The Girl Who Set the Honey Trap

Am I the only one who on reading the headline "Julian Assange: WikiLeaks chief held in British prison on rape charge," wouldn't be at all surprised if Lisbeth Salander was behind it and Mikael Blomkvist knows more than he's saying about the Swedish warrant?

Larsson left about three quarters of a fourth novel on a notebook computer, now possessed by his partner, Eva Gabrielsson; synopses or manuscripts of the fifth and sixth in the series, which he intended to contain an eventual total of ten books, may also exist.

The plot thickens.

Insert Beaver joke here

Could a talking beaver be Mel Gibson's salvation in Hollywood? I really don't know where to begin.

Looking at Slate's list of inspiring self tracking projects, I would suggest that moodscope.com seems the best fit for Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson.

Neurogenisis

I had about a new study that might lead to a breakthrough in MS on the radio this morning.

According to the BBC website:

Scientists have identified a way of prompting nerve system repair in multiple sclerosis (MS).

Studies on rats by Cambridge and Edinburgh University researchers identified how to help stem cells in the brain regenerate myelin sheath, needed to protect nerve fibres.

One reason my ears pricked up when I heard of it was that neurogenisis was mentioned and I had read the chapter on it (3. New Neurons for Old Brains) in the book "The Plastic Mind" this weekend.

The stem cells referred to in the study are neural stem cells, not embryonic stem cells, and they are producing new neurons in your brain all the time.

I had no idea.

All hail Professor Charles ffrench-Constant, for his fascinating research and wonderful name.

The stillness flashed

I went to the Real Food Christmas market on the South Bank yesterday and drank some mulled wine as I walked round.

Whatever happened to the sour grapes bunch?

Now that it is out on DVD and you can get it for £7 if you spend £30 at Sainbury's I can confirm I am indeed a member of Grown Men Who Cry at Toy Story 3.

This weekend I will mostly be Doin' the Banana Split.

David Hume could out consume Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Could David Hume Have Known about Buddhism? Charles Francois Dolu, the Royal College of La Flèche, and the Global Jesuit Intellectual Network.

Could anything be more up my street than this? Speculation about Le Bon David and Jesuits who had studied Buddhism in Thailand and Tibet.

Please imagine me gesticulating with a briar pipe as I discourse on the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, and how consilience in what is often called “Ignatian spirituality” and Buddhist practice may have predisposed the Jesuits to such undertakings.

Connected

I've been following Amazon Web Services since 2006. When I read today that AWS had stopped hosting http://wikileaks.org/ "following apparent pressure from the US government" I realised that it had become so mainstream that, inelegantly:

the cloud is the water we're swimming in.

Further Bradley Manning, the prime suspect in the leaking of top secret documents to the WikiLeaks website, is a computer expert schooled in Wales accorning to the Telegraph.

All together now:

Somethin' ain't right
Gonna get myself, I'm gonna get myself
Gonna get myself connected
I ain't gonna go blind for the light which is reflected
I see thru you, I see thru you
I see thru you, I see thru you
Ya dirty tricks, ya make me sick
I see thru you, I see thru you
Gonna do it again, gonna do it again
I'm (gonna do it again, gonna do it again)
Gotta do right (gonna do it again)
'Cause somethin' ain't right
(gonna do it again)
Gotta do right, come on

Prodnoose: I take it you're gonna do it again.

If you make sure you're connected,
the writing's on the wall
But if your mind's neglected,
stumble you might fall

Christmas List 2011?

After merely skimming "Mind control: How a £200 headset is redefining brain-computing interaction," I know I want one. I will try and read the article thoroughly and look through www.emotiv.com later tonight given a following wind.

It's serendipitous arrival in my life is via the author Neal Pollack who is a Facebook friend of mine since I read his yoga book "Stretch," and it is strangely apposite as I started reading "The Plastic Mind" last night. "Sometimes I just sits," is the post that best explains how I drifted towards that, I think.

For all the internet's prominence, it is interesting that the bound volume is still what I return to in chasing new interests.

A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy.

Edward P. Morgan

dawn: a command line poem

IISRESET /STOP
NET STOP MSSQLSERVER
NET START MSSQLSERVER
IISRESET /START

"Mistah Kurtz, he dead"

MacKenna (Icons passim) was back in town from Kinshasa over the weekend. Alan Doss has retired and Rod is now the Political Advisor to the Force Commander for the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

I find it impossible to hear this without:

Well, you see, Willard, in this war, things get confused out there. Power, ideals, the old morality, and practical military necessity. But out there with these natives, it must be a temptation to be God. Because there's a conflict in every human heart, between the rational and irrational, between good and evil. And good does not always triumph. Sometimes, the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature

... reverberating through my head.

It is strange to think I've known him for about a quarter of a century without realizing he can speak French. How did I imagine he operated in francophone Africa?

I couldn't help but explore the Wikileaks US embassy cables database with this in mind today. There is only one single cable from DR Congo, a country as big as Western Europe.

Frozen Pitches

No rugby for the Bomber this morning, due to frozen pitches.

It is worth observing on the plus side of the electronic communications revolution that SMS, email and the web let the club get the message round in double quick time, so we're playing chess in our dressing gowns rather than turning up to find that the game is off.

(He has just taken my queen with a sucker punch of a move. Morning chess without caffeine seems to be a mistake.)

Don't forget to remember

Cardiff City will go to the top of the Premiership if they beat QPR this afternoon.

I can remember walking up from Wimpey in Hammersmith to see the same fixture years ago.

Looking at the record of head-to-heads on the Cardiff City Mad site I can't work out if that was the FA Cup in January 1990 or the League Cup in August 1999.

My sense of when events ocurred before I made daily notes here is - to say the least - fluid.

the value of nothing

While the bomber was doing his maths homework last night, I decided to exhume my legendary mental arithmetic skills and back-of-the-enveloped that I will need to put aside about £290 a month from now until his first day if I am going to save up £9,000 a year tuition fees before he starts university.

Then I realized (is this a reproach to my teachers?) that I had missed a year out of my sum and the figure is actually more like £260.

Why free online lectures will destroy universities – unless they get their act together fast, says the Telegraph today, pushing at an open door.

http://www.justiceharvard.org/

Gross National Happiness

The BBC announces that the "Prime Minister David Cameron is launching a £2m project on how best to measure the nation's happiness," and I join in the general chorus of derision.

Matthieu Ricard, Buddhist monk and world's happiest man, says much the same thing as the PM and I nod sagely.

Mote and beam, Sir? What do you think?

strange solitary crazy Catholic mystic

Continuing with the Duluoz Legend I have been astonished to discover that Desolation Angels appears to be out of print.

This seems to be a ridiculous state of affair in the age of the Kindle et al. Reputations wax and wane, but Kerouac is surely a significant figure in 20th century American letters.

I can see him on YouTube on the Steve Allen Show, and even hear him singing (I use the word advisedly) "On the Road" via Spotify, but I can't break the spine on a new copy of one of his novels.

“I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.”

Myself: Not if they can't get hold of the book, mate.

Prodnose: “My witness is the empty sky.”

St Cecilia's Day

I went to see the Bomber playing the recorder at a Wimbledon Music Festival Roadshow yesterday in the Great Hall at King's College, under the auspices of the Merton Music Foundation.

It was lead by Piers Adams "regarded by many to be the greatest recorder player of our time" and it was great.

Entre nous, I only went out of duty but I enjoyed it tremendously.

The Duluoz Legend

I went to see Canaletto and his Rivals in the National Gallery yesterday; a fact I record here only because an earlier post informs me that it was an astounding three and a half years ago that I went to see Canaletto in England at Dulwich.

I finished off Kerouac's The Dharma Bums on the tube on my way to The Embankment. It really chimed with me. Here is a crib sheet that Beat Generation scholars can use to relate the characters from the very autobiographical book with their real life equivalents:

Jack Kerouac Ray Smith
Caroline Kerouac Nin
Carolyn Cassady Evelyn
Neal Cassady Cody Pomeray
Claude Dalenberg Bud Diefendorf
Allen Ginsberg Alvah Goldbook
Natalie Jackson Rosie Buchanan
Philip Lamantia Francis DaPavia
Michael McClure Ike O'Shay
Locke McCorkle Sean Monahan
John Montgomery Henry Morley
Peter Orlovsky George
Kenneth Rexroth Rheinhold Cacoethes
Gary Snyder Japhy Ryder
Alan Watts Arthur Whane
Philip Whalen Warren Coughlin

Kerouac wrote that:

My work compromises one vast book like Proust's Remembrance of Things Past except that my remembrances are written on the run instead of afterwards in a sick bed. Because of the objections of my early publishers I was not allowed to use the same personae names in each work. On The Road, The Subterraneans, The Dharma Bums, Doctor Sax, Maggie Cassidy, Tristessa, Desolation Angels, and the other are just chapters in the whole work which I call The Duluoz Legend. In my old age I intend to collect all my work and reinsert my pantheon of uniform names, leave the long shelf full of books there, and die happy. The whole thing forms one enormous comedy, seen through they eyes of poor Ti Jean (me), otherwise known as Jack Duluoz, the world of raging action and folly and also of gentle sweetness seen through the keyhole of his eye.

I'm very tempted to go straight back up the mountain with Desolation Angels which is the next in the series chronologically - though not in the order of publication.

Then again, I am also hearing good things about Life: Keith Richards

It might be fun to read that using Spotify to listen to all the tracks as he discusses them.

Windows 25

Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 20, 1985. I wonder what November 2035 will bring, given the distance between the screenshot above and the Kinect and Dell Duo I blogged about over the last couple of days?

Only Kinect

I was going to buy the Bomber a Microsoft Kinect for Christmas, but I couldn't stand the stress of waiting so we got one last weekend.

The Burglar came round to check it out in the week. The space I had cleared for it to operate couldn't really cope with all six foot three of him but we grokked the idea and began to speculate about hacks.

We have been overtaken by events.

Could this be the one?

The Dell DUO should be out before Christmas. If it does everything it appears to do, pairing it with the JBL Audio Station dock would seem to make it ideal for all the uses the pub computer (see Icons passim) currently serves in Browne acres. That is to say, I could browse with it in tablet form on the sofa in the living room, unfold it into a laptop for casual work, mount in the dock as a bedside radio alarm, or stream music to it when I'm in the kitchen.

What do you think of the video? I know we've been down this road before with hybrids and convertibles running "Windows XP Tablet PC Edition" and that they scarcely set the world on fire, but we live in hope.

Doing what comes naturally

The Indescribablyboring, reporting on the Royal engagement yesterday, made a sage observation about "the official bulletin being released – naturally – on to Twitter and Facebook."

At the time of the announcement the British Monarchy Facebook page had been live for eight days and three hours, and thus became the natural home for proclamations pretty darn pronto.

I am 969 years old in Internet time.

Sorry to be going on an on about the regnancy but I keep on finding stuff I want to scrapbook here.

the day the world turned dayglo

When Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton plighted their troth at 11 am yesterday a lot of our systems lit up like Christmas trees (see numberless Icons passim since this first for-your-eyes-only teaser).

A story with which to bore any future grandchildren methinks.

Los 33

"Brad Pitt may helm Chilean miners film," says the Guardian.

We can only imagine ........

Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist is "the spirit of the times" or "the spirit of the age." Zeitgeist is the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual, and/or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambience, morals, sociocultural direction or mood of an era.

The term zeitgeist is from German Zeit- 'time' (cognate with English tide and "time") and Geist- 'spirit' (cognate with English ghost, without being really translatable into English - this is why the German term is used).

All of which is a long winded way of saying that the Monarchy Facebook page got teased on "Have I got news for you" see http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/w0yw7/?t=18m54s.

Fathers and Sons

The bomber continues to grow like a weed. In the last couple of weeks I've taken a pair of his tracksuit bottoms to the gym myself, as well as trying to kit him out in a pair of mine for running club. Soon his legs will be long enough to reach the ground.

He scored a try and was awarded the Golden Boot as the best player in the Ruts U10s defeat of Dorking RFC today.

On a sad note, I heard today that Rayburn's father has died in the States. I will try and see him tonight to give him my condolences.

You're my besht mate .....

This week, web security company Webroot released a new Firefox plugin called “The Social Media Sobriety Test” with the tagline, “Nothing good happens online after 1 a.m.”

The deal is simple, download the plugin and customize the settings for a variety of social media sites — from Facebook to MySpace to Tumblr (for the bloggers among us) to e-mail accounts like Gmail or Hotmail.

Set your hours of intoxication, and if you try to sign on to one of those sites during those times, you’ll be asked to pass a test. I tried it out — about five minutes ago and fully sober — and failed said test, however. You try typing the alphabet backwards. It’s not as easy as it looks.

With the week I have had, I am starting to think this should be compulsory.

Faggots and Peas

What with one thing and another we have had to upgrade our troll hunting and comment moderating skills this week.

See http://www.regular-expressions.info/ for general info, but as an example:

\b(fag)(\b(s)\b(got)\b(gots)\b(ot)\b(ots)\b)

will return any word starting fag and ending with nothing or s or got or gots or ot or ots. You join the dots. Don't assume that people typing through gritted teeth will necessarily spell their rants correctly.

I have also discovered that it is impossible to keep a straight face during any conversation about filtering profanity.

Life on internet time: Monday seems a long time ago.

Effin' Ineffable Part II

Myself: ॐ

Prodnose: ?

Myself:

Prodnose: Ho ho, very satirical.

Shut Up!

Thomas Aquinas, who devoted some two million words to spelling out, in the Summa Theologica, the nature of the world, God’s purpose in creating it and our fate in traversing it, ended his short life (short by our standards, at least) in a state of ecstasy, declaring that all that he had written was of no significance beside the beatific vision that he had been granted, and in the face of which words fail. His was perhaps the most striking example of a philosopher who comes to believe that the real meaning of the world is ineffable. Having got to this point, Aquinas obeyed the injunction of Wittgenstein, whose Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus concludes with the proposition: “that whereof we cannot speak we must consign to silence.”

But Aquinas was exceptional. The history of philosophy abounds in thinkers who, having concluded that the truth is ineffable, have gone on to write page upon page about it. One of the worst offenders is Kierkegaard, who argues in a hundred ways that the ultimate is inexpressible, that truth is “subjectivity,” that the meaning of life can be given by no formula, no proposition, no abstraction, but only by the concrete experience of surrender whose content can never be given in words.

The same idea occurs in Schopenhauer, for whom the truth of the world is Will, which cannot be represented in concepts. Schopenhauer devoted roughly 500,000 words to this thing that no words can capture. And he set a fashion that continues to this day.

Let's raise our glasses to Scruton. Who else makes Aquinas, Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer funny?

The trip now longer and stranger

The LA Times weighs in:

How does 84-year-old Queen Elizabeth II -- that iPod-owning royal star of
Twitter, Flickr and YouTube -- manage to get even more hip?

The same way anyone else does: She joins Facebook.

"148,344 people like this" says the page as I write. That has been clicked up at a rate of 540 a minute (coming up for 10 a second) since launch.

What a long strange trip it's been

At last, http://www.facebook.com/TheBritishMonarchy has gone live this morning.

It joins http://twitter.com/#!/BritishMonarchy and http://www.flickr.com/photos/britishmonarchy/ in the social media stable.

That has ticked all the important boxes for the time being I think.

Coming Forth By Day

In a week in which the Queen had been pleased to appoint Mr Neil MacGregor (Director of the British Museum) to be a member of the Order of Merit, I went along to the exhibition Journey Through the Afterlife: The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead at the institution that he heads yesterday.

Judgement, for the Ancient Egyptians, came after a lengthy expedition through the underworld when the supplicant's heart would be weighed on a set of scales against a feather. Fail the test and the too heavy heart would sink down and be swallowed by the Devourer (a crocodile-headed compound of a lion and a hippopotamus). Nice.

I also learned a little about hieratic, a cursive writing system that was used in the provenance of the pharaohs that developed alongside the hieroglyphic system. Being primarily written in ink with a reed brush on papyrus, and allowing scribes to write quickly it seemed familiar in a way that stone carved hieroglyphs never do.

Sold I to the merchant ships

The Egyptian ring wearin', paint slingin', globe trottin' vagabond (see Icons passim) lives in the schizophrenic St Maarten/St Martin in the Caribbean these days.

Two years ago, Paul and I said we'd keep hold of her portfolio until she could send for it. It is still in the office, and a while after that the burglar hung a selection of it up on the walls to pass the time during a slow afternoon.

Last week one of the girls from Time and Leisure admired the portrait of Bob Marley above, so with Tess's permission, we sold it to her.

Any other offers?

people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read

I finished reading The Accidental Billionaires: Sex, Money, Betrayal and the Founding of Facebook yesterday.

It is written using a ridiculous third-person omniscient narrative style that is completely inappropriate for conveying what purports to be a true story. The beginning of every chapter reminded me of the Blues Brothers' Jake had a vision. It was his, the only real one he'd ever had, and he clung to it. Absurd.

Yet the Social Network movie that is based on it is actually rather good. Jaws and The Godfather also spring to mind as fine films made from mediocre books.

What can it all mean?

Next I shall read Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, which I am finally getting around to after reading On the Road in 1988.

If you want a picture of the future .....

.... imagine a sequined white glove punching a human face - for ever.

Déjà vu

Paul McCartney is promoting his recent release Band on the Run in the NME.

Jerry Brown is the Governor of California, but the Man is still gonna hassle you over your stash.

Spurs are doing well in Europe.

I think it is 1974.

A messsage from the Candyman

Hello cats and kittens,

Apologies for the cloak and d. over recent weeks. However as it appears this is going to continue for the forseeable I really ought to offer up some sort of breadcrumbs trail as to what's going on. (As you know I am queasy about introducing vulgar real life onto the vaudeville stage so let's keep this crisp.)

After a pretty mouldy diagnosis about a month back I finally begin chemotherapy on Monday with further radiotherapy from January. Yes radiotherapy; can you beat it? This being so, the old treehouse baggy pants will be donned but sparingly. Once the quacks have soundly thrashed this thing I shall return like a rare gas and as if out of a trap. In the meantime I am watching Tommy Steele box sets (and has there ever been a more lying title to a film than TS's "It's All Happening"?) and urge you all to keep yakking up a storm and laugh extra loud at the incumbents.

Thank you for all the best wishes and concern from those who suspected as much about my "condition" and by all means keep ringing up Baylen and Amy to demand more and more Atomic Rooster and Spooky Tooth records.

So. Manly handshake. Walk right on. In the words of King George, "What what and there it is..."

Danny Baker, my favourite "personality" to use a word he would loathe, has issued the dignified statement above about being treated for the big C. I wish him all the best for a speedy recovery. What I wouldn't give to have him in my team in a pub quiz.

Bringing down the curtain

Ben was playing in the Harequins' Curtain Raiser Cup yesterday. They won their first game against Bracknell, but went down to Ealing and then Cobham.

I think these mini rugby festivals are a great idea. The kids get three or four games in a day, and get to meet an unpredictable variety of teams over a season.

The idea does not seem so great, it has to be said, when you are setting off first thing in the morning in the pouring rain and freezing cold.

Mettā Data

I was reading a rather snooty piece in the London Review of Book by Jenny Diski of "Harmony" by the Prince of Wales.

I've not read HRH's latest offering myself, but she quotes him as saying "no brain-scanner has ever managed to photograph a thought, nor a piece of love for that matter" which strikes me as odd because, as I understand it, Richard J. Davidson, Director, Lab for Affective Neuroscience & Waisman Lab for Brain Imaging & Behavior, UW-Madison Psychology Department has.

It is published in Regulation of the Neural Circuitry of Emotion by Compassion Meditation: Effects of Meditative Expertise as figure 2.

mind body connection

Two years on from What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, I have just finished Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I think it is a kaleidoscopic marvel of a book, and I'm glad to have enterntained it. Bizarely I was nudged into reading it when I told Miranda the story of Penylan Well (see Icons passim) and she told me that she had just finished it herself and that it was "a book about someone who spends a lot of time in a well."

It took a long time to get through as it weighs in a little over six hundred pages and it fell into the role of the book I read for half an hour every other day when I do my exercise on the stationary recline bike in the gym. This, if I ever lend you my copy, explains why it looks so careworn; there is a lot of sweat on it. The red thumb print that also adorns a page, though it looks like blood, is just paprika infused oil that oozed from a chunk of chorizo.

In an alternative universe Murikami won the Nobel prize for literatiure in 2000 (Icons passim). This year in this universe Ladbroke's had him as third favourite to win it at 7/1, but it went to Mario Vargas Llosa.

mWomen

Hillary Clinton and Cherie Blair launch mobile phone scheme for women in developing nations.

This is wrong in so many ways that I scarcely know where to begin.

1. The proposition that Clinton H, and Blair C should be role models for independent, up-by their-bootstraps women entrepreneurs, is risible.

2. The idea that folk living on $2 a day need smart phones as opposed to - say - plumbing, is incredibly patronising at a let-them-eat-cake level of abstraction and delusion.

3. The notion that giving women in reactionary, misogynist societies mobiles will somehow magically empower them is dangerously disingenuous and Panglossian. A tool that will let men monitor where their women are all the time, and give the patriarchy the ability to summon their drudges instantly for any whim seems as likely to oppress as liberate.

them chickens jackin' my style

I got up early yesterday and went to the gym to get it out of the way as I had appointments in town.

I took the tube to Victoria and walked to Buckingham Palace for a meeting with the Royal Household.

Then, as I had some time to kill, I wandered up to the British Museum to check out 'Images and Sacred Texts' which is an exhibition of Buddhist sutras, painted scrolls and sculptures from Sri Lanka to Japan.

In the afternoon, I had to go to the Association of Chief Police Officers in Victoria street, then in the evening I attended a discussion on "The Future of Mobile" at the RSA.

The RSA is a charity which encourages the development of a principled, prosperous society and the release of human potential.

This morning I woke up with a Nestlé Milkybar button melted in my hair, though I didn't notice it until just now when I scratched my head.

Sunset

The tumult and the shouting dies—
The captains and the kings depart—

Here is Dawn of a New Day, Ray Ozzie's valedictory address to Microsoft.

It is an insightful piece, and well worth a read, but there is no disguising the fact that the software giant's "new brain, new broom" (see Icons passim) has failed to bend the hordes of Redmond to his will regardless of the power of his analysis.

The long decline continues. You can't help but wonder how long Steve Ballmer has left.

unfriend (verb, transitive)

I went to see The Social Network last night. Much to my amazement - the subject not obviously lending itself to dramatic treatment - it is rather a good movie.

As Facebook continues to devour everything in its path even Roger Scruton is wading in and invoking, by way of explanation and much to my delight, Hegel's notion of Entäusserung. (That's all clear then.)

Last night's programme also included the trailer for Catfish, the other Facebook movie.

The New Journalism

"See how many social media inside jokes you can count."

Churrascaria

I went to Comida last night. Las Iguanas was the Brazillian stop on eat your way around the world in London back in 2006, but this is quite a different proposition.

It's a churrascaria, a restaurant serving grilled meat, and in this case offering as much as you can eat: the waiters move around the restaurant with the skewers, slicing meat onto the client's plate. This serving style is called espeto corrido or rodízio.

Hugh, whose idea the visit was, discovered the concept in Richmond, Virginia of all places.

Good company and friendly helpful staff, this is one to visit again.

sometimes I just sits

I read Tim Parks' Teach Us to Sit Still: A Sceptic's Search for Health and Healing recently. It is a fascinating book which has led me (via the its references to the author's Vipassanā retreat I think) to Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, thence Richard J Davidson's experiments - in cooperation with the Dalai Lama - on the effects of meditation on the brain, which introduced me in turn to the wonderful Matthieu Ricard. (Much to my astonishment, a subset of Google Tech Talks - the ones curated by Chade-Meng Tan - is a great source of information in this area.)

It's a subject for another day, but I think that the evidence that is emerging that the mind can change the brain's structure is likely to be one of the most profound discoveries of our age.

The point I want to make this morning is that as I was watching The Big Silence - in which a Benedictine introduces five ordinary people to silent, monastic contemplation - on BBC2 last night I was struck by the amount of overlap there was at the level of practice with Buddhist methods.

I suppose that if meditation really is therapeutic, we shouldn't be surprised - looking at it phenomenologically - if parallel approaches arise in different cultures.

Compare and contrast:

• the Christian Finding Happiness: Monastic Steps For A Fulfilling Life
• the Buddhist Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill

Forced rhubarb

The Odd Boy lay down by the football field
Took out a slim volume of Mallarme
The centre-forward called him an imbecile
It's an Odd Boy who doesn't like sport

Sport, sport, masculine sport
Equips a young man for Society,
Yes, sport turns out a jolly good sort
It's an Odd Boy who doesn't like sport.

I have dropped the Bomber off at an early morning running club before school today. He was signed up after his cross country triumph last week, and certainly seemed keen enough considering the hour I had to rouse him from the arms of Morpheus. From Friday week, he wants to do indoor cricket as well which means he'll be doing judo Thursday evening, running Friday morning, and cricket Friday evening.

Andy asked him to have a trial for AFC Wimbledon, but he has politely binned that notion having given his heart to rugby football. If he'd taken it up he could have been playing or training in some sport or other six days out of seven.

I'm in a bit of a quandry. I can see that - given that he seems to be quite able - it is likely that he will get a lot of opportunities to try out interesting recreations, but I also see a danger of it getting overwhelming.

I'd be perfectly happy if he just stayed with judo and rugby plus whatever he does in school to be frank, but on reflection I think that the prudent way to handle this going forward is to be equally relaxed about him giving things up as well as taking things up.

Note to my future self - the day he says he wants to quit judo or rugby, grin and bear it regardless of what you would actually prefer.

Belabour him at will

How to Defend Yourself, without Running any Risk of being Hurt, if you are Carrying only a Small Switch in your Hand, and are Threatened by a Man with a very Strong Stick.

Just in case the issue ever comes up.

When you are proficient with the small sword and sabre, the quarter-staff and bayonet, you will know at once what to do with the leg of an old chair, an iron bar, a hop-pole, a boat-hook, or even a lady's parasol. Depend upon it that any moderately strong and active man who is a good boxer, fencer, and wrestler may be a very nasty customer for even two or three footpads to attack.

I can't get enough of this stuff.

she senses I'm shallow

Myself: So, did you do shoot the photographs in there or what?

Prodnose: Yeah, I sorta dabble around, you know.

Myself: They're wonderful, you know. They have... uh... a quality.

Prodnose: Well, I would-I would like to take a serious photography course soon.

Myself: Photography's interesting, 'cause, you know, it's a new art form, and uh, a set of aesthetic criteria have not emerged yet.

Prodnose: Aesthetic criteria? You mean, whether it's a good photo or not?

I've watched all seventeen minutes so you don't have to.

They key quotes are:

• Gracie Carvalho (nibbling with no shirt on): It’s been incredible. Even though I was partially naked and only 18 years old I’m loving it!
  
• Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (jumping out of a pool deshabille): I love doing shoots like this where you’re not representing a piece of clothing or a designer — you’re actually representing yourself, and that’s really exciting. It actually gives you an opportunity to give more of your soul and your heart in the picture.

How beauteous mankind is

By way of a corrective to yesterday's Utopian speculation about computer games, a more cynical diagrammatic appraisal of the congruence of personality traits driving social networking.

You pays your money and takes your choice.

get your game face on

As a planet, we collectively spend 3 billion hours a week playing computer and video games. Today’s youth are contributing a particularly heavy share of that load: The average young person in the UK will have spent 10,000 hours playing games by the time they turn 21. It’s enough to make you ask: Shouldn’t we all be doing something better with our time? Something more productive than, say, slaying virtual monsters, racing virtual cars, and managing virtual football teams?

But the gamers (and they make up more than a third of the UK population) may be on to something: It turns out that gameplay is extraordinarily productive. It may not increase GDP. But it does produce, more cheaply and reliably than almost any other activity, the positive emotions – such as delight, curiosity, pride and bliss – that scientists say are crucial to our health and success in real life.

It turns out that people who experience on average 3 positive emotions for every 1 negative emotion they feel live 10 years longer. They’re more successful at work, school and personal pursuits – and they also have longer, happier marriages. Scientists say it doesn’t matter where you get these positive emotions – it just matters that you sincerely feel them. And if you watch the faces of gamers while they play – whole-heartedly engaged, passionately motivated, and intensely rewarded – you know that they’re not just playing games. They’re also building up their inner reserve of good feelings.

They’re also producing social capital. Research from major universities such as MIT and Stanford show that we like and trust other people more after we’ve played a game together -- even if they’ve beaten us. More importantly, scientists have discovered that we’re more likely to help someone in real life after we’ve helped them in a cooperative game. Games aren’t just making us happier – they’re also building up our social bonds. No wonder 40% of total hours spent on Facebook are spent playing games. Our 3 billion hours a week gaming are producing the two most important aspects of well-being – positive emotions and positive relationships. There’s simply nothing better to be doing with our free time.

I'm not sure I agree with Jane McGonigal, but that is an intriguing thesis, artfully expressed.

Content Management

I am just back from the Camberley Mini Rugby Festival. The Ruts didn't distinguish themselves to be brutally frank, though Ben played pretty well as ever, and the two six minute halves of Guidlfordians versus Sutton & Epsom RFC Under 10s comprised as gripping a contest as I've seen in any sport this year.

Standing on the touchline on a crisp October day, sipping coffee from a polystyrene cup, munching a bacon bap, and watching the kids play rugby is probably as close to content as I will ever get in this vale of tears, so it is worth recording.

Rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock

Restlessly channel hopping on Thursday night (the Bomber was upstairs asleep so I couldn't go out worrying sheep) I came across The Big Bang Theory, a sitcom of which I'd never previously heard.

I thought it was great. Though the shows are completely unalike it reminded me of my similarly serendipitous discovery of Curb Your Enthusiasm all those years ago.

I can get the first three series from Amazon for £26.93 but I've still only watched one episode of The Wire, and I've had that for over a year now.

There are people with worse problems I suppose.

Buying books is fun, with a glass in your hand

Elif Batuman's article on sending alcohol fuelled, late night booty calls to the Western canon is an hilarious confirmation of several WBI memes:

• so many of the writers who make me laugh these days are women
• there is no correlation between the amount of stuff one buys on Amazon and the time available to consume it
• there's a Kindle in my future and this is not necessarily a good thing.

"But hey, enough of my yacking," I yield the spotlight to Ms Batuman:

Before I first acquired a Kindle, exactly one year ago, I didn't usually buy books while under the influence of alcohol. I won't say I never did it, because that would be a lie. But it wasn't a habit. After a couple of glasses of wine, I tend to fixate on the present. I have no use for five to seven days' delivery time. The Kindle is wonderful for drunk people because you can climb into bed, press one button, and The Anatomy of Melancholy instantaneously materialises before you, plucked by the so-called Whispernet out of the surrounding ether.

The number of books I buy while sober is, I have noticed, inversely proportional to the number I buy while drunk. It's a zero-sum game, as Proust once observed of wet dreams: when all the resources are consumed in the night, none are left for waking life.

Counting free samples and e-books from the pre-1923 copyrightless domain, the total number of books I "purchase" per month has actually gone up by about 200%, while the number of books I purchase while sober has dwindled to about 5% of the total. You used to be able to say that someone's library looked like it had been assembled by a drunk person. Now, for me, the metaphor has become a reality.

..... read further......

coup de théâtre

I went to see Birdsong in the Comedy Playhouse last night.

("Comedy?" Prodnose).

The second and third acts were harrowing and masterly. I can't help but admire Trevor Nunn's technical skill in marshaling his resources on the stage, crass as it may seem to make that remark of a play about the trenches in the Great War.

While I'm on the subject of theatre visits, and for the sake of completeness I also recently saw Cyrano on the Moon at the Wimbledon Studio. It was balderdash.

hope in our hearts and wings on our heels.

There had been much dark muttering from a disappointed bomber over the last week or so when he found - after being convinced it was in the bag - that he hadn't been picked to represent Poplar at a six school cross country event that took place yesterday.

I also cancelled going along to watch, but come the day one of the three members of his year's team had to drop out and I'll be darned if Ben didn't take the spot as a substitute, grit his teeth and come home first out of a field of eighteen in the boys' year five race. (The school also won the whole event overall on points for the first time ever he told me.)

Cue wild celebrations (apple crumble) in Browne acres.

P.S. He also got four tries against London Scottish on the weekend.

Le Parapluie Uncassable

You have got to watch the video above. I was genuinely crying with laughter. What elevates it to the sublime I think, is the way that our hero looks utterly bored to death throughout, as well as the telling detail of his wordless opening and closing of the brolly before he belabours each consecutive prop.

The Unbreakable Umbrella works just as well as a walking stick or cane but does not make you look funny or feel awkward. Whacks just as strong as a steel pipe but it weighs only 1 lb. and 9 oz. (710 g). And yes, this umbrella resists the wind and will keep you dry in rain just like the best umbrella should. www.UnbreakableUmbrella.com

Ignorance is bliss

Wimbledon Bookfest is over for another year.

Yesterday I went to see Robert McCrum at an event in the extraordinary Southside House (of which I'd never previously heard) where Alex Munthe wrote the, by all accounts extraordinary, The Story of San Michele (of which I'd never previously heard).

Anyone for tens?

Today is the tenth of the tenth of the tenth and a big day for weddings.

At the Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel, the owner, Ron DeCar, has 150 ceremonies planned in five chapels, beginning at midnight. He has had to hire extra Elvis impersonators, he said, to bring the contingent to six.

There was a similar surge on July 7, 2007, and he is already planning for 11/11/11 and 12/12/12.

For those of a geeky bent, the date has another layer of importance — it is made up entirely of ones and zeros, the binary language of computing. Kevin Cheng and Coley Wopperer of San Francisco have been waiting nearly two years for their wedding date to roll around, having realized over dinner with friends in 2008 that, as one suggested, “you could have a binary-themed wedding!” he recalled.

“Both of our eyes just lit up,” he said.

“We’re very much technology people,” Mr. Cheng explained, as if it were necessary to point this out.

The dinner group quickly calculated the more familiar base-10 value of the binary number 101010, and found that it was 42. “That totally sealed the deal!” he recalled.

Footnote: For fans of Douglas Adams, author of the series of science fiction comedic novels beginning with “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy,” the number 42 is instantly recognized as the punch line to one of literature’s most revered shaggy dog stories. In it, super-intelligent beings have created the most powerful computer ever to provide the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything.” The computer labors for 7.5 million years. Finally, it answers: “Forty-two.”

Which means, gentle reader, that Kevin Cheng and Coley Wopperer are truly meant for each other.

So for all the freaks and geeks jumping the broomstick today, I sincerely wish you wish you all the very best.

Wedding vows in Vegas
Weren't meant to last for ages
You've got to be courageous
To play the odds that love will win
Whatever city you're in.

Europe according to the British

Apophatic

"As tiresome as a child with a taste for religious controversy." Where did I read that?

Here be dragons

Soane, and so forth

There is a special candlelit opening of Sir John Soane's Museum on the first Tuesday evening of each month, 6-9pm, and I went along last night largely, I think, because I am a big girl's blouse.

I didn't get in. "Please expect long queues," says the website; accurately.

In the absence of my report on Sir John's collections and personal effects, acquired between the 1780s and his death in 1837, you will have to divert yourself with this video of Bruce Lee playing table tennis with nunchucks.

Let's just relish that again: table tennis with nunchucks. He really was comprised entirely of awesomeness.

Ryder on the storm

Perhaps we have evolved gills in Europe after all?

These are happy days with the Ryder Cup regained in Wales in Welsh weather and a USA team gracious in defeat.

Terry Matthews (Newport 1943) is a Welsh Born Icon.

Zune, just one look

After lunch on a wet and miserable Sunday yesterday, the Bomber and I sat down to entertain ourselves with the remake of Clash of the Titans.

It wasn't broadcast TV or a disc however, it was streamed to the new XBOX over the net. We only stumbled across the feature, but using it was next to effortless, and the quality was fine.

Writing here every day let's me see how much of an improvement that is over four years ago.

I think perhaps my DVDs will have gone the way of my CDs in another forty eight months.

Cancelled

KINGS FESTIVAL UPDATE : 0600hrs SUN 3rd OCT - FESTIVAL OFF. OVERNIGHT RAIN HAS FLOODED ALL HARD STANDING CAR PARKING. MORE RAIN FORECAST FOR THIS MORNING LATER. SADLY WITHOUT ANY ON SITE PARKING FACILITY THE FESTIVAL IS CANCELLED.

First kids rugby cancellation of the year this morning. First of many if last year and the Ryder Cup is anything to go by. I'm surprised we haven't evolved gills in the UK.

Katy Am Byth

Eberyting Welsh dese days.

Cardiff Internet Movie Database

SEATTLE – September 28, 2010—IMDb.com, Inc. (www.imdb.com), the authoritative source of information on movies, TV and celebrities, and part of the Amazon.com, Inc. group of companies, today announced and launched IMDb20, the company’s 20-year anniversary campaign. Beginning today, IMDb will treat fans to an original video interview with a different A-list artist each day, culminating on Oct. 17, 2010, (the date of IMDb’s 20th anniversary). The goal of the online countdown and companion editorial section is to celebrate the films of the past 20 years.

Yes my pretties, but in 1992 when it kicked away the shackles of rec.arts.movies and launched itself onto the World Wide Web (a network in its infancy back then) it was known as the Cardiff Internet Movie Database and was powered by a database residing on the servers of the computer science department of Wales' Cardiff University.

For IMDb.com is - and will ever remain - a Welsh Born Icon.

Spice Boy

The Bomber is ten today.

I bumped into the life guard from the Virgin Active pool yesterday. When she asked after him, it reminded me that there's a swimming certificate on his bedroom wall from all they way back in 2006.

Tempus fugit.

He wants to go to Jimmy Spice tonight (eat your way around the world in one room), and he's having a party on Saturday.

FAQ

1. How is it made?
Crabbie’s Alcoholic Ginger Beer is made from a fermented ginger base. Crabbie’s is made with real Ginger powder and root extract by steeping for 6 weeks, to infuse the liquid with a real ginger flavour. The Crabbie’s recipe is a traditional and guarded one with four 'secret' ingredients added to it.

The product is all natural in terms of its flavoring components.


2. What is the ABV?
4% ABV

3. Who makes it?
Crabbies is still made in Scotland but is wholly owned by Halewood International – who are based in Huyton

4. How many units of Alcohol are there in a 500ml bottle?
2 Units


5. What supermarkets/ stores are stocking Crabbie’s?
Waitrose, Sainsbury, Morrison’s, Booths, Netto, Bargain Booze, Nisa, Select & Save, Spar (Appleby Westward, capper, James Hall) & Botterills (Scotland).

6. Is it vegetarian ?
No

7. Is it gluten free ?
Yes


8. What pubs/managed bars/ bar chains are stocking it?
JD Wetherspoons, Mitchells and Butlers, Marstons, Belhaven Pub company, Yates, Hogshead and many independent bars.

9. What wholesalers/cash & carry’s can I buy from?
Nationally available through Bookers, Matthew Clarke, Classic Drinks, St. Austell Brewery, Parfetts, Batleys, Bestway, Bellevue, LWC, Makro, JW Filshill, United Wholesale, Hyperama, AF Blakemore, Inbev, Global Cash & carry, Morcambe Bay Wines, Molson Coors, HB Clark, Goldspot Cash & carry & many many more.

The Cunning Linguist

I find this hard to swallow - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11419212.

Our Kath

Katherine Jenkins started the Swansea Bay 10k yesterday and then ran the course with John, me and a few thousand others. I believe it is now compulsory for her to officiate at all public events in the Principality.

a flawless business model

We sold £1 for £2.

If I could scale that sort of transaction up by a few orders of magnitude we'd be laughing.

if you're a wild eyed loner

Prodnose: Hey you know there's a lot of talk going around about this hip and hep jive. Lots of people are going around saying "hip." Lots of squares are coming out with "hep." Well the hipster is here to inform you what the jive is all about.

Myself: Today I'm going to the the Great British Cheese Festival in Cardiff, and tomorrow I'm doing the Admiral Swansea Bay 10k run. It's the 30th anniversary you know.

Prodnose: What're you rebelling against, Johnny?

Myself: Nothing really.

Prodnose: But it's a road trip!

Myself (humouring him as the path of least resistance): It begins here for me on this road. How the whole mess happened I don't know, but I know it couldn't happen again in a million years. Maybe I could have stopped it early, but once the trouble was on its way, I was just goin' with it. Mostly I remember the girl. I can't explain it - a sad chick like that, but somethin' changed in me. She got to me, but that's later anyway. This is where it begins for me right on this road.

Prodnose: You The Man!

Myself: Who The Man? No! You The Man!

Prodnose: No, No! You the Man!

(repeat to fade)

Gi Whizz

Coming soon... the new IJF approved Fighting Films Superstar. As worn by 2010 World bronze medallist Euan Burton and Commonwealth Games Champion Winston Gordon.

I'd promised the Bomber a new judo suit for his birthday, but when it arrived it was the wrong size due to some sort of mix up. Fortunately Winnie managed to sort him out last night from some stock he had so Ben will be unwrapping a new gi next week.

In an amazing coincidence, I noticed on Facebook that Fighting Films had uploaded a YouTube video featuring Winston promoting their new suit on the very same day. Beyond cool for a nine nearly ten year old to get it from him.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose

This is the advice we are giving our public sector clients as they go through the arduous process of updating their policies to reflect the sea change from New Labour to the Lib-Con Coalition.

the knack of happy accidents

I stumbled upon what was - to me at least - the great lost Viv Stanshall album on Spotify last night.

Here is the link.

Looking at Amazon, it seems finally to have made it to CD last month; deep, deep joy.

sanguinary

Earlier this week, our commanders handed over responsibility for Sangin (the volatile town that has claimed 106 British lives, a third of the total killed in Afghanistan) to US troops.

Dozens of British soldiers were killed earlier this year when men of the 3 Rifles battle group pushed along the road running north to south of the town in Helmand province to build 22 patrol bases.

But the Americans decided to abandon the posts, instead concentrating their troops in four major bases from which they could conduct operations.

We conclude therefore that the blood spilled in setting up the patrol bases was wasted. Nothing is gained by the Prime Minister paying tribute to "huge achievements." Solemnity is required not gloss; see Icons passim.

I could not dig, I dared not rob,
And so I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue,
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale will serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?

Neurotrash

just simple lines intertwining, you know

In his book The Highland Clans, Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk claimed that Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom "is the lawful Jacobite sovereign of this realm". Moncreiffe made the following argument:

... by the fourteenth century it had become common law (in both England and Scotland) that a person who was not born in the liegeance of the Sovereign, nor naturalised, could not have the capacity to succeed as an heir .... In Scotland, this law was modified in favour of the French from the sixteenth century, but was otherwise rigorously applied until the Whig Revolution of 1688, after which it was gradually done away with by the mid-nineteenth century. It was precisely because of this law that Queen Anne found it necessary to pass a special Act of Parliament naturalising all alien-born potential royal heirs under her Act of Settlement of the throne. But, of course, from the Jacobite point of view, no new statute could be passed after 1688 .... The nearest lawful heir of the Cardinal York in 1807 was, in fact, curiously enough, King George III himself, who had been born in England (and therefore in the technical liegance of James VIII).

Good to get that sorted out eh?

The Samurai Of Ayothaya

Deranged Thai action movies (see icons passim) are becoming one of the great consolations of my declining years. "The Samurai Of Ayothaya" looks very unlikely to let me down.

Martial prowess not withstanding - the other requirements of the elite guard of the king appear to be bristling Edwardian moustaches and Tony Curtis haircuts.

That is one minute and ten seconds into the trailer if you don't have the patience for the whole thing.

River and Cloth

Facebook Places has launched in the UK.

I went to http://touch.facebook.com/ and - to be frank - I can make neither head nor tail of it.

I'm in the same postcode however as:

River and Cloth

The Marquee, Merton Abbey Mills, Watermill Way, London, SW19 2RD

17 – 23 September, 10.00am – 5.00pm daily

Mr Nice

While I can't endorse freelance pharmaceutical distribution, Rhy Ifans' elevation to the rank of the Welsh Born Icon is overdue.

The King Over the Water

Inspired by the visit of the Pope I have been looking at the Jacobite Succession, which is the Catholic line through which the crown in pretence of England and Scotland has descended since the flight of James II & VII from London at the time of the Glorious Revolution.

A particular highlight is Henry Benedict Stuart (11 March 1725 – 13 July 1807) the younger brother of Bonnie Prince Charlie who was, handily, one of the longest ever serving Roman Catholic Cardinals, as well as the fourth and final Jacobite heir publicly to claim the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

In his youth, Henry's father made him Duke of York (in the Jacobite peerage), and it was by this title that he was best known. Upon the death of his brother in 1788 Henry became known by Jacobites, and within his personal entourage, as Henry IX of England.

Notably, the Cardinal-Duke of York was the last claimant to the English throne to touch for the King's Evil. That is to attempt to cure, say, tuberculosis by divine right through by laying on of hands.

Eat your heart out, Umberto Eco.

Geo Loco

One of these days someone is going to bring such post modern ironic distance to their perspective that the universe will start folding itself up around a strange attractor brought into being by the sheer reflexivity of it all.

And then where will we be?

forgotten your password?

Let us bring up our children. It is not
the place of some official to hand to them
their heritage.
If others impart to our children our knowledge
and ideals, they will lose all of us that is
wordless and full of wonder.
Let us build memories in our children,
lest they drag out joyless lives,
lest they allow treasures to be lost because
they have not been given the keys.
We live, not by things, but by the meanings
of things. It is needful to transmit the passwords
from generation to generation.

Prodnose: So you've booked to go skiing with the Bomber again! Don't you think you're being a little melodramatic?

Myself: OK, point taken. In my defence I'm not taking him out of school this time. We're going at half term with Andy and Jonnie, another father and son team who did Richmond to Windsor with us.

the parable of the talents

Oh man... the bullshit piled up so fast in Vietnam, you needed wings to stay above it.

I've been spending some time thinking about Facebook lately on behalf of a client. When I was looking at Twitter last year, Downing Street was the best example I could find on how not to go about it.

With Facebook however, the new regime has excelled itself. Contrasting the hubris of the pathetic "web conference" above between the Prime Minister and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg with Number 10's own ridiculous Facebook application which hasn't been updated since July would be funny if it wasn't for the fact that this really is the government.

Please pass all future Government announcements on efficiency through a prism informed by the gap between their own aspiration and delivery in this comparatively trivial and potentially easily managed area.

The "latest news" according to Number 10 on Facebook is:

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley in live Q&A 22 Jul 09:31

What price NHS IT with this shower?

As for Andy Coulson - David Cameron's communications director - who is currently under seige for other matters, what do we think?

1. 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.

or

2. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The more alfalfa he did not grow ...

at a stretch

I have previously pleaded guilty to reading "Eat, Pray, Love" I grant you, but I have embarked on a recovery programme based on:

1. Stretch: The Unlikely Making of a Yoga Dude

2. mindful drinking
3. bhangra Sex Pistols covers.

In our Age

The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.

In a week when Pastor Terry Jones, of the Dove World Outreach Center, plans to put copies of the Koran in a bonfire and a week before the Pope lands in the UK, I thought I'd remind you what the Catholic Church actually teaches about interfaith relations.

Prince wrote a song called "Pope" and it goes like this:

Your car got mags that be dippy dippy dope
But the whole damn nation got the same
Honey only flock 2 the bee that's the Pope
Not the President with government lame

Put me on a slow movin' parlimentary hackin' bandwagon
U could put my little ass in the grave
Everytime u want it I'll be live, bring a date
I mean computer when its over press save

Frankly I'm none the wiser.

Top of the world

Judo's 2010 World Championships start in Tokyo at 1am GMT tomorow morning, with EB Phoenix's Winston Gordon among the 21 strong British team.

What a thing it has been to see him fight his way back to competing at the highest level after a career threatening injury.

The Bomber and I wish him all the best.

mashable

Myself: I was working in the lab late one night, when my eyes beheld an eerie sight, for my monster from his slab began to rise and suddenly to my surprise ..

Prodnose: He did the mash?

Myself: He did the monster mash.

Prodnose: The monster mash?

Myself: It was a graveyard smash.

Prodnose: He did the mash?

Myself: It caught on in a flash.

Prodnose: He did the mash?

Myself: He did the monster mash.

Tempting as it might be to imagine that something like "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" was the soundtrack to the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was in fact Bobby Pickett's "Monster Mash" that topped the charts while the world held its breath.

I find this curiously reassuring. "Now everything's cool, Drac's a part of the band and my monster mash is the hit of the land."

..and the Windsor is

I did the Richmond to Windsor Bike ride yesterday along with a debuting Bomber, Jonnie and his Dad Andy, and a lot of the Whitton crew that Ben knows from skiing.

Huge fun. When we got to the Sunbury stop a lot of the boys were drinking from a case of beer. When I asked Bondy where it came from, he said that Darren had driven the route the night before stashing supplies at convenient locations.

Much respect to the Bomber and Jonnie for finishing the course at a tender nine years of age.

the world's strangest rock band

I'm gettin' bugged driving up and down the same old strip
I gotta finda new place where the kids are hip

My buddies and me are getting real well known
Yeah, the bad guys know us and they leave us alone

Down with Skool

The Bomber makes the best of yesterday's INSET day, climbin' trees and scrapin' knees. Back to school, nose to grindstone, shoulder to wheel etc. at the beginning of next week.

Toper Tony

“I was clearly at the limit. A whisky or a gin and tonic before dinner, then one or two glasses of wine, even a half-bottle.”

We are admittedly spoiled for choice, but is there any more egregious example of Tony Blair's indestructible self regard than the "revelation" about his drinking above? He could drink that much every day for the rest of his life with no problem at all. Does he imagine there's a whiff of Devil may care glamour about it? Does he wear pajamas, leave the toilet seat up? The public has a right to know.

According to a breathless report in the Daily Mail, even Cliff Richard (the Peter Pan of pop whose home the Blairs borrowed for holidays a couple of times) finds room for a daily glass of wine or two in his never ending diet.

While Sir Cliff stands a good chance of drinking you under the table you're still a little way from skid row.

It's pathetic; the posturing of a milk monitor down for his 'hood.

Appeasement on the Help Desk

Chamberlain: Arthur Neville Chamberlain. Talk to me.

Caller: My computer deleted my entire hard drive overnight. All of my files are gone. It must’ve been some kind of virus.

Chamberlain: I can sense the pain and longing in your voice. You’re angry, seeking revenge for your loss, perhaps.

Caller: My dissertation was on this thing!

Chamberlain: In the short term, I can offer no salve for your pain. But let us look, for a moment, through the long lens of history, where aggression is rarely rewarded and retribution brings only further misery. In the face of such difficulties as yours, it is important to remain principled. This is an evil machine — one that uses brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution — and against it I am certain that the right will prevail in the end.

Caller: So can you help me retrieve my dissertation or not?

Chamberlain: We cannot risk this fragile peace.

A companion piece to the medieval http://nickbrowne.coraider.com/2007/12/help-desk.html.