Where Love Is, God Is

Every year since 2005, dear reader I have given you a story for Christmas. You're getting this season's Yule Yarn a week early, because I discovered it last night, dramatised in a simplified style in the Bomber's school's community carol concert.

I shivered. Was it Stendhal syndrome, was it just freezing at the al fresco performance, 0r Ernie's ghostly gold tops a-rattling in their crate?

Who knows? Leo Tolstoy takes up the tale .....

In a certain town there lived a cobbler, Martin Avdéitch by name. He had a tiny room in a basement, the one window of which looked out on to the street. Through it one could only see the feet of those who passed by, but Martin recognized the people by their boots. He had lived long in the place and had many acquaintances. There was hardly a pair of boots in the neighborhood that had not been once or twice through his hands, so he often saw his own handiwork through the window. Some he had re-soled, some patched, some stitched up, and to some he had even put fresh uppers. He had plenty to do, for he worked well, used good material, did not charge too much, and could be relied on. If he could do a job by the day required, he undertook it; if not, he told the truth and gave no false promises; so he was well known and never short of work.

Martin had always been a good man; but in his old age he began to think more about his soul and to draw nearer to God. While he still worked for a master, before he set up on his own account, his wife had died, leaving him with a three-year old son. None of his elder children had lived, they had all died in infancy. At first Martin thought of sending his little son to his sister's in the country, but then he felt sorry to part with the boy, thinking: "It would be hard for my little Kapitón to have to grow up in a strange family; I will keep him with me."

Martin left his master and went into lodgings with his little son. But he had no luck with his children. No sooner had the boy reached an age when he could help his father and be a support as well as a joy to him, than he fell ill and, after being laid up for a week with a burning fever, died. Martin buried his son, and gave way to despair so great and overwhelming that he murmured against God. In his sorrow he prayed again and again that he too might die, reproaching God for having taken the son he loved, his only son while he, old as he was, remained alive. After that Martin left off going to church.

One day an old man from Martin's native village who had been a pilgrim for the last eight years, called in on his way from Tróitsa Monastery. Martin opened his heart to him, and told him of his sorrow.

"I no longer even wish to live, holy man," he said. "All I ask of God is that I soon may die. I am now quite without hope in the world."

The old man replied: "You have no right to say such things, Martin. We cannot judge God's ways. Not our reasoning, but God's will, decides. If God willed that your son should die and you should live, it must be best so. As to your despair ? that comes because you wish to live for your own happiness."

"What else should one live for?" asked Martin.

"For God, Martin," said the old man. "He gives you life, and you must live for Him. When you have learnt to live for Him, you will grieve no more, and all will seem easy to you."

Martin was silent awhile, and then asked: "But how is one to live for God?"

The old man answered: "How one may live for God has been shown us by Christ. Can you read? Then buy the Gospels, and read them: there you will see how God would have you live. You have it all there."

These words sank deep into Martin's heart, and that same day he went and bought himself a Testament in large print, and began to read.

At first he meant only to read on holidays, but having once begun he found it made his heart so light that he read every day. Sometimes he was so absorbed in his reading that the oil in his lamp burnt out before he could tear himself away from the book. He continued to read every night, and the more he read the more clearly he understood what God required of him, and how he might live for God. And his heart grew lighter and lighter. Before, when he went to bed he used to lie with a heavy heart, moaning as he thought of his little Kapitón; but now he only repeated again and again: "Glory to Thee, glory to Thee, O Lord! Thy will be done!"

From that time Martin's whole life changed. Formerly, on holidays he used to go and have tea at the public house, and did not even refuse a glass or two of vódka. Sometimes, after having had a drop with a friend, he left the public house not drunk, but rather merry, and would say foolish things: shout at a man, or abuse him. Now, all that sort of thing passed away from him. His life became peaceful and joyful. He sat down to his work in the morning, and when he had finished his day's work he took the lamp down from the wall, stood it on the table, fetched his book from the shelf, opened it, and sat down to read. The more he read the better he understood, and the clearer and happier he felt in his mind.

It happened once that Martin sat up late, absorbed in his book. He was reading Luke's Gospel; and in the sixth chapter he came upon the verses:

"To him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and from him that taketh away thy cloak withhold not thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise."

He also read the verses where our Lord says:

"And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth, against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great."

When Martin read these words his soul was glad within him. He took off his spectacles and laid them on the book, and leaning his elbows on the table pondered over what he had read. He tried his own life by the standard of those words, asking himself:

"Is my house built on the rock, or on sand? If it stands on the rock, it is well. It seems easy enough while one sits here alone, and one thinks one has done all that God commands; but as soon as I cease to be on my guard, I sin again. Still I will persevere. It brings such joy. Help me, O Lord!"

He thought all this, and was about to go to bed, but was loth to leave his book. So he went on reading the seventh chapter ? about the centurion, the widow's son, and the answer to John's disciples ? and he came to the part where a rich Pharisee invited the Lord to his house; and he read how the woman who was a sinner, anointed his feet and washed them with her tears, and how he justified her. Coming to the forty-fourth verse, he read:

"And turning to the woman, he said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath wetted my feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair. Thou gavest me no kiss; but she, since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but she hath anointed my feet with ointment."

He read these verses and thought: "He gave no water for his feet, gave no kiss, his head with oil he did not anoint?" And Martin took off his spectacles once more, laid them on his book, and pondered.

"He must have been like me, that Pharisee. He too thought only of himself ? how to get a cup of tea, how to keep warm and comfortable; never a thought of his guest. He took care of himself, but for his guest he cared nothing at all. Yet who was the guest? The Lord himself! If he came to me, should I behave like that?"

Then Martin laid his head upon both his arms and, before he was aware of it, he fell asleep.

"Martin!" he suddenly heard a voice, as if some one had breathed the word above his ear.

He started from his sleep. "Who's there?" he asked.

He turned round and looked at the door; no one was there. He called again. Then he heard quite distinctly: "Martin, Martin! Look out into the street to-morrow, for I shall come."

Martin roused himself, rose from his chair and rubbed his eyes, but did not know whether he had heard these words in a dream or awake. He put out the lamp and lay down to sleep.

Next morning he rose before daylight, and after saying his prayers he lit the fire and prepared his cabbage soup and buckwheat porridge. Then he lit the samovár, put on his apron, and sat down by the window to his work. As he sat working Martin thought over what had happened the night before. At times it seemed to him like a dream, and at times he thought that he had really heard the voice. "Such things have happened before now," thought he.

So he sat by the window, looking out into the street more than he worked, and whenever any one passed in unfamiliar boots he would stoop and look up, so as to see not the feet only but the face of the passer-by as well. A house-porter passed in new felt boots; then a water-carrier. Presently an old soldier of Nicholas' reign came near the window, spade in hand. Martin knew him by his boots, which were shabby old felt ones, galoshed with leather. The old man was called Stepánitch: a neighboring tradesman kept him in his house for charity, and his duty was to help the house-porter. He began to clear away the snow before Martin's window. Martin glanced at him and then went on with his work.

"I must be growing crazy with age," said Martin, laughing at his fancy. "Stepánitch comes to clear away the snow, and I must needs imagine it's Christ coming to visit me. Old dotard that I am!"

Yet after he had made a dozen stitches he felt drawn to look out of the window again. He saw that Stepánitch had leaned his spade against the wall, and was either resting himself or trying to get warm. The man was old and broken down, and had evidently not enough strength even to clear away the snow.

"What if I called him in and gave him some tea?" thought Martin. "The samovár is just on the boil."

He stuck his awl in its place, and rose; and putting the samovár on the table, made tea. Then he tapped the window with his fingers. Stepánitch turned and came to the window. Martin beckoned to him to come in, and went himself to open the door.

"Come in," he said, "and warm yourself a bit. I'm sure you must be cold."

"May God bless you!" Stepánitch answered. "My bones do ache to be sure." He came in, first shaking off the snow, and lest he should leave marks on the floor he began wiping his feet; but as he did so he tottered and nearly fell.

"Don't trouble to wipe your feet," said Martin "I'll wipe up the floor ? it's all in the day's work. Come, friend, sit down and have some tea."

Filling two tumblers, he passed one to his visitor, and pouring his own out into the saucer, began to blow on it.

Stepánitch emptied his glass, and, turning it upside down, put the remains of his piece of sugar on the top. He began to express his thanks, but it was plain that he would be glad of some more.

"Have another glass," said Martin, refilling the visitor's tumbler and his own. But while he drank his tea Martin kept looking out into the street.

"Are you expecting any one?" asked the visitor.

"Am I expecting any one? Well, now, I'm ashamed to tell you. It isn't that I really expect any one; but I heard something last night which I can't get out of my mind. Whether it was a vision, or only a fancy, I can't tell. You see, friend, last night I was reading the Gospel, about Christ the Lord, how he suffered, and how he walked on earth. You have heard tell of it, I dare say."

"I have heard tell of it," answered Stepánitch; "but I'm an ignorant man and not able to read."

"Well, you see, I was reading of how he walked on earth. I came to that part, you know, where he went to a Pharisee who did not receive him well. Well, friend, as I read about it, I thought now that man did not receive Christ the Lord with proper honor. Suppose such a thing could happen to such a man as myself, I thought, what would I not do to receive him! But that man gave him no reception at all. Well, friend, as I was thinking of this, I began to doze, and as I dozed I heard some one call me by name. I got up, and thought I heard someone whispering, ?Expect me; I will come to-morrow.' This happened twice over. And to tell you the truth, it sank so into my mind that, though I am ashamed of it myself, I keep on expecting him, the dear Lord!"

Stepánitch shook his head in silence, finished his tumbler and laid it on its side; but Martin stood it up again and refilled it for him.

"Here drink another glass, bless you! And I was thinking too, how he walked on earth and despised no one, but went mostly among common folk. He went with plain people, and chose his disciples from among the likes of us, from workmen like us, sinners that we are. ?He who raises himself,' he said, ?shall be humbled and he who humbles himself shall be raised.' ?You call me Lord,' he said, ?and I will wash your feet.' ?He who would be first,' he said, ?let him be the servant of all; because,' he said, ?blessed are the poor, the humble, the meek, and the merciful.'"

Stepánitch forgot his tea. He was an old man easily moved to tears, and as he sat and listened the tears ran down his cheeks.

"Come, drink some more," said Martin. But Stepánitch crossed himself, thanked him, moved away his tumbler, and rose.

"Thank you, Martin Avdéitch," he said, "you have given me food and comfort both for soul and body."

"You're very welcome. Come again another time. I am glad to have a guest," said Martin.

Stepánitch went away; and Martin poured out the last of the tea and drank it up. Then he put away the tea things and sat down to his work, stitching the back seam of a boot. And as he stitched he kept looking out of the window, waiting for Christ, and thinking about him and his doings. And his head was full of Christ's sayings.

Two soldiers went by: one in government boots, and the other in boots of his own; then the master of a neighboring house, in shining galoshes; then a baker carrying a basket. All these passed on. Then a woman came up in worsted stockings and peasant-made shoes. She passed the window, but stopped by the wall. Martin glanced up at her through the window, and saw that she was a stranger, poorly dressed, and with a baby in her arms. She stopped by the wall with her back to the wind, trying to wrap the baby up, though she had hardly anything to wrap it in. The woman had only summer clothes on, and even they were shabby and worn. Through the window Martin heard the baby crying, and the woman trying to soothe it, but unable to do so. Martin rose and going out of the door and up the steps he called to her.

"My dear, I say, my dear!"

The woman heard, and turned round.

"Why do you stand out there with the baby in the cold? Come inside. You can wrap him up better in a warm place. Come this way!"

The woman was surprised to see an old man in an apron, with spectacles on his nose, calling to her, but she followed him in.

They went down the steps, entered the little room, and the old man led her to the bed.

"There, sit down, my dear, near the stove. Warm yourself, and feed the baby."

"Oh, I haven't got any milk. I have eaten nothing myself since early morning," said the woman, but still she took the baby to her breast.

Martin shook his head. He brought out a basin and some bread. Then he opened the oven door and poured some cabbage soup into the basin. He took out the porridge pot also but the porridge was not yet ready, so he spread a cloth on the table and served only the soup and bread.

"Sit down and eat, my dear, and I'll mind the baby. Why, bless me, I've had children of my own; I know how to manage them."

The woman crossed herself, and sitting down at the table began to eat, while Martin put the baby on the bed and sat down by it. He chucked and chucked, but having no teeth he could not do it well and the baby continued to cry. Then Martin tried poking at him with his finger; he drove his finger straight at the baby's mouth and then quickly drew it back, and did this again and again. He did not let the baby take his finger in its mouth, because it was all black with cobbler's wax. But the baby first grew quiet watching the finger, and then began to laugh. And Martin felt quite pleased.

The woman sat eating and talking, and told him who she was, and where she had been.

"I'm a soldier's wife," said she. "They sent my husband somewhere, far away, eight months ago, and I have heard nothing of him since. I had a place as cook till my baby was born, but then they would not keep me with a child. For three months now I have been struggling, unable to find a place, and I've had to sell all I had for food. I tried to go as a wet-nurse, but no one would have me; they said I was too starved-looking and thin. Now I have just been to see a tradesman's wife (a woman from our village is in service with her) and she has promised to take me. I thought it was all settled at last, but she tells me not to come till next week. It is far to her place, and I am fagged out, and baby is quite starved, poor mite. Fortunately our landlady has pity on us, and lets us lodge free, else I don't know what we should do."

Martin sighed. "Haven't you any warmer clothing?" he asked.

"How could I get warm clothing?" said she. "Why I pawned my last shawl for sixpence yesterday."

Then the woman came and took the child, and Martin got up. He went and looked among some things that were hanging on the wall, and brought back an old cloak.

"Here," he said, "though it's a worn-out old thing, it will do to wrap him up in."

The woman looked at the cloak, then at the old man, and taking it, burst into tears. Martin turned away, and groping under the bed brought out a small trunk. He fumbled about in it, and again sat down opposite the woman. And the woman said:

"The Lord bless you, friend. Surely Christ must have sent me to your window, else the child would have frozen. It was mild when I started, but now see how cold it has turned. Surely it must have been Christ who made you look out of your window and take pity on me, poor wretch!"

Martin smiled and said, "It is quite true; it was he made me do it. It was no mere chance made me look out."

And he told the woman his dream, and how he had heard the Lord's voice promising to visit him that day.

"Who knows? All things are possible," said the woman. And she got up and threw the cloak over her shoulders, wrapping it round herself and round the baby. Then she bowed, and thanked Martin once more.

"Take this for Christ's sake," said Martin, and gave her sixpence to get her shawl out of pawn. The woman crossed herself, and Martin did the same, and then he saw her out.

After the woman had gone, Martin ate some cabbage soup, cleared the things away, and sat down to work again. He sat and worked, but did not forget the window, and every time a shadow fell on it he looked up at once to see who was passing. People he knew and strangers passed by, but no one remarkable.

After a while Martin saw an apple-woman stop just in front of his window. She had a large basket, but there did not seem to be many apples left in it; she had evidently sold most of her stock. On her back she had a sack full of wood chips, which she was taking home. No doubt she had gathered them at some place where building was going on. The sack evidently hurt her, and she wanted to shift it from one shoulder to the other, so she put it down on the footpath and, placing her basket on a post, began to shake down the chips in the sack. While she was doing this a boy in a tattered cap ran up, snatched an apple out of the basket, and tried to slip away; but the old woman noticed it, and turning, caught the boy by his sleeve. He began to struggle, trying to free himself, but the old woman held on with both hands, knocked his cap off his head, and seized hold of his hair. The boy squawked and the old woman scolded him. Martin dropped his awl, not waiting to stick it in its place, and rushed out of the door. Stumbling up the steps, and dropping his spectacles in his hurry, he ran out into the street. The old woman was pulling the boy's hair and scolding him, and threatening to take him to the police. The lad was struggling and protesting, saying, "I did not take it. What are you beating me for? Let me go!"

Martin separated them. He took the boy by the hand and said, "Let him go, Granny. Forgive him for Christ's sake."

"I'll pay him out, so that he won't forget it for a year! I'll take the rascal to the police!"

Martin began entreating the old woman.

"Let him go, Granny. He won't do it again. Let him go for Christ's sake!"

The old woman let go, and the boy wished to run away, but Martin stopped him.

"Ask the Granny's forgiveness!" said he. "And don't do it another time. I saw you take the apple."

The boy began to cry and to beg pardon.

"That's right. And now here's an apple for you," and Martin took an apple from the basket and gave it to the boy, saying, "I will pay you, Granny."

"You will spoil them that way, the young rascals," said the old woman. "He ought to be whipped so that he should remember it for a week."

"Oh, Granny, Granny," said Martin, "that's our way ? but it's not God's way. If he should be whipped for stealing an apple, what should be done to us for our sins?"

The old woman was silent.

And Martin told her the parable of the lord who forgave his servant a large debt, and how the servant went out and seized his debtor by the throat. The old woman listened to it all, and the boy, too, stood by and listened.

"God bids us forgive," said Martin, "or else we shall not be forgiven. Forgive every one; and a thoughtless youngster most of all."

The old woman wagged her head and sighed.

"It's true enough," said she, "but they are getting terribly spoilt."

"Then we old ones must show them better ways," Martin replied.

"That's just what I say," said the old woman. "I have had seven of them myself, and only one daughter is left." And the old woman began to tell how and where she was living with her daughter, and how many grandchildren she had. "There now," she said, "I have but little strength left, yet I work hard for the sake of my grandchildren; and nice children they are, too. No one comes out to meet me but the children. Little Annie, now, won't leave me for any one. ?It's grandmother, dear grandmother, darling grandmother.'" And the old woman completely softened at the thought.

"Of course, it was only his childishness, God help him," said she, referring to the boy.

As the old woman was about to hoist her sack on her back, the lad sprang forward to her, saying, "Let me carry it for you, Granny. I'm going that way."

The old woman nodded her head, and put the sack on the boy's back, and they went down the street together, the old woman quite forgetting to ask Martin to pay for the apple. Martin stood and watched them as they went along talking to each other.

When they were out of sight Martin went back to the house. Having found his spectacles unbroken on the steps, he picked up his awl and sat down again to work. He worked a little, but could soon not see to pass the bristle through the holes in the leather; and presently he noticed the lamplighter passing on his way to light the street lamps.

"Seems it's time to light up," thought he. So he trimmed his lamp, hung it up, and sat down again to work. He finished off one boot and, turning it about, examined it. It was all right. Then he gathered his tools together, swept up the cuttings, put away the bristles and the thread and the awls, and, taking down the lamp, placed it on the table. Then he took the Gospels from the shelf. He meant to open them at the place he had marked the day before with a bit of morocco, but the book opened at another place. As Martin opened it, his yesterday's dream came back to his mind, and no sooner had he thought of it than he seemed to hear footsteps, as though some one were moving behind him. Martin turned round, and it seemed to him as if people were standing in the dark corner, but he could not make out who they were. And a voice whispered in his ear: "Martin, Martin, don't you know me?"

"Who is it?" muttered Martin.

"It is I," said the voice. And out of the dark corner stepped Stepánitch, who smiled and vanishing like a cloud was seen no more.

"It is I," said the voice again. And out of the darkness stepped the woman with the baby in her arms and the woman smiled and the baby laughed, and they too vanished.

"It is I," said the voice once more. And the old woman and the boy with the apple stepped out and both smiled, and then they too vanished.

And Martin's soul grew glad. He crossed himself put on his spectacles, and began reading the Gospel just where it had opened; and at the top of the page he read

"I was a hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in."

And at the bottom of the page he read:

"Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren even these least, ye did it unto me." And Martin understood that his dream had come true; and that the Savior had really come to him that day, and he had welcomed him.

Yum-Yum

I Googled a list of some of the more venerable contents of my fridge and cupboards yesterday, and by said engine's wondrous serendipity came upon prawn chowder with mashed potato. Very good it was too, with the broken bacon in the role played by salt pork in an old-school chowder, and the mashed spuds enhancing the texture.

I'm possibly not the trencherman I imagine however, as I had to buy a new belt on the very same day; all my others being too big. Taking the long view, and ignoring the snakes and ladders along the way, I've been getting more svelte at the rate of about an ounce a week for several years, and it gradually adds up.

In other food news:

Two Germans needed hospital treatment after they fought a pitched battle in a supermarket with salamis used as clubs and a chunk of Parmesan cheese brandished like a dagger.

Yab-Yum

My 3 month yoga pass expired on Sunday, but I ponied up for another 30 days this morning.

I've been 45 times to date.

As an early news year's resolution for 2010, I am aiming to investigate the primordial (or mystical) union of wisdom and compassion with five tantric consorts.

The monstrance regiment

I went to the V&A yesterday, and I was overwhelmed by the Sacred Silver and Stained Glass in Room 83 and Room 84.

Then - by way of a contrast - we watched Liverpool versus Arsenal in the boozer, and were gratified to see the Gunners come away from Anfield with three points.

The BBC History of Christianity

Three hundred years ago some human children began to be born as vampires. These have enhanced hearing, sight, agility, stamina and reflexes. In this universe vampires are considered a more perfect version of humans; i.e. closer to God. They have taken over the Catholic Church (the only variant of religion seen in this film, possibly the only one existing), and are called Brothers. They wear unadorned long black coats, and look very monseignor-ish. The Brothers state that they exist only to serve humans; to protect and guide them. Brothers live much longer than humans; the oldest are 300 years old and none have died yet. Vampires are removed from their mothers at birth, indoctrinated into the Brotherhood, and raised to believe they are superior to humans.

Human churchgoers donate blood for the Brothers to drink (one character states his mother gives blood three times a month at church, and in one scene we also see an elegant woman at a swanky party donating blood into a large collecting vessel with a tap at the bottom, from which Brothers are served in elaborate chased goblets). Brothers never drink blood straight from the human body.

Churchgoers wear rosaries; however not all humans are churchgoers. At some more infrequent church ceremonies humans also drink the Brothers' blood, and this gives them visions (some may experience prescience). The liturgy of the church states that mingling the blood of the two races makes one titular Perfect Creature.

Prodnose: Shurely shome mishtake? Ed.

Myslef: Oops, sorry. I keep on thinking it's Thursday.

That's a jazz haircut

Jazzman Larry Ochs has seen many things during 40 years playing his
saxophone around the world but, until this week, nobody had ever called the
police on him.

That changed on Monday night however, when's Spain's pistol-carrying Civil Guard police force descended on the Sigüenza Jazz festival to investigate allegations that Ochs's music was not, well, jazz.

Police decided to investigate after an angry jazz buff complained that the Larry Ochs Sax and Drumming Core group was on the wrong side of a line dividing jazz from contemporary music.

The jazz purist claimed his doctor had warned it was "psychologically inadvisable" for him to listen to anything that could be mistaken for mere contemporary music.

According to a report in El País newspaper yesterday, the khaki-clad police officers listened to the saxophone-playing and drumming coming from the festival stage before agreeing that the purist might, indeed, have a case.

His complaint against the organisers, who refused to return his money, was duly registered and will be passed on to a judge.

Nice.

The Greatest Show

This post from Babylon Wales is so great that I am simply and shamelessly lifting it entire.

Charlton Heston's trip to Cardiff in 1952 has been well documented. He and his actress wife, Lydia Clarke, arrived from London in heavy fog and stayed at the Angel Hotel. Their less than thrilling itinerary included a visit to the Brocklehurst Yarns nylon factory in Llanishen; and a personal appearance at Phillips Furniture store on Queen Street, where they handed out autographed photos. They also found time to visit South Wales Caravan Distributors in Ely (see advert), which must surely have been the highlight of their Welsh tour. In the evening they attended a premiere of Heston's latest flick at the Capitol Theatre - The Greatest Show on Earth.

Ben Hur in Culverhouse Cross. Who'd've thunk it?

no one was close, no one was distant

Labour's ''Twitter tsar'' was deluged with daft questions from users of the micro-blogging site after comedian Ross Noble launched a ''Twitterbombard''
campaign.

Noble urged his 30,000 Twitter ''followers'' to send crazy queries to Kerry McCarthy's site to see how the MP who fronts Labour's new media campaigning would respond.

And the comedian was forced to say ''fair play'' after the Bristol East MP – who has been named as the most influential parliamentarian on Twitter and has almost 4,300 followers of her own – announced she would try to reply to as many of the tweets as possible.


Asked if she would wear a gorilla suit to Parliament, she replied: ''I don't think
it's expressly forbidden, I could give it a try?''

When a fellow vegan asked her to recommend a cheese substitute, she said: ''I prefer Cheezley though Sheese sometimes has its uses and the soft Scheese is good.''

And challenged to start a Mexican wave in the Commons chamber, she joked: ''We do it on the Labour benches when Nick Clegg is speaking. You just don't see it
happening.''

Hats off to KerryMP, friendly and funny is good PR, and yet .......

We're all on a first-name basis, and when we vote for president, we ask ourselves whom we'd rather have a beer with. As the anthropologist Robert Brain has put it, we're friends with everyone now.

Is that necessarily a good thing my friends?

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song

Now there's a word that I don't understand
I hear it every day from my old man
It may be Cockney rhyming slang
It ain't in no school book
He says it every time that he gets mad
A regular caution is my old dad
Rub the old man up the wrong way, bet your life you'll hear him say

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
Goethe!

When the kids are swinging on the gate
Goethe!
When the paperboy's half an hour late
Goethe!
When the pigeons are pecking at his seed
Goethe!
When the farmer (?) starts digging up his weeds (?)
Goethe!

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
Bar stool preaching
That's the old man's game!

Now the old man was a Desert Rat
Khaki shorts and a khaki hat
How me mother could have fancied that
I just don't know
But when the enemy came in sight
They gave up without a fight
They rubbed him up the wrong way
This is what they heard him say

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
Goethe!

When me rock and roll records wake him up
Goethe!
When the Poles knock England out of the cup
Goethe!
When the kids are banging on his door
Goethe!
When the barman won't serve him any more

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
Bar stool preaching
He's always been the same!

(piano solo)

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
Goethe!

When the dog's left a message on the step
Goethe!
Lester Piggott, when he lost it by a neck
Goethe!
When me brother kicks the toes out of his shoes
Goethe!
When the houseflies are flying round his food

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
Bar stool preaching
He's always been the same!

Goethe!
Goethe!
Goethe!
Goethe!

Goethe!
When me mother says he can't go down the pub
Goethe!
Sister's boyfriend put his sister up the club
Goethe!
When the tomcats, when they're kicking up a din
Goethe!
Tottenham Hotspur couldn't get one in
Goethe!
When me mother locks him out of the flat
Goethe!
When it's raining and he can't find his hat
Goethe!
In the mornings when his motorcar won't go
Goethe!
Next-door neighbour, when he won't give him a tow
Goethe!
Goethe!
Goethe!
Goethe!

Look inside

There was once a small boy who banged a drum all day and loved every moment of it. He would not be quiet, no matter what anyone else said or did. Various people who called themselves Sufis, and other well-wishers, were called in by neighbors and asked to do something about the child.

The first so-called Sufi told the boy that he would, if he continued to make so much noise, perforate his eardrums; this reasoning was too advanced for the child, who was neither a scientist nor a scholar.

The second told him that drum beating was a sacred activity and should be carried out only on special occasions.

The third offered the neighbors plugs for their ears; the fourth gave the boy a book; the fifth gave the neighbors books that described a method of controlling anger through biofeedback; the sixth gave the boy meditation exercises to make him placid and explained that all reality was imagination. Like all placebos, each of these remedies worked for a short while, but none worked for very long.

Eventually, a real Sufi came along. He looked at the situation, handed the boy a hammer and chisel, and said, "I wonder what is INSIDE the drum?"

Madness! This is water

No rugby for the Bomber this weekend as the pitches were all waterlogged .... again.

What with the wettest November on record, the boys have hardly got a runout since his debut at the end of October.

Extrapolating this trend around the UK and back over the years, I can't help but wonder how much the miserable weather contributes to the poor performance of British sides against the Southern hemisphere teams.

It's difficult to maintain enthusiasm for the sport with kids if they don't get a chance to play. Perhaps Sport England should invest in drainage?

Barbarians 25-18 New Zealand

A hat-trick of tries by Springbok Bryan Habana inspired the Barbarians to only their second-ever win over New Zealand.

And - whisper it - not an English, Irish or Scottish player in the Ba-bas.

Barbarians: Drew Mitchell (Australia); Joe Rokocoko (New Zealand), Jaque Fourie (South Africa), Jamie Roberts (Wales), Bryan Habana (South Africa); Matt Giteau (Australia), Fourie du Preez (South Africa); Salvatore Perugini (Italy), Bismarck du Plessis (South Africa), W P Nel (uncapped), Carlo del Fava (Italy), Victor Matfield (South Africa, captain), Rocky Elsom (Australia), Schalk Burger (South Africa), George Smith (Australia).

Replacements: Stephen Moore (Australia), Tendai Mtawarira (South Africa), Quintin Geldenhuys (Italy), Andy Powell (Wales), Will Genia (Australia), Morne Steyn (South Africa), Leigh Halfpenny (Wales).

Nietzsche's pants

Excerpts from a letter from 24-year old Friedrich Nietzsche, reporting on the farcical preliminaries of his first meeting with German composer and icon Richard Wagner.

Thinking that many people were invited, I decided to dress very smartly, and was glad that my tailor had promised for this same Sunday an evening suit. It was a terrible day of rain and snow; I shuddered at the thought of going out…

It was getting dark, the tailor had not come, and Roscher left. I went with him, visited the tailor in person, and found his slaves hectically occupied with my suit; they promised to send it in three-quarters of an hour. I left contentedly, dropping in at Kintschy’s [café-restaurant], read Kladderadatsch [humor magazine], and found to my pleasure the notice that Wagner was in Switzerland but that a beautiful house was being built for him in Munich; all the time I knew that I would see him that same evening and that he had yesterday received a letter from the little king [Ludwig II of Bavaria, Wagner’s patron] bearing the address: To the great German composer Richard Wagner.

At home I found no tailor, read in a leisurely way …, and was disturbed now and then by a loud but distant ringing. Finally I grew certain that someone was waiting at the patriarchal wrought-iron gate; it was locked, and so was the front door of the house. I shouted across the garden to the man and told him to come into the Naundörfchen: it was impossible to make oneself understood through the rain. The whole house was astir; finally the gate was opened, and a little old man with a package came up to my room. It was six-thirty, time to put on my things and get myself ready, for I live very far out.

Right, the man has my things, I try them on, they fit. An ominous moment; he presents the bill. I take it politely; he wants to be paid on receipt of the goods. I am amazed, and explain that I will not deal with him, an employee of my tailor, but only with the tailor himself, to whom I gave the order.

The man becomes more pressing, the time becomes more pressing; I seize the things and begin to put them on; the man seizes the things, and stops me from putting them on- force on my side, force on his side. Scene: I am fighting in my shirttails, for I am trying to put on my new trousers.

Finally, a show of dignity, solemn threat, cursing my tailor and his assistant, swearing revenge; meanwhile the little man is moving off with my things. End of second act: I brood on the sofa in my shirttails and consider a black jacket, whether it is good enough for Richard.

Outside the rain is pouring down.

A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust

What is the end of fame? 'tis but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper:
Some liken it to climbing up a hill,
Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour;
For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill
And bards burn what they call their 'midnight taper,'
To have, when the original is dust,
A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.

Verse CCXVIII from Canto 1 of Byron's Don Juan - and especially the last line - is curiously apposite don't you think?

Dr Strabismus does Dallas

All men watch porn, scientists find

Scientists at the University of Montreal launched a search for men who had never looked at pornography - but couldn't find any.

Researchers were conducting a study comparing the views of men in their 20s who had never been exposed to pornography with regular users.

But their project stumbled at the first hurdle when they failed to find a single man who had not been seen it.

“We started our research seeking men in their 20s who had never consumed pornography,” said Professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse. “We couldn't find any.”

Any way the wind blows

No over-the-top sexual posturing, no singer-on-the-verge-of-tears and no clumsy falls - just a fake bear, singing chickens and a vocal solo from one Dr. Bunsen Honeydew.

That's not to say this is all silly. There's some old-fashioned pyro, and things threaten to get violent with a cleaver-wielding Swedish Chef.

I want to go Wii

I installed the new IPlayer Channel on the Wii last night. It is not as easy to search as the PC version but overall I am very impressed.

For what it is worth, I watched Roger Scruton's "Why Beauty Matters" because I am a grumpy old person.

In the 20th century, Scruton argues, art, architecture and music turned their backs on beauty, making a cult of ugliness and leading us into a spiritual desert.

the old home town looks the same

I went to the Beatles to Bowie exhibition at the NPG yesterday and was very taken with this Tony Frank, 1967 shot of Tom Jones gazing down on Pontypridd.

After that I watched Arsenal versus Chelsea in the pub. Of that, the less said the better.

In taberna quando sumus

For all that it sounds stirring, or even a bit pompous, Carmina Burana is not necessarily about elevated topics. So, as another entry in an emerging series of Sunday morning coming down posts, I give you song 14, while I go off to brew some strong black coffee.

Prodnose: In taberna quando sumus
Myself: When we are in the tavern,

Prodnose: non curamus quid sit humus,
Myself: we do not think how we will go to dust,

Prodnose: sed ad ludum properamus,
Myself: but we hurry to gamble,

Prodnose: cui semper insudamus.
Myself: which always makes us sweat.

Prodnose: Quid agatur in taberna
Myself: What happens in the tavern,

Prodnose: ubi nummus est pincerna,
Myself: where money is host,

Prodnose: hoc est opus ut queratur,
Myself: you may well ask,

Prodnose: si quid loquar, audiatur.
Myself: and hear what I say.

Prodnose: Quidam ludunt, quidam bibunt,
Myself: Some gamble, some drink,

Prodnose: quidam indiscrete vivunt.
Myself: some behave loosely.

Prodnose: Sed in ludo qui morantur,
Myself: But of those who gamble,

Prodnose: ex his quidam denudantur
Myself: some are stripped bare,

Prodnose: quidam ibi vestiuntur,
Myself: some win their clothes here,

Prodnose: quidam saccis induuntur.
Myself: some are dressed in sacks.

Prodnose: Ibi nullus timet mortem
Myself: Here no-one fears death,

Prodnose: sed pro Baccho mittunt sortem:
Myself: but they throw the dice in the name of Bacchus.

Prodnose: Primo pro nummata vini,
Myself: First of all it is to the wine-merchant

Prodnose: ex hac bibunt libertini;
Myself: the libertines drink,

Prodnose: semel bibunt pro captivis,
Myself: one for the prisoners,

Prodnose: post hec bibunt ter pro vivis,
Myself: three for the living,

Prodnose: quater pro Christianis cunctis
Myself: four for all Christians,

Prodnose: quinquies pro fidelibus defunctis,
Myself: five for the faithful dead,

Prodnose: sexies pro sororibus vanis,
Myself: six for the loose sisters,

Prodnose: septies pro militibus silvanis.
Myself: seven for the footpads in the wood,

Prodnose: Octies pro fratribus perversis,
Myself: Eight for the errant brethren,

Prodnose: nonies pro monachis dispersis,
Myself: nine for the dispersed monks,

Prodnose: decies pro navigantibus
Myself: ten for the seamen,

Prodnose: undecies pro discordaniibus,
Myself: eleven for the squabblers,

Prodnose: duodecies pro penitentibus,
Myself: twelve for the penitent,

Prodnose: tredecies pro iter agentibus.
Myself: thirteen for the wayfarers.

Prodnose: Tam pro papa quam pro rege
Myself: To the Pope as to the king

Prodnose: bibunt omnes sine lege.
Myself: they all drink without restraint.

Prodnose: Bibit hera, bibit herus,
Myself: The mistress drinks, the master drinks,

Prodnose: bibit miles, bibit clerus,
Myself: the soldier drinks, the priest drinks,

Prodnose: bibit ille, bibit illa,
Myself: the man drinks, the woman drinks,

Prodnose: bibit servis cum ancilla,
Myself: the servant drinks with the maid,

Prodnose: bibit velox, bibit piger,
Myself: the swift man drinks, the lazy man drinks,

Prodnose: bibit albus, bibit niger,
Myself: the white man drinks, the black man drinks,

Prodnose: bibit constans, bibit vagus,
Myself: the settled man drinks, the wanderer drinks,

Prodnose: bibit rudis, bibit magnus.
Myself: the stupid man drinks, the wise man drinks,

Prodnose: Bibit pauper et egrotus,
Myself: The poor man drinks, the sick man drinks,

Prodnose: bibit exul et ignotus,
Myself: the exile drinks, and the stranger,

Prodnose: bibit puer, bibit canus,
Myself: the boy drinks, the old man drinks,

Prodnose: bibit presul et decanus,
Myself: the bishop drinks, and the deacon,

Prodnose: bibit soror, bibit frater,
Myself: the sister drinks, the brother drinks,

Prodnose: bibit anus, bibit mater,
Myself: the old lady drinks, the mother drinks,

Prodnose: bibit ista, bibit ille,
Myself: this man drinks, that man drinks,

Prodnose: bibunt centum, bibunt mille.
Myself: a hundred drink, a thousand drink.

Prodnose: Parum sexcente nummate
Myself: Six hundred pennies would hardly

Prodnose: durant, cum immoderate
Myself: suffice, if everyone

Prodnose: bibunt omnes sine meta.
Myself: drinks immoderately and immeasurably.

Prodnose: Quamvis bibant mente leta,
Myself: However much they cheerfully drink

Prodnose: sic nos rodunt omnes gentes
Myself: we are the ones whom everyone scolds,

Prodnose: et sic erimus egentes.
Myself: and thus we are destitute.

Prodnose: Qui nos rodunt confundantur
Myself: May those who slander us be cursed

Prodnose: et cum iustis non scribantur.
Myself: and may their names not be written in the book of the righteous.

Tactical Nuclear Penguin

A controversial Scottish brewery has launched what it described as the world's strongest beer - with a 32% alcohol content.

Tactical Nuclear Penguin has been unveiled by BrewDog of Fraserburgh.

BrewDog was previously branded irresponsible for an 18.2% beer called Tokyo, which it then followed with a low alcohol beer called Nanny State.

Managing director James Watt said a limited supply of Tactical Nuclear Penguin would be sold for £30 each.

He said: "This beer is about pushing the boundaries, it is about taking innovation in beer to a whole new level."

Mr Watt added that a beer such as Tactical Nuclear Penguin should be drunk in "spirit sized measures".

A warning on the label states: "This is an extremely strong beer; it should be enjoyed in small servings and with an air of aristocratic nonchalance. In exactly the same manner that you would enjoy a fine whisky, a Frank Zappa album or a visit from a friendly yet anxious ghost."

The ghost of Dr Stabismus?

The Cloud Lifts

Yo ISP! Let’s vaporize it
Cloud cloud maybe

All right stop. Virtualize and listen
This cloud is hot – infrastructure invention

This trend is grabbin’ hold of us tightly
We’re blogging and debating daily and nightly

Is it really hot? Yo, I don’t know
but scalin’ on demand, it does show

To the extreme – McKinsey caused a scandal
when they donned their IT guru mantle

HYPE! The Gartner peak looms
SMBs are fine. Enterprise? No room!

Baloney! IBM said quickly
The suits are off their rocker. I think they’re just being prickly. Obviously!

Use it or Hate it, it’s here to stay
You’d better learn the rules of how you wanna play

If there’s a load of them, the cloud will scale it
Check out EC2 while S3 stores it

CHORUS: Yeah! Cloud Cloud maybe.
Go for it, baby! Cloud cloud maybe.
Cloud cloud maybe.

Now that I got you thinkin’
I see you’re looking for ideas ripe for a pickin’

Ready to virtualize to the point of abstraction
So you can reap when the cloud gets inflexion

Be smart; drink the kool-aid from a thimble
Don’t get all crazy when you see a symbol

Or a ppt… with some souped up lingo
Convincing that the cloud isn’t the way-to-go

LAUNCHIN. 3.0
“Cloud compatability on”, so you can grow

Scale on the fly, wave your headaches bye
Should you believe it? “But you’ve got to give it a try”

SUN -CLOUD. An oxymoron if I saw one.
But this & Atmos add to the fun.

The box is dead YO
Let’s move now to – S.O.A.P. – Cloud Computing

You can also run a cloud in its minis
Private clouds are hotter than grilled paninis

My Cloud! Coz I want no one pryin’
Cluster ‘em together & be just fine

Just SOA, nothing new some say
“old wine in new bottles” summarizes their take

GTrends! Shoots up as the vendors yell
This stuff is hot, by the noise you can tell

GOOGLE! No idea what they’re up to
App-Engine…G-Drive…there’s more in their zoo

Vapor to Vapor, the cloudosphere’s packed
If you’re trying too long for the attention of a hack

Cloud enable your scene you know what I mean
That’ll sex you up, put you on the radar screens

So what if its working? Yo, lets cloud it
Cloud’s here to stay. Microsoft will Azure it

CHORUS:
Cloud cloud maybe its too hot too hot
Cloud cloud maybe its too hot too hot

Yo man. That’s a server there!

Send it to the museum!

The Kitchen of Dr Strabismus

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Inside a nondescript warehouse on a nondescript street of this Seattle suburb is a research laboratory that looks like it came out of a James Bond movie — had Q the gadget master been a gastronome.

Here Nathan Myhrvold, a former chief technology officer at Microsoft, and his company, Intellectual Ventures, pursue an eclectic array of speculative and potentially world-changing ideas — inventing a new battery, taming hurricanes, defeating disease. And here, along with the laser designed to shoot mosquitoes out of the air (a high-speed camera counts the rate of wing-flapping to ensure that innocent insects are not vaporized), is the best-equipped restaurant kitchen anywhere that never serves any customers.

Dr. Myhrvold exuded a Willy Wonka enthusiasm as he talked of the foods that came out of his industrial food dehydrator. “Raw lobster tail, freeze dried, is amazing,” he said.

At another machine, rose petals spun inside a glass globe. “This is basically a still,” he said. “You could crank the temperature up and distill alcohol. What we’re trying to do here is get an essence of rose petals.”

The yield would be a few fragrant tablespoons of liquid.

Around the corner, he pointed to two machines side by side. “Here’s our ice cream machine, and here’s our ultrasonic welder,” he said.

Had he used the welder as a cooking appliance? “Not yet,” he said, earnestly,” but we’re going to try it out.”

After all, an autoclave designed to sterilize lab equipment has proven culinarily productive — “It’s basically the pressure cooker from hell,” Dr. Myhrvold said — as has a 100-ton hydraulic press, for beef jerky.

Bet the farm

Ben was farming when a lonely Pink Cow from a nearby Strawberry Farm wandered onto their farm in FarmVille. She's worried that she may never find a new home because, well, she's more than a little different.*

The Bomber was introduced to FarmVille by his friend H, over the weekend.

"67,351,673 monthly active users," says Facebook. Sixty seven million!

It is not for me though.

* (The lack of a gender-neutral first person pronoun in English makes me wince sometimes. "If you love somebody set him or her free," Mr Sting.)

Pitched In

To the Bull's Head in Barnes last night to see a System X reunion gig as part of a month long festival celebrating its half century as a jazz venue.

A scary back of the envelope calculation revealed that I have been going there on and off for twenty five of those fifty years.

System X's album was recorded seventeen years ago, but practically every note of the set was still familiar to me. Like they'd never been away; like I'd never been away. (I remember seeing them supporting Arturo Sandoval in Ronnie Scott's.)

It's too bad we have to get old.
Just keep punching.
Want to ring the bell?
All right.
Come on, Stallion.
You really move good for an older guy.
Look at him fly.
No, you don't want any of this.
Maybe I'm in here with the wrong guy?
Dad, you're late.
Mom's going to yell at you.

Full Contact Writer

I see that Matt Polly has not rested on his laurels after the prestigious el grupo triumph of American Shaolin, his last book.

He wrote me some time ago that he was working in the "idiot-participatory-martial-arts memoir category" and I've stumbled on the news that he actually competed in, and even won, an MMA fight in Vegas back in August.

The working title for his book that will likely be published next year is “Full Contact Writer.”

plus ça change

The fetishization of change is a symptom of a deep intellectual malaise in modern education theory, where truth, knowledge, and meaning have merely a provisional character... more

Since the river took Tamiflu

Health officials say a Tamiflu-resistant strain of swine flu has spread between hospital patients.

Five patients on a unit treating people with severe underlying health conditions at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, were infected.

Three appear to have acquired the infection in hospital.

They are thought to be the first confirmed cases of person-to-person transmission of a Tamiflu-resistant strain in the world.

Yet another breakthrough for Wales.

Plan B

'Why-why do you always r-reduce my animal urges to psychoanalytic categories?'

Alcohol protects men's hearts.

Alcohol intake is not known to affect flucloxacillin.

I'm thinking again.

Snot Unusual

Ext. night: Rivulets of blood creep across pavement, flashing in the lights of a police cruiser, we pan across a body, and police investigating. Overlooking the scene from a tenement stoop are two strangely familiar characters seated side by side.

Myself: So your boy's name was what?
Prodnose: Snot.
Myself: Called the guy Snot?
Prodnose: Snot Unusual
Myself: God. Snot Unusual be loved by anyone?
Prodnose: Dunno, dunno, dunno.
Myself: Snot Unusual have fun with anyone?
Prodnose: Dunno, dunno. But if I seen him out and about with anyone?
Myself: Who shot Unusual, and seen him cry, "I'm gonna die!"?
Prodnose: Snot Unusual would go out at any time.
Myself: So why'd I see you out and about at such a crime? If you could ever give me the name of anyone..........
pause, filled only by the barking of dogs, somewhere in the neighbourhood
Prodnose: It's not Unusual. It happens every day.

Unhealthy thoughts

I'm on a course of antibiotics so I'm off the booze for a week.

I did have a good drink with MacKenna last night though as he's briefly back from DR Congo.

The juxtaposition of the last two sentences is entirely coincidental.

Sid Snot

Ext. night: Overlooking the scene from a tenement stoop are two strangely familiar characters seated side by side.

Myself: So your boy's name was what?
Prodnose: Snot.
Myself: Called the guy Snot?
Prodnose: Sid Snot
Myself: God. Sid Snot. You like the name?
Prodnose: What?
Myself: Sid Snot ... This kid, whose mama went to the trouble to christen him Sidney .......

Aren't we content here like this?

France has always been a nation of philosophers. Descartes contributed rigorous thinking. Montesquieu and Voltaire inspired democracy, and Sartre made it cool to despair. It was inevitable, sooner or later, that along would come Jacques Puisais, philosopher of taste.

When Puisais philosophizes about taste, as he has been doing for decades, he does not mean a red tie goes with a gray suit. He means the magic that happens when the right wine is married with the right food, when lamb chops are grilled over smoldering grape vines and baked apples are caramelized just so for lunch with friends and family.

But one should not misunderstand. The philosophy of taste as practiced by Puisais is not the windy lyricism of restaurant reviews or wine labels. It is an effort by a trained scientist and irrepressible epicurean to document what happens when people experience food and wine and to educate them about how to make it a more authentic experience that reinforces their human bonds.


......... read on ...........

Not the ideal reverie for Monday morning, but what can you do?

Snot Boogie

I know its two months on, but I finally put the first Wire DVD in the slot yesterday and watched all three of the episodes on it at a sitting. It is good stuff. I am now officially on board with the detail and the Barksdale investigation.

season one, episode one

Ext. night: Rivulets of blood creep across pavement, flashing in the lights of a police cruiser, we pan across a body, and police investigating. Overlooking the scene from a tenement stoop are two strangely familiar characters seated side by side.

Myself: So your boy's name was what?

Prodnose: Snot.

Myself: Called the guy Snot?

Prodnose: Snot Boogie

Myself: God. Snot Boogie. You like the name?

Prodnose: What?

Myself: Snot Boogie... This kid, whose mama went to the trouble to christen him Omar Isaah Betts... You know, he forgets his jacket, his nose starts running and some asshole, instead of giving him a Kleenex, he calls him "Snot". So he's Snot forever. Doesn't seem fair.

Prodnose: Life just be that way, I guess.

Myself: So, who shot Snot?

Prodnose: I ain't goin' to no court.

pause, filled only by the barking of dogs, somewhere in the neighborhood

Prodnose: Mother ****er didn't have to put no cap in him though.

Myself: Definitely not.

Prodnose: He coulda just whooped his *** like we always whoop his ***.

Myself: I agree with you.

Prodnose: He killed Snot. Snot been doing the same **** since I don't know how long. You don't kill a man over some bull****.

Prodnose: I'm sayin': every Friday night in an alley behind the Cut Rate, we rollin' bones, you know? I mean all them boys, we roll til late.

Myself: Alley crap game, right?

Prodnose: Like every time, Snot, he'd fade a few shooters, play it out til the pot's deep. Snatch and run.

Myself: What, every time?

Prodnose: Couldn't help hisself.

Myself: Let me understand. Every Friday night, you and your boys are shootin? crap, right? And every Friday night, your pal Snot Boogie... he'd wait til there's cash on the ground and he'd grab it and run away? You let him do that?

Prodnose: We'd catch him and beat his *** but ain't nobody ever go past that.

Myself: I've gotta ask you: if every time Snot Boogie would grab the money and run away... why'd you even let him in the game?

Prodnose: What?

Myself: Well, if every time, Snot Boogie stole the money, why'd you let him play?

Prodnose: Got to. It's America, man.

Hide in Plain Sight

The Bomber is having drumming lessons at Cherry Pie Music (111 Kingston Road) early on Friday evenings, which means I can relax over a sneaky one at the Hideaway Bar and Dining Room (175 Kingston Road), and then pick up essential supplies at La Bottega del Panne (171 Kingston Road) while he practices his paradiddles.

I love in when a plan comes together.

VAT

I have nothing to say, I am saying it, and that is poetry.
John Cage

Realtime Horse Trading?

Sadiq Khan Minister of State for Transport, Twitter 16:50 yesterday:

Just co-chaired high level crossrail meeting at DfT with Boris, various Councillors from around London, reps from GLA, TFL, business

Spun by the said Boris, Mayor of London, three minutes later as:

Just met @SadiqKhan re: closure of the South London Line & he's agreed to explore other options - http://bit.ly/4jhqeD

I wonder if they are singing from the same sheet? I don't think you can deny that Twitter is helping to make the debate more public though.

99.9 percent uptime

I sit here with my tubes full of phlegm and limbs full of ache, having contracted whatever the Bomber has got. (He's still off school.)

Not being able to remember the last time I was ill, I will meditate on how remarkably hale and hearty I am the overwhelming majority of the time.

Almunia

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger feels goalkeeper Manuel Almunia needs “a few games” but is confident the Spaniard is back to his best.

A chest infection and family bereavement have kept Almunia out of the Arsenal team for 10 matches, but Wenger has been impressed with his form in victories over Tottenham Hotspur and AZ Alkmaar, despite some blaming him for the latter’s consolation goal.

"He looks back to his best,” Wenger said, according to The Guardian. “He needs a few games to get used to playing again, but I'm not worried about him."

Thank God for that. Ever since I shelled out forty seven quid on an Almunia replica Arsenal shirt from the Bomber's birthday, the keeper seemed to have disappeared.

(He's from Pamplona you know.)

Sick Note

The Bomber has been poorly in the night, so I am keeping him off school and working from home this morning.

Reflections for Sunday morning

Much ink has been spilled on the question of why so many writers are alcoholics. Of America’s seven Nobel laureates, five were lushes—to whom we can add an equally drunk-and-disorderly line of Brits: Dylan Thomas, Malcolm Lowry, Brendan Behan, Patrick Hamilton, Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis, all doing the conga to (in most cases) an early grave.

Yet:

Writing involves fantasy; alcohol promotes fantasy. Writing requires self-confidence; alcohol bolsters confidence. Writing is lonely work; alcohol assuages loneliness. Writing demands intense concentration; alcohol relaxes.

800 miles of narrow lanes

What follows is a slow and winding crash course in Welshness, although they have a more resonant word for it: Cymreictod. ..............

End of an Era

I took the Bomber to the firework display and bonfire in Wimbledon Park after judo last night, and damn fine pyrotechnics it was too.

I hoisted him on to my shoulders to get a better view of the Catherine Wheels and realised that this was probably the last time we'd be able to perform this stunt; he's getting taller all the time, and my arms aren't going to get any longer.

A poignant, but athletic, swansong as I had - to all intents and purposes - to throw him backwards over my head.

tart

Has any other reader noticed the remarkable resemblance ........... I wonder if they are related?

Spot the difference: buns for Kelly Brook's Calendar Girls ad were enlarged to cover her chest

The advert for the new cast of Calendar Girls featured the actress covering her 32E chest with cherry-topped pastries but Transport for London ordered them to be made larger.

In other promotional pictures of Brook, smaller buns can be seen in the same pose. From tomorrow, the model, 29, replaces Jerry Hall as Celia in the show at the Noel Coward Theatre. Producer David Pugh said: “[TfL] are worried about titillating customers.”

A TfL spokesman said they asked for “a few tweaks” to ensure the advert complied with their policy.

Rules are rules, but even I am surprised to see an organisation implementing cake tin to areola mammae diameter ratio regulations.

Then again, some people like cupcakes exclusively ....

Contrasts

1. First, Silence the Whistle-Blower: The United Nations' shameful complicity in this year's corrupt Afghan elections. Christopher Hitchens

2. Great Britain Loses one of its Finest: An email came today from London, from a BBC correspondent who has been to Afghanistan saying that Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid had been killed. Michael Yon

Killed for what? Killed for whom?

2nd Mon

The Bomber got his second Mon grading in judo last night. This is what he had to do:

FUNDAMENTAL SKILLS
Ukemi: • Yoko Ukemi
Tachi-waza: • De-ashi -barai
Osaekomi-waza: • Mune-gatame
PERFORMANCE SKILLS
Combination Techniques:
• De-ashi -barai into Mune-gatame Ne-waza:
• escape from Mune-gatame using a ‘bridge and roll’ action
PERSONAL CHOICE
Candidates are required to demonstrate two of their favourite waza
TERMINOLOGY AND SUPPLEMENTARY KNOWLEDGE
Candidates are required to:
· know the common English translations and meaning of all Japanese terminology used in this section
· translate the following Japanese words into their common English names and where appropriate explain their meaning: Osaekomi Toketa
· have knowledge of the judo code
· demonstrate the correct bowing procedure for Tachi-rei and Za-rei
· answer the question
Who is the founder of modern judo?

So there we are. You, like me, are none the wiser but at least a little better informed.

Nietzsche

Like many common surnames, it derives from a common forename, in this case Nikolaus (Nicholas), which, abbreviated to Nick and assimilated with the Slavic Nitz (pronounced Nitsch) became Nitsche and then Nietzsche.

My current "great fat book" being too big for a jacket pocket I picked RJ Hollingdale's "Nietzshe" off the shelves to pass the time on the Tube as I was going in to town on Saturday and was rewarded with the daft connection above.

It's a very well written book, and it turns out that Collingdale was far from an establishment figure; an intriguing autodidact who left school (up the road in Tooting) at 16.

The Day of the Dead

I went to the Moctezuma exhibition in the British Library yesterday.

It includes a recently found, gorgeously carved golden eagle - dating from about the first year of Moctezuma's reign - that has a hollow in its back that was a receptacle for human hearts cut from sacrificial victims.

An artefact of a culture, the passing of which I find difficult to mourn.

Hot Mormon Muffins

Is it too earlier to start thinking about next year's calendars?

The muffin man is seated at the table in the laboratory of the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen; reaching for an oversized chrome spoon he gathers an intimate quantity of dried muffin remnants and, brushing his scapular aside, procedes to dump these inside his shirt.

He turns to us and speaks. "Some people like cupcakes better. I for one care less for them!"

Arrogantly twisting the sterile canvas snoot of a fully charged icing anointment utensil he poots forths a quarter-ounce green rosette near the summit of a dense but radiant muffin of his own design.

Later he says, "some people... some people like cupcakes exclusively, while
myself, I say there is naught nor ought there be nothing so exalted on the
face of God's grey Earth as that prince of foods... the muffin! "

Girl you thought he was a man
But he was a muffin
He hung around till you found
That he didn't know nuthin

Girl you thought he was a man
But he only was a-puffin
No cry is heard tonight
As a result of him stuffin'

Hey Jude

Hat tip, Simon

Azure thing

Microsoft launched the SQL Azure Database Community Technology Preview (CTP) yesterday and I signed up.

We are one step closed to being able to drop our apps into the cloud, and rid ourselves of the need to invest in physical servers; nirvana I have been seeking since August 2006.

The giddy social whirl notwithstanding, I need to schedule some quality time with the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit.

Whoa! WoA

Off the Chessington World of Adventures with the Bomber and the usual suspects yesterday afternoon, what with it being half term 'n all.

Queuing for up to an hour to be thrown round like a rag doll for five minutes is not really my cup of tea, but needs must.

Before we got on the Vampire ride for the second time he told me he wanted to get the photo they take automatically as a souvenir "this time", so I was forced to adopt a rictus grin - instead of my usual expression of abject terror - throughout the ordeal so it at least looked like I was enjoying myself.

Worked though.

Funes el memorios

As I have form getting confused about;

1. what country we are going to (back in the pre Euro days when it was a real drag)

2. what week we are actually going (both last year and this year regarding an abortive Dublin trip),

I think I should record here that 2010's skiing trip will be to Cervinia in Italy, and we'll be away from 14 to 21 March.

It is never too early to check out the weather forecast.

A Weekend's Work

The Bomber above, skippering Bondy's boat on the Thames on Saturday.

He also scored a try and won the Man of the Match Golden Boot in his rugby debut at the Old Ruts on Sunday.

All in all, a satisfactory couple of days.

namesake

The journey of the Bomber and I back from Whitton yesterday was interminable.

I point the finger at BROWNE who were digging up most of Kingston, much excavation being on hold as they were waiting for some special equipment.

I also find Rick Browne someing of a trial.

What are we going to do Kali? I fear for the escutcheon.

Film 2009

Three years after this (tempus fugit eh?), "Uncle Simon" is to helm a new Bruce Willis movie; Kane and Lynch will be "the story of a mercenary teaming up with a schizophrenic psychopath to save his wife and daughter". Let's get ready to rumble!

Also, on the film beat, the HMV Curzon has opened in Wimbledon giving me on the doorstep access to art house fayre for the first time in a decade.

Bright Star and Thirst are on the agenda:

When a priest (Song Kang-ho) volunteers to receive a vaccination created to eradicate a deadly virus, he is given a transfusion infected by vampire blood. Acquiring super-human skills and a voracious sexual appetite, he embarks on a killing spree and a passionate affair with the wife of an old school friend. Not surprisingly, the new film from the director of ‘Old Boy’ is a darkly comic thriller that explores the nature of sin, and the pleasures of the flesh.

Crikey!

some excellent ideas for promotion

To start: Do you blog? If not, get in touch with Kris and Christopher from our online department, although at this point I think only Christopher is left. I’ll be out of the office from tomorrow until Monday, but when I get back I’ll ask him if he spoke to you. We use CopyBuoy via Hoster Broaster, because it streams really easily into a Plaxo/LinkedIn yak-fest meld. When you register, click “Endless,” and under “Contacts” just list everyone you’ve ever met. It would be great if you could post at least six hundred words every day until further notice.

If you already have a blog, make sure you spray-feed your URL in niblets open-face to the skein. We like Reddit bites (they’re better than Delicious), because they max out the wiki snarls of RSS feeds, which means less jamming at the Google scaffold. Then just Digg your uploads in a viral spiral to your social networks via an FB/MS interlink torrent. You may have gotten the blast e-mail from Jason Zepp, your acquiring editor, saying that people who do this sort of thing will go to Hell, but just ignore it.

The vi-spi is cross-platform, but don’t worry if you think you’re not on Facebook, because you actually are. Jason enrolled you when you signed the contract last year, or at least he was supposed to, and he told Sarah Williams he did before he had to retire and Sarah left for nursing school. You currently have 421 Friends, 17 Pending Requests, 8 Pokes, 5 Winks, and 3 Proposals of “Marriage.”

This is probably what I sound like when I talk to civilians: The New Yorker delivers a shock of recognition.

Mandrake's straws in the wind

In no particular order:

1. "According to informants quoted in The Catholic Herald, the Queen has "grown increasingly sympathetic" to the Catholic Church over the years while being "appalled", along with the Prince of Wales, at developments in the Church of England".

2. "Duke of Edinburgh visits Catholic shrine before Pope's stay at the Palace".

3. "Pope Benedict XVI paves way for thousands of disaffected Anglicans to cross over to Rome".

What?

A while back, the Burglar and I had the idea of building an engine using the Twitter API to perform plays in real time with one account per character. These guys have come up with a similar idea and knocked it out of the park with Google Wave.

lured into an enormous fishbowl

On a busy weekend for super middleweights, Joe Calzaghe was finally voted off Strictly Come Dancing, and the Super Six World Boxing Classic kicked off with wins for Carl Froch and Arthur Abraham.

In a modified round-robin format, Mikkel Kessler, Arthur Abraham, Carl Froch, Jermain Taylor, Andre Ward, and Andre Dirrell will engage in at least three bouts each, with the fighters garnering the four highest point totals advancing to the semifinal round. (Fighters will earn three points for a KO win, two for a decisions win, and one for a draw.)

Beginning with the semifinal round, the tournament will be single-elimination.

Over the course of two years, the winner will have engaged in five bouts against championship-level opposition and won at least four of them (conceivably, a fighter could make the semis with a loss in group stage). At that point, there will be no doubt regarding the identity of the number one 168-pounder in the game.

Last year, I predicted that, post-Calzaghe, Andre Ward could well dominate the division, but his first fight - while admittedly at home in Oakland - against Kessler on November 7, will be a big step up in class. Kessler has a 41-1 record now, it's great to remember that we were there when Joe C inflicted his only defeat.

Busy doing nothing

Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel signaled the U.S. may refrain from deciding to send more troops to Afghanistan until a “legitimate and credible government” is in place.

“The president will not be rushed to making a decision” on Afghanistan, Emanuel said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. It would be “reckless to make a decision on U.S. troop levels” without a through analysis of the country’s ability to govern itself, Emanuel said.

This announcement seems to me to be just about the least constructive contribution possible, undermining at a stroke:

1. The poor bloody infantry that are already there

2. said PBI's day to day relations with Afghan troops

3. The credibility of the US military leadership in the eyes of the world (friend and foe)

4. Afghan civilian faith and trust (such as it may be) in US commitment.

Rahm Emanuel, Kerry et al keeping their gobs shut would have been a much better response to the impasse if that is what it is.

David Bromwich: The Presidential Letdown

The pattern of the major announcement, the dilatory follow-up and the tardy self-defence has shown an alarming consistency in his administration. Obama ordered the closing of the prison at Guantánamo Bay as the first act of his presidency. Eight months later, Guantánamo remains open and unsolved. [ read more . . . ]

Whether moving from promising the earth and delivering sod all, to promising sod all represents an advance I leave to wiser heads than mine.

Tales from the Riverbank

Linkblogging yesterday with my brother in tow:

Borough Market: http://www.boroughmarket.org.uk/
Vinopolis: http://www.vinopolis.co.uk/
Shakepeare's Globe: http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/
Tate Moden: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
Southbank Centre: http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/
Chinatown: http://www.chinatownlondon.org/

It turns out that you can drink at all these locations as well as all the pubs that lie between them.

like the brokers men in Cinderella

Pamela Anderson will make her pantomime debut in a UK production of Aladdin this Christmas.

The actress, best known for her role as CJ Parker in 90s TV show Baywatch, will guest star as the Genie of the Lamp for two weeks at London's New Wimbledon Theatre.

Chat show host Paul O'Grady will assume the role for the final week of the show's run, marking his first panto appearance since 2005.

Different actors will play the genie for the first and final weeks of December, and these castings are yet to be announced.

After the Hoff let us down a few years back, we now have the enticing prospect of Pamela Anderson treading the boards in pantomime up the road in SW19.

The notion that her part will also be played by the erstwhile Lily Savage is almost too wonderful to bear.

Shades perhaps of the legendary story of Gielgud and Olivier swapping the roles of Romeo and Mercutio in 1936, or - as there are two more Genies of the Lamp still to be cast of the Heath Ledger ... Tony [Johnny Depp ... Tony (1st transformation) , Jude Law ... Tony (2nd transformation), Colin Farrell ... Tony (3rd transformation)] home run of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus?

Gong Est Mort? Vive Gong

The story begins on the album Flying Teapot (1973) when a pig-farming Egyptologist called Mista T Being is sold a "magick ear ring" by an "antique teapot street vendor & tea label collector" called Fred the Fish. The ear ring is capable of receiving messages from the Planet Gong via a pirate radio station called Radio Gnome Invisible. Being and Fish head off to the hymnalayas of Tibet (sic) where they meet the "great beer yogi" Banana Ananda in a cave. Ananda tends to chant "Banana Nirvana Mañana" a lot and gets drunk on Foster's Australian Lager.
...
Meanwhile, the mythology's central character, Zero the Hero, is going about his everyday life when he suddenly has a vision in Charing Cross Road. He is compelled to seek heroes and starts worshipping the Cock Pot Pixie, one of a number of Pot Head Pixies from the Planet Gong. These pixies are green with propellers on their heads, and they fly around in teapots.

Zero is soon distracted by a cat which he offers his fish and chips to. (To whom he offers his fish and chips, Ed.) The cat is actually the Good Witch Yoni, who gives Zero a potion. This concludes the first album of the Radio Gnome Trilogy.

Can you resist the next album? Why not let Spotify take the "A" strain? For my own weakness I blame Neil Lang; house dust mite allergic herpetologist.

Note to self: "Gong's mythology is not universally serious".

The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street

THE Bank of England has not changed its locks for more than 70 years, it was revealed yesterday.
...

The Bank admitted it fitted new locks during a refurbishment in the 1930s as the country prepared for war, and had changed very little since. Although it refuses to talk about security publicly, it made the revelation to the Master Locksmiths Association.

The locksmiths have launched a campaign to persuade home owners to change their locks more often to improve security.

Myself: Drop your allegory and move away. Keep your hands above your head. No sudden tropes my friend. Let's keep this nice and literal.

#Trafigura

"Twitter users claim historic victory for the power of the internet after gagging attempt on routine act of journalism triggers race among bloggers to reveal all," says the Grauniard this morning.

For myself I picked the story up from Nick Cohen on Facebook, noticed the topic trending on Twitter, and even tweeted myself yesterday morning.

We await history's verdict on this turn of events, but I think it may well be a significant precedent. I refer you - again - to the Guardian's story for the details.

To the Bat Kitchen!

If I need, and I do need, Kevlar tyres for my bike, I am certainly going to invest in silicone cake cases before I attempting Marcus Wareing's jaffa cakes.

Prodnose (the boy wonder): Holy priceless collection of Etruscan snoods!

Pull the other one

KABUL - Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai said Friday that US President Barack Obama was the "appropriate" person to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

"We congratulate Obama for winning the Nobel," said Siamak Hirai, a spokesman for Karzai.

"His hard work and his new vision on global relations, his will and efforts for creating friendly and good relations at global level and global peace make him the appropriate recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize," he told AFP.

We are living in a golden age of cant.

10 a.m. - Oval Office

Accept Nobel peace prize.

11 a.m. - Situation Room

"McChrystal’s proposed strategy for the war-torn country will require 30,000 to 40,000 more troops, billions of taxpayer dollars, an extremely long term commitment, and thousands more American lives--a bitter pill the American public seems unlikely to swallow.

"Biden proposed a shift in strategy that would concentrate on attacking al Qaeda and Taliban leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan using special forces and unmanned predator drones equipped with missiles."

Decisions, decisions ....

A change of priorities is required

I actually found myself glancing at Wufoo Launches Integrated Payments Feature For Online Form Builder earlier.

This is ludicrous behaviour for a Sunday morning. I need to declutter, and reprioritise.

the best possible taste

New Anti-Smoking Ads Warn Teens 'It's Gay To Smoke'

Words Fail Me

Possibly his most highly-regarded, and certainly his boldest and most innovative play is Attempts on Her Life, first performed at the Royal Court in 1997 and subsequently translated into twenty languages.

In this work, none of the lines are assigned to a particular character, nor does Crimp specify how many actors should perform the piece. In seventeen apparently disconnected scenes, groups of people give mutually contradictory descriptions of an absent protagonist, a woman talked of as if she were, variously, a terrorist, the daughter of grieving parents, an artist and a new car. This deliberately fragmented work challenges an audience to re-define its notion of what constitutes a 'play' and might seem to question whether someone has any existence beyond the models we construct. To get the most out of this, arguably Crimp's most abstract work, the viewer would be best seated towards the end of a row.

This is the titan who has penned the star studded production of The Misanthrope that we are anticipating so breathlessly.

'Drag queen' floors thugs in Swansea

TWO yobs have appeared in court after starting a fight with Spiderman — and getting knocked out by two cross-dressers.

Dean Jonathan Gardner, aged 19, and Jason Andrew Fender, aged 22, were arrested following two separate incidents in The Kingsway which took place just moments apart in the early hours of August 30.

But they picked the wrong victims on this occasion after being floored by two cross-dressers who are believed to have been cage fighters on a night out.

Police confronted Gardner and Fender, both of Llanerch Road, Bonymaen, nursing their injuries after identifying the unemployed pair from CCTV pictures

.......

While the pair scuffle, a club-goer dressed as Spiderman appears from the queue and attempted to diffuse the situation but himself became the target of an attack.

After raining down blows on the Superhero clubber, the young thugs walk away apparently buoyant from the incident.

But they then made a mistake of confronting a man walking innocently by who was wearing black hot pants and a pink wig.

Puffed-up Gardner, followed by Fender, runs back to confront the man, and punched him in the face.

But the victim's friend, who is wearing a short black dress and stockings and suspenders, suddenly appears behind them and fells them both with lightening punches.

The confrontation is over in seconds, the men in drag turn to walk away — but not before one has leant over the pair to retrieve his dropped clutch bag.

Wales is ever Wales. You can actually see the CCTV footage about half way down the local coverage here. I hope it will be remembered come the 82nd Academy Awards next March.

The Gypsey Prince

"The more success Daniels achieved, the more glum he became."

"I am in a terrible situaiton. My folks have disowned me, " he wailed to Jimmy one night.

"Disowned you. Why?"

"I have been carrying a letter around in my pocket from father. He is very angry with me..."

"Have you gone daffy? Who ever told you you were a gypsy? ... Don't you know your family is well known all over Wales and you are disgracing us...Come home at once."

It's been too long since we had a new Welsh Born Icon. Billy Daniels is hereby promoted.

FREDDIE STARR ATE MY HAMSTER

I have been roped in as the Press and Publicity Officer of the E.B. Phoenix Judo Club. Here's the skinny:

The role of the press and publicity officer is to raise the profile of the club in the local population, and to keep current members informed of what is going on in the club. Not only will this assist with increasing membership by more people knowing about the club, but it will also help to motivate the current members, as they will feel proud to be associated with a successful organisation.

The press officer should make it their business to get to know all the key people dealing with sport in the local media, and to look for other opportunities to put the name of the club in the spotlight.

They will need to:
• Compile a list of local media including newspapers, radio and television
• Establish contact with sports editors
• Produce regular press releases of results, forthcoming events, and other items of interest
• Investigate local opportunities to advertise the clubs activities; (eg. Notice boards, shop windows, libraries, etc).
• Produce advertising materials to publicise the club’s activities
• Keep a copy of all press cuttings and a record of all other media coverage
• Keeping the club notice board up to date
• Produce a regular club newsletter
• Create a club web site, and keep it up to date

It's probably the last task that got me in the frame.

Wilde? I was livid.

The Wimbledon Book Festival is upon us again, bigger and better than ever in its third year.

I went to see Gyles Brandreth talking about his Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries last night, which was great fun even though I don't have the books.

Only by a titanic effort of will did I manage to refrain from trotting out Groucho's "from the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it".

L'Affaire Polanski

Myself (studiously gender neutral): Plying a child with booze and ludes all the better to munch on budding genitalia and penetrate thirteen year old sphincter is a criminal act that should attract punishment from authority and contempt from society.

Prodnose: You won't be signing Thierry Fremaux's petition then?

Myself (reverting to smutty type after an uncharateristic serious statement): If my refusal to have it shoved down my throat means I can't widen the circle of my friends, so be it.

The Heirs of Dr Strabismus

Designers of a bra that turns into gas masks and a team who found that named cows produce more milk were among the winners of the 2009 Ig Nobel prizes.

The aim of the awards is to honour achievements that "first make people laugh and then make them think".

The peace prize went to a Swiss research team who determined whether it is better to be hit over the head with a full or empty bottle of beer.


The full list of winners:

Veterinary medicine: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, UK, for showing that cows with names give more milk than cows that are nameless.

Peace: Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.

Biology: Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara, Japan, for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the faeces of giant pandas.

Medicine: Donald L Unger of Thousand Oaks, California, US, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand but not his right hand every day for more than 60 years.

Economics: The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa (and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy).

Physics: Katherine K Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, Daniel E Lieberman of Harvard University and Liza J Shapiro of the University of Texas, all in the US, for analytically determining why pregnant women do not tip over.

Chemistry: Javier Morales, Miguel Apatiga and Victor M Castano of Universidad Nacional Autonoma in Mexico, for creating diamonds from tequila.

Literature: Ireland's police service for writing and presenting more than 50 traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country - Prawo Jazdy - whose name in Polish means "Driving Licence".

Public Health: Elena N Bodnar, Raphael C Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, US, for inventing a bra that can be quickly converted into a pair of gas masks - one for the wearer and one to be given to a needy bystander.

Mathematics: Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank, for giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers by having his bank print notes with denominations ranging from one cent to one hundred trillion dollars.

Hat tip: Simon B

Comfort Food

Marcus Wareing does posh Jaffa cakes, and Heston Blumenthal does posh baked beans. We've already got DIY KFC, as the bomber and I build our repertoire of top-of-the-line, home-made junk food.

Last Sunday we reverse engineered salt and pepper chicken that we had eaten from a stall in Camden Market the day before, and very fine it was too.

Tajik Jimmy

If the New York Times is anything to go by:

The rise of Mr. Allaberiyev, widely known as Tajik Jimmy, a migrant worker in a provincial Russian stockroom who delivers astonishing renditions of Bollywood musical numbers, is one more testament to the strange power of the Internet.

Amen to that, though I heard it first on the venerable BBC World Service.