Greyfriar's Kirkyard 10
Originally uploaded by byronv2

Since it is Halloween, the night when the realms of the living, the dead and the supernatural intersect, I thought I'd stick up one of my more Gothic images from my Flickr set.

Ah broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll! — a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
And, Guy De Vere, hast thou no tear? — weep now or never more!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
Come! let the burial rite be read — the funeral song be sung! —
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young —
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.

"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
"And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her — that she died!
"How shall the ritual, then, be read? — the requiem how be sung

"By you — by yours, the evil eye, — by yours, the slanderous tongue
"That did to death the innocent that died, and died so young?"

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel so wrong!
The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride —
For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes —
The life still there, upon her hair — the death upon her eyes.

"Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,
"But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days!
"Let no bell toll! — lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
"Should catch the note, as it doth float — up from the damned Earth.
"To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven —
"From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven —
"From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven."

"Lenore", Edgar Alan Poe, 1845

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.