Arbroath Smokies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Buddhist Pizza Sovereign Funds

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

Q. Easing,
Chief Finance Officer, BPSF

B. Lind,
For Bent and Curle.

Benny and Rowan.

So Benny and Rowan finally got it together.

Benny:- Good to meet you Rowan.

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

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

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

Recipe

Julie and Julia

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

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

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

A late addition to the recipe question.

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

93

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

Good gracious!

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

Anyway!
Gracias a la vida; again!

Rhetoric

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

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

Indeed so.

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

The Great Escape

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

Shite and onions!

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

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

Gitanos!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Walking Wounded

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

Why I love Saturday afternoons.

Why I love (some) Saturday afternoons

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

Lucy, god bless her, at WOMEX 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

Times are hard!

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

We all have to make sacrifices.

Many thanks to Memex for the link.

Jigs

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

No lewd jigs at the end of plays

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

Black and White

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

Who are you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Save energy - recycle thoughts

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

In addition!





So that is what Dave Mackay looks like.

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

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

Memento homo

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

Sweet memories!

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

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

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

Once upon a time in the North.

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

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

Boots

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

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

The Angel's Game

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

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

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

Also got round to reading A Confederacy of Dunces.

Still Room?

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

Expenses Smexpenses!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By this shall all men know....

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

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

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

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

Bird on a Wire

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

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

Never a Grauniad Sub when you want one.

Xwords

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

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

Could be wrong but we will see.

The dirty digger can drink his heart out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why I get up in the morning

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

Feel the coffee, smell the zeitgeist!

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

Latest offering:-

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

Foxy, very Foxy.

Quality and Symmetry

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

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

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

My thoughts go up

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

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

Bookism!

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


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

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

Retable

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

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

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

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

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

Sex, drugs and HIV.

I recently read the Wisdom of Whores.
If you want to, you could consider HIV a politically transmitted disease.
It's not original, Georgie Monbiot got there in his article. I think it has a great deal of merit.

2 asides to everything.

Crossword clues that have tickled my fancy in the last couple of weeks.
1. The sound of the pen with nothing that is inside it (4) - OINK
2. Little birds here should be feature of wedding - Euan Blair's? (10) HATCHERIES

My own appearance in Araucaria's 24,761 at 5 across I take to be a chance matter.
Scotsman' s far away river for all in 21 letters (6).
21 down, since you ask, is
Scottish queen - imprisoned queen indeed! (5)

It's Official!

Dave doesn't like TWATS.
Amen sister! Amen!

A slip up or a new bit of spin. I would say it was a Chinaman if that was still allowed!

Never Mind the Quantity

Even at today's paperback prices, say 10 quid a throw, Mrs Brown has, according to the BBC report, had access to a library worth a quarter of a million sovs in the course of her reading life.
This bounty has, of course, been shared with her community. I would suspect the cost spread between the worthy council tax payers of Dumfries and Galloway is pennies.

Library staff said they were amazed by the achievement, particularly since Mrs Brown has never had an overdue fine.
The Dumfries and Galloway pensioner first became a member at Castle Douglas library and has particularly fond memories of the staff there.
....
Staff at the library described Mrs Brown as a "remarkable lady" and said they looked forward to her weekly visits.

It's not the quantity it is the quality of life that has been available to Mrs Brown as the result of a little cooperation.

I don't suppose the Library Police of this part of Southern Scotland have broken into her home to repossess the copy of 1984 which she was reading. Nice one Amazon; caught on the hop by John Naughton at Memex1.1 amongst others!

Interesting times for readers of books, libraries, writers, publishers, makers of gizmoes etc!

My grills are in their prime!

So; a certain amount of embarrassment when I popped into the local Library to retrieve this order.
The Wisdom of Whores by Elizabeth Pisani.

I like her style!

Way beyond the blue.

I have been reading Notes from Walnut Tree Farm compiled after Roger Deakin's death from 45 lined exercise books of his jottings. I had enjoyed Waterlog and Wildwood so much I thought I ought to give it a go. I am greatly enjoying it. Your man Deakin had a rare eye for detail, to wit; page 8 ......

good hills are hard to find in most of Suffolk.

Amen brother, amen! Doesn't it also have some awesome skies?


I ventured out today, having no demands upon my person, to Mellis; Deakin's stomping ground. I tramped from the common, via Cowpasture Lane, to Thornham Parva Church where I sat down and ate my lunch of pork pie and an apple. I nearly wept with the joy of it for the pig must have been deeply christian, the sun shone and if ever a church could be said to be easy on the eye, St Mary's is such. It has the scale of humanity, a small, squat, tower with a pyramidal thatch. The whole edifice has the air of shelter and support. It does not set out to impress or oppress you!


We had the good fortune to explore the Tardis like interior when herself was invited to a poetry reading by Oliver Bernard and music from a group of young(ish) women in an a cappella ensemble - Way Beyond the Blue. They were good and the sound they produced let alone their feminine charms was enough to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window! I was recalling this when I heard a green woodpecker fly off into the woods with its characteristic mocking laugh. So I upped stumps and headed back to Mellis.
A pint of Adnams at the Railway Tavern calmed me down and I returned to the pueblo much restored.

The price of cat litter

Thanks to Open Democracy for this story about Sahkalin, the people, the bears, and the increase in the price of cat litter because of the crisis (33% overnight since you ask).

I must admit I haven't checked the weather but I guess it is business as usual...

a powerful cyclone with abundant snowfall has hit Sakhalin

Many thanks to Ksenya Semenova.

Bankers don't you just love 'em

I rest my, brief, case.

His bank was merged/absorbed into Barclays; and
you do remember what they have been up to since they did that little trick with apartheid.
Here it is.......... link.

Ships Ahoy!

And so a wet Friday evening in the seething metropolis of Bury St Edmunds to see Quadriga.
Live music again, maybe not so popular with the locals as less than 40 of us turned up and we looked like a bad comb over (barcodo) in an auditorium that can hold nearly ten times that number. But I enjoyed it and the new arrangements of old favourites.

It is very hard though to get Fairport's Saucy Sailor out of my brain to make a reasonable comparison. You can do that here and here if you want, or I can go on about Seaman Stains and young Master Bates, the finest hands on the Spanish Main!

OK. I'll stop now.

Usefully Large Sums

I'm just coming to the end of(Capitalism as we know it Jim) Fools Gold by Gillian Tett
and I have started reading Portfolios of the Poor (PoP) (See link to first chapter for pdf ) my interest being sparked by a certain enlightened economist.

I was struck by the comparison.
In Fools Gold -JP Morgans boys and girls developed a breed of innovative derivatives as exciting new instruments CDS, CDO etc to smooth the choppy seas of the global economy and, of course, turn a handsome mega buck in the process. These financial WMD were abused of course and not, according to the book, by JP.

The authors of PoP who carried out an analysis of the household economies in Banladesh, India and South Africa of some very poor people - $2 a day! They record and demonstate the portfolios of a mix of instuments these families use to survive and prosper (yes, it is shaming) They are boring old instuments, borrowing informally from family and friends at zero interest, moneylenders (convenient and flexibleup to a point Lord Copper), microfinance institutions and savings clubs that charge ( hard to credit!).

As well as 'fortress balance sheet' I think The Rock, Bare Stearns, Lehman Brass could have learnt a thing or two from Hamid and Khadeja. I know I could.

United and clueless

A reasonable defence can be made for listening to the video in this blog in addition to the fact that the performers are Canadian. Thanks for the link to Status Q up to a point! I have my own feelings about Country and Western Music as many of our regular readers will know.

United Airlines must be deeply pissed about the publicity, or perhaps not as there is no such thing as......

I did like the touch at the end, no guitars were harmed in the making of this video. Glad to hear it!

A stroll down memory lane, again

Twice in the last week I have been out walking with people from the pueblo. In each case one of the group has had a connection with the village where we have been ambling, strolling, dandering or bimbling. (Each to his or her own mode of progression.) It adds a dimension which not only provides information but also insight. The past may be another country but many amongst us are cartographers and geographers of rare quality! I recognise that my own map reading is not as it used to be.

I discovered a site, John Naughton yet again, which may prop up the old grey matter for a few years more - Wolfram Alpha - It is not a search engine, it's more a sort of encyclopedia with a calculator attached which is able to do the kind of thing that has become popular in the TV shows which have an Xs of Aliens and X files and government departments dedicated to killing off extra terestrials and good guys and gals. ( As opposed to the real life ones which connive and conspire to, allegedly, have people's finger nails pulled out!)

So to conclude, I used the website to check my day of birth, Thursday since you ask, and I must confess I had forgotten, but then, as a man with a great future behind him, I have far to go. Herself was born on a Friday, and is convinced that she is loving and giving, though she seems to remember being born on a Tuesday and full of grace! This after a few glasses led to the thought that we ought to organise a gay pride march in our village and prior to this send out a questionnaire to determine those who were born on the Sabbath day and as long as they were blithe and bonny we could invite them to join us in a gloriously pink progression!

Perhaps too much, too soon?

The Birds

Ok figure this one out.
Starvelings gather and they could be musical or menacing.

Carnage

I am not now, nor have I ever been a vegetarian. I'm weak I know. In my defence - I eat very little meat and ensure that it comes from Happy Cows etc. When this argument was advanced to a small child questioning the propriety of being a carnivore it brought forth the answer that surely you should eat the unhappy cows and leave the happy ones! But I digress, as always.

I must confess to feeling a bit unsure when, red in tooth and claw, some carnivore devours a poor defenceless beast, alive, whole even, in close up on a tv nature programme. So if you suffer from nervous dyspepsia and/or extreme paranoia do not click on this link 'A Killer Advances'
Gardeners among you may enjoy the tale that is told before the picture, another cracker from
Susan McCarthy's Blog.

Where Sheep May Safely Graze

A few days off; aren't they all?

Glastonbury at the solstice. I didn't go up the Tor for sunrise being, uncharacteristically, sound asleep. Those that did said it was like a drunken football match! I chose to go up the Tor solo, steady on chaps, and had a pleasant bimble in the sun, even being wished a happy solstice by a woman who ought to have known better. Later I had the privilege of sitting on the slopes of the Tor in a refurbished, mobile, shepherds hut. I shared a teabag, and looked out from the hut and saw this.


Sometimes, for the strangest of reasons, you can feel incredibly lucky and blessed.
As I may have said on a previous occasion:- Gracias a la vida

We then went off to see the shepherd castrate two of the little lambs that had been quite happily nuzzling their mum. Ouch!

Opportunity

In the darkest night, in the depths of despair, there is always a chance. Ingenuity, even in the less scrupulous orders, brooks no impediment.

An article in the FT, the Mafia blamed for $134bn fake Treasury bills.

My first thought was, in the current world of quantitative easing, how could they tell the difference?

Reading on, a quote counters my scurrilous conclusion...

“They are all fraudulent, it’s obvious. We don’t even have paper securities outstanding for that value,’’ said Mckayla Braden, senior adviser for public affairs at the Bureau of Public Debt at the US Treasury department.

Apparently your Treasury is up there in the interweb age and has been for some time.
Since the 1980s they have been issuing these kind of bonds by making electrons do fancy things that you probably don't want to think about!

Phwhat I hear you ask, were these, allegedly Japanese, men in their 50s intending to do with the funny money? Buy drugs, guns, small children and other animals and fish, stolen works of art, influence in high places, a country even; no of course not.

It seems this kind of thing has been going on for a while and in a similar case recently, a mere $1bn...

The fake bonds were to have been used as collateral to open credit lines with banks, Reuters news agency reported.

Very sound! Very sound!

Plus ca change!

An interesting article via Arts and Letters Daily.
When I first discovered this online mag many years ago I could not believe my luck. Someone was prepared to trawl through online stuff and put it up like a newspaper. Some of it did not interest me and some of it did. I only paid for the electrons and didn't have to worry about recycling them!
Having spent several years studying physics I'm still not sure if electrons ultimately, recycle, decay or change in all around I see. (I was certainly never very good at words to songs or hymns, definitely not Protestant ones!)
Moving on.
So Oliver Wendell Holmes Jnr. tendered a dissenting opinion in a decision of the Supreme Court
on April 17, 1905, in the case of Lochner v. New York.1

At a mere 617 words, the dissenting opinion is an interesting one.

The burden of the article is that the Supreme Court, under the corrosive influence of Holmes' dissent, has drifted into a form of paralysis and the view that the Constitution is an empty vessel with no moral content. It would allow tyranny as equitably as it would restrain tyrants.

Go on give it a whirl, stretch the old grey matter!

A very brief and clear history of the interweb!

T'internet is celebrating its 40th birthday, allegedly, and there is some good stuff out there.
Your man John Naughton has a very clear and interesting podcast.
You may claim that you don't understand all this stuff and it does not effect you.
In the same way there was some worthy German burgher laughing his socks off hysterically when he saw the first printing press. You can imagine his words when he had it explained that it was used to press sheets of paper which were then bound into books. It'll never catch on. What will all those monks do? I don't want my son reading books. I certainly don't want my daughter reading books, I don't want my daughter reading, full stop!

Mr Brown meets a voice from the past.

In the number ten bunker a large and slightly disheveled character sits with a half consumed bottle of malt whisky. Muttering quietly to himself he notices an image enter the room.

Shite!

It has long greasy hair, a cadaverous face and frame and a sallow complexion. It is dressed in a poor quality black suit.

Gordon! It's guid to meet you at last.

Jimmy! As I live and breathe, is it you?

Aye.

Gordon pours himself a large one and offers Jimmy a dram.

Och weel! I have nae had one this year, so yes.

God Jimmy! I did nae think it would be so fucking hard!

Gordon, you need to watch your language, and the drink nae doubt!

Bugger that. You've no idea what the bastards are capable of.

Remember, Gordon, the essentials - Socialism in oor time; vote Broon save the children. Och weel we can't have everything! Have ye got a fag?

No allowed Jimmy!

Well, well are we still allowed tea?

Yes, but have another, a large one.

Now Gordon; you know I only drink in moderation once a year or thereabouts to show willing. I could murder a tea though, lashings of tea!

I'll see if I can raise one of the little people to do a brew!

Don't fash yerself, I'll be off. I just thought you need to be reminded that eventually someone is going to stand up and say:-

Sit down man! You're a bloddy tradgedy!

Gordon slumped and poured the rest of the bottle into his glass!

To the wheelie bins!

I come from a tradition that had the slogan 'Vote Early, Vote Often' to contend with.
The Spanish go to the urns.
Some poor beggars don't have the 'luxury' of the vote.
If you don't vote you can't complain.

However, I did have a chuckle walking through the village yesterday where I saw this:-




Our blue bins are for the recycling of paper, cans and cardboard! It seems that the EU and politicians have lost a bit of ground recently.
And have I voted? Of course!

Let him who is without sin cast the first Stone!

OK so here is the deal.

I.F. (Izzy) Stone was a journo who made a modest living and a substantial reputation from self publishing his weekly. In those days, before blogs, the collapse of print journalism as we know it Jim, hell fire and damnation, and small snot green coloured animals that cling to your crocks in the summer, he made, in my view, a very reasonable job of speaking and writing truth to power.

Reportedly starting from a base of 5,200 charter subscribers he and his wife cranked out 20,000 postal issues by, 1963, and 70,000 in its final year, 1971.This was all done, Mom and Pop enterprise, from the 'kitchen table' on the back of a Government postal subsidy.

I am here waving my, well dodgy, fiver a month and proffering it to the first person who can provide me with journalism on a par with Izzy Stone or Jimmy Cameron and deliver it over the e-waves to my virtual front door.

Yes, of course, I could subscribe to the electronic Grauniad etc., etc.

But what I want is a small group of people knocking out stuff that would challenge me and cause the bastards serious trouble.

A group who would have these current thieving gobshites up against a wall and begging for the works of Corporal Murphy.

A dream of course!

I still have the fiver have written on it that:-

Our King is a true British Sailor!

Let me know if you find it and I might tell you the story!

Anyone for a spot of spring cleaning?

I read
John Naughton's reporting the on the big clean up in Estonia in May 2008.
Inspiring video in his blog here.
and thought

Wouldn't it be nice to do that here?

and also thought

Wouldn't it be nicer to do a similar job on politics here?

Anyone interested?

Then, I don't know why, I began looking in the mainstream interweb news services for a reference to the Estonian Spring Clean. Hmm... Uneasiness, paranoia, easily seduced by pretty videos with high social value (HSV!) Did it happen? Did it happen in the way that was suggested?

This morning I was bimbling around t'interweb when I discovered this link from the Chronicle of Higher Education about the difficulties and perils of (historical) research in the Enlightened Economist's blog. I learned at an early age, pre-interweb even, possibly 40 years ago to go back to original sources.

Must check with our man in Estonia. Possibly make a personal visit, staying in one of Buddhist Pizza's extensive network of overseas, tax efficient, properties. I'm sure the entirely independent trustees at the fees office of Buddhist Pizza Charitable Holdings (No 666999) would advance me a few doubloons for an all expenses paid research trip.

Excuse me, I'll be off now!

How to shoot friends and torture people!

The title it's not mine but it is funny and a first class description of the forthcomming memoirs of the 46th VP of the US of A.
I feel the panic thickening the e-waves and clotting the arteries of the interweb.
Didn't we withdraw the oxygen of democracy and stuff him in the black hole where all failed former politicians go?
Didn't we pour the fast setting concrete of the 24 hour news cycle on his head and forget all about him?

Oh no! What's that creature rising from the swamp, bloody but unbowed?

Ok just lighten up. I prefer to think of him as a bad tempered, smelly, old dog with an anal adenoma and cataracts. Slowly dying but determined to bite anything in his later years that he did not bite in his youth. Yes, he bit you and your dad before you and he still tries to get the postperson.
Wouldn't it be more humane to slip him the needle?
Possibly, but one can indulge in the profession of the right to life of even the lowest of His creatures while watching the beast die, painfully!

Mr Chairperson.

Eric Pickles the 'unashamedly common' Yorkshireperson has a bit of a puff (sorry about that) in th'Observer.
Having run across him before, sadly not in a green hummer, I am not convinced he would be a particular benefit to Dave's new model army. That's their problem.

I see him as a minor figure in a flawed but unmissable Britcom, played by Richard Griffiths, who has generously allowed his curly locks to be shaved and a false pointy pate stuck on his bonce. Richard would be able to supply the character with the right level of, shifty, edginess leaving all sorts of questions unanswered.

What happened to the boodle?
Why are there so many, dead, bodies?
How did they die?
How can such an evil character have such an enigmatic smile?

Those were the days of British Film!
Eric you missed your vocation!

The bottom line

An idea for the development of the feeble gag on which this blog is based provided by one of the poor souls who occasionally reads it.

His Holiness the Dali Lama (HHDL) goes into a pizzeria and asks for a Buddhist Pizza.
The pizza guy wants to know of HH if that is vegan or vegie.
HH responds that it is one with everything.......
The Buddhist Pizza is produced, HH profers a £50 note and this goes straight into the till.....

KERCHING!

HH enquires about change.
The pizza guy states, unequivocally, that

Change comes from within!

I'll stop now.
Lagyalo.

Drugs, Sex and Zimmer Frames

So, this is not influenced by my current obsession with the Wire. Yo!

Down at the local dealers (Pharmacy) I was filling my scrip for a variety of chemicals that keep me bobbin' along.
There was a power out. So, it had the Mad Max feel.
The babe in front of me was dealin' for old dudes, allegedly. She kept lookin' round.
OK. So I should fess up not me. The old queen with the zimmer frame was sitin' and moanin' and showin' all the signs of disturbance! The babe collects the scrips and takes the ladee and the zimmer into the parkin lot. I hear the elder take root and raise up to say:-

I don't want to live in a home.

Part of me dies!
The babe says:-

I don't think pharmacists have the power to do that!

Amen sister! I say:-

It's only a matter of time!

We go our ways and I hear that horn.
Down in the hole!

We are all bankers now!

Essex County Council has discovered the, potential, delights of municipalism if not municipal socialism. The Grauniad has a related story about those caring, sharing tories.

All well and good. Wouldn't be above noodling a few bob ourselves from willing partners. You should see what we do in the way of creating jobs and influencing people.

Herself was greatly impressed by the tarjeta de Gijon. I must say I thought it was pretty nifty too. I suppose if you have a relatively small city (population 227,000 in 2006) with at least 13 socialist councillors out of 27 you can get things done. See link in Spanish and video (download the mpg from the link) which gives you a flavour of joined up municipalism.

The Alcaldesa, Mayor, of Gijon is Paz Fernández Felgueroso and has a blond mop of hair.
However, unlike our own dear Boris, she seems to do a bit more than sack coppers!

Hasta Luego!

No Expense Spared

You thought we were going to get down and dirty with the folks in the gutter, didn't you?
Revelations of mucky videos, dancing girls, free cocoa, the bouncing bonus and renovations to Buddhist Pizza Towers, all paid for by the cash donated to Buddhist Pizza Inc for the relief of poverty and the doing of good works.

Well, you are wrong. I cannot be deflected by the sordid claims and counter claims of those whose words remain below.

I prefer to raise mine eyes to the heavens.

(Photo NASA, ESA)

Full scale photo and details at the Hubble Picture Gallery Link.
You really could get lost in that stuff.
My favourite is in this link.

Oh, and St Vincent de Cable, didn't he do well?

Chatham House Rule(s) OK!

Thoughtful review by John Naughton of a conference on the 'economic crisis' held at Jesus College Cambridge. Scary stuff for us little fury animals grubbing around the under productive fields of microfinance.

I don't like the sound of political unrest in Europe. When was the last time? Oh yes I remember now; swivel eyed blokes marching up and down in strange uniforms and a lot more besides. Let's hope the much despised Europarliament is a restraining and moderating influence. Hmm...

How do you engineer an adequate system of financial regulation for the future. Naughton reports that:-

There was a lot of expert talk about regulatory regimes. But the thing that strikes me — speaking as an engineer — is that capitalism is an inherently unstable system. Over the last few decades — since the war — we have found ways of keeping it under some kind of control. But it continues to escape as its natural oscillatory mode breaks through. And as it get more complex, inter-related and information-rich it becomes harder and harder to control it. I kept thinking about Ross Ashby and the theory of requisite variety, which essentially says that if you want to be able to control something, then your regulatory apparatus has to be able to match the variety of the system. Our regulatory systems seem very inadequate and feeble and post-hoc.

There seems little possibility of our current generation of regulators keeping up with the out of work rocket scientists and theoretical physicists that have produced much of the problem. Perhaps, rather than engineering solutions we should constrain systems with basic rules and allow them to develop organically. We would need to apply the rules ruthlessly and relentlessly root out any coupling which had the capacity to destablise the system. I can hear myself saying it.

"It is not quite as simple as that."

One thing that has occurred to me over my working life as a 'money lender and property speculator in the nicest possible sense' is that real variety and competition are very important. I hope that one of the 'improvements' brought about by the current financial market failure is that we recognise and strenghten the alternatives, mutual, local and co-operative. Fat chance!

Let a thousand banks boom!

We are the village green preservation society...

Interesting series of pickies from one of my favourite bloggers.
I may not always agree with her but she does have a lovely take on her life.

Shop local; what a good idea and even better if some of those shops are owned by the community especially if they are in the hands of a mutual society.

Manitas de plato.

What's in your radio communications spectrum?

A New Scientist Blog references Google's campaign to force the US government to release full details of the US radio communications spectrum. There is a pdf format of the spectrum here.
Very interesting to see how that goes politically and in terms of the effect on technology.

The thing about us British is that we may not understand science but we do like the pretty diagrams, especially if they have lots of lettering on them. Do you remember all those centrefolds from the Eagle comic. Didn't we drool for hours over the cut away versions of battle cruisers and nuclear submarines?

I'm being sad now, aren't I?
I'll stop!

Whimsey and money laundering

In case HMRC and the serious crime wallahs read my last blog can I just say that I take money laundering, tax evasion and like very very seriously! It is not only a crime it is the machinery which powers illegal drugs and arms distribution, loan sharking, people trafficking, and prostitution. The sorts of things that do not make for a healthy and convivial society.

In the last century, when we were involved in starting and developing credit unions, we were addressed by a person from the Registrar of Friendly Societies on the subject of money laundering. Oh how we laughed! Then I pulled out an envelope, I had given up smoking by then, and on the back of it did a few, quick, calculations. Even in those days it would have been pretty easy to launder a million a year through the rudimentary credit union network and with the restrictive limits in place at the time.

Being a woolly minded liberal I am all in favour of HMRC going round, kicking down each door in turn and confiscating any boodle whether under the bed or not. The alleged owners would have to provide the usual audited accounts and receipts and a note countersigned by Nelson Mandela, the Dali Lama, and Desmond Tutu to certify that they were of good character, kind to children and small animals, active participators in civil society and gave freely to a variety of campaigning good causes (apply buddhistpizzagoodcauses.org/BancoBuddistPizza/Palermo) before assets could be returned.

However, a tale told against myself, I have been caught with my hands in the washing machine, as it were.

A holiday on Paxos started with our taking our first dander down to the Harbour Bar. Being near the harbour, herself was drawn to the edge to peer over. In an instant she was not there. This was not an assumptive intervention of a benign deity more a result of the edge of the harbour being wet and slippy. Panic, fear and other feelings passed through me as I moved to the edge where herself was just breaking surface. With the help of bystanders she was pulled bodily and safely from an early bath and I was much relieved. The only injury was to her pride. Everyone was kind and concerned and the Harbour Bar provided hot coffee and brandy for free. I was able to make the case that as a concerned spouse and weakling I needed to participate in this measure of revivification.

Thereafter, herself was a village icon. Those who spoke English enquired, daily, if she had been swimming and those who did not smiled sweetly and made swimming motions with their arms.
The link to money laudering came when wet clothes and the contents of pockets were processed after the adventure. I ended up washing Greek currency in the sink and hanging it out to dry on the washing line on the balcony of the apartment. Jesus, I thought, thank god the FSA can't see me now!

Banks! Don't you just love 'em?

John Naughton has a post about being challenged over a cash transaction at a bank. He was asked to produce identity information. A full and frank exchange ensued, allegedly! He goes on to draw conclusions about the treatment of customers (victims?) propounded by one Charles Leadbelly in a linked article for the corner house. All of which is fine and dandy. I, too, hate being treated as dayglow dogpoo by some bureaucratic gobshite; someone more interested in discussing last nights telly/football/holiday plans or the latest prospect/ with his or her fellow employee than offering me the service for which I am undoubtedly paying for through the nose in one way or another. (Glad to get that off the old chest, ahem)

It gets worse, of course, Faisel Rahman sumarises his experience and that of others

In 2003, under pressure from the government, banks created and promised to promote "no frills" basic bank accounts, which wouldn't need a credit check. These offer no interest, are badly promoted, and rarely allow people to step up to better financial products. Consequently, there has been low take-up. Much of this is bad product design and lack of bank enthusiasm for poor clients. For example, at the local high street bank near me, if you have a "basic" account you have to use the telephone service and not the teller; at others, staff don't even know to offer the account.

So lets have a crack at the banks, they are crap at banking, they do not treat all customers fairly,
I have not noticed too many Mr Big's being put away for doing naughty things and their doubloons being confiscated for the benefit of the nation as a result of bank activity, rather the reverse! What can you expect of a financial institution which supported apartheid.

The Relief of Poverty

There have been some reports besmirching the good name of those who work unceasingly and tirelessly to make the world a better place for (all of) us to live in. I do not think that the increase in my salary from £300,000 ( in round figures) to a mere £970,000 over the period 2003 to 2007 is unwarranted, excessive, or in the same kettle of herring as certain other remuneration packages I could mention! For those grubby whistle blowers and dirty delvers I will do the math, as they say. It is an increase of 153 per cent over 4 long, hard and very difficult years. Am I begrudged a yearly increase of 38 per cent, 3 per cent per month or a smidgen over 11 grand each pay day? Any less and it would not be worth leaving the old homestead. Mr Leigh may witter on about not competing for cash and high levels of job satisfaction. It is no joke, poking around some of these hell holes looking for honest Johnnys so we can hand over our ever increasing pile of doubloons. Far better to leave the boodle at home, in the banks.

Neatbook

I had a birthday recently. I would have liked one of these:-



Noteboek from Evelien Lohbeck on Vimeo.

Thanks, once again, for the link to John Naughton and others

Spring is sprung!

So there we were, bright spring day in the middle of Thetford.
Here he is or at least his statue.
What you can't see, of course, is herself, round the back of the statue muttering about the rights of women!
There's no pleasing some folk!

Ich Habe Genug

Easter.
Family and indulgence or even overindulgence.
We have been watching the Wire for relaxation! But hey, we're like that.
Spring is sprunging and we are awaiting our crabby apple tree to blossom. Pickies when it does.

Picture taken 29/4/09 Added 2/5/09
A thought.
We lost the war on drugs, we never should have invaded Iraq and what the hell are we doing in... anyway it seems a well known leftie MP Alice McMahon has resigned, no longer able to hack it. Poor wee Alice, it's no the deed punters, it's no the ruined lives. Alice you should have resigned years ago! The fact that Gordies wee numpties have accused X's missus of bein a Y or dooin Z ... come off it.

Never mind it will soon be Schlummert ein.
The living will be easy, won't it?


In the meantime no legal offer refused.

Do No Harm!

Private Eye used the old joke:-

We in the Police Violence or Force as we have to call it now...

a long time ago.

John Naughton has a link to flickr photograph which, given the recent death of a man in London, is a grim development on that theme.

Allow me to provide some medication sir!

Small Earthquake in Italy

Some have taken the tragedy as an opportunity for camping it up.
Some of us have lived long enough to realise that the poor bloody Italians will have to put up with more of the same from politicians, civil servants, academics, contractors, sub-contractors, suppliers, mafiosi, friends of the mafiosi, popes, parish priests, etc etc. The whole bloody circus will be wailing and gnashing its false teeth. But rest assured there will still be DPs (Displaced Persons) looking for respite and homes in 3 months, 3 years, whatever time it takes for a corrupt and failing government to screw the last drop out of them!

You couldn't actually invent this

An email with the above subject and a link: a link
I must agree. Not quite in the

come to Sunni Gaza for your holidays

league, but not far off.

Ad hominem limerick.

There was a young lass called Mendoza
Who looked like an overstuffed sofa
Her smile was sweet
But she thought with her feet
And her brain was a burnt samosa.

Thanks for the link.
Yet again, how clueless people can be!

Politicians do not lie!

You may find this hard to believe but the above is not true!
We all had our doubts about WMDs now there is documented evidence that those nasty Republicans are harnessing Weapons of Mouse Destruction. Susan McCarthy has a blog about mice or more correctly the absence of mice that nails the political process. Being a zoologist I guess she is very familiar with the lower forms of life and their slimy habits.
Susan's projection of how mice might spend $30m is fun and the San Francisco Chronicle gives space for Congresswoman Jackie Speier(Democrat California) to add a measure of perspective about the process and the worthy burghers of San Francisco.

You do have to watch those mice though. Wee sleekit cowerin' timorous beasties they may be but turn your back in a recession and they have got their bewiskered noses in the trough.

Libraries.

Some people think libraries are the biz.
I have been known to comment on them myself. We could be wrong! We will certainly not expect the changes to libraries that the iDog will bring.

If I haven't mentioned it before the iDog is a mobile/broadband phone that is under development by Buddhist Pizza Industries. It doubles as a text and A/V processing unit which comfortably uses electronic paper to display books, periodicals, and newspapers (remember them?) at any ambient light level. It can of course project, via a wireless link, onto an iWall (do I have to explain everything?) I thought the incorporation of the audio switch to enable the text to be read by the iDog in a range of voices from Juliet Stevenson to John Humphries (desending order) was a nice touch.

I can just see one of my nieces explaining to her grandchildren, wide mouthed in disbelief, about libraries and books.

Your uncle was a jolly old soul and in his later years he used to borrow a lot of books from the library. Yes, Kirsten, you remember seeing on VID all those books behind the glass wall in the British Library, well there was a library in the village next to where your uncle lived. He would look up the library catalogue on his computer, you don't need to know what one of those is dear, and order the book that he wanted to read. The library would send him an email, it's like a long text dear, to say he could collect the book, read it and return it for another reader in three weeks. He could have it for longer than three weeks if no one else wanted to borrow it. Yes, Jan, I think he was a veeery slow reader......

Who knows what will happen to books, journalism, publishing, copyright, etc....
What will that do to libraries? What will that do to us?

Magnanimous!

Let's just keep a sense of perspective here.

Yeeees!

Sorry, now where were we?
I must say Mary looks very well and Prince Willie, not sure what he was doing there. Mind you from the look on his face I'm not sure he does either.

Who are you calling a pansy?

There are lots of green shoots and buds in the garden. There are flowers planted by the previous owners and those planted by the Head Gardener (HG) who rules our vast estate with a rod of blackthorn. It is a joy and now that we have both shaken off our colds, maybe the same one generously shared, we can even appreciate the experience with our noses. HG has placed two pots of welcoming pansys by the front door. They have survived the late winter and now bask in the spring sun, don't we all!

The cold has seriously affected my appreciation of wine. Heavens to Betsy I hear our readers cry as one person! In support of the local playing field we had a cheese and wine tasting. I felt obliged to go. The wine was supplied by Shami Gill, an independent supplier from a local village. It was an interesting evening. All but one of the five wines we tasted had no nose for me, sadly. However, they all contributed to an increasing sense of conviviality and enjoyment as the evening flowed, very strange that. We rolled home knowing we had made a positive and selfless contribution to the wellbeing of the pueblo!

Municipal Socialism

There are many reasons for being a member of a credit union or two.
One of the more obscure is the chance to roam around locations at unfamiliar times at near zero temperatures waiting for the venue of the AGM to open. Not having the resources of RBS behind us we hire a room in the library by the hour. There were some chuckles when the meeting agreed unanimously that the Treasurer should be paid an honorarium of £500 for the work carried out voluntarily each year. Some wag at the back was heard to say:-

Shouldn't that be five hundred thousand with a pension thrown in!

While I was waiting for the meeting and stand up comedy routine to start I took this snap.
Not quite up to Bolton or Manchester standards but a suitable reminder of civic vision. A bit like a well fed county solicitor with an expanding waistline and an increasingly vague but avuncular demeanor.

Watering The Hummers

Not what you think.
Susan McCarthy's blog paints a sparkling word picture. It would be quite a sight to see.
Love the title, I have felt like that on many an occasion!

In the meantime link to a picture:- a picture.

It was one of those books, I'm sorry!

Have managed to raise my nose from the grindstone to read a few chapters of

Palestinian walks, notes on a vanishing landscape by Raja Shehadeh.

Very interesting.

Boy we think we have got problems. You spend your life building a cast iron case against the illegal annexation of your land by the Israeli State and its head banging extremists. Land which most of the world regards as little better than a rock strewn rubbish dump but which you recognise as the gentle soul of your nation and wham, bahm, thank you man the PLO have sold you down the crapper!

So it goes!

And then today I read

good gracious!

Science and Priorities

So Nancy and Caroline agree on throwing money at science.
Hmm... I might have considered this before
It's a bit like throwing shoes at failed Presidents. You can appreciate the sentiment but question the aim. I seem to remember, in this country, a certain Mr Wislon muttering about the white heat of the pound in your pocket. I think we have missed the trick here. Money thrown at science does not equal material progress. We need science to achieve intellectual, economic and humanitarian objectives. Science of itself will not:-
- reduce the number of human beings dying painfully and needlessly for want of the wherewithal to live sustainable, productive, and fulfilling lives;
- protect us against the destruction of the environment;
- protect us against the excesses of corrupt and totalitarian governments;
all of which come pretty high on my list.

One person's space programme is another country's supply of malaria nets for a generation.

I'm off to consult with the Stakhanovites of the Suffolk Couty Libraries to see if we can obtain this tome. It may offer a way to shape priorities internationally!
Thanks to John Naughton for the link.
-

The theory and practice of everyday resistance

My Mum would have approved, she was a great believer in communality and cleanliness!

Louisa Waugh's blog is certainly a different view for the blind.

Book Burning Stove

I must admit the horrible, truly horrible, thought crossed my mind again (see end of linked post) when I saw this story in the Grauniad today.

Brought to books: bibliophiles and traders enjoy giveaway bonanza

Thousands descend on warehouse in search of free treasures

It was accompanied by a picture of a volume books, on an industrial scale, stacked and strewn free and ready for......... aargh!

Francais v Paye de Gaulle

Our 6 Nations correspondent West of Winchester writes:-

We are all getting ready for the big game in this house.
The blue berets are ready to be worn, the tricoleur is pinned up on the back wall. I have thrown out some festering leeks I found in the back of the veg box and have suggested we do not want any lamb on the menu. Coq au Vin is, however, stewing nicely, while the claret is ready to be decanted. I have down loaded all the lyrics to the Marseilles. I have been taking accordion lessons and will play along. We are looking after a poodle for the night. I have taken up smoking [Gauloise] and a bottle of pastis has been opened for aperos. Tarte de pomme is up for desert. As a warm up we will be watching a DVD of Jules et Jim, just to get in the mood, followed by highlights from the carrier of Serge Blanco. I just found a cluster of daffodils starting to shoot in the garden so dug them up.

I do love watching neutral 6 Nations Games when you don't care who wins!
Toodle pip,

My feelings, entirely!

Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!

A bas M. Poireaux

February fill dykes

Sorry! I have no pictures of drifts of ice-blue snow, or any of the other manifestations of a winter wonderland.

There is a crisis on and some of us need to keep the inner man satisfied. Now, if you don't mind, I'm having my lunch.