Happy Saint Andrew's Day



And so one of the Scottish national emblems - the thistle - for the day of our patron saint who also gave us the form of our flag, the Saltire, the oldest national flag still in use, an insignia of Scottishness for over a thousand years. And since it is Saint Andrew's Day let's have some Scottish poetry - this one is by the poet and novelist Andrew Greig, who I've had the pleasure of sharing a drink and a natter with on a few occasions over the years:

As your lover on waking recounts her dreams,
unruly, striking, unfathomable as herself,
your attention wanders
to her moving lips, throat, those slim shoulders
draped in a shawl of light, and what's being christened here
is not what is said but who is saying it,
the overwhelming fact
she lives and breathes beside you another day.

Other folks' golf shots being even less interesting
than their dreams, I'll be brief:
as she spoke I thought of a putt yesterday at the 4th,
as many feet from the pin as I am years from my birth,
several more than I am from my death –
one stiff clip, it birled across the green,
curved up the rise, swung down the dip
like a miniature planet heading home,

and the strangest thing is not what's going to happen
but your dazed, incredulous knowing it will,
long before the ball reaches the cup then drops,
that it's turned out right after all,
like waking one morning to find yourself
unerringly in love with your wife.

"A Long Shot", by Andrew Greig, borrowed from the website of the Scottish Poetry Library (based here in Edinburgh), where you can enjoy a good browse at plenty of verse from Scottish writers.

Breaking the law

So after more fibs from the government and assurances that their latest corruption scandal was a mistake by one party official that no-one else knew about, surprise, surprise it turns out that wasn't the case, even after the Prime Eejit stood up and told everyone it was. Considering this is the same party who has blocked enquiries into how we were lead (and lied) into the Iraq war it can't be a surprise to anyone that they hide other dodgy secrets and illegal activities behind misdirection and bare-faced lies. Tonight most news programmes were reporting that this is a criminal matter and as such should be referred to the police, but come on, who the hell thinks the Met will do much there after they so conveniently looked after the government's interests in the cash-for-honours scandal (the senior officer's appearance in front of a House committee afterwards was also less than convincing).

You know, if you were a suspicious, cynical person you might find it seems rather convenient that just after the Metropolitan police announced no prosecutions after a high profile, very expensive investigation into political corruption the beleaguered and incompetent Chief Constable got given backing from on high to let him ride out the furore over the findings in the Jean Charles de Menezes shooting. With such protection from senior ministers and the Prime Minister no wonder Ian Blair looked so smug and arrogant when he was in front of the committees, he was all but saying up yours, you can't touch me. If, as I say, you were very suspicious you might think perhaps there is a secret link between the cash for honours investigation being dropped and Blair being protected by senior government officials, some shady quid pro quo. And if you thought that you might be even more cynical that any dodgy dealings in this new corruption scandal will be properly investigated, much less see all the people responsible actually charged. But of course, that's just paranoid fantasy, isn't it? Like someone making multiple illegal donations in the guise of different people, the very idea is mad... Oh, hold on...

And they wonder why so many people don't even bother to vote or take part in the political process anymore after setting this kind of example... Still, it was great to see the look on Gordon Brown's dour face when Cable compared the eejit to Mister Bean...

In the interests of honesty and transparency though, I will admit I have made multiple donations to the KLF (Kangaroo Liberation Front) under the names Hieronymoys H Monocle, Lord Freddie of Mercury, Muhammed the Bear, Lady Anastasia Appendix-Major and the Magnificent Montogue and his Performing Koalas. And absolutely no-one else knew of this. Unless someone finds out otherwise. Honest.

What's in a name?

Dammit, after the frankly smegging stupid nonsense the Sudanese authorities have made out of a teddy bear being called Muhammad I have decided reluctantly to abandon my latest get-rich-quick scheme, marketing a range of Muhammad action figures (which would have come complete with accessories, such as a stick for beating shameless women who dare to show their eyes in public and a batch of Danish cartoons to burn). Oh well, back to the drawing board... Seriously though, getting so bloody worked up over schoolkids naming a bloody teddy bear??? Come on, get real you stupid buggers - how weak must your faith be if you think a teddy bear is such a huge threat to it?

Who watches?



Rorschach walking the mean streets of New York (actually a backlot in Vancouver) on the set of the Watchmen movie. I'm still not too sure how the graphic novel will translate to the big screen and am trying not to get excited about it, but then I see a pic like this from the film's blog and I think, hmmm, maybe, just maybe it will be okay - after all I was worried about V for Vendetta and the film version turned out to be excellent.

Hunting werewolves

Full moon this weekend, good werewolf hunting weather (hey, everyone needs a hobby and it gives me some exercise and gets me out into the fresh air):



(all this scene needs now is Christopher Lee in his Dracula cape; click for the bigger version on my Flickr)



(the full moon reflecting on the Union Canal; fun to compare this to summer evening pic of this same location I took a while back on my Flickr)

No lycanthropes were harmed in the making of these photographs, although my fingers got sodding frozen.

Tyger

Another very imaginative animation found via YouTube (this one by Guilherme Marcondes), using a variety of media and inspired by one of my favourite poems by one of my all-time favourite poets (and artists), William Blake:

Oscar

A rather lovely Oscar Wilde animation, a mix of puppetry and stop-motion, I came across, by Lucy Knisley:

Waves

Down on the beach next to Yellowcraig by the Fidra Lighthouse, a couple of miles up the coast from North Berwick this afternoon. We lucked out in that the gray clouds parted to give us some sunshine, but the chill wind coming in right from the North Sea was bitterly cold and it drove the waves into the rocky shore so energetically we had to cut short our walk because sometimes the waves would literally come right up the entire beach to the dunes, so if you didn't want to do some November paddling (and this water is bloody cold in August!) then it was best to just head off elsewhere.




(seabirds skim the crashing waves at North Berwick)


(with the changing of the tides the seabirds were out in force but every time they landed to check the wet sand for tasty morsels the violent waves would come crashing in once more and into the air they'd leap)

(click to see the full size pic on my Flickr page)

The lovely Victorian merry-go-round in Princes Street Gardens as part of the Winter Wonderland; annoyingly I missed getting pics of the official switching on of the Christmas lights and opening of the Winter Wonderland and the craft fair and German market because I didn't know what time it started on Thursday, although I did see it all coming on and fireworks going off as I sat on the upper deck of the bus on the way home. Still, the evening before, on a wild, windy, wet winter's night I saw them testing out the lights and the colours through the rain-spattered caught my eye and since reflections on the bus window or camera shake didn't matter much for this kind of pic I thought I'd just snap it.

Anniversary

Not being overly taken with monarchy I wasn't paying much attention to the coverage of the Queen and Prince Philip's diamond wedding anniversary this week, until this evening when I saw a segment of a report from Malta where the pair have gone (as they did after their wedding in 1947) on ITN this evening. There's Romilly Weeks and her amazing cheekbones reporting from Malta; she says something I'm not really listening to as I'm deciding what to make for dinner, something like how this is an unusually public display for a normally private couple and how romantic it was. Unaware that behind her Prince Philip has walked past, stopped right behind her listening, big grin on his face, she finishes, turns and sees him laughing and he says "is it really?", laughs and walks off. I'm not normally a fan of Phil the Greek but that was funny.

Government loses millions of citizen's personal records

In recent years we've seen a continual line of data screw-ups from government departments, from lost records to leaving laptops with Defence Ministry data on them in cars to be stolen to the Department of Health putting all the personal information of junior doctors on a new national system up online with not even a basic level of password protection so anyone, anywhere could access confidential data. But today Alistair Darling (my local MP, I'm afraid to say, the Edinburgh politician who once famously referred to the Scottish Parliament as 'the Scottish Assembly' - I keep voting against the bugger but he never takes the hint) revealed a truly massive cock-up: H.M. Revenues & Customs have managed to lose discs containing confidential data on some 25 million individuals.

That's almost half the bloody population of the UK - basically these incompetent morons put all this data (which includes National Insurance numbers, bank details, date of birth, children, partner... A fraudster's dream ticket) onto a couple of CDs (what century are they living in?) and had them couried to another department (which is against best practise according to the data watchdog), except they went missing and now they have no idea where they went (which is presumably why the data watchdog says they're not meant to do it this way). And it turns out these irresponsible shagwits did this back on the 18th of October according to the BBC; it wasn't reported to the senior managers until 8th of November, the Chancellor (Alistair Darling) on the 10th then he deigned to tell the House of Commons and the citizens of the country today ten days after that. He blames the banks for this delay in telling people saying they demanded time to prepare for possible identity thefts or bank frauds if this information is found and mis-used, but I fail to see why this meant he waited ten more days to tell the House - sounds like they were trying to think on how to limit the damage, or perhaps just pray they would find the missing discs and keep quiet on the whole thing.

This is the same government who urges us all to be aware of identity theft, the same government who wants local doctors to agree to a national system where patient's medical records are put onto a national database despite the fact most doctor's have clearly said no, they believe the system would be too open, the wrong people could access patient's details and it would destroy patient-doctor confidentiality (you have to admit, given the constant string of incompetence in all matters to do with data security and information technology in the government they have a good point). This is the same bunch of power-hungry politicos who have been trying to ram a biometric ID card system down the throat of a reluctant British electorate for years (for our security, presumably so if you are shot in the face by police mistaking you for a terrorist they can tell your family who you are from your ID card, assuming the details on it are actually right, which they probably won't be). Yeah, sure, here's all my data in one handy, easy to alter or steal file that tons of civil servants can access anytime...

As Jon Snow asked a government minister wriggling in his seat on Channel 4 News tonight, how can this government continue to push for a national biometric ID system (and a national DNA database) when they clearly cannot be trusted to safeguard personal information on citizens? Liberal Democrat Vince Cable touched on the same point: "After this disaster how can the public possibly have confidence in the vast centralised databases needed for the compulsory ID card scheme?" I'm sure they will still try to force it through, of course. Meantime the numpties at HMRC don't even have anything on their homepage to inform the millions of citizens they've just left vulnerable, which is pretty pathetic considering it is the very, very least they should have done instead of leaving worried people to have to glean information (belatedly) released to the press after Darling decided he couldn't stall any longer.

Tutu attacks homophobia in the C of E

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has attacked the homophobic stance of much of the Church of England (and rather a lot of other organisations which supposedly believe in loving your brother) and the Archbishop of Cantebury for being so bloody wooly and weak on the subject. He also, rather sensibly, I thought, pointed out that the church leaders seem preoccupied with the issue of gay Christians and gay clergy when frankly there were far more important matters they damned well should be thinking about: "Our world is facing problems - poverty, HIV and Aids - a devastating pandemic, and conflict. God must be weeping looking at some of the atrocities that we commit against one another. In the face of all of that, our Church, especially the Anglican Church, at this time is almost obsessed with questions of human sexuality... If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God."

Thank goodness there are at least some folks looking at this debate with some sensibility and sensitivity - then again, I'm sure Tutu has first hand experience of what it is like to have a large organisation discriminating against you because you might be 'different' from them. You have to wonder that this sort of point even has to be made in this day and age, let alone among clergy of a religion supposedly about peace and love, but then again plenty of them are still narked about female clergy. Get over yourselves, we have enough uneducated bigots spewing hate against different sexualities, colours, nationalities or religions as it is without supposedly educated church ministers adding to it. If it isn't okay to discriminate against someone on grounds of skin colour - something most of us take as gospel - then how can it be okay to discriminate on any other grounds without making yourself a hypocrite?

World Whisky of the Year

Islay single malt Ardbeg has won the World Whisky of the Year title in the Whisky Bible 2008 (a much better Good Book than the Good Book). I heartily approve; there's a rapidly diminishing bottle of Ardbeg in my malt collection here in Woolamaloo Mansion and it is a damned fine malt. Along with Bowmore it is one I often recommend to people who aren't used to single malts as a very smooth drink, easy to go down but still with a lovely combination of scents and tastes (scent and taste being inextricably linked). Recently I had to dissuade a Norwegian friend who kept putting ice into his whisky from doing so - it isn't just insulting to the drink, it ruins it, since a glass of good malt should be held in the hand for a few moments to warm it with your own body heat, not chilled by ice like some cheap, trashy bourbon like Jack Daniels (which isn't a whisky, I don't care what the adds say, it's a bourbon and not worthy of the title 'whisky', even if they mis-spell it with an extra 'e').

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a whisky bore, I'm not one of those folks who can take a sniff and say, ah, that's a 15 year old from the Angus Og Distillery on Auchenshoogle which has rested in oak barrels on the left hand side of the building... Nope, not that good - I can tell a good malt from a crap blend, but I'm not an expert. What I do like is - and increasingly as I get older - is enjoying the full range of a good drink (or food for that matter) and the includes the temperature, the scents that pre-inform my taste buds, then the taste on the tongue and, just as important, the after-taste it leaves. Malts come in such a complexity of colours and tastes and aromas that they are a delight to the senses and should never be treated like some cheap spirit with a few ice cubes, it isn't just a drink, it is an experience, a sensual experience of pleasure.

I tend to take the same approach with my coffee - I take the time at lunch to brew proper, fresh coffee rather than instant and every day before I drink it I take a sniff and let the aroma tingle my senses first. It turns an everyday happening into a sensual pleasure and makes me appreciate it ten times more, it tunes the senses and delights them. You can do the same with good cheeses, wines, all sorts of things; don't just drink it down or stuff it in, take a tiny bit of extra time, take it slightly slower, appreciate it, revel in it (and since someone took time to make it well, you should take a bit of time to appreciate it in turn). It's the difference between a quick peck on the cheek and a long, lingering kiss. And it makes everyday life more pleasurable.

"A colossal dick move"

The writer's strike in Hollywood is hitting production in TV and film quite hard, with a number of shows, including Battlestar Galactica and the new Bionic Woman (with the utterly gorgeous Michelle Ryan) now having to shut down because they've filmed episodes and run out of finished scripts, with no more in the pipeline while the strike continues. Family Guy has been hit by it - writer, creator and actor Seth McFarlane is out on sympathy with the writers - three new season episodes are almost finished but not quite and Fox announced they would just finish them without Seth and put them on air. Seth acknowledges they have the legal right to do it but going past him like this is obviously going to damage the relationship between him and the studio and would be, in his own words, "a colossal dick move." I love that and I think that's going to be one of my new phrases for anything spectacularly stupid. On the Family Guy front the special Star Wars episode has to be one of the funniest ones for a while and littered with SF and movie references that makes it Geek Heaven.

Still, it isn't all bad, this strike - the Beeb reports that a prequel to the god-awful Da Vinci Code, based on Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, has been hit by it and postponed. Thank smeg for that, the world really doesn't need any more of that load of recycled conspiracy cobblers - even having the incredibly delectable Audrey Tautou in it wasn't enough to make it bearable.

And before you say, Joe, stop showing your literary snobbery, lots of folks enjoy the book (and movie), leave it alone, yes, fair point, I know they do, but if a lot of people like something it doesn't necessarily mean it is good, just that a lot of people can share the same bloody awful taste; it is the same factor boy bands and reality shows exploit to be popular. What I find even more depressing in the case of tosh like the Luigi Load is the number of brain-dead morons who mutter "I know it's fiction, but I reckon he's onto something here..." NO HE ISN'T!!! Why does the law prevent me from choking people who say that do death by forcing the smegging book down their throat?

Making his mark

Last week in the local Edinburgh Evening News I read about a graffiti artist who has been going round mostly the east of the city and spraying mostly right-on political slogans on advertising billboards or sometimes on buildings belonging to large corporations. Then the other day I actually saw the guy at work as I bought a Scooby Snack at a shop near work, looked out the window as I was waiting at the till and saw a young guy on the other side of the road, step-ladders on the pavement in front of the large, ugly billboard sticking up on Southbridge, overlooking the gap site below where the huge fire was in the Cowgate a few years ago (and still, depressingly, a gaping hole in the historic heart of the city as they argue over what will go in there and how it will fit with everything else).

As I glanced over the road at this guy on the ladders it dawned on me he wasn't pasting up a new billboard ad, he had his spray can out and was scrawling something about cutting carbon emissions. Bright, sunlit day, very busy street, dozens of people walking right past him and no-one seemed to notice except me. He finished his slogan, climbed down, picked up his ladders and simply walked off down the street, almost no-one the wiser. Amusingly right round the corner from there are a number of police cars at any one time as officers come and go at the nearby courts and, as I said this is a busy main street in the Old Town near the University, full of people. Gee, I can see why the council and police are having trouble tracking this devious scrawler down with his advanced stealthy covert tactics! Shame for once I didn't have me camera with me... Somehow my mind flicked back to Chopper stories from Judge Dredd.

I'm not condoning scrawling (although the billboard is a bloody big, ugly intrusion into an Old Town street anyway, defaced or otherwise) and might even agree with some of his slogans (although some seem a bit cliched) but I had to admire his cheeky gal, the ballsy way he got away with it by just acting like someone who should have been up those ladders doing something so he could do it in the middle of the day rather than some stealthy nocturnal attack.

The Bridge

A couple of weekends ago I took my parents on a belated anniversary gift of a trip on the Maid of the Forth, which sails out from South Queensferry opposite the Hawes Inn, where Davey Balfour is bundled aboard ship in Robert Louis Stevenson's superb adventure Kidnapped, then right under the mighty Forth Bridge.


(the Hawes Inn pub sign makes sport with its RLS connection)

I've seen this Victorian marvel of engineering a thousand times but this was the first time I had sailed under it; the real scale of the structure becomes staggeringly real when you are this close, right under the main cantilever sections, thousands of tons of steel hanging in the air above you, foundations driving right down into the river; it took the lives of over 50 men and boys to build it.


(going under the great Forth Bridge; check my Flickr stream for the full set of larger scale pictures)



From there the boat continues down the Forth, passing coastal towns old and new, country houses and modern oil and gas terminals, international ferries, Edinburgh in profile on one side, the Kingdom of Fife on the other and the Firth of Forth opening out towards the North Sea, islands - or 'inches' ranging from mere rocks to larger spots dotted throughout, many still showing marks of war, structures hurriedly added to protect the coast and nearby Rosyth naval dockyard during the two World Wars, now mostly they are full of colonies of seabirds (this whole part of the coast is a huge area for seabirds). History flows like the tidal waters here; Roman ships coming into nearby Cramond for the Antonine Wall forts, vikings, French men'o'war, English raiders, German aircraft - it's a working river still, tankers, international ferries, even aircraft carriers (HMS Ark Royal sailed down this route just a few months back, just barely fitting under even this high bridge).


(Inchcolm Abbey, my mum and dad in the foreground walking towards it, the Saltire fluttering in the breeze)

Eventually we come to Inchcolm island, home to a gorgeous 12th century abbey (although some maintain its religious life goes right back to Saint Columba himself, the man who brought Christianity to Scotland in the 500s AD). History and landscape and seascape and wildlife - birds, seals - of my beautiful homeland, a place so near to where I live but a place I had never been to before and I got to share it with my folks.


(sunset across the Forth from Inchcolm, the bridges in the distance; nearby some seals were popping their heads up to watch us, waiting on the visitors to leave for the day so they could come up and claim their beaches for the evening)

An hour and a half on Inchcolm wasn't nearly enough and we want go back again when the new season starts again next year. Afterwards we sailed back up the Forth as the sun set behind the Bridge, shafts of light breaking through the clouds at the end of the day as we sailed upriver, east to west. After docking, as dusk fell on a perfect day we wandered over to the Hawes Inn and settled ourselves down in the cosy wooden interior for drinks and dinner (lovely food, great, friendly service), a perfect end to a perfect day.

Sat-nav research

A research team at the University of Woolamaloo lead by the Department of Neurological Jiggery-Pokery's head Professor Baron Von Neuron has overturned recent research into sat-nav problems. Bon Neuron's team conducted exhaustive tests on sat-nav systems and drivers; while other recent reports have claimed poor interfaces, incorrect mapping dat and lack of familiarity for navigational problems experienced by drivers which have lead to people obeying instructions to turn left where there is a brick wall, into fields, canals or railway lines. The Woolamaloo University team, after months of analysis concluded that while incorrect data in the mapping was a factor the major component of sat-nav accidents, the principle element was stupidity.

Von Neuron explained that new technology had allowed the stupidest members of society to create entirely new forms of entertaining accidents, but this wasn't necessarily as bad a thing as it seems. In fact Von Neuron pointed out possible advantages to this real-world blindness on the part of insanely stupid drivers - some small tampering with sat-navs to lead them further astray into more accidents could help reduce the stupidity levels in the gene pool (disclaimer, Professor Baron Von Neuron's research was part funded by the Darwin Awards).

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month

Young Croesus went to pay his call On Colonel Sawbones, Caxton Hall: And, though his wound was healed and mended, He hoped he’d get his leave extended. The waiting-room was dark and bare. He eyed a neat-framed notice there Above the fireplace hung to show Disabled heroes where to go For arms and legs; with scale of price, And words of dignified advice How officers could get them free. Elbow or shoulder, hip or knee, Two arms, two legs, though all were lost, They’d be restored him free of cost. Then a Girl Guide looked to say, ‘Will Captain Croesus come this way?’

"Arms and the man", Siegfried Sassoon

Sassoon, often referred to as the most innocent of the Great War poets, turned his poetry and his inventive sarcasm not only on the war and the enemy of the time but on the damned fool politicians (we could use more of that today - sadly we still have stupid fools who seem to make the decision to send people out to fight and die all too easily; perhaps each leader who would consider leading us into war should be forced to put forward a blood guarantee by only being allowed to send us to war if a close blood relation of theirs goes to. Then maybe they might suddenly think on other ways...).

Incidentally Sassoon escaped full censure from a less than forgiving military and political elite for speaking his mind by being classes as 'shell-shocked', which in truth he probably was but it doesn't lessen his criticisms. He was sent to recuperate at Craiglockhart, not far from where I live in Edinburgh where among those being treated by psychiatrists (officers only, enlisted men didn't get such treatment, needless to say) he met and befriended another of that dreadful slaughter's greatest makkers, Wilfred Owen. They might have walked some of the same streets near me or the ones in the centre of Edinburgh when they sneaked out for the day. Then they were sent back to a man-made hell. Damn every bastard who thinks the sword, the gun and the bomb is the simplest and quickest way to achieve their aims.

Rockford

Can anyone tell me why I spent all day yesterday with the theme from the Rockford Files stuck in my head? I was humming in the shower first thing and realised it was the Rockford Files; thereafter it was in my head all day long. I haven't seen it repeated anywhere recently or seen any old film on TV with James Garner, so gods know why it suddenly leapt out of the murky depths of my brain (I don't care to look down into the recesses too much, I'm not sure what I'd find in there).

Mailer

New today that one of the best known novelist of the last half century, Norman Mailer, has died. In truth I've never been quite sure what to think of Norman - the Naked and the Dead is a powerful read worthy of space on any reader's shelves, but a lot of his other work I find uncomfortable. He belongs to the mid-20th century class where writers were almost the rock stars of their day - long before spoiled musicians would get drunk, stoned and into fights Mailer and his ilk were there, living it all. He even head-butted Gore Vidal once (I'm sure there are others who have wanted to). Thinking about it, it is surprising he lived so long, you'd half expect him to self destruct like Brendan Behan. Most modern writers aren't quite the same - sure many of them enjoy a decent drink (and I've been lucky enough to share a few drinks with a handful of them) - but the excesses of the Mailer type writers is something more confined to musicians these days.

I suppose in a way his behaviour wouldn't have been out of place at one of Byron's parties a century and a half earlier. As I said, I've never been quite sure what to make of Mailer the man - I'm not sure I'd like to have been around him personally and yet at the same time we need colourful characters in literature as elsewhere, acting out what we can't or won't do, almost like a catharsis, and we like reading about it, whether it was Byron and Shelley's antic, Mailer, Werner Herzog or Pete Doherty. Part of us looks on disgusted at their selfish indlulgence and bad behaviour and another envies that they seem to be able to get away with it.

It reminds me a bit of a story I once read of a hotel manager making up the bill for - I could be wrong, my memory is hazy - I think it was the Who or a similar 60s/70s rock band after they did their usual and trashed their rooms. Their tour manager asks why the hotel manager looks so pissed off - after all they will more than pay for the damage. It isn't that, he answers, do you think when I was at school this is what I dreamt I'd be doing for my life, running a hotel? You guys are living the lifestyle the teenage me wanted to do and will never get, I just get to pick up and tidy after you. Tour manager smiles understandingly, tells the hotel manager, go pick a room and smash the living crap out of it to your heart's content and stick it on our bill, mate. Rock'n'roll. Mad, bad and dangerous to know. It has a certain allure and you're often left wondering if they act that way because they are spoiled or if that reckless self-indulgence and belief normal rules don't apply to them is what made them write great poetry, novels or songs? The medium and artists change with the decades but the song remains the same...

Bitesize

The BBC asked if they could borrow one of my photographs from my Flickr stream recently, to use as part of their Bitesize revision guides, in this case to be part of a audio-visual slideshow to accompany a reading of "The Field Mouse" by Gillian Clarke - my pic of a harvest-time field, taken just outside North Berwick near Tantallon Castle is the first one in the presentation. No money, sadly, but the feel-good factor is quite rewarding, especially since I'm so fond of poetry.

Government minister makes twat of himself

How funny was it this week seeing Home Office minister Liam Byrne being done for driving while using a handheld mobile phone? Especially as he is a member of the government which made that a criminal offence. And I loved his limp defence that he had an 'important call'. Eejit. Should have been a bigger fine for him to make a public example of the bugger, especially as there are still far too many arrogant, ignorant, dangerous buggers who are still driving while yacking away on a handheld - you see a score of them every night going home after work in Edinburgh.

In fact I was nearly hit by a stupid woman in a Range Rover (and what is it with the amount of bloody Range Rovers in Edinburgh? Its a city, not a grouse estate you stupid, selfish bastards!) who decided to turn into a side street and through the crossing as I and others were on it, one hand trying to turn the wheel of the huge vehicle, one holding a phone to her brainless head and a whine that said she needed another arm to change gears rather badly. And oh yes, she had the kid strapped in the back too... The stupidity of some people knows no bounds. And you have to assume if you can afford a brand new Range Rover you can afford a hands-free phone kit for it...

"of my friend I can only say this... of all the souls I have encountered on my travels, his was the most... human..."

Star Trek fans will recognise the above line delivered in a moment of Serious and Emotional Acting by that great thespian of our age, William Shatner, at Spock's funeral service at the end of Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan. Well, guess what? Now you too can enjoy eternal rest in a coffin - oh, I do beg the pardon of funerary folks, I meant casket - designed after Spock's burial tube (formerly a photon torpedo casing). Eternal Image - 'brand name funerary products that celebrate the passions of life' offer this or if you are a Trek fan who plans to be cremated rather than interred when you go beyond the Final Frontier you can have an urn shaped after the design on the flag of the United Federation of Planets. I wonder if you can have a tombstone shape like a Starfleet emblem to go with it?



I don't know whether to laugh or shake my head in disbelief... What next? A theme park for the deceased where your dearly departed are sealed into their caskets or urns then placed onto a variety of their favourite rides for all eternity? And if some rich loony does decide to do that I want royalties on it! (link via Boing Boing)