Naw-Rúz (Persian: نوروز, romanized: Nowruz) is the first day of the Baháʼí calendar year, and one of eleven holy days for adherents of the Baháʼí Faith. It occurs on the northern vernal equinox, on or near March 21, which is also the traditional Persian New Year

We lived in Alcobendas in the north of Madrid for a while. I was there during lockdown in 2020 and remember the local Persisn Restaurant and the local Persian  community celebrating ( I think) on 21 March .

Happy New Year to the Persian community wherever and whoever you are.

This is a rather sarcastic comment on retirement . Keep your nose clean all of your working life ( what an expression) and if you're still alive after all that grift and graft - enjoy (?) your retirement. I can see how us oldies become gradually irrelevant to society as we deteriorate. The world should turn itself upside down . Let you have everything when you're young and then take it all away at the end . I'm not sure that will ever win the grey vote.

This was an observation I first made when Trumpy was challenging the enquiry of January 6th when he challenged ( or perhaps he didn't ) the outcome of the US election.

I'm really really bad at this ...

I don't like mobile phones and now I have 3 !!! Don't ask .. The whole thing defeats me I seem to answer when its a waste of time and then miss all the important calls, or the codes coming through, or the text messages, the whats app notifications , the face time calls - it goes on and on ... So does the phone ringing . In fact the ring tone in the song makes me jumpy !

Tune from September 2023 - worth a re-visit : the new Ayatollah seems to be playing quite an effective game

The media is giving conflicting views on the strike on a school in Iran on the first day of the war. It does seem likely that we've lost some children,

The Israeli's are issuing warnings to evacuate areas in various parts of Iran prior to bombing raids. The warnings are issued on social media.

Iran is under an internet blackout.

Constantly - although we're only two weeks into this military operation - it must seem never ending to those on the receiving end.

When you're being hit so hard and in such a bullying fashion it must be very hard for those being bullied to back down and capitulate - these are proud people - whatever you think of their leaders.

Investigations continue according to the Secretary for War Pete Hegseth - but the tragedy of the girls school hit by a Tomahawk missile on day 1 of this conflict is hard to deny. We don't target civilians is not a very good defence - even looking at it generously.