BORING POSTCARDS

FOUR MORE FROM MIKEL UNTZILLA -- from a 'booklet ' of Brazilian Postcards; Thanks again Mikel!

Thanks Edvard. I've just got hold of a book called 'Brutal Bloc: Soviet era postcards from the eastern bloc' which has many good examples of propaganda postcards, with an emphasis on architecture. Regards, Val

IF YOU'RE A FRENCH SEAGULL YOU WILL PROBABLY FIND THIS POSTCARD INTERESTING, BUT IF YOU'RE NOT A FRENCH SEAGULL YOU PROBABLY WON'T FIND IT INTERESTING

(also Dutch bird lovers find French seagull postcards interesting. All seagull cards can be sent to me)

Heleen...itmay go in my Boring Postcard Exhibition in November. Then you can have it with pleasure. BUT remind me in December.

HOWEVER MUCH I PLAY AROUND WITH THIS POSTCARD

...it still comes out as a lot of whiteness with a few black dots.

It's a postcard of the pistes at Larche in the French Alps ("altitude between 1700 & 2000m")

BORING BEACH POSTCARDS FROM FRANCE -- THE FIRST FROM ILE ROUSSE, CORSICA; THE SECOND FROM CANCALE IN BRITTANY

STRANGE BORING POSTCARDS WITH VERY FEW PEOPLE ON THEM

1. L'Etang [lake] de Sassegnies, Berlaimont, France

2. Fugerei, Augsburg, Germany

3. Le pont sur la Sal, Le Bono, France

This shows Bono of U2 emerging from the river (bottom left). Or maybe it's Sonny Bono of Sonny and Cher. Get it? If so 'I got you babe'. If not, .....well never mind

A WEIRD LOCATION FOR A MUSEUM?

This is  'Le Musée' (altitude 1008m) at le Donon, Bas-Rhin, France. If this is the main path to the Museul, I bet they don't get many visitors and certainly no wheelchair or handicapped ones.

Maków Podhalański - 

The commune is situated in the Beskid Makowski and its southern part includes also a fragment of the Beskid Żywiecki. Particular villages are situated along the Skawa river and its tributaries. The railway line Cracow - Zakopane and the national road Wadowice - Nowy Sącz cross the area of the commune. There was an embroidery school in Maków from the end of the 19th century and the so-called Maków embroidery was and is widely known not only in Poland. Healthy, healing microclimate, whose properties were noticed already at the beginning of the last century. Postcard from 1976, Kolejowa street (Train street).

Maków Podhalański - Old Square. Postcard from 1976.

THREE POSTCARDS FROM JEAN-PHILIPPE GILLIOT. INTERESTING OR BORING? THE PANEL DECIDES....

J-P kindly sent me these Postcards and asked 'Are they Boring?' I put this question to the Executive Members Panel of the Group -- Do Ghi and Mr Boots, and this what they decided....

1. Steps in an old Village, Midi, Provence, France

Mr. Boots: this is very Boring. Don't post it.

Do Ghi: (no comment -- he took one look at it and went to sleep)

2. Street Scene,  St-Guilheim-le-Désert, Languedoc, France

Mr. Boots: OK, that one is Boring

Do Ghi: but don't post it

3;'Quiteness', Provence, France

Mr Boots: this one is interesting. Why is the cat basket open, And why is there a cat on the window-sill?

Do Ghi: no it's not interesting at all. Nor is it Boring. You are obsessed with cats!

Mr Boots: what do you expect? I am a cat!

And so J-P, as there was no agreement as to whether these Postcards are Boring or not, it is with extreme regret that I must tell you that they cannot  be posted here. But do, pkease, send some more for considertaion at the next meeting of the Executive Members Panel

Lublin - large city in south-eastern Poland - university district. On the photos: intercollegiate library, academic health centre, hotel for scientists, building of the institute of chemistry, academic sports centre. The buildings were constructed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Postcard sent in 1980.

YOUR BORING POSTCARDS WEEKEND QUIZ!! WHAT ARE THESE BORING POSTCARDS OF?

Answers below

Answers

1. Giant (French) water-lillies

2. A housing development near the French Alps (OK, I cheated, and turned it upside down)

3. Blocks of wood ready to be turned into paper at the French History of Paper Museum.

Did you get all 3 right?

Near Sigean, Val???

The Latour-Marliac - Jardin des Nenuphars is at Temple Lot in the Lot et Garonne department of south west France. 

They really are GIANT water lilies!

Lublin -  estate of buildings of the Lublin Housing Cooperative, postcard from 1966.

Lublin - Unicka street, estate of buildings of the Lublin Housing Cooperative. Postcard from 1966.

A MIXED BAG OF BORING FRENCH POSTCARDS

1.  An old fountain in the South of France

2. Forge and/or shed

3. Crusades era church,Auvergne

In that location, I bet they didn't get many worshippers.

4. Communal washing trough

5. Mont Blanc, & some wild flowers

BORING POSTCARDS WITH PEOPLE DOING BORING THINGS?

1. Four aliens with.... a bomb?

2. Young Novices, Thailand

3. Lots of people on stilts in France looking at lots of sheep

1.  Four aliens in orange suits practicing Color Theory have correctly begun attaching themselves to a blue drum.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN! PLATINUM ANNIVERSARY BORING POSTCARDS FROM BUCKINGHAM PALACE AND LONDON

1. The Handing Over the Keys Ceremony at the Tower of london

A strange British custom -- raising your top hat when you hand over some keys

2. The Tower Guard at the Tower of London

These are Coldstream Guards, one of the 5 Regiments guarding the Tower. (You can tell that they are Coldstream Guards because the buttons on their tunics are grouped in twos; Every True Brit knows this sort of military trivia)

3. Changing of the Guard at the Tower of London

These are Scots Guards, another of the 5 Regiments guarding the Tower. (You can tell that they are Scots Guards because it says so on the back of the Postcard.)

4. The Queen's Guard Parade (outside Buckingham Palace)

How can you tell when the Queen is in Buck Pal? Because the Royal Flag flies on top of it; (When she is not there a McDonalds' Golden Arch replaces it)

5. Yeoman Warden at the Tower of London

These Wardens are more commonly known as' Beefeaters'. I don't think there are equivalent groups of vegaetarian or vegan Warders.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!

Koszalin - one of the biggest cities in the northern part of Poland, situated near the Baltic Sea coast. Photo shows the building of the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party, postcard from 1964.

Thanks Raphael. Every Sunday I go to a flea market hoping to find some East European Boring Postcards like your ones from Koszalin and Lublin, but I  haven't found any so far. I'm going to Holland next month and know of a postcard collector/dealer there who may have some. Regards, Val

THREE MORE FROM MIKEL UNTZILLA: THANKS MIKEL!

1. Mexican Wolf

This looks like the Alsation dog that lives nearbye that is neither Mexican nor a wolf -- just bad-tempered

2. Lanzarote

It's supposed to be a Postcard of Lanzarote, but all I can see is a boat in the foreground, a rising or setting sun in the background...but where is the island of Lanzarote? In it's absence, this could be a Postcard of almost anywhere

3. Langeats, France.'Le Chateau' - Salle des Gardes'

Hèlas, there are no Gardes as they have all gone looking for Lanzarote

TWO SOMEWHAT BIZARRE BORING POSTCARDS

1. Rock with hole and LOTS of seagulls (the white flecks), Cote d'Amour, France

2. A French pine forest Boring Postcard

Apart from the beaten-up bit of tree dominating the foreground, there ain't much pine forest here, just a lot of scrubland and some sea

POLITICS AS THEATER...OR THEATER AS POLITICS?

Two Boring Postcards of the Bundeshaustadt Bonn, Germany. The first shows the Federal Parliament building (before the Parliament moved to the Reichstag building in Berlin). The second Postcard is of a theater on the same street.

I would have thought that one theater would have been enough, and the best show (drama, comedy, tragedy) what-have- you would have been in the Parliament.

Kalisz, postcard with view - "Osiedle 25- lecia PRL" (Estate of the 25th anniversary of the People's Republic of Poland) (such name was in use in Poland during the communist Russian regime). Postcard from late 70s of XX century.

"WHEN THERE ISN'T MUCH TO SHOW ON A BORING POSTCARD HIDE AWAY WHATEVER THERE IS INSIDE A BLACK 'FRAME' "

(Extract from 'How to Make a Boring Postcard Manual')

1; Route de des Tunnels, Les Gorges de Tarn, France

2. Chateau Gaillard (12th century), Les Andalys, France

THIS HAS TO BE ONE OF THE MOST BORING EVER POSTCARDS I HAVE COME ACROSS!

It's of a big sand dune -- la Dune du Pilat -- 9km/6miles from Arachon in the SW of France. It's 115meters high and the highest sand dune in Europe

Not as boring (look at those footsteps! The rich green forest! The crystal blue sea!) as these Dutch stamps which more or less look like this boring postcard...

THREE MORE FROM MIKEL, AND THREE MORE THANKYOUS

1. Entrance to Renaissance House, Paris

2. Hong Kong -- 'The Pearl of the Orient' -- at night

3. Lanzarote

IS THERE SOMETHING SLIGHTLY SINISTER IN THIS POSTCARD OF A CORSICAN PEASANT?

The man in the foreground with the pipe seems to be BBQ-ing some fish. It's the man in the background with the rifle that worries me. Who, or what, is he going to shoot?

Hide away in a black frame on a postcard from Methoni, Greece:

Boring? from Crete...

and what is he looking at?

FOUR BORING POSTCARDS THAT HAVE THINGS HIDDEN AWAY IN THEM BUT YOU HAVE TO LOOK VERY CLOSELY TO FIND THEM....

1. Starting with something simple....the Monastery of Mount Sinai St Catherine

Hidden away beneath the mountains is the Monastery 'viewed from the Stairway'. (Maybe St Catherine was the inspiration for Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven'?)

2. Prehistoric cave, Pech-Merle, Cabrerets, France

Hidden away are two prehistoric paintings of female bisons. Where are they? Look at the red dots top lef tand bottom center, and voilà!--  two prehistoric female bisons.

3. La Corniche d'Or, Var, France

Hidden away is something in the cave at the back. I don't know what it is. i thought it might be a cabin for bathers to change in. But it looks remakably like one of our local beaches' garbage collection stations;

4.'The Famous Point de Hoc and the American Monument', Caen, Calvados, France

Hidden away, is the Cleopatra Needle-type American Monument, top left. It overlooks the famous Omaha Beach.

3. LA CORNICE D'ORA, VAR, FRANCE --The right way up (sorry about that)...

Hidden away is something in the cave at the back. I don't know what it is. i thought it might be a cabin for bathers to change in. But it looks remakably like one of our local beaches' garbage collection stations;

SEEN ONE BORING MOUNTAIN POSTCARD, SEEN THEM ALL

1. Massif de l'Oisans, France (3 mountains pver 3000m, and a glacier)

2. French Alps

Blessed Days ever¡

Daniel: Mr Boots (below) asks, "Is this a Postcard?"

PS There is a Group for Cat Lovers where maybe your photo (if it's not a Postcard) belongs

Krosno - a town in south-eastern Poland, at the turn of the 20th century a centre of oil extraction. On the postcard the building of the oil miner's community centre. Postcard from the 1980s.

WATERY ONES

1. Chessman Isle, Vietnam2. 'Floriano', 'Deodoro' & 'Benjamin' Falls, Foz doIguaco, Brazil3. Perroquet fish4. Palambaggia, Porto Vecchio, Corsica5. And one from Katerina -- thank you! --Chania, Crete, Greece

THIS MUST BE ONE OF THE MOST BORING EVER POSTCARDS I HAVE COME ACROSS! WHAT IS IT?

It's a Welwitschia mirabilis plant from the Namibian desert. These plants can be over 5,000 years old, and are reputedly the oldest living things on earth.

'It is out of the question the most wonderful plant ever brought to this country, and one of the ugliest.' This was the response of the Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, in 1863 when presented with a Welwitschia plant.

05.07.22 Dare Mister Valentine Mark Herman, ....It's all sort of "hit & miss" educational experience  but things like the Welwitschia mirabilis plant always turn out to be an ironic  fascinating treat for a "Boring Postcard". Thanks for sharing. SinCelery, richard c. 

Dobre Miasto (formerly also Dobremiasto, German: Guttstadt) - a service and industrial centre in the Olsztyn Lake District on the Łyna River, approximately 25 km north of Olsztyn. One of the towns of the Olsztyn agglomeration. The postcard, sent in 1975, shows Freedom Square, the main square of the town.

Deary Monsieur Canard,

The Welwitschia postcard was sent from Swaziland on 1é August 1986 to:

M. et Mme CANARD,

12 Ave de Lido,

11370 Leucate Plage,

France

If 'your' Canards are still there now, we are almost neighbours!

INTRODUCING....THE SCHLITTEUR

A schlitteur is a man who transports wood on a schlitte which is a kind of sledge. This schlitte seems to move over logs on the ground.

Why is our Mr Schlitteur looking so misrerable? Because he is tired of waiting for it to snow in the Vosges, France, so he can schlitte more easily? Becaue he is tired of schlitting? Because....?

Any which way it makes for a Boring Postcard.

A BORED TUNISIAN CAMEL (that is neiher a duck nor a canard)

This was also sent to the CANARD family.

Tell us more about your relatives, please, M. Richard!

06.07.22 Dare Mister Valentine Mark Herman, ...such a bizarre circumstantial  oddity.   But no relation---my background is English (New England  & even the  Salem Witch Trials --both sides if the issue---it of course, was all about "property") & on the other side: Nawf Karolinah tobacco farmers near Winston-Salem ( i.e. "Camel" cigarettes).

SUNDAY MORNING's THEME: RELIGIOUS BORING POSTCARDS

1. Qumran, Holy Land

This is a 'Cistern dating back to the the 8th centuryBC. The priceless Biblical manuscripts the DeadSea Scrolls were found in a nearby cave'

2. 'The Hand of God', Rodin Museum, Paris, France

3. Priscilla's Catacombe 1, Rome, Italy

4. Priscilla's Catacombe 2, Rome, Italy