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Sitting to attention
Just a short vid to share my good luck yesterday at our local trash and treasure, who says that you have to spend a fortune when your hobby is old cars?
Cheers Comrades
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OnYa Annie!
click for source
I seldom call myself a fan of anything these days but I do like Annie Lennox. I like her musical ability to deliver a song with precision, style and feeling and I love her take no bullshit attitude to the Music and celebrity industries, finally I totally concur with her about the execrable talent shows that infest our TV screens.
OnYa Annie!
Cheers Comrades
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Nothing to cheer about…
As an endorsement of multiculturalism footage such as this is a total failure and it saddens me at so many levels, I am saddened that so many of the protagonists are acting purely on anger and emotion, it saddens me that the police are not arresting the lot of them for affray, It saddens me that the media are being attacked for doing their job of recording the events its saddens me that the usual suspects will be in excuse making overdrive rather than demanding , well, civil behaviour …
Its nothing to cheer about Comrades
11.22.63
When I heard about the new novel from from Stephen King I hoped that it might be a good read but I was also far from excited having been out of the habit of reading his books for many years. However when I discovered that it was to be a novel in my favourite Science fiction genre of time travel I was intrigued enough to mention my interest to my beautiful wife who took the hint and gave me the book for Christmas.
Now that I have finished the book well I have that “Gee that was good” feeling along with the unpleasant reality that a grand literary adventure is over the book mostly reminds me of Jack Finney’s also excellent time travel Tale “time and again” not the least because like Finney King does a masterful job of blending his fictional narrative into the fabric of historical events.Also like Finny’s book this novel is essentially a love story and a romance .
Its also a romance of sorts with the notion that Kennedy’s assassination was the sort of event that that political tragics think so important that they would undo it in a heartbeat with the expectation of nothing but wonderful consequences. Of course King would not allow such sentimentality and wishful thinking to spoil a good yarn so he instead peppers the whole narratives with the sort of unintended consequences that ensue from changing any event in the past.
The one thing that I do have issue with though is King’s contention that changing some things in the past could be more damaging than others. This is of course a very anthropomorphic view of history and I think that if time travel were possible that all changes to the events of the past would be of equal significance. Even so this is a work of fantasy and it was easy to suspend belief and just go along with the flow of the narrative and the rules of Kings universe.
For long term King fans there are even the occasional allusions to his back catalogue these little bon motts were nice and would probably go right past those who are reading 11.22.63 without any previous experience of this author. Pleasant to was the tightness of the narrative, he seems to have managed to reign in his tendency in some of his longer books to ramble and digress from the strongest stream of his imagination.
If you get the impression that I liked the book you would be absolutely correct and to be honest I look forward to the time when my memory of its narrative has faded enough that I can read it again and enjoy it anew.
Cue a TV miniseries of this book in the not to distant future…
Cheers Comrades
2012 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
About 55,000 tourists visit Liechtenstein every year. This blog was viewed about 170,000 times in 2012. If it were Liechtenstein, it would take about 3 years for that many people to see it. Your blog had more visits than a small country in Europe!
Merry Christmas Comrades
something to consider as all of the advertising exhorts us to buy Buy BUY!
Still as fresh as it was in 1958 when it was first broadcast
Cheers Comrades
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Reflections on a high-school speech night, or “A modern dodo race”
Ah well I’m glad that’s over, the long time sitting respectfully and the dull propaganda speeches delivered by those for whom public speaking does not come naturally. was about as exiting as watching paint dry.
The shallow acknowledgement of the “original owners” begun the proceedings. to be expected I suppose, and the intention is clearly good, to mark the end of the academic year at a high school but do they have to spend so much time bowing and genuflecting to all and sundry? Heaven in a hand-basket why couldn’t they have thanked the “honoured guests” just once instead of droning through the litany several times? The format of the show was dullness incarnate and even the able bodied were sitting in their chairs with a sort of stoic endurance.
Our endurance was tested further still by the fact that there seemed to be a certain Wonderland quality to the desire to find as many reasons as possible to bestow prizes on as many students as possible. While I appreciate that this may be encouraging to those of lesser ability the mere fact that so many received “merit awards” surely devalues the citation of those students who have actually excelled at their studies, frankly if there was not the insistence that everyone should have a prize the evening would have been more enjoyable. But no, the doctrines of political correctness requires that all must have prizes and it is we poor suffering parents who end up with the prize of a sore arse and aching teeth.
There seemed to be a total lack of imagination in the choreography of the event, and I gather that is the tradition at speech nights in general and I just can’t help thinking that it does not have to be like this. Why on earth can’t the lesser prizes be awarded at a school assembly for the sake of brevity at the speech night? Then the awards for excellent academic achievement would be more meaningful, and they would not be lost in the sea of mediocrity and we, the poor suffering parents, could look forward to this event with joy rather than dread.
In the Wonderland story Lewis Carroll was trying to point out the absurdity of everyone getting a prize no matter where they come in the race. The point of that tale seems to be as relevant now as it was when Alice emerged from the sea of tears. Sadly it is a lesson that remains incomprehensible to the educators of today.
Cheers Comrades
Oh and in case you were wondering, my daughter received a medal for academic excellence.
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Did you all miss me?
Well I missed being on the net as our land line has been out of service since Sunday morning and I have frankly been at something of a lose end without access to the net.
Anyway I have used the time to reorganise my computer files so that they now have an order that will let me find what I want more quickly. Oh yeah, and I’m now a couple more levels up on “Need for speed the run ” Anyway things are looking “Good to go” so I hope to have a new post organised for the morning.
Cheers Comrades
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Iain Hall's SANDPIT 