Fire

On the way home from the cinema tonight I saw a flickering orange light in the distance, silhouetting the distinctive towers of Donaldson's School for the Deaf over by Haymarket (where I once did a photo project back in my college days). Since Donaldson's is one of the few large buildings not lit up at night in Edinburgh it didn't take me long to realise the reason I could see the towers after nightfall must be because that glow must be from a fire behind the school. And from the size of Donaldson's I'm guessing it must be a fairly big damned fire to illuminate it light that.


(fire at or near Donaldson's School for the Deaf, Edinburgh - larger versions on the Woolamaloo Gazette Flickr set)

Too early for anything to be on the Scottish news yet and I have no idea from this distance if it was just a huge bonfire nearby (but who has a big bonfire just a few weeks before Guy Fawkes Night??) or an accidental conflagration, but I clambered up onto the wall near me, stuck the camera on the mini tripod stashed in my bag and snapped a couple of pictures - sorry, they are a bit blurred but it is impossible to focus when all the viewfinder shows is mostly black, so I had to just point it in the right direction, set the lens on night shot and let it go (I decided the subject matter outweighed the poor quality of the pics). Still, despite being a bit out of focus if there is a story here then I can say the Woolamaloo Gazette scooped it first! I do hope that it isn't something in the actual school though; it is a rare institution that helps a heck of a lot of hearing impaired kids and the day I spent doing my photo project there back at college was a great day, the kids being so friendly to this big old dumbo who couldn't even sign properly (yup, I was the odd one out there that day because I couldn't lip read or use sign language, so in effect I was the one with impaired senses).

Doors Open Day

Tomorrow (Saturday 29th) is the annual Doors Open Day for Edinburgh, when people can get into buildings and areas of buildings that aren't normally open to the public. It's pretty interesting and also free so accessible to anyone - certainly every place we tried last year proved to be pretty busy with folks making the most of the opportunity. The Cockburn Association has all the details and there is also a Flickr stream for last year's Door's Open, which, I'm rather chuffed to say, also has one of the photos I took on it after the organisers asked if they could use it to help promote the event - hopefully I can get some more pics tomorrow with the new camera this time. I'm looking forward to wandering round with some friends poking into parts of my city that I don't often get to see.

Looney Tunes Bishop - condoms are deliberately infected with HIV

There has been a huge amount of highly dangerous bullshit from the Catholic church, especially in the developing world, over the use of condoms to try and stem the high levels of HIV infections. Despite the vast numbers of people infected they continue not only to oppose the use of prophylactics but stories abound of certain church groups and even charities doing their best to stop locals using them, knowing full well that it will fuel further infection, because of fixed views on birth control laid down by a bunch of eejits in a male-only club who never have sex themselves (except sometimes with young altar boys, of course). Now Archbishop Francisco Chimoio, head of the Catholic church in Mozambique is claiming that condoms shouldn't be used because certain un-named European countries deliberately infect some condoms with the HIV virus to wipe out Africans. No, I'm not joking, that's what this crazy fuckwit actually said.

Africans are doing a pretty good job in spreading the infection without any conspiracy theory like this being used, an infection rate boosted by the retarded stance of the (supposedly) celibate male priests of the church, yet here is this hypocritical bugger claiming it is the fault of shady, un-named countries. So he gets to scare people into doing what he wants them to do, knowing full well that he is leaving them exposed to a greater likelihood of infection as a result and manages to blame someone else at the same time and pretend he's doing the Lord's Will, so it is all okay then. Almost Machiavellian in one aspect, atrocious, irresponsible and diabolically irresponsible in all other aspects. Then again if you follow rules on sexual matters from a bunch of celibate old men who are mortally terrified of women then you're a fucking idiot and probably too stupid to live, so go ahead, follow his advice and end up winning yourself a Darwin award.

Following the Biblical rules

Kevin Kelly has some of a Newsweek interview with a man who spent a year trying to follow some seven hundred rules he found in the Bible. I've made the contempt I feel for organised religion in general and those shagwits who persist in applying literal belief to scriptures in particular many times, but this was still pretty interesting stuff. (link via Boing Boing)

Blogland

I quite like these Blogland animations you can find on YouTube:

Marceau

The world's most famous mime artist (admittedly that isn't exactly a field blossoming with well-kent names) Marcel Marceau has died at the age of 84. Or has he? How can you tell with an expert mime? What if he is just miming rigor mortis? I mean, he was (or is) really good, so what if it just a gag? Admittedly my main memories of Marceau are Kenny Everett taking the piss out of him with his mime sketches and Marcel's own appearance in Mel Brook's Silent Movie (where he is the only character who speaks, just one word, 'non').

Painting on walls

I came across this very interesting animation via Meathaus - the medium of the animation is different from the great Prague alchemist of film Jan Svankmajer but the look and style of it reminds me very much of some of his early short works.