42

They have had a few problems.
While they get the bicycle repair kits out with the rubber patches and plug the leaks here is a crossword to take your mind off it!

1, 4, 5, 7, 10 and 23 are all 8s and are not defined further.
5, 23 may be seen in the 24, 1, 16 at 13

Across

8 Equal time commanding the French - elementary (8)

9 Spike immersed the Italian in frozen water – cold inside (6)

10 8 for weight (6)

11 Return o got (2,2,4)

12 Home untaxed – choice for transformer (9)

13 Accelerator use - some concerns (4)

15 Lucas has lost point and upset his Dublin darling (7)

17 24 sound the beginning of everything (3,4)

20 Student in his cups creates opening (4)

22 Hold to view of messy bib and curses (9)

25 Air riven badly living next to the Thames, say (8)

26 Modern city examination (6)

27 Venus is bovine provocation (3,3)

28 Bringing together organisation if feminine principle has force (8)

Down

1 See 24

2 Drunk mixing drinks with debts (8)

3 Can be viewed from craggy Ben Canals (9)

4 Turn on drug – wild 8 (7)

5 8 in his horse (5)

6 Member directs that system concerns basic emotion (6)

7 Nero, Celt – crazy 8 (8)

14 Fuel- workings lie soiled (6,3)

16 See 24

18 Rob’s tidy made fun for feathered friends (4,4)

19,21 Very successful physical idea true - quoth many roughly (7,6)

21 See 19

23 Sounds like Petty Officer’s 8 (6)

24,1,16 Rocking Elgar had roll on cider smashing 8s (5,6,8)

XWD8


Hints are available, modestly priced, via my profile email.

Never Never

A reference in the Guardian to Never Never by David Gaffney tickled my fancy. I have just finished it, courtesy of the Stakhanovites in Suffolk County Libraries. I thought it was going to do for debt, money lending and the North West what Christopher Brookmyre has done for Caledonian crime. Not quite as much mayhem or ingenuity, a bit more arty but some real gems.

The debt advisor who is up to his nostrils in debt, and because he knows how to work the system, about to borrow a whole lot more. He advises one of his clients to go bust after taking out credit for tens of thousands of pounds, which is split with the advisor, of course. The debt collector who is driven out of business because the debt advisor is so efficient at getting debt written down or written off. The ex-debt collector who pitches up at the debt advice centre because he is now pennyless.

The final ruse is to submit a fraudulent grant application for funds to build a new improved debt advice centre! There is the mandatory drugs, sex, rock and roll and violence.

A novel for our times and our greed.
Very disturbing for a non profit moneylender!

Should you need a fast fix of credit after reading the book or you find yourself strapped for the old doubloons in these terrible times then ABCUL News provided the following web address to make sure you get the best deal.

My suggestion would be, and it does not constitute advice in the meaning of the Act, find yourself a credit union and start saving hard!

Don McCain and Sancho Palin

It's one of those laughable, scary radio pictures.

McCain and Palin in the guise of the Don and Sancho wearily plodding across the wide open spaces of middle America passing deeper into paranoia, hate and bigotry.

Not mine, I have to admit. I'm not sure I want to thank John Naughton for that but it seems to have started something.

Worthy of Credit

Muhammad Yunus has had a creditworthy mention in these pages before. Not the best clerihew ever produced but it gives a flavour of the man.

I have been reading his book - Creating a World Without Poverty - A not inconsiderable ambition as John Major might have said had he ever shown any interest in the subject.

It has taken me a while to get into it but there are some real gems. I suspect they are much used and polished but one which seems apposite now is given on page 49:-

In the past, financial institutions always asked themselves,
"Are the poor credit-worthy?" and always answered no.......
I reversed the question: "Are the banks people-worthy?"

Well now, there is a question. Would you like to know the answer?
Would you like to know the answer before Gordy and Al make £450 billion and change of doubloons from our pockets available to them?

I certainly do not want to see people thrown out of their homes or jobs, small businesses closed down, I don't want to see queues of people outside banks, I don't want to see ATM machines flashing up messages to say:-

- Sorry chum no more doubloons, ever! Have you ever considered the advantages of a barter system?-

I hope they have secured said sum on the soft and squashy parts, the first born and sets of golf clubs of the merchants of debt. I hope they have the bottle to take action when the culture of corporate greed reasserts itself. Of course it could be that the man with the plan at that time will be Dave!

If banks are not people-worthy, what can we do to make them just a little bit more?
Yunus started his own bank, Grameen, and I am sure you could argue about lots that he has done and how it has been done but I think he has done something to attack systemic poverty.

Debtonate!

You may have noticed a few waves in the fabric of capitalism recently, or not!
I have passed a few opinions on it myself.
A nice new word, debtonate, sadly I did not think of it myself.
A reference, Anne Pettifor.
You may or may not agree.

O'Bama 08

So! A fine day on Sunday saw a trip to the coast at Orford.
High temperatures and a bit of sun tempted and how could I refuse.
However, I could not help but notice that your man, himself, a contender for the top job, advertising in Suffolk.

Well there may be a few expat votes about the Ness but I doubt they will make much difference in the old country.

Politics may be the art of the possible but I still think that the nut jobs from Arizona and Alaska are going to slip in on a tide of closet racism! Hey ho.

Going High!

After some days of planning we attempted to execute a walk with the village group. We were defeated by a torrential downpour.

I was reminded of The Ascent of Rum Doodle by W E Bowman which gave me and others much pleasure for a variety of reasons.

If you are in the mood it could reduce you to a helpless puddle.
Otherwise you could check out.

“The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley”

As it were!

We're doomed I tell you doomed!

OK.
So there must be some unease about switching on the Large Hadron Collider come the 10th September.
Well take it from me, there is not much to worry about. I am a string theorist and able to explain everything. What is going to happen - they are turning on the physicists' equivalent of the xmas lights.
Flip the switch and groan. We should have replaced those bulbs last year.
Yes but your Aunty Betty was so out of it we didn't have the heart to turn the power off.
Right check the bulbs one by one and try again.
By October they should have the experiment up to speed, the electricity bills paid and the magnets pointing in the right direction and whamo!
See those two protons, brilliant.

The Sun does not shine.

This is really very personal!
My 91 year old mother-in-law gets the Indie. delivered every day in an attempt to give a fix on the day, the news the weather, etc. and also something to read.
The system, paper boy/girl, whoever, screwed up and the Sun was delivered today.
Though she is gently dementing she was able to stick it unread in the recycling.
I suppose if you come through various personal traumas, two world wars and manage to bring up a family of four while taking an active part in the life of your village you can still tell shit from shinola!

Human Love

Even a miserable old bugger like me has a few friends.
They have provided much that I am grateful for. The author Andrei Makine was recommended by a friend and, importantly, he thrust a copy of A Life's Music in my hand.

I enjoyed it, if that was the right word, and on that basis did the usual with the heroes of the Suffolk County Libraries and ordered his latest, Human Love.

It weaves the near present of revolutions in Africa and the 'end of history' with the memories and drivers of affections that carry the characters through life.

... for the first time Elias became aware of the paths that led human beings through revolutions and wars, through life. He grasped that within the most stubborn commitment to the most sublime cause could lie hidden the desire to punish a man who went off with a rival, the memory of an old woman who recited poetry to her window boxes and pity for a dog. (P93)

Beware policemen, bicycles and flickering lights

So they are about to turn the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on at CERN.
Expect the lights to flicker a bit on the 10 September if all goes according to plan. I shouldn't worry too much though, trust me I'm a string theorist; I can explain everything.

Given the cost of energy at the moment, I would not be amazed to see collections being raised for the Higg's Boson Memorial Fund, (Charity Registration 999666R)

So, I noticed that the Beeb is after promoting the works of the man himself.

Not before time as far as I am concerned.

Still, a word to the wise, I would be a bit wary about any Copper who turned up in the next few weeks wearing a bicycle. Know what I mean?

However, I am wearing my Ruralshire Constabulary t-shirt with pride, though I have not been officially sworn in you understand.

It has caused the goodladywife to collapse in fits of something, it's a while since that occurred!

Twitching the night away!

We have birds visit us and some live hereabouts.
The long tailed tit below and his 4, 5 or possibly 6 friends dropped into the garden about lunch time yesterday to tank up on the peanuts and then head off!

We also have a long term resident, a female blackbird called Tufty. She is so called because she has a tuft on her head. We think it is because she was attacked by a hawk but managed to survive. Not only did she survive but she has raised at least one chick this year.

4 wheels good 2 wheels better!

We now have 3 bikes in our family of 2 persons.
This is the new arrival!


Isn't it sweet?
Today we shall be mostly riding round the garden!

Prairie Dogs and Buddhists

I am full of admiration Susan McCarthy's post on the not precisely lonesome prairie.
What more could you want in a blog? Eactly, you would want to include:-
Prairie dogs, Tibetan monks, Santa Fe, buddhism, Willie Nelson, beer, Ted Nugent, People for Native Ecosystems, Jehovah's Witnesses, the possible conversion of owls and coyotes to vegetarianism, freedom from religious persecution and a sweet little photo of a prairie dog.

Go look!

It's worth it just for the photo, though I guess from his proud and arrogant bearing this little dog is a fundamentalist christian cracker just waiting to bend your ear about creation by design.

One Day in the Death of A S Esq.

There are times when I remember little of my life.
I do remember reading a book by a person lately deceased.
A description of the time when the chaps in the Gulag were told that their tormentor was dead.
A response was demanded by the camp authorities.
Caps went up in the air!

It was also the day a great musician died.
Someone who led me into the joy of music as a young lad.

So the Butcher of Grozney had the temerity to attend the memorial service!


As John Naughton points out, in the reference above, a bit like Kissinger accepting the Nobel Prize for Peace!

I think the Grauniad may have it wrong; heavens to Betsy! There is mention in the article of Putin attending the funeral but no confirmation elsewhere. Perhaps he was using his skills as a former KGB spook. Come to think of it, that guy on the left with the big hat and the beard has something about him!

Party, Party

Increasingly, the celebrations of our friends include 60th birthday parties or retirement festivities.

We travelled to Matlock Bath to enjoy a party for both. It had all the charm of a seaside resort ( amusement arcades, fish and chip shops, lots of tatty goods and ice cream parlours) but strangely enough, no beach or piers. It is a haven for bikers and on Sunday morning the bikes were stacked along the 'prom'. Obviously, they were the gentle fluffy bikers as they and the whole esplanade of machines, perhaps a couple of hundred, were watched over by one rather young, overdressed, community police support person. She did not look as if she was enjoying herself or more than 17.

The town is one of the (many) places visited and commented upon by Lord Byron. Pride of place in the hotel was given to a few lines of, unfinished, poetry written by the great man. I had this thought that he may have dashed them off in payment of the bill after a bit too much claret, or port, or whatever it was that he used to stimulate the muse. In fact our hotel had a display case with artifacts and pictures indicating the literary and royal connections of the place. Princess Victoria as well as the priapic peer had stayed here. Not, I hasten to add, in the same bed and/or at the same time if you get my meaning.

As I watched the disgraceful third age rockers at the party bouncing to the beat of a sound system that was turning my remaining internal organs to water I thought it was interesting that we use the words retiring, elderly, pensioner, old age pensioner even, to denote withdrawal from the world of work. The Spanish use the term jubilado, much more appropriate.
Anyway, it was a very good bash and we wish our jubilada friend well for the next 60. Jubilate deo omnis terra!

Mind you the Spanish have referred to the disabled as minusvalido for some time, maybe not so much now.

Olympic Games

This is the first and last reference in these pages to the business taking place in Beijing. Those who know me well may think this boycott is to do with the horrendous record of the PRC and the CC of the CPoPRC and that bit of bother over stealing Tibet.
( For further information please see Amnesty and Human Rights Watch.)

Well I never really got that far once I had uncovered the devilish plot to subvert the fair play of the games. I am a martyr to fair play.

The Chinese, hosting the games, have the right to introduce a game of their choice.
This year they introduced Tank Leaping!
You are dressed in cheap polyester, black pants and a white shirt. You stand motionless, shoulders well back, in front of a PLA tank which is revving its engine while the driver keeps slipping the clutch. When the tank lurches forward you leap with a double twist over the tank landing on both feet in good order to the acclaim of the assembled masses.

I now have incontrovertible evidence that the beggars have been at it for years, training with competitors carrying bags, shopping or otherwise. I dread to think what happened to those that were not up to snuff. You know once you let the competition take over you are lost.

Buddhist Pooter

There are times when I feel the weight of those that have gone before pressing down. Their record to family and duty, the good taste of their offerings and the sensitivity of feeling leave me quite bereft of hope for my own shallow maunderings.

It is, I suppose, that season when a man of standing in the community takes his ease from the daily grind and has time to reflect on his life; where steady progress through the ranks has led him and where with continued diligence and application he might lead his family and leave the world a better place.

It may be that the heat has introduced a measure of introspection into my daily meditation. A downpour would settle the spirits, do the garden some good and leave us all less enervated. We can then set off renewed for our annual holidays which start this year at Matlock Baths, though I doubt we shall be taking the waters much!

The end days!

Far be it from me to add to wee Gordie's woes.
Alex does seem to be a very slippery fish. Party machines break and it will be interesting to see what new monster emerges in the guise of Scottish Labour.

Gerry Hassan in an article in Open Democracy throws up a thought and it occurs to me that the image of two dogs from the same litter fighting over a single well picked bone might be appropriate if it were not for the insult to our friends north of the border :-

The SNP - contrary to Labour's fevered imaginings - is like many centre-left parties around the world, an uneasy compromise between social democracy and neo-liberalism, with no real understanding of political economy or the grotesque ways modern capitalism works (thus, closer to New Labour itself than either would like). Yet it has in government so far managed to address this balance better than Scottish Labour ever has done, displaying more of a capacity for statecraft and stagecraft, all the while conveying its project with a sense of mission, story and voice (something Labour had years ago but has long since lost.

So, an interesting time ahead....

This failure to develop any plausible British story - of which Gordon Brown's many missives on Britishness are a symptom, not the solution - offers many new challenges, opportunities and openings to progressives across these isles. The SNP, buoyed by its Glasgow East victory, has powerful political momentum - as long as it does not overreach itself or fall victim to its own form of arrogance. More broadly, the contours of Scottish and UK politics now point to a prospective referendum on Scottish independence (most probably in 2010): this promises to be a historic, even seismic event in the history of Scotland and the UK.

To quote Mr Broon, mischievously, from a much earlier period in his life when he could afford to be ironic:-

There's a breakthrough in the pipeline!

A critical point in the economic cycle

We approach a café somewhere near Portobello Road.

The door is open and a solitary white figure enters the café. He is wearing Lycra and a cycling helmet. He picks up a chair reverses it and sits.

He positions the chair across the cheap formica table from a lean black man in jeans and a leather jacket. He has dreadlocks stuffed inside a huge leather peaked cap. He tokes hard on a Camberwell carrot and while exhaling the smoke his voice rumbles:

Dave, mon good you could call in - see I an I.

Dave clears his throat and pitched a semitone higher than he intended squeaks:

Samuel. Yo, good to see you man!

I hear you lost wheels mon, an you lookin for I an I to find dem, teehee!

Well, yes I was hoping 'the project' would produce some positive media outputs.

No problem Dave, I’m sure we can do bissness….

Well I’d be very grateful, I really loved that bike and to think that some little scrote had it away while I was down Tesco’s really hacks me off. Besides the publicity will be a bit of a bunce.

Chill Dave! Have a toke.

It’s not that stunk stuff is it, the press would have a ball with that?

Dave, you are wid friens, what pass between you an I an I is a sacred as the confessionul. Anyway is just ‘erbal cigarette.

Are you allowed to smoke in here?

Dave, you gotta chill mon. Is only erbal and beside Babylon not coming round ere! Now dis bycical ting, I can do for you.

Fine! I’ll pay whatever you want, we might even be able to work it into the election campaign. But the little blood clot who half inched it has to do time!

Dave, Dave, all this talk of Babylon wearin me down, mon. You send im off to Babylon e come back, batty man, twice as bad. No we get you bycicle ting back and you don ask we don tell. In de Tory party everytin black and white! Maybe not black an white but you know what a mean. In de real world there are shades of grey.

Ok Samuel, I look forward to getting it back.

No problem Dave, just as soon as I an I is Secretary of State for Justice!

Taiga, Tiger Burning Bright

A heart-warming tale of extinction, dishonesty and politics about the South China tiger from Susan McCarthy's website - the Nature of the Beast.

She points out the more existentially comfortable position of the North China tiger, just, recorded in this article.

All good stuff, reminded me of the film Derzu Uzala (1975), by Kurosawa, where one of the stars was the Amur tiger!

A very different world!

Not that I believe in it but if there was reincarnation, I wouldn't mind coming back as a tiger, Panthera tigris altaica of course.

Annual Report and Accounts of Buddhist Pizza Inc.

It has been a quiet year at Buddhist Pizza Inc. (B PINC)!

Some of our investors have raised the question of Directors’ Emoluments!

I can confirm that all directors have voluntarily agreed to blood and DNA testing. Should there be anything untoward in their results, the Public Health Authorities will be informed.

Moving on to more seemly matters; it may have been quiet but we have not been idle! I am able to report a substantial dividend to our investors. We have been able to divest the company of its holdings in

Northern Rock,
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,
Marks and Spencer

at a substantial profit!

We were, of course, able to buy Alliance and Leicestershire at a substantial discount and look forward to working closely with our colleagues in Santander!

The South Waziristan branch of our operations seems to have attenuated over the past year, as this map shows.

However, we are very pleased with the contribution of our Argentinean partners and look forward to celebrating their return to profitability and this country. It would only seem fitting to propose the corporation plan a significant barbeque as a result!

On that note I hand you over to our auditors and ask you to join us in modest refreshments and some networking. We are distributing the Dave for PM badges without charge and you are free to make a modest contribution to party funds!

Lest we forget.

There was a report.

It made me think about the poster outside our loo!

The photo is mine but the link gives an 'attribution' for the poster.

Mr Cameroon thinks it is possible he may have to raise taxes!

Wider streets then!

Freddie and Fannie

When I first heard about them many years ago I thought they were characters in a mock folk song. Of course I had heard the song but on the back of this there was a chippy little ditty about love, life and retribution in the picture houses of Tottenham Court Road. I was wrong of course they are:- US government charted mortgage financiers.

Freddie Mac – Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation ("FHLMC")

Freddie Mac's mission is to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the housing market.

Fannie Mae – The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA)

Next week, for your homework tell me who are

• Farmer Mac
• Ginnie Mae
• Sallie Mae

Meanwhile back at the ranch, sorry the office, on March 19, 2008.
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) announced an initiative to increase mortgage market liquidity.

Washington, DC - OFHEO, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac today announced a major initiative to increase liquidity in support of the U.S. mortgage market. The initiative is expected to provide up to $200 billion of immediate liquidity to the mortgage-backed securities market.

No shit. This could save all our bacon and bring world peace, justice ‘nd prosperity nearer to Crawford Texas!

OFHEO expected this, with other measures, to pump about $2 trillion into the mortgage market this year. OFHEO Director James Lockhart -

“Let me be clear – both companies have prudent cushions above the OFHEO-directed capital requirements and have increased their reserves."

So Jimmy ‘the legs’ Lockhart is happy to rip one third of the secured equity out of the heart of the US secondary mortgage market to provide an excuse to print more money. Yippee! Cream your buns baby! Sub prime and the credit crunch - an opportunity not a constraint!

Today, of course, some very old chickens, scrawny necks hung about with scraps of cardboard bearing the legend "moral hazard'', have been seen roosting on top of a ranch near Crawford, Texas!

Some doommongers are talking about dominoes!

Tee Hee! G Broon Esq. thought he had problems with Northern Rock!

Be afraid, be very, very afraid! It could get cold out there.

Have you ever felt exigous?

Another little cracker from the Nature of the Beast

I have to say it struck a chord.
I also have to say that I needed the help of Messers Collins and Chambers with that word exigous.

I am exigous. Indeed I have much to be exigous about.

For our many readers this does not mark the beginning of product placement in this blog, although I have been a grateful user of the two volumes above for many years. They come with the highest recommendation. Accept no substitutes or inferior wares, use only the best!

What is Scary Sam Listening to?

Scary Sam was protecting a vegetable patch in Yorkshire. (You just can't trust those Tykes not to steal the onions.) I noticed the CDs fluttering in the breeze as additional protection. We have used this device to scare birds for some time. I have no idea if it works but what else are you going to do with gifts of Bruce Springsteen CDs. I'm convinced that it was this throw away remark which cost us our last home.

Anyway, the bitterness of the homeless apart, I was interested to see what music, software or DVDs had been employed. Warbling classical sopranos, second rate cover bands and a smattering of Microsoft!

By their bird scarers ye shall know them.

It is difficult with a point and shoot; the light and the speed which the CD rotates gave me problems. One day Brucie I will snap you hanging by a thin cotton thread, scaring de liddle boyds.

The Bonny Rowan Tree

Two men sit in a room overlooking the gardens of Lambeth Palace.
One is slight, white, dry, bedraggled and sports an untidy grey beard.
The other is substantial, black, oleaginous and is more or less bereft of the hindrance of hair.

In the background they can just hear the chant of Dockers, some of them had flocked to the sound of Enoch’s drum decades before. Faintly the two men can make out the words….

What do we want? Gay women bishops!

When do we want them? Naa!

Rowan lets out a sigh and, without bitterness, turns to Peter with the question:-

Is there a way out of this?

Peter declaims :-

One of the marks of apostolic ministry is signs, wonders and miracle. There are many in today's Church, who would lay claim to apostolic authority without holding on to apostolic faith nor do they manifest any of the marks of the apostles. We are deeply grateful to all provincial, diocesan and parish local committees, the donors, the tour agents, the travel agents, the Jordanian and Israeli governments for allowing us to meet. Brethren, we appreciate the labours of love of the theological resource group. I must also thank in advance all those who will provide leadership in worship, workshops and plenary. We are heavily indebted to the various sub-committees and their leaders. God bless you all.

Rowan mutters:-

Oh fuck! He’s off on one.

He raises his voice:-

Peter. The theology is settled!
It’s a matter of when, where, and how.

Allergy Bars and Fat Rascals

So, a pleasant holiday and respite in the North York Moors.
I had been prompting my colleagues for some time with the suggestion that I was going on holiday. This was to solicit the

Going anywhere nice?

response, just so I could say

No. Yorkshire!

But there you are, old hatreds die hard.

However, we did have a good time walking, taking trains and having picnics on footpaths in high places. The menu;- A sandwich, A piece of fruit, A slug of water and a fruit/muesli bar.
I looked at the ingredients on the wrapper of the fruit/muesli bar and found they were the same as the ingredients on the allergy warning notice! From now on, in our house, they will be known as allergy bars!

As Homer would say:-

Mmmmm!

Much better for you than Fat Rascals; probably!

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.”

I do like to be beside the seaside.

A trip to Cromer. I was attempting to blow the cobwebs of the post kipper episode away. A pleasant amble past the beach huts and a return to the town. It has a certain air above its station. The hotel in front of the pier is the Hotel de Paris. It is claimed that Stephen Fry was a waiter there and Winston Churchill didn’t think much of it, Cromer that is. The Monte Carlo of East Anglia? To paraphrase – no one would call Monte Carlo the Cromer of the Riviera, very enjoyable nonetheless.

I returned by way of the Norfolk coast and found this in a shop window in the main drag of Cley next the sea. The revenge of the flashing kipper.

Felled by Kipper. Was it a Red Herring?

A leisurely Sunday breakfast with a kipper was spoilt. It was a dodgy kipper! I keep telling the goodladywife not to go to that particular retailer. The only reason it exists, as Alan Coren firmly believed, is to keep the riffraff out of Waitrose. I apologised in the office advancing the, less than stirling darling, as the reason for a lackluster performance.

Unaccountably the question of red herrings came up. I said that I had seen one and since the Blessed Steve Hatt hat confirmed it was indeed such, I have no doubt that the beast exists. I went on to give, in that boring old fart (BoF) way some people find intensely irritating, what I believed to be the origin of the preserved herring's colour. This was immediately (and correctly, why trust a BoF) challenged by one of the younger members of the team. Google was appealed to but did not immediately reveal the origin of the colour. Instead, it gave the use that term has in signifying a diversion. The question was then raised about how it had come to signify this. No answer was immediately available from the electronic font of all wisdom. I was sent off with the challenge to find out what, why and how. This is always a good way to get rid of a BoF on a Friday afternoon when you have got lots to do.

I couldn't resist the challenge.

Reference from the web - "red herring" fish on Cley Smokehouse cached on Google

This is the longest process of all and probably the most traditional. The herring are left in a dry brine for three weeks and then smoked over oak for 2 weeks, leaving a golden red sheen on the fish hence the name red herring.

One of our kitchen bibles is Jane Grigson's Fish Book She describes on p191 the need to have a fish that was easy to store and transport, not in large barrels of salted fish, so a particularly efficient technique was evolved to smoke salted herring. The treatment produced a dryish red object - the red herring.

Why should it be the signifier for a diversion or diversionary tactic?

Another (crossword) bible in our house is Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

An electronic version E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.

gives:-

Drawing a red herring across the path. Trying to divert attention from the main question by some side-issue. A red herring drawn across a fox’s path destroys the scent and sets the dogs at fault.

I rest my case. Which is full of red herrings, of course! Why prior to 1898 would anyone want to set the dogs at fault? Did the Victorians have a burgeoning anti-hunt movement?

I need to lie down and fan myself with a kipper.

Life

A very enjoyable birthday which, even the morning after a little too much Cava, still leaves me with a feeling of gracias a la vida que me he dado tanto.

Going through the emails with a cup of coffee I spotted this from one of the New Scientist blogs

Life Defined
What is life? According to Sohan Jheeta, an astrobiologist from the Open University:-

"Life is a thermodynamically open chemical system with a semi-permeable boundary. It contains an information-based complex system with emergent properties, part of which drives a metabolism based on a proton gradient. The said gradient generates the necessary potential difference across the semi-permeable boundary. The information is heritable and coded in such a way as to allow variation and thus evolution."

On occasions, I roar about the house to refrains of:-

Life! couldn't you just live without it?

Apparently not! Got to keep that proton gradient based metabolism rollin' the potential across the old semi-permeable.

Post birthday best wishes to all our readers.

Two men in burkas

In the departure lounge at Harare Airport two men in burkas approach each other. The smaller, slightly rotund figure, extends a black hand from the garment. It shows the arm of a well tailored suit, the cuff of a very expensive shirt, fixed by a diamond cuff link.

John so nice to see you!

The second, larger figure, is slightly shambling and the white hand that he extends is large and clothed in the arm of a dusty jacket.

Robert! Fancy meeting you here. Where are you off to?

Well, John, I have just been offered a position in Asia by my sponsors. It involves some interventions on governance and control. It's good to know that, even at my age, I can still make positive a contribution. You must come and visit me if it is not too cold for you or perhaps we could meet up in Beijing?

A voice announces over the PA system

The next flight to depart from Harare International Airport is Cathay Pacific Flight 666 to Lhasa

John waves to the turning figure and calls after him:-

I rather prefer the climate in the Hague at this time of year and the tulips of course. I believe they have produced a new bulb. It's called justice! Perhaps you would like to drop in and see it?

Sentiment

Someone who describes a glass as half empty is defined as a pessimist.
If the glass is described as half full the person is defined as an optimist.
Extending the catechism of cliche (in the spirit of the man with the little horses)

Someone who describes the glass as only half full:-

Is greedy, probably worked for an investment bank, bought a car a yacht and an aeroplane with his last bonus and no doubt waters the workers beer in the pub that he bought before the collapse.

Wolves in sheep’s clothing?

I remember Edinburgh in the 70’s. (OK that’s the 1970’s.) We had a little environmental thing going, not too deep green, just hugging whales and trying to preserve the bits of the planet that we hadn’t messed up with our fag ends and whisky bottles. There was one guy who was kinked out of his mind on wolves! I’m not sure he hadn’t been frolicking with the beasts in the wilds of somewhere, howling at the moon. He seemed fairly harmless. We let him have his exhibition and I’ve lost the posters. I’ve felt ever since that wolves have had a bad press. That image, thinner than was fashionable, rangy, lolling tongue and sardonic smile (if you’ll pardon the anthropomorphism) has stayed with me.

If we believe the FT Magazine 15/3/08 and the review by Donald Morrison, wolf worship is about to sweep the west, prior to the Beijing Olympics!

Wollf Totem by Jiang Rong, translated by Howard Goldblatt, is an award winning piece of Chinese fiction, a tale-within-a-tale of wolves and nomadic herders set in Inner Mongolia.

All good stuff with a poke in the eye for the old Han!

You Chinese have the courage of sheep, who survive by foraging grass.

We Mongols are meat eating wolves, and you could use a bit of wolf courage.

Nice one.

So! All you PLA chaps out there in Tibet, set to and show a bit of woofly courage. No holding back now! Box the trouble making vandals and antisocial elements about the ears until they know what’s what.

Be careful though! The Dalai Lama’s clique might tag your tanks while you're at it!

Legacy Polishing

An office somewhere in Los Angeles. Two men in grey suits are discussing casting a film.

So. I see Tom Hanks as the best bet for Martin. He is the man! A session with the voice coach, what’s her name, Roisin, Rose Roslyn? Anyway, give him the ginger rinse and the curlers and he is the man!

What about Jerry?

Gerry you mean, well, it’s got to be Tommy.

Hell no! That Texan; never cut it in the Bogside.

Who gives a f**k about the Bogside we’re thinking about Boston.What’s Senator Ted gonna say if we have some shit kicking britisher that no one can understant. This is a huge part, emotionally, intellectually, philosophically and fiscally.

OK!

You know we are just playing around the big one.

Yea I know!

So. You show me yours and I’ll show you mine?

I’d go for Gandolfino. He’s big, he’s irrational, he scares the sh*t out of everyone and ….

He’s a godamn f**k**g catholic. Are you trying to get me tarred and feathered?

Ian’s mellowed. His wife is a Baroness for god’s sake, they’re practically Ulster Royalty. You never heard the Act of Emaciation?

I don’t think so. I know you want Javier Bardem for Thatcher, that’s gotta be real inspired with the hair an’ all, and Meryl Streep for Blair, she’s got the cojones. Do you see any kind of kinky action here?

We are getting away from it. This could be big and I could live with that but you have to go with me for this one.

Hit me!

I think Forest Whitaker is the peach!

Yeah, and the title?

The Abominable No Man!