[russian track] you might like to listen

boomp3.com

If you'd like to hear another, I can post it tomorrow. It's by group Hi Fi who were big in 1999/2000. Their music is quite variable but most tracks are excellent.

Strangely, they're not that popular with Russians themselves and I'm still trying to find out why. Maybe they're too inventive for the new generation, I don't know.

Be warned the file is big.

[gifts] the thought is everything

JMB [am I imagining it or is she blogging fabulously lately?] and the estimable Political Umpire have been debating not only wine but the whole ethos of giving and receiving:

I always take a nice wine to friends X, because I know Mrs X is a wine buff and appreciates it. They never open it, however, but offer either non-alcoholic drinks or, occasionally, a very cheap supermarket wine (I do not believe Mrs X, with her evident knowledge, is unaware of this).

Should I continue taking nice bottles, but unsubtly hint they open it, take an inferior one (the contrast with previous offerings would be noticed), or take a different gift the value of which would not be evident (thus enabling me to economise discretely if I so wished).

Going off at a tangent, as is my wont, the whole art of present giving has been lost to many people these days, as far as I can see.

One Christmas will forever stick in my memory. There were three families at the gathering. Now, as two of those families had children, it went against everything I stood for to give one present to cover the entire family. I didn't wish to but it involved, therefore, about 11 presents.

Now there's a certain reputation to uphold here and I do like people to think some thought has been put in. For example, I used to receive a batik calendar, hand-made by an elderly couple, replete with photos. It mattered not how many they'd produced [they had the time]. They still had to make it and that's what counted with me.

It's the Japanese approach, the Japanese seriousness accorded the process which is nice. And the Japanese are the first to say that the gift wrapping is equally, if not more, important. I felt that the wrapping paper, the ribbon and the way the colours inside and out coordinated was pretty vital.

I wouldn't say my presents were awe-inspiring but they were certainly thought out and the wrapping was as classy as I could make it. At the risk of being an ingrate, I came home that day with one bottle of cheap plonk which I knew that family would never have drunk themselves, one box of handkerchiefs and the third family had forgotten about me entirely.

So we come to what presents are - they are a statement of what you think of that other person and as two people always put the other not entirely on the same level, then imbalance results, by definition. One present will always exceed the other. I love the idea of presents but presents themselves are fraught.

So it seems to me we either go the Japanese way of keeping a log of all presents given, past and present, with meticulous attention paid to the level of the present - or else we dispense with them entirely, except within the immediate family, e.g. our kids, where no reciprocation can ever be expected.

One alternative for those who can't do that is to work out our Christmas list, make special cards over a couple of months, 2 or 3 a night perhaps and then there is no "level judging" possible. These are given close to the day. The effort put into making them shows the other you care but there is little monetary value attached.

The more extreme solution, of course, is to announce, ahead of time, that from this Christmas and onwards into the future, we are dispensing with all gifts and cards, so please don't give anything. To unexpected cards received through the post, a pleasant letter of thanks will be forthcoming in the New Year.

To assist with this, maybe we could write a little notice on a piece of card and carry it with us throughout the danger season. Every time someone wants to involve us, we could say our ultra-polite little piece and show them the card, show them that this is a blanket thing we're doing, nothing personal.

Then it's a case of people respecting that.

[end of britain] it's official

The hated monstrosity in all its ignominy

Here it is at last - the traitors have done it and it took an American to say it:

Britain Surrenders

I'm sure all of my Brit friends have had a bad day if they've kept abreast at the news. No one I've talked to actually believed that Britain would actually sign the EU Treaty, but they have done it.

The EU is becoming a country, slowly but surely; this is the latest step in depriving the citizens of the countries of Europe of their ability to govern their lands.

Click for the rest of the story

Since 1066 they have tried and failed. Napoleon failed. Hitler failed. Now the quislings within the borders have seized the highest offices, courtesy of a credulous public in the early 90s, swayed by a pretty face and fine words - and the result is here for all to see.

Sad, sad day indeed. My, your, grandparents and parents fought against precisely this - the blitz, the blackouts, the rationing, the wasted millions of lives - all for what? For a Scot to be in a position to sign away the rights of England forever. They must be chortling up there but it will be short-lived.

One of the first jobs in the inevitable English fightback is for the gallows on Tyburn to be rebuilt and for Blair, Brown, Milliband and the whole crew on both sides of politics who took the Euro to meet their grisly fate, at English hands. Better get in before the pan-EU army gets well and truly moving.

There is another aspect which must have crossed the minds of those loyal to England. We are now officially insurgents. We are challenging an officially ordained state of affairs, signed into being by an elected member of parliament and a PM within the conventions. And what is the basis of the insurgency? That England is England, Scotland is Scotland, Wales is Wales and Ireland is Ireland. That is our treason against the EU we're now officially part of.

And insurgents get rounded up. Look at the legislation in place to do so.

Let me finally quote Holmes:

The Englishman is a patient creature but at present his temper is a little inflamed and it would be as well not to try him too far.

Conan Doyle did not appear to me to be given to hysteria or wild words. He simply stated it as it was.

Rest in peace, Britain. It was a great idea whilst it lasted. England, your time has come to fight back.

[ageing] gracefully or disgracefully

My younger girlfriend and I brought up the topic in 2000 when we were planning to marry.

I said that if something happened and we didn't marry and if we actually parted, then she'd have been my last girlfriend. Rubbish, she said and she was arguing from what she'd observed but she wasn't counting on the `'flirt but that's all" philosophy.

She once said it was impossible to just "go out" in this country, "one-on-one "- by definition it meant far more and a man buying you a meal was tantamount to the sack.

My time with her brought three things home:

1. Many girls do, whatever you say and however you are outraged by this, bring it on themselves. Provocative dress, highlighted beauty and a roving eye do attract the men like flies [and I mean men in her case, not boys]. She was a man's girl.

She thought it was a great compliment to me that I was able to hold onto such enticing beauty which she devoted all her waking hours to. I thought it was a pain in the butt to be constantly fighting off a steady stream of men until I realized that she could have ended most of it with a certain attitude, a certain way she carried herself, if she'd wanged to, that is.

2. For my part, it was a strange state of mind. Post boomer but early Gen X, I really wasn't attempting to stay young; I wasn't attempting anything - one doesn't in the middle of living life to the full - reflection comes later.

In Northern England, one sweet lass of 17 asked me why I was "trying to dress young". It was a shock, that comment. I hadn't thought that I was dressing young; perhaps it was that I had aged beneath it. If pressed, I'd have said I was trying to dress with a bit of style. It was just that I knew some people who sold Sonetti gear and I liked it very much, including a jacket which was eye burning on one side but reversed to Italian treated silk on the other.

Immediately reversing the jacket to it's less outrageous side, that was the start of dressing more appropriately. One of the first steps was to discard the trainers/sneakers for leather shoes and Higham had now moved into a new phase.

I really do think that some things look ridiculous [in the full sense of the word] on certain ages and with certain degrees of hair remaining on top. Even posture does alter, no matter how gradual it becomes, a paunch is unavoidable and takes longer and longer hours to quell in the gym and the skin gets softer and less elastic as you go on - training, cosmetics and botox notwithstanding.

3. Age can't be disguised, certainly from a younger person and to rage against age and spend the hard-earned trying to reverse the process is stupid. Having done botox once in recent years, I can't think why I was so stupid at the time; I'm now dead against botox - think you should just be yourself and attract those of a certain age, forgetting the younger set.

But there's something psychological, powerful, refusing to let your mind come to terms with age - it's a state of mind beyond reason, tying in vanity and who knows what else. That there are girls who also ignore the obvious in a man for their own reasons [or perhaps they don't reason it out] - that makes it all the more difficult. Especially when they are all around us.

Men bemoaning how they no longer attract the "prize" young lady should count their blessings. What have we got to offer a young lady anyway, apart from money [and don't say it's our loving heart]? Methinks it's more difficult for the ex-motorcycle rider, the ex-Lothario, the ex-everything, to come to terms with reality - Pierce Brosnan springs to mind.

And yet we look across at others of our age, also coming to terms with it all and don't wish to see a mirror image of ourselves ageing - so our eyes sub-consciously filter through only younger people and somehow rationalize that those younger people are going to be remotely interested in us. But strangely, there is a grain of truth in it - the less interest we show in them, the more it seems to attract them.

But we need to think it through. For what to go around with a younger person? Maturity and wisdom can only be taken so far and then it begins to look increasingly ludicrous - unless we're wearing Armani, it looks pointless. We can't cut it in the sack to the same extent - we just can't and our whole mindset and bodyset are different. Young people bounce, we glide or stumble. They like us but they're not hot for us. It's a zero sum game. Besides, they've their own agenda in life and ours is different for our last few [mobile] decades.

Drawing it together, perhaps we should pitch ourselves just a few years short of our true age and get the best of both worlds. That's the age anyway, from where our partner should be coming from. As for many younger people's constant desire to put the older in their boxes on the shelf - the "your time is over" syndrome - that's equally ridiculous.

These days the 70 year old is going to rage far into the night and why not? If you have the energy, why not? Why allow yourself to be put out to pasture? As long as you're not trying to cut it with younger folk, what's the problem?

Attention from someone younger then becomes a nice little compliment, rather than anything to be taken up.

Have a lovely Friday.

[tramvai of dreams] the joke's on me

Sometimes I just love this country.

Item 1

Yesterday received an urgent call to come to the uni today and see the Dean. Never happened before.

Today, my friend comes over for his regular Thursday morn coffee so we thrash it out. Could be a conference next week they want me to speak at, could be all my absences due to illness this semester, could be the complete reorganization of the uni and the election for rector.

Could be something more dire - my registration within the country [the tit-for-tat thing going on vs Britain at the moment]. We settle on it being a big request and so I get a taxi into there, due to the seriousness of it all.

Turns out to be the office wanted my signature on the summer leave application although why I even need to do this, given that I'm part time, I don't know. Still it gives me holiday me, which is good..

What!!! All the panic, all the long faces everywhere.

Item 2

Tram. After experiencing the greatest concentration of honeys in one place ever [the cafe], it was down to the tram. Missed one but it was a 7 and so it didn't matter. There are four going past this stop - the 7, 20, 11 and 19. The first two are useless as they go elsewhere, the latter two are good.

Next tram which comes is a 7. No matter, we often get this and it's still peak hour so it's OK.

Next tram which comes is a 7. No matter, they were obviously banked up somewhere down the track and a 19 will come soon.

Next tram which comes is a 7. No matter but it's now getting a little chilly, minus 9 and time for the gloves and hood.

Now there's a gap of around 40 minutes [the other trams came at 2 minute intervals], during which the gloves prove themselves inadequate and the corduroys are stuck to the legs. Time to walk vigorously up and down.

Next tram which comes is a 7. No matter, I wait for the door to open and ask if there are no 19s today. Driver shrugs.

Next tram which comes is a 7. I've noticed approximately 30 buses going past on the road 200 metres away and a constant stream of cars. Door opens and I call out for the driver to open the inner door. Passengers are staring at me on the roadside. "Where's the bloody 19?" I swear in Russian. They close the door in my face.

Next tram which comes is a 7 and I'm weeping by now but too cold to go up to the road for a car. memories of the other evening flood back.

Next tram is an 11 - it'll do. Huddled in one corner, the only task is to get some feeling back into the extremities.

Item 3

One of the fun things is to predict the temperature outside and then check it against the television temperature in the top corner of the screen in the cafe.

To do this, it's necessary to wear the heavy beanie first - no compromise here. Most people have a range of jackets but I have two - one down to about 12 degrees below and the other from about 15 downwards. I try to wear the lighter one and regulate inner temperature by wearing t-shirt and shirt or a jumper in rare circumstances. Usually I'd just opt for the heavier coat in that case.

All right, out of the uni and in two minutes, check the hands. If everything's neutral it could be anything from 0 to -5. If there's a freshness to the hands, it could be - 6 to -10. If it really needs gloves, it's below -10.

Today the hands were a bit fresh.

Next, check the grit on the snowy road. If it's working and the mud is slushyish, it's warmer than -10. If the powder snow is crusty, it's below -7. If the ice is hard and slippery, it's below -8. So, this puts it this evening from -7 to -10.

Next, the face but this depends on the wind. Today was a light icy breeze so it altered the calibration a bit. Usually you don't get bite to the face until -10 to -12 but with a breeze, you can lop 3 or 4 degrees off that.

I took a stab at -8 and went into the cafe. It was -9. I'd compensated too much for the breeze.

By the way, there's another fun game - drop the hanky in minus 30. Now we haven't had this for a few years but when it was around minus 32 or 33, the trick was to drop your handkerchief and the shape it was in when it hit the ground is the hanky sculpture it freezes into.

And don't kiss anyone in those temperatures.

[genetic engineering] of mice and men

My only question is: "Why?"

The age-long animosity between cat and mouse could be a thing of the past with genetically modified "fearless" mice that Japanese scientists say shed light on mammal behavior.

Using genetic engineering, scientists at Tokyo University say they have successfully switched off the rodents' instinct to cower at the smell or presence of cats -- showing that fear is genetically hardwired and not learned through experience, as commonly believed.

The findings suggest that human aversion to dangerous smells like that of rotten food, for example, could also be genetically predetermined.

That's nice, isn't it? Developing a new species of humans, wired against bad smells. Dr. Mengele never did complete that study on twins either because of the pesky end of the war [unless you believe he made it safely to America].

So much unconstrained human experimentation to try out and so many more serfs about after 2012 to experiment on. A scientist's paradise.

[john cale] white light, white heat

This blog has covered JJ Cale a number of times but the Cale tonight is just John Cale, a musician heavily influential on other musicians but virtually unknown to the general public. An unattributable yet excellent profile of him says:

Trying to categorise Cale's music has always been tricky, encompassing as it does so many diverse musical styles. Not really a rocker nor a full on avante gardiste, much of what he produces falls between the two headings.

He draws heavily on his early classical training; he was touring the country with the National Youth Orchestra of Wales from his early teens, while still listening to the burgeoning cult of rock and roll in his bedroom at night.

His break came while studying experimental music at London University in the early '60s, he met American classical composer Aaron Copeland, who got Cale a scholarship to study with the Boston University Orchestra.

In the fall of 1963 Cale relocated to New York and began performing in various avante garde music projects before hooking up with vocalist/guitarist Lou Reed, with whom he founded the legendary rock band the Velvet Underground in early 1965.

He was heavily involved with Andy Warhol.

Playing bass, viola, and keyboards, Cale was largely responsible for the band's droning sound, while Reed wrote the lyrics. This was the most accessible he'd be to the public and to get an idea of his style, listen to Velvet Underground Live 1969 [as distinct form the studio album produced after he'd been forced out].

Cale today

White Light White Heat, Heroin, Ocean - these were typical of his sound and Reed's lyrics and singing.

On his own he went mellow and classical until he switched in 74 and released two amazing albums - Fear and Slow Dazzle, with other Island artists like Phil Manzanera and Brian Eno of Roxy Music, and Chris Spedding. I haven't heard the third so can't comment.

Tracks on Fear like Fear is a Man's Best Friend, Barracuda and Gun were quite frankly unique with their gritty, dark, driving, relentless feel, especially given the era in which they were produced. He'd contrast it with catchy, melodic tracks at odds with explicit lyrics like The Man Who Couldn't Afford to Orgy.

His voice is difficult to describe. Imagine Leonard Cohen and Tom Jones, deep, rich, masculine but aggressive and that was part of his appeal - he was a very dangerous man or so it seemed and could shock you to the core. His motif was dark.

This was so in the finale to Slow Dazzle which I can't describe on a family blog like this. One of his greatest songs, his reworking of Heartbreak Hotel as you've never heard it before, was on this album and a return to hard, driving rhythms with Guts, which was about just that.

With Nico

At this point I was drawn into the gay, warholesque inner city party scene [which will come as a shock, given my ultra-orthodox sentiments on this blog] but as the scene fragmented and many went over to punk, I went over to pseudo-punk like the Ramones, the Stranglers, Wreckless Eric and never got back to this scene again.

[blogfocus wednesday] strange but possibly true

1. Would you entitle your post:

Res Op Mandate training minutes 121107

and just show the pic above?

2. The Rev. Dr. Incitatus remembers the celestial aspects of travelling to St. Louis:

I remember weaving between tornadoes down I-55 from Michigan to Missouri, one evening, when I looked to the west and saw Heaven and Hell. Hell looked prettier than Heaven, as I remember it. Maybe there's a metaphor in that?

It was a beautiful thing, either way, and I pulled over to ponder it for a moment. But then the hail caught up and proceeded to chase me all the way to St. Louis. Perhaps there's a metaphor in that, too?

There was a moral behind this post, but it escapes me at present.

3. Rob, at The Broadsheet Rag, ran into a frightening phenomenon:

I’ve started a new job recently, down Westminster way. Anyway I was out on my daily wander around Victoria — when I got a shock.

Hazel Blears was walking straight at me. I’ve always had a thing for Blears. I’ve always felt there was something wrong with her. No, not that she’s a Labour MP. That she looks odd — she smiles too much.

So, she was walking towards me and I noticed something. She didn’t move her head it stayed perfectly still — it seemed almost artificial. And that smile of hers didn’t even flinch. It was almost demonic.

There can be only one explanation for this. Hazel Blears is a robot from outer space.

4. Dave Hill has a sticky problem just now:

My littlest daughter came home from a school trip with this one - not the cuppa, that's mine - the other week. I've never really gone for toffee apples. My daughter's one reminded me why. They're hard to unwrap, hard to eat, bloody hard work all round. You'd think after more than a century someone else might have worked that out too..

[strange accidents] waiting to happen

What are the strangest accidents which have happened to you? Now, I don't mean those which were waiting to happen, such as the ones in the pics nor do I mean automobile accidents. I mean this sort of thing:

1. Cut by a piece of steak. Piece of frozen meat taken from the freezer - slashed the side of my palm;

2. Burnt by toast - not the toaster, the toast;

3. Finger cut today by a coffee bean - when cleaning the grinder. Not cut by the grinder.

I like this one from long ago:

Lisa Colman, 23, of San Diego, was sitting in her car with both hands behind the back of her head. Someone asked her if she was okay, and she replied that she'd been shot in the back of the head, and had been holding her brains in for over an hour.

The paramedics came and found that a Pillsbury biscuit canister had exploded from the heat and a wad of dough had hit her in the back of her head. She felt the dough, thought it was her brains, passed out, recovered and held her brains in for over an hour until someone noticed and came to her aid.

And, yes, she was a blonde.

[steroids] humans or robots

Predictable really:

The International Olympic Committee has stripped sprinter Marion Jones of her five 2000 Olympic medals after she admitted taking banned substances.

Looking at the issue more broadly, remember this?

1988: Johnson stripped of Olympic gold Sprinter Ben Johnson has been sent home from the Seoul Olympic Games in disgrace. The Canadian has also been stripped of his 100m gold medal after testing positive for drugs.

He ran the 100 in 9.79 seconds. Now it's held by Asafa Powell, of Jamaica, in 9.74 seconds. Who's to say the latter's not on an undetectable drug? Who's to say Carl Lewis wasn't? I'm not saying anything, for fear of libel laws nor am i intimating anything. But I am asking how we can know.

Does it matter? Probably yes, for a whole lot of moral and pragmatic reasons. Does it mean Johnson didn't run that time? Of course not. Johnson ran 9.79 - he was timed. The only vague question then was whether he was a human being or a cheetah, perhaps.

He looked pretty human to me when he ran that time. Sad but he ran it. He was therefore the fastest in the world. Lewis was not.

[Comment on photo policy on this blog: Photos are either linked or not. If not, then assume they are iether from my own collection or else from Wikipedia, under the name of the subject in the photo.]