If you should let sleeping dogs lie then I'd imagine you should certainly not disturb snoozing swans, given how grumpy and bad tempered they can be even when fully awake, let alone being roused from a pleasant nap. This was as close as I dared get to a couple of slumbering swans basking in the last golden rays of the setting sun by the Union Canal not far from my home, contentedly snoozing just a couple of feet from all the walkers, joggers, cyclists and canoeists. Lovely to have this so close by in the middle of a heavily populated part of a major city. If you click on the pic you can go to my Flickr stream and click the 'all sizes' buttons to see the much larger version; it was worth edging slowly closer to the animal as I managed to get some details of the feathers into the bigger version.
The new artwork on the side of Saint John's church in Edinburgh makes a nice comment on the greedy pigs-in-the-trough mentality of so many of the right dishonourable Members of Parliament who've been caught with their sticky trotters in the cookie jar, grabbing every bit of tax payer's money they could rip off.
Sadly it hasn't taken too long for Obama and his second coming to start disappointing me - his stance a few weeks ago that state-sanctioned torture was immoral and illegal seemed good except for the fact he followed it up by saying that those who carried out such illegal torture (and by extension those in power who sanctioned it) shouldn't be prosecuted. Because you know, it was awful, illegal and immoral, but hey, no point in making a fuss over it, eh? And anyway, they were only following orders (I believe that's the standard excuse of such bastards in any regime who happily carry out illegal orders). So much for Obama and his moral compass. Now, after lambasting Bush's dreadful trampling all over the very principles Western democractic free societies are built on by adjusting laws that should never be adjusted or altered or removed Arsehole Obama's setting up to do exactly the bloody same. Change you can believe in? What change? Change of face, same immoral, illegal shit from the sounds of it. What a surprise. (link via Boing Boing)
Bear Grylls has become the new Chief Scout for the UK. Presumably he will be able to instruct kids on how to fake television shows and pretend you're sleeping the night in that desert you've been crossing with only a rattlesnake for a pillow while actually you and the crew are straight off to an air conditioned motel as soon as the camera's off. And is a man who kills animals just for the sake of making a TV programme really a good role model for kids? Seriously, the fact that he kills animals as part of this show disgusts me. You want to show survival skills, stop biting the heads off live frogs, you bastard, drop your white ass down into Compton and live on the street there for a week without being shot or knived. Oh well, the kids can at least enjoy making fun of his name, I suppose. Distract them from how silly their uniform looks.
After much consideration of the problems created by the Speaker of the House of Commons (is he being scapegoated? Yes, a bit. Was he a useless numpty who blocked Freedom of Information requests and ignoring public outrage instead of sorting the problem? Yes. So he should go) being forced out in this almost unprecedented manner I believe I have come up with a solution. Working with professors from the University of Woolamaloo's Faculty of Political Cobblers we've come up with a new system: we have weekly rotating guest speakers. Its based on the fairly successful and usually entertaining system of guest presenters on Have I Got News For You.
Since I floated it on FaceBook and Twitter a little earlier I've had five suggestions for who should be the first guest Speaker, ranging from Eddie Izzard to Gordon Ramsay. Can you imagine Ramsay in the post? When those noisy, nose in the troughs pigs of MPs star their usual extremely rude shouting and noise making during a debate (the sort of behaviour that would get you kicked out of a real debating society but which appears acceptable in the House of Shame) would he shout 'order, order' feebly in a whiny voice like the outgoing Speaker? Or would he more like bellow 'would the right honourable member shut the f**k up, shut your f**king mouth you f**king windbag'. And Izzard would doubtless make fun of them. You know, I think it's a workable system and as an added benefit it would make watching proceedings from the House more interesting and so encourage an active interest in politics.
Meantime let's hope that some of the fat pigs of MPs are also dragged squealing from the trough and forced to resign at the very least, or preferably be charged with fraud at most (amazing how many made 'accounting error' like oops, claiming thousands on a mortgage they had paid off months before, gosh how simple and common a mistake that is that we could all make). And for those who are feeling sorry for Michael Martin being forced from his post as Speaker in such a humiliating manner (the first such case in three centuries), remember this is a man who has been happy to spend thousands of pounds of public money doing up his already posh Speaker's chambers and has been a road block to Freedom of Information requests, hardly acts of great democracy or of the working man of the people. And his performance in the House yesterday was, frankly, embarassing and left him with no authority.
Walking home from work this evening - number of car drivers who ignored the red lights and drove through the green man on crossings: 3. Number of cyclists who ignored them and cycled right through a crossing when green man is on and people crossing: 2. Number of arsehole motorists who bump car up onto pavement instead of parking properly and so blocking half the way to pedestrians: 4. Number of ignorant cyclists weaving in and out among people cycling on the pavements: 3. Wilful ignorance, lack of consideration and stupidity unfortunately fairly common.
Had dad through for the day over the weekend and we went wandering around some parts of the New Town taking pictures, including the home of one of my favourite writers, Robert Louis Stevenson:
In case you are wondering the old fashioned bell-pull on the bottom left, instead of stating the family name as usual simple says " private house, not a museum".
As Britain (finally) after several centuries appoints a woman (and a Scot) for the first time to the post of Poet Laureate (which has until now been unremittingly the preserve of white, English males, despite being supposedly a post for the whole of the UK) the BBC is embracing verse, with a special poetry season across its various networks, with, as is now almost the standard practise, a good web site to support the programming. I know, I've banged on about poetry before and realistically I'm probably wasting my breath (or typing) as people mostly polarise into those who embrace poetry and those who say they can't stand it.
Now I say they can't stand it, but for most of them what they actually mean is they've never really tried and have written off one of our oldest art forms, a magical form of writing, which has spaned millennia of human development. Perhaps they were put off by a bad English teacher at school, perhaps they simply assume that its not for them without trying, but either way it shuts them off from a huge swathe of human culture. Bards have been a vital part of our cultural heritage literally for thousands of years; long before the written word and the novel and the play were commonly available using verse as a method to memorise tales was the method that was used, its probably how huge epics like the Iliad would have been transmitted across the centuries before it was written down.
I love the written word; its a magical power, to be able to communicate thoughts and ideas and feelings across time and space; it links people. And in the realms of metaphor and literary structure and notional worlds that the written word embraces, poetry is a special case all its own, a unique way of talking to the world and to the heart and to the soul in a way few others can. Writing was once seen literally as magic - Egyptian priests casting spells to protect the dead pharoah in the afterlife through the use of words, pictograms drawn on cave walls of Lascaux to drawn on the power of what they represent, the use of the exact, written form of a person's name to give power over them. We're so surrounded by communication media today we've forgotten how remarkable the act of being able to articulate thoughts and feelings in the written word, in a way that can go beyond ourselves to many others and even outlast us, actually is. Poetry is a direct link to that time when few could read and write, to magical incantations, but not to cast spells or summon angels or demons, but to draw and share emotions directly. And to hear poetry read aloud, by the light of candles and fire as it was for millennia is to partake in a ceremony of magic.
This is another short film in the Cannes/YouTube/National Film Board of Canada award shortlist you can vote for over on the NFB's YouTube Channel; I think this one is fascinating, well worth repeat viewings as essentially the viewer is studying an old photograph, but as the camera moves in and around the different parts of the image we see more and it becomes increasingly disturbing, creating, without any dialogue or real movement, a rather Southern Gothic narrative in the viewer's mind. You can vote for the films in the running until May 20th. The Facts in the Case of Mister Hollow (which sounds a bit like a short story for a Neil Gaiman or Poe tale, I thought) is co-directed by Rodrigo Gudino and Vincent Marcone.
This lovely animation, Sebastian's Voodo, by Joaquin Baldwin comes via Boing Boing and is in the running for a short film award at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival; you can vote for it via YouTube and while you're at it check out some other animations (and other works) from the National Film Board of Canada on YT:
Giant monster movies are generally pretty damned dumb, but often good 'leave brain at the door' fun movies (best viewed after a minimum of two pints), but the trailer to Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus looks even sillier than most - giant shark biting battleship? Huge octopus arm twatting planes out of mid air? Crazier than a midget on spring loaded burning stilts firing custard pies from a flan bazooka. And yet I think I might have to go and see this...
Walking down the Royal Mile one bright morning to work, passing the City Chambers I saw the distinctive visage of Patrick Stewart's Captain Jean-Luc Picard looking out onto the ancient thoroughfare; not what you expect in the heart of a historic world heritage site. No idea why there was a lifesize standee of Picard gazing out of the City Chambers, perhaps it was the office of a fan, perhaps it was because Patrick Stewart was coming to town with Ian McKellen to perform waiting for Godot (I'd love to have gone to it but the tickets are just too damned pricey, sadly, a common problem with a lot of theatre these days, I hardly go any more). Whatever the reason seeing it on a crisp, spring morning on the Royal Mile made me smile and the juxtaposition of the captain of the Starship Enterprise, a historic street and a streetsweeper's wheely bin amused me and I had to pause and take a pic.
One of my favourite musicians, Scottish virtuoso and solo percussionist Evelyn Glennie, will be at the Edinburgh Filmhouse for a return visit to coincide with a screening of the documentary about her, Touch the Sound. For Evelyn the title is highly approriate - she started to lose her hearing when she was a young girl and yet still continued to learn music, attend music college after leaving school then blaze an internationally successful career as a solo percussionist, a role in music that's all but unheard of. She feels the music, the vibrations of the instruments, the feel of the material and she creates an astonishingly diverse musical world from this very physical method of listening and playing (she's very physical on stage, I've seen her live several times and she's a dynamo) from classical to folk to jazz to improv music played right on the street.
I saw this documentary a few years back at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and it was an incredible experience, touching, moving, inspiring, as music (or any real art) should be. Afterwards, in front of a sold out audience Evelyn came on with the director for a Q&A session (always one of the pleasures of Film Fest screenings, that often some of those involved will be there for a talk before or after the movie). Then one of the simplest of instruments was produced, a snare drum. The lights went back down in the cinema except for an uplighter shining up through the clear skin of the snare to Evelyn standing over it and this amazing woman improvised an incredible musical set using just a pair of sticks and a snare drum. Watching and listening to her it strikes you that sometimes some people were just born to do something, regardless of obstacles placed in their way, such as deafness; her music is inside and no lack of hearing can touch that. The screening is on Tuesday at 6 with Evelyn on hand, if you haven't seen it I encourage you to experience it.
Man, that is the most amusing headline I've seen this morning. The actual story is a dull one about a very dull and tedious sport (sorry, cricket fans, I know you love it, but to me its incredibly boring, although it does offer a good excuse to enjoy a Pimms cocktail outdoors), but the headline is brilliant. Bell & Sidebottom. Sounds like a gay sitcom set in the 70s.
Teressa Groenwald-Hagerman is feeling very pleased with herself after the keen hunter met a challenge to hunt and slaughter an elephant using a bow and arrow. Her trip was paid by sponsors, including her schilling for a line of hunting clothing made specially for women (because sadly sexual equality, normally a very fine idea, also sometimes means that women get to prove they are as violent, foolish and downright nasty as many men). She's proud of travelling to the vast continent of Africa, the cradle of life, to kill one of the most magnificent animals on the planet. She spent several hours a day training to use the bow effectively. One wonders what positive things she could have done for herself or others in those hours instead of training to slaughter an animal purely for fun.
And please, don't give me that 'humans are predators' line, this isn't the Neolithic period and people like this woman are utterly despicable throwbacks to an earlier time. Hunting for food is one thing, but hunting for sport, whether it is fox hunting upper class twonks in Britain or would-be Amazon Jungle Janes like this person killing an elephant for the thrill, is simply despicable and there is no reason and no excuse for it. And given how often the violent abuse of animals is cited by criminal profilers as the first symptom of a possibly sociopathic personality I think we shouldn't just dislike people like this, we should be actively wary of them and their urges to kill other creatures purely for a thrill. (from the Telegraph via Boing Boing).
Medical researchers at the University of Woolamaloo have identified a serious new mutated variation of Swine Flu, which has been dubbed Pigs in the Trough Flu. Symptoms include milking public funds for huge personal gain then complaining vociferously if said moral abuses are aired in the media whose job it is to hold public figures to account. So far it is largely restricted to politicians, although doctors think that it is closely related to the not dissimilar Fat Feline Flu, which many senior bankers and investors contracted with such disastrous results.
I was kept very busy this week finishing editing and setting up my mate Pádraig's incredibly Massive Mega Moore Marathon - its a new (15, 000 words or so, phew!) interview with Britain's Wizard in Extraordinary, Mr Alan Moore. In fact its so big I had to break it into three sections across three days on the Forbidden Planet blog - part one is mostly concerned with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, especially the new third volume Century, the first volume of which comes out this month (Century 1910), the second next year (Century 1969) and a final part which is set in the present day after that.
It will surprise no-one who knows Alan's work to learn that the subjects and themes and references covered are diverse, from the Threepenny Opera to Jack the Ripper and Monty Python. Part two is where Alan talks about future projects and other works (including doing some work for a local youth culture mag which included Alan telling the kids the truth about drugs! Brilliant), taking in magic and James Joyce along the way, with the third and final part, which I posted up yesterday, is where Alan graciously agreed to take some selected questions sent in by readers of the FP blog. Its enormous but fascinating reading - many thanks again to Alan and for it.
On a related note, earlier this week we found out that media analysts Cision had posted a list of the top fifty blogs in the UK. As you might expect its dominated by politics blogs and blogs from established traditional media like the BBC and the Guardian. And in there at number 31 a solitary entry from the worlds of comics and science fiction - the Forbidden Planet blog. Needless to say I am surprised and delighted - I started that blog just over four years ago, now we have several contributors and its grown a lot (so much so that its a real juggling act for me to balance keeping the blog fires stoked and working on the main webstore; usually that means I end up doing a lot in my own time to keepit going, as do some of the contributors). And its nice that its grown so much since I started it and that a lot of folks in comics and SF communities check it out, but to see that its in the top 50 of all UK blogs? That its up there with Guardian blogs? Wow. Just goes to show that if its done correctly (and honestly) a good blog presence can be more effective (and cheaper and more enjoyable for you and your readers) than huge amounts of advertising. That's the sort of thing that can happen when you embrace blogging culture as a company instead of screaming hysterically at it.
My friend and regular on the science fiction and fantasy convention circuit Cheryl Morgan is embracing more comics culture (well done, Cheryl) and is liveblogging and Tweeting from this weekend's annual Bristol International Comics Expos, one of the major comics gigs in the UK (and usually a lot of fun), with guest input from Paul Cornell and Tony Lee and hopefully some others. Some other chums, the guys from the excellent Geek Syndicate Podcast, are also hoping to do live audio blogging and mini podcasts through the con, assuming the tech holds together.
Cassie, my plump little black and white, soft-furred puss, in, well, black and white...
And yes, her fur is even softer than it looks here and having her belly scratched is one of her favourite pastimes; she is the Tummy Tickle Tiger and often manages to curl up next to me in such a manner as to make sure she's in position to have aforementioned portly tummy tickled, which is, of course, just a pure coincidence she tells me...
And behind which door is the stunning Mystery Prize??? Wandering around the New Town in Edinburgh, camera in hand, just liked these three doors grouped together, dread to think just how much the Georgian town houses behind those doors actually are worth though...
