Parker Adderson, Philosopher

Good old Radio4: I heard a fine short story written by Ambrose Bierce and read by Stacey Keach yesterday as I was driving back from Basingstoke yesterday.


You can listen to it here for the next week (next week I think there'll be another story at the end of the link) or read it below.

---

"Prisoner, what is your name?"

"As I am to lose it at daylight tomorrow morning it is hardly worth while concealing it. Parker Adderson."

"Your rank?"

"A somewhat humble one; commissioned officers are too precious to be risked in the perilous business of a spy. I am a sergeant."

"Of what regiment?"

"You must excuse me; my answer might, for anything I know, give you an idea of whose forces are in your front. Such knowledge as that is what I came into your lines to obtain, not to impart."

"You are not without wit."

"If you have the patience to wait you will find me dull enough to-morrow."

"How do you know that you are to die to-morrow morning?"

"Among spies captured by night that is the custom. It is one of the nice observances of the profession."

The general so far laid aside the dignity appropriate to a Confederate officer of high rank and wide renown as to smile. But no one in his power and out of his favor would have drawn any happy augury from that outward and visible sign of approval. It was neither genial nor infectious; it did not communicate itself to the other persons exposed to it--the caught spy who had provoked it and the armed guard who had brought him into the tent and now stood a little apart, watching his prisoner in the yellow candle-light. It was no part of that warrior's duty to smile; he had been detailed for another purpose. The conversation was resumed; it was in character a trial for a captial offense.

"You admit, then, that you are a spy--that you came into my camp, disguised as you are in the uniform of a Confederate soldier, to obtain information secretly regarding the numbers and disposition of my troops."

"Regarding, particularly, their numbers. Their disposition I already knew. It is morose."

The general brightened again; the guard, with a severer sense of his responsibility, accentuated the austerity of his expression and stood a trifle more erect than before. Twirling his gray slouch hat round and round upon his forefinger, the spy took a leisurely survey of his surroundings. They were simple enough. The tent was a common "wall tent," about eight feet by ten in dimensions, lighted by a single tallow candle stuck into the haft of a bayonet, which was itself stuck into a pine table at which the general sat, now busily writing and apparently forgetful of his unwilling guest. An old rag carpet covered the earthen floor; an older leather trunk, a second chair and a roll of blankets were about all else that the tent contained; in General Clavering's command Confederate simplicity and penury of "pomp and circumstance" had attained their highest development. On a large nail driven into the tent pole at the entrance was suspended a sword-belt supporting a long sabre, a pistol in its holster and, absurdly enough, a bowie-knife. Of that most unmilitary weapon it was the general's habit to explain that it was a souvenir of the peaceful days when he was a civilian.

It was a stormy night. The rain cascaded upon the canvas in torrents, with the dull, drum-like sound familiar to dwellers in tents. As the whooping blasts charged upon it the frail structure shook and swayed and strained at its confining stakes and ropes.

The general finished writing, folded the half-sheet of paper and spoke to the soldier guarding Adderson: "Here, Tassman, take that to the adjutant- general; then return."

"And the prisoner, General?" said the soldier, saluting, with an inquiring glance in the direction of that unfortunate.

"Do as I said," replied the officer, curtly.

The soldier took the note and ducked himself out of the tent. General Clavering turned his handsome face toward the Federal spy, looked him in the eyes, not unkindly, and said: "It is a bad night, my man."

"For me, yes."

"Do you guess what I have written?"

"Something worth reading, I dare say. And--perhaps it is my vanity--I venture to suppose that I am mentioned in it."

"Yes; it is a memorandum for an order to be read to the troops at reveille concerning your execution. Also some notes for the guidance of the provostmarshal in arranging the details of that event."

"I hope, General, the spectacle will be intelligently arranged, for I shall attend it myself."

"Have you any arrangements of your own that you wish to make? Do you wish to see a chaplain, for example?"

"I could hardly secure a longer rest for myself by depriving him of some of his."

"Good God, man! do you mean to go to your death with nothing but jokes upon your lips? Do you know that this is a serious matter?"

"How can I know that? I have never been dead in all my life. I have heard that death is a serious matter, but never from any of those who have experienced it."

The general was silent for a moment; the man interested, perhaps amused him--a type not previously encountered.

"Death," he said, "is at least a loss--a loss of such happiness as we have, and of opportunities for more."

"A loss of which we shall never be conscious can be borne with composure and therefore expected without apprehension. You must have observed, General, that of all the dead men with whom it is your soldierly pleasure to strew your path none shows signs of regret."

"If the being dead is not a regrettable condition, yet the becoming so--the act of dying--appears to be distinctly disagreeable to one who has not lost the power to feel."

"Pain is disagreeable, no doubt. I never suffer it without more or less discomfort. But he who lives longest is most exposed to it. What you call dying is simply the last pain--there is really no such thing as dying. Suppose, for illustration, that I attempt to escape. You lift the revolver that you are courteously concealing in your lap, and--"

The general blushed like a girl, then laughed softly, disclosing his brilliant teeth, made a slight inclination of his handsome head and said nothing. The spy continued: "You fire, and I have in my stomach what I did not swallow. I fall, but am not dead. After a half-hour of agony I am dead. But at any given instant of that half-hour I was either alive or dead. There is no transition period.

"When I am hanged to-morrow morning it will be quite the same; while conscious I shall be living; when dead, unconscious. Nature appears to have ordered the matter quite in my interest--the way that I should have ordered it myself. It is so simple," he added with a smile, "that it seems hardly worth while to be hanged at all."

At the finish of his remarks there was a long silence. The general sat impassive, looking into the man's face, but apparently not attentive to what had been said. It was as if his eyes had mounted guard over the prisoner while his mind concerned itself with other matters. Presently he drew a long, deep breath, shuddered, as one awakened from a dreadful dream, and exclaimed almost inaudibly: "Death is horrible!"--this man of death.

"It was horrible to our savage ancestors," said the spy, gravely, "because they had not enough intelligence to dissociate the idea of consciousness from the idea of the physical forms in which it is manifested--as an even lower order of intelligence, that of the monkey, for example, may be unable to imagine a house without inhabitants, and seeing a ruined hut fancies a suffering occupant. To us it is horrible because we have inherited the tendency to think it so, accounting for the notion by wild and fanciful theories of another world--as names of places give rise to legends explaining them and reasonless conduct to philosophies in justification. You can hang me, General, but there your power of evil ends; you cannot condemn me to heaven."

The general appeared not to have heard; the spy's talk had merely turned his thoughts into an unfamiliar channel, but there they pursued their will independently to conclusions of their own. The storm had ceased, and something of the solemn spirit of the night had imparted itself to his reflections, giving them the sombre tinge of a supernatural dread. Perhaps there was an element of prescience in it. "I should not like to die," he said--"not tonight."

He was interrupted--if, indeed, he had intended to speak further--by the entrance of an officer of his staff, Captain Hasterlick, the provost-marshal. This recalled him to himself; the absent look passed away from his face.

"Captain," he said, acknowledging the officer's salute, "this man is a Yankee spy captured inside our lines with incriminating papers on him. He has confessed. How is the weather?"

"The storm is over, sir, and the moon shining."

"Good; take a file of men, conduct him at once to the parade ground, and shoot him."

A sharp cry broke from the spy's lips. He threw himself forward, thrust out his neck, expanded his eyes, clenched his hands.

"Good God!" he cried hoarsely, almost inarticulately; "you do not mean that! You forget--I am not to die until morning."

"I have said nothing of morning," replied the general, coldly; "that was an assumption of your own. You die now."

"But, General, I beg--I implore you to remember; I am to hang! It will take some time to erect the gallows--two hours--an hour. Spies are hanged; I have rights under military law. For Heaven's sake, General, consider how short--"

"Captain, observe my directions."

The officer drew his sword and fixing his eyes upon the prisoner pointed silently to the opening of the tent. The prisoner hesitated; the officer grasped him by the collar and pushed him gently forward. As he approached the tent pole the frantic man sprang to it and with cat-like agility seized the handle of the bowie-knife, plucked the weapon from the scabbard and thrusting the captain aside leaped upon the general with the fury of a madman, hurling him to the ground and falling headlong upon him as he lay. The table was overturned, the candle extinguished and they fought blindly in the darkness. The provost-marshal sprang to the assistance of his superior officer and was himself prostrated upon the struggling forms. Curses and inarticulate cries of rage and pain came from the welter of limbs and bodies; the tent came down upon them and beneath its hampering and enveloping folds the struggle went on. Private Tassman, returning from his errand and dimly conjecturing the situation, threw down his rifle and laying hold of the flouncing canvas at random vainly tried to drag it off the men under it; and the sentinel who paced up and down in front, not daring to leave his beat though the skies should fall, discharged his rifle. The report alarmed the camp; drums beat the long roll and bugles sounded the assembly, bringing swarms of half-clad men into the moonlight, dressing as they ran, and falling into line at the sharp commands of their officers. This was well; being in line the men were under control; they stood at arms while the general's staff and the men of his escort brought order out of confusion by lifting off the fallen tent and pulling apart the breathless and bleeding actors in that strange contention.

Breathless, indeed, was one: the captain was dead; the handle of the bowie-knife, protruding from his throat, was pressed back beneath his chin until the end had caught in the angle of the jaw and the hand that delivered the blow had been unable to remove the weapon. In the dead man's hand was his sword, clenched with a grip that defied the strength of the living. Its blade was streaked with red to the hilt.

Lifted to his feet, the general sank back to the earth with a moan and fainted. Besides his bruises he had two sword-thrusts--one through the thigh, the other through the shoulder.

The spy had suffered the least damage. Apart from a broken right arm, his wounds were such only as might have been incurred in an ordinary combat with nature's weapons. But he was dazed and seemed hardly to know what had occurred. He shrank away from those attending him, cowered upon the ground and uttered unintelligible remonstrances. His face, swollen by blows and stained with gouts of blood, nevertheless showed white beneath his disheveled hair--as white as that of a corpse.

"The man is not insane," said the surgeon, preparing bandages and replying to a question; "he is suffering from fright. Who and what is he?"

Private Tassman began to explain. It was the opportunity of his life; he omitted nothing that could in any way accentuate the importance of his own relation to the night's events. When he had finished his story and was ready to begin it again nobody gave him any attention.

The general had now recovered consciousness. He raised himself upon his elbow, looked about him, and, seeing the spy crouching by a camp-fire, guarded, said simply:

"Take that man to the parade ground and shoot him."

"The general's mind wanders," said an officer standing near.

"His mind does not wander," the adjutant-general said. "I have a memorandum from him about this business; he had given that same order to Hasterlick"--with a motion of the hand toward the dead provost-marshal--"and, by God! it shall be executed."

Ten minutes later Sergeant Parker Adderson, of the Federal army, philosopher and wit, kneeling in the moonlight and begging incoherently for his life, was shot to death by twenty men. As the volley rang out upon the keen air of the midnight, General Clavering, lying white and still in the red glow of the camp-fire, opened his big blue eyes, looked pleasantly upon those about him and said: "How silent it all is!"

The surgeon looked at the adjutant-general, gravely and significantly. The patient's eyes slowly closed, and thus he lay for a few moments; then, his face suffused with a smile of ineffable sweetness, he said, faintly: "I suppose this must be death," and so passed away.

The trial continues ...

According to the BBC yesterday:

A woman driving in Belfast city centre saw Robert McCartney being attacked and identified the killer, a court is told. Mr McCartney, 33, was beaten and stabbed to death outside a bar on 30 January 2005 in an incident which soon became prominent worldwide.

Sinn Fein has always denied IRA members took part in the killing but his sisters claimed the Provisionals were intimidating witnesses.

Look at the text I have emboldened above. I wrote a blog entry about this horror in 2005 that quotes the official IRA statement on the murder:

Of the four people directly involved in the attacks in Market Street, two were IRA Volunteers. The other two were not.

The IRA knows the identity of all these men.

Where does this cobblers about always denying IRA members' involvement come from?

How about this?

The family of Belfast murder victim Robert McCartney have rejected an IRA offer to shoot his killers.
......
The IRA said it had given the family the names of the man who stabbed Mr McCartney and a second man who supplied removed and destroyed the murder weapon.

Both these men have been expelled by the IRA.

Don't BBC reporters read their own files? Can anyone find me an example of Sinn Fein claiming IRA members weren't involved?

Journey through the Secret Life of Plants

From an interesting book review by Freeman Dyson:

.. it turns out that about 8 percent of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is absorbed by vegetation and returned to the atmosphere every year. This means that the average lifetime of a molecule of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, before it is captured by vegetation and afterward released, is about twelve years.

I'm amazed by this fact. I used to be a chemical engineer, so I could get out my calculator and start messing about with a mass balance, though a trivial daily blog post is not the place to do it.

But it really is intriguing, as it implies that the net contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere from human agency is mathematically trivial compared to the carbon volume of the respiration of plant life. The question I would like answered is how much net carbon does photosynthesis remove from the atmosphere each year.

Stray thoughts:

• Bio fuels must - by definition - be carbon neutral.
• All the carbon in fossil fuels was fixed from the atmosphere at some time or other so given a long, long perspective everything is carbon neutral.

I really need to read and think more about this.

The Boss

I saw Bruce Springsteen play the first ever show at Arsenal's Emirates on Friday night, and a fine show it was.

I'd meant to pack my hip flask so I could thumb my nose at Boris Johnson and his Tube booze ban on the way like these civil rights activists did yesterday. I didn't make it home to get changed and pick it up before I headed North however, as I was stuck in the office dealing with the fallout of SQL injection attacks. They are far more insidious and anti-social than a crafty snifter on public transport.

Whatever happened to the Bullingdon Club spirit, old man?

Degrees of Separation

Mixed Martial Arts is making its network debut on CBS this weekend in the States.

To celebrate this momentous event I present 3 degrees of separation between the New Ninja Bomber and MMA pin up Gina Carano, who will be appearing on the bill.

1. The New Ninja Bomber training with Woytek in 2006 (time flies).



2. Woytek winning his British Championship with Master A on the left and Jonnie Boon on the right.



3. Master A on the set of Muay Thai Ring Girls with Gina Carano et al.

4. Gina Carano - she does scrub up well.

Plug In, Turn On, Drop In the Ocean

A Google Earth Web Plug In for Windows Users. The implications are astounding. I think the world just turned on its axis. Install the plug-in and click and scroll above. You'll be able to move the world on its axis too! Double-click to zoom, or drag-and-drop to rotate.

Muay Thai v Godzilla

Funny as the animation above is, it seems even funnier in a world where I know that Dave - inspired by American Shaolin - has taken up Shotokan Karate. Is there no end to the aftershocks from my mid-life crisis?

The land of smiles is taking over Trafalgar Square on June 14th.

Ah Thailand; the best food, the best fighting and the best fornication in the world to paraphrase Matt Polly, the American Shaolin himself.

the largely unappreciated squid

I read "Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain" at around the same time as Sean's "The Ethics of Writing: Authorship and Legacy in Plato and Nietzsche", and I was struck, or more accurately amazed, by the overlap of some of the concerns of the former - a popular science book - and the latter - "which is aimed at advanced undergraduates, graduates and academics with interests in literature, literary theory, critical theory, literature and philosophy, philosophy (particularly Continental Philosophy) as well as in theology, cultural studies and political theory".

(Bear with me as I need to take a breath after that last sentence.)

The treatment of writing in Plato's dialogue The Phaedrus is central to both, but more surprisingly the science book suggests that modern advances in brain scanning make Eric Havelock's apparently esoteric thesis "that all of Western thought is informed by a profound shift in the kinds of ideas available to the human mind at the point that Greek philosophy converted from an oral to a literate form" potentially open to investigation via non-invasive medical techniques as the reading brain is demonstrably organised differently from the pre-literate version.

PRODNOSE (obnoxiously): Well I never!

MYSELF (coldly): See also Orality and Literacy by Father Walter Jackson Ong, the late American Jesuit priest, professor of English literature, cultural and religious historian, and philosopher. He will be sadly missed, unlike you.

Getting Sentimental

I took the Bomber to Wales over the long Bank Holiday weekend.

Yesterday he kept asking me when I was going to pack. I was a trifle bemused by this as I didn't think he wouldn't be anxious to leave.

When I finally relented and climbed the stairs, he scampered along after me to make sure he was there when I discovered that he'd filled the suitcase already.

Even though it meant that I've left two shirts behind, I was rather touched by this small incident, and now by recording it here (rather like this) I can ensure I won't forget it.

So there.

Good old Blogger Pages, "we don't just help with the nasty things in life, like a blocked drain— we're here for the nice things too!"

amanuensis

n. (pl. amanuenses ), employee who writes from dictation; secretary.

"Secretary" is rated R for strong sexuality, some nudity, depiction of behavioral disorders, and language.

So now you know, book clubs of Bradford on Avon.

An unjustly neglected gem

"What I'm really thinking about is my brand new pair of butterfly roller skates."

I rational

Hat tip, Kali.

The Return of the Jedi

I'm amazed to see that I haven't inaugurated a new Welsh Born Icon since John Hughes got the nod last October.

Let's address that deficiency at once.

Richard Marquand (22 September 1938 – 4 September 1987) is hereby elected to the pantheon; best known for directing the blockbuster Star Wars film Return of the Jedi, he was born in Llanishen, Cardiff.

The Grand Old Party

As I gaze across the Atlantic from my mountain fastness, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that McCain is going to win the Presidential election by a country mile.

The key has been Bush and McCain's masterly inactivity as Obama and Clinton ripped each other to shreds. Clinton lost the plot when she "misremembered" coming under sniper fire, and Obama - more subtly - made a major error of judgement in using his maternal grandmother as an example of institutional racism in his "A More Perfect Union" speech. That will come back to haunt him.

I've been guessing for a while that when - as seems likely -Barack gets the nod over Hilary, McCain will triangulate the race issue by picking Condi Rice as his running mate.

I'm not the only one ruminating along these lines. See the poll from The Times on the right. You can vote on it up until midnight tonight UK time.

The Pleasure Principle

I am still on an Edward James jag, hence René Magritte's The Pleasure Principle (Portrait of Edward James) - 1937. Oil on canvas. 79 x 63.5 cm - appears above.

Meanwhile:

Jon goes to give Janey the repaired watch, only to discover he has left it in his lab coat, which is inside the intrinsic field experiment test chamber. While Jon is inside the test chamber retrieving his coat the door closes, automatically locking as a safety feature. Unable to open the door or override the countdown, Osterman's colleagues - save for Janey, who cannot bear to see the last moment and flees the room - can only watch, horrified, as the countdown for the current experiment shortly reaches zero, and Jon has his 'intrinsic field' removed. Bathed in the radiant light, he is torn to pieces from the force of the generator, instantly vaporized and officially declared dead.

Mortimer

Sean's novel "Deadwater" has been published in France in translation.

That's just about the coolest thing I've ever heard.

Strictly I think Deadwater should be rendered as Mortimer, but you can't have everything:

The name almost certainly derives from "Mortemer", site of the Cistercian Abbaye de Mortemer between Les Andelys and Évreux in Normandy. The land was gifted to the Cistercians by Henry II in the 1180s. Finding the land to be marsh-land (in old french, dead water' or "Morte Mer"), the monks dug out a large drainage lake and built the Abbaye de Mortemer.

Fight Night

I attended Fight Night 8 in Woking last night. Quite a contrast - you would be right in thinking - from last Sunday's Hamlet.

I was supporting Woytek who unfortunately got beaten on a TKO when his opponent (from the Griphouse in Glasgow) caught him with a knee to the liver.

A random observation; when you see a slim white South African girl fighting in the ring with a Rasta trainer working her corner you may safely conclude that the world has changed beyond recognition over the last few decades and in some ways for the better.

Portsmouth 1 Cardiff 0

Lines on the FA Cup Final inspired by Frank Henessy

Yes I knows that we was good, but Pompey was more gooder
I takes it philosophically, I takes it like a buddha

This is not the time for us to do the Ayatollah
Come now boys, there has to be a better path to follah.

Bashin' our heads don't half hurt so we need somethin' calmer
Smile, relax think "we done well" and do the Dalai Lama.

Of No Conceivable Interest

I'm on the road.

Away from computers and connections.

I composed this yesterday (now as I write).

It is posted today (though written yesterday) courtesy of Blogger's new scheduled post facility.

Ditch water dull as it may be, that is all.

I apologize for wasting your time.

What goes around

Click on the image above. George W Crane had criteria for rating husbands as well as wives.

38. Ardent lover – sees that wife has orgasm in marital congress. (20)

While we are on the subject of sexual politics, in a judgement worthy of Cocklecarrot, we now learn:

Referring to the 2003 Act, Lord Justice Hughes said: "The intention of Parliament was to mean female breasts and not an exposed male chest.
"The former are still private – amongst 21st century bathers – the second is not.
This Act didn't mean to refer to the male chest but only to female breasts, it follows that the judge's directions on the meaning of breasts was erroneous.

(sensation in court)

The Tender Trap

Old school marriage guidance, "that's the Chicago way".

Swans Reflecting Elephants

In 1936 London hosted its first International at the New Burlington Galleries. Salvador Dali was an invited speaker and in an effort to demonstrate that he was delving into the depths of the unconscious, he decided to deliver his lecture from within a diving suit. Unfortunately he began to suffocate and tried to remove the helmet but it had been bolted down. The public, thinking it was all part of the act, started to applaud. Edward James. who acted as Dali's translator, realised what was happening and used a billiard cue to remove the helmet.

Prodnose: Do you really expect me to believe that?
Myself: Do you think I give a fig for your belief, disbelief or unbelief you snivelling cur? As it happens that is true, but now that my dander is up try this on for size:

Once upon a time in Oxford, some believe around the nineteen twenties, Edward James was walking down the road, contemplating whatever it is that a man of Edward James’ infinite power contemplates - which is another way of saying 'who knows' - when Harold Acton appeared, traveling in the opposite direction. As the Aesthete and the Surrealist crossed paths, James, in a practically unfathomable display of generosity, gave Acton the slightest of lobsters. The lobster was not returned. Now was it the intention of the dilettante to insult the poet or did he just fail to see the generous social gesture? The motives of Acton remain unknown. What is known, are the consequences. The next morning James appeared at Christ Church College and demanded of the Dean that he offer his neck to repay the insult. The Dean at first tried to console James, only to find James was inconsolable. So began the moussaka of Christ Church College and all 60 of the dons inside upon the billiard cues of the Surrealists.

Prodnose: Go boil your head.

It's a living

I am off to Edward James' West Dean today.

An early start is required, hence brevity.

Hamlet

Every Sunday at 5pm the Factory Theatre company puts on a semi-improvised performance of Hamlet at an "interesting" venue.

Yesterday it was our very own Chapter House. The rather scary modus operandis is explained here. You have to take a prop, so I grabbed my trusty tiffin-box and joined the throng, rather fearful that we were about to get some sort of guerrilla operation along the lines of John Gorman's militant "Masked Poet" from TISWAS all those years ago.

In fact it was great fun, and I was delighted to see my prop featuring prominently. Polonious handed it to Laertes as he bid him farewell on his return to France. Laertes brought it with him when he came back to the court on learning of his father's death, then he and King Claudius kept handing it back and forth between each other as the plot against Hamlet was hatched.

A ruined Chapter House is indeed a fine place to emote:

Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business, as the day
Would quake to look on.

http://www.seehamlet.co.uk/ for future weeks.

GTA IV

I invested in Grand Theft Auto IV for the XBOX 360 this weekend. What a changed world we live in when the Torygraph publishes cheats for it.

It's all a long way from the Colossal Cave Adventure.

Coinstar

Oh to be seven again, to empty your piggy bank, pour the accumulated coppers through the Coinstar machine in Sainsbury's, then - with the proceeds burning a hole in your pocket - buy a Twix and pocket a fiver.


It's all good for the New Ninja Bomber.

Neologism

punktuation

noun
/ˌpʌŋktʃuˈeɪʃən/
[puhngk-choo-ey-shuhn]

1. something that makes repeated, regular and annoying interruptions or diversions
2. disdain for the clarification of meaning by indicating separation of words into sentences and clauses and phrases in the homework of seven year old boys

etymology
2008, from punk "an attitude of rebellion against tradition"
antonyms
punctuation

Bona Brideshead

I was amazed to discover the other day that you can see all of the classic 80's TV series Brideshead Revisited online and legitimately for free at http://www.itv.com/BestofITV/perioddrama/bridesheadrevisited/default.html

I've started watching it and Sebastian and Charles are certainly a lot camper than I remembered; "naughtiness high on the catalogue of grave sins" indeed.

I'm likely to need to create a drinking game to go with it if I'm to struggle through the rest. There's plenty of inspiration:


Come with me now to the Evelyn Waugh/Round the Horne mash-up that the world didn't know it was waiting for:

a string quartet plays

CHARLES RYDER: But I was in search of love in those days, and I went full of curiousity and the faint, unrecognized apprehension that here, at last, I should find that low door in the wall, which others, I knew, had found before me, which opened on an enclosed and enchanted garden, which was somewhere, not overlooked by any window, in the heart of that grey city ....... beyond a sign that promised "Bona Gardens".

JULIAN (screaming): Ooh hello Mr Ryder, I'm Julian and this is my friend Sandy.
SANDY(also screaming): Ooh hello. No Sebastian today, no Aloisius?
JULIAN: Old delicious and his Aloisious!
SANDY: Oy stifle yourself! Isn't he bold Mr Ryder? Ain't he bold!
JULIAN: Now let's have a vada at this garden.
RYDER: It's through here.. .
JULIAN: Yes, you have your Florentine marble
SANDY: Comes lovely in Florentine marble
JULIAN: Or you have your ceramics.
SANDY: Oh, fab ceramics - all hand done by a disciple of William Morris in Ladbroke Grove.0r, Jules, wait a minute, how do you see his patio?
JULIAN: Don't rush me, don't rush me - it's beginning come over me in waves. I see it as a miniature version of the piazza in Florence.
SANDY: Oh, it's a breakthrough! Mr. Ryder, he's broken through. No - no - wait a minute - no - it won't work -

RYDER: Perhaps it won't work because all our loves are merely hints and symbols; vagabond-language scrawled on gate-posts and paving-stones along the weary road that others have tramped before us; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond the other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us.

PRODNOSE: But then again, perhaps not.

MYSELF: Ooh bold!

cherubs howl for blood

The Ayatollah (football celebration).

Sometimes I think that I am comparatively normal for a guy from Cardiff.

The Game

Here's a curiousity as the tension rises ahead of the FA Cup Final; a Dannie Abse poem from the Fifties about Cardiff City.

Follow the crowds to where the turnstiles click.
The terraces fill. Hoompa, blares the brassy band.
Saturday afternoon has come to Ninian Park
and, beyond the goalposts, in the Canton Stand
between black spaces, a hundred matches spark.

Waiting, we recall records, legendary scores:
Fred Keenor, Hardy, in a royal blue shirt.
The very names, sad as the old songs, open doors
before our time where someone else was hurt.
Now like an injured beast, the great crowd roars.

The coin is spun. Here all is simplified
and we are partisan who cheer the Good,
hiss at passing Evil. Was Lucifer offside?
A wing falls down when cherubs howl for blood.
Demons have agents: the Referee is bribed.

The white ball smacked the crossbar. Satan rose
higher than the others in the smoked brown gloom
to sink on grass in a ballet dancer's pose.
Again, it seems, we hear a familiar tune
not quite identifiable. A distant whistle blows.

Memory of faded games, the discarded years;
talk of Aston Villa, Orient and the Swans.
Half-time, the band played the same military airs
as when The Bluebirds once were champions.
Round touchlines the same cripples in their chairs.

Mephistopheles had his joke. The honest team
dribbles ineffectually, no one can be blamed.
Infernal backs tackle, inside forwards scheme,
and if they foul us need we be ashamed?
Heads up! Oh for a Ted Drake, a Dixie Dean.

'Saved' or else, discontents, we are transferred
long decades back, like Faust must pay the fee.
The Night is early. Great phantoms in us stir
as coloured jerseys hover, move diagonally
on the damp turf, and our eidetic visions blur.

God sign our souls! Because the obscure Staff of
Hell rule this world, jugular fans have guessed
the result half way through the second half
and those who know the score just seem depressed.
Small boys swarm the field for an autograph.

Silent the Stadium. The crowds have all filed out.
Only the pigeons beneath the roofs remain.
The clean programmes are trampled underfoot
and natural the dark, appropriate the rain
Whilst, under lampposts, threatening newsboys shout.

The Road

I've finished Cormac McCarthy's "The Road". I read so much science fiction in my youth that the barren post-apocalyptic landscape in which is set seemed almost cliched. At its heart the story is a fable about a father and a son and their love and sacrifice in a wicked world; think Life is Beautiful refracted through A Boy and His Dog.

Reviews always comment 0n the spareness of the prose. I think that this is because someone shook the typescript until every quotation mark and about one apostrophe in two fell out, leaving us with dialogue along the lines of:

Are you talking now?
Yes.
But you're not using quotation marks?
No.
Or apostrophes in negative contractions?
I wont use them ever.
But we'll use them elsewhere.
I'll always do that.
Do you want to die?
Yes.

Prodnose: Not exactly a barrel of laughs then?
Myself: This is a shocking and brilliant work, at once terribly pertinent and impressively universal. (I wonder what I mean by that?)

Elegy of innocence and youth

This week I had to tell my seven year old that a nursery and school friend of his had died. We knew he was ill. He and his family had moved away from London to Wales for special and palliative care some time ago but we still kept in touch and often visited when we were back in my home town catching up with family.

Ben didn't say much of anything when I told him, but kept all these things and pondered them in his heart, quietly asking his Mum about it when she put him to bed that night.

Hard learning for my little boy, but harder for the immediate bereaved family. Rest in peace.

Here amid the warmth of the rain, what might have been
is resolved into the tenderness of a tall doom
who says: 'You did your best, rest - and after you the bloom
of what you loved and planted still will whisper what you mean.

I am Iron Man

Wildly Popular 'Iron Man' Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film
I took the New Ninja Bomber along to the new Iron Man movie yesterday. It has the most blatant Burger King product placement I have ever seen, all Tony Stark wants after his dramatic escape in an "American Cheeseburger", but as we dined at Burger King before the movie and picked up the tie-in souvenirs it all rather added to the occasion.

supercalifrajalisticXMLadocious.

A post to fit the fine title above - a new word coined by me - has yet to pop into my febrile mind, but that is no reason not to share it with you.

Cloudier

Time is a funny thing. Time is a very peculiar item. You see when you're young, you're a kid, you got time, you got nothing but time. Throw away a couple of years, a couple of years there... it doesn't matter.

I need to look at the Google App Engine.
I need to look at Microsoft Live Mesh.
I need to look at Yahoo! Open Strategy.

I've got a SQL Server Data Service Private Beta Invitation to which I haven't even managed to reply.

The world is going the way I've imagined for a while, but I'm floundering in its wake.

Step on the gas

A dance so simple even I could do it:

Put your hand on your hip
Now you let your back bone slip.
Put out your tongue
Put your head in the air.
Make a "V" sign
And you just don't care.
Now you feel free
You gotta loose control.
All Gods children gotta
Little bit of soul.
You don't have to think
You don't have to move
A muscle just do the brow beatin'
Heavy leather resurrection shuffle.

Sounds straight forward enough.

Charles XII

How can we use a modern controlled vocabulary or taxonomy to identify individual members of ancient royal houses?

This is a genuine 9-5 issue for me at the moment, exemplified perhaps by:

Charles, by the Grace of God of the Swedes, the Goths and the Vends King, Grand Duke of Finland, Duke of Estonia and Karelia, Lord of Ingria, Duke of Bremen, Verden and Pommerania, Prince of Rügen and Lord of Wismar, and also Count Palatine by the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria, Count of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg, as well as Duke of Jülich, Cleve and Berg, Count of Waldenz, Spanheim and Ravensberg and Lord of Ravenstein.

Perhaps Charlie for short?

Q&A

Q. Why does it always rain on me? Is it because I lied when I was seventeen?
A. Yes

Movieum

I took the bomber and a friend of his along to the MOVEIUM that has replaced the Star Wars exhibition in County Hall yesterday.

Afterwards we watched the traceurs practising free running in the park. They're always there when we get up to Waterloo. I wish I knew more about it.

Catch the Wind

Trevor Bayliss came over to the mills yesterday to launch the Quiet Revolution wind turbine that now powers the Colour House Theatre.

Mark Marlowe was playing piano, and Bob Brunning bass in the quartet that jammed on "The Windmills of Your Mind" to celebrate the happy event.

It can be fun working here.

They had already set out the free booze when The Profit Burglar and I went over to check out proceedings at 11:30. The sun being over the yardarm, we indulged.

SUN IS OVER THE YARDARM - "(time for happy hour to begin). This expression is thought to have its origins in an officers' custom aboard ships sailing in the north Atlantic. In those latitudes, the sun would rise above the upper yards - the horizontal spars mounted on the masts, from which squaresails were hung - around 11 a.m. Since this coincided with the forenoon 'stand easy,' officers would take advantage of the break to go below for their first tot of spirits for the day.

There was a hush of expectation as the admiral adjusted his spectacles, produced a sheaf of papers from an attaché case, and began to read the following:

'By the might of the Navy our Empire was built up. By the might of the Navy it must be protected. Britannia did not rise from out the azure merely to sink back into it again. The salt is in our blood, and -'

By this time the court was filled with wild cheering, and several ladies waved small Union jacks.

MR JUSTICE COCKLECARROT. Yes, yes, Sir Ewart, but what has this to do with the case?

COCKLECARROT. Really, I shall have to clear the court if this goes on.

MR SNAPDRIVER. I beg leave to enter a residuum, with jaggidge.

COCKLECARROT. Don't talk rubbish.

MR SNAPDRIVER. Now., Sir Ewart, do you know these dwarfs?

SIR EWART. Dwarfs or no dwarfs, Britannia's bulwarks are her great ships. [Cheers.]

See how they churn the farthest seas, their enormous prows cleaving-

MR SNAPDRIVER. Please, please Sir Ewart, try to confine your remarks to the matter in hand. Do you or do you not know these dwarfs?

SIR EWART. I should be sorry to allow my acquaintanceship with dwarfs, giants, or anyone else to distract my attention from Britain's, needs today, a stronger Fleet [Cheers.] Britannia, Mother of Ships, Queen of the Deep, and-

COCKLECARROT. Mr Snapdriver, why was this witness ever called?

MR SNAPDRIVER. It was a subpoena.

Strictly Baby Fight Club

"MPs are calling for a ban on child Thai boxing" it seems after a hatchet-job documentary on Channel Four last night.

My seven year old does Muay Thai (and executes a high roundhouse kick in the photo on the left). I helped out at a kids class that he attended with 11 other children last night.

Don't believe the hype. Muay Thai is a true, deep and sociable sport and I'm glad he does it.

Ashes to Ashes

David Bowie: I never done good things
Myself: I never done good things

David Bowie:I never done bad things
Myself: I never done bad things

David Bowie:I never did anything out of the blue
Myself: I never did anything out of the blue

David Bowie: Woh-o-oh
Myself: Woh-o-oh

David Bowie: Want an axe to break the ice
Myself: Want an axe to break the ice

David Bowie: Wanna come down right now
Myself: Wanna come down ........

David Bowie: Would you mind just shutting up for five minutes?
Myself (sulkily): I was only trying to help.

David Bowie: Well its getting on my nerves.
Myself (sarcastically): Sorreee

An uncomfortable silence ensues

Myself (muttering under breath): "The shrieking of nothing is killing, just pictures of Jap girls in synthesis". What's that supposed to mean?
David Bowie (taunts): It means I can live off royalties - "you ain't got no money and you ain't got no hair".

Myself: Oh, very clever. Come here and say that! I'll dilate your other pupil mate.
David Bowie: Bring it fatty.

Ashes to ashes, funk to funky
We know Major Tom's a junkie
Strung out in heavens high
Hitting an all-time low

Why Wales is suddenly cool

"Suddenly, all things Welsh are hip," anonounces Hugo Rifkind in The Thunder.

Peter Gill's contribution is:

Wales has “always had a gift for a certain kind of country & western vulgarity.” The greatest Welsh film never made, he adds, was one starring the young Shirley Bassey and the young Tom Jones.

Eh?

In the Welsh Assembly, it is business as usual, but they're recreating in the toilets what the Senedd is doing to the country.

---

PS More Welsh news just in from Chris:

A man posing as Darth Vader attacked a Star Wars fan, who had founded a Jedi Church, a court has heard.

Arwel Wynne Hughes, 27, from Holyhead, Anglesey, admitted assaulting Barney Jones and cousin Michael with a metal crutch. They suffered minor injuries.

Hughes, who was drunk and dressed in a black bin bag ......

---

PPS What a fine subject Wales is for St George's day.

Vote for Foulenough - And Duty-Free Lard

The mind-numbingly tedious 2008 London Mayoral Election has been brightened but further complicated by the imaginary news that the libidinous, hard-drinking, and light-fingered gallant, worldly, and financially literate Captain de Courcy Foulenough, D.T., has decided to stand as an Independent Progressive Liberal, that being the only interest not represented up to this moment.

Candidates

Richard Barnbrook British National Party
Gerard Batten UK Independence
Siân Berry Green
Alan Craig Christian Peoples
Lindsey German Left List
Boris Johnson Conservative
Ken Livingstone Labour
Winston McKenzie Independent
Matt O'Connor English Democrats
Brian Paddick Liberal Democrat
de Courcy Foulenough Independent Progressive Liberal

Captain Foulenough staggered his audience, disgusted what is left of his Committee, and roused his opponents to fury last night by reading out messages of support which he claimed to have received from nine Cabinet Ministers, Mr Clark Gable, Mr Noël Coward, Mr Anthony Eden, Mr Joe Louis, Bishop Mrs Riquette, Tubby Garstang, Mamie Dugold, Harry Armitage, Babs Thornycroft, Trixie, Vi, Polly, Ethel, Madge, Bobo, Curly, Mabel, Dot, Irma, 'Coppernob' Halsey, Flo, Nan, Gert, Myra and Olive.

Agreeing that his supporters were as anachronous as his intervention is ridiculous , the Captain has pointed out that he is by no means the most eccentric of candidates actual and potential:

• DJ Read joins 'X factor-style' Mayor race
• Right Said Fred: I'll stand for London Mayor
• ‘I’ll knock out the opposition’
• Radio host 'could challenge Ken'

We await further developments with considerable interest.

Hippo Eats Dwarf

Hat tip, Jonathon.

Super

Very pleased we are to report that Joe Calzaghe came all the way from Newbridge to Vegas and beat the braggart Bernard Hopkins.

Very pleased we also are to observe how the Welsh fans respected the USA's anthem, unlike Ricky Hatton's Madchester hordes (whose booing of it at the last Nevada US/UK showdown embarrassed me at a distance of 5,000 miles which was a new record).

I only wish that the woman who sang The Stars and Stripes could have shown it as much regard. No one loves Aretha Franklin more than me, but I can't be doing with faux Aretha melismatic pseudo-soul. Mark the singing up to Wales after Tom Jones' Land of My Fathers as well.

In related sports news I completed the Childline Challenge this morning and felt a lot stronger than last year. Getting up for the boxing at 3am and drinking lager until retiring again at 5 obviously agrees with me.

The Moon and I

The moon and I
Came face to face
In a sequestered
Country place.

I thought the moon
Was heavenly;
I wonder what
It thought of me.

Roland Milk

Saudade

It turns out that there is an equivalent to the Wesh hiraeth in another language; Portuguese's suadade:

The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness.

"An indolent dreaming wistfulness". Precisely.

Riding the rails

As the credit crunch begins to bite, here is some advice from Charles Campion as we all need to tighten our belts:

At last a real incentive to drink good wine. Fortunately the good folk of Primrose Hill seem knowlegeable and appreciative so when they see Margaux at £55 a bottle they pounce on the bargain rather than merely thinking “£55 is rather expensive for six glass of wine”.

A couple of hobo tips from my life are that you can get a free lunch if you are working in Buckingham Palace and free crisps at the monthly Colour House Theatre quiz.

Pull up a chair, while I crayon "this machine kills fascists" onto my guitar.

They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;
Once I built a tower, now it's done. Charlie, can you share the wine?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? Charlie, can you share the wine?

Girlification

It turns out that I wasn't the only one brooding yesterday over the the changes since the annus horribilis of 40 years ago. "Girlification is destroying all the hope we felt in 1968," sayeth Polly Toynbee in the Grauniad.

The pink disease is far worse than it was 20 years ago. "Princess on board", read the yukky signs in family cars. It's almost impossible to buy toys now that are not putridly pink branded or aggressively superhero male. Bikes, sleeping bags, lunch boxes, nothing is neutral now, everything Barbie and Bratz. Princess tiaras, fairy and ballerina dressing up, pink, pink everywhere - and it damages girls' brains.

Something has damaged her brain if you ask me. I know little girls who float into kids Thai boxing lessons in pink satin pumps, get changed and pummel their brothers and peers for an hour, then change back into their diaphanous street clothes, don their Barbie backpacks and giggle their way back home. Good for them, and why not?

This is an imaginary problem and Ms Toynbee should leave them alone. There are more important things to worry about. Down with the pseudo-sensitive and frankly wet and girly Polly, and hooray for the robust, womanly and grown up Melissa Kite.

---

Myself: Prodnose, I very much fear that under such provocation gender stereotypes and sexual archetypes are about to bubble up from the menagerie in my brain.

Prodnose: Contain yourself man. Too much Jung, too much Paglia, that's your problem.

Myself: It's too late! Here comes everybody.

Jerry Hall's Mother: It is simple to keep a man, you must be a maid in the living room, a cook in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom.

Jerry Hall: I'll hire the other two and take care of the bedroom bit.

HotForWords: But vhat about the glass ceiling, dahlink?

Sir Alan Sugar: To get through that apprentice, you need to be a maid in the living room, a cook in the kitchen and a whore in the boardroom.

Katie Hopkins: You fire the other two and I'll take care of the boardroom bit ......

Prodnose: It's getting very crowded around these parts lately.

Myself (ruefully tapping forehead): You should try living in here.

No Crystle Ball

From some nonsense I was reading yesterday:

Miss Texas, Crystle Stewart, was crowned Miss USA 2008 and will now go on to the finals of the Miss Universe pageant in Vietnam in July.

If we go back forty years, 1968 was the year of the Tet Offensive, Khe San, and My Lai in Vietnam.

From the madness chronicled in Michael Herr's Dispatches, to the madness of Miss Universe in four decades. Who would even dare to imagine such a thing?

Be careful what you wish for

"There's an old story about the person who wished his computer were as easy to use as his telephone. That wish has come true, since I no longer know how to use my telephone."

Bjarne Stroustrup, inventor of C++. (Hat tip, Simon.)

Incidentally, The Profit Burglar once told me that the name "C++" is in fact an hilarious play on words because "++" is the C increment operator and can also be taken to signify its advance over that earlier language.

Oh, how we laughed! Classic Geek Jokes .... do you have a funny computer joke or geek joke you'd like to add? Send it to the Top Geek!

DO NOT SEND IT TO ME.

Hard Boiled

Accordng to the scales in Virgin Active, I met my own challenge yesterday, and that's good enough for me. I don't believe for a second that I actually weigh 175 pounds, but that is what the scales said after a lot of sweat so there you have it. I am a light heavyweight.

Next stop twelve stone (on the friendly gym scales rather than the accurate one at home).

Prodnose: The last time you weighed 168 pounds you were beautiful. You could have been another Billy Conn. And that Skunk we got you for a manager. He brought you along too fast.

Myself: It wasn’t him Prodnose it was you. Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and said, ‘kid this ain’t your night, we’re going for the price on Wilson’. You remember that? ‘This ain’t your night’. My night, I could have taken Wilson apart. So what happens he gets the title shot out doors in a ball park. And what do I get, a one way ticket to palookaville. You was my imagination Prodnose you should have looked out for me a little bit. You should have taken care of me just a little bit so I wouldn’t have them dives for the short end money.

Prodnose: Well, I had some bets down for ya. You saw some money.

Myself: You don’t understand! I could have had class, I could have been a contender. I could have been somebody. Instead of a bum, which is what I am, lets face it. It was you Prodders….

Attention Siblings!

Does your older brother think he's cleverer than you? Well, he's probably right. According to new research due to be published this week in the journal
Intelligence, the oldest children in families are likely to have the highest IQs.

So there. I am the boss of you.

Deadly

Modern society has turned Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Sloth, and Greed into virtues: building self-esteem, dreaming your dream, exercising gourmet tastes, having satisfying sex for life, speaking truth to power, being relaxed and centered. And Gordon Gekko said it all about greed.

21 years on from Republican Party Reptile, PJ O'Rourke still makes me laugh.

Bukowski's Computer

"what?" they say, "you got a
computer?"

it's like I have sold out to
the enemy.

I had no idea so many
people were prejudiced
against
computers.

even two editors have
written me letters about
the computer.

one disparaged the
computer in a mild and
superior way.
the other seemed
genuinely
pissed.

I am aware that a
computer can't create
a poem.
but neither can a
typewriter.

yet, still, once or
twice a week
I hear:
"what?
you have a
computer?
you?"

yes, I do
and I sit up here
almost every
night,
sometimes with
beer or
wine,
sometimes
without
and I work the
computer.
the damn thing
even corrects
my spelling.

and the poems
come flying
out,
better than
ever.

I have no
idea what causes
all this
computer
prejudice.

me?
I want to go
the next step
beyond the
computer.
I'm sure it's
there.

and when I get
it,
they'll say,
"hey, you hear,
Chinaski got a
space-biter!"

"what?"

"yes, it's true!"

"I can't believe
it!"

and I'll also have
some beer or
some wine
or maybe nothing
at all
and I'll be
85 years old
driving it home
to
you and me
and to the little girl
who lost her
sheep.
or her
computer.

A Another Gill

Sue Johnson went to see the Cardiff Barnsley game on the weekend.

Watching Cardiff City in an FA Cup semi-final may not seem the most obvious way to prepare for a revival of Peter Gill's Small Change in the 250-seat Donmar Warehouse. But Johnston - over and above her long friendship with Cardiff City's Robbie Fowler - had her reasons.

"I can listen to their accents," she says. Small Change is set in the Cardiff of Gill's youth. "Cardiff is not an easy accent and Peter is very precise about what he wants. Somehow there's a lilt in the writing that makes you want to go more Welsh than he is and he clips you back. 'Too Welsh,' he says."

I saw "Small Change" at the National Theatre in 1983. That's a quarter of a century ago, and that's a sobering thought. Come to think of it Peter Gill directed the production of "Speed the Plough" that I mentioned in a post the other day.

Cardiff City to David Mamet: Everything's connected.

Who's grooming the badgers?

The New Ninja Bomber is on holiday with his mum in Tunisia, so I can go to GJ's for the comedy on Thursday for the first time since last October.

Harry Hill is on the bill.

BAFTA Award for Best Comedy Performance 2006 plus many, many other BAFTA, British Comedy and Perrier awards and nominations
Harry Hill's TV Burp (ITV1) (5 series)
The All New Harry Hill Show (ITV1)
Harry Hill (Ch4)
The Late Show With David Letterman (7 appearances)
VAST amounts of other primetime TV
Massive DVD sales
Huge national tours.

In the pub! How on earth do they do it?

Still got the BLUES

Henry Winter is a better writer than me:

It is one thing seeing bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover, but now they are swarming all over another English landmark - Wembley. After 81 years of hurt, the Bluebirds of Cardiff City yesterday reached the FA Cup final, setting up a May 17 date with Portsmouth when they may well be outplayed, but they will not be outsung.

Ten minutes after the final whistle, after Barnsley's heartbroken players had picked themselves off the canvas and retreated to the dressing room, Cardiff's fans staged the sort of sing-song that would not have sounded out of place in St Mary's Street on a lively Saturday night. Wembley's groundstaff wore the worried look of hosts wondering when on earth the guests were going home. The men, women and children of Harlech eventually left, carrying a party nine decades in the planning all the way back to the Principality.

Challenge

After last year's debacle, it is nearly time for the Swansea Childline Challenge for 2008. This should be interesting because it starts at 8:30am on Sunday April 20th and I am also duty bound to stay up to watch the Calzaghe Hopkins fight in the early hours of the very same morning.

The Childline sponsorship form explained how to set up an online collection facility so you can help me raise money for the free helpline for children and young people in the UK at http://www.justgiving.com/welshbornicon or by using the widget below.

It is unusual

Myself: One, two, three, four!
Prodnose: It's not unusual to be loved by anyone.
Myself: (Although you've just begun.)
Prodnose: It's not unusual to have fun with anyone.
Myself: (You're having fun.)
Prodnose: But when I see you hanging about with anyone, it's not unusual to see me cry, oh I wanna' die.

Guitar: Whah, whah, whah, whah.

Prodnose: It's not unusual to go out at any time.
Myself: (The rhythm and the rhyme)
Prodnose: But when I see you out and about it's such a crime.
Myself: (Are still sublime)
Prodnose: If you should ever want to be loved by anyone, it's not unusual it happens every day.
Myself: (Constantly)
Prodnose: No matter what you say!
Myself: (And to me)
Prodnose: You find it happens all the ti-i-i-i-ime!

Myself: Well?
Prodnose: It's ..... it's ...... it's a singalongablog!
Myself: I know man, you dig it the most. It's not unusual - the very best there is. When you absolutely, positively have less than 100 seconds to kill every MF in the karaoke bar...
Prodnose: Accept no substitutes.

Nick Clegg Quiz

How many women have you slept with in the last twelve months?

100 to 200
200 to 300
more than 300

Re Ghastly

The Maasai warriors' guide to England

Many people drink alcohol in England. They do so at bars, at homes or at clubs - the English equivalent to a Maasai party.

When people drink they [seem] sillier or different.

Right on. Read on.

Server too busy

We have a police force client reorganising four divisions into three today, so I am too busy to give you my opinion about anything.

Everybody knows I'm here

Myself: Gypsy woman told my momma
Prodnose: dunu dunu nu

Myself: Before I was born
Prodnose: dunu dunu nu

Myself: You got a boy-child comin'
Prodnose: dunu dunu nu

Myself: Gonna be a son-of-a-gun
Prodnose: dunu dunu nu

Myself: Gonna make these pretty women
Prodnose: dunu dunu nu

Myself: Jump and shout
Prodnose: dunu dunu nu

Myself: And the world will only know, a-what it's all about! Y'know I'm here. Everybody knows I'm here. And I'm the hoochie-coochie man. Everybody knows I'm here.

Prodnose: Do you feel better for that?
Myself: Much better thanks.

Prodnose: Everyone knows you're here now.
Myself: I guess so. Hello everybody.

Prodnose: And?
Myself (conspiratorially): Did I ever tell you I got a black cat bone?

Prodnose (wearily): Many, many times.
Myself: I got a mojo too. I got John the Conqueror, I'm gonna mess with you ..........

Redbelt

Here at A Welsh Born Icon, we are all about David Mamet. I've bunburied along to "Sexual Pervisity in Chicago" and "Speed the Plough" in the theatre, and was, as I recall, the only person in the entire world who enjoyed "We're no Angels". I was therefore thrilled to read:

The Tribeca Film Festival today announced that the drama Redbelt, written and directed by David Mamet, will have its world premiere at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, presented by American Express. Redbelt will also serve as the Gala premiere of the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival. Redbelt, a Sony Pictures Classics presentation, stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Emily Mortimer, Alice Braga and Tim Allen. The premiere will take place on Friday, April 25. The Festival will run from April 23 through May 4.

"Mamet has a brilliant voice," said Jane Rosenthal, co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival. “We are thrilled to have the opportunity to host the premiere of his latest film Redbelt at this year's festival, where it will also be the gala of the ribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival."

"I am a fan of both the fight film and the samurai film. Redbelt is my homage to both. I hope you enjoy it," said David Mamet.

"We are pleased to be the Gala Premiere of the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival. ESPN is the right fit for the world of mixed martial arts that David Mamet has brought to the big screen," said Michael Barker, Co-President, Sony Pictures Classics Redbelt tells the story of Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the chief instructor at the Southside Jiu-jitsu Academy. Although a talented fighter, he refuses to compete in professional bouts: "Competition weakens the fighter." Instead, he trains dedicated students in the art of self-defense: bodyguards, cops, and soldiers. At his brother-in-law's club one evening, Mike saves famous action star Chet Frank (Tim Allen) from a severe beating. His defense of Frank leads to a job in the film industry, but other events conspire to force Mike to participate in a prize fight. An American samurai film set in the world of mixed martial arts, David Mamet's Redbelt is a story about the limits of a single man's integrity. Written and directed by David Mamet, Redbelt is produced by Chrisann Verges. The film will be released in New York and LA on May 2nd, and nationally on May 9th.

Chiwetel Ejiofor and Randy Couture in the same film. How's that for grabbing the zeitgiest by the throat? I hope in gets into theatres here.

That said, I think this quote is pretty much baloney:

He said that the training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for "Redbelt" helped him prepare for Othello."
"Because they are submission bouts in Jiu-jitsu," he said today when he came by the MPR studios. "There is no time limit, so if you go into the ring with an opponent, nobody knows how long the contest is going to last."
Ejiofor says he learned how to conserve energy, and then use it in short bursts, which was vital for the Othello run where they were doing 8 shows a week.
"You'd literally be cleaning off the blood and then you'd be going back to put the first act costume on. It was kind of insane," he laughed. "So the thing that I took through was it was all about endurance, and all of Jiu-Jitsu is about endurance, about being able to train your body to withstand."

BJJ is still unlikely to be on the curriculum at RADA any time soon I think.

Queen Will Leave Behind Long Legacy Of Waving

How does this compare with the real thing?

Inside

I've got interested in Mixed Martial Arts lately (probably because of the influence that Muay Thai has had on it) and I've never embedded Google Video in the blog before. That is why you have the latest edition of "Inside MMA" above.

For all that the Bas Rutten and Kenny Rice double act reminds me of Fred Willard and Jim Piddock in "Best in Show" it's actually pretty entertaining.

With regards to the Mixed in Mixed Martial Arts, I did judo as a kid so I recognised o goshi, ude garami, and juji gatame among the techniques employed in the clips of tattooed men in shorts beating each other up.

Answers on a postcard if you can do the same.

Bartitsu

I've finally found episode 10 of the Contender Asia online at Veoh.com

---

While we are on the subject of the manly arts let me introduce the deeply wonderful, and apparently genuine Bartitsu.


How a Man may Defend Himself against every Form of Attack
By E.W. Barton-Wright
(Originally published in Pearson’s Magazine, March edition, 1899)

BEFORE proceeding to give my readers any particulars and explanations of the art of self-defence, perhaps it will not be out of place to make a few introductory remarks as to the conception of self-defence as generally understood by other nations.

In foreign countries people never fight for amusement or diversion, as is often the case in England and the United States. Bearing this fact in mind, it will be more easy to understand that when foreigners fall out and fight, they recognise one goal only, and that is to overcome and defeat their adversaries, and any means is considered justifiable and is resorted to, to attain this end.

Of course, what constitutes honour in this sense is entirely a matter of early training and education. In this country we are brought up with the idea that there is no more honourable way of settling a dispute than resorting to Nature’s weapons, the fists, and to scorn taking advantage of another man when he is down.

A foreigner, however, will not hesitate to use a chair, or a beer bottle, or a knife, or anything that comes handy, and if no weapon is available the chances are he would employ what we should consider are underhanded means. It is to meet eventualities of this kind, where a person is confronted suddenly in an unexpected way, that I have introduced a new style of self-defence, which can be very terrible in the hands of a quick and confident exponent.

That's the stuff. Eat your heart out Chuck Liddell.

"Self-defence with a Walking Stick," Pearson's Magazine, February 1901, is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Who could resist method "No. 9. -- A very Serviceable Way to Disable a Taller Man than Yourself when Opposed to Him under Unequal Conditions"?

YouTube Adsense

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

AdSense isn't just for ads anymore; it's also a place to get video content for your site -- and earn extra revenue at the same time.

I'm just playing about with this. I wonder what video it will decide is appropriate to the site's content.

Sharon Stone talks about the Dalai Lama Land Rover on eBay!

A mad world my masters.

Happy Holidays

The Lord above gave man an arm of iron
So he could do his job and never shirk.
The Lord gave man an arm of iron-but
With a little bit of luck, With a little bit of luck,
Someone else'll do the blinkin' work!

One of the things I am forever banging on about is the way that services are commoditised on the internet so there is no point in investing in competing with them. If you want to do video just embed YouTube then you can take advantage of stuff like the upgrade described here.

So my Bank Holiday question is "why, 9 to 5, are folks forever busting my balls rather than just listening to me?"

..... it's like my painter friend Donald said to me: "Stick a fork in their ass and turn 'em over; they're done.

Hakkar - the god of Blood.

A deadly virtual plague has broken out in the online game World of Warcraft.
.......
In the last week, it added the Zul'Gurub dungeon which gave players a chance to confront and kill the fearsome Hakkar - the god of Blood.
In his death throes Hakkar hits foes with a "corrupted blood" infection that can instantly kill weaker characters.
The infection was only supposed to affect those in the immediate vicinity of Hakkar's corpse but some players found a way to transfer it to other areas of the game by infecting an in-game virtual pet with it.
This pet was then unleashed in the orc capital city of Ogrimmar and proved hugely effective as the Corrupted Blood plague spread from player to player.
.......
The "Corrupted Blood" plague is not the first virtual disease to break out in game worlds. In May 2000 many players of The Sims were outraged when their game characters died because of an infection contracted from a dirty virtual guinea pig.

Reading this, though I'm sniggering, I feel out of touch. I'll have to get my seven year old to explain it.

Gary Gygax, what have you wrought?

Craven Cottaging

I hadn't realised when I signed the New Ninja Bomber up to the half term football skills course run by Fulham FC, that a pair of tickets for a home game were part of the deal, so it was a great surprise when they dropped through the post box.

That is how we found ourselves getting off the tube at Putney Bridge last weekend on our way to see Fulham play Everton in a game that was bound to be full of sturm und drang as Fulham battled relegation and Everton tried to secure a Champions' League place for next season.

Objectively and externally our afternoon might have appeared to consist of several hours of hanging about in the freezing drizzle, but the bomber loved everything about it; he was thrilled by walking down the middle of the road in a throng of people, and by chanting "COME ON FULHAM" and stamping his feet along with the rest of the crowd when we were in the stand. He delighted eating a hot dog at half time, and whenever the spectators rose to their feet during an attack I would pick him up and stand him on the back of the seat in front so that he could see the action from the perspective of a tall grown up.

It is impossible to feel jaded around kids: Fulham 1 Everton 0.

Billy Bricks Delilah

Billy Bricks Delilah - After a few pints he would shuffle up and down the bar singing Tom Jones' Delilah. His leg movements were not unlike Michael Jackson's moonwalk - he was years before his time. Billy was a very skilled bricklayer. When a new court building was being constructed in the town there was only one man who could do the brickwork. However, the contractors had to employ a man just to ensure Billy didn't sneak off to the pub before the end of shift.

Slideshow

Story

Street Fightin' Man

Myself: Help me pull back the furniture. I've got stuff to strut and lyrics to holler in the studiously loutish affected sarf London drawl of His Satanic Majesty, the Glimmer twin, old no-arse himself, Lord Mick of Jagger.

I think the time is right for a palace revolution
'Cause where I live the game to play is compromise solution
Well, then what can a poor boy do
Except to sing for a rock 'n' roll band
'Cause in sleepy London town
There's no place for a street fighting man
No

Prodnose: This is one of these secret message things I suppose, intelligible to a select coterie, possibly resonant for you when revisited in some tranquil future, yet opaque to the great unwashed, and breaching no confidentiality agreements?

Myself (settling into armchair and lighting pipe): Correct! You know my methods Watson, apply them. You will have observed that the "igh" sound in "street fightin' man" is a curious piece of spelling?

Prodnose: What on earth are you on about now?

Myself: Some of Caxton's typesetters were from Holland, and they introduced Dutch spelling conventions into their work. That is where the ‘gh’ in words like ‘ghost’ comes from as well.

Prodnose: That is of very little interest to me.

HotforWords: No, no it's fascinating.

Myself (peeling raw onion and batting eyelashes furiously): Yes it is Marina, yes it is. How little the world understands us. I think it was Swift who said: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

HotforWords: My poor lamb, how you suffer!

Ungallant Calculation

Price to Paul McCartney of second marriage: $1,400 an hour.

Price to Eliot Spitzer of Emperors Club VIP services: $1,000 an hour.

You do the maths.

Celtic Band

Set in Pembrokeshire - whose nightlife appears to be as tame as its landscape is wild - it describes two weeks in the life of Miyuki Woodward, a half-Japanese, half-Welsh lesbian painter and decorator, who is taking her annual holiday in the region.

Miyuki's idea of fun is modest: she goes to the pub, drinks several pints of Brains - a brand of beer, to the uninitiated - and eats disgusting meals of tinned spaghetti and oven chips. Her only companions on her evenings at the Anchor are a trio of local characters known as Tall Mr Hughes, Short Mr Hughes and Mr Puw, and Septic Barry, who services the village's septic tanks. One day, Tall Mr Hughes goes missing. Miyuki decides to look for him. This is as exciting as it gets. Other ripples that disturb the narrative's otherwise placid flow include a weekly pub quiz of striking tedium, a mild flirtation between Miyuki and Septic Barry, and an act of vandalism - or is it conceptual art? - reported in the local press.

"Cross my heart and hope to die", this Welsh slice of life has won the Claire Maclean Prize for Scottish Fiction on the closing night of the Aye Write! Bank of Scotland Book Festival.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro," as the the good doctor used to say.

Carry on at your convenience

Minutes before I had to leave for the airport a couple of weeks ago, I pressed the button to flush the toilet, only for something to crack in the mechanism and water to start running continually through the cistern.

All I could think to do was wrench the lid off and tie the valve shut with a bootlace. And that is how the bathroom remained all through our Austrian adventure.

This weekend I took my vandalised handiwork to the nearest plumbers merchants for advice, where much to my joy the guy behind the counter showed me how to disassemble it, sold me a replacement part, and explained how to fit it.

And so it came to pass that I returned home and reassembled the john with a new dual flush valve push button shroud. I very rarely do anything like this and it gave me a quite ludicrous level of satisfaction.

All stand for Burge and Gunson; I am back in business for £9.99 spent on parts when it would have cost £70 just to call out a plumber.

I recommend them to you unreservedly.