29th Dimension...

RBS: Hester's Bonus

2012-01-28T21:43:00.001Z

Any road up so though but. This bloke Stephen Hester has been awarded a bonus of £963K of shares in the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) on top of his £1.2 million salary. So this bonus is only worth something to him if and when he sells the shares. Should he ever claim welfare benefits, they will be counted as an asset nonetheless so his claim would not succeed, £16,000 being the upper limit for means-tested benefits (there's a sliding scale of deductions for savings between £6,000 and £16,000).

What is not clear, however, is what Hester has done to earn a bonus whether in cash or shares. He's closed some branches; he's selling some to Santander; he's cut staff numbers and reorganised things here and there. But that's just part of his normal everyday job anyway. Surely a bonus should be related to having done something extra, above and beyond what you're being paid £1.2 million in salary to do in any case? *

I suppose now that he has the shares he has an incentive to increase their value or at least maintain it rather than allow the price to fall. So, in a sense, he has an incentive not to screw up - but he till gets his £1.2 million and he never had the £963K in cash anyway so it wouldn't be much of a loss when all's said and done. Hester still has his house in Holland Park, London; his 350 acre estate in Oxfordshire; and a chalet in Verbier, Switzerland so what's £963K?
Meanwhile, of course, we are told that if bankers don't get a bonus they will go elsewhere and deploy their inestimable talents to someone else's benefit. Fair enough, goodbye and good luck! There are 2.8 million unemployed in the UK - I wouldn't mind betting that at least one of them will have some idea how to close branches, reduce staff numbers and sell off assets and who will do the job for half what Heston is getting.

* Since Hester has been in charge, RBS has lost £3.6 billion in 2009 and £1.13 billion in 2010. Meanwhile his total 'remuneration package' has been £35.54m since joining the bank in 2008. That year, when the then Labour government bailed out RBS, Mr Hester was awarded £4.99m in restricted shares, forgoing pay and bonuses. In 2009, his package was worth £6.9m. In 2010, his total package rose to £8.16m. Last year, the total was £8.08m, including a long-term incentive plan (LTIP) worth £4.8m, bonus £1.66m and salary and pension contributions. For 2012, the total figure is £7.38m – including LTIP worth £4.8m, his bonus of £963,000 and £420,000 pension contributions and £1.2m salary. No doubt he'll get a Knighthood as well at some point.
Addendum: Hester has been persuaded by the malodour surrounding this episode to waive his £963K shares bonus. It seems this is more to do with the distraction it is causing for him and his pals than to an acceptance that he hasn't actually done anything very much to deserve the bonus. He will still receive the rest of his 'remuneration package' for the year, £6.42 million.

Margaret Thatcher

2012-01-28T12:42:00.000Z

I Saw The Light

2012-01-26T14:30:00.002Z

Another reminder of the existence of Todd Rundgren, here performing with his pal Daryl Hall. Looks like they might be in Hawaii...

Mick Jagger Walks Out

2012-01-25T20:38:00.000Z

The NME reports that Mick Jagger has withdrawn from a tea party to which he was invited by David Cameron in Davos, Switzerland. Sir Jagger has belatedly realised that Cameron was using him to give himself some 'hip' credibility on the pretext that Jagger would be helping to promote Great Britain. Ole Jumpin' Jack Flash says he has always maintained an apolitical stance publicly and steered well clear of party politics which is true enough but you'd have thought he would have smelled a rat beforehand on receiving an invitation to a tea party from the likes of Cameron. I can't imagine anyone in their right mind wanting to be tainted by such association. But Sir Flash has always been a great one for mixing with those in high places and no doubt his ego felt good to be asked to be part of the gathering of the overblown plutocrats and self-appointed global business elite at the World Economic Forum where this shindig is taking place. Coincidentally, The Stones will be celbrating their 50th Anniversary this year.

Our picture shows Keith Richards' reaction to the news.

The Banker, the Daily Mail reader, and the Benefit Recipient

2012-01-25T20:09:00.000Z

A correspondent in the Letters Page of today's Independent quotes the following joke to sum up current Government policy:

An investment banker, a Daily Mail reader and a benefit recipient are sitting round a plate with 12 biscuits on it. The banker takes 11 biscuits, then turns to the Daily Mail reader and says: “Watch out – that scrounger is after your biscuit.”

You could replace the words 'Daily Mail reader' with the name David Cameron or any of his jumped-up Tory half-wit colleagues, all of whom seem to be similarly deliberately ignorant and unable or unwilling to see where the problem actually lies. As the letter writer points out, they should be asking where the eleven biscuits went.

The Beach Boys Soulful Old Man Sunshine

2012-01-25T15:01:00.001Z

I discovered this rare Beach Boys song via The Guardian's blog about 'old music'. It was recorded in 1969 but didn't surface until 1998 as an album track on the soundtrack for the 'Endless Harmony' documentary. You can tell why it wasn't released at the time as it shows all the signs of the backing track having been recorded by session musicians in a different place and different time from when the vocals were recorded. Plus there are a couple of fluffs, and the mix ain't right. If only they'd gone back to it and recorded a polished up version! Lead vocals are by Carl Wilson and show why it might be better for the remaining Beach Boys not to be planning a 50th Anniversary album and tour. It won't sound anywhere near as good or vibrant.

Return of the Son of Entanglification Runs Amok

2012-01-24T18:14:00.002Z

Maxwell's Demons have been up to their old tricks again. I'm sure there were only two things plugged in last night.

Grimshaw v. Earth

2012-01-24T11:13:00.001Z

Yer man Atkinson Grimshaw is good but sometimes the Earth does its thing and some lucky chap with a camera is there to record it. Picture taken in Yosemite in the Autumn via the Los Angeles Times, where there's zillions more snaps of nature's wondrousness. If it weren't for all those flipping Americans it would be perfect.

Let's hope they don't discover oil.

Tom Braggins Band: Live at the Spice of Life

2012-01-23T11:46:00.001Z

Last Saturday evening saw The Tom Braggins Band topping the bill at The Spice of Life pub/music venue in Soho, featuring our Phil on the drums and making it sound right. Mr Braggins on guitar and vocal and the inestimable Chris Eldred on keyboards. Here's a picture of them setting up (taken by Phil hence he's not in the photo). A full house and they went down a storm!

The album Simple Things (produced, engineered and made possible by Phil) is available at iTunes for £6.99. A solo acoustic album by Mr Braggins is in the pipeline. Also on Spotify, Facebook, MySpace, and so forth.

Mr Eldred is also a member of The National Youth Jazz Orchestra and is available for weddings, bar mitzvahs etc. He too can be found on MySpace.

Politics: New Words

2012-01-21T18:58:00.001Z

The Coalition Government has been 'in power' for 21 months now and in that time we have learned some new words to describe what they are up to. Here's half a dozen:

Mispledge - Anything Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister, might have said prior to a minute ago.
Undeforestationageness - The somewhat embarrassing state in which Caroline Spelman, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, found herself having belatedly realised what a chump she was to propose selling off publicly owned forests and woodlands without first checking whether anyone else thought it was a good idea.
Futtock - The shape of the imprint left in the sofa after Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, has been sitting on it.
Gove - A 'Big Idea' that some pranny or other (usually Michael Gove), mysteriously elevated beyond his level of competence, comes up with and to which everyone responds with disbelief, speechlessness and a frown before then setting out in some detail why it is a load of old cobblers and inviting the proposer to 'Shut up you twit'.
Vacuosity - A statement of policy, spouted forth from David Cameron, in which he says that something or other is a problem and he is going to do something about it but he doesn't say what exactly that might be, nor does anything subsequently materialise.
Dysastatistificated - The misleading use and manipulation of statistics in order to substantiate a prejudged position. Particularly popular with immigration Ministers, employment Ministers and other bigots.

Further contributions welcome.

Credit Default Swaps

2012-01-21T16:34:00.001Z

The Greek 'Government' is currently negotiating with its creditors in the financial sector for a writ-off of part of its debts. The Eurozone (i.e. Germany and France) suggested this should be 50% but the creditors are trying to reduce this and the Greeks are trying to increase it, hence the delay. But agreement has to be reached before the cash bailout from the Eurozone can be released. So there's a bit of brinkmanship going on. If Greece doesn't get the cash bailout, then Greece will default on its loans and the creditors lose, but the creditors don't want to give up more than they have to. The deadline is the end of next week sometime. The idea is that Greece gives its creditors new bonds which are worth less than the existing ones, and the bailout money buys them back.

But an ironic twist in this little fandango is that much of the Greek debt has been bought up by so-called hedge funds at a discount and the hedge funds have taken out Credit Default Swaps (CDS) to cover themselves in case Greece does default. What the hedge funds are doing is insuring themselves against a loss, although a CDS isn't exactly insurance. The buyer has to pay for them (single premium or a series of payments) but the seller carries out no actuarial risk calculation and the payout is not related to actual losses but is for the amount initially negotiated. So if you are a hedge fund with a CDS against a debt owed by Greece you get your money back - and perhaps more - whatever happens. So they are negotiating to see how much more than the original debt they can screw out of the situation.

Now comes the weird bit. What the seller of a CDS does is hedge his bets by buying a CDS (or several) against his prospective loss, from someone else. And that person does likewise so that we end up with a chain of CDS arrangements that payout if Greece defaults or pays back less than it owes. Moreover, anyone else can buy a CDS against the Greece debt even if they are not a creditor (i.e. they don't actually own the debt). I fail to see how this can be a good thing. Everybody is betting against themselves and each other until eventually one financial institution or another gets lumbered with the bill - and I wouldn't mind betting that it will be the European Central Bank or IMF which are ultimately funded by.... you and me. And that's (amongst other things) how the credit crunch happened. And Greece gets off scot free.

It's all a bit like something from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. As the Duchess said to Alice:

“... never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise." The financial sector is indeed 'being what it seems'.

But never mind. David Cameron assures us that he and his chums in the Conservative Party understand all this and so he's best placed to fix it.

Army Surplus

2012-01-19T23:31:00.002Z

The public expenditure cuts mean that the armed forces are having to take their share of redundancies, and make the money stretch further. One result of this is that the Ministry of Defence has a lot of surplus kit - boots, trousers, tunics, belts and even a Lightning jet (although without its engines).

You can see what's on offer at the Disposal Services Authority website and there's a link to their main contractor The-Outdoor.

A fold-away shovel for £15; a desert ops waistcoat with zillions of pouches for grenades, pistols etc for £45 (pictured); and a rigid raiding craft (a boat) for £3,240; and many more.

Sadly for the would-be revolutionary, nut job or terrorist, no guns and ammo or weapons of mass destruction are included.

SOPA & PIPA

2012-01-19T23:14:00.000Z

Phew. Students, political researchers and journalists in the UK and USA can breathe a sigh of relief today as their central resource Wikipedia comes back on line after a 24-hour shut down in protest at the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) currently being considered by the USA legislature. No doubt there were a number of crises in schools and colleges throughout the land as students found they couldn't do their homework. Let's hope teachers and tutors were understanding.

Now that Wikipedia is back you can find out what SOPA is all about and why Wikipedia, Google, Reddit, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook and many more are against it. See also The Guardian for a two-minute explanatory video. But the fact that Rupert Murdoch got excited about it tells you all you need to know - he and his ilk want to control the internet and make loadsamoney from it - see a report at Forbes.

So any road up though but, this legislation seeks to stop so-called 'internet piracy' but the problem with it is that it is a tad draconian in its reach and in terms of penalties. Most importantly for a democracy, it goes against the concept of what Americans call 'due process' i.e. innocent until proved guilty etc. The legislation would allow a copyright holder to make an allegation and would require the internet provider to shut your website down without giving you a chance either to remove the content or to challenge the allegation. And offenders could get sent to prison for five years, which seems a bit harsh. Domain names would be erased, and innovation would be stifled. It's a badly written bit of legislation which won't in any case stop the determined pirates and the Senators and Congressmen need to think again and draft something a bit more sensible. There's worse crimes, and bigger problems, than breach of copyright that Government should be sorting out and it's not as if copyright holders don't already have legal remedies available to them.

Meanwhile, it's interesting how Murdoch and his ilk are all in favour of free markets until it means they might be losing out as a result. And as for the record companies and film corporations, you wouldn't meet a bigger bunch of shysters, thieves and double-crossers outside the banking industry.

Ahoy There!

2012-01-18T23:03:00.000Z

When I heard that The World's Greatest Twit, Michael Gove, had proposed that the nation should give HM Queen a new royal yacht as a present for her golden jubilee, I thought at first that Gove had finally lost his marbles completely and would shortly be keel-hauled. But as the story has unfolded, we discover that it's not just Gove; there has been a lobbying campaign going on for several months. And now even David Cameron has come on board. Although Downing St has refuted any suggestions that it should be funded by the taxpayer there remains the notion floating around that it might be paid for by 'public subscription' or donations. (They probably mean the National Lottery Heritage Fund.)

You have to wonder what planet these people think they are on.

It is reported that Prince Charles and Princess Anne think it's a good idea. Well of course they do - free cruises for them and their families. But does El Queenie want a yacht for herself? She's 86, her old man is threatening to pop his clogs any moment and by the time the thing is built and operational both of them are likely to be totally decrepit if not feeding the fish in Davy Jones' Locker. But I suspect the idea is not to provide a like-for-like replacement for HM's old Royal Britannia, but merely to hijack the buzz around HM's Jubilee and apply it to an already existing project, and thus to raise funds - from wherever.

The scurvy knave behind the dastardly plan is Rear Admiral David Bawtree, the central figure promoting something called The University of the Oceans. The Big Idea dates back almost twenty years. Essentially, it is to build a sail training ship crewed variously by "about 2,000 (fee-paying) young people each year, from all walks of life, to enjoy the benefits of adventure training under sail whilst at the same time assisting with national and international events." The ship might also be used for research, and Admiral Bawtree figured ahaarr, why don't we bung in a couple of VIP suites and it can be a Royal Yacht as well! So the crafty devil enlisted the help of his local MP David Willetts who put the idea to the Cabinet, and Midshipman Gove has subsequently endorsed it. Whether or not Prince Charles, Princess Anne or HM Queenie quite realise they would be sloshing about in the aft quarters of a sailing ship crewed by apprentices, rather than relaxing in the luxury of a mini-ocean liner, is not clear.

Mysteriously Funny Gorilla

2012-01-18T10:13:00.000Z

Here's a joke that made me laugh:

This guy takes a gorilla out golfing. At the first tee the gorilla says, “So what am I supposed to do?” The guy says, “You see that green area about 400 yards from here? You’re supposed to hit the ball onto that.” So the gorilla takes a club and whacks the ball and it soars up into the sky and drops down neatly on the green. The guy tees off and makes about 150 yards, so he hits an iron shot and then another iron shot and finally they arrive at the green. The gorilla says, “What do I do now?” The guy says, “Now you hit it into that cup.” The gorilla says, “Why didn’t you tell me that back there?”

This wouldn't be particularly funny if instead of a gorilla it had been another person, or even the Archbishop of Canterbury. It's funny because it's a gorilla. But why is it funny because it's a gorilla?

Eric Clapton: Those Rich and Famous Blues Again

2012-01-17T19:31:00.000Z

One's mental image of a tax dodger is generally that of some fat cat banker, executive, oligarch or exploiter of child labour. But, of course, they are not the only ones at it. Not surprisingly, anyone with loadsamoney is up to these kind of tricks, not least guitar whizz Eric 'Slowhand' Clapton. He channels his loot through a company called Marshbrook, from which he pays himself a salary and, occasionally, a dividend. Marshbrook's revenue last year was £12 million but the company made an overall loss of £924,225 so I guess there'll be no UK Corporation Tax to pay. How did Marshbrook lose money? Well, through Marshbrook Eric owns a yacht which can be rented for £179,000 per week (it's quite flashy, with a crew of 13). But the yacht renting business hasn't been good recently so the yacht has been losing Eric's company a fair whack, and Marshbrook has had to pay taxes overseas of £482,000. Meanwhile, Marshbrook paid Eric a salary of £3.98 million so he's not about to start pawning his guitars yet; and he presumably has to pay UK income tax on that unless he's somehow got himself classified as not resident in the UK. Maybe he lives on the yacht while it's not being rented. No wonder concert ticket prices are so high these days.

Eric is not a complete crook, however. He did pay £10 million in tax arrears in 2004 - whilst paying himself £11 million salary. See This Is Money.

Ludwig van Saxhoven

2012-01-17T15:13:00.000Z

And many more at Worth 1000

Spike Jones for President

2012-01-17T12:48:00.000Z

There a few better ways to spend a morning when you've got a million things to do, you're miles behind on everything and you don't know where to start, than to watch videos of Spike Jones and His City Slickers.

If only he were alive today. I'd vote for him to be the next President in a flash - he could spot talent, organise, arrange, have original ideas and adapt to changing circumstances. And have a laugh. A funny guy rather than the current crop of nut jobs seeking the nomination!

Here's one to get you started:

David Bowie: Nobody's Perfect

2012-01-17T12:21:00.002Z

The Thin White Twit in a Hat and Baggy Trousers.

A creative and original talent and a particular genius for re-inventing himself and rediscovering his muse. But occasionally he gets it wrong and he ends up looking completely silly.

Atkinson Grimshaw

2012-01-16T00:09:00.001Z

You've probably never heard of Atkinson Grimshaw, the Victorian painter. Me neither until a couple of weeks ago when by chance I came upon a review of an exhibition of his work at the Guildhall Gallery in the City of London. He was a self-taught artist who specialised in paintings, mostly of landscapes, which feature sky and, in particular, moonlit sky. He had a very fine knack of capturing luminescence and reflections of light, and of detailed perspective. At the time he was working (1860 to 1893) he was not considered by the cognoscenti to be quite pukkah because he worked from photographs and, occasionally, painted on photographs. But he developed his own techniques and methods of working and he was prolific - at his peak he was producing an average of one painting per week. How he managed to do this and maintain quality is a mystery as he kept no journals or detailed records. Grimshaw did attempt portraits and so forth and although these were adequate, they are nowhere near as good as his moonlit skies or yellow dusks.

The exhibition was very well done, with over sixty paintings from various collections and they even provided a free guided tour. The Guildhall being part of the City of London Corporation reeks of money, and it contains a nice surprise; in the basement of the building are the remains of a Roman amphitheatre found when building commenced in 1988. So its full marks to the Guildhall. Sorry, but the exhibition closed today. Perhaps it will move elsewhere. Meanwhile here's one of Mr Grimshaw's finest.

Unlucky for some!

2012-01-13T18:23:00.001Z

Working lunch for employees of Xorg Intergalactic today at the calorie-tastic Ed's Diner.

Fabmary indulging in a chilli cheese burger and our CEO devouring a Blues Burger, a huge burger with a huge slab of blue cheese in the middle.

A spiffing selection of revived 45s on the juke box. And our esteemed CEO is just finishing his third mug of coffee...

Now moving on to an exhibition to examine the merits of otherwise of world famous Victorian artisan Atkinson Grimshaw.
Dark rum and chocolate milkshake. Yumsville.

Och Aye The Noo or Not

2012-01-12T16:52:00.000Z

It's not often that I agree with David Cameron but I think he has a point lurking within all his bluster about holding a referendum on Scottish independence. The Scottish National Party should, sooner rather than later, get round to telling us what they mean by independence and then have a vote on it. Do they mean to re-establish Scotland as a completely separate state? This would be a long and complicated process requiring redistribution of resources and debts from the UK, application by Scotland to join the UN, the EU, NATO, the European Court on Human Rights, the International Labour Organisation, and many more. There are probably zillions of treaties and so forth they'd have to renegotiate. The paperwork would be immense and require the employment of squadrons of Scottish civil servants and lawyers for years. And for what? To be free of the English yoke. A bit of an outmoded concept these days, given that we are all equally oppressed by the laughing jackals of the globalised neo-liberal capitalist financial system.

Of course, the SNP philosophy presumes that the English want to keep Scotland yoked to the UK. But I doubt whether most English people are bothered one way or the other. What they do know is that there are a lot of Scotsmen in England, none of whom are required to have passports, visas or work permits, and some of whom are more welcome than others. Most people like Kenny Dalgleish but most have mixed feelings about Alex Ferguson, for example. One is a 'canny Scot' and the other's a semi-literate gum-chewing big head from Scotland.

Any road up, no doubt Cameron and Salmond will keep up their blathering for months with bluff and counter-bluff. It's quite an effective distraction from actually getting on with running the country.

Last Words...

2012-01-12T15:04:00.001Z

The Other President

2012-01-12T12:25:00.000Z

It can't have escaped your notice that the Americans are due to have a Presidential election this November. Assuming no major misfortunes, assassinations or disasters Barack Obama will be the candidate for the Democrats and meanwhile various nut jobs are fighting it out for the nomination to be the Republican Party candidate. They all seem to be somewhat deficient for the role of Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful military force on Earth, and a tad clueless about how to repair their model of the free-market capitalist economy. But there you go - we've got Cameron, Clegg and Osborne.

It has been my view for some time now that, given the impact the American Government's actions can have on the UK (and elsewhere), we too should have a vote on who should be given the job. That's not going to happen, but meanwhile if you're bothered enough you can do this snappy little interactive quiz thingy at USA Today to discover to what extent your views on particular policy issues match those of the candidates. So whichever one of them does get elected you'll be able to say "Well, I would/would not have voted for him anyway so it's no wonder things are going so well/badly."

My results show that I am most closely aligned (73.4%) with the current incumbent, Barack Obama, which wasn't really a surprise. It was slightly alarming, however, to find that I agreed with Michelle Bachmann on one issue; but, fear not, I am not about to shoot, deport or otherwise disenfranchise all those gay Mexican non-believers and their tree-hugging blaspheming socialist friends and fellow-travellers. She is in favour of simplifying taxes, which I think would be a jolly good idea. But I suspect we differ somewhat on how, what and when.

Those Were The Days Part 27

2012-01-07T11:43:00.000Z

Looking through old stuff for no particular reason, I came across this setlist from a gig we played in a village in Essex called 'Matching Tye'. I kid you not, the place exists and comes under the jurisdiction of Epping Forest District Council.

This event was self-promoted together with two other bands, the whole thing being coordinated by Charlie, whose idea it was. Tickets were sold in advance by word-of-mouth and sales went quite well - I never saw any money but at least I wasn't out of pocket. Most of the dosh went on hiring the hall and the PA, or so I'm told.

Unfortunately for us, however, on the day of the gig there was an almighty storm and the overhead cables that bring electricity to Matching Tye were blown down. These were repaired and power was restored just in time i.e. five minutes before the gig was due to start, so although we could set everything up we had no time to check anything out or to do sound-checks. The chappie working the PA was a complete stranger, and we were the first band to play. T'show must go on and so forth and we played with absolutely no idea of what we sounded like, and neither could I hear anyone else apart from the drums. And when I listened to the next two bands from out front, it was clear that the PA chap was clueless. Lead vocals were OK, and you could hear the hi-hat and the bass drum, but the rest was all over the place with stuff coming and going and some completely inaudible. Oy vay.

Epiphanyageness

2012-01-07T10:32:00.000Z

The Adoration of The Mayo

Keats and Chapman in The Land of the Pharoahs

2012-01-01T12:41:00.000Z

Whilst on a tour of the ancient and splendid sites and sights of Egypt, Keats & Chapman were befriended by a local guide who went out of his way make their visit as interesting and comfortable as possible. However, as time passed it appeared that the guide's mental state was not the full Egyptian shilling. He was obviously in the thrall of past experiences which constantly haunted him yet to which he would not admit. These phantom experiences gave him great grief. He had also made himself aware of Keats' work with the great psychoanalyst J G Stückebroitell and this seemed to be why he was being so helpful to the pair. His constant attentions began to grate on Chapman who thought the fellow should just accept past experiences and move on.
One day whilst on the river the friendly guide fell over the side of the boat and was floundering badly whilst screaming that he couldn't swim. Other guides on the boat insisted that he could and had been seeing conducting a rather elegant breaststroke the previous day. Keats, himself a non-swimmer, pleaded with Chapman, a gold medal lifesaver, to rescue the hapless guide.
Chapman slowly shook his head and gazing at the far horizon, stated quite flatly, "He's in denial".
Keats swallowed a date stone.

[With thanks to obee_1]

Well Done, Sherlock! #235

2011-12-31T10:39:00.001Z

The Well Done, Sherlock! award on this occasion goes unusually to joint recipients and is awarded posthumously to The British Government of October 1952, led by the inimitable Sir Winston Churchill, and William Penney, mathematician and general all-round boffin, who was responsible for the development of British nuclear technology after World War II. Britain's nuclear weapons programme had been instituted some years beforehand and 1952 brought the occasion of Britain's first atmospheric test of a nuclear bomb. Something the Government was particularly concerned about was the effect that a nuclear bomb might have if one were to be brought surreptitiously on a ship into the River Thames in central London, and detonated. So William Penney came up with the idea of setting one off on a navy frigate in the Monte Bello islands of Australia to see what happened. This became known as Operation Hurricane.

They used a 25 kiloton plutonium implosion device and guess what? The ship was vapourised and the blast left a crater on the sea bed 6 metres deep and 300 metres across and we learned that letting off a nuclear bomb in central London would, generally speaking, be rather damaging. Duh! Well Done, Sherlock!

Ummm...

2011-12-30T14:45:00.000Z

From ichbinkong

Muscle

2011-12-23T11:50:00.000Z

Available at all good newsagents:

Yep!

2011-12-23T11:10:00.001Z

A letter in today's Independent that pretty much sums it up:

The FSA think it wise now that bankers should ask for proof of earnings before granting a mortgage (report, 19 December). Lord Turner says it's time to end reckless borrowing. Surely, it's been reckless lending that's caused all the problems? Who in their right mind would grant a mortgage without checking the borrower's ability to repay?

The bankers in charge are, probably, some of the most incompetent individuals that this country has produced, individuals who have been paid immoral amounts of money, left their employment (some of them) with gold-plated pensions and share issues yet still have the cheek to complain that they will be forced to seek employment abroad. I say, good riddance and I'll join the queue to replace them.
When applying for my first mortgage in 1972, I could borrow only twice my annual salary. My wife's earnings were not even considered. Very sensible, because a lot of women at the time soon left to have children. Their jobs were not left open for them to return to in those days.
British taxpayers have to sit and watch their money being squandered on inflated salaries and bonuses while the majority of us have to make do with either a 2 per cent pay rise at most, or nothing at all. On top of this, they are now asked to work longer, pay more into their pension and get less when they retire. If they are lucky to enjoy any retirement. Of course, I'm forgetting; we are all in this together.
Andrew Cooper
Kimberley, Nottinghamshire

You Missed It

2011-12-22T09:27:00.001Z

On Sunday, the western world will be celebrating the Winter Solstice and the Birth of Jesus. Some gullible types in the Eastern world have adopted the practice as well. Fair enough, any excuse for a knees-up I suppose. The problem is though, you've missed it. As eny fule kno, yer man Jesus wasn't born on 25 December. The shepherds were watching their flocks by night up in the hills so it probably occurred in late spring or early autumn. At the end of December any self-respecting shepherd would have his sheep (and himself) in a big shed below the snow line where it's warmer, not below zero and not snowing. As for the Winter Solstice, well that was this morning at 5.30 am - a bit later than usual because it's a leap year next year. In case you were wondering, the Winter Solstice is when the North Pole is furthest from the sun as a result of the earth tilting on its axis i.e. 23.5 degrees from t'vertical.

Australians, typically, are a bit mixed up. They've got lots of sheep but being in the antipodes today is their Summer Solstice which is when you are supposed be dancing round Stonehenge with a load of smelly new-age hippy twits. No doubt Bruce, Sheila and Kylie be cooking raw prawns and the like on the barbecue instead, a quaint custom which the descendants of yer original Winter Solstice celebrators reserve for rainy days in August resulting in half-cooked re-formed offal of various sorts. Whereas in Cyprus, every day is a day for a barbecue and pork is the preferred option, followed by lamb, chicken and octopus. The Cypriots, however, confuse themselves by using the wrong calendar and celebrating the birth of yer man a week or so later. But they do know about snow in the mountains in winter so the sheep are tucked up in a warm shed somewhere.

The Romans, of course, celebrated Saturnalia at this time. This festival will be taking place as usual at the Vatican and the Pope will be taking up a collection in between sacrificing the oxen and flaying the unrepentant virgins.

Sandwich Wonderizer

2011-12-20T17:35:00.000Z

It seems that Americans eat something called Wonderbread. It's a mass-market lowest-common-denominator sort of product designed for making sandwiches, presumably because the bread itself is at best bland or at worst like blotting paper. Be that as it may, Wonderbread have helpfully put a virtual sandwhich making sandwich builder gizmo on their website so that you can figure out how nutritious or not your particular favourite might be. Good fun. My designs tend to be high in fat seeing as I usually include bacon.

Song Map

2011-12-20T16:41:00.003Z

Available from WeAreDorothy for £20 plus £3.95 postage, a lithoprint of a road map made up of song titles: from Highway to Hell to Penny Lane, Itchycoo Park to Heartbreak Hotel.

(Click on the map to embiggify.)

Notice to All Cats

2011-12-11T11:25:00.000Z

That's it! Enough!

I have just spent a happy half hour or so clearing up various piles of cat shit from my back garden. Must have been several kilos worth, distributed randomly. Yecch, disgustomundo and other expletives.

Let it be henceforth known throughout this vicinity that in spite of the interweb tubes being festooned with pictures of adorable cats doing cute or clever things, I do not like cats crapping in my garden. I don't mind cats existing; just go and exist somewhere else, preferably all over the keyboard of your owner who thinks you are so flippin' adorable.

I have a selection of sharp and heavy objects by the back door. Should anything of the feline persuasion come anywhere within hurling range, whether innocently or not, one or more of these missiles will be aimed at it. There are no second chances. Death awaits you.

Bankers

2011-12-10T14:30:00.000Z

I Used To Have Some Like That

2011-12-10T14:28:00.000Z

Elvis Presley's old boots.

Apparently he wore these for his TV 'Comeback Special' in 1968. This was the legendary occasion when Elvis, after a dire five or six years making crap films with lousy music, got together in a TV studio with some of his old cronies and played some rock n' roll music dressed in black leather, with his hair longer and all greasy like. This went down well both in musical and presentational terms and revived the lad's career. But hopes for a regenerated Elvis were soon dashed to the ground. Sadly, he slipped back into degeneracy thanks to his manager's fixation with booking Elvis into doing seasons in Las Vegas for which the extremely naff white fringed costumes were devised and the music drifted into the middle of the road. Everyone made loadsamoney but the lad ended up a mere parody of himself. Ho Hum.

Any road up, Elvis' old boots have recently been sold at auction for $6,000 - a tidy sum just to get a sniff of the Great Man's foot odour.

New! Improved! Whiter than White! BARF!

2011-11-26T11:00:00.000Z

You're probably thinking "Hah! That's a made up photoshop jobbie", but you'd be wrong. This is a genuine product manufactured by the Paxan Corporation of Iran. Here's what they have to say about it:

پودر ماشين لباسشويي برف داراي قدرت لكه بري سريع وآسان براي زدودن انواع لكه هاي پروتئيني (مانند خون ،شير ،تخم مرغ ، و... )همراه ب قابليت پاك كنندگي ، سفيد كنندگي و درخشان كنندگي فوق العاده‌، محصولي منحصر بفرد جهت شست و شوي انواع البسه كتان،پلي استر ،پلي استر /كتان و البسه رنگي مقاوم در برابر رنگ پريدگي د ر دماي پايين مي باشد.اين پودر طوري طراحي شده است كه مانع از ايجاد رسوب بر روي قطعات فلزي ماشين مي‌ شود وبا كف كنترل شده ، مانع از سريز شدن كف از ماشين شده وشست شو براحتي انجام مي گيرد.

No More War!

2011-11-26T10:26:00.002Z

What We Been Reading

2011-11-22T20:00:00.000Z

Well, to be honest, not a lot by our usual standards. My time has been taken up in recent months by studies with the Open University. I am in the middle of a Humanities Degree and hoping to pick up a Diploma in Music along the way, and there's quite a lot of reading and online activity involved. This is an area in which I am self-taught so I am having to start from scratch and somehow incorporate my existing haphazard and imperfect musical knowledge into the 'proper' way of doing things.

Be that as it may, M'Lud, I have managed to fit in a couple more volumes of Chekhov's short stories and another Zane Grey novel 'The Last of the Plainsmen'*. I guess I'm about half-way through Chekhov's stories now and I'm starting to spot when he's being humorous. Believe it or not, but Chekhov's writings also have musical qualities. See: Bartlett, R., (1998), Sonata Form in Chekhov’s ‘The Black Monk’, in Intersections and transpositions: Russian music, literature, and society, Wachtel, A.B. (ed.), Evanston, Illinois, USA, Northwestern University Press.

Just at the minute though I am in the middle of Terry Pratchett's latest outing 'Snuff'. Not so many laugh out loud moments in this one so far, and he seems to be using goblins as an allegory for the xenophobic fear of 'otherness'. Erm, that'll be racial discrimination to you.

* You can download Zane Grey at Project Gutenburg

Well Done, Sherlock! #137: VInce Cable

2011-11-22T07:57:00.000Z

We haven't awarded a Well Done, Sherlock! award for a while. Last week, however, there was an outstanding example of stating the bleedin' obvious from The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, The Right Honourable John Vincent 'Vince' Cable MP. Now then, our Vince has a Degree in Economics from Cambridge and prior to entering politics he worked as an economist for, amongst others, Shell and the Kenyan Government. No doubt it is these qualifications that have enabled him to deduce, as he expressed some sympathy with the protesters who have been occupying Pater Noster Square outside St Paul's Cathedral and who have now occupied the vacant UBS (a Swiss Bank) building nearby, in connection with the ongoing self-inflicted financial crisis faced by the globalised neo-liberalist economy, that:

"I think it does reflect a feeling that a small number of people have done extraordinarily well in the crisis, often undeservedly, and large numbers of other people who have played no part in causing the crisis have been hurt by it."

Well Done, Sherlock!

[Mr Cable also holds the rare distinction of being one of the few economists to have a cardigan named after him. The designers have rather unkindly inserted the word 'knit' into the description presumably as a kind of play on words or pun.]

Where's My Bacon Gone?

2011-11-21T14:10:00.000Z

Sainsbury's back bacon - on special offer, three double packs (36 rashers) for a tenner. Sounds pretty good value! Not when you see what you've got after you've cooked it. Compare the rasher before grilling with the rasher after grilling. It's shrunk by almost a half! So the question is; what happened to the bacon that's gone missing? Is there a Mystery Bacon Dimension into which it has transmogrified itself via the application of heat (or some other more inexplicably devious mechanism)? And is there a race of alien bacon monsters in there absorbing our bacon? I think we should be told.

A Never-Ending Story

2011-11-11T16:36:00.000Z

Having got the Completion Certificate from t'Council, the next step was to nip along to the Land Registry to get the penthouse suite registered, something we thought would be straightforward enough. So El Presidente duly toddled along to the local office; only to find that the chappie responsible was 'out' so she'd have to go the central office. After much waiting about, a very helpful lady at the central office looked the property up in their records and discovered, much to our bafflement, that only the land is registered and none of the existing buildings, let alone the penthouse, have ever been. So El Prez was advised that she would have to get loads more paperwork from t'Council to show that building permission had been appropriately given and that a Completion Certificate for the existing building had been issued. This meant a return to t'Council offices where the officials, who were at first reluctant, agreed to dig out their old files (from 1983). El Prez went back this morning and duly collected copies of the papers. (There was a brief hiatus while El Prez took the old plans down the road to get them copied because t'Council doesn't have a photocopier big enough. A worrying equipment deficit as they must need to copy plans on a fairly frequent basis, seeing as they are The Planning Department).

El Presidente then whizzed back to the Land Registry with her mountain of documents but, alas! The Land Registry also require a copy of the plans for the kitchen as they were before amendment. That is, the plans for the kitchen that didn't get built because we changed the layout. They've got the plans for the kitchen that did get built. Everyone is at a loss as to why they should need plans for something that isn't there and never was. But there you go, this is Cyprus. So we have been confounded in getting the building registered. The nice man at t'Council has agreed to dig out the plans for the mystery kitchen and give a copy of them to Niky's cousin, but registration will in any case have to wait now till our next visit. This is annoying but only a practical problem if El Prez should happen to die beforehand, in which case there will be untold difficulties in getting the unregistered property transferred to her beneficiaries. Mind you, you would think that if you've got the title deeds to the land then it can be assumed you own the buildings on it, but I'm not counting on that; this is Cyprus.

Oh, and when we do eventually get the registration done there will be a fee of 85 Euros.

Oligarchs

2011-11-11T16:01:00.000Z

The epithet 'oligarch' is from the Greek, innit. Is mean 'ruled by the few', which is what is about to happen to Greece, which is ironic, I suppose. Ironic is from the Greek as well, also, but is another story doings with Aristotle, innit? But that's another story.

Any road up, they've finally agreed on a new Prime Minister, Lucas Papademos, to take over from Pandreou and bring into effect the various measures demanded by the Eurozone and the IMF in return for the billions and billions from the bailout fund. Papademos, however, is not an elected politician but he is an economist who has been employed by the Federal Reserve in Boston (amongst others) and was the Governor of the Bank of Greece at the time that Greece joined the Euro. You may recall that doubts have been expressed about the accuracy of the economic statements provided by Greece at that time; let's hope Mr Papademos is in no way remiss in that respect. Then he moved to the European Central Bank as Vice-President until becoming economic advisor last year to none other than Mr Papandreou. All rather neat, really. The chap who was involved at the beginning of the Greek financial screw-up is now in charge of sorting it out. I think Mr Papademos can be counted amongst the oligarchs.

Other oligarchs are the chaps with the money who will now be able to buy up the State's assets really cheaply now that the State has to privatise everything in order to meet the bailout conditions - Greece has to raise 50 billion Euros by 2015. So the highways, the airports, banks, utilities, property, the post office, telecoms, etc etc are all up for sale and because of the pressure, Greece will have to accept whatever price it can get particularly now that Italy, Portugal and Spain are having to do likewise. (A buyers market, so if you fancy buying a Greek island, now's the time.)

Of course, in ten year's time when hopefully things are back on a more even keel, these assets will be worth several times what they are sold for. So just as happened in Russia twenty years ago when the state was privatised, there'll be a few oligarchs making all the money while the other 99% of the population pay their taxes to repay the bailout funds. And the double irony is that it was the tax avoidance/evasion on the part of the Greek oligarchs that helped get Greece into such a mess.

Who Dat?

2011-11-08T15:02:00.001Z

I've been hearing a different birdsong in amongst the usual sounds of sparrows, pigeons, finches and hooded crows and wondered for a few days what it was, The other day, however, we saw the interloper. A cockatiel, not indigenous to Cyprus but a native of Australia. Now, as Dame Edna advises us, there's a place for Australians and that's Australia, so what this fellow is doing here we don't know. It's a bit far to fly so we assume he's a pet who has escaped. If a lady cockatiel escapes and they get together there may be ructions in the local ecology. Here's a picture of the antipodean escapee, sitting on Uncle George's TV aerial.

And Now, The Good News!

2011-11-05T18:01:00.003Z

Mad Marinos, the Psychotic Builder, has been shown the door, paid off, given his cards, had his chips, taken the long walk, and banished from our existence! Older readers may recall the anguish and misery this man has put us through over the last two or three years*.

It is now over a year since the building of the penthouse suite was 'finished' and under the terms of the contract we have been witholding 2% of the contracted price pending satisfaction on our part that everything is ship shape. Needless to say, it hasn't been and we've had to have all sorts of extra work done by other contractors as a result. So we've deducted those costs from the amount witheld. Marinos, however, had been expecting payment of the full amount.

As it happened, Looneytunes isn't actually in the country at the moment (he's in Bahrain) and so the matter was delegated to his son Dinos who has been 'running' the 'business' pro tem. Any road up, we had the meeting yesterday with the architect and Dinos during which the final reckoning was made. Dinos was not happy when informed he'd only be getting less than a third of what he'd hoped for but, fortunately, although he is generally a bit useless**, surly and ill-mannered, Dinos is not a nutter so we had no screaming abdabs from him. However, he felt he had to phone his Dad to get his agreement and consequently the architect had to deal with the hysterical loony remotely. Lots of back and forth ensued, but eventually after El Presidente had made it clear that this was it - "Accept this settlement or forget it!" - and that no further negotiations would be entered into, Dinos relented, took the money, gave us a receipt and skedaddled. Somewhat optimistically, Dinos said to the architect as he left that he hoped he could work with him again.

El Presidente performed magnificently during the exchanges, which were in Greek, although I could get the gist of it. Not only did she stand up to Dinos but she also prompted the architect, who is a bit soft, to show a bit of backbone and not drift into compromise. Meanwhile, Uncle Hambis acted as observer and peaceful presence - he has known Marinos and Dinos for years and now accepts that Marinos is a 'difficult character' and no doubt regrets having recommended him to us. Now that Dinos has a few hundred from us, perhaps he'll pay Hambis the two months' rent his Dad owes him!
[*See post 30 April 2010 **See post 22 May 2010]

Sausage-Eaters at Three O'Clock!

2011-11-05T17:15:00.000Z

The UK and the Commonwealth all agreed last week to end the rule of primogeniture through which the role of Monarch could be inherited only by males. David Cameron trumpeted this as a progressive breakthrough but it all seems a bit irrelevant these days. Be that as it may, some clever chaps at The Guardian have worked out that, had primogeniture not been in force following Queen Victoria's death, then Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany would have been King of the UK at the start of World War I. This might have given rise to a few diplomatic issue and no mistake.

Moreover, Elizabeth II would not have become Queen; instead it would have been Princess Marie Cecile of Prussia. This means that, as the ban on Catholics is also to go, the heir to the throne would consequently be her son His Highness Duke Paul-Wladimir Nikolaus Louis-Ferdinand Peter Max Karl-Emich of Oldenburg, and Prince William would have to make way for Duke Kirill Friedrich-August Jaime Cristobal Hermann Antonius Vincenz Josef Maria of Oldenburg.

So Angela Merkel would be on our side!

First, The Bad News...

2011-11-05T13:13:00.002Z

Major disappointment on the plumbing front.

The first floor apartment of Hajistilly Towers was built in 1985 and, at that time, galvanised steel pipes were used in Cyprus for all your plumbing needs - cheaper than copper, and plastic was only just taking over as the medium of choice. The snag with galvanised pipes is, of course, that they corrode and this is what we are now faced with. A tell-tale leak has appeared behind the sink in the auxiliary ablutions area which is causing the tiles to fall away. Only a very slow leak at present, but it's going to get worse. So we've had a friendly plumber round to give it the once-over and he advises that the whole lot will have to be replaced.

This will involve a complete refurbishment of the bathroom as well as the offending auxiliary facility because the pipes are embedded in the concrete behind the tiles, a major project costing thousands and thousands. Unfortunately, the current financial situation here in our overseas dominions is such that we are broke so for the time being it's a case of turning off the water and hoping for the best. Maybe Angela Merkel will lend us the money to get it fixed.

Give and Take Δήμος Λάρνακα Style

2011-11-04T09:30:00.000Z

When we got planning permission from t'council to build the penthouse suite, they required us to pay a 200 Euro deposit against damage to the highway etc whilst building took place, the deposit to be refunded when the 'Building Completion Certificate' was issued. Older readers may recall the messing about that has been required to get the completion certificate, but is has at last been issued - although we have had to pay a 100 Euro administration fee to secure it. El Prez duly went to the refunds department to get back the 200 Euro deposit although this was delayed by a couple of days while we waited for the Mayor to authorise it. However, we are now advised that 67 Euros have been deducted from the deposit on account of us having had the use of the highway and related facilities meanwhile. So we've paid 167 Euros to get 200 Euros back. Well, at least we're 33 Euros in the black overall!

It feels good to know that we are doing our bit to ensure that The Powers That Be remain properly funded.

Archbishop Sees The Light

2011-11-02T12:12:00.000Z

His Mentionableness the Archbishop of Canterbury has signed up to the idea of the Robin Hood Tax. Writing in the Financial Times* he endorses The Vatican's three points for making the world a better place, at least in terms of financial justice:

Routine banking business should be clearly separated from speculative transactions;
Recapitalise banks with public money. Banks should be obliged in return to help reinvigorate the real economy; and
A Financial Transaction Tax.

This declaration is, of course, not unrelated to the anti-corporate greed protest taking place outside St Paul's Cathedral and is no doubt aimed at getting the protestors to believe the Church is on their side, and to avoid confrontation. The last thing the Church wants is a forced eviction of the protestors (for whatever reason) so this might help persuade them to move on. Be that as it may, I am choosing to believe Mr Archbishop is sincere and that he is making a step towards separating service to 'God' (and charity towards us plebs) from obeisance to 'Mammon'.

What I would like to see next is the Anglican Church, the Vatican, the Greek Orthodox Church, and all the rest, divest themselves of their fabulous wealth and do their bit financially to make the world better place. A lot of the churches' wealth is tied up in property, works of art and golden idols etc. But it is estimated that the Greek Orthodox has sufficient assets to solve the Greek government's debts twice over (see The Guardian for more details. Typically, nobody has proper or reliable records and the church has not been publishing its accounts.) And Heaven knows (or at least we hope it does) how much booty lies in the Vatican which might usefully be redistributed - the CIA reckon there are revenues of $355 million a year - so it would be nice to see t'Pope put his money where his mouth is. The Church of England is quite poor relatively speaking, but they're not short of a bob or two when needed.

[*Sorry, but to read the FT article you will have to register, but you can do so for free.]

Verwünschter Grieche!

2011-11-02T08:28:00.001Z

I expect Angela Merkel is spitting blood and biting the carpet this morning after the Greek Government agreed to Papandreou's proposal to hold a referendum on whether or not to accept the Eurozone's rescue package. It is usually the case that the Greeks are the architects of their own misfortunes, but this is taking it a little too far, nicht wahr? Having fiddled their way to bankruptcy they now seem determined to drag everyone else down with them. There'll certainly be some fireworks at the G20 meeting tomorrow when Papandreou turns up!

Papandreou has given himself two chances to completely screw everything up. First, there's to be a 'No Confidence' vote in Parliament. If he loses that there'll be a general election, the outcome of which is anybody's guess. If Papandreou wins, there'll be referendum on the rescue package and again, the outcome of that is anybody's guess. And maybe if someone else wins, they'll have a referendum too. So we're left with a double dose of uncertainty and the only people who make any money out of it are the currency speculators. Gott in Himmel!

It is so typically Greek to fail to think ahead and, when faced with the resulting mess, to spend so much time arguing, contradicting and being downright bloody minded instead of just getting on with sorting it out. And then having agreed a solution, to do something else. We've been employing a builder and an architect with similar qualities.

G20: Robin Hood Tax

2011-11-01T08:43:00.000Z

Those awfully nice people over at 38 Degrees have a petition on the go to put pressure on our estimable Prime Minister David Cameron to support a Robin Hood Tax when he meets up with his chums at the G20 Conference at the end of the week in Cannes.

Here's a video featuring Bill Nighy which explains the idea behind the Robin Hood Tax.

So click on the 38 Degrees link and sign their petition, and click on the Robin Hood Tax link to send an email to Cameron. We've checked it with the Pope and so we all agree:

The Pope has come out as the latest supporter of a Financial Transaction Tax after a note released yesterday (24 October) by the Vatican called for a reform of the international financial system. The note, released by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, recommended the implementation of a tax on financial transactions “with costs proportioned to the complexity of operations, especially of those carried out on the ‘secondary’ market.” The Vatican also proposed that funds raised by the tax be used to help low income countries suffering the effects of the financial crisis, stating that "Such taxation would be very useful in promoting global development and sustainability according to the principles of social justice and solidarity. It could also contribute to the creation of a world reserve fund to support the economies of the countries hit by crisis as well as the recovery of their monetary and financial system."

Of course, if you're feeling energetic you could go to Cannes as well and engage in some direct action.

Επέτειος του «'Οχι»

2011-10-29T09:21:00.001+01:00

Another year goes by and it's Ohi Day again (yesterday) when the Greeks celebrate President Metaxas telling Mussolini in 1940 to take his spaghetti with meatballs and put it where the sun don't shine. Sadly, it did them no good; Mussolini invaded anyway and thus brought Greece into World War Two, with a subsequent invasion by the Germans after the Italians went soft. These doingses prompted the Communists to organise as part of the resisitance, supported by the Allies. But when it was all over, the Allies wanted the non-Communists in power so a civil war followed. Then things got really messy, what with the Cold War, Turkey sticking it's oar in and Henry Kissinger creating unrest all round, in cahoots with the Military Junta. After that all calmed down (a bit). There followed a series of ineffectual governments of either ilk but all equally corrupt, presiding over a lackadaisical and tax-fiddling population, and here we are. So the marching bands have been out and about, parading along the promenade, and the Mayor has given a speech, and everyone has waved a flag. And people have had a day off work. It all seems a bit irrelevant, what with one thing and another.

Paintergate

2011-10-28T09:43:00.000+01:00

Last June, we had a ramp and metal gate installed for the back yard to facilitate the parking of the redoubtable motor car 'Bertie'. This operation cost us several hundred Euros and the job was satisfactorily done but what they didn't tell us was the gate would not be painted. So it has inevitably fallen to me to do said painting on this trip. A bit fiddly and time consuming; working with metallic paint being a new experience for me. It's more kind of glutenous than ordinary gloss. Any road up, here's the gate all black and shiny. I'll probably apply another coat of paint before we leave, seeing as the winter is approaching.

Thelonious

2011-10-28T08:18:00.002+01:00

Set aside an hour and a half sometime over the weekend and watch this documentary, produced by Clint Eastwood, about Thelonious Monk. Your life will improve.

Schadenfreude Vol.39 & Vol.40

2011-10-27T16:36:00.000+01:00

I don't generally take pleasure in the misfortunes of others, but there are exceptions. For example, Manchester United deserve to have things go wrong from time to time because they always expect everything to go right all the time. So it was rewarding to watch them lose by such an embarasssing margin last weekend to Manchester City, especially as the result came about not just because City played well but also because United were rubbish. It's not often they just collapse completely as they did in the last quarter of an hour.

David Cameron, however, is a vacuous twit and deserves to have everything go as wrong as possible all the time, so the post-modern irony of him having to deny the rabid section of the Conservative Party a referendum on membership of the EU was very enjoyable indeed. His inner squirmings must have been terrible, having waffled on in the past with such contrived outrage about the lack of a referendum only to find now that he has to accept that such a refrendum would be not just pointless but counter-productive. And he had to use a three-line whip to enforce his will on MPs whose demands he had previously endorsed- which 81 of them defied. Brilliant.

About Time!

2011-10-27T11:46:00.000+01:00

Who knows if it is going to make any long-term difference to the fate of the globalised economy but it is refreshing at least to see that under the terms of the Eurozone rescue agreement, 'The Banks' are to write off 50% of the money owed to them by Greece. At last, the bastards who've been profiting by screwing up the financial system will have to suffer, if only at the margins. Now what is needed is for the Greeks generally to stop fiddling their taxes - which has been their way of life for years and has contributed to their deficit. And, presumably, the EU will make sure that the Greek government no longer cooks the books.

No doubt, the banks will try to recoup their losses by some devious means or other so vigilance is the word!

Funk Assessment #273: Sam Cooke - Shake

2011-10-21T18:59:00.000+01:00

You're probably more familiar with the Otis Redding version of this tune but, believe it or not, I think the original by Sam Cooke is actually more funky than Otis'. Accuse me of heresy if you like, but Sam takes it at a slightly more relaxed, looser tempo and the the brass section works better, kind of more homogenous. But the killer blow is the additional guitar which goes off the beat just before the fourth beat of the bar and the way this counteracts with the drums. Groovy. What both have in common however is the rhythm guitar chunking away throughout. Full info over here.

Lot 233 - John Lennon's Tooth

2011-10-21T08:36:00.000+01:00

If you are a Beatles fan and a practitioner of somatic cell nuclear transfer, get yourself down to Meadow Mill, Water St, Stockport, SK1 2BX on Saturday 5th November 2011 when Omega Auctions will be selling:

JOHN LENNON TOOTH – this truly unique piece of memorabilia, a tooth of John Lennon’s, was given to his housekeeper, Dorothy (Dot) Jarlett during her employment as housekeeper at his Kenwood home in Weybridge, Surrey. Dot was employed at Kenwood approximately between 1964 and 1968. John had a warm relationship with Dot and her family, often referring to her as ”Aunty Dot” and even naming his dog Bernard after Dot’s husband. John was to give many gifts to Dot and her family over the years, some of which have previously been sold by the family through Sotheby’s. The tooth, being such a rare item has been kept in the family until now and comes with a sworn legal affidavit by Dot Jarlett attesting to the authenticity.

With just a little patience and some willing live human volunteers, you could create a clone of John Lennon from the period when he was at his creative peak, and before he hooked up with Yoko. Sounds like a plan, eh Igor?

Armageddinouddahere

2011-10-21T08:18:00.000+01:00

Just in case you've forgotten, today is the end of the world according to the estimable Harold Camping. He had thought it would be May 21st but when it wasn't, he revised his prophesy to explain that that was when God began judging, which would take five months. The five months finishes today so your number is up - unless you are one of the Chosen who gets raptured up to Heaven (or something like that). More details available at Camping's website. Camping reassures us that the Unchosen will not suffer unduly so you Chosen ones need not worry about the rest of us weeping and wailing and gnashing our teeth.

Names

2011-10-20T20:24:00.000+01:00

(From Futility Closet)

In 1960, Cambridge graduate Ron Hall announced a discovery he called Hall’s Law: “For any sufficiently large group of people the average number of initials possessed by members of that group is a direct measure of the predominant social class of the group.”

Hall’s computer analysis of the English aristocracy found that dukes averaged four names apiece, marquesses 3.96, earls 3.92, barons 3.53, baronets 3.49, viscounts 3.41, and knights 3.06. As modern examples he named John Selwyn Brooke Lloyd and Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell; those from the past included Admiral the Honorable Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunket-Ernle-Erle-Drax, a commodore of convoys during World War II, and Major Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache, who was killed in World War I.

From across the sea, an American newspaper observed, “It would be interesting to know what the worthy major’s parents called him in his boyhood years.”.

With only three names, it would seem I fall below the status of Knight. But there are certain relations of mine whose parents seem to have delusions of grandeur. The poor blighters have been given five names despite merely being middle class and not at all ennobled...

Crackers

2011-10-20T13:24:00.001+01:00

Imagine you are the Managing Director of a company that manufactures and sells cheese crackers. During the course of business you meet suppliers and customers, travelling overseas, identifying markets, negotiating deals, and so forth. For no apparent reason you decide to take an old friend of yours along to some of these meetings, cheese cracker conventions and the like. This friend of yours is not an employee of the company but he has his own business cards bearing the company logo claiming he's an 'adviser', and he spends a lot of time in your office. By a series of amazing coincidences he also turns up at other cheese cracker marketing events where you happen to be. Nobody really knows why he's there but your suppliers and customers can see you are 'close' so go along with it. It's all a bit unclear who is funding this frend of yours but he seems to have some kind of link to a shady organisation set up to promote Anglo/USA relations (whether concerned with crackers or not). Meanwhile, this friend of yours, who has absolutely no knowledge or experience of the cheese cracker business, has done nothing of any benefit to your company.

It wouldn't happen, would it? The other directors would be asking who is this fellow; the CEO would be wondering what's going on, and your shareholders would be puzzled. But to Liam Fox, former Secretary of State for Defence, the idea was quite unremarkable and he ignored all advice to the contrary. Crackers.

Isn't That Amazing?

2011-10-18T10:26:00.000+01:00

Chickenshed: The Rain That Washes

2011-10-06T11:55:00.001+01:00

An evening excursion yesterday to the Chickenshed Theatre for a performance of The Rain That Washes, a one-man show about the independence struggle in Zimbabwe. Written by Dave Carey, based on the experiences of Christopher Paphose, the play covers the story from the time of Ian Smith and UDI up to Mugabe's treacherous takeover and imposition of his authoritarian and oppressive regime.

Ashley Maynard excels in performing this demanding multiple-role piece, swapping between characters convincingly and never missing a beat. It is very well-written and directed, keeping the attention at all times, and covers a lot of ground without dwelling on any particular aspect of the sorry tale of Zimbabwe's transition from colonization to tyranny. Hope, innocence and inspiration falling into disillusionment and brutality is subtly portrayed without becoming preachy and self-righteous. Recommended!

Last chance to see on Saturday 8 October.

Todd Rundgren at the Jazz Cafe

2011-10-05T18:09:00.001+01:00

Here we see some more stars of show biz performing on a stage formerly trod by our Phil who was there a little while ago playing drums for Acer Maple. (You can see our hero in the background of the Acer Maple photo.)

On this occasion, however, we were at the Jazz Cafe to see one of the world's greatest beings - Mr Todd Rundgren.

Wonderful. Despite being billed as 'An Evening with...and Special Guests' it was in fact Todd and his band of the last several years comprising Prairie Prince on drums, Kasim Sulton on bass, Jesse Gress on guitar, and new boy John Ferenzick on keyboards. All except Praire provided backing vocals. It wasn't exactly a 'Greatest Hits' occasion, but Todd played stuff from throughout his fine career, some of which was rearranged a tad. Todd did most of the gig just on vocals, occasionally playing guitar and whipping out a flash solo. Todd's voice is fantastic, as strong as ever despite his 45 or so years on the road. He was in fine wise-cracking form, and jumped about a fair bit for a man of his years. He did sit down for the 'quiet' bit of the show, however. An extra treat was a cover of Marvin Gaye's 'I Want You'. Spiffing.

The full set list can be found at setlist.fm and Todd, of course, has a myspace page.

Five stars, but the Jazz Cafe really should upgrade the toilets.

16th Note Shuffle

2011-09-29T08:29:00.000+01:00

Members of the Xorg Collective are already familiar with the walking funkyness that is Mr Bernard Purdie. He appears on many recordings hearabouts: Steely Dan, Aretha and many more. This little video is excellent - I like the way he pretends to surprise himself with the hi-hat. As an erstwhile bass player, when I listen to this it just makes want to, erm, git dowwwn and engage with those good old dropped thirds, maaan. Hit me.

Cupcakes?

2011-09-27T11:12:00.000+01:00

Well, there you go. You blinked and you missed it. The week before last was National Cupcake Week. Another marketing initiative, as most of these 'Weeks' are, this one being organised by the self-appointed media organ of the baking industry British Baker. It was given some social legitimacy by also including fund-raising for the childrens' cancer charity CLIC Sargent. Any road up, this year's champion cupcake maker is Jennifer Buls who runs the online cupcake shop Absolute Treats.

Cupcake is, of course, the American name for this confection which was hitherto known in England as a 'fairy cake'. Please yourself. Whilst some people . . . some people like cupcakes exclusively, I myself say there is naught, nor ought there be, nothing so exalted on the face of God's grey earth as that Prince of Foods . . . The Muffin!

Johnny Depp Goes Up In The World

2011-09-26T16:50:00.001+01:00

Here we see the erstwhile Cap'n Sparrow pretending to be a rock star and, ermm, jamming with Alice Cooper - who looks a little beyond his 'Best Before' date. Mr Depp, however, seems quite spritely, wearing clothes which purport to make him look like someone not famous but which, in fact, make him look like someone trying not to look like someone famous. At least Mr Alice looks consistently wretched, with or without make up.

Be that as it may, the semi-dynamic duo are performing at the 100 Club on the very stage previously trodden by none other than our Phil with his hotter-than-hot jazz/rock/pop combo Hanzo. Mr Depp is reported to have exclaimed "Wow! Hanzo played here? Jeez! That's so cool! I'm on the same stage as Hanzo! Wow!"

Alice's post-jamming remarks were, sadly, stifled by his oxygen mask.

(See post for 2 March 2010)

The UARS Who Fell To Earth

2011-09-24T22:07:00.000+01:00

NASA have announced that their "decommissioned Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) fell back to Earth between 11:23 p.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 23 and 1:09 a.m. Sept. 24...The precise re-entry time and location of debris impacts have not been determined. During the re-entry period, the satellite passed from the east coast of Africa over the Indian Ocean, then the Pacific Ocean, then across northern Canada, then across the northern Atlantic Ocean, to a point over West Africa." NASA don't know exactly how many bits of the satellite eventually survived re-entry - they estimate 26 components could have survived - or where they are but they would like anyone who finds a bit to let them know, via a 'local law enforcement official." Stand by for all manner of loonies to report having found old tin cans, kettles and bottle tops that fell from space. PC Plod will have his work cut out with this little episode.

I find this a bit mystifying. Somehow or other, the Powers That Be can read my car number plate from space but they can't track their own satellite. The military can use other satellites to guide a cruise missile into Gaddafi's back garden but not to track this piece of junk that they've known for years would be falling to Earth. If I wasn't so level-headed I might suspect this whole thing has been a decoy to cover up something else.

We Have Nothing To Fear But The Sky Falling On Our Heads

2011-09-23T21:36:00.003+01:00

According to NASA's current prediction, their redundant Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere sometime tonight or tomorrow morning. About half a tonne of the six tonne satellite is expected to survive re-entry and it could land, in bits, anywhere between 57 degrees north and 57 degreees south. That's just about everywhere that's populated, apart from western Canada, northern Siberia and Alaska. So I guess it's Goodnight Vienna, or Scunthorpe, or Macclesfield, or Paris Texas, or wherever you are. Should be good to look at as it falls to Earth.

Downrange Spread of Surviving Debris:

There's a .pdf of the NASA risk assessment here.

The Doubt Grenade

2011-09-23T20:17:00.000+01:00

An entry for the Eagle Awards, an advertising competition in South Africa. (Click on the picture to enbiggificate.)

E=MC2 or Maybe Not

2011-09-23T11:14:00.004+01:00

Here's a quote from a research paper produced by the Brainy Boffins conducting the OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) experiment at their Gran Sasso laboratory:

An early arrival time of CNGS muon neutrinos with respect to the one computed assuming the speed of light in vacuum of (60.7 ± 6.9 (stat.) ± 7.4 (sys.)) ns was measured. This anomaly corresponds to a relative difference of the muon neutrino velocity with respect to the speed of light (v-c)/c = (2.48 ± 0.28 (stat.) ± 0.30 (sys.)) ×10-5.

What this apparently means is the the Eggheads have managed to get some neutrinos to travel faster than the speed of light by about 6,000 metres per second. Using the CERN particle accelorator in Switzerland, they fired some neutrinos over the 730 km distance to Gran Sasso in Italy and calculated that the neutrinos had arrived there before a beam of light would have, i.e. 60 billionths of a second earlier. This is counter-intuitive and, moreover, messes up Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity. The Guardian reports Subir Sarkar, head of particle theory at Oxford University as saying:

"The constancy of the speed of light essentially underpins our understanding of space and time and causality, which is the fact that cause comes before effect. Cause cannot come after effect and that is absolutely fundamental to our construction of the physical universe. If we do not have causality, we are buggered."

Of course, this research has to be tested and verified by others. As eny fule kno, time, distance and speed are relative so if you get the measurement of time and distance wrong then the calculation of speed will be wrong. No doubt the Russians and Americans are cranking up their accelerators, checking their tape measures and winding up their clocks at this very moment. Or maybe they did next week and they've already got their results tomorrow. We here at Xorg Inter-Galactic suggest that perhaps the neutrinos didn't travel directly from Switzerland to Italy but perhaps went via another dimension, arriving back in Gran Sasso slightly out of synch with the Boffins.
Addendum: If you were to travel by road (quite a scenic route across the Alps) from CERN to Gran Sasso it would take you 8 hours and 44 minutes to cover the 930 km. Approximately. Unless, of course, you were to encounter a trans-dimensional anomaly along the way.

Revenge of the Entanglification Demons

2011-09-21T18:07:00.000+01:00

Once again the wires have taken over and been inevitably entanglificated. They have apparently begun to replicate themselves, leading to misery and disaster. I'm pretty sure that there was only one extension plug there yesterday and that it only had two thingies plugged into it. One of these wires managed to wrap itself around the leg of the computer table with the result that when I moved the table a Macbook fell to the floor, incurring a couple of dents and a bent lid. Fortunately there was no functional damage, so full marks to Mr Apple and his designers. A reward is on offer for the successful capture of said demons.

Apples

2011-09-21T10:08:00.000+01:00

At this time of year there is a surfeit of apples. It seems that everyone one you know has an apple tree (or several) and they've got some apples for you. Before you know it, there's an apple mountain festering in the larder. But Fabmary has the solution and has perfected the classic approach for apple disposal strategy - a pie. Note the snazzy design on the top.

Another Reason to Move to Belgium

2011-09-17T12:11:00.002+01:00

This is a chart based on research done by UNICEF in 2000 measuring relative child poverty as a proportion of population in the OECD countries. The data is a bit old and note that it is a relative measure i.e. of households with children where the income is less than 50% of the national median. So a 'poor' child in America is still a lot better off than a child in many other countries in the world. And a poor child in 2000 is better off than his or her counterpart was in 1959, for example. Nevertheless, one thing it does indicate is that in those countries where economic and social policies are geared towards the redistribution of wealth, there is less child poverty. For example, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Belgium have scores of around 4% or less whereas in America the figure is around 22%. So it would seem that if your aim is to reduce child poverty then you should reduce taxes on the low paid and increase taxes on the high paid. Rather than thinking about doing away with the 50% tax rate, therefore, George Osborne should be increasing it to 60% and increasing the threshold above which tax becomes payable thus taking low paid households out of tax altogether.

How To Save A Billion

2011-09-15T22:16:00.000+01:00

An extract from the debate in the House of Lords on the Welfare Reform Bill, 13 September:

Lord Low of Dalston: Tony Blair is reputed to have asked what you had to do to save £1 billion on welfare and been told that a million people had to lose a thousand pounds. The Government’s welfare reforms are aimed at saving £18 billion. That is an awful lot of people who have to lose a thousand pounds—or rather more if you want to reduce the number of losers. Many of these losers are disabled people, the most vulnerable in our society, whom the Government have pledged to protect.

[House of Lords, Official Report, (Hansard), Vol. 730, No. 194, Col. 668]

Assuming the Government is not going to have a go at pensioners - always politically a no-go area - then the 5.8 million working age benefit claimants (of one sort or another) had better watch out. Note: Only 2.5 million are off sick or unemployed, the others are claiming Housing and/or Council Tax Benefit and could be working or retired, and there are 0.6 million 'lone parents' i.e. widows, single mothers/fathers. See DWP website.

Album of the Day: Bill Frisell - Unspeakable

2011-09-14T14:45:00.002+01:00

Nifty guitar, laid back, jazzy, funky, added sounds.

"'Unspeakable' is the rare jazz project that confronts dance grooves and electronica without surrendering to them. Frisell reacts to the beats and samples but never imitates them; he always seems to be proposing alternative methods for divvying up the same pulse or evoking the same mood. Thus we get the best of both worlds -- the power of electronica and the personality of an idiosyncratic musician." Geoffrey Himes, The Washington Post

See Bill Frisell website for more info. Probably not in stock at your local supermarket but you can get it on t'internet.

Anarchy is the Best Policy

2011-09-13T14:48:00.000+01:00

From the latest issue of the London Review of Books

Quarterly GDP data don’t, on the whole, tend to make the person studying them laugh out loud. The most recent set, however, are an exception, despite the fact that the general picture is of unrelieved and spreading economic gloom. Instead of the surge of rebounding growth which historically accompanies successful exit from a recession, we have the UK’s disappointing 0.2 per cent growth, the US’s anaemic 0.3 per cent and the glum eurozone average figure of 0.2 per cent. That number includes the surprising and alarming German 0.1 per cent, the desperately poor French 0 per cent and then, wait for it, the agreeably frisky Belgian 0.7 per cent. Why is that, if you’ve been following the story, laugh-aloud funny? Because Belgium doesn’t have a government. Thanks to political stalemate in Brussels, it hasn’t had one for 15 months. No government means none of the stuff all the other governments are doing: no cuts and no ‘austerity’ packages. In the absence of anyone with a mandate to slash and burn, Belgian public sector spending is puttering along much as it always was; hence the continuing growth of their economy. It turns out that from the economic point of view, in the current crisis, no government is better than any government – any existing government.

Belgium does, of course, have a lot of social and economic legislation already in place (Keynesian rather than neo-liberalist) but I always suspected that if only the blighters would leave us alone to get on with it and desist from forever changing, reforming and restructuring then things might just tick along nicely!

Orford Ness: Atom Bomb Test Site & Nature Reserve

2011-09-13T11:47:00.002+01:00

It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

There's a shingle spit to the east of Woodbridge, Suffolk. Pretty much uninhabitable but Lord Braybrooke built a lighthouse there in 1792 and a martello tower was erected as a defence against potential invasion by Napoleon and his French hordes. In 1913, however, the Ministry of Defence realised its potential as a weapons testing site and began dropping bombs, firing bullets, throwing hand grenades and generally having a smashing time. They built an airfield, radar stations, and various military quarters there. At one point German prisoners of war were held there (although not for target practice, I hope).

With the invention of the atom bomb it became necessary to develop effective ways of ensuring accurate delivery of said weaponry to its target. This was in the days before reliable missiles and computer modelling, so the atom bomb was actually dropped and they had to be sure that the impact would not damage the detonation system, and that the bomb would pierce it's target. So the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment did loads of tests at Orford Ness, dropping bombs from planes and monitoring how they fell, with or without parachute retardation, so that bomber crews could be properly trained in aiming the bombs. Don't worry though; the bombs were unarmed so there's no nuclear residue. I wonder how relevant this was, given that an atom bomb is designed to cause massive destruction over a wide area so it wouldn't matter if you missed Stalin's bunker by a hundred yards or so. But there you go. It kept them off the streets.There's a small exhibition in which you can see an actual atom bomb, the WE-177.

All this became unnecessary with the development of guided missiles so eventually the MOD abandoned the site and handed it over to The National Trust. Any unexploded ordnance has been removed from the site (fingers crossed) and The National Trust have just left it alone to allow nature to come back and re-take possession. Paths, buildings and lumps of concrete remain but otherwise, apart from the (new) lighthouse there's nothing there except birds, flowers and a few sheep. Of course, being flat, cold, barren and windy it's not very hospitable so the birds keep a low profile and the plants are extremely small and hardy.

Sky Broadband

2011-09-07T10:17:00.000+01:00

Older readers may recall how slow t'internet used to be when it was first invented. These days we've got used to things happening in the blink of an eye but out here in the wilds of Suffolk, life remains slower than an arthritic tortoise. On my home planet we have fibre-optic cables so there's not much loss of signal - entropy laws decree there must be some, and there are metal connectors - but hereabouts the signal travels along a telephone line several hundred miles long until it arrives at the house completely out of puff, if it gets here at all. To make matters worse, the wireless hub is somewhat under-powered. This whizzo technology is provided by Rupert Murdoch's estimable organisation 'Sky'. Suffice it to say that it does not live up to it's billing. Speeds of up to 20Mb, my arse. More like 11 Kb. And the signal repeatedly justs drops out altogether, requiring a chap to reconnect all over again. And again. And again.

We suffered some inconvenience in the 29th Dimension when fibre-optic cables were installed fifteen years ago, what with the roads and pavements being dug up, but we rarely have connection problems and these are usually the result of external factors such as some cretin at the controls of a JCB digger not looking what he's doing. Moreover, Mr Branson's people at Virginmedia actually upgrade the service frequently without even being asked. You're lagging behind, Murdoch.

Cheese

2011-08-31T11:39:00.000+01:00

This is completely stupid. You answer a few questions and this gizmo tells you what sort of cheese you are. I have no idea how it was determined that 'putting friends and family first' is related to a particular variety of cheese, but there you go. And some people say that the internet is a waste of time!

Cheese Test: What type of cheese are you?

Days Like These

2011-08-26T11:24:00.000+01:00

Last Wednesday I spent the first five waking hours thinking it was Saturday. This caused untold confusion when reading the Radio Times.Today, however, I know that it will be Saturday tomorrow so it must be Friday. That's alright, then.

Mash Up: Paperback Believer

2011-08-25T10:22:00.002+01:00

Edinburgh Jokes

2011-08-25T08:59:00.000+01:00

The self-styled 'Home of Witty Banter' TV channel Dave has sponsored an award for the Funniest Joke at this year's Edinburgh Festival, which has been won by Nick Helm:

"I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves."

Not bad, not bad. Some of the others are quite good too:
Matt Kirschen: "I was playing chess with my friend and he said, "Let's make this interesting". So we stopped playing chess."
Alan Sharp: "I was in a band which we called The Prevention, because we hoped people would say we were better than The Cure."

I'm Special

2011-08-24T10:13:00.000+01:00

Wesley Scroggins: So It Goes

2011-08-22T10:01:00.001+01:00

You're probably thinking I've made up this bloke's name but no, he's an actual person. So, what's up with Mr Scroggins? Well, he's been giving Christians a bad name.

Actually, that's Dr Scroggins to you; he has a Phd from New Mexico State University and he's an Associate Professor in Management in the College of Business Administration at Missouri State University. He is a resident of a small town called Republic in Greene County, Missouri. As such, he raised a complaint last year with the School Board of the Republic High School about three books which he considers contain material - language, storylines, characterisations - which is 'contrary to what The Bible teaches'. The School Board has duly considered the matter and have 'banned' two of the books: Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. The ban means that these books won't be part of the curriculum at the school, nor will they be stocked in the school library. Students can of course still get the books elsewhere either from a public library or from Amazon, but if they have them in school or cite them as 'independent reading' then students must have a letter from their parents giving permission.

I haven't read Twenty Boy Summer, but by all accounts, it seems to be quite relevant for teenage Americans as it deals with peer pressure, relationships, loyalty, and the death of someone close. Sarah Ockler has responded publicly to point out how dumb this 'ban' is and the Vonnegut estate has responded by offering free copies of Slaughterhouse Five to students of Republic High School.

Slaughterhouse Five is one of the best books of the 20th century and is very moral indeed, highlighting the futility of war and pointing out that 'good guys' often do bad things. If Kurt Vonnegut were alive to hear of this 'ban', I expect he would be laughing his socks off. Especially as the Bible itself contains many tales of rape, slaughter, treachery, adultery and so forth - some of it sanctioned or initiated by the main protagonist himself: 'God'... However, it does not feature a race of aliens from Tralfamadore or a central character, an optometrist called Billy Pilgrim, who is lost in time. Or Kilgore Trout, more's the pity.

Scroggins is another of these American idiots who fail to grasp that under their much-vaunted constitution, church and state are separate. What the Bible, or any other holy book, teaches should not therefore be a consideration when it comes to determining the school curriculum. And when you think of the quantity and variety of different interpretations of exactly what it is that the Bible, or any other holy book, might teach, it's just as well.

I haven't been able to confirm this but, as I understand it, Scroggins does not actually have any children at the Republic High School. In which case it's none of his business anyway. Ho hum.

Scrabble Word Checker

2011-08-22T08:15:00.004+01:00

For any Scrabble aficionado, enthusiast, devotee,fanatic, junkie, freak, nut or maniac out there, here is an official Scrabble word checker:

From the Collins website. Publishers of the official Scrabble books.

A tight jockstrap...

2011-08-20T10:12:00.000+01:00

When Zambian tennis player Lighton Ndefwayl lost to his compatriot Musumba Bwayla in a local tournament, he had a considered and lengthy excuse for his defeat: "Bwayla is a stupid man and a hopeless player. He has a huge nose and is cross-eyed. Girls hate him. He beat me because my jockstrap was too tight and because when he serves he farts, and that made me lose my concentration, for which I am famous throughout Zambia."

And it looks like someone also lost their concentration when writing out his name.

(via The Independent)

Riots 2

2011-08-15T08:41:00.001+01:00

Wood Green was back to 'normal' yesterday, swarming with a mass of diverse humanity but with extra police, although some shops were boarded up awaiting repairs: Quicksilver, O2 phoneshop, Next, H&M, Leather Shop, Specsavers, Vison Express, Boots and Bodyshop (amongst others). So the rioters have got themselves new trainers, leather jackets, Ray Bans, mobiles, shirts and trousers, and they smell better.

This is from Charlie Brooker's article in The Guardian today, in which he takes the p**s out of the rioters -

"Why the obsession with trainers? Trainers are s**t. You stick them on your feet and walk around for a while 'til they go out of fashion. Whoopie doo. Yes, I know they're also status symbols, but anyone who tries to impress others with their shoe choice is a dismally pathetic character indeed – and anyone genuinely impressed by said footwear has all the soaring spirit of a punnet of moss. There's no life to be found in "look at my shoes". There just isn't."

Albums I Bought In 1966

2011-08-14T11:39:00.000+01:00

Freak Out - The Mothers of Invention

Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys

Revolver - The Beatles

Aftermath - The Rolling Stones

Blonde on Blonde - Bob Dylan

Fresh Cream - Cream

The Monkees - The Monkees

(My excuse for the Monkees is that my great-aunt Ada had provided the funds and I felt duty bound to get something she'd heard of and wouldn't cause domestic ructions. Actually, it wasn't too bad as these things go.)

Merryn Makes A Chair

2011-08-12T10:57:00.000+01:00

Riots

2011-08-11T23:04:00.000+01:00

David Cameron recalled Parliament to debate the riots of the last few days and has made a big speech. That'll sort the problem out alright then. The MPs have all had a good grumble and expressed their outrage and now they can all go back on holiday, safe in the knowledge that their travel costs between Tuscany (or wherever) and Westminster and back can be claimed on expenses.

Nathaniel Tapley has written a well-observed article on his blog in which he draws a comparison between the behaviour of the rioters and that of David Cameron and Boris Johnson, amongst others, whilst members of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford: drunkenness and pointless vandalism. Tapley also points out how MPs should be the last people to criticise others for acts of short-sighted greed, given the expenses scandal and other acts of dishonesty perpetrated by our Honourable Friends. Worth reading.

Retribution has been promised for the rioting miscreants, but it would also be a good idea to look a bit more deeply into the issue to find out why the rioters behaved as they did. It's not as simple a problem as Cameron would like it to be.

Slender Threads in Edinburgh

2011-08-11T19:13:00.009+01:00

Hello! I am on tour with Chickenshed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. We are doing a show called Slender Threads, about the effects of a breast cancer diagnosis on a family. It's a tough subject! I am doing the technical side of things...this involves sound, video projection and being confused by the lighting desk. We got here on the 3rd of August and had some time to get used to everything in our flat. I'm sharing with Kieran, Michael, Mark and Phil C. My name is now Phlaines.

So ... our performance space, the Zoo Roxy. This used to be some kind of church and then was refurbished in 1909 as an Art House. The space is nice, a bit different to what we are used to at Chickenshed but it has a nice old character. It looked a bit small when we first got in but we all fit fine. We had 2 hours to tech run the whole show, which really wasnt enough. Also it didn't help that the brand new expensive projector mount broke so it wasn't safe to hang. So I used some brains and went to Homebase and bought a washer and fixed it. It was a stupid design. It's all going well so far, we have had a couple of good reviews and the 'Critics Choice' in The Times for dance. We had a critic in from The Scotsman today...I think she gave us a standing ovation or she could have been really eager to leave. Anyway this other review came out today which is a really good one and should help us with our lacklustre ticket sales: The List.

Anyway I'm going to make some spicy chicken now. Oh yeah we are also running a childrens show in the morning called Tales From The Shed, in the downstairs space of the Zoo Roxy called The Warren. I have to play the piano and make stupid noises - I'm pretty good at that.

Bye.

I've Thought Of A Way To Get Out Of Here!

2011-08-07T17:31:00.001+01:00

[Where G is the universal gravitational constant,

M is the mass of the planet, star or other body, and

r is the distance from the centre of gravity].

The Correct Use of Dissonance

2011-08-04T11:49:00.002+01:00

Things That Should Be Disinvented No. 43

2011-08-04T10:48:00.000+01:00

Blister Packs

Why do manufacturers still insist on enclosing stuff in this wretched packaging? Impossible to open without a sharp knife and/or scissors, thereby risking severing an artery or major flesh wound. And sometimes damaging the product in the process. Surely maufacturers have also found themselves on the receiving end of blister packs and would thus have sent their designing chappies back to the drawing board to come up with an alternative. Or even a perforated edge along which one could tear. But it's probably more likely that they will come up with a new gadget specially designed for opening blister packs, reasonably priced at three times the cost of a pair of scissors...

Don't You Ever Learn

2011-07-30T19:23:00.002+01:00

Quantum Suicide

2011-07-26T10:55:00.000+01:00

Quantum Suicide is a scientific thought experiment. The scientist sits in front of a gun that is set up to either trigger or misfire, depending on the decay of a radioactive atom. With each run of the experiment, there is a 50% chance the gun will trigger. Under the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, the gun will eventually kill the scientist. But if the 'many-worlds' interpretation is correct, then at each run of the experiment there will be a universe in which the scientist lives, and another in which he dies. The scientist can only ever be conscious of the world in which he LIVES, and so never seems to die. This leads to the fanciful speculation that the many-worlds interpretation implies all conscious beings are immortal.
(Imagine the scientist, realizing he cannot die, stepping outside the lab and seeing for the first time what is worthwhile about existence)

[via Blather]

Rugby League Super League XV

2011-07-17T12:58:00.001+01:00

Last week, I received two complimentary tickets for the Super League XV match between Harlequins and Warrington Wolves. They were a consolation price in a free prize draw thingy - I had been hoping to win a Mini Cooper, but there you go.

I am not remotely interested in Rugby League, Super or not, so I offered the tickets to various people of my acquaintance who I know are interested in rugby, sport in general, or who have some geographical connection with either team. There were no takers for the tickets and only three people even bothered to reply.

Eventually, only 3,842 punters attended the match at the 'Twickenham Stoop', where the ground capacity is 14,816, and it rained heavily all afternoon. It must have been a bit glum in the stadium - the match itself was apparently a one-sided affair with Warrington Wolves the easy winners at 54 points to 24. It would seem that the general apathy towards this fixture was not misplaced!

Hiromi at Ronnie Scott's

2011-07-15T20:51:00.000+01:00

It was my pleasure last week to be the guest, along with Our Phil, of Chamberlain Enterprises at Ronnie Scott's 'Jazz' Club for a performance by the exceedingly talented pianist Hiromi with her trio, comprising Anthony Jackson on bass and Steve Smith on drums.

Hiromi is classically trained but plays jazz, so what you get is a kind of jazz/prog rock fusion with a few funky bits thrown in. Her technique is immaculate, and statistical density presents no problems for her. However, she does know when to hold back and be cool and, importantly, she certainly gets the best out of her supporting musicians (both of whom are at least twice her age and very seasoned). She's quite a performer and leaps about, jumps up and down and smiles and laughs a lot, which is unusual for jazzers who are usually too focussed on being cool. A fantastic, dynamic set with loads of contrasts and occasional humour too. You can download her latest album Voice from Amazon for £6.49. Recommended.

I will spare you the usual moans about Ronnie's rubbish toilet facilities, ridiculous drinks and food prices, and cramped seating.