[late evening listening] perfect day

Do you have a few minutes for this excellent youtube or must you click through straight away?

Oh it's such a perfect day,
I'm glad I spent it with you.
Oh such a perfect day,
You just keep me hanging on.

Just a perfect day,
Problems all left alone,
Weekenders on our own.
It's such fun.

Just a perfect day,
You made me forget myself.
I thought I was someone else,
Someone good.









Wiki says:

The song's lyrics are often considered to suggest simple, conventional romantic devotion, possibly alluding to Reed’s relationship with Bettye Kronstadt (soon to become his first wife) and Reed’s own conflicts with his sexuality, drug use and ego.

However, on a deeper reading of the song's lyrics, amongst the idealised description of a "perfect day", interposed lines such as "You just keep me hanging on", and "I thought I was someone else, someone good" suggest a far deeper yearning than just the superficial romantic clichés, and allude to the underlying and painful bitterness of nostalgia often felt even as an event is lived - an event one knows or fears to be a mere distraction or illusion. The repeated last line 'You`re going to reap just what you sow' is very similar to Galatians 6:7.

Some commentators have further seen the lyrics as displaying Reed's romanticised attitude towards a period of his own addiction to heroin. Critics of this view assert that Reed never tried to conceal his drug use, so the song does not have concealed meanings of this nature.

Blind to the glaring obvious

This is a follow up post, by the Jailhouse Lawyer, to the other post which stirred up the hornet's nest over the Lockerbie issue.

Sometimes people miss the glaring obvious as pointed out here. The same photo and footage was all over the world, but it was not mentioned by anyone until my eye for detail drew attention to it. For that I thank my Asperger's Syndrome. It is said that those who suffer from it can say inappropriate things at the wrong time.

Google Next time...Relax before you fly, and the two top Google rankings both feature the post on Nourishing Obscurity. That is an achievement in itself. Below the links to Nourishing Obscurity are links to Metro, Time Magazine, The Herald, and various blogs all pointing out secondhand and not one has the decency to state where the thought first originated.

I am not claiming that others will not have seen it and thought about it, but you heard it first here in published form which had the effect of alerting others to its exsistence.

People can get blinded by emotions. They are angry at the figure walking up the plane steps so do not see the banner. In prison I would watch those watching the football match being played not the game itself which they were absorbed in. It is like the US Secret Service bodyguarding the President, they watch the watchers.

Here it was a PR exercise, where image is important. It was inappropriate to use those steps with that banner. It might be said that it was inappropriate for me to have pointed it out. But, had I been there and in charge of the PR exercise I would have pointed out that the banner had to go.

Now, with all the fuss about the release and celebrations going on the media have another thing to focus upon the banner message and the irony.

[islam] a reply has been received

In praise of Shariah Law

Iftikhar Ahmad, of the London School of Islamics Trust:

www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

... has replied to my post on islam and as any discussion of the matter should not be fragmented, there will be no comments here on this post but the thread is still open on the other post [click red link].

I would welcome all comments on this matter but please try to keep the terminology civil.

[chez james] mcmuffin surprise

Sorry about the hazy photo this time

What do you do when the extra Egg Sausage McMuffin you bought and couldn't eat has been sitting in your bag all day?

Well, the first thing to realize is that McDonalds food never goes off. So it can be used again. :) The only question is what to put with it? That is answered quite easily if you failed to put the raw strip carrots away and they've started curling and when the florets of broccoli need eating today.

Having also inherited homegrown tomatoes today, then slices of marties can be combined with the McMuffin. Split the McMuffin in two and place meat and egg on the oven tray, preheated. Later, the bun halves can be put in.

Steam the torn florets and chopped carrot with pepper and honey, take out, add parmesan - don't puke, there's a reason. As you've combined sweet and savoury with the tomatoes in the McMuffin, you need to have the same sweet/savoury motif in the veges too.

Gathering up the courage, the eating of the meal was attempted and you know - it wasn't too bad at all. :)

[which configuration] part one – the hulls

The most annoying thing about the configuration of a sailing boat is that it’s all a compromise. There is no one configuration which is favourable for ocean-going.



The monohull has a lot going for it – it’s “boaty” to look at, it feels solid onboard and the biggest plus of all – when it turns turtle [flips upside down], it comes back up again. Given the rogue wave at sea, that is a major plus.

Against that, the thing is as slow as a tub unless you have zillions of pounds to spend on a state-of-the-art-speedster and massive crew numbers. You can’t outrun the weather and the keel does fall off more often than one would like, resulting in the monohull finding its rest position is the ocean floor. When sailing it, you’re always on an angle.



The catamaran is flat, its accommodation is palatial in larger versions [not this one], it goes like the powers and therefore is hugely popular with off-shorers. It is the fastest production boat and is just plain pleasant to sail.

Against that, there is no forgiveness. Narrow hulls can dig into waves and over you go, stern over bow. Similarly, one gust, along with a rogue wave and you’re tipped over sideways, to go upside down with no way back. Catamaran primary lateral stability is very good but secondary stability doesn’t exist. This doesn’t necessarily mean death – it means you just sit there at sea, crawl inside and exist on your rations until some help comes.



Trimarans are the best compromise. Looking more like a boat, their accommodation is the worst of the three but their primary stability and secondary stability is second to none. If a gust and wave knocks you sideways, the float buries and soaks up the energy. It’s a great way for husband/wife teams or small families to sail. Not only that but these boats are manoeuverable.

The down side is that with the extra float or hull, the weight is more [not to mention the expense] and thus more sail area is carried to keep the speed up and therefore the mast is higher and therefore the fore and aft stability is drastically reduced, so stern over bow is quite a possibility if you dig into a wave.

There's a reason why a good pic of a modern voyaging outrigger can't be found - just these "off the beach" Polynesian variants - and that's because none exist in ocean-going form. This is because the natives are not interested in developing them for long distances when they have the double-canoe [below]. The west is simply not interested either. And yet, if the outrigger design problems are addressed, they're a great variant.

The best straight line speed is with one hull and outrigger, either in proa configuration or able to change direction into the wind [tacking]. Accommodation is poor unless you make the boat very long, which does increase the speed potential and is desirable.

The down side is that, laterally, they’re wildly unstable to sail unless you have an outrigger of exactly the right weight and configuration, which brings you back to the catamaran situation again, only without either the initial stability or the secondary stability. It’s cheaper to build but not by a lot.

One nice advantage is that it acts like a catamaran but if it goes over, the ama [or float] can be detached and the boat brought upright again. Its very narrowness helps in this. It also has the nicest motion through the water, is fast and won't "trip over itself". This would be the boat to have in a storm, with the least area exposed to the elements coming from the bow or stern.



Voyaging Canoe

These are the leviathans the Polynesians hit on for their long distance work. Simply put, the outrigger canoe cannot take the stores or people which a voyaging canoe can and as settlement in other places was a prime motivation or else trade, then the VC was the craft of choice.

However, this brings us back to the catamaran configuration again.

So, once more, it’s all a compromise. The trimaran you see in the youtube above is an attempt to be a catamaran with a pod down the centre and it sacrifices most of the advantages of a tri, in favour of straight line speed.

You have to smile when monohull sailors try to tell you that their boats do not heel [lean over] and that they are comfortable to sail. Look at this video and see what I mean - under motor, they're flat but once the sail is up, over they go on a lean. And the camera tricks they used here to make them appear fast, power boat zooming past and so on are very funny.

My designs are now all outriggers, with the ama containing the ship's heavier stores, the ama having near neutral buoyancy. I tend to make the hull narrower and longer, in separate compartments, which takes some getting used to, accommodation wise but against that is the greatly increased safety at sea.

As you’ll see from the youtube below, even a little amateur boat can be very quick and more importantly, a lot of fun and a joy to sail. After all, that’s what it’s all about:

[housekeeping] moderation was on overnight

There are some issues which have arisen and these necessitated me putting moderation on last night.

Long time regular readers know the issue back to front of a certain person and his female trolls. I don't propose to go into that all over again, ad nauseam, as the delete button takes care of the matter. It's a measure of the sadness of certain people that they can't expunge their own guilt, except by continuing vendettas, even when the victim is willing to let it go but there it is - there are some very unhappy people out there who insist on dragging others down with them, occasioning collateral damage along the way - they don't give a damn who else is hurt in their revenge seeking.

I also made it quite clear to one of the victims of these people that as long as she bothered with them, taking notice of them, giving them airspace, she was playing their game and following their agenda. Much better to just get on with life and front up to the real enemies in society, such as those which this blogs attacks.

The three purposes of this blog are:

1. To present a magazine style range of topics which readers might find interesting;

2. To continue to attack humbug and untruth [as many blogs also do];

3. From that, to allow my world view to become apparent without actually directly pushing it.

Nowhere in these aims, on this blog, nourishing obscurity, is there room for personal issues, except for blog friendships or a cause this blogger takes up. Any attempt to hijack the blog to deliver barely concealed attacks on other people, especially my readers, will be met with the delete button.

Any personal attacks on me will be met with total indifference. I don't give a rat's what anyone says about me [except something nice, of course] because I stand on my blog as to what I'm about. Reading through these posts gives a good picture of what this blogger is about.

Besides, it must be patently obvious that I actually have genuine enemies with the power of the state behind them and they're more than enough for me for the present - thank you very kindly for your concern.

I'll not put comments on this post because who, of my sane readers, is remotely interested in the issue?