Tttttttthththt That's all folks!



This incredibly cool set of Looney Tunes characters such as Wil E Coyote and Bugs Bunny (one of my personal role models as a child, which might explain a lot) as skeletons is for the Day of the Dead and was snapped in a Hollywood cemetery where the great Mel Blanc (a saint in my Church of Seventh Day Cartoonists) is also buried - the item on the lower right is apparently a rubbing from his headstone. It comes from Superape's Flickr stream, via Boing Boing. Happy Halloween and a macabre Sahmain to you all.

How to protect America from dangerous British politicians

Boing Boing has a story which is hilariously funny (and a bit disturbing) on so many levels it ain't true - British Member of Parliament and government minister Shahid Malik, a Muslim, has been stopped for a second time by airport security in the USA. Airport security and immigration have never had the best rep )and US immigration always had a lousy rep for being officious and unfriendly) and since 9-11 they've been even worse, with some obviously delighting in abusing the extra (usually downright stupid) rules and powers they can wield - complain and they can make it even worse. They've even stopped a UN diplomat travelling on a white passport (which should clear customs almost immeaditely as far as I am aware), now the same British minister twice, presumably because he is Muslim.

The fact he is a member of America's strongest ally's government doesn't seem to have entered into their minds and you have to assume if it is a second time then presumably their superiors don't give a crap about insulting an allied government in this manner either, which makes you think what can any of us ordinary citizens expect when trying to enter America these days - not sure I'd care to travel there right now, to be honest. Ah, but it gets better - on both occasions the MP was in the US to take part in talks on how to co-operate more closely on fighting terrorism and tackling extremism! Talk about farcical... Don't y'all feel safer with these fartknocker protecting borders?!?!? Strange we don't often hear of US senators being harassed at UK immigration.

Heroes

If like me you've been following Heroes and thinking it is one of the best things on TV right now (whether you are a comics fan or not) you've probably been wondering when they might start creating some tie-in material to go with it. Well, DC has a graphic novel collection coming up soon which collects the comics material created online to go along with the series, available in two different cover editions, one by Jim Lee and one by Alex Ross, so if you're trying to think on something for a Heroes fan for a present, here's a big, fat, superpowered hint!

Saudi King says Brits not doing enough to fight terrorism

Despotic ruler King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, in the spirit of diplomacy ahead of his state visit to the UK, declared that Britain had not done enough to fight terrorism. Asked to explain further an aide commented "well, you went and invaded Iraq with those trigger happy Yankees when you'd have been better bombing the crap out of our country - its where most of the 9-11 bombers came from and the funds for their murderous campaign. Clearly if you were serious about stopping terrorism you'd have flattened Saudi."

A morning of mists

Chilly in Edinburgh this morning, cold enough in the early morning and after sunset to see your breath; I can taste the winter on the air. Cold, but beautiful - the mist which often falls in Edinburgh, especially in autumn, lay over the city. By the time I was on Princes Street the sun was just barely above Castle Ridge; the Castle and buildings of the Old Town were faint through the mist, like fading dreams evaporating in the light of morning, or perhaps the reverse, perhaps the daytime city was dreaming itself into being as I watched. The copper-red sun struggled above Ridge, fuzzy and indistinct through the mist, making it glow like a living thing as it curled around old buildings, battlements and the peaks of Arthur's Seat. An hour later it was a clear, blue sky, crisp, sharp, as if the mist had never been, the world solid and defined, but I saw it change from dreamstate to waking world and know that both are, in their own ways, real and imaginary at the same time.

On the way home tonight the sun had just set, staining the sky red in the west; a darkening sky in the east and a huge, full moon rising in the sky even by 6 o'clock. The mist was rising once more, following the line of the setting sun, like a great, soft blanket being pulled over the city from east to west. The city changes again, slips herself into another form, another reality, another dream. All cities are both real and dream places, their ever-changing faces as much how we see them as any subjective view, presenting perspectives to those who will look and appreciate her special gifts.

Have a heart

A friend of a friend has been in training for his first ever marathon - the Snowdonia marathon no less - and is aiming to raise funds for a very good cause: the British Heart Foundation. He's trying to spread the word so after sticking my name down I said I'd do my good deed for the day and post a link here to his page on JustGiving, a site to let people raising money for charities take donation securely online, so if you are feeling generous please swing by and see if you can help.

Sweeties!

Traditional sweets seem, like many things, to be a dying breed these days. Not hard to see why - those traditional big glass (or plastic) jars of hardboiled sweets in dozens of varieties take up a lot of shelf space for a small shop and it takes the shopkeeper time to take them out, weigh them and stick them in a bag. Selling pre-packaged sweets like Skittles is a heck of a lot easier, simpler, faster and more space efficient. So it isn't surprising that traditional sweet shops are scarce these days - I'm lucky in that I know a couple in Edinburgh which still do them this way.

Not that I eat hardboiled sweeties very often (I prefer chocolate most of the time!) but I do get the urge sometimes and have to treat myself to some Gibb's Soor Plooms, a traditional, bright green sweet from Scotland. If you miss that old range and don't have any shops nearby who still do them then a friend recommended A Quarter Of..., a website dealing in just those classic sweeties you remember from your sticky-faced youth. Mmmm. I may have to try the handmade Soor Plooms.