You know, the good folks of my adoptive county are so full of themselves sometimes…'Appen today is Yorkshire Day.
Scripting News: Richard Carter via email: "I think you should stop sitting on the fence and tell us which candidate Scripting News endorses."…
Today, Dave Winer's weblog; tomorrow, the world!
First John Peel and now this:
BBC: Kerry admits US election defeat
Democratic challenger John Kerry has admitted defeat in the US election, giving President George W Bush a second term in office.
Which just goes to show that you only need to fool some of the people some of the time.
Arse!
Conversation with my mum yesterday:
"Mum, why have you written the word Meadowlark on this piece of paper?"
"It's the name of that chap who used to be in that funny baseball team."
"Do you mean The Harlem Globetrotters?"
"That's right."
"They played basketball, not baseball."
"So they did!"
"So why have you written the name Meadowlark on this piece of paper?"
"Because I keep forgetting it. I've forgotten it twice this week."
The following poem appears in the latest edition of the London Review of Books. I've read it four times. If anyone has the barest inkling of a baldy clue what the hell this bloke's going on about, please leave an explanation in the comments.
More Feedback by John Ashbery
The passionate are immobilised.
The case-hardened undulate over walls
of the library, in more or less expressive poses.
The equinox again, not knowing
whether to put the car in reverse
or slam on the brakes at the entrance
to the little alley. Seasons belong
to others than us. Our work keeps us
up late nights; there is no more joy
or sorrow than in what work gives.
A little boy thought the raven on the bluff
was a winged instrument; there is so little
that gives and says it gives. Others
felt themselves ostracised by the moon.
The pure joy of daily living became impacted
with the blood of fate and battles.
There's no turning back the man says,
the one waiting to take tickets at the top
of the gangplank. Still, in the past
we could always wait a little. Indeed,
we are waiting now. That's what happens.
New Scientist: Weather hots up under wind farms
Wind farms can change the weather, according to a model of how these forests of giant turbines interact with the local atmosphere. And the idea is backed up by observations from real wind farms. Somnath Baidya Roy from Princeton University, and his colleagues modelled a hypothetical wind farm consisting of a 100 by 100 array of wind turbines, each 100 metres tall and set 1 kilometre apart. They placed the virtual farm in the Great Plains region of the US, an area suitable for large wind farms, and modelled the climate using data from Oklahoma.…At 3 am the average wind speed in Oklahoma is 3.5 metres per second, but it increased to around 5 m/s in the model wind farm. The model also suggested that the temperature would increase by around 2°C underneath the 10,000 turbines. Over the course of a day this averages out to an increase in ground-level wind speed of around 0.6 m/s and a rise in temperature of around 0.7°C.
Yes, that's right, so-called wind farms affect the climate. It's basic thermodynamics. You never get something for nothing. Entropy increases. Wind farms powerstations, like everything else, have an impact on the planet. And anyone who thinks wind powerstations are the answer hasn't understood the question.
It turns out Don Quixote wasn't so stupid after all.
BBC: Final send-off for John Peel
Everyone at the funeral of John Robert Parker Ravenscroft knew it was coming. John Peel - as he was known to millions - had often spoken of Teenage Kicks, by The Undertones, as being the song he wanted played at his funeral. As the opening bars resonated around the 500-year-old St Edmundsbury Cathedral, in Suffolk, it was an emotional end for the family, friends and admirers of the legendary DJ.
A fitting send-off.
For some years now, Jen and I have maintained a tongue-in-cheek list of songs we would like played at our funerals. These incluse:
- Come On Baby, Light My Fire (The Doors)
- Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (The Platters)
- Knock On Wood (Otis Redding)
- Living in a Box (Living in a Box)
- Going Underground (The Jam)
- Down Down (Status Quo)
- Great Balls of Fire (Jerry Lee Lewis)
- You and Me in Paradise (Phil Collins)—over my dead body!
- Good and Gone (The Screaming Blue Messiahs)
- Down in the Ground Where the Dead Men Go (The Pogues)
- Living in the Past (Jethro Tull)
- The Only Way is Up (Yazz)
- I'm On Fire (Bruce Springsteen)
- There She Goes (The La's)
…I could go on, but you get the general idea.
I wonder what song was played at the recently departed Howard Keel's private funeral this week. Oh What a Beautiful Mourning, perhaps?
The following conversation took place between my mum and me this Tuesday evening, while mum was dismantling a cauliflower for dinner:
R: Did you know that cauliflowers, cabbages, sprouts and broccoli are all members of the same species?
M: Yes, they're all related; they're all part of the same family.
R: No, they're more closely related than that: they're actually varieties of the same species. You know how every human being on the planet belongs to a single species? Well it's the same for cauliflowers and cabbages and stuff: they all belong to a single species.
M: I know—they're all vegetables!
Slipping on cow shit while walking down a cobbled farmyard in the pitch dark carrying an exercise bike, and landing flat on your back/arse in the aforementioned cow shit with the exercise bike on top of you.
(Don't ask.)
It took me 2¾ hours to get home this evening, driving through unusually early (for the time of year) blizzards.
The blizzards weren't mentioned on the national TV news.
It would appear they didn't reach as far as London.
It looks as if Mr Springsteen was right—baby, we were born to run:
BBC: Running 'key to human evolution'
Long-distance running may have been a driving force behind evolution of the modern human body, scientists say. American researchers said humans began endurance running about 2 million years ago to help hunt for prey, influencing the development of the human body. Previous studies have suggested running was purely a by-product of walking. But the study, published in Nature, said humans evolved big buttocks, a balanced head and longer legs to help gather food.
I'm devastated. This completely destroys my theory that our buttocks evolved as musical instruments.
The mind utterly, utterly boggles:
New Scientist: Superman too super a role model
Superman is too good a role model. Fans of the man from Krypton unwittingly compare themselves to the superhero, and realise they do not measure up. And as a result, they are less likely to help other people.
Presumably, they're also less likely to attempt to fly.
No, I haven't the faintest idea what it means either. From what I can gather, it's Iranian. But, if you scroll down to the end of the article, you will see:
This internet thing is totally bonkers.
As usual, I listened to a number of CDs today.
As unusual, in a fit of unforgivable nostalgia, I am, as I type, listening to a classic album on vinyl (remember that?).
Just for the record (pun intended), after all these years, vinyl still knocks CD into a cocked hat. If you're after warm and mellow—as everyone should be—digital simply doesn't cut it.
Vinyl is groovy.
Carolyn sent me a text message last night, informing me that Mr Gibson had died.
Mr Gibson was the elderly Scottish gentleman who lived next door to Carolyn when she and I were growing up in Alistair Drive. I didn't know him very well, but he always stopped to shout 'Hello!' when he was out walking his dog. Mr Gibson was very hard of hearing.
After we went off to our respective universities, Carolyn and I didn't see each other for a couple of years. We re-established contact at a surprise 80th birthday party that our parents threw for Mr Gibson. It was at this party that I learnt that Mr Gibson had been a prisoner of war, and had worked on the Burma Railway. He never forgave the Japanese, and mildly chastised me when I bought my second car: a Nissan.
It wasn't until three years ago that I learnt from Carolyn that Mr Gibson's name was Alistair. She just matter-of-factly slipped it into the conversation one day. Apparently, she and Mr Gibson were now on first name terms. It didn't seem right, her referring to Mr Gibson as 'Alistair'. When I told my parents, they were surprised I hadn't known his name all along, because, in a way, our road had been named after him:
In 1963, my parents, and Carolyn's parents, and Mr Gibson all put down deposits on houses that were being built in a new road that was to be named 'Alastair Drive'. But Mr Gibson took great exception to this, and went to complain to the local planning department. He explained that 'Alastair' was a damn stupid way to spell the name 'Alistair', and demanded they change it. So they did.
Mr Gibson might have lived a loud and unassuming life, but I guess he's the only person I'm ever likely to meet who lived in a road named in his honour.
Now I don't claim to know much about art, but I know what's shite.
Jen and I visited the Tate Modern in London with Ann and Bill yesterday. Much of the stuff on display was, as you might expect, total rubbish. Between you and me, we kind of suspected that the artists in question were taking the piss. But, every now and again, we'd spot a genuine masterpiece across the room and go over for a closer look. Almost invariably, the piece in question turned out to be by some bloke named Picasso.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not a total philistine when it comes to modern art. In fact, I quite like some of it: I often pop into the Liverpool Tate during my lunch breaks, and Jen and I have Mondrian, Pollock, and Hockney prints (and four original Pickles) on our walls at home. But having an open mind when it comes to modern art doesn't mean you shouldn't dismiss bullshit as bullshit when you see it.
Anyhow, be that as it may, yesterday I came up with an idea for a new game, henceforth to be known as The Modern Art Gallery Game. It's very easy to play. All you need to do is go into a modern art gallery, find something that isn't actually an exhibit—a fire extinguisher, say, or a donation box—and stand looking admiringly at it, as if you think it's a genuine exhibit. It's even better if you can get somebody else to join in.
If anyone asks you what the hell you're doing, claim to be a performance artist, performing a piece entitled, But Is It Art?
They'll probably leave you alone after that.
