Here we go again…
BBC: Plans for paedophile lie tests
Convicted paedophiles could be forced to take lie detector tests to ensure they stay away from children, under plans by Home Secretary David Blunkett.
Jen came up with a great suggestion this morning: if lie-detectors are accurate [which they're not, by the way], then presumably Mr Blunkett would have no objection to their being used on politicians. It seems to me that, if nothing else, we could save an awful lot of money on public enquiries:
"Tell me, was that dossier sexed-up, Mr Blair?"
"Erm… No."
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
The judge said my sentence was squashed.
Go trampolining in a thunderstorm
(Don't ask—although you can probably work out who was to blame.)
BBC: Cartier-Bresson dies at 95
Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the 20th Century's most important photographers, has died just weeks short of his 96th birthday, it has been announced.
Cartier-Bresson was a real hero of mine. In my opinion, he was the greatest photographer of all time. His practice of trying to capture what he termed the decisive moment led to countless classic photographs. Here is my all-time favourite, entitled Cardinal Pacelli, Paris, 1938. It sums up in a single image everything that is wrong about organised religion. Cardinal Pacelli went on to become Pope Pius XII.
…I always thought a better title for this photograph would be Kiss My Ring.
BBC: Prozac 'found in drinking water'
Traces of the antidepressant Prozac can be found in the nation's drinking water, it has been revealed.
You might expect the Brits to be up in arms about this, but they're actually being remarkably relaxed about it.
Introduction: This afternoon, I sent another of my occasional arty-farty emails to my arty-farty friend, Stense. As what I had to say was totally profound, I thought I'd better share it with a wider audience right away:
S T E N S E !
The following poem was published in the latest edition of the London Review of Books. See what you think:
The Passing of the Passenger Pigeon
by Mark FordThis bird used to be the most numerous on earth
And to blot out the sun for hours over Wisconsin and Michigan
And to strip bare the great forests of cranberries, pine-nuts, and acorns.Whole trees toppled under the weight of roosting birds. In flight
They made a sound like Niagara Falls. Horses trembled,
And travellers made wild guesses at their numbers and meaning.The bird's sad demise is chronicled on many websites. Children
Visit these for homework, and learn how far and fast the passenger pigeon
Flew, and that its breast was red, and head and rump slate blue.As the opulent sun set, raccoon-hatted hunters would gather with pots
Of sulphur, and clubs and poles and ladders; in a trice they'd transform the dung-
Heaped forest floor into a two-foot carpet of smouldering pigeon.Being so common, they sold in the city for only a few pence a dozen.
Farmers fed them to their pigs. By the century's end they had all
But joined the Great Auk and Labrador Duck in blissful oblivion.The last known passenger pigeon was called Martha, after Martha
Washington. She died in Cincinnati Zoo on September 1st, 1914. Her stuffed
Remains were transported to the capital, and there displayed in the Smithsonian.
You know me, Stense, I don't claim to be any sort of expert when it comes to poetry. I'm capable of appreciating certain poems (Philip Larkin and Wilfred Owen and predictable stuff like that)—especially when they're read out loud by someone who knows what they're doing—but I don't make a habit of actually reading the stuff. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't know much about poetry, but I know what I like.
Which is why it might seem strange that I feel so passionately about the above poem:
IS THAT POEM A BAG OF SHITE, OR WHAT?
I just don't get it, Stense, I really don't. Is that poem actually a poem at all? I reckon Ford simply woke up one morning, made himself a cup of tea, and wondered, What should I write a poem about today? So he started leafing through some old books and came across an article about the fate of the passenger pigeon. I wouldn't mind betting he came across the same article that taught me everything I know about the fate of the passenger pigeon: an essay entitled Losing a Limpet, by my hero, the late Stephen Jay Gould, in his book Eight Little Piggies. If Ford didn't read Gould's essay, then he must certainly have come across the same passage quoted by Gould, in which the legendary ornithological artist, John Audubon, describes the hunting of colossal flocks of passenger pigeons (complete with sulphur pots for the boiling of said birds).
What I'm guessing Ford did next was fire up his computer, go to Google, and search for the words 'passenger pigeon' (which is how he knows the bird's sad demise is chronicled on many websites—17,300 websites at the last count). He then probably clicked the first Google hit (which, when I tried it just now, was the Chipper Woods Bird Observatory page on the passenger pigeon) and learnt (first three lines):
Passenger Pigeon
(Ectopistes migratorius)
Probably Once The Most Numerous Bird on Earth
Hey, there's my opening line! he doubtless thought. But I should probably drop the 'probably': it's a bit vague.
Do you see where I'm coming from, Stense? Do you see why I think this poem is a bag of shite? Because Ford has done his research, and boy does it show! What he's done (I think) is jotted down a few bullet points, listing the standard trivia that anyone who is even vaguely interested in the subject would want to know about passenger pigeons, like so:
- once the most numerous bird on earth (now extinct)
- blotted out sun (Wisconsin/Michigan)
- stripped whole forests of fruit, nuts and berries
- trees fell under their weight
- loud noise when they flocked—like a hard gale at sea (Audubon)
- plumage: red breast, blue head and rump
- hunted with poles/clubs from ladders
- so cheap, fed to pigs
- last one named Martha (after Martha Washington—who she?). Died, Cincinnati Zoo (1st Sept, 1914).
…then he's fleshed out his bullet points a bit, put in some funny line-breaks, made sure there weren't any rhymes (although he seems to have overlooked the flew/blue couplet) and voila! POETRY!
But hang on a second: assuming I have correctly reverse-engineered Ford's technique, kudos to him for having come up with a sure-fire method for churning out publishable poetry at the drop of a hat. Why, anyone could do it! All, one needs to do is call up a random entry on Wikipedia (Bolivia, say), and start summarising:
Bolivia
by Richard CarterLandlocked Bolivia, erstwhile home of the Incas,
Bordered by Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile and Peru,
Named after Simón Bolívar, who liberated it from Spain in 1825.But before the Spanish and the Incas came the Tiwanakan culture, which
Developed at the southern end of Lake Titicaca, the world's highest
Commercially navigable lake, located 3821m above sea level.During most of the Spanish colonial period, the territory was called Upper Peru
Or Charcas, and was under the authority of the Viceroy of Lima.
Bolivian silver mines produced much of the Spanish empire's wealth.After independence followed nearly 60 years of coups and short-lived constitutions.
Bolivia's weakness was demonstrated during the War of the Pacific (1879–1883),
When it lost its sea coast and the adjoining rich nitrate fields to Chile.In the Twentieth Century, the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement emerged.
Denied victory in the 1951 elections, it lead the successful 1952 revolution.
Under President Víctor Paz Estenssoro came many reforms and human right violations.An increasingly divisive conflict has been the Bolivian Gas War, a dispute over
The exploitation of Bolivia's large natural gas reserves in the south of the country.
Protesters forced the resignation of President Sánchez de Lozada in 2003.
Easy-peasy!
Keep it in 'em, me old pigeon's fate,
Ri xx
BBC: Anglo-Saxon 'princess' shows face
State-of-the-art forensic techniques have been used to reconstruct the face of an Anglo-Saxon woman who had similar status to a modern princess.
Spooky! She's the absolute spitting image of (pre-nose-reconstruction) Princess Di:
BBC: Monkeys test 'hardworking gene'
Scientists in the United States have found a way of turning lazy monkeys into workaholics using gene therapy.
Wouldn't it be a whole lot easier just to offer them some bananas?
Good morning, this is Kwik-Fit. Nigel speaking. How can I be of assistance?
…
No, madam, we don't sell DVD players; that would be Kwik Save.
…
No, madam, I'm afraid I don't have their number.
Botticelli?One of particular interest to Hitchin, methinks:
I've just discovered the Fall Multimedia Project, where you can download MP3s from last week's Fall Peel Session.
Note to self: Time to go broadband. I could be here all night.
This morning, I set myself the interesting challenge of coming up with a very bad pun involving the dream combination of chaos theory and agricultural machinery. I succeeded majestically:
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
I used to love tractors as a kid, but I don't any longer. Yes, you've guessed it: I'm an ex-tractor-fan!
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
I don't know where they come from, I really don't. It's a gift.
BBC: Classics deter bus station yobs
Mozart and Vivaldi have been brought in to tackle anti-social behaviour in a town in East Yorkshire. Residents near Snow Hill bus station in Beverley have complained about youths shouting abuse and urinating near their front doors. Now classical music is being piped into the bus station. The theory is that as youngsters hate the classics they will stay away from the area… A public address system with vandal-proof speakers has been installed in the bus station and along nearby Sylvester Lane. The music will fill the air between 1930 and 2330 each evening.
Apparently, shouting abuse and urinating are seen as anti-social behaviour, but playing music in the street over a public address system at half-past-eleven at night isn't.
BBC: Tories to review Human Rights Act
A commission to review in detail the Human Rights Act is to be set up by the Tories, shadow home secretary David Davis has announced. The 1998 Act has given rise to "too many spurious rights" and fuelled a compensation culture which is "out of all sense of proportion", he said.
I must admit, when I heard David Davis going on about 'spurious rights' on the radio this evening, I thought he was talking about the Tory Party. It turns out he was talking about taking away some of our human rights.
Sounds like a real vote-winner to me, but unfortunately David Blunkett is way ahead of him.
Me: Why, who's his dad?
Mum: I don't know… I'm thinking of someone else.
[Ten minutes later.]
Mum: Robert Morley!
Me: Robert Morley?
Mum: Yes, I was thinking of Robert Morley, and getting Ned Sherrin mixed up with Sheridan Morley.
Ann and Bill have just been for a visit. For reasons I needn't go into, we decided to place a convoluted £4 bet at the bookmaker's yesterday. The bet was to predict the first- and second-placed horses in one of the races at Goodwood. As I don't know the first thing about gambling (apart from the fact that one should never bet on horse number 4 in Hong Kong), Bill placed the bet for me.
"Hey, 3–40, they sound like pretty good odds!" I remarked, reading the receipt. "Doesn't that mean that for every £3 we bet, we get £40 back? Or does it mean that for every £40 we bet, we get £3 back?"
"Neither," replied Bill. "That's the time of the race."
