Sex, drugs and HIV.

I recently read the Wisdom of Whores.
If you want to, you could consider HIV a politically transmitted disease.
It's not original, Georgie Monbiot got there in his article. I think it has a great deal of merit.

2 asides to everything.

Crossword clues that have tickled my fancy in the last couple of weeks.
1. The sound of the pen with nothing that is inside it (4) - OINK
2. Little birds here should be feature of wedding - Euan Blair's? (10) HATCHERIES

My own appearance in Araucaria's 24,761 at 5 across I take to be a chance matter.
Scotsman' s far away river for all in 21 letters (6).
21 down, since you ask, is
Scottish queen - imprisoned queen indeed! (5)

It's Official!

Dave doesn't like TWATS.
Amen sister! Amen!

A slip up or a new bit of spin. I would say it was a Chinaman if that was still allowed!

Never Mind the Quantity

Even at today's paperback prices, say 10 quid a throw, Mrs Brown has, according to the BBC report, had access to a library worth a quarter of a million sovs in the course of her reading life.
This bounty has, of course, been shared with her community. I would suspect the cost spread between the worthy council tax payers of Dumfries and Galloway is pennies.

Library staff said they were amazed by the achievement, particularly since Mrs Brown has never had an overdue fine.
The Dumfries and Galloway pensioner first became a member at Castle Douglas library and has particularly fond memories of the staff there.
....
Staff at the library described Mrs Brown as a "remarkable lady" and said they looked forward to her weekly visits.

It's not the quantity it is the quality of life that has been available to Mrs Brown as the result of a little cooperation.

I don't suppose the Library Police of this part of Southern Scotland have broken into her home to repossess the copy of 1984 which she was reading. Nice one Amazon; caught on the hop by John Naughton at Memex1.1 amongst others!

Interesting times for readers of books, libraries, writers, publishers, makers of gizmoes etc!

My grills are in their prime!

So; a certain amount of embarrassment when I popped into the local Library to retrieve this order.
The Wisdom of Whores by Elizabeth Pisani.

I like her style!

Way beyond the blue.

I have been reading Notes from Walnut Tree Farm compiled after Roger Deakin's death from 45 lined exercise books of his jottings. I had enjoyed Waterlog and Wildwood so much I thought I ought to give it a go. I am greatly enjoying it. Your man Deakin had a rare eye for detail, to wit; page 8 ......

good hills are hard to find in most of Suffolk.

Amen brother, amen! Doesn't it also have some awesome skies?


I ventured out today, having no demands upon my person, to Mellis; Deakin's stomping ground. I tramped from the common, via Cowpasture Lane, to Thornham Parva Church where I sat down and ate my lunch of pork pie and an apple. I nearly wept with the joy of it for the pig must have been deeply christian, the sun shone and if ever a church could be said to be easy on the eye, St Mary's is such. It has the scale of humanity, a small, squat, tower with a pyramidal thatch. The whole edifice has the air of shelter and support. It does not set out to impress or oppress you!


We had the good fortune to explore the Tardis like interior when herself was invited to a poetry reading by Oliver Bernard and music from a group of young(ish) women in an a cappella ensemble - Way Beyond the Blue. They were good and the sound they produced let alone their feminine charms was enough to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window! I was recalling this when I heard a green woodpecker fly off into the woods with its characteristic mocking laugh. So I upped stumps and headed back to Mellis.
A pint of Adnams at the Railway Tavern calmed me down and I returned to the pueblo much restored.

The price of cat litter

Thanks to Open Democracy for this story about Sahkalin, the people, the bears, and the increase in the price of cat litter because of the crisis (33% overnight since you ask).

I must admit I haven't checked the weather but I guess it is business as usual...

a powerful cyclone with abundant snowfall has hit Sakhalin

Many thanks to Ksenya Semenova.

Bankers don't you just love 'em

I rest my, brief, case.

His bank was merged/absorbed into Barclays; and
you do remember what they have been up to since they did that little trick with apartheid.
Here it is.......... link.

Ships Ahoy!

And so a wet Friday evening in the seething metropolis of Bury St Edmunds to see Quadriga.
Live music again, maybe not so popular with the locals as less than 40 of us turned up and we looked like a bad comb over (barcodo) in an auditorium that can hold nearly ten times that number. But I enjoyed it and the new arrangements of old favourites.

It is very hard though to get Fairport's Saucy Sailor out of my brain to make a reasonable comparison. You can do that here and here if you want, or I can go on about Seaman Stains and young Master Bates, the finest hands on the Spanish Main!

OK. I'll stop now.

Usefully Large Sums

I'm just coming to the end of(Capitalism as we know it Jim) Fools Gold by Gillian Tett
and I have started reading Portfolios of the Poor (PoP) (See link to first chapter for pdf ) my interest being sparked by a certain enlightened economist.

I was struck by the comparison.
In Fools Gold -JP Morgans boys and girls developed a breed of innovative derivatives as exciting new instruments CDS, CDO etc to smooth the choppy seas of the global economy and, of course, turn a handsome mega buck in the process. These financial WMD were abused of course and not, according to the book, by JP.

The authors of PoP who carried out an analysis of the household economies in Banladesh, India and South Africa of some very poor people - $2 a day! They record and demonstate the portfolios of a mix of instuments these families use to survive and prosper (yes, it is shaming) They are boring old instuments, borrowing informally from family and friends at zero interest, moneylenders (convenient and flexibleup to a point Lord Copper), microfinance institutions and savings clubs that charge ( hard to credit!).

As well as 'fortress balance sheet' I think The Rock, Bare Stearns, Lehman Brass could have learnt a thing or two from Hamid and Khadeja. I know I could.

United and clueless

A reasonable defence can be made for listening to the video in this blog in addition to the fact that the performers are Canadian. Thanks for the link to Status Q up to a point! I have my own feelings about Country and Western Music as many of our regular readers will know.

United Airlines must be deeply pissed about the publicity, or perhaps not as there is no such thing as......

I did like the touch at the end, no guitars were harmed in the making of this video. Glad to hear it!

A stroll down memory lane, again

Twice in the last week I have been out walking with people from the pueblo. In each case one of the group has had a connection with the village where we have been ambling, strolling, dandering or bimbling. (Each to his or her own mode of progression.) It adds a dimension which not only provides information but also insight. The past may be another country but many amongst us are cartographers and geographers of rare quality! I recognise that my own map reading is not as it used to be.

I discovered a site, John Naughton yet again, which may prop up the old grey matter for a few years more - Wolfram Alpha - It is not a search engine, it's more a sort of encyclopedia with a calculator attached which is able to do the kind of thing that has become popular in the TV shows which have an Xs of Aliens and X files and government departments dedicated to killing off extra terestrials and good guys and gals. ( As opposed to the real life ones which connive and conspire to, allegedly, have people's finger nails pulled out!)

So to conclude, I used the website to check my day of birth, Thursday since you ask, and I must confess I had forgotten, but then, as a man with a great future behind him, I have far to go. Herself was born on a Friday, and is convinced that she is loving and giving, though she seems to remember being born on a Tuesday and full of grace! This after a few glasses led to the thought that we ought to organise a gay pride march in our village and prior to this send out a questionnaire to determine those who were born on the Sabbath day and as long as they were blithe and bonny we could invite them to join us in a gloriously pink progression!

Perhaps too much, too soon?

The Birds

Ok figure this one out.
Starvelings gather and they could be musical or menacing.