Kit and caboodle

Amazon Echo owners in the UK can now use Alexa to control Fire TVs. I tried this last night downstairs and it worked pretty well. I may set a monitor up in the bedroom with my first generation Fire TV stick and hook that in to the bedside Echo dot.

Also my GT-5 guitar effects pedal has got a HEADPHONES Jack (Stereo Mini Type) output. I may dig up the old Beats Pill and run it though that for the time being.

Now you know two things I may do. Lucky old you.

The Beast from the East

Grauniard

Heavy snow and freezing conditions are expected along the east coast of the UK and south-east England, causing disruption on the roads, railways and in the air, as the “beast from the east” envelops the British Isles.

Meanwhile at Coraider central there is no water supply to the office and hence no heating from the building's boiler. Wake Up Boilers! Christmas has come later. (In-joke.)

New to Tooting

John and I walked up to Tooting on Saturday. I hadn't been there for a while; joint was jumpin'.

All Out!!

Old Ruts Colts went out against London Irish in the semi-final of the Cup yesterday, then Arsenal got blown away by Manchester City in the League Cup Final.

I have had better afternoons to be honest.

Like a GT5, like a GT5

I bought one of these at auction. Here manual. Thanks the Lord you don't live next door.

Oxfam: ‘Your Donation Will Help Us Protect Impoverished Girls From Our Employees’

OXFORD, ENGLAND

International nongovernmental organization Oxfam announced a new pledge campaign Thursday requesting help in their effort to protect impoverished girls from sexual predation at the hands of Oxfam employees. “Your donation can make a difference in the lives of girls in countries suffering from the effects of war, natural disasters, economic exploitation, or the unwanted sexual advances of our aid workers,” Oxfam executive director Winnie Byanyima said in a statement encouraging potential donors to sponsor a girl directly to ensure her continuing safety. “Our work in some of the world’s poorest, most harassed regions would not be possible without the generosity of people like you. Your donation can bring hope to girls suffering at the hands of our most debauched staff members.” Byanyima added that more than anything else, Oxfam was seeking committed, enthusiastic volunteers to help them combat further injustices.

Back in 2010 (Icons passim) I helped out, at the behest of the Royal Household with the Disaster Emergency Committee when it was working on the Haiti earthquake. I was really impressed with the people and the processes. Oxfam is a member of DEC and I am staggered by the revelations of what was going on.

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

I am off to see NT Live: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof at the Odeon tonight. A Streetcar Named Desire; same author, same director and same venue, was the first NT live presentation I ever went to in the movies back in 2014 (see Icons passim).



Running time 193 minutes: Crikey!

Get high, get lit, get drunk, get wavey, get wavey

Today I will mostly be listening to Wavey by CLiQ ft. Alika.

I realise it is unlikely and, frankly I don't think anyone is more surprised than I am. Tune popped up on the radio as I was driving home and earwormed its way into my life.

Hi Dad - I'm in Jail

Was (Not Was); accept no dubstitute. "What Up Dog?" is one of my favourite albums of all time.

The Glamorous Life IV

I am back from a day at the National Police Chiefs' Council.

The Glamorous Life III

I am back from Northamptonshire with an Adam Black Libra Guitar. More information perhaps than you needed but some people asked,

The Glamorous Life II

Hello, is that reception? Susan? Oh, hi. Can you make pornography come on my telly please? Oh, that’s very nice of you.

I have woken in the Mansfield Travelodge.  I am Alan Partridge.

The Glamorous Life

There is a new Co-op at the bottom of the road. It opened yesterday in what used to be GJ's. I bought an onion and some stock cubes there last night.

This afternoon I am going to Mansfield.

Dying by inches every night—

What a glamorous life!

Pulled on by winches to recite—

What a glamorous life!

The Fall of Man

Seven weeks into 2018, there have been eight shootings at US schools that have resulted in injury or death. Seventeen people have been confirmed dead in the latest shooting in Parkland, Florida, on Ash Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday is a Christian day for peace and the first day of Lent, which is six weeks of repentance before Easter. It derives its name from the placing of repentance ashes on the foreheads of participants to the dictum "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

had we but world enough and time

Today is Ash Wednesday and Valentines' Day.

If I had more leisure I would write a bitter-sweet reflective sonnet about an apparent but illusory in the world but not of the world contradistinction. Luckily for you I am too busy and have to crack on with work and earning a living.

Laters.

Man jailed for life after stabbing teen outside nightclub

A man who stabbed a teenager to death outside a nightclub has been handed life imprisonment.

Dickson Tangu was found guilty of the murder of Daniel Namanga after he fatally stabbed the teenager late at night.

Daniel was only 19 years old when he went to Afrikiko Bar on Old Kent Road on August 8 with friends for a night out.

Daniel Namanga (Rutlish and Old Ruts); see Icons passim.

And then of course we have Kishon's tragic fall from the promise of 2013 to the pit of 2018.

The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger

Ben is staying with me at the moment. Last night we watched YouTube videos about Honey Badgers.

The Chuck Norris of the animal kingdom. No bigger or faster animals ever give the honey badger crap. If they did, they wouldn't get the chance to regret it.

When the Tasmanian devil goes to sleep, he checks under his bed for the honey badger.

Don' tell me that wasn't a try

In my moral universe this was awarded and converted so Wales won 13-12.

Also, Ben and I have decided to go to one of the Autumn internationals in the Principality later this year, tickets and accommodation to be confirmed.

A guilty secret

I saw Sam and Shauna of the Hang Fire Southern Kitchen inside the stadium at the Wales Scotland international last weekend.

They were too far away for me to say hello, but even if they hadn't been I don't think I would have been brave enough to tell scratch-makers like them that canned smokey BBQ pulled pork has become a kitchen cupboard staple at Browne acres.

As long as you drain the gunk off, it ain't too bad at all (£1.80 from Sainsbury).

coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous

Another day, another batshit Quincy Jones interview; my cup runneth over.

Long may it continue. He set the bar high in a recent GQ effort but this rich run of form shows no sign of petering out.

Sublime and Ridiculous

Is this supposed to be funny, @tfl? Well this humourless feminist is genuinely appalled. Incredibly short-sighted & a waste of an opportunity for celebration. #Suffragette100 #everydaysexism #collierswoodstation pic.twitter.com/Mhz2BzQfyD

— Evelyn Clegg (@Evie_tweeting) February 7, 2018

Colliers Wood yesterday: "All human life is here, but the Holy Ghost seems to be somewhere else."

Aspirational

I had a ganglion cyst on the first knuckle of the middle finger of my left hand drained with a syringe at an outpatient appointment in hospital in Roehampton this morning.

Kiri

I found out last night that Paapa is featured in this, so I will try and catch up with it on http://www.channel4.com/programmes/kiri/on-demand/65215-001. 24 days left.

opioids (for pain) and benzodiazepines (for anxiety)

Neil and Caroline, who put us up over the weekend, having started their careers as pharmacists I mentioned on Saturday evening that it had emerged that Tom Petty (like Prince before him) had died of a Fentanyl overdose. This led me to recommending the book Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic to them, and to realising - when I attempted to say Oxycontin and Fentanyl - that I still read and recognise new words in my head as patterns of letters rather than sounds, so that I trip up the first time I try to utter them aloud.

Ben piped up with a reference to counterfeit Xanax bars pressed by gangs; something else to worry about.

Vice - How Xanax Became the British Teenager's Drug of Choice.

Wales 34-7 Scotland

Ben's first time in the Principality Stadium for Six Nations rugby and a satisfying win for Wales yesterday. Thanks to siblings John and Caroline for tickets and hospitality. We saw Liam Williams afterwards. He seems like a top-class, modest and self-effacing bloke.

How yesterday went

I was in analysis. I was suicidal. As a matter of fact, I would have killed myself, but I was in analysis with a strict Freudian and if you kill yourself they make you pay for the sessions you miss.

In years to come I will remember what I meant by this, but you won't have a clue.

In one era, out the other

Callum has made his Premier league debut for Chelsea now. They got beaten 3-0 and, frankly, his toilet brush haircut could be improved, but I still hug myself inside every time I think of his journey from Singlegate.

I imagine I will maintain radio silence now until the first time he starts a headline game, but I will still be following his career as closely as ever.

Shaking the Magic Money Trees

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09pl66b

During last year's general election, Theresa May argued there was "No magic money tree" to pay for the things some voters wanted. Although she was chided for being unsympathetic to various worthy spending claims, a more fundamental criticism could have been levelled at the Prime Minister: There is indeed a Magic Money Tree!! Since the financial crisis, no less than £435billion of new money has been created through the policy of "quantitative easing", equivalent to a fifth of Britain's annual GDP. In this programme, financial journalist Michael Robinson finds out what happened to this staggering sum of money, and evaluates its effect on the lives of us all.

With the help of expert testimony, Robinson explains how this controversial policy works, effectively creating money at the push of a button. But as he also finds out, the new funds are only indirectly injected into the wider economy, typically through big institutional investors lending to companies. Few of these transactions, it turns out, have involved the kind of 'real world' investment that might be expected to stimulate the productive economy and generate growth. Indeed, almost all of them have been within the financial sector itself, and many people argue that the returns on QE have been astonishingly small.

Moreover, the influx of cash has inflated the price of assets, and led to a relative widening of the gap between rich and poor, which now threatens to upset our economic and political order. Even QE's deliberate objective to lower interest rates has also served to make homes and shares more expensive, while those already holding such assets have seen the greatest benefit. Britain's own 'Magic Money Tree' might have saved the economy from meltdown almost a decade ago, but it seems its many side-effects might have been far less beneficial.

Kevin recommended this BBC Radio 4 show to me on the way to yoga this morning. It is a pity the BBC Alex skill is not up to playing it.