Baldur

sandm, my favourite of those IgNobel Awards was the one given to the mayor of Vilnius for his unique solution to illegally parked luxury cars in his city.
Thank you for sharing that.

Baldur

..and sheftali, it does rather look like an ocotillo. You are correct in that.
Baldur finds that he loves growing unusual plants at Boughbreak.
My current favourite is the Bowiea Volubilis. which I had been incorrectly calling a 'false sea onion' for the longest time. In this instance it is a 'fake false sea onion', which differs from a 'faux false sea onion' in that it is still a real plant, though it is not related to the onion, nor does it have anything to do with the sea.
Everyone who sees this plant comments on it.
Another resident here is the Senecio rowleyanus (time for a comment from matthew). This is sometimes called the 'string of peas' and looks amazing in a hanging planter.

sheftali52

Enjoyed reading about your unusual plants, Baldur. Sheftali hopes to acquire a night blooming cereus this year.

Baldur

Those are wonderful. Space limitations here keep that one off limits.
I have very few plants with 'spread'.
There is a Clivia that doesn't like to share space.. the leaves get damaged if they touch anything else. My Eucharis will eventually need to be adopted out as it will get too bushy.
I'm wondering if it's possible to pinch back my mistletoe fig (Ficus Deltoides) and root the cuttings. What should have stayed a compact little potted shrub (and all the information online says it is a very slow grower) has become a low spreading groundcover sort of thing, with an impressive amount of small berrylike fruit. This plant is so attractive it looks rather artificial. I imagine it would be a good candidate for bonsai but they are far too labor-intensive for me.

Baldur

Giordano Bruno is burned for heresy by the Spanish Inquisition (1600)
'Madame Butterfly' premieres at La Scala. It is panned by the critics and Puccini rewrites it (1904)
Geronimo dies (1909)
Enrico Banducci is born (1922)
Prohibition in the USofA comes to an end (1933)
Jim Brown is born (1936)
Kasparov beats supercomputer 'Deep Blue' in a chess match (1994)

Baldur

Kublai Khan dies (1294)
Michaelangelo dies (1564)
Louis Comfort Tiffany is born (1848)
Charles Lewis Tiffany dies (1902)
Yoko Ono is born (1933)
In Los Angeles, California, the first Church of Scientology is established (1954)
John Travolta is born (1954)
Vanna White is born (1957)
Dale Earnhardt dies (2001)

Dragon

The Alluaudia Procera I know as a Crown of Thorns plant. One of the local chinese food restaraunts here in town has 2 or 3 absolutely amazing specimens of this.

Dragon

While looking up the "String of Peas" variety of plant I came across a picture with a wonderful idea for a pot for it. It's the 3 picture down on this page http://www.gardeninggonewild.com/?p=12899

sheftali52

That is indeed a wonderful pot for the "string of pearls", Dragon!

Baldur

The plant that I know as 'the Crown of Thorns' is a Euphorbia, and is not related to the Alluaudia.
I do like some of those face pots, but some are just too cutesy for Boughbreak

Baldur

Copernicus is born (1473)
Constantius II closes all the pagan temples in the Roman Empire (356)
By treaty ownership of New Amsterdam is transferred to England and it is renamed New York (1674)
Russia abolishes serfdom (1861)
The phonograph is patented by Thomas Edison (1878)
F.D. R. signs an executive order allowing the military to transfer all Japanese-American citizens to internment camps (1942)
The same executive order is rescinded on this day by President Gerald Ford (1976)

Today is the Commemoration of Bulgaria's Apostle of Freedom Vasil Levski

Baldur

Happy Birthday to famed orchid poacher John Laroche.

sandm

This is really a very useful pot for the string of pearls, Dragon, and you`d have one pot for all.

Baldur

Time for a Historical Moment here on Radio Baldur.
This afternoon Robert is watching some older melodramatic film based on the life of Jean d'Arc. Which of course made me ask myself the question 'Just why did Lady Godiva ride naked through the streets?'
Huh? What is Baldur blathering about?
Admittingly there are some gaps in my education, a huge one being in the topic of preRenaissance female historical figures. In my mind Jean d'Arc and Lady Godiva are lumped together.
So I went to Wikipedia to get the Lady Godiva story straightened out. Jean or Joan will have to wait for another time.
Here goes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Godiva

Baldur

Reading this forced me to remember that the story did indeed happen to revolve around taxes.
The curious aside here is about Peeping Tom.
He got struck blind or outright killed in the sanitized later retelling of the tale. This version involved people staying indoors and respectfully not looking as Godiva trotted by.
It seems unlikely that Tom was the only one peeping. One would think Coventry would suddenly have a large blind population.

Baldur

Which leads us to today's very brief musical moment.
Here is the theme song from 'Maude' by Dave Grusin and Andrew Bergman:

Lady Godiva was a freedom rider
She didnt' care if the whole world looked.
Joan of Arc with the Lord to guide her
She was a sister who really cooked.

Isadora was the first bra burner
And you're glad she showed up. (Oh yeah)
And when the country was falling apart
Betsy Ross got it all sewed up.

And then there's Maude.
And then there's Maude.
And then there's Maude.
And then there's Maude.
And then there's Maude.
And then there's Maude.
And then there's

That old compromisin', enterprisin', anything but tranquilizing,
Right on Maude.

Baldur

My recollections of 'Maude' disagree with these lyrics. The character played by Bea Arthur was certainly never compromising.

Baldur

'The Barber of Seville' premieres in Rome(1816)
An earthquake destroys Concepcion, Chile (1835)
New York's 'Metropolitan Museum of Art' opens (1872)
'Swan Lake' premieres in Moscow (1877)
Frederick Douglass dies (1895)
Ansel Adams is born (1902)
Gale Gordon is born (1906)
J. Geils is born (1946)
The Unabomber strikes a computer store in Salt Lake City (1987)
Rihanna is born (1988)
Gene Siskel dies (1999)
Curt Gowdy dies (2006)

Happy Feast Day of Wulfric of Haselbury
'The Station Club' fire in RI kills 100 and injures 200 more (2003)

Baldur

Mikhail I becomes the first Tsar of the Romanov dynasty (1613)
Rebecca Nurse is executed as a witch in Salem, MA (1621)
Tsar Peter III dies (1728)
The first steam locomotive in the world begins operation in Wales (1804)
The first sewing machine is patented in the USofA (1842)
New Haven, CT publishes the first telephone directory (1878)
Andres Segovia is born (1893)
Anais Nin is born (1903)
W.H. Auden is born (1907)
Nina Simone is born (1933)
Waldo Waterman's Arrowbile, the first flying car flies (1937)
The Polaroid Land Camera (the 1st instant camera) is demonstrated (1947)
The Peace Symbol is created (1958)
Malcolm X is assasinated (1965)
Tim Horton dies (1974)

Dragon

Don't what made me think of this song but The Arrogant Worms are always enjoyable so I thought I'd post it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpycgIlhJXs