[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.

[björk] berserkist tradition revived

Bjork fully clothed

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

[happy birthday] lewisham kate

Happy birthday, dear Kate; Happy birthday to you;
Happy birthday, dear Kate; Whatever did you do? [for your party, I mean]

[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.

[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!

[ye are gods] why does my head ache then

Have to steal a winter photo from somewhere so why not from Oestrebunny?

It's been a lovely day and the scene out there is so atmospheric - a fine haze of white, blending into the landscape, with landmarks appearing through it in part. Much warmer today - minus 18 - and a delight to wander about.

Changed my country today. Geographically I haven't but I work directly for the mother country now, which doesn't alter anything for me personally except that things are a bit more exciting. There's something I'd like to write about this evening but for once I'm not sure how to do it.

Two of the most difficult statements ever written were:

1. Psalm 82:6 - I have said, Ye are gods;

2. Ephesians 6:12 - For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Why so fascinating? Because the closer one gets to the action, the truer these two appear to be.

The Psalm was written by a man - look at the style and tone and yet it was quoted by Jesus [if you can accept this for one moment] but what the hell does it mean? As a Psalm - perhaps not a lot but as something selected for comment by the Deity, quite something indeed:

Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?

Uh-huh.

That would have to get you reflecting on the true power of man and would explain why humanism is not only convinced of but knows implicitly that each man has it inside to be a god. But who would have the temerity to try it? Many people - look, for example at the Chinese intention to hold back the heavens so that it won't rain during the Beijing Olympics. Look at Babel. Look at HAARP.

But this attempt, historically, has always comes to naught. Now I wonder why that would be? It seems to suggest someone who can't take no for an answer and will try again and again forever. Someone clinically insane, in other words.

The second quote has been mistranslated in the revisionist RSV and I feel that that's no accident whatsoever. These days it is being taught that it is a sort of earthly wickedness in PMs and Presidents and so on - that man's dark side comes to the fore.

I humbly suggest that that is not what the KJV intended - that the KJV meant precisely what it said. We struggle not against flesh and blood; ipso facto, we struggle against principalities. So, research principalities and there's no ambiguity here, as the term is applied scripturally.

But this is heady stuff.

If you take it through to its logical conclusion, then the enemy in high places is not human. I didn't say it - don't shoot the messenger. But it's definitely written in there. Now this is where those whose interest it is to scorn this notion need only invoke the spectre of Icke's lizards and the logical path stops.

So let's rewind a bit. Read the text yourself. It was written by a fairly austere person according to his other history. So did he suddenly become a nutter for one verse and then go back to being rational once more or was he rational all along?

Let's accept, for the sake of argument, that he was rational the whole time - then what was he saying? What does he know that we don't? Was he referring to high places in Heaven or on earth? Tell you the truth - I'm not sure. Rulers of darkness of this world. But not flesh and blood. So who the hell are they then?

How about the progeny of the Nephalim? That's pretty ancient history. You say it's rubbish? Fair enough - simply show me which ancient documents conclusively disprove the notion? While you're about it, explain to me the Shardana. How about the Egyptian Sobek? The Book of Jasher perhaps? The Book of Enoch? Bonwick's Irish Druids, 1894? The Kundalini?

I'm not saying it is so - how on earth could I know something which happened so long ago? How could you know it didn't?

And what of the other quote - ye are gods? It's clear how JC was using it in John's gospel but what of the quote itself? If you say it was just a throwaway line, then why was it, specifically, resurrected all those centuries later and by this particular Individual?

I see one explanation. Every head of an organization or section becomes, in a way, a little god but is always subject to a higher god, in a bigger pool. John Buchan, mid WW1, said:

Take any big Teutonic business concern. If you have dealings with it, the first man you meet is Prince von und zu Something, an elegant young man who talks Eton-and-Harrow English. But he cuts no ice.

If your business is big, you get behind him and find a prognathous Westphalian with a retreating brow and the manners of a hog. He is the German business man that gives your English papers the shakes.

But if you're on the biggest kind of job and are bound to get to the real boss, ten to one you are brought up against a little white-faced Jew in a bath-chair with an eye like a rattlesnake. Yes, sir, he is the man who is ruling the world just now.

I can't comment because I have absolutely no clue. But my own experience certainly bears out that even the highest are subject to someone higher. In the end, on earth, the highest of highs is the one who finances your plans. Where did they get the money?

Been in the family for generations. Fair enough. Where did it originally come from? Why did those particular families get it? Why not mine, for example? With such dangerous thoughts as these, I'm going to suddenly stop.

[fragmentation] organization's major weapon

One simple statistic is that the blogosphere has grown 100 times in three years and it is fragmented, especially in the political sphere.

While that is good in some respects, it also fragments opposition to highly organized forces which can be viewed at many levels. Everyone focuses on what they see as the whole issue but more often it is a numer of fragments of the whole. I see people writing what they think are very witty reposts on other people's posts, invoking catchphrases they've learnt off by heart and yet, when you examine it, the two parties are not so far apart, except on some interpretations.

Fragmentation, splintering. Each with his own slant, each looking from one angle but decrying another.

My anonymii focus on the EU monster and rightly so, the Americans increasingly look at the SPPNA, a man I know is working to get Christians out of Masonry, Gates of Vienna focuses on Islamic Sharia, in Britain, Lionheart and others do likewise, Cassandra illustrates the evils of PoMo, most UK pundits attack Brown and his neo-fascist state but don't you see that all these right thinking people are fragmented? They doubtless consider all issues but promote one or two.

I just commented at Gates of Vienna about Political Correctness and the Baron quite rightly stated:

The celebration of oxymora is central to the politico-linguistic discipline commonly known as “political correctness”.

To disable rational opposition to the prevailing orthodoxy, the first step is to take control of the language, forbidding certain words, promoting others, and changing the meanings of words within the permissible vocabulary to align with an all-pervading political ideology.

The second step is to erode the logical framework of thought itself, eating away at the deep structure of language until the underlying mental processes are deranged, leaving the mind vulnerable to re-programming.

Under the new PC template, time-hallowed distinctions — between good and evil, moral and immoral, true and false — are discarded. The only remaining distinction allowed is between what is and is not politically acceptable. PC has but a single commandment: “Thou shalt have no other words before mine.”

Good stuff but meanwhile the nature of a more complex battle remains obscure.

Assisting in the general confusion are catch cries which do so much damage that it's debilitating - try these words - Zionist, cabals, PoMo, globalism, Political Correctness, Neocon, White Supremacist, Truther, Illuminati, conspiracy theorist, relativist, multi-culturalism, inclusionism, Christian [aaaagh!], Atheist, Right and Left, climate porn and so on and so on.

Ruthie made mention of internet idiocies:

[I]t’s particularly prominent in Internet message boards, comment threads on news articles, partisan mainstream political blogs and various other quick and anonymous fora for political “debate.” YouTube comment threads, for example, are one of the worst places for this.

I know I shouldn't even read this stuff, I shouldn't indulge my perverse fascination, but it's like watching a car accident— there's something captivating about the wreckage. The reasoning is often shallow and faulty, ad hominem attacks are plentiful, and common sense is in short supply.

It is dire. Each has his own standpoint and in his "ramblings", argues from his own perspective, pronouncing "self-evident truths" in emotive language. Millions and millions of blogs are doing this. Everyone's pushing something and trying to have it seen as the major perspective.

Christian sites resort to capitalized fonts to convince or endlessly quote scripture. Illuminati sites use garish colour and emotive adjectives incessantly, making logical jumps when they should make the single point they're safe on and leave it at that.

The conflict between people divided by labels is staggering.

Even if I beg that people look at the global implications of all policies currently being pursued and therefore all agendas, the very word "global" will turn off half the people reading this. This is madness - turning off because of a label. It's moronic to label someone a "Truther" and thereby dismiss all arguments out of hand. Where is the logic in that?

And what the hell is a truther anyway? Someone looking for the truth of what's happening? Is that a bad thing, to look for truth? What are we meant to do - follow jingoistic catch cries and wrap ourselves in a flag? And which flag? The EU's? The Union Flag?

One section of society points to Christianity v Islam, another at Christianity v Jewish Cabals, another at the West v Islam, another at Statists v Libertarians. All deny something in their focuses.

Surely local self interest is the overwhelming governing factor at the base level, followed by the national interest which derailed Doha, then we splinter into all the other divisions mentioned above. In all of this, one theme I see running throughout is people's freedom to self determine their own direction in life but even here, supposed free enterprisers call for bans on this, regulation of that.

And total deregulation is anarchy and anarchy is just the separation of the sheep so they can be picked off, one by one, by the real evil [seen through my Christian eyes], the evil which says: "It's OK to indulge whatever passion springs to mind with no cessation and with no fear of consequence." Anakin Skywalker's anger - go for it, breathes Palpatine - kill, kill, kill. Yes, it feels good, doesn't it, Anakin? Indulge youself to your heart's content.

And in the process he loses his soul, his ability to resist his base desires. Little people get in his way - he swats them. You tire of one woman - get another - there are millions out there to be exploited. The road to yahooism is broad and easy. ASBOs, Clockwork Orange - great landscape for the hedonist, isn't it?

All right, my tuppence worth. Islam of the virulent kind is making huge inroads, the western leaderships are riddled with tentacles of the well acknowledged monster called the Finance, people are fragmented and pursuing their own agendas, congratulating likeminded people and gently shunning other points of view, the destruction of values once associated with Christianity is almost complete, the move to Continental Governments proceeds apace but is running into Nationalism, local, national and regional interest rules all and allows monsters utilizing the flag to rise in Africa, Iran, Malaysia and anywhere you care to name. The Old Money sits in its sanctuary and funds the mayhem all over the globe.

Then we look at China, which gave rise to this blog's name. Oh my goodness - once we start on China!

What's the net effect? Unrest, unhappiness, a new ignorant generation of alienated ASBOs and homies, breakdown of all societal codes which served before and rampant greed of a kind never so nakedly obvious as we are seeing today, not just at the top but permeating all strata of society. The great gods Credit Debt and Never-Be-Satisfied are blighting families worldwide and now into Russia.

Hope? Is blinkering one's eyes and pretending all is well true hope? We need armour, not blind faith. I know where you can get it from but I equally know why you won't seek it. I therefore beg two other things:

1 Do one kind act for someone outside your circle each day;

2 Look at what the other says and see how far it can be reconciled with your own, even on minor points.

[quick quiz] special bag edition

Bag was not so impressed with the last one so I'll try again. :)

1. What is the most times a car has rolled over in an accident and been filmed doing it?

2. What is the highest grossing western film of all time, according to Wiki and adjusted to 2007 values?

3. Who was Alexander VI's famous daughter?

4. Who holds the world land speed record with Thrust SSC and where is he from?

5. What's the name of China's superhighway linking through to Israel?

7 - in Casino Royale, Titanic, Lucretia Borgia, Andy Green - England, Karakoram

[casino royale] could this be the best bond yet

A year behind everyone else, as is my wont, I watched, last night, an American DVD of Casino Royale and it's damned good.

I well remember the furore when Pierce Brosnan was stood down, along with Moneypenny and Q and at the time, even thought of boycotting the next Bond film too. As it turns out, they did it all really well, were wise to wait and rethink it all and the whole package not only stands up but is right up there as a contender for the best Bond ever.

It unfortunately puts some of the Moore vehicles like Live and Let Die and View to a Kill, which had great moments, ultimately to shame though Moore himself always had a certain something about him. Many say that the Dalton era was sub-standard but some disagree - he brought a sort of realism back to the role which, in the era when computer graphics were just taking off big time, consigned Dalton to the scrapheap of Bondiana.

Bond flicks must always have that blend of big budget exotic locations, suspended disbelief, action and those eternal Bond girls and yet the last of the Brosnan era, even with Halle Berry, was overrated IMHO, along with Halle Berry herself. Just how much of the wham bam, incessant action does it take to rob the plot of dimensions beyond two?

Brosnan opened well in Goldeneye and possibly did best in the next. Sophie Marceau lifted TWINE out of all proportion to the quality of the film and overall, Brosnan certainly didn't disgrace the role one bit.

So what of Daniel Craig?

Well, everything's subjective but given the raw brashness he was meant to display, he was great. Truly. I think he's a magnificent Bond and you can really feel his emotions or non-emotions if you like, along with him. The betrayal near the end was predictable, of course - Bonds don't have wives - but it was handled well. Boston dot com describes Craig thus:

The new James Bond is quick and muscular, and there is nothing remotely camp about him. He doesn’t wink; in fact, I’m not sure he even blinks. Where other men might athletically sail through a narrow window opening during a chase scene, he prefers to plow through the wall. He’s a strapping brute — young, untested, rough around the edges — and he is magnificent. Let the purists squawk: In Daniel Craig, the Bond franchise has finally found a 007 whose cruel charisma rivals that of Sean Connery.

Time dot com disagrees:

The Craig Bond might know no French at all; he's not the suave, Oxbridgian 007 of legend but the strong, silent type, almost a thug for hire, and no smoother with a sardonic quip than John Kerry. Still, he fits one description Fleming gave of his hero: "[His face was] a taciturn mask, ironical, brutal and cold." ... [This] is a Bond with great body but no soul.

The locations were often stunning and one can picture Mr. White [interesting how in real life the cabal nasties are colour coded too] in his real setting - a chateau by Lake Geneva is the perfect place for true evil to reside. This is gritty, it's raw and it's great.

The only annoying suspension of disbelief, for me, is during the torture scene. As males, we can assure the female half of the population that Bond wouldn't be making wisecracks to his tormenter in that cheeky-face way, with his testicles in that condition. By the way, Craig's body would have to be the best of any Bond, Connery included and his level of menace was right up in the Connery class.

My favourite part was in the opening sequence when the sleek black terrorist is leaping from one derrick up in the sky to another with Craig in dogged pursuit - James almost falls off a few times but hauls himself back and continues the chase. His body's obviously not cut out for ths type of highwire gymnastics but he manages. That was a nice touch.

Naturally, even after one picture, the comparisons have been made and yes, it's too early.

Craig is a fine actor, there's absolutely no doubt of that and Eva Green is surprising. Did they dub the English voice? Her kissing gives her away - it's so French and her body movements are too - the French have that artless sluttishness down pat. She's not a beautiful woman but scrubs up well - although maybe she'd have been better off as a true villain, if the Fleming novel had only allowed.

As a fan of the grittier type of Bond, where does Casino Royale rate? Right up there. Where does Craig rate? Surely up with Connery and with Connery's reputed orneriness as well - hell, what do you want from a hero after all? He's fun and he's dangerous but for sheer menace, perhaps early Connery edges him out.

Bond 22 is going to have a lot of people eagerly waiting, methinks. I loved 21 and might watch it again now - work is a bit slow today.

081387: Les [transgressions] obligatoires sont une règle d'art

CLICK PIC!

[blogger quiz] because we just gotta

Which blogger uses this banner?

Haven't had a quiz for some time. The idea is to pick the blogger.

1] Which blogger calls her orchid Eric?

a. Oestrebunny
b. Wife in the North
c. JMB

2] Which blogger is currently running a "guess the object competition"?

a. Reactionary Snob
b. Mutterings and Meanderings
c. Mopsa

3] Which blogger has finally come out with his/her real name?

a. Mr. Eugenides
b. Mary Mary Quite Contrary
c. Welshcakes Limoncello

4] Which blogger is running a "spot the Lib Dem competition"?

a. Jams O'Donnell
b. The Norfolk Blogger
c. Bob Piper

5] Which blogger is posting on the Scottish weather?

a. MacNumpty
b. Richard Havers
c. Longrider

Hint - use link hover.

[figs] properties of paradise

The real thing, courtesy of Mopsa

Most entertaining article about the humble fig. Some of the main points:

* The most common impression of the ficus carica or common fig for the traveler in Turkey is the slightly suggestive sight of a dried fig sliced and stuffed to bursting (with walnuts) and the sign Turkish Viagra floating enticingly above it.

* This week, though, figs made the news for something more than their alleged libido-enhancing properties. Archeologists excavating ruins in the ancient city of Assos found 2,400-year-old figs that were still edible in a tomb. They believe the figs were put there to be part of the last meal of the departing spirit.

* Turkish fig producers face another enemy as dangerous as global warming, the fruit themselves can spoil and turn toxic. Notoriously difficult to dry, figs often develop mold when produced in warm humid conditions. These mold contains aflatoxins which have been known to cause cancer in animals and aflatoxin B1, the most toxic, can cause cancer in humans.

* The fig tree has a bad reputation with farmers as a destroyer of men, the adage among rural folk is that he who falls from a fig tree never escapes unscathed and rarely recovers. A report from Trabzon's 2002 fig picking season listed 223 injured people in 20 days. Most suffered from broken arms, legs and ribs but there were also two fatalities.

* The fig tree does however have a good reputation in Islam where a hadith (oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Prophet Mohammad) from Bukhari says that the prophet mentioned figs and said, "If I had to mention a fruit that descended from paradise I would say this is it because the paradisiacal fruits do not have pits ... eat from these fruits for they prevent hemorrhoids and help gout."

* Traditionalists believe that if you see fresh ripe figs in your dreams they always indicate unexpected levels of good fortune but if the fig is dried then the good luck they bring will be marred by jealousy and gossip.

Get thee out there and start planting.

That controversial "non-fig" pic

[blair] when the bilderberger and cfr meet

This is classic:

Tony Blair has taken a part-time post with US investment bank JP Morgan.

The Bilderberger has joined the CFR* and I'm sure everyone is agreed that Tony is well qualified for the job. It's not unlike when Oracle met Delphi in Bavaria.

That's truly wonderful. Birds of a feather. Love to be a fly on the wall.

* Founder of the CFR was John W. Davis, J.P. Morgan’s personal attorney, while the vice-president was Paul Cravath.

[checkers] perfect solution found

Most important issue of the day:

According to US journal Science, the perfect solution to how to play checkers (draughts) without losing is one of the ten most interesting discoveries of 2007. Dr. Yngvi Björnsson at Reykjavík University is one of its discoverers.

“It is very pleasing, but this recognition may not have much impact,” Björnsson, who discovered the checkers-solution with a team of Canadian scientists, told Fréttabladid. “It is, in fact, a greater recognition that the article about the discovery was published in the journal last summer […]; one of the most respected scientific journals in the world.”

Now, in this holiday season, that's the best news yet for the kids wiling away the hours. Trouble is, they didn't provide the solution for me to post. You'll have to buy the journal.

[blogpower] the sorry mess in summary

This post will not be reappearing.

There was considerable misunderstanding over Ian's and JMB's roles and only now are we getting it all together.

Both are excellent bloggers, neither has horns and good things prevail.

James

[to hell with it] bed or oblivion

There are times, after months of fighting alone that a man needs to just go to bed and have a sleep. That's what I'm going to do now on this minus 26 degree night.

It wasn't so much Matt's little debate with me here that drained the energy but Calum Carr's cheap insults earlier in lieu of reasoned argument certainly exacerbated the process.

There is so much arguing from false premises, people writing to you professing friendship but then acting against you, so much failure to stand up and uphold agreed principles, so much misrepresentation via a mailing list of the true state of affairs, so much falsehood.

And friends who remain silent.

I'm going to bed.

[exercise and a little drink] and don't forget diet and love

Yes

A European Heart Journal study suggests the combination can cut the risk of heart disease. A Danish team found people who led an active lifestyle were less prone to heart disease - but the risk was cut still further if they drank moderately.

The researchers followed nearly 12,000 men and women for nearly 20 years, during which 1,242 died from ischaemic heart disease (IHD). Overall, they found people who did not drink or take any exercise had the highest risk of heart disease - 49% higher than people who either drank, exercised or did both.

When comparing people who took similar levels of exercise, they found that those who drank moderately - one to 14 units of alcohol a week - were around 30% less likely to develop heart disease than non-drinkers.

That stands to reason but for well-being, surely you'd have to add:

1. spiritual welfare - being at ease in one's head, happy in he job and generally easy about things;

2. diet - eating properly is so vitally important it was a surprise this was not factored into the study;

3. good relationship with a loved one. I mean, how important is this?

Alternatively, it is also logical that people who are spiritually not at one, who over-eat fatty or excessively carbo foods, are sedentary, drink nothing perhaps due to wowserism and are alone are at the greatest risk.

There's a message there, methinks.

No

[martin scriblerus] was there ever one such as this

It is perverse that the leaders of a modern nation feel they must honour the memory of the great men to whom that nation owes what it possesses in high culture and civility, and yet, were those great men alive today, they would be reviled for holding opinions that those leaders profess to find uncultured and uncivilised and unfit for the standing of a modern nation.

Amen to that, Deogolwulf.

[new hampshire] america mourns

Oh my goodness. She cried the crocodile tears, tugged at the heartstrings and got in. I join the rest of America in mourning this tragic event. May this serve as a reminder of the danger the Lizard Queen still represents. I'm no wiser than the pundits and yet I did write, after Iowa:

Before anyone writes off the Lizard Queen, it's also worth noting that a caucus is not a primary - a primary is more direct. Plus she's east coast.

G-d help America [plus a few million relatively sane voters].

[sarkozy and bruni] why not, for goodness sake?

If I were the French President and my wife refused to support her husband and then we were divorced, I'd imagine I'd be pretty down about it. It would sort of hurt deep down, even though I never showed it publicly.

Then, if a woman came into my life and she had a bit of a history people latched onto but I loved her, then that would be unfortunate but what could I do? We'd have to marry if she also loved me and who's to say she doesn't?

Now, if I were France, above all nations except maybe Italy, I'd understand implicitly that lasting relationships can't be politically packaged into time frames favoured by the press, even though I'd be well aware of the time constraints.

I'd also be well aware that if I'd just forced a political issue - in his case the strikes and in mine - well, the least said the better - then there'd be fallout, wouldn't there? It's pretty lonely doing that and if a loving woman came into my life, I'd make pretty sure to treat her right because, in the things I must do next for France, I'd need her softness like never before.

So what the hell are the press saying?

Sarkozy denied that he was using the ups and downs of his love life to draw attention from France's problems. He said he was astonished by some news reports that suggested his October divorce was timed to overshadow coverage of a nationwide strike that paralyzed the country. "I told myself that people who wrote such articles must never have been divorced," Sarkozy said, adding that he wasn't angry at them. "I was simply ashamed for them, for being so far removed from life's realities."

I'd go on to impress upon them:

«Vous l'avez compris, c'est du sérieux». Dès la deuxième question, le chef de l'Etat était interrogé sur sa relation avec l'ex-mannequin Carla Bruni, lors de sa conférence de presse de rentrée mardi. «Mais, ce n'est pas le JDD qui fixera la date», s'est empressé d'ajouter le chef de l'Etat devant un auditoire souriant.

All the same, he needs to be just a bit careful because even Le Figaro was not 100% enamoured of this stage of Sarko's presidency. Yet its photo of the happy couple seems to indicate some sort of rearguard action.

Personally, unless the leopard's changed her spots, I think he could be heading for the same problems as before. The woman is a known "easy girl" so one hopes he's not looking for marital fidelity from her but maybe he needs her perverse outlook in his position.

The French are in an interesting position themselves - the prospect of a Hungarian descendant and an Italian as 1st and 2nd persons in their republic.

[mediocrity enlarged] oh great, that's all we need

Seriously, who wants it? Who needs it?

A 150-inch high-definiton plasma TV unveiled by Panasonic is the world's largest to date, the Japanese consumer electronics company claimed Monday at the International Consumer Electronics Show.

The plasma panel features an 8.84 million pixel image resolution. Its screen is the equivalent of nine 50-inch sets, with an effective viewing area of 11 feet, the company said. It's a step up from Panasonic's 103-inch version, which cost $70,000 when it launched. The company did not say in a news release how much the 150-inch panel will cost.

When will people wake up to the mad scramble for spurious technological "advance" for what it is? It's simply symptomatic of a wider malaise you can yawn at, if you like - the inability of people to be satisfied.

And as for television itself being developed - why? The shows are dire and the noise - just pollution. Yet the MTV field raises the need for higher-fi then something else, then something else and so on.

"Progress, you stick-in-the-mud," I hear you mutter.

"Really?" I reply.

[economics 101] the looming economic reset

I like this so much by Karl Denninger. At last a fr----ng economist who doesn't try to pull rank with his jargon and who explains things to us plebs in language we can understand:

Let's say that today you wish to buy a car. You go into a bank and get them to agree to issue you a loan to buy that car. Let's say the loan is for $20,000. You sign a contract promising to pay back the $20,000 plus a rate of interest, which is charged so that the bank is covered for the risk that you won't pay them, and the value of the car at that time might not be as much as you owe. The car is the "security" for the loan - if you fail to pay, they will come and repossess it.

You now have $20,000 in your pocket, and you purchase the car. (We'll get back to how the $20,000 came to be in a minute.)

If these were the only two transactions in the world, you would soon recognize a serious problem - there is only $20,000 in money in the world, but you owe more than $20,000! The interest you must pay means that you somehow must acquire more money than exists in the world over the life of that loan in order to pay it back.

There is only one solution to this problem - the amount of money in the world must increase.

So the government will just print some more, right? After all, the can do anything they want.

Uh, no. If the government were to do that then the value of all the money currently in existence would go down by the exact amount that they printed. You could pay your debt but the bank would be in serious trouble because the money they got paid back with would not be worth as much as the money they gave you!

Further down:

WE ARE NOW FACING A "RESET" IN THE SYSTEM!

What happens in a "reset"?

1. The rate of credit creation slows precipitously as the list of assets that can be pledged dwindles down.

2. The interest and principal payments due on existing debt get close to and ultimately exceed the amount of money in the system, as the rate of credit (money) creation slows.

3. Those who detect this while they still have money pay off their debts, (correctly) deducing that a "reset" is about to take place - and that cash (assets) will have value, while debt will be a millstone that will drag you underwater.

4. Those who are unable to pay off their debts will find that a contracting credit (money) supply leaves them with insufficient funds to pay their debts. Debt defaults at a rapidly increasing rate.

5. The creditors (who granted the credit) will repossess the assets pledged for the debt in lieu of payment, while the debtors are financially destroyed.

6. The destruction of outstanding credit via default shrinks the money supply further, and we go back to #1.

This continues until equilibrium is reestablished, and the cycle begins anew.

Do read the whole thing at Market Ticker: The Money/Credit Cycle..... You might disagree but at least you can understand it.

[australia arrogant] the aussies say so

Note the empty seats behind

Now you don't see this sort of thing often from the Australian press:

If Cricket Australia cares a fig for the tattered reputation of our national team in our national sport, it will not for a moment longer tolerate the sort of arrogant and abrasive conduct seen from the captain and his senior players over the past few days.

Beyond comparison it was the ugliest performance put up by an Australian side for 20 years. The only surprising part of it is that the Indians have not packed their bags and gone home. There is no justice for them in this country, nor any manners.

An Age poll on the matter of whether Ponting should be sacked:

Yes - 58% No - 28% Let's all cool down! It's only a game - 14%

What's going on downunder? Neosportsmanship?

[tory plan] the need to think it through

Hain, predictably, is against the Tory plan which is basically:

People who claim Jobseekers' Allowance for more than two years would have to take part in a 12-month community work scheme, under Tory plans.

The party says those who refused to participate in their "welfare to work" programme would lose their benefits.

The 2006 stats were:

North East - 7.6% (worst in Middlesbrough - 12.4% - 8,000)

London - 6.8% (Hackney - 16.4% - 14,000)

West Midlands - 5.6% (worst in Birmingham - 10.5% - 46,000)

North West - 5.1% (Liverpool - 11.1% - 21,000)

Yorkshire & Humberside - 5% (worst in Bradford - 8.2% - 19,000)

East Midlands - 4.7% (worst in Leicester - 8.5% - 11,000)

Eastern England - 3.8% (worst in Norwich - 9.1% - 6,000)

South West - 3.5% (worst in Torbay - 5.6% - 3,000)

South East - 3.3% (worst in Thanet - 9.8% - 6,000)

If one excludes disability allowances and other payments for the genuinely incapable and if it were possible to isolate the malingerers as a group, what can one say about them? I mean, they're never going to hold any job for long, even if they could get it.

I sometimes wonder what would happen to them if NO money was coming in. Would they cease to exist or would the result be an added cycle of crime?

Incidentally, interesting regionalization in those stats above. Fait accompli, yes?

[sex predator] another female at it

I'm really getting sick to death of this sort of thing:

A high school gym teacher was charged with sending nude pictures of herself and sexually suggestive cell phone text messages to a 14-year-old freshman at the school.

Beth Ann Chester, a 26-year-old health and physical education teacher at Moon Area High School in suburban Pittsburgh, was arrested Friday and charged with child sexual abuse, statutory sexual assault and related counts, authorities said.

Police said Chester, who is married, had sent a boy three pictures of herself, two of them naked, by cell phone on Dec. 22, and the boy replied with a naked picture of himself.

Why on earth couldn't we have had some of these teachers when we were 14? I'm insanely jealous. By the way, would a photo of a 14 year old boy be exciting to anyone? Can't recall I was any great catch at that age for a 26 year old although I did sleep on the back seat of a long distance bus with two 19 year olds when I was 14. Couldn't hear anything but their thighs were warm.

And anyway, what with Debra et al, there must be something in it for the young woman of today.

[martin scriblerus] first trickles become a babbling brook

The second logo is up and many thanks to Richard Madeley. Keep those logos coming in, people.

jameshigham@mail.com

This one [left] has much to commend it in the light of the comments section here. So the 'kick ass' notion has some merit after all. And as for the donkey motif, what a wonderful historicity - we could look at "lions led by donkeys" from WW1 or the self-deprecating [no, it's not a typo - there's no F in there] Rats of Tobruk.

Mind boggles.

By the way, Sackerson had a suggestion too. Might have known it would be on a gold site. Sackers is a bit obsessed by gold, methinks. :)