Posh Toffs

So Ian Jack had this article in the Gauniad today, whinging on about the Toffs, and the schools, and Eaton. God, you think he could find something better to do!

He accuses Sir George Young of going to Eaton. Na na Na na na; is what I say.

I saw the Right on Bart earlier in the week, on the telle and I thought to myself, yes, this is tomorrow's man. God he could have your goolies, your liver and your lights off you before you even noticed the difference, and you would say thank you. Lovely chap! Such silky elegance in the face of Paxoid or some other dull, grey Grammar School Slouch. Such charm, such understated wit!

I don't know what his Mare and Pare paid for the sod to be educated at Eton but worth every sov! Today, to educate the old duckling between the ages of 11 and 18 would only set you back about 200k sovs without allowing for the inflation, worth every penny!

Da Liddel Guy

Not to demean old Simon Singh, his height, or even to suggest that he is any age at all, compared to myself, a spring chicken I'm sure. However, if there are any of you out there, double figures at the last count, and you have not already done so please sign the petition at the Libel Reform Campaign site. Go on, go on, go on!

There that didn't hurt did it and those very brave souls who risk their time, sanity and home to hold up some semblance of rationality in this crazy world deserve a wee bit of support.

Sermon over. Now phwat was I saying about that nice Mr Murdoch.

To think it could be so!

Hmm!
Another cracker from Susan McCarthy

And a nice flower

for Easter.

Life is never simple!

So Memex has a nice post. Yes you would want Myriad Genetics to have its socks rot on their dainty corporate feet, even as we speak. So hats off to the lads and lassies at the ACLU for digging in on this one. I have had differences of opinion with them on some things, including the decision about Skokie Illinois.

That is the nature of democracy, of course.

Talking about life, DNA and all that business. No further on with the synthesis of the chemicals or even precursor chemicals for life? Come on there sharpen up. Forget about the old Large Hardon Colander. Bugger the Higgs Boson! We all want to know where life comes from, so to speak.

Up to a Point Lord Co-oper

Aaaahhh!
The sound of a civil society; peace, harmony, and cooperation.
Yes Geoff, they are all jumping on the wagon with the non-hierarchical music collective on the back. Geoff Mulgan blogs in the Grauniad about the recent change in attitudes across the political spectrum towards social enterprise and the publication by the Carnegie UK Trust of a Report, Making Good Society, into the future of civil society. I'm sure I'll have some thoughts when I've read it but (that little word, three letters, and it gets me into so much trouble) I have some thoughts of my own.

It's good to see Dirty Dave and Fuzzy Osborne launching themselves at the back of the collective bandwagon. Welcome aboard. The Coop, that bastion of, well, the Coop, has opened the silos, a little, and there has been some movement. Not perhaps as much a we would like or with the self awareness that we would want, still mustn't grumble. According to my slightly bemused reading we are about to be overwhelmed by a Tsunami of Social Enterprise which will wipe away all ills and inequalities and heal our poor, broken, divided society. Er, perhaps not. I can see a lot of jobs for those aparatchicks, 'merchant bankers' and ere do wells who are thrown out on their ears in the not too distant socially enterprising future.

As a volunteer, I am often p'd off in some useless meeting. Notionally, it is meant to advance the causes near to my altruistic heart, making the world a better, more equal, and less violently hate filled place for me to live in. To fuel my inner devil I play count the cash. How much are people payed to attend this meeting for its duration, including travel, expenses, and organisation on costs. Oh give me the money Barney because I know a little mutual enterprise that creates jobs, gives people support in their endeavours to build their lives in the way that they want, provides homes that are affordable to rent and hangs on to community assets that would be given away to private enterprise at knockdown, fire sale, prices!

Naar, you don't want to do that, might make the world a better place for me to live in!

My Left Foot

Sad but inevitable.
Michael Foot was derided by many during his life and now
'he's dead, dead and never called me muver'
The bastards are saying he was the best thing since, consecrated, sliced bread!
Even Lady Dagenham had 'kind' words to say. I wonder who put them in her mouth?

When the wind blows the grass bends

Hang on to your hats this is going to be a wild ride.

Giordano Bruno, the man (no relation to G. Broon Esq.) his picture below, I am sorry about the cheap lighting effects.
He suffered a long drawn out trial and torture and death at the stake, which took place on 17 February 1600 in the Campo dei Fiori in Rome. (still no relation to G. Broon Esq.) Alas; it was for, amongst other things, believing that the earth rotates about the sun in a manner of speaking, relatively. (Enough wriggle room there to keep the old Inquisition off my trail!)

So we have left all that kind of torture and human rights abuses behind us? Wrong!

Blair, Broon, Straw and the lot of them can equivocate till the cows come home; and they will. They have been accused of complicity (or stupidity) in the use of torture by that well know group of hate filled pinkos, the judiciary.

The point of my tale, if you still have your hats on, is contained in this report from Open Democracy by Roberta Bacic, concerning the abuses in Chile in the not too distant past and the almost unbelievable courage of those who spoke out against it. The importance of speaking truth to power and using such things as arpilleras.

The first requirement to fight injustice is to report it; otherwise we are accomplices.

God, I don’t know what I would do if I was threatened with all sorts of stuff to recant, give away secrets or just conform. I do make a point of sitting down during the national anthem on the few occasions when it is played. Well it’s never going to be my national anthem!

Here’s to the brave buggers who did a wee bit more!

The Toffs ATM

So then Lord Cashcough!

Dave's mum said that you don't have a domicile.
It's sad really because you seem to have so much money, give so much of it away and yet you don't have a home of your own. Charity begins at home, so they say.

I'm sure the Turnip Taliban hereabouts would be able to find a house for you. Many of them have more than one of their own!

When in Rome Frankie!

Occasionally life throws up contrasts.
In a street in Rome recently I noticed a shop selling smart dresses and such. Not the sort of thing that would catch my eye apart from the name. Pinko.


Directly opposite there is a plaque on the wall!

Sore Throats

Good morning!
Please turn to page 92?
I may have mentioned San Blas or St Blaise once or twice before in these lectures.
The devout among you will have noticed that Wednesday this week was the feast day of the holy man, himself.

He is the patron saint of sore throats plus a few other things. Well, after martyrdom you need some interests as, in the left footer's version of heaven, there are no virgins made available.
Your man St Blaise makes a bob or two responding to prayers concerning the throat. Was he an ENT specialist, I hear you ask? Well no, I think his main qualification for the job was the fact that he had his head cut off, and like King Louis XIV, it spoiled his constitution. However, it did give him a unique insight into maintaining health and integrity in the region between the head and shoulders!

He was, allegedly, Armenian but has a great following in the north of Spain, Campoo, where we lived for a while. I do not think the Campurrianos have weak throats but I do know there is a tradition the storks appear and start building their nests on San Blas. We have seen them and therefore it must be true.


If you don't believe me have a look! They are ungainly, ponderous, inefficient, build their nests out of the most unsuitable sticks in the most ridiculous places and look complete arses while they do it. You can't help feeling a little stab of joy when, eventually, you see the head of the young stork appear above the edge of the nest.



Thank you.
Next weeks lecture will be on the importance of the
South Waziristan Institute of Strategic Hermeneutics (SWISH) in the development of interfaith hegemony and security in the tribal areas.

Wee Boots

Amazing what you can find in a house after 50 years.

Genes

I listened to Start the Week with Andrew Marr this morning. His guests included Steve, my job is to make sex boring, Jones the geneticist. Steve covers the usual ground of how the popular and misconceived view of genes is that they are specific indicators of everything from being shy and retiring to a proclivity for genocide and mass murder. I may exaggerate, but not much.
"In fact", says Steve and in my minds eye I can see a devilish twinkle in his, "they have found the one that makes your ears stick out!" or words to that effect. To give him his due, a true professional, Andy the wing nut only hesitated a demi-semi-quaver before moving on!

Hard Times

One of the songs that popped up around the McGarrigles offerings on UTube was Hard Times, hard times indeed for their family.

I got to thinking about our times. We are about to have a general election (not the 6th of May, Shirley!!!). We think things are bad now, for many of us they are not. In the hard times to come, courtesy of the dreadful Dave and his mates, things will be bad. The little people, the underclass, the people who never saw employment in the Blair/Broon years, yes they are going to be screwed. They were screwed before and Dave, the caring, sharing, compassionate Dave, is happy to see them screwed again! However, the problems we face in the economy, the environment, in the fabric and security of our society, mean that many of us, significant numbers, will be screwed regardless.

Hard times; you ain't seen nothing yet!

Sad

Kate McGarrigle died this week. There is a lovely picture on the McGarrigle's website at the moment.
If that's not enough try this.

Makers and Hackers

I've been reading a bit of Sci Fi including Makers by Cory Doctorow.
Interesting little noodle. Imagine if you made a machine that was a 3D printer eventually the printer would be able to print a copy of itself!

It would, amongst other things, need to run on some pretty amazing gloop.

Then I saw this - Sugru.
It's not (just) that I am a sucker for Irish lasses with enthusiasm and the kind of accent that would make a straight archbishop kick a hole in a stained glass window but I do like the idea of making and mending. Hacking, I believe it is now called. I hope the gloop does not frighten the horses or give wee birds the vapours and cost an arm and a rain forest to produce.
Amen.

Another little cracker

God knows where I picked up the recommendation; glad I did and glad the Library wallahs delivered the reservation in double quick time.
Short and not very sweet, Peace by Richard Bausch. Maybe not your cup of tea; death, deceit and humanity on the slopes of Monte Casino, go on, go on, go on, have a cup!

The sins of the leaders

So Dave you have been caught interfering with the muesli again.

A rare phrase from Polly Toynbee in the Grauniad:-

Cameron is a serial abuser of social research.

As evidence M'lud she offers

In his recent Hugo Young lecture on poverty, Cameron badly misused the ground-breaking work of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in The Spirit Level. He acknowledged their incontrovertible proof that "the more unequal countries do worse according to every quality of life indicator", but in the next breath he ignored the very foundation of their work when he said: "That doesn't mean we should be fixated only by a mechanistic objective like reducing the Gini coefficient" – the measurement of the inequality that causes social dysfunction, crime, drugs, drink and all the social evils that put Britain near the bottom of the league for civility. But no one could be a Conservative and want to narrow the gap between top and bottom. Instead Cameron said he would seek to "focus on the gap between the bottom and the middle". Leaving the rich untouched is, of course, exactly what his inheritance tax plans do.

I rest my case and for god's sake man, take your hand out of the muesli jar!

Yes... we can!

So, then, Mr O'Bama.
Not much new under the sun.


I guess we are all as Canadian as possible under the circumstances!
There is a link here.

The Terrors of the Night

The Grauniad had a profile of Tony Judt.
This was presented on the same page as Night, an essay by him. In it he outlines his thoughts about the time when most of us fall into blissful sleep. He has a very different perspective of the night and the terrors large and small which he copes with; he suffers from a motor neurone disorder .

I was interested and intrigued and looked up an adaptation of a lecture given at New York University on October 19, 2009 which is to be found at this link from the New York Review of Books; Volume 56, Number 20 · December 17, 2009.
What Is Living and What Is Dead in Social Democracy?

The article, a plea not to abandon the benefits of the collective provision by government, concludes with the following:

A social democracy of fear is something to fight for. To abandon the labors of a century is to betray those who came before us as well as generations yet to come. It would be pleasing—but misleading—to report that social democracy, or something like it, represents the future that we would paint for ourselves in an ideal world. It does not even represent the ideal past. But among the options available to us in the present, it is better than anything else to hand. In Orwell's words, reflecting in Homage to Catalonia upon his recent experiences in revolutionary Barcelona:

There was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for.

I believe this to be no less true of whatever we can retrieve from the twentieth-century memory of social democracy.

I share the fear that we can so easily dismantle and forget the importance of the collective.
Nevertheless, I believe there are many of us that keep tapping away at the process of creating the commons and demonstrating its benefits.
Good Stuff!

New Year

A good new year to all our readers!
You know who you are and we know where you live.
Paz y amistad.

So what will the new year bring?
In part, what we want it to and what we are able to work to bring about.

You don't have to switch books on but putting up book shelves is a real bummer.

I know I haven't done my sums but it seems to me that the tree is a really smart, sustainable, carbon sequestration device. More bigger trees now! Preferably giant redwoods, they tend to be around for a while.

The defining sound for me, a non twitcher, for the year was presented in the Late Junction programme last night 30/12/09. It was the sound of:-
the Skylark, Oystercatcher and Dunlin, recorded June 2004 at Yell, Shetland Islands, by Alan Burbidge.

You may disagree. Indeed, you are entitled to, that being the nature of our society.
However, it is a great sound and the whole programme was such a joy. There is not much of that around these days.

The iBoot

So; the good Lady BP and I were discussing important matters over the smoked fish in parsley sauce. We both agree the best bit is when you get to mash up the last of the spuds in the parsley sauce! (Sorry Melissa I couldn't resist it)
In addition to the fact that you can download the podcast of Mr Broon's New Year message
- We're doomed I telt ye. We're all doomed!-
there was the possibility of a good legal punch up between Apple and Nokia with m'learned friends taking refreshers and lots of boodle or whatever!
So herself drops this bomb in with the last of the tatties.

Nokia started off making boots, you know; rubber boots!

BeJaysus, says I; yes, says herself. A quick Google seems to prove the point!
Well now that produces a whole new kettle of herring. (Come on Melissa, keep up, if you don't ring those roll mop out we'll be up to our nostrils in wet fish!)

Along with the wild associations that float through my brain is this idea of the iBoot.
Apple strikes back!

The Blair Rich Project

Groan! Only the Grauniad could come up with such a title. However, a nice little tale to illustrate how you can arrange your tax affairs relatively efficiently, legally of course, and still keep the greedy little people from grubbing through your finances like ferrets in a rabbit hutch.

Given that you may have overindulged recently I would recommend going back to Mr Murphy's analysis to give the old brain a run through. You know those mince pies, chocolates and port will be the death of you.

All irrelevant, of course, if you accept that certain tax documents are matters of public record and should be made available. Oh and while you are at it could we have a league table of who pays what. Thanks Peter, see you on the yacht later no doubt!

Spanish Kings 1

I have been thinking about our time in Spain.
We absorbed a lot, almost by osmosis.
One of the things we noticed was that they gave their kings delicious soubriquets.
So there have been 13 (or 14?) named Alfonso:-
Alfonso I el Católico
Alfonso II el Casto
Alfonso III el Magno
(Ooh,ooh Alfonso Froilaz el Jorobado)
Alfonso IV el Monje
Alfonso V el Noble
Alfonso VI el Bravo
Alfonso VII el Emperador
Alfonso VIII el Noble
Alfonso IX
Alfonso X el Sabio
Alfonso XI el Justiciero
Alfonso XII el Pacificador
Alfonso XIII

So 5 and 8 can slug it out to determine who is the most Noble, 9 and 13 were sufficiently strong or bland not to need a label (how unlike our own dear wing nut.)

My own favourite was 10:- Sabio, wise, got to be good and besides he liked a good tune.

As we plodded through the highways and byways of northern Spain we invented names for the Alfonsos,

So here we go -

Alfonso I el Católico - the eclectic
Alfonso II el Casto - the cunctator
Alfonso III el Magno - the ineluctable
(Ooh,ooh Alfonso Froilaz el Jorobado - the humpheback)
Alfonso IV el Monje - the thelonious
Alfonso V el Noble - the magnanimous
Alfonso VI el Bravo - the assassin
Alfonso VII el Emperador - the penguin
Alfonso VIII el Noble - the unoxidisable
Alfonso IX - the tailor
Alfonso X el Sabio - you done fine kid
Alfonso XI el Justiciero - the ealdorman
Alfonso XII el Pacificador - the dummy
Alfonso XIII - the infellicitous

Christmas

So; here is one to get your head round.
The tree has been decorated; herself takes delight in this and if you look hard you can see Linda the moose, and Gladys the penguin(who I insist is Linux!) All good stuff and if you combine it with 9 lessons and Carole's with a little bit of Fizz you could almost believe the world could be a better place.


Felices Fiestas!

Public Disservice

Roy Mayall purports to be a postie, a blogging postie, who has 'stirred the conscience of the nation'. I offer in evidence M'lud the following editorial from the Grauniad Newspaper.
Dear Granny Smith, reviewed in the link by Norman Crumb, is a slim volume drawn from the blog.

At this time of year when we ponder the real meaning of Christmas, obscene profit, we do well to think about the poor devils who accept that the job they do will never command 6 figure bonuses, that they have little or no say in how their work is organised or how it could be done better. They will be downsized, rationalised and used as expendable poor bloody infantry by individuals clawing their way up the greasy pole! But most of them render a valuable public service and manage to do it with a degree of civility or friendliness even that beggars belief!

Sermon over! If you know your postie, milkperson's etc name give them a token of your appreciation.

A slight misunderstanding about fish

I received an email recently from a well known Foodie website, from Melissa the Editor and Community Developer to be exact.
She had by all accounts been trawling the web (I know but I couldn't resit it!) for Arbroath Smokies. Smart girl, you would want a few of those. She came upon my recent post Arbroath Smokies, and wanted to offer me the opportunity to have embeddable widgets in my blog, possibly about my person too! I was promised that links from Melissa's site to my site would help increase my traffic and improve search engine optimisation (SEO). I'm up for a bit of optimisation. However, I live in a small Suffolk village to avoid traffic and if it is a euphemism for 'being regular' then I find a judicious balance of red wine and bioactive yoghurt takes care of my needs in that department. I suppose linking the smoked fishblog to the title of my blog, Buddhist Pizza, she had me down as a bit of a foodie. I may be and my profile offers substantial evidence to that effect.

I would respectfully suggest that was to miss the point of the blog and the blogging. So thanks but no thanks Melissa! Feel free to whack yourself around the chops with the above picture just to prove you are a person rather than a bot!

The cost of living.

Recently I listened to a short story by Lionel Shriver. Exchange Rates was an entry for the BBC National Short Story Competition. It didn't win but then winning isn't everything though(as Linus and Jonathon were wont) losing is nothing.

I know Lionel will forever have Kevin hanging round her neck but she is better than that.
I enjoyed Ordinary Decent Criminals many years ago and the above short story has convinced me she knows a thing or two about families.
Even if we do not admit it, we all see our parents in ourselves. The traits, the ticks and twitches cause a certain amount of discomfort. We recognise the results of shared genetic material, DNA busting out all over. There comes a point though, when you feel that for whatever reason, nature or nurture, your soul has been crimped and curled to a rough approximation of the folks. Not true? Maybe, but it can make you think!

Another thing, makes me think how fast the world is changing.
I was able to listen to all the short stories in my own time and at a speed that included making cups of tea, lashings of tea, and doing other things, courtesy of the iPlayer, downloads, and the generally benevolent wizardry of the Beeb, praise the Lord Reith!

It has made a huge contribution to the quality of my life.

Preparing for winter

The autumn had taught 'em


To hew the yew

A short break in the mountains 2

He had had no pain since yesterday. True, the night had been disturbed but he attributed that to the eating of a substantial quantity of mountain stew and more than his share of rough red wine. The mountaineers had booked a restaurant near the end of the walk. They had enjoyed the meal late in the afternoon. They had lingered in the restaurant and while he had not had a copa, a 'bowlful' of brandy or other spirit, he had gone on sipping the red wine. It was very pleasant to be part of a group relaxing and socialising in another language. The group had sung local songs in a chorus and individually, the women competing with the men in the strength of their voices and, he suspected, in the suggestiveness of the lyrics. The allusions were beyond his command of the language. It was the language of their bodies and eyes and the tone of their voices that convinced him of the acceptable ribaldry of the words. They had been called on to sing and together with the other teacher, an Irishman, had made a brave stab at 'Sweet Molly Malone'. The Irishman couldn't remember the word and she couldn't carry the tune and so he was the only one in there at the end. His light tenor voice a bit of an anticlimax. There was applause for their faltering efforts. It was kindly and undeserved.

That Sunday had been no different from many of the others they had spent in Spain. He had been a little tired, a little anxious about the pain in his chest the day before and as always annoyed by the few drivers on the small country roads all giving him a hard time because of the GB plates.

When he had started into the hairpin he had felt nothing. Then he had become aware that he was losing consciousness. That was when he said "shit". It was as if part of his brain was still awake and part had disengaged from the conscious world. The bit of his brain that was still out there knew it had to bring the car to rest. Why did he put the indicator on? The nearest car must have been twenty kilometres away. He put the car in neutral. Did he put the handbrake on? It was a narrow hairpin, he had to get the car as far off the road as possible. Did he know the hairpin was into the mountain? Would he have run the car off the road if the bend had been the other way?

She called his name, twice. He had started to go red in the face. Panic! What could she do? Was he still alive? Was he still breathing? She tried to raise his head and free his neck from obstructions from her position alongside him in the passenger seat. Still no response. She got out of the car and went round to the driver's door, opening it. She looked round for help. No cars, no people, no houses, there was nothing but the steep mountain road and the mist.

Her mind came back into focus, subconsciously tackling the mundane things first. She leaned over and put the handbrake on the car. She turned the engine off. Then she lifted his face calling his name. She struck his face, gently, and called his name again. He stirred, he was breathing, his head moved and his eyes flickered. How long had he been unconscious. It seemed like an age. It could have happened so fast. Her mind had no way to measure the the time from when she heard him swear to the point she was convinced he was breathing again.

He had slipped from consciousness. His brain was still active. He was aware he was dreaming but little else. The contents of the dream were beyond him. He was aware of a large lake to his left. The surface boiling and billowing, which was strange as there was no storm or bad weather in his dream. Somewhere in his brain he translated the lake as the sea of mist surrounding the car. That small rationality gave him some comfort. His awareness subsided and he relaxed with his dreams beside the lake. There was light over the lake, the sun looked as if it were rising. The fact that it was rising in the west disturbed him. She was calling his name. He was irritated, the sunrise was so beautiful and he would miss it. She called his name again and consciousness came flooding back almost painfully. Awareness rushed through him as the dreams that he would never remember ebbed away. His tongue was heavy but the words came out breaking like a wave.

"I do love you"

He rested confused as she questioned him. Was he in pain? Was he able to breath easily? Was he all right? The familiar words reassured him. In a few moments he was strong enough to get out of the driver's seat. Holding on to her and the car he moved round to the passenger side. His mind cleared, he became more aware of his body, he had lost control of his bladder. This troubled him more than realising that he had been unconscious. He drank some water and they decided to go back over the pass to the nearest houses to get help.

The houses they had passed on the way turned out to be farm buildings by the side of the road. There was no one around. They went on. He felt very weak but they agreed that they would get closer to help if they drove on. By the time they reached Cervera again he was still weak there was no pain, he was still conscious and alert. They decided to head for 'home'.

It exhausted him to get to the apartment on the second floor. He stripped off his clothes and had a hot shower to warm himself. She kept the bathroom door open as she made some camomile tea. Her ears were tuned to the noises in the bathroom for any sudden changes, any loud noises. He rested in a chair and drank the tea. About an hour after getting back to the flat he felt strong enough to go out.

The doctor in the emergency room at the small health centre checked him out. He was poked and prodded by the doctor and a nurse connected him up to various machines. The doctor asked questions in very simple Spanish as if he were dealing with a slightly backward child. He understood most of the questions and was able to explain the events. They had looked up the unfamiliar words in the dictionary before coming to the emergency room. Where he stumbled over the tense of a verb or forgot the technical term she supplied the correct Spanish, glad to be able to contribute in some way. The doctor was a mountaineer and made some comment about the factory group being "locos" or crazy. The doctor only seemed to be concerned about his blood pressure. Everything else was working, and as far as they could tell he had not had a stroke or a heart attack. His blood sugar was low but he had eaten very little at breakfast and nothing during the day.

He was given pills and eventually his blood pressure came down to something like normal. He was released and told to come back early in the week to have his blood pressure checked.

They went out into the cold night, the rain had stopped and the cloud cleared. There was a good moon and it cast its light into the valley that had become their home. They looked up to the horseshoe of mountains that surrounded them and offered protection. He felt very uncertain, very scared. He reached for her hand.

A short break in the mountains 1

That Sunday they stopped at noon in Cervera, parking in the square where the market was held during the week. They walked under the buildings that stood out on columns over the pavement. That feature was common in this part of Spain. It offered shelter from the sun in summer and the snow in winter.


It was December but there was no snow in the valleys. It would be another mild winter and in their town the snow would rarely fall more than thirty centimetres in a night. The storks would return by the feast of St Blas, in February, and start building their nests laboriously, twig by twig.

He wanted a coffee and she wanted to go to the toilet. He ordered a black coffee as he had slept very badly, normally he would have had it with milk but today he needed something stronger.
Yesterday they had been out walking with the mountaineers from the factory where she taught English. It had been a long day, walking for over six hours at heights of around fifteen hundred metres. The group had started off early in the morning when the temperature was below freezing. Dawn came up far off over the high plains of central Spain. The group paused almost in silence waiting for the sun. The day began with a few muttered expressions of appreciation and the inevitable wrangling about which far off landmark was silhouetted on the horizon against the dawn sky. Despite the warmth which the sunlight seemed to bring to the mountain there was a chill wind which cut through their clothing.


The pain began in his chest as soon as the ground started to rise steeply. It continued for an hour until they crested the ridge. He had noted a tightness before, never very bad and never for long. This time traveling fast in the cold early morning there was no chance to adjust his speed, slack off to the point where the pain disappeared. He told her that the pain was bad and they dropped to the back of the group. Once they had gained the ridge the pace eased and the pain leaked away, he followed the group with relief. They discussed it briefly. He said he must go to the doctor next week she said very little.

When she emerged from the gloom at the back of the cafe she perched on a stool and had a coffee with milk. they made the small talk they had become used to. Exiles in a foreign language, their words together the only easy communication. They talked about the day, the English preoccupation with the weather, and commented about the early morning trade in the bar. It was too early for any serious business, the people in the bar were fortifying themselves with a coffee or brandy after mass or before getting the bread for lunch. He settled up using the familiar phrase for this kind of transaction, watching the man behind the bar trying to place them. Out of season tourists, he would have known about them if they were local.

"Shall we go?"

They walked about the small town in the weak sunlight, moving from the the shaded pavements to the narrow streets outside the centre. Wherever they stopped on these trips there was always something to see, stone houses large and small, a family coat of arms carved on the house walls, buildings with functions known and unknown. In the smaller villages there were cobbled streets where old men and women walked, raised above the mud and animal muck on the platform soles of their wooden clogs. In the larger towns there was always "Todo por la patria" (all for the fatherland), the letters cut out above the Civil Guard building. Somewhere in their recent past this had been commuted to "Todo por la pasta" (all for the money), a slang expression, said with the rubbing together of the thumb and forefinger, a suitable sign of corruption. Spain had its fair share of corruption and other difficulties. The government was reaching the end of its spell in power and it had been tainted with more than the whiff of corruption and nepotism. The recent exposure of the bizarre lifestyle of the head of the Civil Guard, who was now on the run, gave it all the feel of a bad comic opera.

They had slipped into a genuine interest in the country as they had acquired their knowledge of the language and culture. they enjoyed living in Spain, in a small town. It was a great contrast to their previous life in London. At times they felt isolated and they knew they would never be part of the community. There was peace, though, and great beauty in the mountains.



They went back to the car. The weather was changing and they were heading for Piedrasluengas, a porto or pass. A detour took them up a valley to look at a possible walk to the source of the river Pisuerga, one of the rivers that flows south out of the mountains only to be gathered in by the Duero to irrigate the vines all the way into Portugal. The weather was closing in fast. they got back to the car glad there was an excuse to play tourists, driving about the area in the little red car with the GB plates.

By the time they had reached the puerto and the appointed stopping place the mist was swirling. The enjoyment of the countryside would have to be left to another day. Appreciation was confined to the steepness of the contours on the map and an image drawn from them of what the view might have been. It was getting late to consider lunch even by Spanish standards. It would be almost four o'clock before they reached Potes and they would have to spend some time parking and sniffing out the best value restaurant. They had sunk into the gloom of the late afternoon each contemplating the deteriorating weather and the prospect of missing their Sunday lunch, a meal which had become an institution for them, usually a small treat.

They were heading downhill. The road lost height quickly in a series of small hairpins, not very spectacular and no great effort to drive. One good turn followed by another. She felt the brakes go on for the corner, but there was no release to enable the car to drive through the turn. Instead the braks continued to bite. He put the indicator on and drew the car to a halt at the apex of the bend. Just before this he had said "shit". the car was at rest off the road, with the engine idling, out of gear. She thought it might be a puncture or something wrong with the car. It wasn't the car that had packed up. She turned to look at him and his head lolled on his chest.

Arbroath Smokies

It is strange how the fates conspire to bring about ideas in your correspondent's noodle.
I enjoy fish, smoked fish and other marine delicacies. I did so at the weekend to celebrate the birthday of herself. A good time was had by all!

I then started to watch 5 nights with Brenda, the troubled times of a small monarch! All good clean fun and, as an aficionado of the haddock, I marveled at the arrogance of it all, long since forgotten.

I was pulled up short by a reference to the Declaration of Arbroath, again long since forgotten.
Open Democracy had this from an article by Canon Kenyon Wright in the Our Kingdom section.

...Lord President Cooper, arguably the greatest Scots lawyer of the last century stated “the principle of the unlimited sovereignty of parliament is a distinctively English principle, which has no counterpart in Scots constitutional law”

That golden thread which runs through our history goes back even further – to the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320. Its stirring call to freedom is often quoted, but for me the most important part of it, which puts it so far ahead of its time, is the clear declaration that even the great Robert the Bruce is “King, not only by right of succession according to our laws and customs, but also with the due consent of us all” and goes on to warn him that should he betray that trust “we would instantly strive to expel him as our enemy and the betrayer of his own rights and ours, and we would choose another king to rule over us who would be equal to the task of our defence”

A Commissioner at the Kirk’s General Assembly in 1989 summed it up more succinctly – “They said to Robert, you might be the King, but ye dae as ye’re telt, or ye’re on the burroo”

I love that bit .... "dae as ye’re telt, or ye’re on the burroo"...

So in that bit of 'England' north of the border Brenda's writ runs only in so far as she daes as she is telt. Otherwise it's the burroo; or possibly a slap in the face with an Arbroath Smokie!

Buddhist Pizza Sovereign Funds

There has been a certain amount of rumour, innuendo and tittle tattle about the use of Buddhist Pizza Sovereign Funds (BPSF). I can confirm that the resources of BPSF have been used to assist enfeebled Central Banks and other financial institutions.
An entirely modest sum of up to 100 trillion dollars might have been used in this way but because of commercial confidentiality, our rigorous accounting principles and the fact that we have not gathered up the loose change from the back of the corporate sofa, as it were, the details are not to be made public at this time. We have sought approval from our auditors, Messrs Bent and Curle, to report these matters over an extended period of 50 years because of the adverse effects this disclosure could have on individual organisations and on the global financial system.

Q. Easing,
Chief Finance Officer, BPSF

B. Lind,
For Bent and Curle.

Benny and Rowan.

So Benny and Rowan finally got it together.

Benny:- Good to meet you Rowan.

Rowan:- Listen you nazi mudderfucker you are dead. No more nicey, nicey. Take youra bloodsoaked hands offa my people. They are good, god fearin folk, and dey dona want your papist crap!

Benny:- Rowan, remember Isiah, let us reason a little!

Rowan:- Look you creep. You wanna kill saucepans, you wanna make the world a better place go f**k yourself. I gorra tradition, I gorra principles, I gorra theology! Yeah, what you got punk?

Recipe

Julie and Julia

Greatly enjoyed. So much butter! So much joy of life!
Go see it and look up the you tube additions.

Someone asked me why would you want to bone a duck?
Because you could produce pate of duck en croute.
Perhaps.

It is fortunate I did not have to marry a republican and breed like a rabbit.

A late addition to the recipe question.

Arse covering fudge.
Sadly no recipe from M. Fort.
Grauniad Weekend 14/11/09

93

The celebration of the 93rd birthday of a family matriarch.
Fish in cream sauce, peas(frozen) and chips from the local; all as we believed the said matriarch
would want; but maybe not so. Of course the whole including cherry crumble and custard as a desert was supported by a very nice white wine.
Sadly, I'm sure if we had asked if she would like jelly and custard. The answer would be yes.
But we had fun, and cards from children and presents and lots of explosions of

Good gracious!

the most extreme expression I have heard my M(other) I(n) L(aw) - MIL come out with
I can get my head round a lot of things but not the idea that there might be a time or place or
condition I might not be able to get my head round things.
For me I think this is the most scary thing.

Anyway!
Gracias a la vida; again!

Rhetoric

John Naughton, as always, identifies an interesting potential use of a wordcloud at Memex 1.1
In connection to a major speech given by a D. Cameron.
He suggests that the list of words, of different sizes depending on frequency(?), might be:-

an interesting tool for tracking changes in rhetoric — and perhaps even policy.

Indeed so.

Here at the Buddhist Pizza Institutute for the Study of Rhetorical Diseases (BPISRD, Founded in 1969 by D. Lessing.) we have been using a similar device to diagnose rhetorical disease, its form and intensity.
Oh my! I must say the Subject D. Cameron has it bad! The size of the terms
government, political and power (0.9 each on the Lessing Scale)
compared to the terms
community, rage and whips (0.01 each on the Lessing Scale)
indicates a rhetoric pathologically out of balance.
It is always difficult to diagnose and prescribe at distance and of course he will have his own clinical rhetoricians to advise him but I would suggest a period of deep reflection and something light and refreshing to read, say Nietzsche. 'On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense' and 'The Will to Power' - should keep him bubbling along nicely!

The Great Escape

Herself spent some time, recently, interfacing with the NHS.
Two points worthy of note.
She did not mention, prior to admission, that the surgeon was a man of great charm, wit, sensitivity, openness and transparency, drop dead gorgeous boyish good looks; and one of those useful little bags that go over your shoulder and under your arm. (Not George Clooney but definitely Noah Wyle.)
Why should she!
So we go through the trials and tribulations. All is pronounced well, for the time being, and we are discharged.
Because of the shift change we are not discharged as quickly as we could be. Several hours later we are packing the bags, getting dressed, whistling the tune from the Great Escape, sotto voce, and ready to head for the door. A rude interruption ensues. Herself is accused of being an impostor who needs a bed for the night and a referral letter to Addenbrooke's.

Shite and onions!

I raise my voice to what I hope is a commanding but not intimidating level and affirm the name address, marital status, and inside leg measurements of herself and the fact that we are not now, nor have we ever been associated with Addenbrooke's. That is the prerogative of the woman in the other corner of the surgical bay and we wish her good luck. We, the few, the chosen few are heading for the door. It seems to work. Off we go down the escape route, sorry the corridor and I can't help breaking out into full whistle.

The Great Escape, a great movie, a great tune, just think of all the times you could whistle it to make a small point!

Gitanos!

It's interesting that Gypsy is a term of abuse; also to be avoided for reasons of political correctness...
and certainly something that readers of the Daily Mail would home in on.

However, some of us don't, necessarily, accept that.
I was taxed, recently, to come up with suggestions for music for a welcome event for Roma in the Northwest of our country. For souls who had come from 'godknowswhere'. Perhaps even Ulster

"Are youse Catholic Gypsys or Protestant Gypsys? Sure we mean no harm but we have to know!"

I thought about all the usual supects and came up with Taraf de Haidouks.

That will knock their pretty little Roma socks off; hmm....

When the CD was returned I was amused that one of the younger Roma kids pointed out a member of the band and well....
- you know the rest!

Anyway, all of which is a means of introducing...

Walking Wounded

Try the Gypsy Dance and tell me that you don't get it!

Why I love Saturday afternoons.

Why I love (some) Saturday afternoons

A liddle wine.
A very small chicken.
No Aubergines, not even a small one and....

Lucy, god bless her, at WOMEX 2009

Beeb, Radio 3 -
3pm 7 Nov. 2009
The programme on iPlayer won't be around for ever.
Get it while it's good and hot!

Long Song Genghis Come Wuji
Hanggai
Well what would you do if you were an out of work Chinese punk with no prospects.

Gilzene and the Blue Light Mento Band
Arr. Gilzene: Sweet Sweet Jamaica
Arr. Gilzene: Come back Liza

I tell you Liza may or may not come back. I have no knowledge of her or her plight other than the story carried in the sweet, sweet tones of the Mento Band.
Brought water to m'eye.

Lambert: La fille de la vigneron
Yves Lambert and the Bebert Orchestra
Late of the La Bottine Souriante.
Delivers quite a kick.

I'll have to go, I've got a chicken on the hob!

Times are hard!

Times are hard!
Yes, you heard me, times are hard.
Every man jack of us is feeling the pinch.
You could take the view that £140 a bottle, allegedly, is not worth getting out of bed for.
Or, you could play up; play the game; deal with the hand that the good lord has dealt you and get on with it!

We all have to make sacrifices.

Many thanks to Memex for the link.

Jigs

A difficult week in some ways but much heartened by the thought that in times past there was an ordinance to the effect that there should be :-

No lewd jigs at the end of plays

Dear god, lewd jigs, ah!
I'm very grateful to Lucie Skeaping who explored the often forgotten world of the Elizabethan stage jig -and put such thoughts into my mind.
The jig is, I am told, a popular form of bawdy musical comedy from the 16th and 17th century.
Amen, sisters.

Black and White

I have mentioned , in a previous post, the prodigious talent of Jane Bown
The Grauniad has an interactive site/tribute to her work set out by decade.
Either it has been a bit unstable today, or my Firefox is on the Fritz.
However, I look forward to exploring it in the future and I hope it is going to be around for some time!

Who are you?

Come on, jump to it, no snoozing at the back or there will be more difficult questions later.
Interesting Horizon last night. The Secret You:- BBC Two, 09:00pm Tuesday 20th October 2009.

Professor Marcus du Sautoy goes in search of answers to one of science's greatest mysteries: how do we know who we are?

Smart boy wanted and Sir Marcus de Saveloy of Hackney is one of the smarter sausages being a mathematician of some not inconsiderable talent and the ability to explain it all.

Well the answer seems to be that we normally (including chimps and orang-utans) become aware that we are individuals before the age of 2. We can recognise ourselves in the mirror and remove a sticker that has been placed on our face taking it directly from our face. Our brains appear to respond very specifically to a picture of a person in the same way that they respond to the name of that person in text!

Our brains light up with electrical activity when we are awake. They can be stimulated by magnetic fields producing electrical activity at a particular point and the whole brain starts behaving like a communications network, which of course it is, with billions of nodes able to get in on the act. When we are asleep The message is delivered but there is usually no one home! However, it appears to be possible to stimulate the brains of individuals in a vegetative state by suggesting they think about, say, playing tennis. The pattern produced appears to be the same as that in conscious volunteers asked to think about the same activity.

The experiment which seem to knock de Saveloy's very pretty little socks off was quite a simple one for this day and age. Your man was wired up and put in the brain scanning machine with the wherewithal to choose between right and left by pressing buttons. His brain was scanned before the choice and then the choice was made. The investigator claimed to be able to predict the choice, left or right, up to 6 seconds before de Saveloy consciously made it!

We may know who we are in one sense but am I the union between my, not insubstantial, corporeal self and the billions of networking neurons producing electro-chemical activity in my brain?

Save energy - recycle thoughts

A post to the effect that previously only Toffs (yes we are in the age of Toffs) could afford to buy books and now only Toffs can afford to read them. Nice one Quentin! But I might take issue with you over this one. Mrs Brown packed a few volumes in and I, a poor and lowly thing, have managed to squeeze a few tomes for nurture.
You may know already, but if you do not, ambulance persons use the term Tof. It may not be proper or correct, however, it identifies the condition where an older person falls over and sustains a fracture to the top of the femur. As an older person who recently sustained a fall in the sobriety of the early afternoon I was reassured, on a number of counts, I was not a Tof.

In addition!





So that is what Dave Mackay looks like.

One of the books you should read is:-
David J.C. MacKay. Sustainable Energy – without the hot air.
UIT Cambridge, 2008. ISBN 978-0-9544529-3-3.
Available free online from www.withouthotair.com.

So it won't cost you anything but the time! You can't afford not to!

Memento homo

So a day of memories.
The Royal Mail, of which much has been discussed, promptly delivered my middle class, middle aged pornographic purchasing mag. Which to be precise!

Sweet memories!

There on the 'Support your local dealer' literature was a picture of Steve, or Mr Hatt to you.
Dear god I have such fond memories. My first Salmon Trout, first sight of a red herring, fish smoked and plain, banter in the Saturday Queue, watching what Terry Kelly (or Tariq Ali)
was buying for the dinner party, finding a Gurnard, buying it, and seeing the look of appreciation in Steve's eyes .... If you are within 75 miles make a detour and just look in the window! You will be rewarded and much good will come to the fruit of your loins.

I had to travel to Thetford. I thought to compensate for this I would play Planxty. Doesn't everyone have a website now. I remember going to a show in the official Edinburgh Festival where they were the backing band. Cracking stuff. Problem was we were the only members of the audience clapping along to the tunes, stamping, and letting out whoops at the appropriate moments.

Strange that but it led me to think that the woman is dead now and no one thought to tell me, but why should they?

Once upon a time in the North.

So; here we are again, happy as can be, all good friends and jolly good company!
Up to a point Lord MacCopper.
Interesting set of articles from Open Democracy, Ooor Kingdom!

We see things very differently below Adrian's Wal, but we do so at our peril.
We do so especially if we are an English Toff about to govern a united kingdom (?) with a government of English Toffs.

Boots

The Post - Tough as Old Boots had me thinking.
One of our Ambling Group is a dedicated walker and clocks up hundreds of miles a year.
He usually gets through a pair after each long walk and, because he keeps careful records of his walking, he is able to link a mileage to each pair of boots. As much for a laugh as anything else he divides the cost of the boots by his mileage . I suspect he hovers around 10p a mile. Interesting! I've no idea what he does with the old boots but I guess they get put in the bin rather than the midden! The post mentions the fact that boots (along with cats) are sometimes found concealed within old houses.

We stayed in a B&B recently that had a child's shoe in the wall.

The Angel's Game

Recently acquired the above through the usual channels. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean!
I enjoyed it greatly, not as much as the 'Shadow of the Wind', but whatever!
I stumbled out of the community lunch, not drunk but with a good excuse. I noticed the Library Van, the one with the big 'Dish' on the roof, was parked outside.
Paranoia!
They know I am not going to return it tomorrow, when it is due, and when some poor borrower is expecting it to be returned.

I will pay my fine, gladly, so herself, who has had her nose stuck in it, can enjoy it!

Life has been a bit hard all round so...

Also got round to reading A Confederacy of Dunces.

Still Room?

We have been on holiday in the land of the Wal, Adrian's Wal.
We have also been plagued by notices which have caused us to stop and think deeply; not necessarily something you want to do while resting your brain on holiday.
This, for instance can not be true for all time and for all capacities.



Maybe the estate has a man who comes round at the appointed time and unscrews the notice putting up another bearing the legend...

That's enough now! No more shoving, you could not get another sardine in there sideways.

Other signs which caught our eye indicated Severe Dips.
What, pray, are these mordant mixtures ready to assail us on the roads?
Barbaric Barbecue,
Caustic Cream Cheese,
Grave Guacamole,
Harsh Hummus,
Tight-lipped Taramasalata,
Taxing Tzatziki.
We never found any of them. Perhaps they were the Hidden Dips which seemed to abound or not as the case may be!

Doors were often identified as Alarmed. I know I can be a sight but I would never, knowingly, frighten a lump of wood! Some doors were Alarmed at Night; poor things obviously scared of the dark!

The sign which gave us most concern advised Caution, Sheep!
I'm telling you we drove very carefully past those beasts, not wanting to provoke a savage attack on our tires or even having our windscreen wipers broken off!

We had a grand time. He built a lot of Wal old Adrian, and roads and ruins and had hypercosts.
Interesting to note even the Romans had dodgy builders and inflation.

Expenses Smexpenses!

At the start of my interweb journey I discovered I was able to read Carl Hiaasen in the Miami Herald. We had enjoyed his novellas for some time and now I could follow his day to day take on a very corrupt part of a very corrupt country. I revisited his column recently and realised that our politicians may be as morally corrupt as anything in the sunshine state but for sheer imagination, brio and off the wall excess you can't beat the guys and gals in this post.

From up in the Panhandle we learn that Rep. Ray Sansom of Destin ran up $173,000 on an American Express card issued to him by the state Republican Party.

Sansom was speaker of the House for about nine seconds until it was revealed that he'd taken a $110,000-a-year job with Northwest Florida State College, after steering $35 million in extra or accelerated public funding to that school...

... Meanwhile, down in old Key West, suspended Monroe County School Superintendent Randy Acevedo was being prosecuted in another case of dubiously extravagant fringe benefits.

Acevedo was accused of trying to cover up some of his wife's alleged ``misappropriations,'' including nearly $200,000 in tuitions and fees that were supposed to fund adult education programs...

...Records show that Monique Acevedo also racked up more than $95,000 on her school-issued credit card for items that she claimed were necessary for classes in cosmetology, GED and English as a Second Language.

These vital educational aids included bar stools, pink silk ties, a chandelier, a table saw, spear-gun attachments and a DVD box set of the popular HBO show, Six Feet Under.

See, that's where we go wrong. The spouse of a british politician would, say, hire a few videos from the local shop porno section. Flickering images, passing clouds, fleeting pleasure compared to a box set of Six Feet Under! Plus you get to rip Thomas Newman's catchy little tune to MP3.

By this shall all men know....

A very sad post, a sign of the times, shades of things to come. What the hell will they do with our libraries when they get round to cuts. I'm sorry I'll re-phrase that. When they review, reallocate and prioritise existing resources in new, exciting and transformational ways.

I'm old enough and wise enough to realise that there are priorities. For the want of money and humanity the right to live is being denied. However, a taste of the post and the arguement that bread alone is never enough...

Think of the millions of lifelong love-affairs with literacy sparked in the collections of those libraries.

Read the post and weep. I'm not sure I should thank John Naughton for the link, depressing.

Bird on a Wire

The end of my chairpersonship of the board of a small non-profit which I hope has done some good in the world. Feelings of relief that the boat was the right way up as I was piped overboard, also glad that it has a purpose and some resources to carry on its mission.
I was downloading some of my recent snaps and this one caught my imagination.

Bird on a wire.
The long tail.
The bottom line.
There's always one.
I'm sure they said 5th wire down 4th post from the windmill.

Never a Grauniad Sub when you want one.

Xwords

Just finished the Paul and sent it off in the fax;
believe the spoiler was 3 down.

As someone once said, oats are for horses and Scotspersons!

Could be wrong but we will see.

The dirty digger can drink his heart out

I am reliably informed by esteemed colleague Memex 1.1 that Flann O’Brien's Research Bureau had solved the problem of tinternet and journalism before it was even invented. Smart boy wanted as it were!

I do not remember the column or if I do a surfeit of Trink has done its work. However, I too believe that we are onto something here.

But why stop at journos, who are notoriously undiscerning when it comes to booze.

I think we could develop a niche market with Trink in the book trade all we need for the future is the electronic version.

Just think about it:-
Homage to Catalonia:- fumes of La Rioja or Penedes wafting from every page of the electronic Trink and to fund it, there, the offer of a lifetime, locked into your Kindle or Sony E-reader.
Buy your own vineyard!
Invest in the future of Tempranillio!

The House of Bernada Alba:-
Wafts of mothballs, and lavender.
However, cunningly, underneath these overtones the brazen, saline sensuality of Manzanilla, the bargainbasement enjoyment of Montilla-Moriles.

At a tangent:-
Once upon a long time ago in a far distant land, La Rioja, I remember standing around in a garage with a guy known to all but himself as Garbanzo. He proffered the potable result of his vinicultural endeavours out of large green plastic containers. Un be fucking lieve able. It was white, it came from La Rioja but it would never pass the test, it would never be certified but, Jesus, you could drink it till the cows came home.

Why I get up in the morning

A daily dose, seven days a week, from 6 am BST

Feel the coffee, smell the zeitgeist!

And now for those who do not tweet; Roland, ma man, give me some skin?

Latest offering:-

Just finished all 5 of POTUS's beach reads. Loved Tom Friedman's "Hot, Flat and Crowded", his take on Martha's Vineyard.

Foxy, very Foxy.

Quality and Symmetry

So herself claims that her Aunty Jenny won second prize in a competition for embroidery when her work was presented the wrong way round.

Sad, undoubtedly true, and a testament to the quality of the work of people who had better things to do and did them!

I did enjoy the visit to the undercrypt of the PoW.
There are some very good people in the world.
Happy birthday!
I hope you enjoyed the trip to Paris.

My thoughts go up

Three meetings to complete work, for the summer at least. I feel my steps light as a feather.
A bacon sarnie, last night's edition of the Wire, some cooking and a relaxing evening. Bliss.
My mobile vibrates just outside our local village 'Hub'. I pull over as no one rings me on the mobile. I am Johnny No Mates Mobile.

Heigh ho! Family emergency involving carers, ambulence persons district nurses and frantic phoning. I collect the survival kit and head for the hills. I joke later in the car that if I have my survival kit, an apple, a pork pie, a crossword and a book I can survive all but a direct nuclear hit.

Bookism!

I've just finished Rick Gekowski's - Tolkein's Gown. Most of the last three chapters I read under the shade of a tree in the vicinity of Wicken Fen. We spent the morning going round the main part of the Fen, which was a bit flat in terms of flora and fauna at this time of year. However, we did have clear sight of a Painted Lady.


After lunch I thought I would find a pleasant bolt hole under the tree and read, undisturbed!
Indeed, I did and enjoyed it. My companions returned with tales of watching kingfishers fish.
Maybe life is a mixture of joys experienced and joys to come!

I am convinced that Rick Gekowski is a real person, he trades in books, he has a catalogue,
he has pictures of himself on the web, etc, etc. What if he were a fiction of someone's imagination?

Retable

So; I thought it would be good to go back and take a picture at Thornham Parva church.
Even though as a lad I had been steeped in the trappings of holy mother church I was not conscious of the word retable until my late forties. A trip to Burgos and its churches produced more retables than you could shake a stick at. In fact they probably had retables in the bawdy houses but, of course, we didn't check. Anyway here is a poor snap of the one at Thornham, very famous.

In the church we were able to look on the Retable and ponder.

Making our way through the churchyard we stumbled across the last resting place of Sir Bas and Lady Joan Spence.

Being creatures of little sensitivity and lowly station we pitched up on the only bench in the churchyard amongst the departed and had our picnic. The heat of the day and the food caused some of our stout party to lie back and enjoy the sun. Those of us on the bench promised to cover with the vicar, if he appeared, and say that they were only getting in some pre-burial practice.

We had a good walk and if you are interested you could trace our steps here!

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.