"Stoopid" Bankers 2.0

Crikey! Today's been a festival of stupidities - at two different banks.

First, I asked my main bank what they do to protect e-clients - and even though I told the manager that I've found an activity where I won't ask them to lend me a single penny - he didn't want to answer me until I told him what I was planning to do. The thing is, I'm not telling any of these hyenas what I have in store (pun intended) until they have signed a non-disclosure agreement (I do not trust them with my very good, original idea). I gave him enough info to answer me, but His Highness wanted to know what I'm going to do. From there, in my head, that went 'Sorry, Cupcake. Drop dead; I don't need you as you're not the only bank in town.'

Then, I went to my other bank, and I wanted to deposit a lovely and crisp £20 banknote on my account (just because I don't want to have to give them money because my "piggy-bank" account isn't used enough according to them). I was then informed that branches with an open welcome desk (ruddy all of them in their new architecture!!) do not accept cash deposits as it could be dangerous for the employees.

So:

Question1: What do you do when you want to deposit cash on your account?

Answer: You go to the other side of town to the main branch. [Yea... no problem! Got nothing better to do with my time whilst there's the branch with my account right down my street. Of coooourse.]

Question2: Why did the gal at the welcome desk dare to ask me why I wanted to deposit <insert fake gasp here> cash? She wanted to know why I had cash, and where it came from.

Answer: I'm not going to finance terrorism or a drug cartel with £20, Sweetie, and if I want to transfer money from Bank #1 to Bank #2, I'll do it any way I please. I'm planning to ask the gal in charge of my account to take my banknote - if she doesn't want to do that just the once (because I'm not going to let the welcome desk gal decide what I can or cannot do. Full stop), I'll have another chat with the manager, who's a delightful lady with a brain.

It's absolutely lovely how banks and their employees want to know everything about us and to control everything - and want to tell us what they want us to do.

Dream on, Cupcake, dream on.

Underestimating the Number of Sociopaths around

A look at the state of the planet will show us that the number of nutcases is quite high, but I fear we're kidding ourselves into believing that there are fewer candidates for Bedlam than we think.

Today's growl is brought to you because of the genitalia-deprived, decerebrated plonker who slaughtered one of our cats with his/her/its car right against our front door (ie: not on the ruddy road at all, but on our patch of lawn leading to the road).

At the slightest hint of tyre on the road (that's rather quiet), all our cats run home, to safety.

This means that one biped ambushed one of our cats and killed her for fun (perhaps that idiot is one sandwich short of a picnic, but one starts with pets before upgrading to fellow bipeds).

I will never understand drivers that aim at animals on the road, and if they were to hit a pole, I wouldn't shed a single tear.

It must be nice to believe in something above, and to ask for the victim to be avenged. As it is, I'll rely on the coppers, and the delightful guys in uniform had better do something quickly (though I fear they'll think it was 'just a cat'). Well, it wasn't 'just a cat'; it was a little, purring life that was nicer and more useful than the creature that killed her.

No wonder I growl so much...

First Portrait on Canvas

This post could also be entitled "Never Say Never".

I had never planned to show my latest painting to the disparaging Muggles with whom I share DNA, *because*.

But I hadn't planned that my flat could be invaded by the aforementioned Muggles, and that the painting couldn't be hidden because it's drying (and my cat could have clawed it to death if I'd put it on top of my wardrobe).

I got a 'Oh, it's not as bad as in the photo you sent' (of course, that photo just had the outlines of his face).

I know that this is no old Dutch masters' work, no Leonardo or Van Gogh, but my brother and a few good friends have told me that it's a good work.

Now, I'd really love the vast majority of you to break that awful silence, pretty please, and to tell me what you think of it...

This is inspired by a screencap from this.

Priorities

It's no secret that I loathe politicos - not because they're dealing with politics, but because they're a bunch of lying plonkers who treat all countries like companies that they bleed for their own profit, and their pals'.

I'm trying to think of any Earth politico who's a leader, with guts and compassion, and I can't come up with a single name.

Why am I currently growling now?
Piece of cake: in a place where, for over a century, there's been a strong separation of State and churches, I'm now seeing one church pointing its bony finger at a State company that refused to promote an ad that was partly religious (and concerned one specific variety of religion). And, cherry on the icing on that cake, local politicos (some of them very high-ranking!) are taking the side of the church - a church that, incidentally was very meek in the 1940s, but that is making comparison of the inaction back then with what's going on now, and with what they're trying to prevent today (so, basically, they'll be loud, but only seventy years after the tragedy or if they're under attack themselves). 

I'm not saying that the people the religious ones are trying to help should be abandoned to the wolves.

No.

I'm saying we must see beyond any religion and do something to help all those who are being currently massacred by demented bipeds. Religion, colour, or anything is irrelevant because all victims are fellow Earthlings and that's all that matters.

The churches (all in the same basket - again) should stop caring only about their brothers, and the politicos should stop doing election-marketing in order to pander to factions. We're all on the same planet, and when a group of plonkers blows a fuse, they should be stopped - not because they're attacking this or that group, but because that's the right thing to do.

We need global solidarity, not tribal divisions; otherwise, we'll regress as a species.

The Four Seasons, & a Dream

This is not the work I mentioned last, but I've been working on this one for months.

I wanted to create something with scenes from Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, and I knew that I wanted to have a pink lotus in the middle (I had a very strange dream about a lotus years ago, and I've never forgotten it).

I call this one "Time".

Compassion & Empathy

According to my own version of the Dursleys, I'm too sensitive (because of my star sign that makes me too emotional - I'm not even joking; that's really what they believe!).

But this is just the way I am, and I won't try to change myself to please people who don't really care about me (I'm deeply convinced that I'm dealing with a bunch of manipulators who would like nothing better than turn me into a weather vane for their own twisted amusement).

I'm not better than them; I'm different. And one big difference between me and them is my compassion and empathy for most of my fellow Earthlings.

I don't have to know people to feel happy or sorry for them. I don't need to be friends with people to worry about them. I don't require to be related by blood to have feelings for someone.

These Muggles and I aren't wired the same way.

I don't know if my compassion and empathy make me weaker or stronger; it's not important - but that's who I am, and if my own relatives accepted that, perhaps that acceptance could spread. It'd be nice to not be mocked for being the way one is (and that would probably save time and energy on our lovely planet).

[Strangely, I don't see that happening any day soon, as most people seem to believe that the rest of the world must be and behave like them or they enjoy making others feel insecure and miserable and sad.]

Perspective

So, my council estate is very varied.

The dominant tendency is to WEC (White, European, Christian), and since they arrived on my street first, they tend to disparage the others, be they AM (African, Muslim), MEM (Middle-East, Muslim), or AV (Asian, Varied).

I've know them all for years, and I don't have any issue with the AM, MEM and AV - unlike the WECs, who tend to be disparaging at the first hint of anything different (oddly some MEMs join the WECs to bash the other communities).

Once more, this is one of the things that makes me feel like the Empress of Mars, because I'm not formatted like the bigoted bipeds on my street.

I love it when my neighbours of Vietnamese descent cook Asian dishes (I'm tempted to knock on their door and ask for the recipes).

The African kids aren't troublesome - if you don't treat them like lepers. We say 'Hello!', we smile at one another, and I've never had any issue if any of them.

Basically, the loud bipeds on my street are the ones who are unpleasant and nasty and arrogant (and a happy bunch of nosey busybodies, as well).

The plonkers downstairs have been insufferable with their loud music at night.

But on the other hand, each day, I can also hear the Indian family on my right... Each day, around tea time, I hear them laugh all together for about fifteen minutes; then, they're quiet again. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the beautiful, weird relativity of my life; if we were in the same staircase, I'd be sorely tempted to bake them a cake - for making me smile on the other side of the wall.

Haiku Time!

隠  僕  桜

す  の  茶

。  涙  で

が  、

 

In the cherry blossom tea, my tears are undetectable.

©Drusilla de Lanor [March, 26^th, 2015]

[Recipe] Blueberry Pie

I've found a blueberry provider, so there you go... A first recipe that needs blueberries.

You'll need:

- For the pastry (28cm pie tin):

* 250 g all-purpose flour

* 125 g (room temperature) butter

* 1 pinch of salt

* 50 g caster sugar

* 1 egg

* some water

* some extra flour

- For the fruit filling:

* 450 g blueberries (all riiiiight, I've "just" found a store that sells the frozen variety; they work perfectly)

* 20 cl crème fraiche

* 125 g caster sugar

* 2 tablespoon of all-purpose flour

* 2 eggs

* 1 pinch of salt

*some icing sugar

Pastry:

1 - Put the flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl.

2 - Dice the butter and add it to the dry mix. Either use your fingers or a fork to make the butter and flour mix form a crumble-like dough.

3 - Beat the egg with some water, and add it to the mix. You should get a sticky dough that you'll have to work to get a smooth ball.

4 - Roll the dough onto some parchment paper with flour; it mustn't stick at all. You need a circle big enough for your tin, and the dough should be about 1 centimetre thick at the bottom.

[If you don't have a tin that can be opened, don't forget to place a large band of folded-in-two parchment paper under the paper with your dough so you can get your pie out, and you don't have to cut it in the tin.]

Filling:

1 - Put the crème fraiche, the salt, the sugar, and the sieved flour into a bowl and mix them together.

2 - Beat the eggs, and add them to the bowl, and keep mixing.

3 - Add the blueberries (if you bought them frozen, don't bother defrosting them) and mix.

4 - Pour the filling into the pastry.

Baking:

Put the tin in the (cold, yes) oven, and turn it on (Th. 7, 180° C). Bake for 30 minutes, and lower it to Th. 5 for about five more minutes.

Take the pie out of the oven.

When it's no longer hot, sprinkle icing sugar on top.

Add some vanilla ice-cream and... Tadaaaaa!