[blogfocus wednesday] travel and identity

1. Aranka felt deflated by the strong winds on the weekend:

We spent the weekend in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley, attending the Shenandoah Valley Hot Air Balloon & Wine Festival and a Civil War Reenactment/Living History event. Sadly, the weather did not cooperate (too much wind) and this is all we saw of the balloons at the attempted sunset launch on Saturday.

Which was fun, but we will now have to come back again next year to see the full spectacle (well, at least this is the reasoning I’m giving Ron). Theoretically, we could have gotten up the next day to see the 7:30 AM launch... Yeah, right. (Don’t get me wrong; we love hot air balloons. Well, I LOVE them. I’ve even decorated The Cakes’ nursery with hot air balloons.

2. Ordo has sound advice about your carbon footprint – here are four suggestions:

1. Wear sandals…No one will ever want to look at your carbon footprint again. 4. Holiday closer to home…Rent a caravan in Amlwch. 5. Don't buy…shoplift. Most of our footprint is down to the things we buy. Our houses are often cluttered with items we only use or wear once. Shoplifting reduces the amount you can consume, unless you have very, very big pockets. 7. Eat a local, organic, seasonal, low meat diet…Yes, seagulls and grey squirrels.

3. The Broadsheet Rag has an identity crisis … or does he?

I was reading the Last Ditch earlier today and found that he was quite upset. It turns out that the leader he is most like is Gandhi. So I thought, ‘I’m at a loose end why don’t I try the test’. I answered the questions honestly. And the result? Well, TBR is most like Saddam Husein. I was overjoyed. Of course my mother will be a little upset. But who doesn’t like to think of themselves as an evil dictator? Patrons of fair trade and woolly liberals of course. But to me it was great news. Affirmation of my soon to be found greatness. It’s like doing a cartoon character test and finding out that you are most like Eric Cartman or Bender.

4. The Pub Philosopher considers a holiday in a part of the world which appears to be open again:

Things must be getting better in Somalia. It seems you can go on holiday there now. Yasin Abdirahman would have been safer if he'd accompanied his mother instead of staying in Southall.

[idyll] blank space in the diary

Was it Michael Palin who, in the intro to a Ripping Yarns episode, was standing on a craggy precipice, dressed in G.K. Chesterton’s hat and cape and gripping a swordstick, [mine always contained Drambuie], intoning: “Was it G.K Chesterton who said …?”

Similarly, was it P.G. Wodehouse’s The Butler's Cross who, celebrating the onset of spring, wrote something along the lines of:

It was one of those jolly, peaceful mornings that make a fellow wish he'd got a soul or something ... ?

That’s how I feel this early afternoon with the day still full of promise, the sun almost blazing and not the remotest sign of the onset of the Great Grey Drabness.

That’s only part of it.

I went in to the uni just now, wasting 200 roubles in the process, only to find the place devoid of human life. Finally managed to ferret out a ferrety looking young blonde who informed me that today was a holiday.

Ah, I see. Nobody bothered to tell me. Yes, she added – they’re all at a conference. Conference, I thought? Conference = boredom and really dire discomfort.

Saying nothing and pulling my cap down over my eyes, a cunning disguise for one who stands out in this city somewhat like a beacon, I rapidly shuffled out and caught a car home.

So that’s why I’m here, sitting on my balcony in my green garden chair, small table to the left with chocolate and Indian Spice tea [but not in that order] and writing to you.

The temperature is – let me see – a balmy nine degrees and the warm tea is … warming. Would that life could always be so idyllic.

[palestine] this is condi’s dream?

Despite Condi’s best efforts to destabilize Israel, it seems that Israel might not be under immediate threat yet:

Amnesty International says illegal detentions and torture have become commonplace in both Hamas-controlled Gaza and Fatah's West Bank stronghold.

It notes that the situation in Gaza has deteriorated sharply since June when Hamas seized control by force. The UK-based group is calling for an independent investigation.

According to Amnesty, arbitrary detentions and the torture of opposition supporters have become widespread in the Gaza Strip where there have also been attacks on demonstrators and journalists covering such incidents.

But the report says human rights abuses are being committed in the West Bank too, by government security forces under the control of President Mahmoud Abbas against Hamas supporters.

No one really wants these abuses to continue but neither does anyone need another holocaust.

[here today] gone today

Wonder if Colin Campbell heard anything of the lightning which struck a schoolground in Adelaide?

Principal Roger Nottage said the 33-year-old maths and science teacher was supervising the lunch break when lightning hit a nearby tree.

"He was probably five or six metres from a tree that was struck."

He said the lighting strike was completely unexpected.

"The teacher who was on yard duty said there was no real reason to expect lightning, there was some blue sky, and it had just started to have a little bit of drizzle."

What a way to go, eh? I remember those supervising days and what’s worse, we were under and near trees. Zap – no teacher. In the line of duty, so to speak.

[climbing] and just a little shopping

Look - can you see it down there? A shop!

Quite frankly, enough of the doom and gloom for one evening. Let's wind up with some pleasant thoughts to sleep on - Sally's climb:

We woke to glorious sunshine today, a perfect autumn walking day.

So it was not long before we set off to Patterdale, to walk up to Helvellyn and Striding edge.

We went up by St Sunday crag, ignoring the mad geordie who told us we should go up the pinnacle…..

On the way home I even managed to go and do some shopping at The Lakeland shop so that was a great way to end a perfect day.

[blogfocus tuesday] murder, science, women and silly people

1. As you know, Lady Mac and JMB met in Vancouver and it was one of the great meetings in history, sort of like when Delphi met Oracle in Bavaria or when Stanley met Livingstone:

As you know Lady Mac lives in Morocco and you know that she is always having adventures there. Well she brought those adventures with her to Surrey, for six people were found murdered in a condominium not far from her hotel and a small plane taking off from the Vancouver airport crashed into an apartment building, killing the pilot and injuring people in one of the apartments. All in the space of the few days while she was here. There's no such thing as coincidence you know.

2. Charles Robertson is back and didn’t even tell us:

Whenever someone tells you that something is so because it is the "scientific consensus", you should instantly treat the proponent's position with scepticism. A moment's thought experiment will tell you why: several hundred years ago, the scientific consensus said that the sun revolved around the earth. That, however, did not make it so, as we all now know.

3. On the question of the Scottish Blogroundup, whose url MacNumpty fails to give us and therefore it has to be googled, the worthy Scot defends his gender against the charge of sexism:

The fact is, it can't just be a case of us being male chauvinist pigs: IndyGal was doing the Roundup, she was preparing it all day, and she couldn't find enough posts by women bloggers to justify a full roundup using only posts by women, as she admits. So there's more going on than us snubbing women. The problem is wider: either there are fewer women blogging than men on the subject, or there are more women blogging but they haven't yet come to our attention. Both of these problems can be fixed, but not by us.

4. Cleanthes simply hasn’t the time to devote to the lady who's always up for a good kicking:

Toynbee that is.

This article is poor and is given a thoroughly good shafting in the comments. It still deserves a thorough fisk but I have a life and a day-job and I suspect that there are many others with much more:

* vitriol,
* extensive vocabularies of the undeniably required profanity (Guess what.)
* experience of dealing with La Polla (told you so. Update: I really did tell you so.) and, crucially,
* time

who will do so properly long before I get a chance to.

Wasn't aware Cleanthes read the Guardian, to be honest. Still, we live and learn. More tomorrow, if we’re alive.