Saturday, January 19, 2008

[unsung blogs] talent largely undiscovered

Disclaimer: the following post makes no reference to this blog in any shape or form. The author is not referring to himself at any stage of the proceedings in any category below nor is he fishing. He'd vastly prefer the issue itself to be addressed.

You know that Blogpower was originally designed to promote and support new blogs and the assumption was - blogs of quality. Speaking of quality in a blog, one might just as well speak of defining love. What on earth does it mean?

The blogs which survive seem to have an angle, a manner of writing which is fresh and the output is fairly constant. The blog is fun to visit and we want to return to see what he or she's posted next. We feel we "know" the author. Despite his many detractors, Iain Dale deserves his place at the top for his constant output and consistency. The angle and the scoop are his thing.

Some blogs, as everyone knows, are whatever the current jargon is for non-blogs, i.e. offshoot blogs from a previous project or special, slick sites with poor navigation and transparency which disguise an already established pundit who wishes to try a new project out on a new readership.

Having said all that, it's always been a source of wonder to me how one or two major blogs, which will remain unnamed, are lauded and repeatedly visited, when all they are is news commentary, with the occasional original angle, on the Telegraph, Guardian or Washington Post. They read the papers as we read the papers and then rattle something off on the story of the day, as we also do.

A news story breaks, they comment in their blog with fairly constant typos and that's it. Few graphics, no originality and yet they get upwards of two thousand readers a day. It has to be that they are so prolific or else they're seen as good guys by a section of the sphere. Or else they have kudos in some other sphere, e.g. the MSM or in IT. Who knows?

Don't get me wrong here - there are some fabulous exponents of the art. Some simply rise above the rest, such as Mr. Eugenides, bloggers who really do have the talent to not only see the more ridiculous aspects of the news but can write them up as well.

Then there are the blogs where the personality of the blogger seems to be the thing because the actual output is nothing more than what he did last week or else tits and bums. These guys get mega-readerships and good luck to them.

The blogs which concern me most are those with either true talent or something that little bit different about them and they don't receive their due. Not only that but they're too modest to shamelessly promote themselves. One of these is Ruthie Zaftig and another is The Broadsheet Rag. A more established blogger with a steady readership is Longrider who should be up in the mega-class. Now I don't know what their stats are but I'm willing to bet that the stats are infinitely inferior to the quality of the blog.

It amazes me that they don't enjoy greater kudos in the sphere. I know they have loyal readerships but that's not what I'm referring to. I mean a mass readership. Perhaps TBR could be a bit more transparent - the "About" says almost nothing and it's nice to know at least something of the author. [I do know one or two things but not openly.]

In the end, there are just too many blogs and trying to seek out the good ones is a largely hit or miss affair. If only there was some way for true talent to naturally gravitate to the top - some sort of mechanism to enable that. This "mechanism" is something very much running through the mind at this point in time.

Friday, January 18, 2008

[new mac] vulnerable or not


It's hard to know whom to believe. First I read this report on MacOS vulnerability, claiming that he:

...used vulnerability statistics from an impartial third party vendor Secunia and I broke them down by Windows XP flaws, Vista flaws, and Mac OS X flaws...

Then there was a rebuttal, going into everything from the antecedents of George Ou and ZD net to the nature of Secunia data in the first place. As author Daniel Dilger concluded:

I should point out that I’m not attempting to suggest that Apple has no flaws, cannot possibly deliver problematic software, or can’t improve in its efforts.

There are fairly well documented problems with Safari, Bluetooth, Apple Mail and even the Finder system. Many have read of the hacker who took over a Mini in 30 minutes. So yes, Mac users should not be complacent.

But it would be lovely to see a bit of impartial reporting from someone not in either camp. Meanwhile, the Mac continues as a lovely system to work with and as I become more Mac literate, new vistas open up. One of my favouites is using both hands to execute commands and then voice commands to switch applications.

If I want to play a playlist, I just say "Music" and when it opens, name a playlist and then say "Play". Quite nice if I'm in the middle of typing this.

[broon] executed in tibet

As Broony's double landed at Beijing International Airport, to be greeted by Wen Jiabao and President Hu doubles and driven the 25.35 km to Tiananmen Square for a good laugh at democracy, the real perpetrators were being Virginned to Lhasar Gonggar and from there by cablecar to the remote mountaintop Temple of Djwal Kuhl.

Grand Master Wu, of the Tian Di Hui ordered Broony to be placed in the centre of the square in white robes and the ancient and honourable servants of Sun Yee On, Wo Shing Wo, 14K knelt menacingly in rows, awaiting the ordeal.

A robed Red Pole read out the charge:
In an article on the Number 10 website, you wrote: "I believe that with the right help we will have a situation by 2025 where the number of English speakers in China exceeds the number of speakers of English as a first language in all of the rest of the world."
Gasps went round the assembled multitude. Had Broony actually uttered such inanities, when all supreme, enlightened, occult ancients present this day were well aware of the coming hegemony of the new Sun Zi Dynasty and its brother dynasty the Round Table of Europe, which had given Broony his start.

The executioner stepped quickly up behind Broony and at a signal from Wu, the war sword severed his head, which rolled onto the flagstones. All present gave the three finger left handed salute and honour had been satisifed.

[lit quiz] name the authors


1. Dien Tynblo [children's stories]
2. Arlehcs Skidnec [please sir, may I have more]
3. Kranf Raridsch [Greyfriars]
4. Cahrird Smarda [Hazel and Blackberry]
5. Xirbeta Toterp [Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail]
6. G. H. Lewsl [Martians]
7. Draydur Klinpig [if only I could think of it]
8. Milwail Aesperkhase [a complete unknown]
9. Nai Glinfem [not really Welsh, as Broccoli well knows]
10. Egroeg Lewlor [clocks were striking thirteen]



No peeking, now:


Blyton, Dickens, Richards, Adams, Potter, Wells, Kipling, the Bard, Fleming, Orwell

[quick one] wonders never cease


Just google the word "nourishing". It might only last a few minutes and I may have dropped back again by now but still, it was good while it lasted.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

[russia] vain expectations

This is the first time I've directly run a guest post from one of my Russian friends and it appears unedited below. By Dmitri Panov, the intellectual advocate [my words, not his]:

Western countries' nervous reaction to the last Russian elections is a part of the great problem of their misunderstanding of Russia. Western people are extremely stubborn in their expectations of democracy in Russia, but their hopes are always in vain.

I suppose that the reason of those expectations is a little bit funny: similarity in appearance of Russian and European people. This fact has been confusing many people for many years and even centuries – both in Russia and abroad.

But the truth is that: similarity in appearance doesn’t indicate an internal similarity. And internal difference between Russian people and Western people is not less than – for example- between Western people and Chinese or Middle Eastern peoples.

If anybody wants to check this fact he has to look at the essential events of the Russian modern history, such as, for example, lower classes revolution of 1917, atheism and existence for 90 years without real upper class . So what reasons do we have to assume that this convoluted way will lead Russia to the Western type of democracy?

The best thing for Western people is to understand finally that Russians are absolutely different and Russia has been going through the centuries by its own special way, with all pluses and minuses – like all countries in the world. Eventually the real aim of every society is justice and fairness.

And democracy per se is only one of the ways to achieve them and – according to Plato - far from being the best.

January, 2007

Go for it, readers. :)

[bond] not so bulky next time

From the interview:

Craig was asked how long he planned on staying in the role. "Until they tell me to stop", he said. "I want to get the next one right and we'll go from there.

How [is he] shaping up for his next outing as 007?

"Arrghh! I was big for the last one, and it wasn’t a mistake, it was a definite statement. This guy, when he takes his shirt off, should look like he could kill someone. After it finished, I stopped training. I got drunk for three months!

No, I didn’t, but certainly relaxed for three months and ate what I wanted, and then it’s hell because as soon as you get back in the gym, you have to work all that off, and it takes much longer than it does to put it on. Last time I did a lot of weights to bulk up because I had to do it quickly.

This time I’m going to do more boxing and more running. I need to be physically strong for Bond and, as much as I looked in great shape, I got a lot of injuries, probably due to the fact that I wasn’t doing enough running and jumping, which is what I needed to do in the film. I won’t look physically much different, but I won’t be as ‘no neck’ as I was last time."

Craig was asked how long he planned on staying in the role. "Until they tell me to stop", he said. "I want to get the next one right and we'll go from there.

Bond 22:

In November 2008, Bond 22 will see 007 fight an emotional battle after the loss of Vesper, unravel the mystery of Mr. White's shadowy organisation, and romance the sexy and charming Camille - played by Olga Kurylenko.

That's wonderful - I loved the end of 21, when Mr. White got his. You know these bstds love colour coding and the word cabal is a misnomer for what really goes down - money is just the bulwark. It will be more than interesting how much is allowed to be revealed.

Of course, they never really "get theirs" in real life but a man can dream.

[strawpoll] presidential election

Results of the straw poll on the American election:

Just your gut feeling, please, for Prez?
Selection
Votes
McCain 18%7
Romney 3%1
Other 35%14
Obama 30%12
Lizard Queen 15%6
40 votes total

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

[corruption] legalize it and it goes away

Everyone's been talking about it - Dizzy with his non-specific bank accounts - and a dozen or more other august bloggers, let alone the media but there's still one thing I don't get.

Call me obtuse but I don't understand why we need to monitor, register or concern ourselves in any way with sources of parliamentary funding and by extension - sources of presidential funding in the States.

It's so hypocritical anyway. The real funding comes in surreptitiously, via the Club of this or the Club of that or from individuals who know individuals who know a banker anyway, so why bother?

I'm not condoning corruption. I'm simply condoning the uncorrupting of corruption. If everyone is corrupt, absolutely everyone, then there is no corruption any more.

Works well in certain countries.

[winter] from russia with love


Strange sort of day - winter and yet not winter.

During the November to March period in this country, it's best if the temperature sits about minus 8 to 10, with forays down to 28 or 30 on occasions. In practice, especially in these latter years, it wildly fluctuates.

Warmer weather is not such a good thing. When there's a hard frost and the earth is rock hard, the snow ameliorates the harshness with its silent, slightly surreal, cushioning effect but down below, good things are happening.

The immediate beneficiary is the flora, which really does need a hard frost to regenerate next spring but lower temperatures also have the effect of rendering dormant all the nasties - sickness in the true cold is quite rare. Instead, there's an almost comforting existence outside and this, combined with the festive season, leads to a spirit of near-goodwill.

Today though, with it's near zero temperatures, the roads are slushy, making them impossible for drivers, there is sickness and crankiness, the sky is a dull grey, as distinct from its snow-threatening mode, which is much brighter - and the electricity is not good in the atmosphere.

This is a nation too, where the old and superstitious vie with the knew western direness. A young man will solemnly inform you that you must let your cat go in first when entering a new flat because cats have second sight. A girl will warn you never to let yourself be photographed because others will use incantations, in connection with the photo, to place hexes on you [last time I checked there were eleven on me from four women].

You never hand money to anyone in the evening and it's best not to do so at any time. It must be placed on the table and the other picks it up. You never shake hands in a doorway or sit at the corner of a table or conduct business across a corner. Not surprisingly, feng shui has some currency over here although being eastern, it is less popular - China is still the most immediate enemy and the U.S.A. seen as second.

The attitude to America is ambivalent - the culture of dire music, burger thinking, feminism and laissez-faire relationships has made huge inroads and yet politically, most Russians resent what America is doing in Kosovo, the Ukraine and in other places. The U.S.A. leadership, as distinct from the people themselves, is seen as the enemy of peace around the world, at odds with the average American who really believes his country is the last bastion of democracy.

It's hard to appreciate the destruction wrought on this country during the soviet era and the legacy in terms of the people who survived. A great slice of the nation was either eliminated or driven into exile. The intelligentsia as a class does not exist and the highest offices are held by a far more pragmatic class. There is an unreal proportion of fools, as there is in America today.

Everyone knows the jokes on the internet about the stupid bankrobbers, Miss Universe who's not sure whether her knickers are over or under and the proliferation of spam which presupposes a certain lack of nouse.

Bryson often wrote of this phenomenon and it's ably assisted by the dumbing down of education and lack of knowledge of the wider world. Well - that is just as much so here, now that education is breaking down and the new ignorance is mortifying.

You only have to look at the decisions drivers make on the roads to see a really brute mental sluggishness at large, all around. Not with all. Not with , of course There's razor sharp intellect across the strata but it's in a minority. Again - not a lot different to anywhere else out in the wider world, except that this nation has intellectual traditions and names of world standing in science and the arts. Old names now. Russians once contributed to the stock of world knowledge out of proportion to their opportunities but no longer.

We are now in the day of the global yahoo and I blame the west.

Women - I know I have an idealized view of women - savvy, smart, beautiful, chic, fabulously warm and liking to be treated as ladies - but the non-capacity of so many girls to be that now, as distinct from formerly, is dismaying.

This is the day of herd rutting and excess of substances, of clubbing in lieu of culture - not a bad thing every so often but the chav mentality wears thin very quickly. Such young people, especially the girls, cannot, simply cannot, carry out a rational conversation beyond an 800 word vocabulary, largely jargon. And their life concerns leave one seriously wondering.

What's more, there's a whole nation of them rising.

The majority wish to and some actually do pull themselves out of it and their parents expend huge energy and money on sons and daughters to "ejukate" them [I avoid this trap like the plague] but it's largely a losing battle. Another stratum - the self made businessman or woman - that's a different matter and these will do what it takes to become the cutters and dicers of the near future. Such people are driven and no prizes for guessing which stratum I target.

It's still a largely patriarchal society and the men are not going to relinquish this readily but already change is overtaking them. The educated women are taking over, not that they weren't always present.

This requires explanation. Yes, it is patriarchal here and yet there is a tradition that the financial institutes are for girls. Can you credit that? 80% of students at these places would be girls. So where are the boys? Either at the energy and engineering institutes or else wheeling and dealing and trying to make a fortune that way. The vast majority fail, drop out and their existence is then a question of scrambling around to survive.

Therefore, there's a certain lawlessness and the rogue males are everywhere in herds. I personally don't worry too much about the ever-present threat - if it happens, it happens and there's enough rogue male in me anyway to rationalize it for now.

You can be hurt here and quickly too.

Without your network, without a "krisha" or roof, protection in other words, you just don't survive, especially if you're foreign. You're judged by your krisha [which, by the way, no one calls it any more] and if it's good, there's a growling sort of acceptance that it's best not to touch you. But things can alter and wholesale changes can occur overnight so it's best to be constantly at the ready to fly.

It would be wrong to err by painting a picture of a dire, bestial existence, a Russia in black. This is simply not so. The west knows the warm hearts of these people, the friendliness once they know you're a friend and the fierce loyalty to the loyal.

The food is fresh and delicious, the Russian cuisine is mildly spicy and they have so many names for variants on foods which we have but one name for, e.g. jam. The efficacy of kefir or katik last thing at night, the knowledge of various meats and which combinations go best is universal. Even men know.

I put out a two jams the other day to have with the tea and the chap went straight for the one made by the grandmother. How did he know? He knew that varenye is boiled jam, that many berry jams are fresh and that the bottled commercial variety are preserves. The one he chose was a grandmother type. He knows which fish to buy and which to let be. There is a native knowledge here which I simply don't possess but I'm learning.

The women are stunning, the male's warm smile and big bear handshake is reassuring and there's a lack of ceremony which can be misunderstood. Hypothetical example - someone calls and a conversation would go like this:

"Did he arrive?"

"Da."

"Did he pay?"

"No."

"Right we go elsewhere. Tell him to f- off."

Phone goes down and new deal is made.

Truth is - I prefer it this way. You want to eat? Yes. How much? Second dish size [meaning a main meal]. All right - twenty minutes. Out come the meat and veg, followed by tea and sweets - and when you're done, you say "spasibo", often to no one in particular and then it's back to work.

If you don't happen to have any work, then you create it by getting out the drill and drilling into the neighbour's wall. [I swear I'm buying a kalashnikov and I'm going to gun that bstd down.]

I know everyone lives their fast life not dissimilarly, even in Britain but there is a perfunctory nature to it all here - again, that special lack of ceremony - which is clear and to the point. No frills - straight into it. Especially in sex. At strategic points around the city the phone numbers are sprayed on walls. You need it - just phone.

I had a discussion about this with some Russian men. Why on earth would you pay a walking disease centre for an hour's rutting, when there are just so many stunning girls around? The wry smile was no answer and when pressed, they said that it's instant, without complexes and without complications. Faced with an hour of unpressured release or going home to the shrill catalogue of defects read out to you night after night, a proportion of men take the road of less resistance.

Buying and selling encapsulates the mentality here - you're never "thinking of" buying anything. If you tell your friend you're "thinking of" buying a Sonata, he reaches for a mobile to make the call and expects you'll have the bankroll already in the coat pocket, ready to go.

To the Brits and to the Yanks I'd say that there really is a quite different mentality behind that beautiful Russian face. The face can fool you, looking so European but in fact the mentality is alien. But it can be lived with, with understanding and the longer you go on, the more you warm to it. The only question which remains is whether the Brits, Yanks and Russians wish to warm to each other.

That appears to be the main question just now.


Tuesday, January 15, 2008

[björk] berserkist tradition revived


Photographer for the New Zealand Herald Glenn Jeffrey accused Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk of attacking him at the airport in Auckland in New Zealand yesterday. He said she had attacked him for no good reason and torn his T-shirt.

“I took a couple of pictures and I got about three or four frames of her [...] and as I turned and walked away she came up behind me, grabbed the back of my black skivvy [long T-shirt] and tore it down the back,” Jeffery told the New Zealand Herald.

This is not the first time that Björk has lashed out at the media. Twelve years ago she attacked a TV reporter at the airport in Bangkok after the reporter allegedly harassed her and her son. Björk later apologized for the incident.

Perhaps this desire to unclothe the reporter stemmed from her deeply held belief that wearing more than a few leaves posed a grave mental health risk. Or was it some sort of race memory of her forebears, the Berserks, once again asserting itself?

[true confessions] je déteste

I've never ever read a Harry Potter nor seen any film of the ilk. I have not the least clue what reality TV is or whether Big Idol and American Brother are something real or a home for ASBOs.

Since my television was stolen ten years ago, there has not been the least desire to replace it.

I do confess to once watching the colour coded Cilla Liverpool's Blind Date or whatever it was called and it appeared to be for non-comps to postulate on pointless things and to look inarticulately ultra-cool while putting down other contestants. This was confirmed when they interviewed a couple, near the end, who spent the entire time slagging one another off.

Somehow, all of these were labelled entertainment. Still, it beat On the Buses and Alf Garnett.

On the "good" list?

Doctor Who, Fawlty, All Gas and Gaiters, Rumpole, Python, Yes Minister, Young Ones and one or two others. :)

[novels] ongoing dialogues

As many regulars know, Sean of Omnium has been kind enough to cast a critical eye over the first book [I hope I can say "so far" but he's free to stop this whenever he wishes] and he's brought up some structural and also sundry minor problems which need resolution.

So I find myself heavily involved in rewriting and thus the blog has been suffering. It struck me that this process might be bloggable in itself and so I asked him if he'd mind me using the "structural part" of my last letter as a post in itself. So here it is:

Sean, thanks again. Your comments raise issues which need to be addressed and are excellent.

Characters with similar sounding names. Yesterday, I went through and changed all variants of Anya to Anya itself in all chapters, including in the second book. As for Moscow Anna, she remains as she is when Anya is involved but when it is clearly only Hugh and her in the action, then she drops back to Anna.

Ksenia/Ksusha [the latter a diminutive of the former] can be solved by a little dialogue near the beginning in which this is explained.

The "A" characters - Liya, Lisa, Aliya etc. You know, Sean, this is the actual dilemma over here. These are real names for girls I know - the things I write on the blog are only part of the real truth about girls in this town - it truly is a hedonist's paradise over here and one learns to be more circumspect about it. My only device can be to alter the names completely, once the book is done. Using those names while I was writing was necessary because their characters had to come through in the action.

Omniscience. Very great problem. Firstly, author omniscience. This is the trouble in the first five or six chapters because they were originally autobiographical and written in the first person - they were a log of what really had happened. Then I rewrote those chapters in the third person but the danger therewas that Hugh became a real Mary Sue and the author knew too much. Later, he doesn't.

I'll go back through and remove all the "and that was the last time they were together" type of comments, which should solve that. Allied to this is the device of the Afterword first. This Afterword is lifted straight from Chapter 20 and is intended to raise fears or expectations of an inevitable tragedy plus one other thing. The action in the first three or four chapters is slow and mundane - a man travelling to Russia, settling in and discovering new things.

This has been interesting to the Russians themselves who recognize what I'm writing about and want to know how a foreigner sees it but whether it's so interesting to a wider readership is a question. Was that sort of description interesting to you? The Afterword device is not new but it presupposes author omniscience.

Hugh's omniscience is a greater problem - he's annoying in that he knows so much but again, the difficulty is that he actually does, operating, as he does, in fields in which he has experience, which are many. Again, it's necessary to go back through and ascribe his knowledge to something he just read recently - he can be a sort of bookworm who comes up with facts or else one of the other characters can become the wise one and he consults her [or him] as some sort of oracle.

His knowledge of human nature is virtually unsolvable. He does have experience of life and his work has given him insight - plus he trusts no one. Again, to solve that raises the question of whether we wish to solve it. Do we want a character without ability or is he allowed expertise in some areas? He's not a great lover [he's only as good as any of us] and he never fights, nor does he know a way through - events carry him along plus he's not handsome. Perhaps that was the greater crime - not to make him handsome.

His weapons are therefore charm and knowledge of character. The latter can make people uncomfortable and we often don't warm to someone who knows and can see through us, hence the desire to prove him wrong, to say he's mistaken. This is problematic with Hugh in the first book but is solved in the second when he finds himself in unfamiliar surroundings where the women know far more than he does.

There's a lady I know here reading Book 2 first as Hugh is more at the mercy of the women in France [she is a French translator]. In Russia, it's the opposite problem and the reason why the Russian male is arrogant. It really is easy to dominate girls in this patriarchal society and I try not to but they almost invite me to. And they are beautiful too. Also, they don't have the western feministic superwoman motif yet so the society is still male-friendly.

Thank you so, so much for opening my eyes to the problems - I can't start to tell you how valuable this is. James

Monday, January 14, 2008

[happy birthday] lewisham kate


[writing] the incisors and the grinders

Samuel Johnson wrote, on April 6th, 1776:

No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.

Maybe, Samuel J but this raises the spectre of the hack, Senancour's 1804 Obermann, Willy Loman, to shamelessly mix metaphors, the writer who writes because he is into writing itself, has visions of the poet in the garrett or else puts out a piece, just to keep the bread on the table.

Walter Bagehot wrote, in 1858:

Writers, like teeth, are divided into incisors and grinders.

To be a grinder seems, in my mind, to be a denial of the purpose of existence, a shaming epitaph to one's talent or lack of it. Like Roald Dahl, I'm terrified of mediocrity, of boring the reader and even at university, I've dropped, over the years, the lessons which don't go down well and retained those which were "winners".

I just cannot wrap the mind round the concept of Keats, from 1819:

All clean and comfortable, I sit down to write.

... although, to be fair, he was referring to a letter he was beginning at the time and he had already written, in 1818:

If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all.

Upfront I claim no literary talent and these words are of the process only, not the end result. However, I just cannot sit down, "all clean and comfortable" to write. I can't do it. It's more a case of waking up at 3 a.m. with thoughts storming through the brain and having to switch on the Mac [it goes to bed with me - truly], of waiting impatiently and then the fingers just take over and I have absolutely no idea where they're going to take me.

It's not even me - it's just something there and characters fly in, fly out, drop by, return and the thing just has to fly ever onward, up hill, down dale, until it stops. When it does, switching off is the only solution until the next time it happens. Usually I crash back to sleep and that's that.

This isn't literature, it's - well, I don't know what it is. Insanity?

So the result is raw, dotted with errors and then, one day, when a fine young chap quietly begins painstaking proof reading and all his suggestions have talent in themselves and when one stops to think of what he''s attempting in his own creativity and the literary persona he himself is and why the hell he is spending time on me, then the jaw drops and one wonders about life.

He makes constant corrections and all are justified, he suggests I develop the character of Konstantine the Cypriot more, he's glad the plot is finally opening up and so on. Can you understand how that puts you on edge, makes you go back and reexamine, rework, enhance, make smoother. It's a heady experience and to know there is a taskmaster on your tale* is a wonderful thing.

Surely these days now are what life is about. This is the wine you sup, the days spent productively. You have to forever feel, hurt, jump for joy, bask in the passion and then crash to darkest oblivion. And always the brute existence beckons, it's always just there behind you, wishing you to rest on your laurels and sink back to it, like quicksand, to become, once again, just another automaton.

Aaaagh, it must never be. Your talent or lack of it is a separate issue but the process itself is the thing and the day you stop is the day you die as homo sapiens.

Sorry, sorry - I've now taken my tablets and am once more feeling a trifle more "usual". Thus, I sit me down to write:

"Gordon Brown today harvested some organs ..."

* intended

[slough of despond] let's extricate ourselves


There is no doubt that interraction is the thing and over the weekend, I just wasn't interacting. You see, I had the chance of proof-reading for my books and had to work to keep ahead of this and have the next chapter ready. Plus I had professional proof reading to do too [less interesting]. Still have now.

Thus I didn't visit and thus my own visits dropped. Even the reliable googling dropped. Not disastrously but we do seem to be in a slough of despond just now, many of us. Andrew Allison wrote:

Yesterday I wasn't feeling at my best. When you look at how many hits you are getting on your blog and things aren't going as well as you would like, there is a tendency for despondency. I would like to thank those who have left comments encouraging me to continue. Dave wrote a comment that he reads the blog through my RSS feed every day and of course that doesn't come on to my site statistics. I don't know why I didn't realise this sooner as I read many blogs by this method too.

My thought is that the thing is temporary, the winter weather has a lot to do with it, we're all pretty busy just now and no need for overreaction on this. Keep the blog ticking over and though it is done more slowly, keep visiting. All will be well.

If you do happen to find yourself in the blogging quicksand, here is some advice. And one last thing - could you spare a minute and pop over to Andrew and cheer him up a bit on this cold, grey Monday?

[escalation] any pretext will do


Everyone knows about Swift's big-enders/little-enders controversy leading to the Lilliputian war against Blefuscu, a lengthy conflict that arose between the big-enders and little-enders (depending upon which side of a boiled egg one must crack in order to eat it).

Here's another from the vaults:

David Pacifico was a Portuguese Jew born at Gibraltar but in Athens in 1849 as the Portuguese consul. His house was burned down by the mob during some religious commotion n he promptly claimed from the Greek government £26,618 compensation, which, of course, they had no intention of paying. However, he was on a British passport so Palmerston sent the Mediterranean Fleet in.

The French Ambassador then got into the act and France and Britain then fell out and the French Ambassador to Queen Victoria was recalled. The Lords censured Palmerston but in the Commons, he made that speech about a British passport protecting its holder anywhere in the world. Pacifico ended up with £5000 for his troubles.

Makes one wonder about the human race.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

[lost and found] tale of two couples

Lost

British actor and comedian John Cleese has split from his third wife after 19 years together. An unnamed friend of the couple reportedly revealed that they had decided that their relationship was over but no one else was involved.

His American-born wife, Alyce Faye Eichelberger Cleese, is a psychotherapist and renowned for her work with children. Their decision to separate came after the actor became "melancholy" in recent months after the deaths of several close friends, the newspaper said.

Found

When Anna Kozlov saw the elderly man clambering out of a car in her home village of Borovlyanka in Siberia, she stopped dead in her tracks, convinced that her eyes were playing tricks. There, in front of her, was Boris, the man she had fallen in love with and married 60 years earlier.

The last time she had seen him was three days after their wedding, when she kissed him goodbye and sent him off to rejoin his Red Army unit. By the time he returned, Anna was gone, consigned by Stalin's purges to internal exile in Siberia with the rest of her family as an enemy of the people.

They left no forwarding address. Frantic, Boris tried everything he could to find his young bride, but it was no good — she was gone.

Anna's mother resolved that the girl should remarry. She told her that Boris had remarried. "She said he had forgotten about me — that's why no letters came.

But one day I got back home from work at a timber plant and my mum had burned all his earlier letters, poems and pictures, including our wedding photographs."

Life's too short for this sort of human waste.

[banks] sell debt or lose bonuses

The Melbourne Herald Sun has seen this:

Tellers at one major bank must offer customers new services, including loans and higher credit card limits, once every five hours. If they fail to meet the target they miss out on performance bonuses of 2-6 per cent.

Staff at another major bank have to make seven referrals a week or miss out on bonuses of 2.5 per cent. Workers who fail to meet targets can cause whole branches to miss out.

Lending staff at a third bank must complete $7 million worth of loans a quarter or lose about $12,000 in bonuses a year.

Per employee, the figures are not excessive and the bank is not exactly ordering staff to do this but still - it doesn't take much thought to realize which employees would be smiled on and who would not. Interesting also that the media is running a story like this now which they would not have some years back.

Over and over this blog says - get out of debt, get rid of your cards, live within your means, even if that entails severe lifestyle changes.

Last Minute Musings

Thanks for this last minute message, Matt and for all your posts here. All the best with your sojourn - learn and enjoy.

I spent an hour and a half loading photos on to this portable photo album thing. I unplugged it from my computer after clicking exit. All photos were erased. Anger does not describe what I'm feeling right now.

I'll be out of the country for six months. Even though I plan on being blissfully ignorant of who is selected for each party as a candidate, (to all Americans reading this) remember what I said the other day about lies.

So, if you all couldn't guess where I was going from the video in that post, I'll give you the answer: Spain.

Lastly, check these three paintings out from a friend of mine. She has true talent. Do note she is painter and therefore owner, propietor, and distributor. All rights are reserved by her.








This last one reminds me of the opening credits from Perdo Almodovar's film Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown). Unfortunately, I couldn't find an image of the opening credits to make the comparison but trust me. So, why did I put them up? This is NourishingObscurity, right?

Be sure to go to her blog (linked above) and tell her what you think of them. Alright, that's all guys! If nothing else, I'll see you when I get back!