Tombstone

I have mentioned this before.
I have had it out of our local library and will return it tomorrow.
I have only managed to read about a third of Tombstone.

I know what it is to miss a meal.
I have fasted before sacrament
and the work of the surgeon.
I have been careless and lost many kilos!

I know what it is to be famished.
I have anticipated food for free
and dined for a higher price.
I have been indulgent to the point of loosing pounds.

I do not know what famine is.
I may have tasted the fruits of
transubstantiation.
I have not consumed the sins of the flesh.

Guilt and the Interweb!

Just because it is amazing it does not mean it will not be abused.

I do call her Scary Mary and live in fear, in Cambridge, of her pursuing me through the streets on her bicycle with trademark red coat. That is only because I will have done something wrong and she will instantly know it!

Austerity

Gideon's  austerity has seeped into our bones with the cold and has infected the bird life hereabouts. A walk on a cold grey day in the snow was a pleasant and companionable enough experience. We spotted a nearly all white owl parading its catch, a small rodent or bird. It appeared to be quite arrogant about displaying until it was pursued by a buzzard stage right. I guess the buzzard was attempting to gain an easy meal by forcing the owl to drop its prey. Times are so hard we also came across a dead peasant.

(Maybe that was a pheasant! Could it not have been sleeping...Ed?)

Jim Dreams of Sushi

It being a cold January afternoon we turned up at our local flea pit, much improved, but alas sold to the lowest bidder!

It was a one off showing of Jiro Dreams of Sushi.

Lots of good press and we did enjoy it. Inspiring, and suitably inspired, three guesses what I am preparing for herself?

 

 

Interesting on a day when horse DNA seems to have been found in inappropriate places allegedly. 

Still, every little pony helps. You know it makes horse sense.

 I wonder if you can have Shetland Sushi?

(Arrgh...Ed)

The ABC of XWD

Sad news about  our favourite crossword compiler, Araucaria. I'm sure there will be more eloquent appreciations and tributes but we have enjoyed his offerings. His puzzles often defeated us but almost always gave us pleasure. Some may find it morbid or 'inappropriate' to thrust intimations of mortality on your solvers in this way. I think it is quite something. He is quite something!

From sad to naughty as Paul, a Grauniad compiler(other papers and puzzles are available...Ed.) had the following as reported in the XWD Blog:

Cryptic No 25,783 for 2 November by Paul had the clue (25 across): Misshapen genitals, funny things? (3,5). Anne Turner says that, knowing Paul, she laughed aloud and confidently entered ODD BALLS in the grid. Unhappily her confidence was not rewarded, because those letters in the grid made it impossible to get any further with that corner of the puzzle. Paul's intention was an anagram of GENITALS to produce TAG LINES. On balance, though, I think that Anne was on to a winner, even if it did not fit.

Bless its little pointy head!

I noticed that the Gauleiter, who's picture heads this article, is much like a male polar bear.

The reason I suggest this is that  earlier in the week we watched a series of films featuring Gordon Buchanan and a number of charming polar bears in and around Svalbard. It was reported that it is not possible to fit a tracking collar on a male polar bear because its head is smaller than its neck. I know that given I am a less than perfect physical specemin myself I should not be hurling the cobblestones around the old conservatory. However, I could not resist a dig at Porker Pickles who seems to get broader and more pointy headed every day!
(Oh very good yes I get it, stones, throwing, glass houses, very good, very good. But my god you are still an ugly old bugger...Ed!)

Less of the old, if you will?

Life Rocks

Doesn't it just?

Scientists analysing Australian rocks have discovered traces of bacteria that lived a record-breaking 3.49bn years ago, a mere 1bn years after Earth formed.

The Grauniad website reports an article from Devin Powell.

Happy New Year to all our readers. Yes, you at the back, come on wake up!

 

Aint Code the Bees Knees?

Of course I should get out more and we did today, but (God that word again, I'm thinking of starting a but box in the new year. That should bring in a few coppers... Ed) Up to a point; but I digress! I  received an email on Xmas day from the library reminding me that books were due on the 27 Dec.

I finished off (and enjoyed) 3 books in fairly short order recently and I'm glad I did.
The Spark of Life, Frances Ashcroft.
One of the best descriptions of a lab discovery I have read :-

There is nothing - nothing at all - that compares to the exhilaration of discovery, of being the first person on the planet... Page 2 ff

Having been subject to a certain amount of  electrification recently it was interesting.

Just Six Numbers, Martin Rees.
In essence these numbers are a recipe for our universe. Why those numbers and what slack is there in the system provides a few, very worthwhile hours of mind bending. They also relate to the  Penrose question.

Dominion, C.J. Sansom
An everyday story of what if, smog, nuclear secrets, loyalty and betrayal.
Such simple pleasures!

On the Fiddle

Just finished Akenfield by Ronald Blythe.
Glad I read it as I have been meaning to for many years now. Thought we had a copy on our very disorganised shelves but if we do it remains burried in the mists of thrillers. SCL have an electronic copy and it proved so easy in my convalescence (and dotage... Ed) to download it. Nice contrast in a way.
Funny old place, Suffolk. Some funny old boys too!

Crooks and Nannies

John Naughton found a nice one which he duly reported at Nooks and Crannies in eBooks.

Not only did it produce the Spoonarian response which appears in the title to this blog but I also thought of the endless possibilities, a la Myles of the Little Horses, to seek gainful in the world of eBooks.
Now there are enough Flaneurs out there who have Kindles and Nooks and all manner of electronic devices with which to impress the ladies. On these devilish instruments there will be reams and reams of worthy literature whose electronic form will be as pristine and untarnished as a new born babe. They are likely to remain so for a very long time until the wife gets her hands on them. They may be referred to in the salons of Milton Keynes, with a languid disdain. Maybe flicked through in the coffee houses of Stevenage or perused under the porticoes of  Peterborough but never given the rigorous academic seeing to that your intellectual trencherman is capable of in this day and age! So why don't I offer my services to various suppliers of household goods, ladies foundation garments, and cosmetical preparations to find and replace keywords in such text with subtle and subliminal advertising matter.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

becomes

 It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife whose beauty has been enhanced by a dollop of Brady's Botox strong enough to floor a donkey.

 at the flick of a switch, and your man becomes a dollar millionaire overnight. I await the call.
(It may be some time...Ed)
Oh ye of little faith!

Frostwork

And in the night Jack weaves his way from web to flower,
And in the day the sun discloses where the diamonds are.

Is That a Mango in Your Pocket?

I've just finished A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif.
(I have told you about such fruity stuff before; it will play merry hell with the old bag... Ed)
I do enjoy a good paranoid surrealist history with walk on parts by OBL in a suit and the like.
Anyway, imagine my surprise to find a whole wall of mangoes in Lady BP's study the other day!
We have been seeing the odd mango  appear in the fruit bowl recently.
Must watch my step.

Thinking Clearly About Nothing

Full disclosure. In case some poor benighted soul thinks that the title of this post is spiritually related to the title of this blog, tough. Go seek enlightenment on someone else's doorstep! I believe Mother Carey welcomes dreamers.
I picked up on the Brain Pickings post about alcohol and the brain. The conclusion of this (Canadian (?) aren't we all now) comic strip is that the Devil's Buttermilk enables us to think clearly about almost nothing. A little harsh I feel, especially as I gave up the DB almost 2 years to the day now under starter's orders.  I do not consider myself to think clearly as a result and I am buggered if I can remember what it was that I was thinking about anyway... The U Tube video gives a link to all sorts of helpful little videos about drugs and a very useful reminder about hangover amelioration. May come in useful this time of year. I'm off to make a cup of tea, lashings of hot tea! It's cold enough to have the nuts off a nun here and the starter would judge my efforts to cut down on the caffeine as woeful anyway. One drug at a time sweet J, I say, one drug at a time.

Prentice Hand

I came across the phrase in Driftwood and Tangle by Margaret Leigh.
Chapter 10 - At the Peats - is set in 1940. It is, in part, a reflection on WWII.
Leigh also describes her kackhanded cutting of the peat leaving the bank gashed and uneven...

as if it were a huge chunk of butter at which a boy had been hacking with a blunt penknife.

For those of us that have not put 10,000 hours in the meter ours will always be prentice hands.

Every state should have one

A programme in the poverty series on BBC 4 drifted across my shortening attention span the other night. All good stuff and the pilgrim, an earnest young Swiss, was questioning the set up in Zambia in relation to the past disposal of assets, specifically the copper deposits. The VP of Zambia, Guy Scott,  happens to be white and the earnest pilgrim questioned him on his lack of pigmentation and, delicately, asked if this was linked to colonialism and exploitation. I have little knowledge of the Scott's politics, background or probity but I really chuckled at his reply. Obviously, he has been tackled about this before. He indicated that such a situation, having a white VP,  was not uncommon and that he believed the US had one!

Cause of Death?

A blog by Paul Mason  about Yang Jisheng. He is the author of Tombstone which is claimed to be the 'Untold Story of Mao's Great Famine'. At least 36 million dead!

Giles Fraser has a comment piece in the Grauniad about images of dead children.
Contained within it is  a twitter feed giving a link to the picture of his concern, 4 children in a morgue in Gaza.
Please be aware it is a very disturbing picture. No doubt there will be further horrifying pictures to come.

We certainly know how to kill!

Misty, Moisty, Morning

Off to avail myself of the democratic facilities at the urns in the Tithe Barn I slipped the old point and snap in my pocket.
A few photo opportunities ensued.
A web of deceit

A few (fig) leaves of respectability

 

 
In the graveyard of freedom.

Herself was concerned when she returned to find the house locked up, the fire out and the kettle boiling. Not a sign. I had passed into the churchyard and was presenting a damp, solitary figure to the memorial masonry of previous generations. Lost in contemplation of my own mortality.

(So the sun didn't cleave the woodwork then. God, but you can be a miserable bugger sometimes...Ed!)

The Usual Suspects

Nice little blog from our Paul  at the Great Hall.

Certainly nobody in the press made trouble: not even me, nor Channel Four News, nor The Guardian. We sat, watched, recorded.

Eee Paul, you becoming a southern softie? Few years in the Laogai; toughen you up a treat lad.

Certainly seemed to be a shortage of people considering it's their hall!
I have come to appreciate Paul's journalism and reportage. I sincerely hope Fatty Pang and the Posh Posse don't do too much damage!

Fun Guy

We may have missed the 5th November but I would hate anyone to say that I am not a fun guy or appreciate such in others.

Not much room for these sorts of things, I'll just squeeze in here.

Recycling

We do our share.
The council provides for the collection of garden waste, paper, cans and cardboard. We recycle glass (Did I not hear that you had forsworn the devils buttermilk...Ed? ) Herself is partial to a drop of red wine, possibly a nightcap of the finest blended, and who am I to object. Besides, there are always pickle and jam jars, bottles of this, that and the next thing for which our consumer society requires the finest vitrification. I could believe the bloody milk bottles keep some fellow and his mafia cousins from Murano in clover. I religiously take a few rags from my back that have threads bared, the furniture that the mice have had condemned by the parish authorities  and assorted electrical devices that still have their valves glowing to the town dump, AKA the Recycling Centre, to avoid the horror of landfill. As a result of my efforts for the environment I may be responsible, personally, for the failure of the publishing industry because I take my surplus reading matter to the shop that combats famine in Oxford. (I think we get the point, could you move on for the love of god and his blessed mother... Ed!)  Well I also take the little cardboard tube that appears when the toilet roll is exhausted (I share its pain...Ed.) and flatten it, putting it in the recycling. I feel an enormous pressure to do this.

I believe that I could more likely cull badgers, hunt foxes or other defenceless beasts, perform cruel and painful experiments on small animals than fail to recycle the small but dutifully flattened cardboard tube.
Strange isn't it?