But I know what I like and I like this.
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Christ On The Cross
c.1640 Diego Velázquez
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Friday, 30 July 2010
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Life Imitates Art ……….(part 94)
Fire Closes Warburtons Bread Factory In Bolton
A major fire has stopped production at the Warburtons bread factory in Greater Manchester.
One can only see it as some sort of payback for this travesty.
As I wrote at the time. Samuel Barber did nothing to you.
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Bus stop, wet day, she's there I say
Good Lord, Thursday already and no post since Monday, I’m really falling behind on my post a day thing, sorry.
However it is the ‘silly season’ and even the MSM are struggling to fill pages.
But this particular story caught my eye (and my sense of humour)
Fake bus stop keeps Alzheimer's patients from wandering off
German nursing homes are using a novel strategy to stop Alzheimer's patients from wandering off: phantom bus stops.
Now before you say, “Pavlov’s Cat you sick f**ker, how can you find anything amusing in that”
Let me tell you that my Grandfather recently spent the last of his days in one of these places (in the UK) and this was after we’d tried to keep him at home far longer than others do.
All I have to say is that, if you didn’t laugh, you’d just cry yourself out.
Having lived there for a time the Germans are obsessed with ‘Civil Liberties’ and who can blame them, yet having to walk past Frankfurt Station with the Police watching addicts ‘cook up’ heroin on the pavement, they may have taken it too far.
But I digress.
And so even people with advanced dementia can not be constrained by any means there. Yet in the home my Grandad was in, you needed a PIN number to get out and were told to shield it (like cash machine) when you left and it was changed regularly.
An bit of an aside; When Grandad was first admitted, it was all new, I turned up to visit one day, got buzzed in. and was met by a smartly dressed lady of later years, but not elderly, who said to me.
“Hello, could you let me out, I’ve forgotten the code for the door and could you tell me if the bus to Bromley leaves from the stop outside”
I was just about to let the lady out, but using my keen deductive skills (on a par with Sherlock Holmes) I noticed that she was carrying 3 handbags in her left hand and two in her right. ‘Aha I thought this is either a brazen handbag thief or a resident’. “I’m sorry” I told her, “I’ve forgotten it myself, you’ll have to go to the office”. I said ‘Hello’ later and she’d forgotten all about me.
I digressed again heaven help me.
What I liked about the article was was the juxtaposition of the views, the head of the care home and the far more realistic views of the Old Farts (Lions) Club.
On the one hand we have
Benrath's director Richard Neureither.
“It can be particularly dangerous if this happens in winter and they spend the night out in the cold.
Without powers to detain patients, “We cannot and must not run after people and lock them up,”
So if they freeze to death, get run over, murdered etc. NOT MY FAULT
And yet a far more pragmatic view from the Old Guard
Our members are 84 years-old on average. Their short-term memory hardly works at all, but the long-term memory is still active. They know the green and yellow bus sign and remember that waiting there means they will go home.” The result is that errant patients now wait for their trip home at the bus stop, before quickly forgetting why they were there in the first place.
I know who I want looking after me when I eventfully go mad as fish and it’s not someone like Herr Neureither
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Monday, 26 July 2010
Monday Morning Quiz
Being as I’m still totally stuck for something to write about and I was cataloguing some old photo’s. I thought I’d do a quiz to get your brain cells firing for a Monday.
Answers when I get home from work.
Question 1. What is this?
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Question 2. Where is it?
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Question 3. What’s the connection with this?
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Question 4. (The tough one)
What significance does this window (from the same place) have for every photograph ever taken?
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Best of luck, have a good Monday my friends.
UPDATE : Answers in the comments section
Friday, 23 July 2010
YONA’s Of The Day
Daily Mail 9th September 2009
But wait, until we found out none of the attackers were actually white,
(I’m just guessing mind, but then they wouldn’t be YONA’s would they)
Then it becomes.
Daily Mail 23rd July 2010
Happy slapping schoolboys 'killed Muslim pensioner, 67, in front of his grand-daughter for fun'
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Thursday, 22 July 2010
Meerkats!, I Got Nothing But Meerkats!
No really, I got nothing but Meerkats.
No ideas, no outrage (that hasn’t been covered earlier and better by the folks on the Blog Roll ==>).
Maybe it’s the heat (yeah, yeah Pseudo, all of 28C, I know that’s a winter chill down under)
Maybe it’s the lack of sleep (see above)
Maybe it’s the fact that I recently did my stats and I’ve done the same presentation over 80 times now, (finding it hard to keep it ‘fresh’).
There’s a bit of the ‘Black Dog’ involved again I’m sure.
Anyway
“Meerkats, Get your Luverly Meerkats”
There is No Mirror
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Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Been An 80’s Sort Of Evening
Been adding an 80’s playlist to the iPod for a bit of reminiscing and a bit of harking back to simpler times (for me) if I’m honest.
Some are below, (You’ll need Spotify to play the links)
Dream Academy – Life In A Northern Town
Echo & The Bunnymen – The Killing Moon
However one particular 80’s track which I loved at the time has consistently eluded me down the years.
I’ve no idea what happened to my vinyl copy, I think it was stolen at one of Andy’s house parties (That’s a party in a house for the younger readers, so called ‘House’ music had not been invented yet).
I’ve searched the various compilation / Best of’ etc. CD’s when they're released with no luck, nobody’s Bit Torrented it either.
So I’m still lacking an mp3 version
But I was delighted to find someone has actually put a decent quality video up on YouTube.
Love the ‘slam door’ train, and the British Rail cap.
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Monday, 19 July 2010
Something Else For The Shopping List
Everything tastes better with bacon.
I must see if I can remember my battered spam fritter recipe.
Another lazy post I know, my get up and go, has got up and gone.
I know it’s just one of my down times, the corner will be turned again, by and by, but frustrating none the less.
In the meantime, be excellent to each other*
*Yes I did watch ‘Bill and Ted’’ again yesterday
Friday, 16 July 2010
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Alas No Otters*
Sorry the blogging fatigue continues, much kudos to those who keep posting day after day (see column right ==>) .
So here is picture of a pigeon with an elaborate ‘do’ to look at.
I still can’t work out if the expression is ‘embarrassed’ in a “It’s not what I asked the barber for, just leave it” or ‘fuck you, man. I do my own thing deal with it.’
I think we need few in Trafalgar Square to liven up the place, someone tell Boris
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* I lied there are more pictures of otter ‘snugglin’ but I’m saving them (and the meerkat pictures)
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Adobe Photoshop*
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That’s all for today. Might be more otters tomorrow.
*Pic stolen from somewhere, can’t remember where
Monday, 12 July 2010
Doors
Hello, I hope you are well.
Sorry about the lack of posting over the weekend, a general feeling of ennui and lassitude having over taken me sometime on Friday.
I couldn’t even be bothered to respond to the comments on Fridays picture, very much a ‘meh’ weekend.
Still I’ve got the feeling I need to open a ‘metaphorical’ door at some point soon, don’t know what for, or for why.
I just know something has to be done to keep me moving forward or stagnation is going to set in.
However, this time I’d like the door to be opened by me, not by others via, for example, redundancy or soon to be ex-partners etc.
Have a good one, laters
Friday, 9 July 2010
I May Not Know Much About Art……..(1)
But I know what I like and I like this.
As aforementioned, here is the first in the Friday series of favourite paintings.
They will be posted because I like them, not because ‘experts’ say I should like them, art is a very personal thing, so my choices may be very different from yours. F’instance Jackson Pollack will not be appearing and maybe not Picasso either, however Mondrian could get a viewing.
That being said, it would be a very boring world if we all liked the same things.
So to start of with ‘A View Of Toledo’ by El Greco painted around 1596-1600
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Thursday, 8 July 2010
Those Who Find Themselves Ridiculous….
So there I was setting up the ‘smallish’ conference room for my afternoon sessions, feeling good, nobody around, doors closed, so started singing to myself.
Now I like to sing, unfortunately I am well aware that I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket and my voice whilst booming is not melodic, so tend to do it in private.
So there I am singing to myself , putting out the papers and leaflets etc.
I look up and there standing in the doorway are my Boss and 2 other senior managers who were having a meeting in an adjacent room that also shares a door with the meeting room.
And you know what? they were smiling and said it’s a pleasure to see someone happy in this place.
Nice
So what was it? I hear you ask, well I’ve few songs on the iPod, that I play just before I go through the doors, that help set the mood for the day and normally hum / sing through out the day. It may be something by The Clash, Green Day, Nickelback or Sarah Mclachlan it changes depending on my ‘wakeup’ mood.
What was yesterdays?
Well the one below, I don’t know why, but to me it’s feel good song and I tend to ‘go in’ on this one more than any other.
Enjoy and have a good Thursday
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Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
The Huts
‘The Huts’
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Over at Unenlightened Commentary. Ross opines.
I have to say that judging from my own experience at school the importance of shiny new facilities is vastly overrated. Some of the best schools had primitive labs that predated the discovery of electricity and so many mobile units that they resembled a former POW camp or a Butlins. Whereas having modern buildings was no guarantee of actually being any good.
I have to agree with him.
The building above is at my old Junior School, known as ‘The Huts’ It was a temporary measure built not long after the war to cope with the need for expansion after the post war baby boom.
When I attended in 1972-76 they were still there, still temporary, still plans for a permanent replacement.
Here they are in 2010 still going, although they’ve been tarted up a bit, new roof & double glazing.
Back in my day (cue 4 Yorkshiremen sketch) The roof was asbestos sheeting and not lagged (neither were the walls, which I think were also some kind of sheeting)
When it rained we all had our own buckets to place to catch the leaks and we drilled in it, rain started, teacher said ‘Buckets?’ everyone rose, got their bucket placed it under their nominated leak, sat back down and returned to work, all with the minimum of fuss.
The heating was ‘jerry’ rigged from the main building, even so it was considered too cold for the little ones, so only years 3 and 4 were taught in The Hut’s. I well remember spending whole days sat in my winter coat as it was too cold to take it off.
And yet it didn’t stop me getting a scholarship to a public school, or judging by Friends Reunited, the rest of my year having good careers /jobs.
It was inspired teaching by people like Mrs Muirhead, Mr Bell, Mrs Spooncer etc. Trained before the 60’s hippy dippy crap came along, they taught the 3 R’s properly, self reliance and a thirst for knowledge.
For sure not everyone was equal and not everyone did win prizes, but everyone was taught on a level appropriate to them.
You can have the best razzle-dazzle ‘Phillipe Starck designed’ school in the world, but if the teaching is shit, so are the results.
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Monday, 5 July 2010
If I Ever Get ‘The Cancer’
I sincerely hope it’s this bloke that diagnoses me
But reading the article, it doesn’t seem to be his medical skills in question, merely his odds making.
"There was a 50 per cent chance that he would die in three months, but there was also a 50 per cent chance that he would live longer."
I’m sorry but if it’s a medically 50/50 chance for a so called ‘terminal’ patient to make 3 months, I would expect the odds to worsen as time went on, but actually according to Doctor Sikora, the odds actually get better.
“There was always a chance he could live for 10 years, 20 years ... But it's very unusual.
But, hey, what do I know I’m not a medic and it’s an inexact science (and I know full well. I went to school with several people who are now doctors, who got 3 C’s at A Level who I wouldn’t trust to tie their own shoes and one who is now an consultant surgeon who back in the day had trouble with which day of the week it was)
Anyway mistakes happen, as I said medicine is not an exact science and apart from antibiotics, they are not far removed from barbers with leeches, except with better kit and anaesthetics.
Unless there was an ulterior motive.
Jack Straw, then Justice Secretary at Westminster, admitted last year that trade and oil agreements were an essential part of the British government’s decision to include Megrahi in a previously planned prisoner transfer agreement with Libya.
Oh Snap!
Bastards
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Saturday, 3 July 2010
Junior Stasi
Speeding drivers face grilling from primary schoolchildren
Motorists speeding outside a school were pulled over by the police and immediately put before a panel of schoolchildren to explain their actions.
Those breaking the 30mph limit had the choice of accepting a £60 fine and three points on their license, or face a grilling on road safety by the primary schoolchildren.
Christ , I though we were trying to reign in the little fuckers sense of entitlement.
How long before the first little brat gets a backhander for telling an adult not to do something, be it speeding, smoking or drinking.
Not realising you need nice PC Plodd to back you up with his threat of imprisonment for the most trivial of ‘crimes’.
Fucking arseholes, that’s made me angry.
and I was comfortably chilling out for a Friday night, so apologies for the swearyness.
Still ‘Reign of Fire’ on in a minute, I shall endeavour to get my karma back (unless it’s run over my dogma, teehee)
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Friday, 2 July 2010
Poets Day (52) The Final?
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night – Dylan Thomas
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Well there you have it, 52 weeks, 52 poems, some good, some not so good, some “Why the hell did he post that?” All I can say is that, all ,in one way or another ‘speak’ to me on some level, it may just be a line, but that’s the way I roll.
I hope you enjoyed, and there have been some lovely comments.
What to do next? I’m not sure, it may I think be too hard to carry on with the poems and the quality might suffer. I’ve got an idea about 4 more that I’d like to post and I notice The Bard of Avon is conspicuous by his absence (How did that happen?) But another 52 I’m not sure.
I’m pondering a ‘Picture of the Day’. and someone suggested song lyrics. (Sorry ‘eddle ‘The Listeners’ didn’t make the cut for week 52 but will if I carry on)
So, there you have it, you can see them all by clicking the ‘Poets Day’ tag. But here is the complete list individually linked. In descending published order (if not titled I’ve used the first line)
52. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night – Dylan Thomas
51. Remember – Christina Rossetti
50. Sea Fever – John Masefield
49.’ You Smile Upon your Friend Today…’ -- AE Housman
48. Walk Away - Frederick Cowie
47. Grin – Robert Service
46. My Inner Life – Robert Service
45. ‘As I Gird On For Fighting…’ - AE Housman
44. Fire and Ice – Robert Frost
43. ‘May Those Who Love Us…..’ – Trad. Irish
42. Saint George for merry England -- Gerald Moultrie
41. I Am The People, The Mob – Carl Sandburg
40. ‘Tis five years since. ‘An end’ said I….’ – AE Housman
39. Lord of the Dance (Hymn) – Sydney Carter
38. Sunrise On The Coast – Banjo Patterson
37. Ode on Solitude -- Alexander Pope
36. Being Late -- Yevgeny Yevtushenko
35. ‘The stars have not dealt me the worst ….’ – AE Housman
34. The Old Vicarage, Grantchester (excerpt) -- Rupert Brooke
33. Euro-Communist / Gucci Socialist – John Cooper Clarke
32. The World Is Too Much With Us – William Wordsworth
31. Drakes Drum – Sir Henry Newbolt
30. Ozymandias – Percy Bysshe Shelley
29. If I Could Tell You – W.H Auden
28. Casabianca - Felicia Hemans
27. The Tear – Lord Byron
26. ‘ May the road rise up to meet you…’ –Trad Irish Blessing
25. Invictus - William Ernest Henley
24. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening – Robert Frost
23. ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever…. ‘ – John Keats
22. ‘No man is an island….’ – John Donne
21. The Mad Gardeners Song – Lewis Carroll
20. ‘She walks in beauty, like the night…’ – Lord Byron
19. The Horses – Ted Hughes
18. The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost
17.’ The leaves of autumn, …’ (Haiku) -- H. Lynnea Johnson
16. Evening Hawk – Robert Penn Warren
15. Horatius. (excerpt) -- Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay
14. The Optimists Creed – Christian Larson
13. ‘Listen to the exhortation of the dawn…’ – Kalidasa
12. Carpe Diem -- Robert Frost
11. Desiderata - Max Ehrmann
10. The Second Coming - W.B. Yeats
09. O Captain! My Captain! - Walt Whitman
08. And Death Shall Have No Dominion -- Dylan Thomas
07. ‘On the road that I have taken…..’ – The Book of Counted Sorrows
06. Not Waving But Drowning -- Stevie Smith
05. The Tiger -- William Blake
04. He wishes for the clothes of Heaven -- William Butler Yeats.
03. If – Rudyard Kipling
02. This Be The Verse -- Phillip Larkin
01. Epitaph On An Army Of Mercenaries -- AE. Housman.
Goodness, I’m sure a psychiatrist would have a field day about what the list says about my psyche.
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