Six Nations One Family!

It is that time of year again. Lady Buddhist Pizza suspends her normal, industrious, modest, sober and vegetarian way of life to spend the weekends glued to the TV watching large men with large thighs wrestling in mud and giving voice to opinions that bring a blush even to my coarsened cheeks! In addition to the Freudian implications of this exhibition, there is the delicate matter of nationalism. As we all know, there is no such thing as delicate nationalism. (There must be a collective noun or other description of such phenomena which are theoretically possible but are never likely to be observed in the wild; I have been told subtle geologist is another.)

Yesterday's fixture was fraught. England v Scotland! I cowered in the corner as the family ( Lady BP) favourite Scotland, went down to the old enemy England. I was then forced onto the defensive. Though I maintain I am a citizen of the world, an internationalist and I was born in Hope! Hope hospital in Salford; that makes me an imperialist oppressor.

Today was a little easier as the Irish team underwhelmed the Welsh. I think we were both inclined to support the green contenders. There was some havering over bulging cambrian thighs and neanderthal brows and my ready dismissal of the minor order of Celts but the outcome for the Irish was acceptable.

Two further points. A modest score!

It didn't happen in this game but I am sure I have heard in the past the commentator voice....

O'Gara, O'Driscoll, O'Connell, O'Callaghan...... O bugger he dropped it.

During the match we received a text from an interested member of the family which read

Touch, pause, engage, bolox!....

So the new arrangement has not found favour with us all.
Well , when the Argentinians take it up they may have something to challenge the Tango!

Amblers February 07

A pleasant afternoon walk along part of the Icknield Way Path. We seem to be making the effort to bimble along with the local Amblers and it repays us with local contact.When the route had been scouted we were assured the weather was pleasant, almost like spring. We have had a high pressure over us and the frosty night gave way to a cold misty day. Great excitement, Lady Buddhist Pizza took a dive as she tangled with a root on the path. No harm, thank goodness, but she will have some bruises tomorrow!

A Statement by Buddhist Pizza

I would like to make it absolutely clear that I have not now, nor at any time in the past, offered inducements, bribes, strong drink, sexual favours or the promise of preferment to anyone to vote for me, lend me money or make gifts, in cash or in kind, to me or my party. To remove any doubt whatsoever, my party, The Emergency Sherry Party, is so named out of respect for the restorative and health giving properties of manzanilla.

I have, despite many years of selfless public service, had to suffer the indignity of being besieged here in my family home of Browning Street on the great Suffolk Plain, by and army of 2 reporters and that woman from the local ‘tele’. They have camped, remorselessly, for the past 4 hours outside our Jackobethan mansion engaging in some of the worst excesses of gutter journalism since the death of the people’s princess. (May her fragrance always be with us?) They have shown myself and Lady BP no mercy despite my setting the hounds on them, reasoning with their editors, and explaining that I thought a K was something you gave to a broody mare, and a big P was one’s first requirement of the day or 4am if you’re getting on a bit and the old water works are playing up!

I have also made the same points perfectly clear to that snippy little copper, Inspector Bates, who came round asking about hard disks, poxy servers and bypass backup procedures. I was shocked and have certainly never used such language in front of Lady BP. I will have to have a word with the wise down at the lodge about that one.

This is not about the selling of honours, nor conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. It is about a certain person and his lardy lump of a wife trying to usurp power before their time! I will not be moved from my course and expect to be a force in the land for some days to come.

I wish you and your families the very best for tomorrow, the feast day of St Blaise, the patron of the combers of wool, those with sore throats and the day on which, traditionally, the storks come home to roost!

Notes for Editors

1. Browning Street is a carbon zero heritage home which has provided respite and hospitality to many over the years including the Kray brothers, Peter and Roman.

2. Buddhist Pizza is travelling with Lady BP to Semipalatinsk where he will address the influential Gurb Institute on themes of Africa, global warming, nuclear power and air guitar! The carbon footprint for the journey will be offset by a further power failure in Sedgefield.

What Global Warming?

So; if I paraphrase you Mr Monbiot what you are saying is that here in Tokyo we need to turn a few lights out?

Thanks to John Naughton, yet again, for a link to the photo

Corruption and Decay!

Article in FT Magazine 20/1/07 by Michela Wrong

John Githongo is reported to have discovered too much corruption in Kenya.

His responsibility in the administration of president Kibaki was to ensure that the alleged abuses and corruption under Moi, the previous president, were investigated and that the new government did not slide down the same path. I do not know enough to take a view about this and, given the position our own dear leader finds himself in, perhaps discretion is the way forward until Gordie starts turning up the promissory notes and aide memoire stuffed down the back of the sofas in No. 10. My delight in the piece was the story below.

Mr Githongo is now reported to be living modestly in lodgings in Oxford associated with a college as a result of leaving Kenya for the benefit of his health. When he arrived in 2005 it was suggested he was in need of support. John is a big man, as evidenced from his photo, and not likely to be intimidated but we all know what the bad boys are like. He was welcomed to the collegiate bosom and supported by the college porters who, he suggests, provided a ring of steel about his person.

The article goes on …

“Soon after arriving the head porter called to say a package had arrived.”

When asked if it was ticking he replied that:-

“I will immediately dispatch my most dispensable porter to give it a firm kick and find out sir.”

The porters, burly lads, possibly retired from the Oxford constabulary, had a degree of professionalism, dignity and respect for life which we take for granted. We should resolve to give the next can of worms we find a firm kick and find out what happens! Who knows who might support us?

There May Be No St David's Day Holiday

The count I recorded at the site below on the 24/1/07 @ 15:04 was 9061. This, as you may remember, is the petition that there should be no replacement for Trident. The graphic above indicates how the those dedicated to eliminating weapons of mass destruction enjoyed themselves over the Xmas period! Not quite the exponential growth I would have liked to see.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/trident/

Our little band of brothers and sisters against nasty weapons were being led by a petition to make St David's Day a public holiday - count at roughly the same time 9153.
So get to the petition and sign you beggars or there may be no national holidays for any of us, except possibly the ants! I wonder who their patron is?

We have to the 17 Feb. A few hundred thousand would be a nice poke in the eye for a retiring politician and his replacement!

Ambling

A mild winter afternoon bimbling along with the local amblers. Two hours of pleasant company and footpaths across the wide meseta of Mid-Suffolk. Less mud than predicted and the rain which threatened held off. Heading back, the sun broke through and the day, measured in weary steps, turned towards its end.

New Year 2007

A very good new year with friends who we love.
A chicken dish which would have annoyed Mr Bush and not too much over indulgence.
We made a trip to Welney and I was smitten. The above, obviously had a wild new year.
But the feeding at 3.30 and the floodlighting brought in birds, especially swans, by the hundreds.

There were more ducks arses after the feeding than I remember from dances in the 60s.


Incoming swans kept us transfixed.


It was difficult to capture the moment. The birds were so cool. They arrived in ones and twos; then sixes and nines, then the tens and twenties. After this they swam around with such sophistication and aplomb that they seemed to be having a little passeo or vuelta before a spectacular dinner or ball.

Enough.

A good new year to all our readers!
La vida es un haya.
Keep planting the seeds!

Between Xmas and New Year

So what's left in your fruit bowl? Ours has the hopes and aspirations of Xmas past. The bowl was given to A when she worked at the coal face of the NHS. A family were so pleased with one of the GPs that they gave him a family heirloom. The fruit bowl. Said GP did not like same. So the bowl was passed on to A, peacemaker and disposer of bodies!

It sits in pride of place on kitchen table. At the moment it has, post Xmas, 4 bananas, two apples, a papaya and two avocados. A's Mum, a very sweet lady at 90 up but with some short term memory problems, kept asking what the avocados were. Various explanations and gentle promptings produced the same round of questions as to what on earth these things were. Good gracious!

Brendan Barber of the TUC has just been complaining about the enormous buckets of boodle that the captains of industry pay themselves. Nice one Brendan!

However, what about the the grubby little deals that go on all the time, Xmas boxes to the milk persons and newspaper delivery operatives; money paid over in cash to window cleaners. A nod and a wink, a heartfelt thanks, and a handful of cash to the person who sorts out car, central heating, roof, or drains in extremis. I'm sure A, the bounder, never entered the fruit bowl in the register of employees interests or gifts. Only joking! Humbuggery! Great fun, remember you heard it here first.

I can remember one of the few times I successfully pulled the leg of our DoH (he was a saint) when I worked in a London borough as his assistant. We had both taken time out after 6pm to visit the opening of some sheltered housing we had paid for. The developer had provided some cakes and biscuits and fizzy white wine. I drove the DoH so he decided to have a glass. I looked at the bottle and decided that a glass was probably worth 4GBPs; well over the casual hospitality limit in local government terms at the time! I kept a straight face and said that I expected to see it entered in the hospitality book the next day. I never bothered to look.

The other time I brought a belated smile to his lips, poor sod, was when we passed a poster announcing a meeting to be addressed by Tony Cliff. I pointed it out to DoH who had a whistfull look in his eye, being a bit of a firebrand in his yoof. As he perked up I couldn't resist the - I've got all his records line.

Anyway, the domestic godless tip for Avocados. Use horseradish sauce instead of mustard!

Nuestra Bandera de Paz y Amistad

The kitchen has been full of the smell of celery and parsley (perejil- our flag of peace and friendship; with acknowledgment to Karlos)
We are so fortunate. I have so much! So many books as gifts. A and I will need a reading week; but more of that later! A's mum has been telling us the story of her early years in between our Cava and prep for dinner!

Felices fiestas a todo!

One Mouse Per Child

There are some really interesting developments at the moment in the area of microfinance, IT software and equipment.

The Cambridge Ndiyo project ndiyo.org has been working with partners in Bangladesh and I imagine a whole raft of applications will come out of that.One that seems to be working is the putative 'Grameem Internet' built on the back of the GrameenPhone.

Having heard, ad nauseam, about one laptop per child, I much prefer the more realistic and co-operative idea of

one-mouse-per-child

Anyway! I found the story below interesting and a small glow for me at the end of the year if mince pies and mulled wine are not enough; they may not be.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/11/prweb477752.htm

My thanks to John Naughton and the Ndiyo blog for setting me off on this one!

The Green Isle of the Great Deep

An article by George Monbiot this week points out the cruelty and barbarity which we seem to be capable of. I was reminded of the discussion at the beginning of The Green Isle of the Great Deep published, I think, in 1944 by Neil M Gunn. Such horrors were very close then and this was Gunn's response to them. A pdf by his nephew sets this in some context and can be downloaded from www.scotiareview.org/files/downloads/DairmidGunn.pdf.

I read this book as a result of a strange encounter, in the 1970's, in the middle of Sandwood Bay with a man, who claimed to be Sandy McRory and carried a large quantity of home brew in a dried milk tin. We were staying in the bothy, Sandwood Cottage, which had a roof then. The bay provided lots of driftwood and Sandy became a fixture at our evening fires in the bothy and he generously accepted our hospitality, fags and whisky. However, I am grateful to him for the introduction and went on to read and enjoy The Silver Darlings by Gunn.

I hope that humane and active protest against such evils continues. We must not let these beggars get away with it.

On a Lighter Note:- Hairy Pumpkins!

A was gardening the other day. This activity, for those that are not rural or conversant, involves putting nose 6 inches away from soil and doing things. Out of the corner of her ear and through a hedge much depleted in its folliage by the late onset of autumn came a curious sight with following dialogue.

Short sturdy man, hat firmly fixed on head, was scuttling his way along the path that joins church and mill in our pueblo. He was followed by a woman without hat but with stick, hurpelling along, trying to keep up. Man says words to the effect of - Come on you hairy pumpkin; try and keep up!

A was shocked, raised nose from soil, and stretching to her full height was about to view the bounder in full sight, possibly even clear her throat. The patriarchal caravanserai passed and at that point A noticed both figures had hairy little pumpkins in tow. Obviously the fierce, proud and faithful West Suffolk Sugar Beet Hound; not a breed recognised by the Kennel Club but equally not one to be triffelled with. It is a small part of the story of how the Hun was finally defeated. I can say no more.

The image kept us in fits.

Memento homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris

So, then, General Pinochle! Keith's mum said that you have finally bitten the dust!
A came into my room yesterday evening with the news. It is hard to celebrate the death of another human being even when he had such evil to his name. Perhaps it is the fact that I am only too concious existence is but a febrile heartbeat away from oblivion. However, I did go into the kitchen and finding a glass of Spanish red unaccountably in my hand, looked A straight in the eye and without saying anything clinked glasses! It was a small tribute to those who suffered, to those that survived and good old Baltazar who made his life legally and justifiably hell(ish) for a few months.

Gracias a la vida que me he dado tanto.

Politics 2.0

I was interested in this on line petition. An attempt to join the race after the favourite has romped home? I know the interweb and the e-waves are a great way to do nothing! However, we live in hope after having lived in Hackney for over 20 years. You have until Feb. 2007 to make your voices heard and of course the real purpose is to allow the usual suspects to collect your emails and addresses; as if they didn't have them already.

I am also interested in the growth of the number of e-signatures and may, in between mince pies and sherry, try to plot the plot, as it were, over the holiday period.

So click on the link and drive those figures, exponentially!

Enough!

Where the bad boys hang.

Several visits to the car doctors saw me hanging around in town. Reading the paper, having a coffee, lunch, shopping, doing what visitors to a market town do. Some people might regard it as killing time. I've found that it is speed which kills and I prefer life in the slow lane, sorry about that Harry!

You know by now, if you have been paying attention, of my fondness for librarians. I could even agree to the idea of the pay scales starting at six figures. OK being congenitally prudent, in a fiscal sense, that would require politicians, generals and captains of industry volunteering their services and a few other adjustments, but what the hell, librarians and libraries are worth it.

A colleague of mine was forced to use the local library to work on her thesis. Space, family and a large amount of paper caused a retreat to the reference section. She found the experience depressing and saddening. I, on the other hand, reveled in the humanity of it all. If you really want to hang with the bad boys and girls, the library is the place.

At one level it looks calm and orderly and even soporific. There are real people quietly muttering to themselves as they keep warm or soothe some inner turmoil. Gentle wives shepherd wild haired old men as they move from fiction, to maps and newspapers searching desperately for their lost memories. I sit in a line of computers checking email watching the electronic intercourse of the terminally dispossessed. People draw facts, like dust into a vacuum cleaner, from towers of reference books, processing them, methodically, one by one. Frantic fingers scuttle across the pink pages of the FT absorbing share prices. Perhaps they have evolved the ability to do this through their finger tips. Laptop users, obviously training for the 2012 speed typing Olympics, hammer away with the gleam of gold and glory in their mind's eye.

It's warm, it's comfortable, it's civilised and the librarians provide a haven of peace and access to information and communality, a respite from this world of violence and terror.

I suppose seven figures would be extravagant!

The Luck of the Spanish!

I returned from a trip to the square mile of capitalism on Thursday. I had been learning how to be a better moneylender (in the nicest possible way of course) There on my doormat was a letter from Spain with my footprint on it. Imagine my delight to discover that I had been approved "for a lump payout of 615,810 euros". I had won the "euromillones loteria".
Joy was replaced by amazement on two counts. In the first place A is the one in our house who dices with probabilities, we jokingly refer to it as her pension fund. I have never knowingly, when sober, bought a Spanish Lottery ticket. Secondly, despite my Celtic origins I am an underachiever in the luck department. I am not complaining I am fortunate, very fortunate indeed, it is just that I think I have only ever won two things. One was a sherry decanter set with hunters and hounds etched on its pink glass. This went down well in our TT, non hunting household, but as it was one of my few achievements at infants school it was displayed prominantly in our living room. The second prize I am inordinately proud of. Doing the Guardian prize crossword has become a habit and knocking them off and faxing the solutions in is just a part of life. I was really amazed and happy to receive, unexpectedly, a copy of a decent dictionary. This was my reward for cracking a puzzle by the late, much loved by me anyway, Bunthorne. My general lack of confidence niggles away even now that (because Bunthorne was definitely regarded as a bugger among setters in the sloving fraternity) not many people had bothered that week.
But to get back to my win! Luis Alberto, Vice Presidente, for it was he, advised me that my name had been selected from thousands across five continents. All I had to do to claim my prize was to fax my details, including my bank details, to Don Pedro. Don Pedro is the Foreign Operations Manager ( Does he do broken legs and facial reconstruction?) of Vergino Europia Security company, alegedly! He is willing, I am led to believe, to smooth the way to my boodle for a mere 10%. Now let's see that would leave me with 554,229 euros and you can keep the change Don Pedro! I have to admit, replace the car, make a contribution to A's pension fund, start some cul-de-sac Rochdalist madcap enterprize. Nah, I tell you what, in the unlikely event that you are reading this Don Luis and Don Pedro here's what we will do.

I herebye renounce all title and claim to the 554,229 euros in favour of the following:
Amnesty International - 100,000 euros;
Oxfam - 100,000 euros;
Medical Foundation for the care of Victims of Torture -100,000 euros;
Medical Aid for Palistinians - 100,000 euros;
Grameen Bank - 100,000 euros;
fair finance - 50,000 euros;
Suffolk Librarians - 4,000 euros;
Dick Cheney - 229 euros on the strict condition that he has to purchase and wear a bright orange jump suit , a set of ear defenders and lace trimmed black blindfold, handcuffs and shackles, so that he can explore his inner self. It will help fill the time between now and 2008.

So! Sorry about that last one Don Luis and Don Pedro.
Hasta la pasta!

HAY TRES COSAS

TRES COSAS ME TIENEN PRESO
DE AMORES EL CORAZON
LA BELLA INES EL JAMON
Y BERENGAS CON QUESO

Baltasar del Alcazar - 1530 -1606

Three things ensnare the heart of this man in love:-
the beautiful Ines, ham and cheese with Aubergine.

Well that says most of it!

Trees 2

I wouldn't want to give the impression that I am heir to a fast failing country or that I go around hugging the woodwork but I do find myself thinking that some of my best friends are trees!

Photographer Watch

A recent trip to the south coast and a visit to A's friends and relations produced a clutch of opportunities to point and snap at the wonder of nature. Perhaps it is because I will never produce wonderful snaps of my own that I take such delight in snapping big boy (and girl) snappers. And boy was this a big one!


A visit to Westonbirt Arboretum, along with half the population of Bristol, Bath and Gloucestershire, gave a rare view of the species homo digitus cameraensis as well as fine autumn colour.

There seemed to be some disagreement about territorial rights; unfortunately the necessary man in the long white coat festooned in sweaters, floppy hats and sunglasses was nowhere to be seen.

Some of us just got a teeny bit over tired and emotional and decided to go for a cup of tea!

I'm sure anthropologist would have field trip in such circumstances. Maybe I should start a flickr photostream.
What is the collective noun for digital snappers?
Light Byte! Hmm.