Terry's Song

Well they built the Titanic to be one of a kind, but many ships have ruled the seas
They built the Eiffel Tower to stand alone, but they could build another if they please
Taj Mahal, the pyramids of Egypt, are unique I suppose
But when they built you, brother, they broke the mold

Now the world is filled with many wonders under the passing sun
And sometimes something comes along and you know it's for sure the only one
The Mona Lisa, the David, the Sistine Chapel, Jesus, Mary, and Joe
And when they built you, brother, they broke the mold
When they built you, brother, they turned dust into gold
When they built you, brother, they broke the mold

They say you can't take it with you, but I think that they're wrong
'Cause all I know is I woke up this morning, and something big was gone
Gone into that dark ether where you're still young and hard and cold
Just like when they built you, brother, they broke the mold

Now your death is upon us and we'll return your ashes to the earth
And I know you'll take comfort in knowing you've been roundly blessed and cursed
But love is a power greater than death, just like the songs and stories told
And when she built you, brother, she broke the mold

That attitude's a power stronger than death, alive and burning her stone cold
When they built you, brother....

I am apparently now signed up to play this at my brother's funeral if he predeceases me. The combination of alcohol and sentimentality is a powerful thing.

Dave Alvin

After an introduction by my visiting n'er-do-well brother, AWBI is now officially gets Dave Alvin.

Adjust your playlists accordingly. every night about this time.

Royal Diary

From Twitter:

On 6 Feb: Prince William - Vice Patron, the Welsh Rugby Union, will attend the England versus Wales rugby match at Twickenham Stadium, Twickenham, Middlesex.

On 6 Feb: Prince Harry - Vice Patron, Rugby Football Union, will attend the England versus Wales rugby match at Twickenham Stadium, Twickenham, Middlesex.

William for Wales and Harry for England then. Who knew?

On 6 Fed: Nicky B - Aspiring Patron of the Match, will likely lurk outside Twickenham Stadium in a fruitless attempt to boost a ticket before being moved on by the police, and retiring to watch the game in the pub with his equally long suffering brother.

Reification

You don't need to take drugs to hallucinate; improper language can fill your world with phantoms and spooks of many kinds.

I've been looking for a while for a word for the simple error of imagining that something exists just because there is a word or phrase for it; I'm pretty sure that almost every syndrome we're nagged about will turn out to be a chimera and bemuse generations to come.

Reification, the treatement of an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) as if it were a concrete, real event, or physical entity, is close, but I'm not entirely sure it is on the money.

Rocky of the Rovers

Crystal Palace defender-turned-striker Danny Butterfield still bemused after stunning six-minute hat-trick against Wolves in the FA Cup.

I was lucky enough to see it (on the TV in the pub as it happens). As a story of a persistent underdog winning through against the odds, it was like having Rocky played out in front of your eyes for real.

Embarrassing Bodies

Season 3 Episode 1 of 9
New series. The medical team returns with a new tour of the UK looking to help those reluctant to visit a doctor. Dr Pixie McKenna and Dr Dawn Harper take the mobile clinic to Cardiff, where they offer advice on flatulence and, with half of the Welsh population failing to visit the dentist regularly, they are also joined by Dr James Russell and his pop-up dental clinic. Also, Dr Christian Jessen advises a man with a tricky problem
Category General Education/Science/Factual Topics
Director Karen Richardson
Executive Producer Steph Harris
Producer Karen Richardson
Channel 4 9:00pm-10:00pm (1 hour ) Wed 3 Feb

Set your videos, "the old home town looks the same, as I step down from the train."

Is the Cardiff fart more or less offensive than the unflossed Cardiff gob? Discuss.

Northern Lion/ Social Line

Most of the Northern Line could be shut from 8.30pm on weekdays for more than a year to allow for engineering works, causing further disruption for passengers on one of the most congested lines on the London Underground.

The plans have put the last surviving contractor in the public private partnership to upgrade the tube network on track for another showdown with Boris Johnson. Tube Lines and the London mayor's transport authority, Transport for London, are wrangling over plans to introduce faster and more frequent services on the Northern Line. Sources close to the talks say Tube Lines wants to do the work from 11.30pm between Sunday and Thursday for 16 months, starting next month. According to TfL, this would mean closing the line north of Stockwell from 8.30pm onwards to get trains back to depots.

Bad news from The Grauniard. Am I to have no option other than taking to my bed with a mug of Horlicks and an improving work every day except Friday and Saturday into 2011?

A touch of Zen

When, one evening in 1976, Philip K. Dick invited Tim Powers to his Fullerton apartment, the Cal State student expected the kind of night he often passed with the science-fiction titan: a wide-ranging conversation, fueled by wine and beer, about religion, philosophy and Beethoven.

The night began the usual way. But it took a strange turn as Dick's wife, Tessa, and her brother began grabbing lamps and chairs. "She and her brother were carrying things out of the house," recalls Powers. "I said, 'Phil, they're taking stuff, is this OK?' "

" 'Powers, let me give you some advice, in case you should ever find yourself in this position,' Dick said. 'Never oversee or criticize what they take. It's not worth it. Just see what you've got left afterward, and go with that.'

"And then," Powers recalls, "her brother said, 'Could you guys lift your glasses? We want the table.' "

Dick was an old hand at marital dissolution.

Considerable elan, though there is a darker underside.

Pajamas

A Tesco store in Cardiff has banned customers from wearing pyjamas while shopping.

Mother-of-two Elaine Carmody, 24, was refused custom when the policy was introduced at the St Mellons store.

Ms Carmody says she can't see how tracksuit bottoms are that different from pyjamas. She spoke to Mark Hutchings.

It is a work of comedy genius.

Modesty Forbids

Social Media provides unprecedented support for Haiti.

The Disasters Emergency Committee’s leading role in fundraising for Haiti in the last two weeks has seen hits on its website jump by 25,000%, Facebook fans increase from 800 to over 15,000 and its twitter influence to be ranked in the top 0.10% of users.

Somebody must have been doing something right.

I see a darkness

Should we let the ICA die? enquires the Thunderer. Given:

“Live arts is now almost non-existent,” says one staff member, “apart from the gay bingo night and even that’s being phased out.

I say yes.

I haven't been there for donkey's years, though I remember catching the hard to find Where the Buffalo Roam in its cinema, and am sure I have an Art Stike badge purchased from its shop somewhere.

Goodness me I'm old.

traduttore, traditore

For the nine months that the task of translating that novel took me, I followed the Menard method. I tried to be Anthony Burgess. And, more important than that, I tried to act as if Burgess was born in Brazil and had decided to write A Clockwork Orange in Portuguese. Because that’s what it is in the end: every translation is in itself a piece of Alternate History. Every translated novel is the novel that it could have been if its original writer had been born in the country of the translator

Wow, I'd like to read that if someone could translate it back from Portuguese to English again. "This sarcasm - if I may call it such, is very unbecoming of you oh my brothers."

The Fifth Pillar of Wisdom

Imagine that you are an old lady from a poor household in a town in the outskirts of Chennai city, India. All you have wanted desperately for the last year and a half is to get a title in your name for the land you own, called patta. You need this land title to serve as a collateral for a bank loan you have been hoping to borrow to finance your granddaughter’s college education.
But there has been a problem: the Revenue Department official responsible for giving out the patta has been asking you to pay a little fee for this service. That’s right, a bribe. But you are poor (you are officially assessed to be below the poverty line) and you do not have the money he wants. And the most absurd part about the scenario you find yourself in is that this is a public service that should be rendered to you free of charge in the first place. What would you do? You might conclude, as you have done for the last 1-1/2 years, that there isn’t much you can do…but wait, you just heard about a local NGO by the name of 5th Pillar and it just happened to give you a powerful ally: a zero rupee note.

Genius, though there is a precedent:

Michael Corleone: Senator? You can have my answer now, if you like. My final offer is this: nothing. Not even the fee for the gaming license, which I would appreciate if you would put up personally.

Hello World

Hola, amigos. How's by you? I know it's been close on 38 horas since I rapped at ya.....
but I've been at helping out at DEC again.

£50 million raised now. I am humbled by the people I've met and what the folks on the ground are doing under trying circumstances.