Absurdispam

Spam, don't you just hate it?
A tragedy of the commons if ever there was one.

This week I decided to fight back, so before pushing the button to send my spam into the oblivion of dark matter that awaits it on the other side of the spam filter I recorded the litany of recent spam subjects and my, often, bemused responses.

Dont look fat and stupid this summer.

But that is so me.

Ensure your potence and make love everywhere.

I’m sure there are laws about that sort of thing.

Sure win method to bed women.

Offer to fill their hot water bottles.

Worm out at once!

You noticed.

5 euros to scratch and win up to 200.000 euros!

And my dad told me it was rude; maybe I should worm out.

Your extra inch will go a long way.

Six foot two will do me fine for a few years more.

The real meaning of class.

Bloody Marxist spam now!

Even Brad Pitt takes blue pilules!

I prefer the red.

Get rid of bad intimate living.

Yeah, what could I have been thinking about.

100% Replica Watches for jluong!!

All of them above average I tell you.

Shop around for luxury items at a reasonable price

I have a little person who does that sort of thing for me

Roman imperator took that pill to serve all his mistresses!

Boy I bet he was filling hot water bottles till his fingers fell off!

Amaze your lady friends thoroughly.

I do already and she is continuously shaking her head in disbelief

Bank of America - We Will Be Forced To Suspend Your Account!

If it’s news fine. I’m sure the BoA can open an account elsewhere.
If they are suspending my account - I’ll split anything they find in it with them.

Deadly catastrophe in Chinese capital.

I think it is called the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Peoples Republic of China.

deflater staminal

You know I think I’m going to stop before I loose the will to read!

A duck

Recently I was strolling with a group in the village. We came to the green and a duck and ducklings came out into the middle of the road to solicit food, preferment and political favours. Well what else would you expect them to do? The negotiations were under way when a large agricultural vehicle moved into sight. This was halted until the duck caucus was resolved and all dispersed for tea and symmetry. Quite a sight really! The runt of the litter or the brood, whatever, had great difficulty getting over the kerb, much to the amusement of the strollers, the driver of the vehicle, and its mum. Hmm! Can relate to that.

Old

There’s old and old.

I was accused of being middle-aged recently and took umbrage. Damn it I’m old?

I was forced to review this as I sat in our local café.

My delight at having a quiet lunch out with “69 for 1” to read by Alan Coren was only slightly spoiled by a group of 4 misery guts who sat at the next table. There was a steady litany of complaint. Three elderly women and one man poured out lamentations with despairing responses. These flowed in a stream, unswerving and desultory, with no analysis or reflection or attempt to identify remedy. From what I could tell they sounded reasonably prosperous, they seemed healthy, and they had each other for company.

How unlike my own dear mother-in-law who is 91. She has had a hard life making her way, stoically, in the world. Living reasonably at peace, profoundly deaf but uncomplaining, able to enjoy her garden and whatever life bowls at her.

I will never forget the occasion when she fell and broke her arm. I was the one to take her to casualty. It must have been painful. No complaints! I nearly passed out holding her hand as the quack set her arm without a general anaesthetic and with little more than a poppy whiffed under her nose.

The A & E Registrar said he had never seen such a high pain threshold before; he looked a bit green round the gills as well.

On the way back home she looked out of the car window and pronounced that:-

Och, it had not been such a bad day!

Up to a point Lady Copper!

I offer the following not as some sexist stereotypical aside but as evidence of the endless capacity and imagination of people offering advice and services in difficult situations.

This week the woo woo sewing machine (WWSM), which carries the GoodLadyWife (GLW) along the A14 to work and home, refused to start. If I had been thrashed up and down the A14 I might refuse to start, or even get out of bed.

The local garage collectively scratched its head and said - looks like a new starter motor- and indeed it did. GLW enquired if this was the same as the alternator (as, not unreasonably, that had been replaced last year and it was still under warranty) I have made similar blunders – describing various kinds of bulls as Limousines and Chevrolets.

However, this presented the local garage collective with a problem.
Clearly the collective wanted to keep faith with GLW and her attachment to WWSM, a key element in their projected income for the next decade. The spokes person for the collective, obviously an aficionado of Evelyn Waugh, said tentatively that it was similar up to a point, similar in the sense that a cooker and a fridge were the same sort of thing. GLW, who can spot the mutual face saving linguistic device at 200 paces, was gracefully appeased and I nearly crashed my car laughing giving her a lift home from the garage as she described the exchange.

Love-in-a-mist

Nigella


Between the daily grind and the sun shining!

At the village fete today I won a teddy. Not needing one I agreed with the person operating the stall that I could pass the winnings back to the stall, clandestinely!

So life goes on.

The plain people of Ireland say no!

Well. There you go - they said no.
A hundred thousand nos.
Well more like 110,000 nos more than those for the proposition
Details here but you have to ask yourself what now.
Don't laugh, but I do not understand it.

A similar level of perplexity about the shiner's position.
Maybe I'm losing it.
You wouldn't want to argue with MARY LOU MCDONALD though. With shoulder pads as wide as that you could suffer a permanent injury.

I wonder what Myles and his little horses would have made of it all!

Metallica

I am reliably informed, by those in the know, that the above are an ensemble who perform some sort of popular music!

John Naughton has a less than flattering opinion of them based on their activities rather than their performance:-

I’ve never knowingly listened to anything by Metallica, but I remember well how aggressive they were in the Napster era. They’re old-style control freaks.

It struck me that Metallica is an anagram of cameltail. Equally, as I have never seen the buggers sing, dance or entertain - I can't for the life of me remember if camels have tails! Crosswords do some funny things to your brain.

Tinternet

Nicholas Carr's blog has a link to his article in the Atlantic - Is Google Making Us Stupid?
Some interesting ideas. His description, in passing, identifies the insecurities of the past brought forward from 'Socrates' and the critics of the printing press to the present day.

The Internet is a machine designed for the efficient and automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information...

captures the lack of volition in those two words efficient and automated. He chooses to dwell on the way the internet may be affecting our ability to read and the way that we read. In relation to the question about Google it is not making us stupid that worries me. The stupid, like the rich, will be with us always. I suppose that it is the monopoly and the business model that leave me concerned.

Anyway, I managed to read it on this bright summer's morn.

The Merchant of Venice.

On a very wet Saturday in June, off to Stratford on Avon to see a performance of the Merchant of Venice.

We arrived in near glorious sunshine. Joy at this is enhanced by a certain amount of fizz.

A typical Tudorbethan House and Bicycle.

In the play I am struck by:-

• The power of the language;
• Anti-Semitism;
• Views about money lending.

As I have mentioned before not all bankers are merchants (or Jewish).

But of course banking as we know it, Jim, had a lot to do with those fabulous Medici boys. They found ways for the pope to get round accusations of encouraging usury when he was short of a bob or two!

An expanded view of boodle - by David Boyle in the Little Money Book all good stuff.

If you have a market, you are bound to have market failure and areas where the market does not operate and people to whom participation in the market is refused!

In which case you need a group of people who are beyond the pale and who will agree to operate in the sub prime area. A pound of flesh is a bit steep but I have heard some funny things being pledged in our business!

I thought it was a very enjoyable production. I surprised myself enjoying the complexity and richness of the language and belly laughing the comic touches with the audiences! Not, I am sure, anything to do with the fizz!

Septics, don’t you just love ‘em?

So, congratulations Senator Obama. Keith’s mum says that you must have some sharp cookies on your campaign team. It was a great wheeze spotting that you may be from nowhere (IL) but you could win the necessary delegates. A contrast when you have an intelligent, tightly fought campaign and voters who don’t know their arse from a hole in the ground. I was particularly taken with a vox pop from Hicksville somewhere south of the Maison-Dixon Line. Interview person sticks microphone under nose of elderly white hayseed:-

Tell me sir; are you a Democrat?

Yup.

Will you be voting for Senator Obama?

Nope!

Can I ask why?

He’s a muslim an’ his wife’s an atheist.

Is it a pity that Hunter S. is not around to put his gloss on it?
I think there is going to be an unhealthy interest in the position of running mates in each camp. Shudder!

Is it possible that Obama can recover the womens’ vote, pull the Hispanic vote into the tent and dodge the bullets?

Watch this space.

Be Very Afraid.

Just when you thought it was safe to talk to old men with grey beards Dobbo appears on the air waves.

You remember Dobbo. He was the hapless .uc. who was persuaded to stand against the People's Ken.

Now, as if by some miracle of cryogenics, Dobbo appears before us; the champion of Life , Liberty and the ....

I don't think I heard him say

Not a penny off the hour; not a minute on the pay!

but I couldn't be sure.

As fat Tony would say:-

How come Dobbo if you got dis hard on for democracy and liberty an' all that shit you never gave a fuck in public about de liddle guys in Iran or was it Iraq? Who knows?

A quiet day in Suffolk

So bimbling about the countryside, convivially, we decide to go widdershins on the orchid route.
The joy of the green lanes is something else, as they say.

I am struck by the peace and beauty of the village. Here an inscription


In Latin

Sinite parvulos venire ad me, et ne prohibueritis eos: talium enim est regnum Dei

A lot of parvulos are suffering and without a chance of peace and beauty.
Shame on us who do not do what we can!

If I was ever daft enough to be asked for my desert island disks I would insist on having
Sailing By as my number one.

It would be very nice to hum along to and wave at the beggars as they sailed by!

I will raise up mine eyes

I've not run across the Bad Astronomy site before but this little gem is the perfect antidote to my last post. A starburst. I'm sufficiently a child of the 60's and the physical sciences to feel it's a bit special.

Thanks to Status Q for the link.

No Higg's bosons were harmed in the production of this cosmic event.
Federal Law Applies

Another Modest Proposal

I greatly enjoyed John Kelly’s post in the Grauniad CiF (Cement is free) about Dog Shit.
John Kelly: A foul business | The Guardian

Recently I had my own fun with two warm clementines in a red Sainsbury’s plastic bag. I handed them to a friend while I carried out some manoeuvre which required two hands - getting foot out of mouth. As I dropped them into the friend’s hand I noticed the look of concern on his face at the temperature and texture of the package. I pronounced that they feelt like warm, toxic, Day-Glo, dog poop! The automatic retching sound was satisfaction enough but I couldn’t resist saying that, of course, I had thought of it before handing them over.

All of which is a roundabout way of offering that troubled soul G Broon, prime minister, a masterly wheeze to get back in with the PEOPLE, The Mail and all those idiots who think the Tories would not be ten times worse.

Harvey Milk was a politician who had real problems getting elected and surviving. Indeed he didn’t. Some crazed homophobe shot him but hey that’s the land of the free and a gun with every SUV. However, in a film which paid tribute to him I seem to remember a staged PR stunt in a park in San Francisco. H Milk walked towards the camera pontificating about what he would do as mayor if elected:- world peace, justice, be nice to old ladies, not pat babies and young children on the head. He appeared to slip or stumble and, on looking down, his face screwed into a rictus of disgust as he examined something unpleasant on the bottom of his shoe. He straightened up and with the gravitas found on the faces of presidents as they proclaim war, he pronounced that he would include in his legislative programme a pooper scooper ordinance! Worked like a treat and, despite his many perceived liabilities as a mayoral candidate, he was elected.

So, Mr Broon, I suggest a short walk to camera across College Green, giving Prudence’s endogenous zones a good rub for their money. At the exact moment when the people will be nodding off, stand in the pre-positioned dog crap. You now have the country in your grasp. All you have to do is look at the camera and pronounce, with dignity, that you will devote the rest of your term in office to ensure a deep clean of all our streets and open spaces and the return of the death penalty for dog owners who do not comply with the Miscellaneous Dog Fouling and Similar Annoyances Act. You will need to stress, the English are thick when it comes to animals, that this piece of legislation will not bring suffering to any dog.

You’re home and dry man, if a little smelly.

Tea and Symmetry

For the past week I have been sitting down at about 3pm with a pot of tea and a copy of Finding Moonshine by Marcus du Sautoy. The book takes a journey through 12 months in his life . It sets in historical and personal context his work in mathematics and its connection to symmetry. The chapter for October: the Palace of Symmetry is delightful. It details his search, accompanied by his son Tomar, for the 17 underlying symmetries in two dimensions. This is carried out within the Palace of the Alhambra, looking at the Moorish tiling patterns. Interesting to find on p63 a confirmation of my party piece on symmetry:-

There are only 17 different types of wallpaper!

If anyone challenges this then I explain that, as identified by their symmetry groups, there are only 17 possibilities. You can have birds, you can have cartoon characters, you can have elephants even, but there are only 17 basic ways in which you can have them! I did learn something though on p83. If you allow permutations of two colours you can add a further 46 symmetry groups. No. I think I'll stick to 17. It's demonstrably a prime and it should get the NANs going(New Age Numerologists).

The book concludes as I read yesterday, downing my pot of Darjeeling, with the search for the Monster. This beast has a large number of possible symmetries, How large? Ridiculously large 808.... - it contains 54 digits before the decimal point. If you had a mind to get your head round it you would have to consider that it exists, if that is the right word, in 196,883 dimensions. Feeling a little dizzy? Don't, just trust him he is a mathematician.

What, I hear you ask in the sternest of prudential tones, is the use of all this business?

Ah well now that is a story for another time!

Vehicles to Market

Or how I stopped worrying about economics and made some friends with a couple of black swans.
So a trip to Cambridge to a lecture/discussion given by Nick Davies and John Kelly. Thanks to John Naughton for giving me the heads up on this one.

Nick’s book – Flat Earth News - is, allegedly, quite controversial.

Sets the fox amongst the journo hens or is it chickens. Anyway, my take was interest in the routes to market for processes and products that wish to retain quality, integrity and some sort of social value…. promoting inclusiveness, la la la. Don’t you just wish these wishy washy liberals would piss off and let the rest of us get on with the business of making oodles of boodle?

Up to a point Lord Copper.

John Kelly

seemed overwhelmed by the experience. Perhaps he sounds better on paper. Later, of course, he does here

I did like his post about the rain.

Bloody septic wimp - nice guy though.

Annuances

Working away on Sunday morning it was suggested, but not if I’m honest by me, that there were such things as annuances.

We agreed the derivation was quite clear; they were things which gave rise to annoyance but subtly.

Just a thought.

Another is my new year’s resolution. Late, but it is better late than never.

I must spend more time with trees.

So won’t be going to Iceland in the near future.

Enjoyed Tainted Blood by Arnaldur Indridason though.

Maybe not the right word - enjoyed - Icelandic homicide tends to be a bit grim. Is there any other kind of murder?

The Restraint of Beasts

This came from the worm book - thanks.

We all know about bears, don’t we, but here's a thing, and those wolves, well what can you expect they’re Italian.

Blogging about Blogg

In Cromer recently I visited the RNLI Henry Blogg Museum.

Well worth a visit. A tribute to the RNLI and the people who make it all happen, in particular one Henry Blogg. A bust of him, outside the North Lodge council offices in Cromer, records:-

Henry Blogg G.C. B.E.M. Coxswain of Cromer Life-Boats 1909-1947

Winner of the R.N.L.I. Gold Medal for conspicuous gallantry 3 times

of its Silver Medal 4 times

With the help of his gallant crew rescued 873 lives during 53 years of service-

“One of the bravest men who ever lived”

I found I was having to swallow more than usual and my eyes were prickling as I went round the exhibits. It wasn’t so much from the enormity of the courage the crew showed but the quiet determination to do what was necessary and then get on with life. It can’t have been easy for many of them, in the coastal town over the years.

One tribute indicates the recognition that, but for Messers Blogg and crew, a whole family could have been wiped out or worse.

On the 2 November 1938 Lifeboat The HF Bailey was launced to go to the aid of the SS Cantabria of Santander, Spain. The vessel, an unarmed merchant ship in the ownership of the Republican Spanish government, had been shelled by the Nadir, a Falangist warship. The Cantabria was adrift and listing about 9 miles NE of Cromer Lighthouse. Most of the crew had been recovered from boats by the Nadir but the captain, his wife, two children and a crew member had preferred to take their chances with the sinking Cantabria rather than the bunch of fascists who were standing off. Up pops Henry Blogg and his crew and before you can say hasta luego the remaining souls were rescued from the bad guys or a watery grave. The welcome in port was warm and although, I have no evidence to hand, I suspect many main braces were spliced or whatever. Shelling an unarmed merchant vessel probably didn’t go down too well in the fishing port of Cromer, unlike the Cantabria.

Captain Manuel Argüelles and wife Trinidad Chertudi made a new life for themselves in Mexico.

When the Henry Blogg Museum was opened in April 2006 Ramon Begone Argüelles, the son of Captain Manuel Argüelles, returned to Cromer from Mexico with his sister to pay tribute.

So! Here’s another modest proposal Mr Broon -

The lifeboat persons and service should be funded directly and adequately from taxation. Compensatory savings to fund this can be derived from the Trident 'Defense' System which will, henceforth, be subject to funding by voluntary collections.

Should there be a bob or two left over then I’m sure we can fund a few other things.

“Conquer English to Make China Stronger!”....

My oh my!

What you Engrish teachers get up to. I can never resist the temptation to pull the professional leg of the goodladywife, if you understand my meaning.

The following from the New Yorker via Arts and Letters Daily

Accompanied by his photographer and his personal assistant, Li Yang stepped into a Beijing classroom and shouted, “Hello, everyone!” The students applauded. Li, the founder, head teacher, and editor-in-chief of Li Yang Crazy English, wore a dove-gray turtleneck and a black car coat. His hair was set off by a faint silver streak. It was January, and Day Five of China’s first official English-language intensive-training camp for volunteers to the 2008 Summer Olympics, and Li was making the rounds...

To his fans, Li is less a language teacher than a testament to the promise of self-transformation. In the two decades since he began teaching, at age nineteen, he has appeared before millions of Chinese adults and children. He routinely teaches in arenas, to classes of ten thousand people or more. Some fans travel for days to see him. The most ardent spring for a “diamond degree” ticket, which includes bonus small-group sessions with Li. The list price for those seats is two hundred and fifty dollars a day—more than a full month’s wages for the average Chinese worker. His students throng him for autographs. On occasion, they send love letters.

There is another widespread view of Li’s work that is not so flattering. “The jury is still out on whether he actually helps people learn English,” Bob Adamson, an English-language specialist at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, said. The linguist Kingsley Bolton, an authority on English study in China, calls Li’s approach “huckster nationalism.” The most serious charge—one that in recent months has threatened to undo everything Li has built—holds that the frenzied crowds, and his exhortations, tap a malignant strain of populism that China has not permitted since the Cultural Revolution.

“I have seen this kind of agitation,” Wang Shuo, one of China’s most influential novelists, wrote in an essay on Li. “It’s a kind of old witchcraft: Summon a big crowd of people, get them excited with words, and create a sense of power strong enough to topple mountains and overturn the seas.”

Wang went on, “I believe that Li Yang loves the country. But act this way and your patriotism, I fear, will become the same shit as racism.”