csi: the hive

a positive story from the bee world was reported by the bbc recently, telling us that the way bumblebees search for food may help humans hunt down serial killers (human ones). a team at the university of london reports that:

" ... bees create a "buffer zone" around their hive where they will not forage, to reduce the risk of predators and parasites locating the nest. It turns out that this pattern of behaviour is similar to the geographic profile of criminals stalking their victims. "Most murders happen close to the killer's home, but not in the area directly surrounding a criminal's house, where crimes are less likely to be committed because of the fear of getting caught by someone they know," Dr Raine explained."

so all we have to do is apply bee patterns to human ones and ... hurrah! well, it is certainly an interesting idea. i wonder how it occurred to someone in the first place?

the full story is here.

leo abse z"l

leo abse, a welsh and labour member of parliament for over thirty years, has died at the age of 91. apart from being the older brother of our beloved friend dannie, he is also worth celebrating for his pioneering work in the reforming of british family and social life when i was a child. the times notes:

"His concerns were at the heart of the reforms that touched and revolutionised family and social life in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s: the acceptance of homosexuality, divorce and family planning, although he also interested himself in a great range of other social issues including abortion, prisons and, more recently, in vitro fertilisation."
the times obituary

in the grauniad, geoffrey goodman begins:

"The politician, social reformer, writer and lawyer Leo Abse, who has died aged 91, was a unique figure in the public life of our time. He reflected, and transmitted in grandiloquent style, the paradoxes of our age along with his own egocentric capacity to express, often in pyrotechnic rhetoric, the contradictions and absurdities in all our lives. He was a leftwing socialist with a Disraelian quality of showmanship, and a product of a Welsh–Jewish idealism oft times coated with Celtic imagery — always laced with a Jewish romanticism he sought, pointlessly, to disguise."
full obituary

from the telegraph:

"Abse was the first MP to initiate debates on genetic engineering, the dangers of nuclear power generation at Windcsale, and in vitro pregnacies; and he campaigned to change the law which made attempted suicide a criminal act. He made a special study of the problems of delinquency, divorce and counselling. It was due to him that the law was changed, in the Divorce Reform Act of 1969, to allow divorce after a marriage had broken down beyond repair. He despised the system of having to secure a divorce by a bogus admission of adultery or couples being compelled to remain married in name. He also saw that the interests of the child were made a prior consideration in divorce settlements. Perhaps his best-known achievements, however, were piloting through the House of Commons the Homosexual Law Reform Bill in 1967 and sponsoring what eventually became the 1975 Children’s Act."
full obit

with regard to the political psychobiographies abse wrote later in life, tam dalyell says in the indy:

"Abse's approach was to study the relationship between politics and personality. He dared to place under scrutiny the interior lives of practising politicians. He insisted this had nothing to do with cheap and scurrilous probing, but related to the belief that when political decision-making can have such fateful consequences as peace or war for a nation, the elected politician cannot claim the same right of privacy as that afforded to the electors.

Policies, for Abse, cannot be disengaged from the policy-makers. The drives and psychological needs of the politicians invade and distort the panaceas they offer to the electorates. If more objective assessments are to be made of policies, assessments must be made of the men and women who expound them. Abse himself deserved to be remembered as one of the most significant social reformers of 20th-century Britain."
full obit

it sounds like he was a man for his time. where are such people today?

the engastrimyth

in my new-found fervour (don't ask how many times i have viewed nina conti videos this week) for the art of ventriloquism, i have been trying to find a good book for beginners. the 1904 version of practical ventriloquism by robert ganthony is not available in my local library network. however, i did discover what, according to the grauniad, "the great ken campbell" considers the perfect practice sentence for ventriloquists to be:

"Who dared to put wet fruit bat poo in our dead mummy's bed; was that you, Verity?"

a post on the olympics

so the americans print a medal table where the team with the most medals of any type (i.e., the usa) is top and the chinese print one where the most gold medals gets counted first (we like them better because then britain is higher up). the aussies are busy dissing the brits, saying that they smell and are only good at sports where they get to sit down. some guy beat mark spitz's olympic medal record, etc., etc.

the big question i had, though, was: what is yngling and how do you pronounce it? thank you grauniad today for answering this. here is what they wrote:

"What is Yngling and how do you pronounce it?

Yngling is a type of keelboat, and easily the silliest of the 23 varieties of keelboat currently accredited by the International Sailing Federation, most of which sound like cast members of the Gladiators - Tempest, Lightning, Dragon, Melges 24. OK, the last one doesn't sound like a Gladiator. Its Norwegian inventor designed it for his son in 1967 and named it Yngling, Norwegian for young man. This is its second appearance in the Olympics, where it is raced only by women - the men's keelboat is the more gladiatorial Star. A spokeswoman from the Norwegian embassy says the word "is slightly old-fashioned now" but confirms that it is pronounced erngling, with the initial Y sounding like a German U with an umlaut. "It's not really a word we use a lot," says a colleague. "

mazal tov ellen and portia

i am not going to write anything about this since many others have already covered it from many angles. i recommend dorothy snarker's site, and clicking through as well to after ellen. am just pleased that this is not being condemned across the board. and of course, i shall have to move immediately to california :-)

pink pound, or boozy brits?

apparently the city of krakow in poland is a popular site for british stag nights. however, as in other parts of europe, the locals are getting a bit fed up with the rowdiness and the vomiting. tourist authorities in krakow have recently announced that they plan to target gay and lesbian tourists instead, believing that they behave better, not to mention having and spending more money. the observer reports the perspectives and responses of local people:

"'They hassle waitresses about sex and brothels. One stripped off in front of all the other guests. They've started drinking out of their shoes, which they think is really funny. They drop ash and spill beer and vomit, and then they go off to brothels.' Nightclub owners complain they have had to fork out on extra security to cope with drunken brawls that often break out between stag groups. And Krakow's taxi drivers are fed up. 'They pack themselves into the car, vomit out of the windows, and run off without paying,' said one driver, named Tomasz."

these are the stag parties. however:

"'I don't know which is worse!' said Piotr Kucharski, spokesman for the Christian Culture Association In the Name of Father Piotr Skarga, which has initiated an email protest campaign and a demonstration in Krakow against the new policy. He added: 'Drunken Britons may get their genitals out in public. But we don't want gays performing public obscenities either.'"

yes, two men holding hands in public is totally on a par with a flasher. the local politicians, however, are no better:

"'We respect people, their autonomy and personal choices. However, we do not support the promotion of perverse behaviour,' said Agata Tatara, Krakow city councillor and member of the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party."

it constantly amazes me into how many loops of a pretzel shape people are willing to bend themselves to perpetuate their pink prejudice.

the observer reporter was hilary davies from warsaw and the story was published sunday 17th august

dottie collins r.i.p.

have you seen the 1992 film 'a league of their own'? dottie collins was at the centre of the real-life all-american girls professional baseball league.

"June Peppas, a rookie with the 1948 Daisies, remembered how Collins “kind of played mother” to her and fellow rookies, teaching them how to conduct themselves as professional athletes, and how she provided emotional support for former teammates over the years. “She had a lot of compassion for everybody,” Peppas said from her home in Florida. “She did a lot of letter-writing to support people who had problems. She was a good shoulder.”"

she was also instrumental in facilitating the cooperstown presentation and preservation of the history of that era:

"The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., had been considering an exhibition on women and baseball during the mid-1980s, but, as Ted Spencer, its chief curator, recalled in an interview, it had little material to display until Collins approached him. “When I connected with Dottie, the ball started to roll,” Spencer said. “If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know where it would have gone.”"

the full ny times obit

qpr lose and the world is back to normal

emanuel ledesma protects himself from the fierce onslaught of the sheffield united attack as qpr collapse to a 0-3 hammering up north this afternoon. and what is with the weird yellow shorts and socks? where are our hoops, mate?! this isn't our rangers!!

not got melky :-(

melky cabrera homers vs the blue jays
the yankees have sent my melky to the minors. noooooooooooooooooo!

the associated press reports:

"A starting outfielder with the Yankees for most of the past three seasons, the 24-year-old Cabrera got off to strong start this year but has struggled at the plate since May. He was batting .242 with eight homers, 36 RBIs and a paltry .296 on-base percentage. His playing time had decreased lately. “We just felt that it was time for him to go work on some things. You can’t forget how young Melky is,” Girardi said. “We believe that he’s a much better player than a .240 hitter.”"

qpr's league cup win versus swindon

angelo balanta bundles the ball across the line for the first goal at swindon in the cup earlier this week. i post this as inspiration for the 'r's tomorrow as they play their first away game of the season in sheffield. non-sport fans avert your eyes - i am going to do a yankees post next!

crisis point for uk honeybees

now that the grauniad is reporting this story, does that mean it is finally real? here is some of what alison benjamin wrote last tuesday:

"Britain's honeybees have suffered catastrophic losses this year, according to a survey of the nation's beekeepers, contributing to a shortage of honey and putting at risk the pollination of fruits and vegetables. The survey by the British Beekeepers' Association (BBKA) revealed that nearly one in three of the UK's 240,000 honeybee hives did not survive this winter and spring. The losses are higher than the one in five colonies reported dead earlier this year by the government after 10% of hives had been inspected. The BBKA president, Tim Lovett, said he was very concerned about the findings: "Average winter bee losses due to poor weather and disease vary from between 5% and 10%, so a 30% loss is deeply worrying. This spells serious trouble for pollination services and honey producers."

The National Bee Unit has attributed high bee mortality to the wet summer in 2007 and in the early part of this spring that confined bees to their hives. This meant they were unable to forage for nectar and pollen and this stress provided the opportunity for pathogens to build up and spread. But the BBKA says the causes are unclear. Its initial survey of 600 members revealed a marked north-south divide, with 37% bee losses in the north, compared to 26% in the south. "We don't know why there is a difference and what is behind the high mortality," said Lovett.

The government recognises that the UK's honeybee hives - run by 44,000 mostly amateur beekeepers - contribute around £165m a year to the economy by pollinating many fruits and vegetables. "30% fewer honeybee colonies could therefore cost the economy some £50m and put at risk the government's crusade for the public to eat five portions of fresh fruit and vegetables a day," Lovett warned.

The Honey Association warned last month that English honey will run out by Christmas and no more will be available until summer 2009. It blames the shortage on fewer honeybees and farmers devoting more fields to wheat, which has soared in price but does not produce nectar ...

... In the US, honey yields have been decimated by honeybee loses of 36%, many due to colony collapse disorder (CCD), a mysterious disappearance linked to the blood-sucking varroa mite, lethal viruses, malnutrition, pesticides, and a lack of genetic diversity. CCD has spread to Canada, France, Germany and Italy but has not yet been confirmed by government in the Britain."

nina conti

i found nina conti on youtube via an article in the grauniad re the current edinburgh festival. i watched a short video interview with her and decided i needed to know more. apart from the fact that when i was 14 i had a massive crush on her dad, in those days known as the thinking girl's crumpet, i was just drawn to her act. those of you who know me well may understand why she has caused me to consider learning how to be a ventriloquist. enjoy!

aaaaaaaaaaaar.m.v. part one

bureaucracy - one of the great inventions of the civilised world. of course not. just home in a bit of a fury trying to calm down and go back to the registry of motor vehicles in watertown. first of all, the other day, i discovered that without insurance you cannot get registered, and without registration you cannot get insured. luckily there is a special form for that which means it is not actually a problem, and the insurers will send it to you. eventually.

meanwhile, my first encounter with the commonwealth of massachusetts occurred about an hour ago. you'd've thought that with a licence from the commonwealth of virginia there may have been some reciprocity but apparently not. the first trick is to find the office. there are no signs on any of the surrounding streets. there are no signs in the parking lot. someone i asked in a back street told me it was in the mall. upon getting there, one has to stand in line to get a form to fill out in order to go back into the line in order to get a number in order to get in line to be served. the wooden benches are full of dispirited-looking people trying to figure out whether the woman at the front who is shouting numbers is shouting the same numbers as the ones on the electronic display (she is not). to help us pass the time there is a tv screen up at the front displaying the words "national news". apparently there isn't any.

eventually my number came up. "licence renewal?" the woman asked. "uh huh." i was told to stand in another line. after a while, the line next to us was told to merge with us because the woman at the desk was going to lunch. a few minutes later she started attending to other customers. "hey!" we all shouted. "i'm just going by the numbers," she said. that shut us up. we tried to make sense of what she had said. i decided it was a government plan to prevent alzheimer's by making our brains work. at last i made it to the front. and was immediately rejected. apparently it was a line for renewals only massachusetts to massachusetts. the woman told me i obviously had not been listening properly. i complained, and she sent me to the manager. he had a lovely purple shirt on. by this time, a tear or two of frustration had begun to roll down my cheek. this made the manager very kind and gentle. he explained to me that in any case i would have been rejected because i should have brought my passport with me. or a lease (i don't have one). or a cancelled cheque (i am all electronic these days). so i had to go home.

should i go back now? am not sure if i can handle it all again today. is this really the most efficient way for this office to work? who knows. anyway, i suspect that the deciding factor for me will probably be when i look in the rearview mirror and see how awful my hair is looking after all this tension. after all ... the real issue is surely what the photo on the licence is going to look like!

hip hip hurrah!

was just browsing an old copy of brewer's dictionary of phrase and fable and came across the following entry:

"hip! hip! hurrah! - the old fanciful explanation of the origin of this cry is that the hip is a notarikon, composed of the initials 'hierosolyma est perdita', and that when german knights headed a jew-hunt in the middle ages, they ran shouting "hip! hip!" as much as to say "jerusalem is destroyed."
hurrah was similarly derived from slavonic 'hu-raj' (to paradise), so that hip! hip! hurrah! would mean "jerusalem is lost to the infidel, and we are on the road to paradise.""

and there i was thinking that saying 'hip hip hurrah' was such a terribly british thing to do. shall have to omit the hips from now on methinks, although hurrah still seems to make sense

signspotting

the telegraph has a weekly section wherein it displays photographs of signs that readers have sent in. the focus is on the odd and the amusing, particularly when it comes to mistranslations. it occurred to me that this particular one was most suitable for the ravaj.

anyone still reading?

so i had a bit of a lapse re blogging. i'd like to make it up to you, so here are some links now to things i would have blogged if i had been blogging then:

first of all, obituaries of interesting and amazing women of whom you may not have heard ...

janet askham was a british sociologist who, latterly, had been concentrating on the social aspects of aging. the times quoted her as saying:

"“Ageing is both a social and biological phenomenon. One can start with the notion of when old age begins. There is no biological starting point: it is socially determined. People become old because they are defined as old — by the attitudes and behaviour of others and by laws, rules or policies.”"

pauline baynes was most well-known for her illustrations for works by tolkien and the narnia books. the grauniad wrote:

"Baynes went on to become one of the foremost children's book illustrators of the 20th century. Her highly designed style - witty, inventive and invariably bursting beyond the borders of the page - her strong sense of colour and line, and her careful attention to detail would become instantly recognisable. As for Narnia, despite other artists ringing the changes from time to time with the covers, sometimes disastrously, it is her classic line drawings which have remained an integral part of every subsequent edition of the series."

valerie bennett-levy was nosegay maker to the queen. when describing what she did during the war, the times noted:

"Much more an artist than a physicist, Bennett-Levy amused Sir Robert Watson-Watt, the man credited with Britain’s advances in radar development, when — as a member of a high-level delegation visiting her station — he heard her explaining her work thus: “Well, you twiddle this knob and that knob, and then this other knob, and . . .” He told her: “I’ve been trying to explain what I do to my secretary for years. Yours is the most unscientific explanation I’ve ever heard. I wonder if you’d come round and explain it to her.”"

evelyn keyes lived a far more interesting life off-screen than suellen o'hara, the part that she played in 'gone with the wind'. the guardian ends its description of her life with the following:

"A self-described "flaming liberal" who was once a "mush-minded bigot", the plain-speaking Keyes explained that having an abortion just before filming Gone With the Wind, left her unable to have children."

kathleen kinkade was a founder of a utopian commune near charlottesville, va. the ny times wrote:

"In 1964, while living in Los Angeles and working in a dead-end secretarial job, she read “Walden Two.” Skinner’s novel, about humans living in a hivelike egalitarian society, strikes many readers as bloodless and forbidding, but Ms. Kinkade responded ecstatically. She wrote to the author asking if such a community existed, and if she could join. She received no reply, concluded that there was no such community and decided to create one."

ann lambton was a scholar who specialised in the study of iran. the times said:

"All who knew Lambton respected her not only for her intelligence but also for her physical strength and endurance. She was a fine squash player and often beat students a great deal younger than her. She always cycled between SOAS and her flat in Maida Vale. In Iran and in Northumberland she was a tireless walker up the steepest of hills at a huge pace and she walked everywhere in Iran, besides travelling on horseback or camel."

two goals for one-size

so the season began and i said nothing about it? or maybe i was overcome by the magnitude of two wins in a row. sorry auntie d. and others not into my particular sport fixations. while you should be glad to know that considering the poor performances by the yankees recently, they are less likely to be featured on these pages; at the same time it is the new season and association football is my great love. prepare, therefore, to skip the soccer stories for a while. i understand. really, i do.

meanwhile, here are some pics via action images of the first goal by fitz and his response. nb quite a good nickname i think - he is called fitz hall, and nicknamed one-size. i like it. much better than lee cook's nickname, i.e., cookie; martin rowlands, i.e., rowly; and (why i just do not know) patrick agyemang who is called by many 'dave'. anyway, o frabjous day, etc ...

is she is or is she aint? none of your beeping business!

from the bbc website:

"Actress Lindsay Lohan has hit out at the Los Angeles police chief after he said the star had "gone gay".

"Police chiefs shouldn't get involved in everyone else's business when it comes to their personal life. It's inappropriate," Lohan said. Chief William Bratton made the remark while explaining why he did not support a crackdown on the paparazzi. Lohan, the star of Mean Girls and Freaky Friday, has been linked with DJ Mark Ronson's sister Samantha. The police chief was discussing problems with the paparazzi on LA news channel KNBC. He said: "If you notice, since Britney started wearing clothes and behaving, Paris is out of town not bothering anybody, thank God, and evidently, Lindsay Lohan has gone gay, we don't seem to have much of an issue." Chief Bratton had earlier refused to attend a Los Angeles city task force meeting to discuss ways to combat the paparazzi. Lohan gave her response in a video filmed by paparazzi and posted on celebrity website TMZ. Her publicist Leslie Sloane has previously denied that the actress is in a relationship with Samantha Ronson, but said they were "close friends"."

i am both confused and irked by this. on the one hand, personal lives are of course personal business (unless you are a celebrity who courts publicity for the development of your career, in which case you kind of make your whole life fair game). in any case, i am not a fan of publicly outing people. on the other hand, what on earth did the police chief think he was doing when he made a comment like this? sounds like a bit of a publicity-seeker himself. meanwhile, i think the paparazzi are flesh-eaters ... if you click the link, check out how they surround lohan as she enters the airport.

happy first birthday zhen zhen

the san diego zoo's latest panda bear cub, daughter of bai yun and gao gao, has her first birthday today. you go zhen zhen!

prince charles talks to a bee

no, the heir to the throne is not following in the footsteps of his ancestor king george (the one who purportedly talked to trees), but rather is seen here at the sandringham flower show with beekeeper barry walker-moore, who told him of the threat that disease is posing to bee populations, and asked him to back a campaign for more research.

separated at birth: alison and jackie

i wish i knew how to post pics side by side, but we shall have to do with up and down. you may have noticed my recent interest in the musician alison kraus:
there was something about her face - a quite lovely face - but something about it that stuck in my mind. then i realised that, to me at least, she could be the twin of bravo workout host jackie warner:
ok, not identical twins perhaps, but separated at birth - what do you think?

kate bush turns 50

some of my favourite female friends are big fans of the music of kate bush. in their honour, i wish her many happy returns of the day today. i may not be into her kind of performance art, but i do still possess a vinyl 45 of 'wuthering heights'!

it is hard to accept that icons of one's youth are reaching ages that sound so old. especially since their earliest appearances are recorded and available for public viewing. the ravaj has a birthday in, gosh, just about 4 weeks, and refuses to accept that the age she will attain is commensurate with her actions, feelings and thoughts. according to the social rules, she is well into middle-age. according to her self, she is well into at least her third childhood - just one where she is able to drive, vote, and have a debit card. does that make her the woman with the child in her eyes?

krauss crush

when i lived in the shenandoah valley, my friend t took me to see alison krauss and union station play. except for a couple of jesus-y songs at the end, i rather enjoyed the concert. i also bought the soundtrack for 'o brother where art thou'. so when i saw she was nominated for a mercury prize with robert plant, i decided to check out some of the music:


this is not a great video (what's with those blow-up doll things?) but i have been watching it quite a lot. am finding ms. krauss quite compelling. i think it is her smile. it is certainly not her dancing. yes, it must be her smile :-)

in praise of the electric car

so there i was reading the ny sunday times online. i clicked on tom friedman's latest article, and he is writing about someone called shai agassi. i am wondering why he is writing about the small child of 2 tennis stars but i always loved steffi graf, especially her forehand, so i read on. you can read it here if you wish. i decide to google shai agassi, and discover his blog. there i find the following video, which makes the case for electric cars far better than i ever could. agassi's son told him he really needed to explain the story so a fifth-grader could understand it. here is that explanation:

the anti vanna white

ravaj tower is silent as the news has just reached its inhabitants that carol vorderman is to step down from our favourite channel 4 show 'countdown' after 26 years. the telegraph reports:

"Kevin Lygo, Channel 4's director of television and content said "We are extremely sorry to see Carol leave. "She has made an enormous contribution to the success of Countdown over the last 25 years. We hope to work with her again on other projects." Countdown viewers have watched Vorderman transform on screen from an awkward 21-year-old to one of the most glamorous faces on television. She owes her success to her mother who noticed a newspaper advertisement asking for a woman with good mathematical skills to appear on a quiz show, and sent in her application form."

the rest of the article is here

during the word part of the programme, carol's job was to pick out the letters and place them on the board. "vowel please, carol." she would say thank you. "consonant, carol." thank you again. the usual pretty and vapid assistant to the main guy who got to make all the jokes. but then, when they got to the math part, as the wiki piece says: "Vorderman was a new type of game show hostess, revealing her intellectual ability by carrying out fast and accurate arithmetical calculations as part of the game". carol was brilliant. and as the show developed, she got to chat a little bit more as well instead of just being a game-piece. i love that show. don't know if i shall be able to watch it when i go home if she is no longer there. meanwhile, goodbye and thank you!

red sox 0-1 yanks

i know not everyone is into sport, especially baseball. have i mentioned that the best thing for me about baseball is that there is no time limit to the game? rather, it takes as long as it takes. that makes it very different to all the other popular american sports, where time boundaries create an extra pressure that can crush talent and pervert skill in order to force a result. ok footie is limited to 90 minutes, but at least there are no time-outs, or breaks between plays, and any time wasted is added on at the end.

anyway, living in boston as i do, and with the yankees not having much of a year so far, i must celebrate tonight's win. in the bottom of the 8th inning, when farnsworth came on and the commentators noted his unbroken run of scoreless innings, and the r. sox immediately put runners on first and second base, well, i knew i had to make the ultimate sacrifice again and turn off the television. so i did. and now i see we held on. hurrah. it was worth it! so well done joba. a win at fenway!!

gina gershon

lord knows how i ended up with this youtube vid but here it is. i have loved gina gershon. she plumbs and paints, she pole-dances and now ... she sings. i am of the myriad women who own uncut copies of the movie 'bound' with certain scenes more worn by use than others. these days, since hollywood has its quota of parts for middle-aged women, and gina is not part of the upper echelon of actresses that fill those parts, she is exploring other interests.

the thing is, i am still kind of numb from watching this video. is it truly awful? for crying out loud, i can sing better than that when i have a cold. am i missing some incredible socially satirical point that is being made here? this made my head spin, and not in a good way. i think i need to go back to youtube and find that kiss from 'showgirls' to restore my memory bank.

northampton 0-1 qpr

dexter celebrates scoring the only goal of the game as the 'r's play their second pre-season friendly up in northampton. passing through on the bus back from nottingham is the nearest i have ever been to the ground, but over 1k fans made their way up there to have a look at the new players, and maybe chalk up another stadium on their list in the now futile attempt to join the 92 club. ever the optimist, i say again that we did not lose. hurrah.

nb no idea who 11 is. will guess ledesma, but he's too new to recognise him from behind.

a good day for lesbians!

from a bbc online report yesterday:

"Three residents of the Greek island of Lesbos have lost an attempt to ban the use of the word "lesbian" to describe gay women. The residents argued that using the term in reference to gay women insulted their identity. But an Athens court ruled there was no justification for their contention that they felt slighted, saying the word did not define the islanders' identity. Greeks often refer to the island as Mytilene, after its capital. "This is a good decision for lesbians everywhere," Vassilis Chirdaris, lawyer for the Gay and Lesbian Union of Greece, told Reuters news agency. The island's name was applied to gay women in acknowledgement of the female poet Sappho, who wrote love poems about both women and men in about 600 BC. The man spearheading the case, publisher Dimitris Lambrou, had claimed that international dominance of the word in its sexual context violated the human rights of the islanders - who call themselves Lesbians - and disgraces them around the world. He argued it caused daily problems to the social life of Lesbos's inhabitants. But the court disagreed, ordering the plaintiffs to pay court expenses of 230 euros ($366), although they could appeal against the decision."

i refer you to a letter from the grauniad online, posted 13th of june:

"If the inhabitants of Cyprus are called Cypriots, can the inhabitants of Lesbos not call themselves Lesbiots to avoid confusion?
Francis Jones
London"

nu - problem solved.

estelle getty r.i.p.

do you recognise her? although she acted in many other tv shows and movies, estelle getty, who died today at the age of 84, will always be remembered as sophia, the feisty sicilian mother of dorothy in 'the golden girls'. the associated press obituary notes:

"When she auditioned, Getty was appearing on stage in Hollywood as the carping Jewish mother in Harvey Fierstein's play "Torch Song Trilogy." In her early 60s, she flunked her "Golden Girls" test twice because it was believed she didn't look old enough to play 80. "I could understand that," she told an interviewer a year after the show debuted. "I walk fast, I move fast, I talk fast." She came prepared for the third audition, however, wearing dowdy clothes and telling an NBC makeup artist, "To you this is just a job. To me it's my entire career down the toilet unless you make me look 80." The artist did, Getty got the job and won two Emmys."

the rest of the article is here.
here is her wiki page
and here is her official website
a 1995 interview with getty
telegraph obit

i loved watching that programme, and i loved watching it with my whole family. we all laughed. it also taught me that older women, women even older than my mother (!), were human and had lives.

although the first reports say that estelle getty died from natural causes, she was also suffering from advanced dementia. may she rest in peace.

stevenage borough 1-3 qpr

matteo alberti celebrates his first goal for the 'r's
yes it is almost that time again - qpr played their first friendly of the new season away to stevenage. they wore this weird new black outfit with yellow wasp pointings. they debuted a number of new players. they did not lose. so i am basically happy. hurrah.

dave mac's report on the bbc site is here

lindsay is a lesbian?

lindsay lohan and sam ronson step out
ok, maybe the title is kind of screaming for attention. after all, just because a woman is in a romantic relationship with another woman does not make her a lesbian ... she is just exhibiting some lesbian behaviour. she's young, she's just experimenting. in any case, celebrities do not live in the same world that we do or by the same rules, do they? OUCH! it is utterly fascinating to me that photos and discussions of these issues are now so popular in the press. almost presented the same way het relationships are. except of course in real life things are just not that simple. if you don't have the money or the status so you can tell people to eff off and just live your life, then you have still to put up with harassment and shame and secrets and lies. it's not as if you can say to your parents, 'well, lindsay is doing it' and they will say, 'well ok then sweetie.' or am i so out of touch with this generation that i really don't get that it is absolutely no big deal?

under the hammer ...

which would you prefer to own? for an estimated UKP25k, you could buy this:

or for about half that price, you could buy this:


although i think i really ought to go for the ten commandments that charlton heston, sorry, moses presented to the people ... i'm afraid that i'm much more drawn to the fake holy grail from 'indiana jones and the last crusade'. i mean, harrison ford *and* sean connery - not much of a contest, is it?

the telegraph has pictures of other hollywood memorabilia up for auction later this month.

the last goodbye

for my birthday last year, i treated myself to a baseball game at yankee stadium. i decided to pay the same for a seat that i would for a broadway show, and thus for the first time i did not have to climb any stairs to find my place. i may have blogged about this then, so enough already. the point tonight is that they are playing the all-star game at yankee stadium in honour of its upcoming demise. i still do not understand why they had to build another one right across the road, i mean twenty yards or so away. anyway, my contribution to this season of eulogising is the picture above. it is my favourite view of the stadium - between the concrete stands as seen from the elevated subway train as it passes by. the photo was taken after the game, so it is my last view of the house that ruth built. go american league!

when is satire not funny?

another magazine cover featuring barack obama engenders an hysterical response. inside the magazine is a major article about the democratic candidate. meanwhile the new yorker asserts its right to freedom of the press and a whole bunch of people get their knickers in a twist. i don't think it's a very good cartoon, and the corner where an american flag is burning in the fireplace certainly pokes people with a stick (i am a bad american because i just don't get all stoked up when someone burns a piece of material with a pattern on it). the sad truth is that when one is a candidate, one is also a target. they all know that. this incident will probably be seen as great publicity. i am much more upset by the fuss about this publication filling up air-time and pages that might otherwise look more carefully at bush lifting the offshore drilling ban or the nine u.s. soldiers killed in afghanistan yesterday.

telegraph perspective
not on the times page yet, nor the indy
grauniad

angelina and doctor seuss

we may all now relax, for angelina jolie has given birth to her twins. one is a boy and one is a girl. the boy has been named knox, which means that all of her boys have names that end in 'x'. i wonder if this may cause some confusion when calling for one or the other ... maddoX, paX, knoX? reminds me of my second favourite doctor seuss (the first being 'what was i scared of?'):

Too Many Daves

Did I ever tell you that Mrs. McCave
Had twenty-three sons, and she named them all Dave?
Well, she did. And that wasn't a smart thing to do.
You see, when she wants one, and calls out "Yoo-Hoo!
Come into the house, Dave!" she doesn't get one.
All twenty-three Daves of hers come on the run!

This makes things quite difficult at the McCaves'
As you can imagine, with so many Daves.
And often she wishes that, when they were born,
She had named one of them Bodkin Van Horn.
And one of them Hoos-Foos. And one of them Snimm.
And one of them Hot-Shot. And one Sunny Jim.
And one of them Shadrack. And one of them Blinkey.
And one of them Stuffy. And one of them Stinkey.
Another one Putt-Putt. Another one Moon Face.
Another one Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face.
And one of them Ziggy. And one Soggy Muff.
One Buffalo Bill. And one Biffalo Buff.
And one of them Sneepy. And one Weepy Weed.
And one Paris Garters. And one Harris Tweed.
And one of them Sir Michael Carmichael Zutt.
And one of them Oliver Boliver Butt.
And one of them Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate . . . .
But she didn't do it. And now it's too late.

ps my favourite name is marvin o'gravel balloon face. luckily i have never had any pets.

a very bad song i cannot get out of my head (earworm)

you know when a song gets stuck in your head, and the only way to remove it is with an even worse song? yesterday i got the song "samovar the lawyer" from 'a day in hollywood, a night in the ukraine' stuck. "halle-lawyer!" but it has now been replaced by this:

Oh, what did
Tenna-see,
boys, what did Tenna-see?
Oh, what did Tenna-see, boys, what did Tenna-see?
Oh, what did Tenna-see, boys, what did Tenna-see?
I ask you men, as a personal friend,
What did Tenna-see?

She saw what Arkin-saw, boys, she saw what Arkin-saw.
She saw what Arkin-saw, boys, she saw what Arkin-saw
She saw what Arkin-saw, boys, she saw what Arkin-saw
I'll tell you then, as a personal friend,
She saw what Arkin-saw.
Where has Ora-gone, boys?
She's taking Okla-home, boys.
How did Wiscon-sin, boys?
She stole a New-brass-key, boys.
What did Della-ware, boys?
She wore a New Jersey, boys.
What did Io-weigh, boys?
She weighed a Washing-ton, boys.
Where did Ida-hoe, boys?
She hoed in Merry-land, boys.
What did Missy-sip, boys?
She sipped her Mini-soda, boys.
What did Connie-cut, boys?
She cut her shaggy Mane, boys.
What did Ohi-owe, boys?
She owed her Taxes, boys,
How did Flora-die, boys?
She died of Misery, boys.

ok, ok, that is one big OUCH. have pity on me, i have been unwell ... :-)

y viva espana

although bullfighting continues to be an acceptable 'sport' in spain - viz the current plethora of photos of gored participants in pamplona - news has reached ravaj towers of the granting of legal rights in spain to the ape community.

the times reports:

"In what is thought to be the first time a national legislature has granted such rights to animals, the Spanish parliament’s environmental committee voted to approve resolutions committing the country to the Great Apes Project, designed by scientists and philosophers who say that humans’ closest biological relatives also deserve rights.

The resolution, adopted with crossparty support, calls on the Government to promote the Great Apes Project internationally and ensure the protection of apes from “abuse, torture and death”. “This is a historic moment in the struggle for animal rights,” Pedro Pozas, the Spanish director of the Great Apes Project, told The Times. “It will doubtless be remembered as a key moment in the defence of our evolutionary comrades.”"

the rest of the article is here.

i am quite glad that spanish apes will now have some protection against those humans who mistreat them. cannot help but wish that the same kind of concern be applied to other humans being mistreated by humans. poverty, disease, injustice, prejudice, etc. *sigh*

panda lows and highs

jane macartney reported in the times a couple of weeks ago that 90% of pandas are in jeopardy after the earthquake in china:

"Nearly all of China’s endangered pandas are in jeopardy after the earthquake last month devastated the remote mountain corner that is their last remaining habitat. Already boxed into these steep and thickly forested hillsides by the advance of Man, its numbers limited by a slow rate of reproduction and with its food supply threatened by the scarcity of its favourite arrow bamboo, the panda is now facing its most severe crisis in decades. Chinese officials, usually reluctant to reveal the real extent of a crisis, have announced that the last 1,590 pandas living in the wild face a very uncertain future after the earthquake. Yan Xun, an official at the State Forestry Administration, said: “Their living environment is completely destroyed. Massive landslides and large-scale damage to forests triggered by last month’s earthquake are threatening the existence of wild pandas.”

The fate of the pandas has been a cause of concern since the May 12 earthquake, which cut off access to large swaths of mountainous areas, including China’s largest panda breeding centre in Wolong. One giant panda from the reserve was buried this week after its body was found crushed under the walls of its pen. Another is missing. The other 51 are safe, including 14 cubs that were carried out of the reserve by keepers. The fate of the 1,400 pandas living in the quake-hit regions – about 88 per cent of the total – remains unknown and a source of growing anxiety. The tremor damaged 1.9 million hectares (4.7 million acres), 83 per cent of China’s total panda habitat. The real extent of the damage could be even worse because landslides have blocked roads, preventing officials from assessing some areas. Mr Yan said: “Caves and tree hollows where giant pandas live may be damaged, water in the habitat is polluted, and some of the bamboo is buried or smashed.” He said it was almost certain that the earthquake had claimed more pandas among its victims. “There must have been wild pandas crushed to death during the quake and in the aftershocks. But we do not have the number.” It was still far too dangerous for researchers to venture into these remote mountain areas to try to assess the ravages on a population that had grown in recent years.

Of the 55 protected reserves where wild pandas roam, 49 have been affected by the earthquake. Landslides have toppled whole mountainsides, possibly burying many of the animals. Zhang Zhihe, head of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, the headquarters of China’s hugely successful campaign to save the panda through artificial insemination, said that he was also anxious that the devastation of the mountain terrain could deprive the wild panda of access to bamboo. He told The Times: “The pandas now cannot make their way between different mountains because of the landslides and so they may not be able to find food.” It has taken China years to create these reserves, linked by corridors along which the pandas can move with the minimum of encroachment by man. Now these corridors will almost certainly have to be recreated. Mr Zhang said: “As a wild animal, the panda has the capacity to survive in the short term. But the danger lies in its longer-term survival with the damage to the ecology.”"

on a positive note, tai shan just turned 3 years old at the national zoo in washington d.c.

bee news

busy bee at wimbledon
what with this bee that was bugging venus, the bee theme in the most recent series of doctor who that was finally revealed to be (sorry) that some of the bees were aliens and their disappearance left a trail that helped the doctor figure out some important plot point, and this reuters report:

"A truck containing 330 crates of bees, about 12 million of them altogether, overturned on a major highway near the town of St Leonard, New Brunswick, in Eastern Canada on Monday, setting free thousands of irritated stinging insects. Police sealed off the vehicle and called for expert help with the millions that were left inside. "Trying to unload 12 million agitated bees out of the back of a truck would not be a good situation," said Derek Strong, a local spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. A team of beekeepers arrived and poured smoke into the truck to calm down the bees, which will be moved later in the day. Police said there was no general danger to the public. "If there's anyone in St Leonard who is allergic to bees, we're recommending they leave town for a couple of hours," Strong told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp."

at least now we know where some of the bees are.

rabbi a. stanley dreyfus z"l

3 generations of rabbis in brooklyn
this picture shows me with my two greatest mentors after my late father. to my left is r. stephen arnold, and in front is r. a. stanley dreyfus. today we are mourning stanley's death. i am finding it hard to accept that i am not fit enough to get to the funeral in brooklyn tomorrow. am finding it hard to accept that i will no longer hear stanley's gentle voice telling me to "be good" at the end of a phonecall. meanwhile, here is a brief overview of his life taken from the union temple website. baruch dayan ha-emet.

"Our esteemed Rabbi Emeritus, Dr. A. Stanley Dreyfus, is one of the luminaries of the American Reform Rabbinate. He hails from Youngstown, OH and received his early Jewish education at Rodef Sholom Temple there. He attended a joint course of study through the University of Cincinnati and the Hebrew Union College, which led to a BA in Classics with High Honors and a Bachelor of Hebrew Letters. He also was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1946 he earned a Master of Hebrew Letters degree along with his ordination from Hebrew Union College. Awarded the Heinsheimer Fellowship for graduate sutdy at the College, Rabbi Dreyfus taught Liturgy and served as Director of the Reference Department. Serving as Counsellor to the College’s Interfaith Program, he worked with graduate Christian clergy who were preparing themselves to teach Hebrew, Bible, and Jewish thought in their own seminaries. Rabbi Dreyfus earned a Ph.D. degree from Hebrew Union College in 1951, and twenty years later, the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinty.

Dr. Dreyfus served Congregation Beth El in Beaver Falls, PA from 1946-50, and during the summer of 1949, as visiting minister at West London Synagogue in London, England. Subsequently he served as Rabbi of Congregation B’nai Israel in East Liverpool, OH, United Hebrew Congregation in Terre Haute, IN, and Congregation B’nai Israel in Galveston, TX. In 1965 he was called to the pulpit of Union Temple of Brooklyn, where he served with great distinction until his retirement in 1979, when he became Rabbi Emeritus of the congregation. From 1979-1991, he served as Director of the Rabbinic Placement Commission of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, becoming Emeritus upon his retirement.

From 1975-1979, Dr. Dreyfus chaired the Liturgy Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, helping to compile Gates of Prayer: The New Union Prayerbook; Gates of the House; Gates of Understanding; and Gates of Repentance.

As a member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis since 1946, Dr. Dreyfus has served on the Admissions Committee, the Committee on Patrilinear Descent, the Committee on Homosexuality and the Rabbinate, the Reform Jewish Practice Committee, and the Rabbinic Population Committee. He was a member of the Governing Body of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, the Board of Governors of the New York Board of Rabbis, the Commission on Jewish Chaplaincy of the National Jewish Welfare Board, Chairman of Home Service for the Galveston Red Cross, and Honorary Chairman of the Brooklyn United Hospital Campaign. He was an active member of the Galveston County Biracial Committee and the Human Relations Committee and a number of other organizations devoted to community welfare.

Dr. Dreyfus has served on the faculty of the New York School of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion since 1967. He also served as Chaplain, U.S. Army, from 1953-1955, and as an instructor in the Active Reserve for twenty-one years on the faculty of the Army Chaplain school, attaining the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was President of the Zacharias Frankel Lodge of B’nai B’rith of Galveston, the Association of Texas Rabbis, the Association of Reform Rabbis of New York, the Brooklyn Board of Rabbis, the Association of Jewish Chaplains of the U.S. Armed Forces, and the National Association of Retired Reform Rabbis. He was co-Chairman of thne Catholic-Jewish Relations Committee of Brooklyn and Queens.

In 1950 Rabbi Dreyfus married Marianne C. Dreyfus, daughter of Ruth and Dr. Hermann L. Berlak of London, and Granddaughter of Rabbi Dr. Leo Baeck. Marianne holds a Master of Science degree in organic chemistry from London University. Their sons are James Nathaniel, M.D., who is married to Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus; their children are Benjamin William, Lina Ruth, and David Marcel. Their younger son is Richard Baeck, J.D., married to Helen Bagot Dreyfus. They are the parents of Daniel Bagot and Adam Berlak. Richard died after a long illness on March 12, 2005."

huc press release

the ravaj may be back. a bit.

have been off sick. lots of things i wanted to blog, but did not have enough oxygen to the brain to get it done :-) here are links to some obits that caught my eye:

alexander courage - a composer who was responsible for the theme tune of the original star trek tv series

"“I have to confess to the world that I am not a science-fiction fan,” Courage admitted in an interview eight years ago. “Never have been. I think it’s just marvellous malarkey.” That malarkey, in turn, found something defining in an A-flat for flute that led into a piece born out of optimism and a belief in the progress of mankind. Courage’s Star Trek theme achieved its effects with endearing simplicity and ease. The celebrated “whoosh”, for instance, accompanying the first appearance of the swooping USS Enterprise is a sound that was, in fact, voiced by the composer himself."

will elder - a cartoonist and colleague of jules feiffer and rene goscinny

"Born the youngest of five children to Polish Jews in the Bronx, New York, the slight Wolfgang Eisenberg fended off bullies and garnered popularity by honing his caricaturing skills and playing pranks. Once, when he failed to turn up at school, his teacher found him in the cloakroom, seemingly hanged by the neck, his face pale with chalk dust. At home, he put the blackened soles of his father's shoes on the end of a broomstick to capture footsteps walking across the ceiling. His relatives called him Meshuggah Villy, Yiddish for Crazy Willy."

kermit love - costume designer, and creator of big bird

"Love, who also appeared from time to time on Sesame Street as “Willy the hotdog man”, was not the inspiration for Kermit the Frog — Henson said that he did not adopt Love’s first name for his frog, which had already been so named before Love and Henson began to collaborate."

elizabeth spriggs - actress (and my favourite from the children's programme 'simon and the witch' )

"But the performance which stuck longest in most playgoers' memories came with the whip and riding breeches she sported opposite Donald Sinden in London Assurance. As Lady Gay Spanker in Dion Boucicault's 19th-century comedy in the Restoration style, she addressed her friends and relations as if they were quadrupeds; her acting was a triumph of high comedy."

rest in peace one and all.

rabbi albert h friedlander z"l

today, the 8th of july, is the fourth yahrzeit of my father. there are still so many of us who love him and miss him. while we feel the holes in our lives that once he filled, i am glad that he did not have to suffer the indignities of old age, or endure a slow and painful death. i only have one true regret: it is a shame that he never got to meet his darling grand-daughter, or she him. baruch dayan ha-emet.

nuala o'faolain

here is a transcription of a cutting sent by the mother of the ravaj with the comment "how far the times has come". it is from the past month, but there is no date on it. it is in the 'lives remembered' section:

"nell mccafferty writes: your obituary of nuala o'faolain (may 21) declares that she had a 'lesbian affair' with me and 'romances with men'. please explain how you arrived at the conclusion that love between two women is not romantic and that living together for 15 years, as nuala and i did, is a mere 'affair'.

also, you write that she had 'sexual encounters' with a lorry driver and a jewish lawyer. you do not state if the lorry driver and the lawyer were female or male.

you describe me as being 'a militant journalist from the bogside, the catholic area of the city of londonderry'. what exactly does a militant journalist do - hold a petrol bomb in one hand and a computer mouse in the other?

you say that i was a 'fellow columnist' of nuala's. now there, sir, you have really gone too far. i am no fellow.

nuala was, as we say in gaeilge, 'mo bhean cheile' - the woman of my togetherness, a term that existed in ireland thousands of years before the invention of the institution of marriage, and the later imposition of the english language, which translated it as 'wife'. (i am not trying to start another war here, between sexes or countries. brian friel's play 'translations' will explain all.)

your description of nuala's life has left me quite exhausted, trying to figure out what exactly you were trying to tell readers.

allow me to guide you. did the deceased consider herself or himself beloved? the beloved nuala and i loved each other, for quite some time, in the ordinary way of two people."

interview with marian finucane 1 month before nuala died.
newspaper report on funeral mass

colin murdoch r.i.p.

the telegraph had this to say about the pharmacist from new zealand who patented 46 inventions including a plastic disposable hypodermic syringe, a tranquiliser gun and a silent burglar alarm that alerted the authorities:

"Murdoch won many awards, among them, in 1976, one at the World Inventors' Fair in Brussels for his design of a childproof bottle top. This device required a digital strength and technique that was beyond a child's capabilities. Murdoch never became a rich man. He declined to pursue through the courts those who violated his patents, taking the view that if the products were benefiting humans and animals it would be wrong to sue. "

it's a pity, but the mold may have been broken when this guy was made. o yeah, and he was dyslexic.

read more about him here.

frank blackmore r.i.p.

never heard of the guy until he died. then i found out that he invented mini-roundabouts. the times says:

"Blackmore’s controversial solution, developed at the Government’s Road Research Laboratory (today known as Transport Research Laboratory), was a smaller roundabout with a 2 to 4m-wide mini-island in the middle that minimised the curve for the vehicle driving around it, thus aiding traffic flow. The mini-roundabout was also safer than its large counterpart because drivers tended to approach it with greater caution. The new roundabout, which first appeared in Peterborough in 1969, revolutionised junction design that had up to that point been characterised by large unwieldy roundabouts with huge traffic islands in the middle. Blackmore developed the concept further with the painted traffic island first used at Benfleet, Essex, in 1970. This was “over-runnable” by traffic, making it easier for larger vehicles to manoeuvre the junction."

the rest of the obit is here.

i for one am extremely glad that someone moved beyond the big roundabouts - i failed my driving test the first time i took it because i was not aggressive enough at a honking great roundabout (after that eddie, my instructor, offered me a fiver if i could run over a pigeon. one time i found one someone else had splatted, but eddie had already seen it). i like the mini ones. so thank-you mr. blackmore.

poor old thierry

a picture of sadness - thierry henry cannot believe what just happened to him and his team. he goes and puts france back into the game at 1-2 and within 45 seconds the opponents score again. whatever an english upbringing has taught me about france, e.g., this lovely web page, i still think henry is a great player and cute also. however, since the opponents were my oranje chaps, i was delighted by the final score of 4-1. lest anyone think i am jumping on a bandwagon please note that i know who this is:

birthday greetings ...

... was e-mailing a note to a facebook friend on his birthday to wish him many happy returns of the day, and suddenly wondered what that actually means. i've not heard it here in the states, but it used to be around quite a bit i think when i was growing up in london. anyway, wiki and a couple of other googled sites have this to say:

"Many Happy Returns is a greeting, usually reserved for birthdays. The term itself refers to the passing year. Since the 18th century this has been used as a salutation to offer the hope that a happy day being marked would recur many more times. It is now primarily used on birthdays; prior to the mid 19th century it was used more generally, at any celebratory or festive event.
Current usage is often as a more formal option than 'Happy Birthday'. It is also often to be found on greetings cards.

Its earliest attributable use was by Lady Newdigate in a letter written in 1789 (and published in Newdigate-Newdegate Cheverels in 1898)[1]: "Many happy returns of ye day to us my Dr Love.""

bathroom reading update

nu - i returned from my last visit to london with a fistful of books gleaned from the shelves my mother wishes to decimate. since shelf space is also at a premium in our flat, the tomes are double-stacked right opposite the bathroom door, which makes them handy when reading material is required. so it is that i am currently dipping into poetry. yehuda amichai, t carmi & dan pagis, john betjeman, william blake and the faber book of comic verse. there are also a couple of newish asterix books lying around, and an english translation of struwwelpeter. the israelis are also in translation, although perhaps looking at the original might be more helpful re the bathroom part of bathroom reading. finally, there is a selection of midrashim by my father's old friend hyam maccoby z"l with the lovely title of 'the day god laughed'.

aspiring novelists beware!

while checking a fact for a project I've been working on with the children, i came across the following quote from the author allegra goodman:

"creative-writing teachers are always telling to you to write about what you know, so now we have countless novels that sound like unedited therapy sessions. At some point you have to move beyond that. You have to know more, you have to learn more. If we all wrote about our childhood forever, books would be rather monotonous." (ny times 15th jan, 2006)

well, there goes two-thirds of the novella so far :-)

uncle barack's cabin?

outrage yesterday at this front cover picture from a german paper called 'die tageszeitung'. i found it in the times, here. read the comments for a spectrum of responses!

i have to admit that i am starting to become rather confused. when is it ok to say something and when not? who may say it and who may not? what counts as satirical, and when am i allowed to laugh?

i have not written about the end of hillary's campaign - too many others have already covered the plusses and minuses. i am very disappointed. i also listened to her speech and am following her wishes to transfer my support to the chosen democratic candidate. thus i now support senator obama. this means that i have to worry about fist-bumping, and possible videos of mrs o saying something politically incorrect, and other incredibly minutial occurrences that will be blown up into vote-denying importance.

meanwhile, the quest to find believable information continues.

the ainu of northern japan

the last of my bear-related posts for the morning: after 140 years of repression, the ainu, original inhabitants of hokkaido island, are to be officially recognised by the japanese parliament as an indigineous people. the telegraph reports:

"The Ainu are one of Japan's most marginalised groups. Government estimates put the number of people with half or more Ainu ancestry at around 50,000. The century-long repression of the Ainu has all but rendered their dialect extinct. The cultural differences are also significantly at odds with mainland Japanese culture. Ainu men preferring full beards and long hair and women tattoo around their mouths for decoration. Traditional clothing is made from tree bark and the Ainu are animists – believing that everything in their rugged homeland contains a spirit. They worshipped natural landmarks and animals, especially bears."

the rest of the article is here.

paddington bear falls foul of immigration

michael bond has written a new book: "paddington here and now". in it, paddington has to deal with issues of the modern world, e.g., being an undocumented alien. the bbc reports:

"Bond, 83, told BBC World Service's The World Today programme that Paddington's roots - and his new life in London - had always been the essence of his character, and that he wanted to make it the heart of the new book. "Refugees are very much on people's minds and in the newspapers," he said, adding that his creation was partly based on his seeing evacuees from London with labels round their neck. "It always stuck with me, because I thought it was a very sad sight," he added. "Equally, going to the cinema in those days, one saw so many pictures of uprooted families - that kind of thing is still with us, and I think it's very sad.""

the rest of the article is here.

skidooooosh!

as a first step back into the outside world, the ravaj accompanied her friends lily and eli to the cinematic performance of 'kung fu panda'. apart from the fact that she never wanted to leave the movie theatre ever again for the summer because of the wonderfully meat-freezer level of a/c within, she also has to admit that she really rather enjoyed the film. not a big contemporary cartoon fan (except maybe for 'dexter's laboratory'), she was delighted to see that this was quite beautifully drawn. the characters were ok - the scenery and backgrounds were stunning. and the panda ends up as a proper hero, so we all lived happily ever after for the rest of the day.

ps the image above is of a kung fu panda cake made specially for the hollywood opening of the movie. i include it because of the random connection that the guy who made it is the son of a woman who was married to her first husband by my friend r. steve!

hup holland!

wesley sneijder scores a stunning second goal
and the ravaj is back. a week or so of medical issues, and much personal experience of the variety of testing methods currently available to the medical community, and at last it is once again possible to post.

we begin with the european championships that do not include a british team. the ravaj has had a soft spot for the netherlands since the early seventies era of cruyff, rep, neeskens et al. she has thus chosen to follow them this year, and they began with a stunning 3-0 defeat of italy in the so-called group of death. it would have been even more exciting if she had managed to remain awake during the live presentation on espn but, alas, this was not to be.

these championships are played every four years. that means that it was almost exactly 4 years ago that the father of ravaj died. as you may recall, the last words she ever heard him say were: "the greeks have won!" since he was watching the final while she was talking to her mother on the phone. *sigh*

j.r.simplot r.i.p.

mister simplot was definitely not one of the world's nicest men. he fell foul of the law a couple of times for tax fraud and manipulating the stock market. i must, however, note his passing, for this man was known as the spud king of america. as you may or may not know, my grandmother's grandmother was from minsk - the potato capital of all the russias. i have a genetic love for this tuber. yahoo states in its obituary that:

"He all but invented the first commercially viable frozen french fries in the world."

actually, i am not sure whether to laud him or blame him :-)

more schadenfreude

a winning entry from the grauniad photoshopping blog brought a smile to my face and energy to my recovery :-)