Relief from winter doldrums: 1. Tropical beaches

Having spent a considerable amount of time in the wet tropics "down under", the Phytophactor has a great affection for citizens of "Oz". So it irritates me to no end when an ugly American, referring to any USA citizen who engages in loud, arrogant, demeaning, thoughtless and ethnocentric behavior when abroad, demeans this fine country and its people, to wit, criticizing the attire, or lack thereof, of women in the tropics. On my first visit to Queensland's tropics, the plane landed at what amounted to a car port, and a sarong clad young woman appeared and draped a floral lei around my neck. Loved the place ever since. So what of this fine moral young Marine? Clearly he's a wanker.
Oh,yes, this story definitely needs a picture, and this one is sort of appropriate, one Peaches Geldof showing some minimalist tropical beach attire, an image from the UK's Daily Mail, who applied the unnecessary black out, an image sent in response to a blog the Phactor did some weeks ago on botanical tattoos.

Miss Peaches, a very botanical moniker, sports a stylized daisy chain being nibbled by a unicorn, a tattoo of little botanical value, although there was an age, decades ago, when the canvas would have been of some greater interest than the art, but certainly nothing offensive to my delicate sensibilities is evident. One does worry about such young women with such a name though who are these unfortunate pseudocelebrities due to the fame and fortune of their family, and my guess is that Peaches' intellectual development is sagging a bit behind.

See how that banishes winter for a few brief moments?