and this.

There is an index of words of the day.

If you are brave or foolish enough to dig into the different types of words in English, try this.

Word of the day - SANCTIMONY

The word today is Sanctimony 

Sanctimony is a noun and from my research means the following:

- Righteousness accompanied by an unwarranted attitude of moral or social superiority.

- Doing hypocritical and laboured acts of goodness, often with smugness.

- Having an appearance of devoutness and scrupulous moral austerity.

A judgement of sanctimony on you means you are sanctimonious.

To be accused of sanctimony or being sanctimonious is not good.

There is an index of words of the day.

If you are brave or foolish enough to dig into the different types of words in English, try this.

Word of the day - PUSILLANIMOUS

The word today is Pusillanimous 

Pusillanimous is an adjective and from my research means the following:

- To lack courage and possibly be a coward.

- Said to be bereft of conviction and driven by contemptible timidity.

- Unable to propose action or exhibit decision making for fear of harm.

Don't ask me - I am pusillanimous

A person said to be pusillanimous is being spoken of with distain.

There is an index of words of the day.

If you are brave or foolish enough to dig into the different types of words in English, try this.

Word of the day - ONOMATOPOEIA

The word today is Onomatopoeia 

Onomatopoeia is a noun and from my research means the following:

- The naming of anything such that its vocalisation/sound is similar to that it describes or represents.

- Words are said to exhibit Onomatopoeia when they sound like what they mean.

This is a word little used by anyone, but for more info ...

England pronounces Onomatopoeia like Onno-Mat-O-Peer. 

Here are a few more words more words that are exhibit Onomatopoeia.

There is an index of words of the day.

If you are brave or foolish enough to dig into the different types of words in English, try this.

Word of the day - MELANCHOLY

The word today is Melancholy 

Melancholy is a noun and from my research means the following:

- Sadness or depressed spirit often with a sense of gloom or foreboding.

- Pensive contemplation of something, sometimes wistful or desirous.

- An induced state of longing, often self-induced, tainted with self-pity. 

 

Your suffering of melancholy is melancholia.

Your character my be said to be melancholic.

There is an index of words of the day.

If you are brave or foolish enough to dig into the different types of words in English, try this.

Word Of The Day - ENNUI

The word today is Ennui 

Ennui is a noun and from my research means the following:

- Listlessness / dissatisfaction resulting from lack of interest; boredom.

- A painful or wearisome state of mind due to the want of any object of interest, or to enforced attention to something destitute of interest; the condition of being bored, with tedium.

- A feeling of weariness and disgust; dullness and languor of spirits, arising from want of interest.

England pronounces Ennui like On-Wee.

There is an index of words of the day.

If you are brave or foolish enough to dig into the different types of words in English, try this.

DEPRESSION TALKS

For the twisting of feelings,

the deceptive ease of use;

for the guilt I've felt

and the switchback affair,

and festering resentment in its throes of death.

For all this

and fears of uncertainty;

womankind I dismiss.

There was more to this ...

AFTERMATH

I can see us drifting apart,

I can see a fond farewell,

a bitter-sweet

on a screen in the back of my mind.

I feel sorrow deep inside

apprehensive and tense,

not wanting a conclusion

for fear of an awful truth,

not knowing what will happen,

not knowing what I want to happen.

I feel lonely,

a spectator at my own loss

as the wedge of uncertainly

drives us apart.

There was more to this ...

LONELINESS

Loneliness is isolation;

loneliness is a dark room

with smooth walls,

a cold floor

and endless expanse.

A chasm of fear

with no key,

for there are no doors in the room,

no escape 'cept upward;

pulled out by a friend.

Personal thought - Written in my youth, I had yet to realise that a single person actually helped me realise that I had locked myself in a small mental space that disallowed me from seeing a sunny world. A single new friend.

Youthful depression makes you become alone as you slowly withdraw from the "real world" and it is not easy for others to spot. Usually slow, yet insidious, the sufferer may actually assist in their descent by always feeling like "the odd one out".

You may be able to be someone's single person.

P.S. Teenage mental health and emotional instability is becoming more prevalent, possibly because we are now more willing to acknowledge it.

Truism (for saving money #2)

A good form of saving is the avoidance of tax.

 

Personal thought - This realisation came to me when bank interest was as low as I can remember (in 50 years) and I needed more of what I earned to stay with me. 

Tax avoidance, as opposed to tax evasion (illegal) is where I am now and I tell you this from the perspective of being a UK resident. 

The biggest dent in take-home money is taxation of all "taxable money*" that comes to yourself and whose amount exceeds a nominal poverty-level "personal allowance", dictated in law by the state. For the majority of people this tax is 20% and upward. This is money taken by the state that you should aim to keep, to help you and your dependants.

Tax avoidance is a career for many professional advisors but many other advice sources are free; to either of these you should turn for  research for your own circumstances.

For me and my partner, our monthly income is fixed and savings are not funding our retirement as they should, but we have a solution.

I found my wife's pension would never exceed her personal allowance and that, as spouses, she could transfer that part of her unused personal allowance to me, i.e. £2000 of my earnings suddenly became non-taxable, making me/us better off by the amount of tax I formerly paid when that £2000 of my income attracted taxation. (£400/year)

Our life savings were devaluing with inflation and terrible interest rates didn't help, so we moved all of those savings into 2 equally apportioned Premium Bond holdings, such that any winnings (tax-free) would either buy more Premium Bonds, or be paid to our current account. Returns were tax free and poor, but better than virtually nothing from the banks; it's like gambling with your savings without any likelihood of losing it, but it minimises exposure to tax on money we earn/win.

As bank interest rates began to rise (currently 4%) we realised our Premium Bonds were not achieving this so we thought we would move our life savings back to a bank, but being aware that only the first £1000 of bank interest is given free of tax, equating to £24000 max per person, we placed some money in an ISA (because it's returns are tax free) and now monitor and balance our life savings (in the bank or as Premium Bonds),  in order to never pay tax on any of their returns. 

We are trying to avoiding tax on our life savings as best we know.

* Taxable money is money that comes to you, by whatever route, that is deemed taxable by the state and is above that deemed to be non-taxable (tax-free).  E.G. ISA's, Bank interest below £1000/person, profit from the sale of your primary dwelling, bank loans, etc. To see what tax you might pay (in the UK) take a look here.

South Africa To Leave The Commonwealth?

Attitude not acceptable ...

With this sort of attitude South Africa must surely leave the Commonwealth, or at the very least have membership benefits suspended.

S. A. cannot have it both ways.  Sucking up to the Russian state will only alienate them from former friends and force them even further into their self-inflicted demise; a travesty of Mandela's reported aims for his "new South Africa", now ruined by inept and corrupted management surely?  

South Africans, where there was hope and wealth and international respect; all that is or has been syphoned off. Leave if you can for lawlessness is on the horizon.

Mandela's dream in ruins ...

Who are they kidding?

S.A. Cracking on ethnic lines ...

Criminals and organised crime are taking over ...

The ANC destroyed S.A. ...

Oh yes they did ...

Farewell to an uneasy S.A. ...

S.A. Intolerance

As an aside, are there many African countries that are actually prospering nation states? 

14/01/20204 - South Africa are doing some good it seems, for they have become the only country prepared to call out Israel for their way-over-the-top retribution upon the Palestinian region called Gaza. South Africa have called the Israeli on-going military action(s) as a genocide and seemed to have prepared their international court case case meticulously. More recently (June 2024) an election result seems to flag the end of the ANC's dogmatic and ultimately flawed (ineffective) leftist regime for shared, free market, government.

Tinkerbell found by the James Webb telescope

  Tinkerbell found by James Web telescope? ...

 

Here I am trivialising the (potential) contributions of the James Webb space telescope to understanding cosmology, but you cannot be anything other than amazed at the images it is capturing, even if in this case it reminded me of Peter Pan's attendee called Tinkerbell.

New discoveries by the James Webb telescope continue to amaze.....

More new images from the James Webb telescope and 19 spiral galaxies exposed.

N.B. James E. Webb was not an astronomer, but a high-ranking administrator of the early American space program, after which the telescope was named in his honour.

                      

QR Code (Possible scam)

I cannot vouch for this information as I use a 3G phone for security and privacy and am unable to scan QR codes for direct access to further online information; but the following came to me from a reliable source (David Pattenden on UK Facebook) and may be of use to some of you who regularly scan QR Codes.

"...... A nasty scam that I think would catch most people out.

The scammers obtain your details by you scanning a QR code with your phone and it sneakily starts taking payments from your bank under the name of STH-1 or QSTYRSA. The amount is always £29.99 and it will continue to take these payments until stopped. They scammers are using QR codes linked to car parking, Sky TV, Discovery+ and several others. If you upgrade to Discovery+ from a TV screen, or pay parking via your phone bank app they take your money.

Its a scam called piggybacking where the scammer hides code which obtains your card details.

Please share. ......"

I don't know how you go about elimination such malicious code from you phone, nor if this story is true, so over to you and your research. Possibly starting here ...

Where is that Emu?

A total time waster, but can you spot the Emu?

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If you like spotting things try others here.

Truism (for saving money #1)

The best form of saving is the avoidance of debt.

Personal thought - This was passed to me by dad, warning me that interest paid on a debt actually buys you nothing - you wasted that money that you worked for!

Someone who doesn't believe

Illeism

Think more wisely?

Happy Woman

In the world of social media, often based upon triviality, FOMO, falsehoods and often vicious rumourmongering, I was reminded by this happy woman that there can be undiluted pleasure in your life, if you let it in. Too often we care too much, to our detriment, of what other people think of us. 

Thank you HAPPY WOMAN ...

Jousting a Gumtree scammer (I think)

I love the concept of Gumtree and because I invariably sell locally I have never been scammed, though sometimes I have suspected the motives of some who send messages.

Today I posted an ad to sell a guitar I no-longer have space for and in less that a minute a person purporting to be 'Z' messaged me. This to me is suspicious as they responded so quickly; was I indeed so lucky as to be posting something that someone wanted just at the same time they were browsing? I think not. Here is our conversation.

Z - 14:13:    Hi, is this still available? (An early response!)

Z - 14:14:    ??

Me - 14:35: I have just posted the ad Z, so I guess it is still for sale. 

Z - 14.36:    Email my mate he'll be really up for this. His email is ........

      Z tempting me to use my email system outside of Gumtree to get my detail.

Me - 14.38: I'd rather you tell your mate so they can take a look.

Me - 14.38: I'm thinking you're a scammer. Do you want this or not?

Z - 14:38:    Lol.

Z - 14.39:    I'm not mate.

Me - 14.39: Not interested or not scamming?

Z - 14.40:    I'm in Luton. Can you come over with it?

Me - 14.40: Too far for me and will not post as guitar big and high value.

Me - 14.41: Is your mate in Luton or nearer to me (see map).

Z - 14.42:    You mail him he might come and see it. What's your number or address?

      Z is phishing for my telephone number or address now.

Me - 14.42: To speak to me your mate must contact me through Gumtree.

Z - 14:43:    He isn't on Gumtree yet.

Me - 14.43: He should join - It's good. 

Me - 14.45: We're getting nowhere Z - too far apart -  this is the end of our line.

Z - 14.46:    What do you mean?

Z - 14.46:    I really want this guitar and will wire you the money and pay postage.

       Z attempting a quick sale unseen so he can complain about damage later.

       Z might be in America as few in the UK wire money - we transfer.

Me - 14.47: Goodbye Z.

Z - 14.50:    My mate will contact you about this.

       Z trying to disrupt sale as I don't know his mate's Gumtree ID.

Me - 14.55: Bye Z - go phish and scam elsewhere.

Me - 14.57: Deleted Conversation.

Truism (regarding personal debt)

Debt is like cheap jewellery as it glitters for a while but no-one wants it from around your neck.

Personal thought - This is another from my dad's compendium of advice (to me)  about living a good life. 

Patrick McCreesh and his kind

S C U M  ?

Shut the fuck up McCreesh and pay.

Stop trying to raise money from other saps and pay,

for the whiff of a Ponzi scheme is now strong.

Use your own money or get a loan 

or ask that scammer friend of yours (Phillip Nunn)

or get your parasitic Surge friends to help you, 

but grow a pair and pay.

When your life starts going wrong, 

as it will, 

think of us fools awaiting our payments.

N.B. Scammers Phillip Nunn and Patrick McCleash masterminded the £80m Blackmore Bond and Blackmore Global Fund pensions and investments scams.

The not so honourable Phillip Nunn

UPDATE: Feb 1st 2020 - He/they didn't pay again (for the 3rd time) - where are you FSA, you toothless bunch of 'slickers.

UPDATE: Feb 19th 2020 - He is a busy boy

On 2019-12-20 17:01, Blackmore Support wrote:

Dear Bondholder

I wanted to take this opportunity to update you on the good progress we are making with our projects (please see attached report).

We are starting to see the rewards of all the hard work on our projects and will be paying the outstanding interest as soon as possible.

We are hopeful that we remain on track to pay the January interest on the due date.

We are continuing to develop our online client portal area, and, as a part of this development, we are also creating a phone app to allow for easier access to your account. This is planned for release in the first quarter of 2020.

Once again please accept my sincere apologies for any inconvenience or distress the late payment of your interest may have caused you, but allow me to re-iterate once again that our model remains strong and we look forward to a more positive 2020 now that the political uncertainty has eased, with all the forecasts for the property market looking to improve significantly after the recent election.

Please note that our offices will be closed from 20 December to 3rd January.

Best wishes

Patrick McCreesh
CEO Blackmore Bonds

UPDATES FOR THOSE THAT CARE ANYMORE:

Not fit in 2016 yet FCA / FSA let him rob us

Financial Conduct Authority found to be inept in this case ....

Nov 2024 - the FCA still deemed incompetent by MPs - why are they protected?

Two crooks? !!

UPDATE: Oct 30th 2020 - Still no (nor ever will be) returned money. I have received plenty of pages of waffle from the appointed receivers yet none from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the penny has dropped for me because of the Blackmore fiasco. 

RECEIVERS ARE CALLED RECEIVERS BECAUSE THEY RECEIVE ANY RESIDUAL VALUE IN A COMPANY; THEY HOLLOW OUT COMPANIES BY FINANCIAL FILIBUSTERING THAT ONLY CONCLUDES WITH THE CESSATION OF THE FLOW OF RESIDUAL FUNDS TO THEMSELVES. THEIR JOB IS THAT OF A VULTURE: TO ASSET-STRIP THE WARM  BODY OF A COMPANY AND HAND BACK WORTHLESS DRY BONES OF DASHED HOPE TO THE INVESTORS. GOOD JOB EH?

UPDATE: Sep 6th 2022 -  BBC Panorama TV report

Bastard scammers one and all ...

Riad Salameh