Ross Fountain had me laughing so soon over having strips torn off me by El Dave [Dave Cole] on another matter:Astronomers are scratching their heads over a puzzling non-discovery, an enormous hole in the universe measuring nearly a billion light-years across.
I hesitate to offer my humble advice to such eminent astronomers, but when I discover a complete void when looking through my telescope,
I usually check to see if I've left the lens cap on. That usually does the trick.
Sadly, at least in my view, many of these low-profile dwellings, so redolent of the South of Russia, are slated to be demolished, so that shiny new apartment blocks, which could go in any country in the world, can go up in their place. Now, it's easy for me to grumble, I don't have to live in these houses, some of which still have very basic facilities. Others, though, have been made very comfortable; they are clearly still usable buildings, so why waste their embodied energy by tearing them down? Well, and again this will hardly be news, the land they stand on, close to the centre, has rocketed in value. Developers will get a much better return on the many apartments they can build on the footprint of just one such house. Another issue is this: I can't comment further on this because I'm too close to the process myself here but let's put it obliquely: I just walked back to the main road to get a car and passed through a huge canopied market of the old kind. Nearly all of these have now been knocked down to make way for centralized mega-marts one has to drive to, to reach. Now this market today, on Pionerskaya, is wondrous - all vegetables and fruits in season are here. Yesterday, the Min and I were discussing arbuz or watermelon and everyone knows you can get them in late June but they're full of nitrates. The time to buy arbuz is right now. Three weeks from now will be too late. There's something satisfying in buying in season, rather than the irradiated product all year round. It might be prejudice but the Russian housewife is not a fool when it comes to food and she says that natural tastes better. Everything here was [and this I feel follows the point Ian was making] closer to the earth - you were in touch with reality and lived within your limited means. It was perfectly fit for purpose. There is a danger of all that being lost.Ian Appleby has written an excellent post on life in The Russian legislature passed laws forbidding non-Russians to hold market stalls, the vast majority of which were indeed run by other nationalities. The law worked as a sop to the increasingly xenophobic tenor of (ethnic) Russian nationalism, but because there was not, for some reason, a rush of Russians to take up the new business opportunity - indeed, at least in Krasnodar, Russians who made living staffing market stalls for non-Russian employers have been hit quite hard - the law also had the happy side-effect of freeing up a lot of prime real estate.
Crossposted at Westminster Wisdom
I was on Oscar's side in his dispute with the Marquess of Queensberry because of the latter's unintellectual boorishness.Mine is a minor blog in the scheme of things, a mere blip on the radar and it's going to become even more marginal after this post.
Principles are the last resort of a rogue, sometimes more important to people than justice, decency and common sense. Occasionally though, principles force their way into one's consciousness and that dreaded position looms up before one - taking a stand.
I must now take a stand, which of course can only lead to my being swept off my little perch. So be it.
This blogger stated yesterday that he hadn't thought much about gays per se, except in oblique references to the gay mafia. My dealings with such people has been friendly and I count gays among friends. I don't know whether there are degrees of "gayness" and whether one is a bit that way or wholly so.
I do know that as a child, I was molested by family friends who were men and not just once. I never told about it because I was ashamed. I also know it affects people in different ways and am well aware of the vampire principle - that one can become one.
I hope I haven't done that but I certainly react with horror if a man even attempts to pat my shoulder or do a standard European embrace. I know I have to go through with it but it's nauseating to me to touch or be touched by another man and I hope I haven't over-compensated with women. As for girls - there used to be an inbuilt societal mechanism which protected them and long live this mechanism, I say.
By the way, that's precisely what is now being broken down by the corrosive moral degeneracy being pushed so hard by my implacable enemy in schools, film, music, upbringing and so on today. Girls of twelve no longer have any protection, are out roaming around freely and I'm wondering where the hell the parents are - are they living in zombie land or pretending it's not happening? Do they think that conferring such freedom on their daughters is leading the daughter to self-discipline?
I have news - things are happening with daughters and my source is big girls who now look back and tell.
Back to gays. This particular "thing" is not normal.
Yet this has been the pattern of interpersonal realtions in the majority of societies over time except for Caligula type aberrances and it protects children and keeps society sane. To point to societies which have gone soft and descended into this, such as ours now but to seize on it as historical justification is utter tosh and cynically ignores that socieites go through stages, just as ours is doing now.
I am dead against "gay bashing" or in fact "anyone bashing" and reject utterly being lumped in with the boors, the bourgeoisie and the intolerant by shrill overreaction to the tone of this article. I'm especially against intolerance of gays, if the participants are adult, so let me spell out what this blog is actually dead against:
1. the calling of aberrant behaviour an equal alternative and introducing the erroneous term "orientation" into the discussion;
2. the calling of this drive "moving on", as in "I'd hoped we'd moved on from this", when what it really means is "descending to oblivion";
2. the gay mafia driving the legislative process outlawing anyone who would call a spade a spade;
3. the hijacking of language, such as the word "spade" and rendering it unusable. I deliberately used the term now in its historic idiomatic sense and will continue to do so. I'll use "gay" to mean lighthearted, frivolous, happy; I'll use "rainbow" to mean that thing you see in the sky.
Monty Python, who had an answer for just about everything and pricked [another of those words] the bubble of pomposity and folly, summed up the whole Thought Police mindset in the stoning scene in Brian. "Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah!" called out the unrepentant. Labelling the mindset of the religious elite and mob "Christian" shows either a very shaky or a deeply cynical grasp of theological history and a desire to lay the blame for human excess onto what is, after all, a quite pure set of criteria for living together.
Where does this leave gays? It leaves them with their partners, unharrassed, living the life they want and continuing to enrich the cultural and social history of nations and contributing to understanding and intellect, as opposed to boorishness and priggishness. It leaves the vast majority to get on with their own normal lives. The two meet at parties and are friends. Many readers of this blog who are gay are more than welcome because I don't judge you on your gayness but on your intelligence level.
But to call gayness or "bi-ness" normal and to try to drive public policy and get in to schools and spread this dangerous twaddle; to outlaw anyone who tries to oppose it and to lead campaigns of vilification against them - this is purely and simply wrong and as such, I simply won't be intimidated.
Now what are they going to do - press for my incarceration or something worse to punish me for having the temerity to speak sanity, thereby revealing their true selves? Are they going to ostracize me by never visiting my blog again and trying to prevent others doing so? In this increasingly convoluted society of today - I'd bet that's exactly what some would like to do.
However, to end on a positive note, I also hope there'd be those who would take it in the spirit in which it was given - a plea for sanity to return to our society before it's too late.
Graham Chapman - great example of the very long list of gay people who have enriched our cultural heritage
Sorry, Liz but you were in the last Petfocus and I'm afraid, under the rules, I can't enter your lovely pic but I shall give it its own dedicated post. Ditto Mutley, I'm afraid but send me a smorgasbord of Mutley shots and I'll run a Mutley Festival here.
So, without further ado, to the pets:
1. "The black one is Titan, 7 years old" and if he's half as combative as his owner, he'll lord it over the blogosphere.
2. This is my little dog Tala. Tala's a black, long-haired German Shepherd, a girl and very friendly. Tala means Wolf in American Indian.
3. Ben and Daisy the Rabbits with their tamers. They run wild in our garden now.
4. Flying Spaghetti Monster, just for fun.
5. Taken with a cell phone, presumably in
6. "The white one is Missy, 4 years old (lil bit's favorite)" but unfortunately, the shot was taken with a cell phone and so I include the owner, rather than the pet. Don't you think she looks a bit like her dad?
7. Here's my Red Dragon, "Ordo" - a little tribute to my little-known Celtic heritage.
8. Spotty the Dog. He is an annoying and friendly Tenterfield Terrier.
9 Also taken with a cell phone from the
10 And of course there is Hamish the backyard Cow.
And here are the possible owners [one petless extra has been included, just to confuse the issue]:
This is a tribute to a fallen comrade:
“I don’t mind sharing my blanket but does he have to take so much?”
Whatever vicissitudes occur to us all, however we may all fall out over this or that, whichever way it all falls, as long as this blog remains, this photo remains.
If there was ever a public figure who even admitted she was Queen of People's Hearts, it was Diana Spencer of the House of Stewart. So the outcry over the non-inclusion of the public at the memorial service seems justified:Penny Junor said: "If it is a personal family occasion why have Elton John and Cliff Richard been invited?
Whilst understanding the wishes of the princes, who have always been quite private in their leanings, do they have the right to deny the people access? How far do family wishes trump national interest?
