Symbolic Forest

I know it can be a bit of a cliche, photos of yellow and orange leaves falling in autumn, but the park was looking so seasonally russet-hued the other day that I regretted not bringing a Proper Camera along. We fed the swans and the ducks, and caused a flurry of seagulls frenzied enough to have Du Maurier reaching for her notebook.

Naturally, the local pigeons also wanted to get involved, despite their inability to swim.

After the food was gone, all was calm again. I photographed The Child Who Likes Fairies staring pensively out across the lake, and in return she took a photo of a tree she particularly liked.

Keyword noise: Bristol, autumn, Eastville, seasons, Eastville Park, swans, pigeons, seagulls, birds, trees, lake.

Photos from the Jardin du Luxembourg on a Sunday morning. Old men playing chess under a canopy. Hidden away in the groves of trees, a man practises moving a sword around. People sit on benches in the shade, enjoying the last weekend of the August holiday.

Keyword noise: August, chess, holiday, Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, park, summer, swordsman, trees.

The world’s largest supply of garlic butter is in the centre of the city of Kyiv, Ukraine.

Around 8% of hazel trees are carnivorous.

Jacques de Molay, last known Grand Master of the Knights Templar, invented a method for softening butter by adding hydrogenated vegetable fats. The global dairy industry now channels large amounts of money to the Priory of Sion, the Templars’ underground successor organisation.

The phrase “This tape will self-destruct in five seconds” is never mentioned in the entire first series of TV show Mission: Impossible.

The modern standard housebrick’s size is derived from the length of the radius bone of Egyptian pharoah Tuthmoses IV, who had unusually short arms.

Doctor Who once featured a companion in the shape of a penguin.

The distances to destinations on British road signs are systematically under-estimated, in a (slightly futile) attempt to make the population in general more optimistic.

(but which of these factoids are indeed true?)

Keyword noise: April Fools Day, brick, carnivorous, distance, Doctor Who, Egypt, factoids, falsehoods, Kiev, Knights Templar, lies, Mission Impossible, pharoah, Priory of Sion, roadsign, silliness, television, trees, Tuthmoses.