Leslie 1941 - 2011

Your voice echoed the dreaming spires
Your face the folk of the four corners
Your companion Listening Woman
Your burial a bone pointed to a blue sky

In the midst of death there is farce.

I have been reading, thanks to the NYT, the ideas of Gene Sharp in From Dictatorship to Democracy which is available as a free download.

Well someone has to start thinking strategically about the downfall of rubber man, the clagster and coalition forces! It also fits in with ideas about how to encourage slow politics.

It is somewhat unnerving that the world changes so quickly and leaves so many with their trousers round their ankles (Mr Blair endlessly snogging the green and latterly brown tyrant) It is also unbelievable that more have not been killed though no doubt there will be deaths untold and horrors that we will not (and some will not wish to) know about.

A lighter, farcical, note was provided by Robert Fiske reporting in the Indie

It now emerges, thanks to a genuine old-fashioned scoop in Le Monde, that President Ben Ali didn't really intend to flee his country at all. He planned to fly his immediate family to safety in Riyadh and then return to Tunis next morning to continue his reign. Only when the Tunisair crew arrived in Saudi Arabia and saw al-Jazeera in the airport's VIP lounge, announcing Ben Ali's overthrow, did they call Tunis and receive a new flight plan to take off at 1.30am the following day. They discreetly flew away while the President slept, leaving the dictator planeless in Riyadh.

Worthy of Boot of the Beast.

I wonder what the world will be like at $200 per barrel. I can’t see that level of power being wasted on democracy. As evidence m’lud I cite a certain Mr Put In. Tovarish of this parish and one time member of the organs of state security. He has achieved a such a lot on $100 a barrel!

Happy Birthday 2

Further to our recent post:-

If you want to see what the other buggers look like, mugshots here.

Most of them thrown out of the Securitate for cruelty!

Happy Solving.

Tax Matters

(In the voice of E L Whisty)

Dear Gideon,
I hope you forgive the familiarity of my calling you that but since your hands have been all over my assets I feel a certain closeness. I am writing to you because I would like to pay my income tax at the same rate as a certain Mr Barclay who owns a bank in these parts. If I am to believe a report in the Grauniad newspaper today he is charged a very reasonable 1 %. I took the liberty, recently, of submitting a tax return to you in which I calculated that my income attracted a much higher rate and that even after this I still owed Her Delightful Majesty's Revenue and Customs Service 35p.

I am an old man surviving, for want of a better word, on a small pension. I have to use the local library (due for closure) for books which I cannot afford to buy. I try to get out now and then to places like Thetford Forest (rescued from privatisation, for the time being) but the local public transport is appalling and the kindly folk at Suffolk County Council are restricting the use I make of my travel card.

I know you think I shouldn't complain. I live in a peaceful country free from nuclear attack and screaming jihadis. A land of plenty of litter where pit bulls and rottweilers roam free.

If you could see your way to a 1% tax on my meagre income I would be very grateful and would see you alright, if you know what I mean. I don't want to be too explicit in case I get you into trouble, but expect a plain brown envelope to arrive any day soon.

I look forward to hearing from Her Delightful Majesty's Revenue and Customs Service in due course and if you could forget the 35p we can call it quits.

Yours and Oblige,

Lord Buddhist Pizza
c/o Barclays Bank
Cayman Islands.

Bumblebee Lectures

We sat, yesterday evening, entranced and moved by the elegant and eloquent defence of the rights of children given by Michael Morpurgo in the 35th Dimbleby Lecture. It was more though. It made the case passionately for books and libraries and the space for children to grow and learn and develop. The iPlayer link is here and I will update that if there is a permanent record after 7 days.

I didn't notice any members of the cabinet in the audience. I'm sure if they were and were tackled about the issues raised they would only have shaken their wise heads and said:-

Yes I know, terrible isn't it? I blame the last government!

Come on Dave. We want a society that is big enough to cherish and nurture all its children as a priority!

Happy Birthday!

It's good after the start of a year with so much death to be able to celebrate a bit of life.
Araucaria is 90 today; a very, very happy birthday you old bugger!

That may seem a strange thing to say about someone who I have never met and would not recognise if I tripped over him in the street. However, he has provided me, and doubtless many others, with some rare moments of pleasure, frustration, confusion and satisfaction. He is a great distraction and consolation when dealing with the NHS and other bureaucracies.

An affectionate tribute here by Simon Hoggart in the Grauniad, and even an editorial, I'm impressed.

Roll on 91 I say, that's over a hundred more crosswords.

Certainty

We are all willing to talk about taxes some of us have very strong opinions and are not unwilling to share them. Death is, as they say, an entirely different kettle of herring.

I attended the death of a much loved family member. It brought sadness, tears and the recognition at the end of the process that the person was no longer there and would be no more. The consolation, if any existed, was that the death was dignified, peaceful and by all the evidence without pain. Since I had been there I felt a duty to report this to members of the family as appropriately as I could. I hope it was part of the process of grieving and life for us. One appeared very grateful for this, wanting to know but not knowing how to ask.

My own experience of the dead started early in life. In death my family were laid out in an open coffin in our front room (a 2 up 2 down slum) in Salford. Family, friends and neighbours would visit to view the body, pray and, of course, take tea. The corpse would remain with us overnight before the funeral and burial. I knew what the dying and the dead were like. I have avoided a fear of dead bodies but I am sure will piss and panic at my own death if I am conscious.

Different traditions exist in different communities. I read an article in the NYT by Ben Daitz about attempts to enable the Diné to speak of death and the dead. While it is necessary to discuss these from the perspective of care and near death provision the Diné religion and tradition makes this very difficult if not impossible. It was reported that one way to ease this process was to read the poem below with those affected.

When that time comes,
When my last breath leaves me,
I choose to die in peace
To meet Shi’dy’in

Metonymy

Metonymy flashed up on the old peepers recently and, as a word that I was not familiar with, was cause for investigation and reflection. There is a very good example by Elif Batuman in a recent blog. I don’t think I will forget the link between Ajda – Pekhan or tea glass and the meaning of metonymy.

Mr Collins has a much less vibrant description in his excellent book of words

the substitution of a word referring to an attribute for the thing that is meant, as for example the use of the crown to refer to a monarch

However, I was instructed at the end of this definition to - compare synecdoche!

You can not go around giving orders like that to a young lad without there being consequences. I confess I have wrestled with synecdoche almost as long as I have wrestled with the demon drink and sins of the flesh. I have used mortification of the body and spiritual exercises to cope with this word but it is no use. It has me defeated.

Mr Collins may briefly define it thus

a figure of speech in which a part is substituted for a whole or a whole for a part, as in 50 head of cattle for 50 cows, or the army for a soldier

and be back at the rashers and eggs in no time, washing it down with lashings of tea I’m sure, but I am destroyed. The little worm is there; the tautological quantum elusiveness of the smile on Schrödinger’s Cat:- a part is substituted for a whole or a whole for a part

I’m extirpated!

(Ed. There, there. Come and sit down and have a cup of tea. Do you want me to call your Mammy?)

Nobody Escapes the Spanish Audition.

I noticed the LRB has, in its series of Winter Lectures, one by Elif Batuman:-
Cervantes, Balzac and double-entry bookkeeping.

Now you know how something like that can set me off.

Wikipedia has it that

Cervantes worked as a purveyor for the Spanish Armada, and later as a tax collector. In 1597, discrepancies in his accounts of three years previous landed him in the Crown Jail of Seville.

So there I am with this picture in my head. Poor old Cervantes up against some hatchet faced cleric with a pencil moustache and goatee beard, his Gracious Majesty’s Auditor General.

So Miguelito, you say the Santa Pinyada sank with all hands and a fortune in gold bullion in the Irish Sea?

Yee.ss.

Just outside a port known by the heretic English as Liverpool, such disgusting names?

Yee.ss.

Then can you explain to me how a ship, a ship looking remarkably like the Santa Pinyada, was seen in a dry dock in this Liverpool having its name repainted as the New Brighton Ferry?

Can you further explain why a claim has been made by you on the insurance for the Santa Pinyada, loss with all hands and gold bullion, on the Armada No 1 Policy, at the Holy Catholic Insurance Society in Sevilla, (In God we trust and for the rest HCIS)? No, no explanation? Well I can only say how disappointed I am, deeply disappointed, and you do not want to disappoint the Spanish Audition!

Hit Me McTavish!

There may be those out there who feel we have had a surfeit of Scottish persons and Scottishness. New Year, the celebration of the Great Rabbi, Haggis, Salmo Salmar rubbing our noses in the fact that we are under a Coalition Yoke ( or is that a Tory Joke?). To those I offer these chaps, the Red Hot Chilli Pipers. I am listening to a session on the iPlayer, featuring them at Celtic Connections, 27/1/2011. If you can't get the iPlayer link in time, bash your ears here

Chasing Cars

3 pipers, and I love the title- chasing cars. Can't see Dave and Gideon pretending to do singalong. Normally I am happy to hear the pipes playing the Black Isle on a hillside somewhere. Sometimes you just have to let go!

Remind me again how many Westminster MPs represent Scottish constituencies or not as the case may be? Never mind the quantity feel the width!

Deer Management

An interesting post, as always, from Susan McCarthy. I love the title -

Act casual, act vegetarian!

I will be pulling the leg of my vegetarian friends and relations for some time about that.

There are other ways of dealing with the beasts, of course!

Nice One Philip

There is an article by Philip Pullman in Open Democracy Our Kingdom.
It concerns the proposed attack by the Coalition Forces on libraries.
As regular readers will know I too have a soft spot for libraries.
I'm glad that someone with a sharper mind and greater powers of argument is here to defend them and make the case that those who need them the most are least able to prevent closure.
The book burners and the library destroyers are a bad lot and who knows what damage they will do to us?

I know that we live in a world where there are greater ills and where unbelievable horrors greet people on a daily basis. I have no answer to this but I do know that libraries in whatever form open access to a shared humanity. Hopefully we are less likely to kill, maim, rape or exploit those we recognise as sharing that humanity.

To paraphrase the great Rabbi Burns, a teacher of some note, who you may celebrate this evening:

Some hae books and canna read,
And some wad read that want it;
But we hae books, and we can read,
Sae let the books be thankit

If I can help somebody

Notice seen in the window of a Dublin Teashop above a sack of potatoes.

This Teashop will be closed for business until further notice.
We are very grateful to all those we have helped along the way.
Please help yourselves to a few spuds from the sack below.
Me Ma said that they are the best she has ever grown!
Brian (without the other Brian this time) xxx

Anyone Who Has a Heart

So. Dick Cheney is in want of a heart and in need of a transplant.


Well that shouldn’t be too difficult. Given his power, wealth and influence the process should run like clockwork. A donor may be difficult. Matching tissue type and rejection can be problems. Not insurmountable I’m sure.

So in the spirit of peace and forgiveness I attach a picture of a source of the finest East Anglian Flints. There must be one there that fits.

Go on Dick! Take your pick.

And to cheer you on your way a wee tune and words for as long as it is up there on the interweb.
Could I suggest that after any successful operation you might like a change of scenery. No, no the hills and glens but The Hague!

AWOL in BABELFISH Translation

At some point over the last few days a Sainsbury's promo appeared to have dropped out of one of the papers. Always on the scrounge for new recipes I opened it and began to browse. Imagine my surprise when Juan Mari Arzak and his daughter smiled at me from a picture under the title of a dish which promised:

PRETTY IN BONFIRE OF GRUDGES

So, after Lady Buddhistpizza and I had picked ourselves off the floor, soothed our aching sides and dried our eyes, we added the recipe to the lost in translation pile! We giggled assuming the pretty fish was bonito, claro! We assumed the bonfire was of taste not a barbie, a salsa fuerte perhaps, but those grudges they mouldered on for some time. Could they be goujons? No, definitely a false friend. Could they be resentments buried deep in the psyche of the Basque cook? I think they dealt with old Boney, at least, with an armoury of pots and pans. A likely candidate is the noun grujidor which Collins Dictionary defines as a glass cutter. Could it be that the shavings of glass (produced by the grujidor?) find a resonance in the scales of the pretty fish!? Well, I leave that to the fevered imaginations of our regular readers.

However, hats off to Emily Drinking Tea, who got there in this blog:-
Sainsbury's you need a recipe editor
Ain't that the truth.

In Cod We Trust

Up to a point Capt'n Copper, up to a point.
Channel 4 has been running its muckraking paws through our fish.
One aspect of this has been Hugh's Fish Fight the link will give you the idea of the waste of food/fish in the requirement to discard over quota fish! A crime! It will be interesting to see if this campaign will have an impact on the Common Fisheries Policy, I hope it does.

Alex Thomson in today's fish supper "Fish Unwrapped" (Dispatches Series at 19:05) presented a tale of dodgy labeling and treatment of product that would cause Arthur Daley to blush. Catch it if you can and you think you're hard enough! It's on 4oD for the next 29 days as are most of the fishy tales

One good thing to come out of it though is an addition to our supper menu.
Mackerel in a bap, with salad and a wasabi/yoghurt dressing.

(Ed. That wasabi looks a bit wabbit to me.)

Elizabeth 1916-2011

Time takes its dreadful toll on us all.
We panic at the flickering of a dim light.
At the going down of the sun
We fear we may not be there to remember.
Unspoken the fear that we will be there but not remember.

Life, a fragile web of chemistry,
Forms the human to make what it can.
Self, family, friends; stations on the impermanent way.
Fortunes good, bad, and those made by our endeavours.
Our name and our future shining bright behind us.

Born into slaughter, growing in hard times,
You carried life and gave it four forms.
Tumult passed you by as did the voices of those you loved.
You nurtured your family, your friends, your garden
and the birds that pleased/vexed you silently.

These are your name and your future.
Two generations loved and blessed, no harsh words for any,
But every hedge clipped to within an inch of its life.
Your own words, your tribute,
Good and Gracious!

Unfair

Letter to the Wall Street Journal

Dear Sir,
Could I draw your attention to the blog on your website titled
You Decide: Goldman’s Facebook Pitch or Nigerian Email ‘Opportunity’

This scurrilous piece makes a very unfair comparison between Goldman Sachs and entrepreneurial activity by Nigerian citizens. It is my view that Goldman Sachs are not a financial services organisation that I or any of my immediate circle of friends and colleagues would wish to do business with. It has been subject to criticism the latest here which, of course, they deny. We await the report of the The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission this month with interest and expect it will throw light into many corporate dark places!

I would like to make the case in a free market economy for the little person and can attest that I have had nothing but kindness and consideration from my many Nigerian correspondents. Of course, I have chosen not to take advantage of the abundant investment opportunities they have offered me but damn it all that is the essence of capitalism, caveat emptor.

NOW IF YOU WILL IN STRICTEST CONFIDENCE EMAIL YOUR BANK DETAILS TO ME AT BUDDHIST PIZZA INC. I WILL BE PLEASED TO PROVIDE YOU WITH THE OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME

Minder

One of the sharpest criticisms of Thatcherism in popular culture in the eighties was, in my view, Arthur Daley's hapless, seedy entrepreneur. I was reminded of this when our own becondommed leader offered us flu vaccine from previous years.

So there you are in some drinking dive in Westminster. Smoothie chops Dave, camel hair coat, ridiculous titfer, cigar in one hand and V&T in the other is holding forth. He leans across the bar to Andrew, a dour silvertop who is polishing bedpans.

“So Andy, we are running out of the old flu vaccine.

It just so happens I know this guy in Catford who has a warehouse full of the stuff.

This is the real McCoy. It would bring down a herd of swans at 50 paces. Lamentable, because it is a tad past its sell by date it is languishing in a crummy lockup!

Andy holds a bedpan up to the light squints at it. With all the enthusiasm of man about to cut off his own right arm with a rusty butter knife he lets out a slow stream of breath followed by,

“I suppose we could give it a try, it would have to be dated 2000 an somefink though Dave, no tricks mind!”

Arthur looks mortified, as if someone had accused him of a VAT fiddle. He replies,

“Andy, how long have you known me? Would I seek to abuse the bonds of friendship, pollute the trust of two trading partners with some cheap legerdemain? “

He turns to a sallow yoof at his side and rouses him from a reverie of heaven knows what with,

“Gideon, get the motor, pop round to Stavros at Biggie Pharma and pick up a few cases of Chateau Avian 2009! Try not to drop it. “

Arthur smiles, empties his glass, points it in the direction of the vodka optic and requests,

“A large one, please Andy, not too much ice!”

What is life?

I can remember reading one of Richard Dawkins books and feeling a sense of paranoia.

Pretty devious stuff this DNA, my guess is that it is taking over the world!

If you want to know the mechanism for the central dogma behind this assertion the video in the following link may give you a clue, or it may not, anyway pure Star Wars.

The Central Dogma