Monthly Archives: April 2011

environment, history, links, music, personal, pleasures, sexuality, thoughts, topographical

Weekly Interesting Links

OK guys & gals, so here’s another weekly, but doubtless occasional, new series — links to interesting sites I’ve come across during the week but which haven’t made it into a full posting.

An article by my friend Potter-san on the Soul of Okinawan Music. The music of Okinawa (the southern-most tropical islands of Japan) is a fun eclectic mix of their native music and just about anything they can import. Try it! I was surprised how much of it I liked.

Also advance information on the London Okinawa Day 2011 on Saturday 25 June. I’ve never managed to get to this annual event but it sounds like it should be a fun day. Anyone want to get together a party of us?

On a totally different subject, a thought-provoking item Should Young Teens be Prescribed Hormonal Contraception? by Prof. Kate Clancy. All the more powerful because Clancy is American and her stance is totally contrary to the prevailing American ethic of total teenage abstinence.

If you are interested in your family history and have forebears who worked on the railway you might be interested in the Railway Ancestors FHS.

In view of the week’s biggest event (at least here in the UK) history buffs may be interested in Medieval Weddings.

One of the most misunderstood areas of the law as it affects anyone involved in literary or artistic ventures is copyright. Fortunately the British Library describe the duration of UK copyright in one easy flowchart. But I suspect I shall have to continue to explain intellectual property law even to our literary society trustees. 🙁

And finally, here’s a super eco-idea: use cardboard packaging impregnated with seeds to rejuvenate the environment. No sorry you can’t have the idea, it’s already been done by Life Box.

amusements, current affairs, nudism

OMG!

1 Comment


I’ve just been looking at some of the photographs from the royal wedding so here are a few thoughts. Links to the photos where possible — the first few are from BBC News (you’ll have to page through the BBC sets). There are duplicate/alternative pictures in some of the sets. So …

  • Why are we allowed an illegal number plate?
  • Kate does look rather good, although she could do with a little more flesh on her (not a lot, just a few of pounds) — bet the bloody royal machine has been making her diet like they did all the other recent brides.
  • As has been commented elsewhere, sister Pippa had the nicer frock. And apparently Prince Hal spent a lot of the time making eyes at her — sensible boy!
  • For a pair of trained military men neither of the princes can stand up straight. Both deserve a dressing down from their Drill Sergeants.
  • Whoever thought it a good idea to let the Princess Royal out looking like Widow Twanky’s char lady on a day out?
  • How does David Beckham come to look like the young Clint Eastwood? And WTF is Mistress Beckham wearing on her feet?

And now for a few (more) of the guests from BBC News …

  • What a frightful pink coat!
  • Another of Beckham looking like a Hollywood cowboy.
  • Oh dear, Elton! Which side of the bed did we get out of?
  • Rowan Atkinson as Greek shipping magnate.
  • Blimey what an unflattering picture of a bump.
  • Ah, Mistress Beckham’s twin sister lookalike (aka. Tara P_T) in electric blue.
  • Thought Sam Cameron looked rather stylish, unlike Mrs Clegg’s hat.
  • I like Prince Felipe of Spain’s naval frock coat.

And these few from The British Monarchy‘s official photostream on Flickr …

Mmmmm, cake!

beliefs, current affairs, history, quotes, sexuality, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

A huge selection this week, even with ignoring the royal wedding.

To most Christians, the Bible is like a software licence. Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll to the bottom and click “I agree”.
[Unknown]

Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquillizing agent as a sunny spring day.
[W Earl Hall]

Hey you! Yes, you, stop being unhappy with yourself, you are perfect. Stop wishing you looked like someone else or wishing people liked you as much as they like someone else, stop trying to get attention from those who hurt you. Stop hating your body, your face, your personality, your quirks, love them, without those things you wouldn’t be you, and why would you want to be anyone else? Be confident with who you are. Smile, it’ll draw people in, if anyone hates on you because you are happy with yourself then you stick your middle finger in the air and say screw it, my happiness will not depend on others any more. I’m happy because I love who I am. I love my flaws, I love my imperfections, they make me me. And ‘me’ is pretty amazing.
[Unknown]

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of 80 and gradually approach 18.
[Mark Twain]

A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it.
[Unknown]

A fortune teller told me: Every place is a goldmine. You have only to give yourself time, sit in a tea-house watching the passers-by, stand in a corner of the market, go for a haircut. You pick up a thread — a word, a meeting, a friend of a friend of someone you just met — and soon the most insipid, most insignificant place becomes a mirror of the world, a window on life, a theatre of humanity. The goldmine is exactly over there where you are.
[Tiziano Terzani]

Why am I an atheist? I ask you: Why is anybody not an atheist? Everyone starts out being an atheist. No one is born with belief in anything. Infants are atheists until they are indoctrinated, I resent anyone pushing their religion on me. I don’t push my atheism on anybody else. Live and let live. Not many people practice that when it comes to religion.
[Andy Rooney]

Go now and live. Experience. Dream. Risk. Close your eyes and jump, enjoy the free-fall. Choose exhilaration over comfort. Choose magic over predictability. Choose potential over safety. Wake up to the magic of everyday life. Make friends with your intuition. Trust your gut. Discover the beauty of uncertainty. Know yourself fully before you make promises to another. Make millions of mistakes so that you will know how to choose what you really need. Know when to hold on and when to let go. Love hard and often and without reservation. Seek knowledge. Open yourself to possibility. Keep your heart open, your head high and your spirit free. Embrace your darkness along with your light. Be wrong every once in a while, and don’t be afraid to admit it. Awaken to the brilliance in ordinary moments. Tell the truth about yourself no matter what the cost. Own your reality without apology. See goodness in the world. Be Bold. Be Fierce. Be Grateful. Be Wild, crazy and gloriously free. Be you. Go now, and live.
[Unknown]

Every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
[Evelyn Waugh]

But adults aren’t rational. I’m unsure why we expect adolescents to be.
[Prof. Kate Clancey]

War is a series of catastrophes that result in a victory.
[Georges Clemenceau]

A rumour without a leg to stand on will get around some other way.
[John Tudor]

Life is a comedy to those who think, A tragedy to those who feel, And an incomprehensible to those who think they feel.
[Graffito found on a university door when I was a student, circa 1973]

The written word sings in silence through the caverns of the mind.
[Victor Stok]

Her breasts were two lovely promontories. Wherever one looked one discovered soft open spaces, alluring estuaries, pleasant glades, hillocks, mounds, where pilgrims could have lingered in prayer, where they could have quenched their thirst at cooling springs.
[Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle]

[I]n all her splendour, with the rich abundance of her lovely milk-white flesh, her bold sweeping contours, her magnificent projections of poop and prow … a frightful incarnation of lewdness, a satanic vision, convulsed and writhing in the shameful pleasures of guilty love.
[Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle]

It must be strange being Prince William or Prince Harry on a stag night, shoving pictures of your gran into a lap-dancer’s bra.
[Origin Unknown]

ramblings, thoughts

It was ever thus …

We are currently in the throes of having our bathroom completely gutted and rebuilt. Not fun but bearable although being down to a lavatory pan, bucket and tap in the corner for several days was a bit of a trial — though better than many of our forebears would have had.

At the same time we have embarked on a massive house clearance exercise. (I was going to say “house tidying” but that is to underestimate the 30 years of rat’s nest we inhabit.)

So yesterday we were going through the very top shelf over my desk and in the farthest corner I found my old notebook of quotations etc. started when I was a final year undergraduate in 1972. In it I found the following editorial from Phoenix, the then student newspaper of the University of East Anglia, dated 15 January 1976.

Boredom

We’re only three days into the Spring Term at this writing, and already the complaints about boredom are beginning to surface. On one level, this is within the realm of the perfectly normal, and something we accept without really noticing. On another level, the boredom and frustration students mention regularly indicates a problem that has been long overlooked. There is no reason for boredom, but the structured nature of teaching methods is resistant to change, and there is little immediate likelihood of anything new appearing.

We wonder from time to time about the rationale behind the endless booklists, tiring and too often fruitless trips to the library, and papers that demand not creative thought, but merely the cataloguing of odd bits of data from the mountainous collection of esoteric journals. If the university is to be something more than a cloistered society of pedestrian academics, it must stimulate students to think creatively and constructively, rather than mass produce a stream of individuals whose greatest accomplishment has been to take a degree without wondering why.

Scary that nothing changes and that students at this date were already aware of the futility of what some of their peers were doing.

What’s even more scary is that I suspect (no real evidence) this was penned by one of my friends, three of whom — Pete Cadwallader, Ged Sursham (hope I’ve remembered the spelling correctly) and Joe Beals — were as I recall at that time the editorial and production team of Phoenix.

Oh and in the way of student things, the paper was called Phoenix because it had risen from the ashes of the previous paper, Twice, which had in turn risen from the ashes of its predecessor Once.

memes, personal, pleasures

[17/52] Pussy Porn


[17/52] Pussy Porn, originally uploaded by kcm76.

Week 17 entry for 52 weeks challenge.

Over the long weekend we’ve started the process of clearing out the rat’s nest known as our study. Progress has been slow, but steady.

Anyway I was sitting at my desk early on Monday morning, and trying vainly to wake up, when I heard this rustling sound. I checked and the pickled pussy wasn’t in Noreen’s chair so I thought “oh well she’s probably burrowing under Noreen’s desk somewhere”.

Some minutes later I heard the rustling again, and turning round saw Sally emerging from the cardboard box which was stacked inaccessibly behind my chair. This had clearly been sleeping place for the night having clambered over various obstacles including my big camera bag.

Just what is it about cats and boxes?

amusements

Auction Oddities

Our irregular selection of oddities and curiosities from the catalogues of our local auction rooms.

An old petrol can, oil can, a wooden beer tankard, and other items relating to Castrol incl. postcards, a key ring, and salt and pepper pots.

A silk opera hat.

Old artefacts, incl. magnifying glasses, penknives, record needles, a hip flask, a razor, a netsuke, etc.

An ornate Victorian EPNS butter dish frame, with cow finial, and some mixed cutlery.

It was the ‘cow finial’ that amused me.

A good George VI silver helmet milk jug and sugar bowl … in fitted case.

What is a helmet milk jug? Is the ‘milk jug and sugar bowl’ one piece of silver or two?

A glass display box, containing woodland birds including chaffinches.

An interesting mixed lot including carved nutcrackers in the form of an elk with glass eyes, a charming miniature picnic basket, composite doll, Royal Doulton vase, wooden handled corkscrew, papier-mâché Easter egg, clock, etc.

Somehow ‘nutcrackers’, ‘elk’ and ‘glass eyes’ don’t seem to go together!

A pair of Royal Doulton penguins on orange bases marked ‘Best Wishes’, a brightly coloured folksy figurine of Richard II, Cutty Sark ship in bottle, busts of Verdi and Moliere, Keats’ death mask, camera Kodak, Volle 620, royal commemorative ware, pewter ware, horse brasses, old razor, etc.

Penguins standing on oranges. The odd ideas some people have.

Two shelves containing Copeland porcelain soup plates, a quantity of Melba bone china Melba Rose tableware, mirrors, decorative plates, brassware, cast iron doorstop, dog pyjama vase, figurine of a brown bear … tribal carvings, etc.

WTF is a pyjama vase?

At this point I think the Welsh got the better of them …

Two Lladro humorous figures of chldrren (sic) in aeroplanes.

A large Royal Crown Derby figure of a Beefeater, holding a pike, mark in red, ‘Made exclusively for James Leather Ltd, London W1′.

I know what it means, but it does conjure up some strange imagery!

An early 20th century oak chimneypiece with elaborate carved decoration flanked by Corinthian columns, painted white.

A rocking donkey on a pine frame in brown woollen coat, and a small rocking elephant seat.

Why does the pine frame need a woollen coat?

beliefs, food+drink, people, quotes, science, thoughts, topographical

Quotes of the Week

Here’s this week’s selection of words that have caught my eye in the last week …

We’ve replaced the time we used to spend cooking food with watching people cook food on TV.
[Fiona Yeudall quoted in “Foodies: Are food crazies getting their just desserts?”, The Globe and Mail, 19 March 2011]


“No data yet,” he answered. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgement.”
[Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes]

It is important to reflect on the kindness of others. Every aspect of our present well-being is due to others’ hard work. The buildings we live and work in, the roads we travel, the clothes we wear, and the food we eat, are all provided by others. None of them would exist but for the kindness of so many people unknown to us.
[Dalai Lama]

London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.
[Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes]

Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
[Richard Feynman]

I grew convinc’d that truth, sincerity and integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life.
[Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography]

If it’s not fun, you’re not doing it right.
[Bob Basso]

Marshall’s corollary to the last: If it isn’t fun, don’t do it.