http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/en-EUMokoFeed10http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/http://data5.blog.de/design/preview/b1/b6e9ff2dfc95f59f1ce763e16c5fd1_160x200.jpghttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2009/09/25/car-dreams-7040240/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2009-09-25:/2009/09/25/car-dreams-7040240/Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:50:28 +0200 <p>I was stuck in traffic this morning idly daydreaming about forgetting about work and just driving to the airport and finding a cheap trip to Hawaii, if I could get there, the airport that is, and find a cheap trip to Hawaii [Ha!] that is, when I noticed all the weird and wonderful model names of the cars in front of, behind and around me. Have you ever considered that there must be some penthouse office somewhere, all glass and skylines, possibly in California, where Car Name Designers get paid big bucks to come up with such disasters as the Volkswagen Tuareg – known around here as the Volkswagen Toe-Rag. And then there’s the ubiquitous Ford of course, a name which is generally accepted to be less a salute to Henry than an acronym for Found On Road Dead.</p> <p>But I digress. Today’s car naming conventions are obviously meant to evoke images of the freedom of the open road or the vast sands of the desert or the power of horses or the virility of bulls – the Outback, The Sahara, The Mustang, The Palomino, The Charger, the Ram Charger and the Taurus – snort! . Oh and then in an entirely different league there’s the Sprint , The Sprite, The Dash, The Pacer and The Wind up the Tail [not really, I made that one up]. It seems to me that the designers are also trying hard to say something about who should be driving what. An Accountant in a Ram Charger for example just doesn’t compute and neither does Hulk Hogan driving a Sprint. And without a doubt all these model names are male and so are the [perceived] drivers. The idea perhaps is that the little woman should sit quietly in the passenger seat of the pick-up, let a <em>man</em> drive, and shut the truck up. When do you think will come the day that car manufacturers discover that some of us – at least 51% of us in fact – are not male and do not want to drive a car called something that is a thinly veiled euphemism for Big Stick [don’t get me started on gear shifts with large knobs] and I’m saying nothing about the HumVee.</p> <p>In North America of course it wasn’t so very long ago that the car culture had its heyday. Well maybe it was quite a while ago, the 50’s in fact which just shows how old I am, when practically everyone [male] lived for their cars. Unlike England where there was only one car owner per street [and he was probably the one with the phone too], in North America there were more cars than people. And it went without saying that the more big lights and tail fins you had the more virile the man. There were drive-in movie theatres on every block and the A & W sent girls on roller skates to dispense cold mugs of foaming Root Beer and mountains of fries directly to your door [car that is]. The road trip was king and all family holidays were spent driving a thousand miles to look at a big tree or a big mountain or the big sea. Nowadays of course you can only see these fabulous old cars at antique car shows while in reality most of us tool about in little ‘gas-miser’ sedans just daydreaming about the open road. Perhaps that’s why all the old model names are still around, even though they now mean nothing, because they hark back to a time gone by when you really could drive faster than the wind or faster than a mustang [or 600 of them] for as long or as far as you liked without spending 4 hours in a jam.</p> <p>But getting back to model names I think it’s time for designers to face the facts and get with the times, even if it does mean giving up on swift horses or charging rams or raging bulls. Personally I think I would like to drive around in a neat little open-topped sports car in a nice shade of lipstick red called the Dragonfly or The Lovely Vista Overlooking the Caribbean Sea or The Birds in Paradise or The Unlimited Money to Shop All Day. What do you say?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2009/09/25/car-dreams-7040240/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>chargercarshenry-fordmustangnaming-conventionspalaminohttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2009/09/25/car-dreams-7040240/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2009/08/25/the-king-is-dead-long-live-the-king-6820929/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2009-08-25:/2009/08/25/the-king-is-dead-long-live-the-king-6820929/Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:55:11 +0200 <p>It’s been almost two months now since Michael quietly departed this life to slip the bonds of earth and soar, to moonwalk across the stars forever. Silly sod. Now he too joins the ranks of those who attained the most fame because they had the most talent, those who informed and inspired generations then passed away not so much with a bang but a whimper covered in vomit on the floor of the bog. Jimmy and Janice and Elvis for example, although the conspiracy theorists would have us believe that in Jimmy’s case it was a surfeit of wine that seemed to have been poured by the bucket down his throat so that he literally drowned in expensive plonk. Well at least we assume so because we would hope that even bugged out rock stars would have some taste. Whispers of overly extended drug debts and sinister men in sunglasses were scurrilously bandied abroad.</p> <p>In Marilyn’s case the murder theorists went nuts. It could have been one of several major players, they said, the Kennedys and the CIA and MI5 being just a few – or perhaps it was Sir Lawrence Olivier after admitting that her acting talent outshone his own. Could it be that she was a bigger Ham[let] than he was and he just couldn’t bear the shame? After her death the autopsy revealed, or rather didn’t to be precise, that her stomach was completely empty, so how had all the drugs that killed her get in there? It was said in certain quarters that Marilyn had a penchant for colonic irrigation 1960’s style which I believe was something complicated to do with orange rubber tubes, soapy water, a hot water bottle and a spiggot but I could be wrong. Now David Carradine and possibly Michael Hutchence might have managed it but it would have been no mean feat of contortion to do it to oneself - alone. Ropes and pulleys spring to mind; oops there’s that Carradine and Hutchence vision again. The autopsy report did indicate that there were traces of drug residue up her, well up her bum really, so unless she was off to the airport with a few baggies in unmentionable places to thwart the Customs there is a plausible claim to be made that someone done her wrong. And she was on her face when the medics found her even though post-mortem blood ‘pooling’ was apparent on her back – And she had bruising and several fractured bones [you can find the autopsy report on the Net and read it for yourself if you’re so inclined]. I bet CSI would have it solved within a minute – well within 40 minutes plus commercials at the very least. But it certainly gives one pause doesn’t it?</p> <p>The latest on Michael suggests that his doctor administered an anesthetic to help him sleep, a bizarre and apparently permanent solution to what must have been an insomnia problem on steroids, so to speak. It certainly makes a nice hot bath and a cup of cocoa pale by comparison I would say. So here again can’t you just hear the conspiracy theorists gearing up now? Watch this space. No doubt they will find it was Joe Jackson who paid the doc to knock him off for the insurance money, or perhaps it was agents of the concert promoters who thought he was past it really. Or maybe just maybe it was Elizabeth Taylor who is really Diana Ross who is Michael Jackson in disguise who planted the body of a skinny white black dude so that he/she wouldn’t have to do all those exhausting gigs and could then join Elvis for a quiet life of making beds in Memphis at the Shady Rest Motel. Figures.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2009/08/25/the-king-is-dead-long-live-the-king-6820929/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>consipracycarradinehendrixmichael-jacksonjanis-joplinelvishutchencehttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2009/08/25/the-king-is-dead-long-live-the-king-6820929/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2009/05/10/alchemy-and-art-6092037/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2009-05-10:/2009/05/10/alchemy-and-art-6092037/Sun, 10 May 2009 17:30:02 +0200 <p>Art has a few more uses than filling up the blank spot on the wall behind the couch you know. It can be used to promote propaganda, incite a revolution, convey a philosophical/spiritual message, sew discord or dissonance or more prosaically just inhabit the bottom of the cat box in the case of Julian whatsisname who is much given to pickling sheep in vats [dead ones I very much hope]. Although how you get a dead sheep in a cat box is another matter entirely and is possibly something to do with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and/or quantum physics. But I digress. What I really wanted to discuss was alchemy which of course was clear from the start. And what exactly does alchemy have to do with art you ask? Well the answer is much because artists have always had an interest in the occult. Artists of the Italian Renaissance period in fact took great delight in embedding strange symbols and hieroglyphics into their art works only decipherable by dusty professors with magnifying glasses, the editors of Halls Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art and Dan Brown. And Dan Brown has made a zillion dollars for himself much to the dismay of the authors of the ‘Holy Blood and the Holy Grail’ who objected to him – allegedly ahem – pinching all their good bits and making it into a worldwide bestseller which also happily is destined to keep Tom Hanks in work possibly forever.</p> <p>There is no doubt that Leonardo’s ‘Vitruvian Man’, which was heavily featured by Dan, does contain arcane symbolism that was quite intentionally put there. The man in the middle demonstrates not only the golden mean of perfect proportion that so interested the ancient Greeks but is placed within a circle which in turn is placed within a square. This mathematical impossibility was one of three problems that occupied a lot of ancient Greek time i.e. squaring the circle, doubling the cube and trisecting an angle. Oh and getting drunk and naked in the bushes at the Bacchanalia but that is a topic for another blog. One of the first mathematicians to tackle the problem of squaring the circle was another ancient Greek, Anaxagoras, who was also a philosopher and [ drum roll ] an alchemist... Now quite how all this points us towards mad monks and the riddle of the Holy Grail is not quite so clear. Dan Brown – and the authors of the ‘Holy Blood and the Holy Grail’, make the case that Jesus [the Vitruvian Man?] was not crucified after all but was spirited away in some devious plot perpetrated by a mysterious order – maybe the Knights Templar who were akin in them days to the SAS but with niftier uniforms and more religion. And what is more, he [Jesus] was then free to marry Mary Magdalene [the actual Holy Grail of legend] so that they could perpetuate the bloodline and pass it down via the Merovingian Kings, the Templars, the Illuminati and probably the Masons who no doubt were in there somewhere.</p> <p>Another example of alchemical symbolism appearing in art is in the ‘Adam and Eve’ by Albrecht Durer [1504] which clearly demonstrates an interest in the four humours i.e. black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood [yuk] - fire, water, earth and air - which in turn correspond to the four temperaments, melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic and choleric - and the four elements, fire, earth, air and water; A veritable stew, so to speak, of alchemical delights. And alchemists were very much interested not only in all of the above but in transmutation, or in simple terms the process of turning base metals into gold. This deeply involved the search for the Philosopher’s Stone, a sort of one stop shopping catalyst that turned anything into everything at the touch of a button – or in those days a stir of the old crucible. On one level this was an entirely practical pursuit involving jars and stills and oddly shaped bottles not to mention furnaces, mercury poisoning and third degree burns. But on the other, and some would argue more importantly, it was a philosophical and even spiritual pursuit. In the case of Jesus and Mary Magdalene for example the vessel was Mary herself and the transmutation was achieved through the comingling of the male and female essences in the presence of a catalyst [the ‘water of life’ – the aqua vitae - or the sperm?] to produce the final product – the gold of the bloodline. An interesting thesis indeed. Other fascinating art examples to study next time you’re at the museum or digging through the art books [less travelling involved] search out ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ by Hieronymus Bosch, or even Leonardo’s ‘The Last Supper’ - in fact just about any of the Italian Renaissance works. Gold star for anyone who finds the hidden alchemical Waldo – replies on a post-card please.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2009/05/10/alchemy-and-art-6092037/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>renaissanceartalchemyleonardoschrodingeralbrecht-durerhttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2009/05/10/alchemy-and-art-6092037/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2009/04/08/just-finished-a-course-in-parasychology-and-no-that-doesn-5911608/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2009-04-08:/2009/04/08/just-finished-a-course-in-parasychology-and-no-that-doesn-5911608/Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:32:36 +0200 <p>Just finished a course in Parasychology – and no that doesn’t mean that I’m a spaced-out saddo it means that I am interested in the ‘other side’ of life – and particularly so if there *is* one. You see it doesn’t make much sense to me that we live, we die and then we become compost for no particular reason at all. What are we doing here in the first place? If you look up at the night sky – or the morning sky or whatever – it’s hard not to imagine that something wondrous has been taking place this past several billion years or so. We hear that there are worlds and galaxies without number out there. In fact, there are so many that some scientists have voiced the opinion that the universe is infinite and therefore there *is* no end. Now that has to make you think. Doesn’t that mean that if the universe is endless and time is endless then all possibilities exist and everything is endless – including you and me? Flawed thinking perhaps but I like to think it’s true. When I snuff it here I want to know that I will at least come back as <em>something</em>. I’m not as keen on coming back as a ghost who spends forever floating up and down staircases or appearing out of the fireplace to scare the dog. That would be an awfully dull existence don’t you think? Surely ghosts have something better to do? Just think – if you didn’t have to go to the grocery store all the time or buy clothes or watch telly or haunt [pun intended] the new car showrooms or worry about where the money was coming from to stave off the electric company just what *would* you do? Personally I think that once you reach that great library in the sky you can do whatever you want and conjure up anything you want – which is rather like being Paris Hilton for all eternity.</p> <p>But what about all the good things in life that we would surely miss – not the electric bill and those annoying neighbors obviously – but that holiday in the Caribbean or a great meal or a marvelous concert or the view from the summit of Everest? I suppose as ghosts we could just wish ourselves up to the top of K2 or down into the depths of the Marianas Trench but there wouldn’t be much sense of achievement in that. We could conjure up Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay and Marco to prepare brekkie, lunch and dinner at a whim, we could even have Martha over to do some decorating, but again, what’s the sense in that if whatever we wish for just appears at a click? We are brought up to believe that everything of real value is only gained by effort. So if there is something after this life then I think we are duty bound to make something worthwhile out of it. Remember this when you’re a ghost yourself – no banging on walls or rattling the teacups or moaning down in the cellar for five hundred years. Get yourself out amongst the stars, travel where no ghosts have travelled before, write celestial music, create great art and paint it across the sky. Whistle on the wind, go sighing through the trees, and spread a little love around. And obviously write lyrics. Cya in the Great Beyond – unless you’re in that other place of course….</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2009/04/08/just-finished-a-course-in-parasychology-and-no-that-doesn-5911608/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>starsghoststimeparapsychologyuniversehttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2009/04/08/just-finished-a-course-in-parasychology-and-no-that-doesn-5911608/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2009/01/22/that-s-a-moray-5425024/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2009-01-22:/2009/01/22/that-s-a-moray-5425024/Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:26:41 +0100 <p>I was sitting here thinking about sunshine – well who wouldn’t if you looked out my window at thirty feet of snow and a few wilted petunias – frozen in situ as it were. Canada is nothing but bloody cold and I am so fed up with snow that I could scream. If anyone wants some just send me a self-addressed envelope and I’ll send you the stuff that’s piled in my driveway – if I can get out the door that is. To make things worse I keep finding these seductive emails from Cunard Cruises in my inbox – complete with pictures of tanned and lovely people sunbathing on the poop deck craftily designed to lure me out of my poor cold chair before the small fire [visualize Bob Cratchet on a bad Scrooge day] and into the wide blue yonder with ports of call in Hawaii, Fiji, Bora Bora and Tahiti with strains of South Pacific echoing softly in the air. Hrrumph! This is a cruel and evil marketing plan to make me feel like the heroine in some opera by Puccini and if I had two cents to rub together – not to mention my tiny cold hands – I would sue them for emotional distress with a bit of pain and suffering thrown in. Now I know what all those rent boys felt like in that attic in Paris – the lights of the city displayed before them and nary a flying French franc for a tart [or Euro I should say but it doesn’t scan].</p> <p>So let’s consider this. There are the Haves and then there are the Have-Nots – there are those who can well afford cruises to the sun and those who most definitely cannot. Unfortunately I find myself belonging to the latter camp don’t know about you. But there has always been a large division between the wealthy and the poor, the cruisers and the cruise-less, mostly because the wealthy have got more money to start with and therefore can buy up all the land that the poor sit on and charge them rent. This is known in some quarters as ‘disaster economics’ – or ‘put up and shut up’. It’s a simple concept. The rich wait for some disaster to strike the poor i.e. floods and mayhem in New Orleans for example, and then they swoop in on their black chargers – or Lincolns as the case may be – and scoop up all the property from the bargain bin. They then wait around for the market, and the people, to return, and sell everything back for a tidy little extortionate sum. Result! The rich get rich and the poor get poorer. Nothing personal – just good business baby – and too bad if you lost your home and now have to live in a cardboard box. Good thing it’s warm down there.</p> <p>Seems to me the recent collapse in the World economy will undoubtedly profit the few and exclude the rest. God knows what happened – was it the oil grab – ahem – War on Terrorism? Balloon mortgages? Interest deferred until suddenly your payments triple and you find yourself sitting on your suitcase in the road? Too much spending – too little spending – too many people – not enough jobs – too many big cars – not enough gas? Who knows? All I know is that many people have been out of work for a year with no end in sight while ‘some’ of us profit from huge government bailouts aimed at – you guessed it – saving the rich and excluding the poor. Because, if big business gets bailed out then many other failing enterprises and overdrawn loans can latch on for the ride and the Trumps of the world can write off just that little bit more. And if that fails then there’s always money to be made in war. But nobody is ever going to send me money – no-one is ever going to bail me out - unless it’s that wife of the assassinated dictator in Africa who died in the plane crash that is.. She really wants to give me some money because she can just tell I’m honest from my email address. But while I’m waiting for it I have to work two jobs, defer my retirement until I’m 90 and hope like hell that the electric company is feeling benevolent this month – or at least until the deep freeze is done. But perhaps there’s a light at the end of the tunnel – maybe Cunard would agree to transport me around the world if I in turn agree to swab the decks, fluff the pillows and pour the rum. Tahiti, Tonga and all points south - here we come!</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2009/01/22/that-s-a-moray-5425024/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>bora-borapovertytahiticruisescunardretirementnew-orleanshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2009/01/22/that-s-a-moray-5425024/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2008/11/12/celebrity-moans-5025630/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2008-11-12:/2008/11/12/celebrity-moans-5025630/Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:14:51 +0100 <p>I was standing in Chapters riffling through the bodice rippers - you know the ones - the hero always has fine chiseled features and a thrusting jaw and very tight pants [which is maybe why he has a thrusting jaw]and the heroine has a pentient for standing in the rain in transparent nighties or posing in front of fans with hair flying and wet t-shirt glued to her perky breasts - those ones - and wondering who reads them - well me obviously, well not me actually. I was really looking for cook books but was tractor-beamed over by an arresting cover displaying some big bloke who looked like Fabio. Remember him? He was smacked in the face by a seagull riding on a rollercoaster a few years ago - well not the seagull, Fabio. It was a case of man meets bird’s bum at 90 miles an hour - not a pretty sight, and somewhat of an embarrassing moment I would think? There you are, looking like a Norse God, flaunting your tall tanned muscular body under an open to the waist frilly shirt while young girls - and a few guys - swoon for miles around when WHUMP! Bird brains and feathers up your nose and poop all over your Manolos. To my knowledge he hasn’t been seen since - not the seagull, Fabio - well, the seagull too.</p> <p>The problem with being a celebrity of course is that you are always on display. You can never ever have an unguarded moment for fear that some twonk with a candid camera is lurking in the bushes or under your car or has attached himself to your bedroom window by suction cups just to get that picture of you throwing cell phones at the nanny or lying drunk in a pool of vomit on the bathroom floor. It really is too much to bear don’t you think - and all for a few billion for doing nothing very much but repeating a few lines into a camera or kicking a football about. Of course the other problem is that you not only have to put up with the paps but you have to starve yourself to death too - how else are you going to get into your size zero zero Christian LaCroix in time for the latest awards show, photo opportunity, Hollywood Walk of Fame moment, Kids birthday party or visit to Disney? Don’t forget that you must never, never be seen wearing trakkies and trainers and no lip gloss not even if it’s for ten minutes in the sandbox with the latest celebrity accessory the adopted orphan from nabutostan. And of course said orphan must also be dressed to the nines. No sloppy jeans and ice-cream stained t-shirt for Celebrity Baby - he/she must attend ‘play-dates’ dressed by Gucci, carry a miniature handbag from Hermes and kick nanny in the shins with hand-made sandals from some artisan called Gianni who turns out one pair a year from his exclusive ‘atelier’ in Rome.</p> <p>Heaven forbid that you let your guard down for one minute and are seen leaving the club with white powdery substances clinging to your nose or suffering the effects of one too many or gripping the bum of someone else husband because you’re likely to find yourself on the front page of the News of the World within seconds and News at 10 - you can’t even Go Commando or have a wardrobe malfunction without sixty-five cameras recording the event for the archives forever. I wonder what paparazi did a hundred years ago before instant digital images were available? Did they have to get the latter-day Britney Spears sans undies to hold that pose with the wind blowing up her willikers while they lit the candles? And an earlier version of Keano Reeves would have had to back up and run down a few more photogs a few more times in order to get a mention on e-Online. Although it would have been e-Offline and a hand-drawn sketch then wouldn’t it.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2008/11/12/celebrity-moans-5025630/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>bodicecelebrityfabiopaparazzihttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2008/11/12/celebrity-moans-5025630/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2008/07/23/french-letters-4490473/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2008-07-23:/2008/07/23/french-letters-4490473/Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:53:27 +0200 <p>French Letters</p> <p>My, my ,my – I’ve just realized that I haven’t done very much blogging – read any – for quite a while. Life is definitely a nuisance and I keep falling over it as I put pen to paper. Always something as Gilda Radner used to say. Schools, bills, crisis, catastrophe, committee meetings, kids, birds in hand and birds in bushes, horses being dragged down to the pond to drink, rocks rolling up hill – it’s all here in my life and getting in the way of any sort of creativity. And I can’t think when it’s too cold, read Canadian winter – or too hot, read Canadian summer - or TOO BLOODY HOT like today when the outside temp is hovering around 100, the humidity is also 100 and the air-conditioner is blowing in my ear. I would rather it was some bronzed hunk with a six-pack but there you are, you have to take what you can get.</p> <p>But I have news! We’ve decided, hubby and I to step off this tread-mill and throw caution [plus a fair amount of money] to the winds and take off for the open road. Well not exactly but a nice little Maison in France reasonably close to all the trendy bits along the Cote d’Azur but not close enough that our suitcase would have to be stuffed with Le Grande Euros heavy enough to sink a battleship. We intend to rent a place called Le Dragon Rouge which either means a serpent who uses too much makeup or a veiled insult to the owner’s mother-in-law I can’t be sure. Currently we have a tres slim grasp of the parley francais which is a situation we hope to improve rapidly and progress beyond the ‘I have left my umbrella on the train station’ stage toot sweet. Although I guess if you can say ‘ello’ [bonjour], ‘Goodbye’ [au revoir], ‘thanks’ [merci] and ‘shite’ [merde] then you can probably manage for a little bit even when faced with some snotty French waiter in Paris named Jean Luc Moutarde. My two old aunties came up against one of those some years ago on a cheap package trip to Gay Paree [can’t say that anymore in case it implies that squads of interior decorators waving Gitanes have taken over Montmartre. ]. After a day of sightseeing their feet were killing them so they entered a chic little bistro for a quick restorative cuppa. Unfortunately they didn’t know their francs from their elbows at the time so they poured all their money out on to the table the better to count it. Just then Jean Luc strolled by, scooped it all up and disappeared back into the kitchen. That’s when my aunties discovered what Merde meant. As in “Come back here now you little…”</p> <p>Last time I myself was in Paris was some – ahem – ten years or so ago – oh alright 45, when I was a bright young thing of 17 instead of the wrinkled old prune that I have since become. I climbed the steps of the Sacra Coeur , sipped café’ at an outdoor table in Montmartre and drifted under the Arc de Triumph before being warned off by a soldier carrying a rather large gun from trampling all over some plaque in remembrance of Napoleon. He was pas amuse as I remember and gave me a rather unmilitary salute which I returned with one of my own. Unfortunately for my visit to the City of Lights [or is that Las Vegas?] the Louvre was closed that day and so was the Eiffel Tower – down for renovations to the ascenseur which was stuck, fortunately empty, on the umpteenth floor . Perhaps some bloke in a balloon had got himself tangled in the chain. Did you know by the way that there is an apartment up on top of the tower that Henri Eiffel himself used as his very own secret pied a terre? He probably spent much time up there in the clouds thumbing his nose at the British.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2008/07/23/french-letters-4490473/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>parislanguagetravelfrancehttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2008/07/23/french-letters-4490473/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2008/01/22/post_christmas_blues~3617012/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2008-01-22:/2008/01/22/post_christmas_blues~3617012/Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:36:56 +0100 <p>I haven’t done much blogging lately, not because I don’t have anything to say but mostly because life intrudes. Christmas mostly. You know the sort of stuff – tramping round the stores spending way too much money on people you never see or driving yourself nuts trying to find that perfect gift for the ungrateful good for nothing little bastard of a grandson who dropped out of school barely out of grade six and now thinks the height of ambition is lying on the couch watching wrestling and drinking beer but you have to get him something because if you don’t your daughter, the single parent, will be hurt and an entire family feud will ensue – phew. After all that who has the strength for blogging? It’s taken me most of January to get over it. I don’t know about you but Christmas occupies about a third of my year and the rest is taken up with birthdays, anniversaries, family reunions, graduations, and various assorted public holidays - like Easter and Thanksgiving – when I am obligated to cook AND be nice for an entire day. Hrrrumph.</p> <p>This being Canada it’s snowing for a change and it’s bloody cold; so cold that you have to watch out for falling birds whizzing past your nose and plummeting to earth, frozen in mid-flight. Every year at this time I ask myself what I’m doing here but I can’t leave even though I would like to especially since I’m self-employed and only need a laptop and an Internet connection to work anywhere in the world except the UK where I was born and spent 21 years of my life. It’s not because I’m an international criminal or a drug dealer or even a minor rock star that I can’t go back but because UK currency is worth twice as much as mine which means in simple math that the minute I step off the boat I lose half my income just like that – thump. Or put another way, everything would double immediately. Even a take-out curry with some chips would assume a cost approaching that of fine dining – well without the wine obviously. About the only place I can move to on the planet with a currency worth less than Canada’s and still be relatively warm is New Zealand and they have earthquakes – sigh. The South of France I hear is relatively affordable - but French. Spain – bull fights. Italy – crazy drivers and volcanoes. Japan – crazy drivers and volcanoes AND earthquakes [and they all speak Japanese]. Thailand – snakes as long as a football field and typhoons. Hawaii – volcanoes and Americans. China – coal fires and lung disease. Australia – snakes and crocs and great white sharks and jellyfish bigger than a boat and venomous spiders the size of soup plates that live in the toilet bowl and blokes who call you 'Sheila'. Hmm – maybe it’s not *all* that cold and who needs to go outside anyway. If I stay in all winter and most of the Spring by the fire I can put some money aside for Christmas.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2008/01/22/post_christmas_blues~3617012/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>new-zealandcurrencytravelchristmashttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2008/01/22/post_christmas_blues~3617012/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/11/09/remembrance_day~3271052/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-11-09:/2007/11/09/remembrance_day~3271052/Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:34:26 +0100 <p>When I was a kid in Portsmouth [UK] there was a naval war memorial on the Common that towered over the promenade and cast a bleak shadow far out over the water to the naval ships passing to and fro up the Solent as the sun set of an evening. It’s still there and will no doubt be there for a few hundred years more. I used to paddle in the ornamental fish pond which has now been replaced with a safer alternative, a flower bed that prevents small children like me from jumping in and drowning themselves or trying to round up all the goldfish in a jam jar - or more likely to stop drunken sailors chucking discarded beer bottles over the wall. When I was a tiddler myself I used to gaze up at the central tower and wonder how many bodies they had stacked up in there. After all, it didn’t seem feasible that they would spend all that money on concrete and brass plaques and marble columns just to say thanks chaps for sacrificing yourself in some far off pointless war. I thought there must be some sort of utility to the edifice apart from providing me with a place to swim that was less dangerous than dangling precariously over the lip of the slippery sea-wall to watch the surf below.<br> The central column put me in mind of Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square and indeed Nelson himself left for Trafalgar from the docks at Portsmouth [and came back pickled in a rum barrel but that’s the subject of another blog]. There were lions at the base that the aforementioned drunken sailors liked to feed fish and chips to after midnight and far, far above in the haze I could just make out some sort of stone creatures jutting out around the parapet that I fancied must be the dogs of war. The column supported a globe and at the base, branching off from the lions, were stark stone walls with brass plaques with names on them – thousands of names – arranged alphabetically into naval categories such as ‘cooks’, ‘artificers’ and ‘gunners’ – neatly inscribed and classified forever by rank, file and serial number. It was impossible to attach any meaning or sense of ‘personhood’ to any of these names although I used to try and imagine what D. Dolan Gunner’s Mate might have been thinking when he loaded his last gun and the deck sank beneath him – or what J.Patterson Signaller said in his last transmission. Was it “Look out – there’s a torpedo – God help us all.” D. Dolan was probably thinking of his mum. They say that in extremis we turn back into the little kids we once were calling out for the one who loved us best – crying desperately for her to make all the horror and the fear and the blood and the tears go away. It wrenches your heart.<br> I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Spielberg’s ‘Private Ryan’. It’s a few years old now but it still hits home. Veterans of the war say that the opening scenes are still capable of triggering flashbacks of that awful day when young men stormed the beaches and were immediately cut down by machine gun fire – or stepped off the landing craft and drowned under the weight of their guns and their gear. Looking at pictures of the beaches now it’s hard to imagine that such horror was enacted in such a peaceful place. It’s a real irony too that most of the war-graves sites that surround the old battlefields are quiet and peaceful places given over to the birds and the flowers – and of course the thousands of grave markers stretching away into the gloom. Remember the poem? “In Flanders Fields the poppies grow, between the crosses, row on row”. Walking through these lovely gardens it would be very easy to forget that beneath the lush green grass lie the bodies of husbands and brothers, fathers and sons, many of them barely out of their teens, barely old enough to shave – let alone die – and for what? It’s hard to imagine that so many young men could die fighting yet another war. I’m sorry if that offends you. At least you might say that World War II was fought against a clearly defined enemy – a genuinely evil tyrant who sent women and children to the gas chambers and the ovens. But what of other wars? Vietnam for example – or Korea or Iraq or Afghanistan? Is there or was there any sense at all in these?</p> <p>The war memorial is meant to honour the dead and to make the rest of us feel national pride in our young men that they could so selflessly give up their lives for a cause. But what if there is no cause other than political gain and propaganda? What if they were deluded into laying down their lives not for a cause but for greed, territory, power – and lately – most probably – oil? The war memorial is less a symbol of heroic sacrifice than it is a symbol of stupidity and greed and this Remembrance Day I will stand by the cenotaph and feel sadness in my heart and shed tears for all those young boys – and wives and mums. But I will not honour them. For there is no honour in war – merely violence, suffering, futility, sorrow and pain.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/11/09/remembrance_day~3271052/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>flanders-fieldswarwar-graveslanding-craftdunkirkremembrance-dayhttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/11/09/remembrance_day~3271052/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/10/31/a_long_walk_in_the_woods~3224320/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-10-31:/2007/10/31/a_long_walk_in_the_woods~3224320/Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:53:59 +0100 <p>I haven’t written anything much this past couple of weeks because life intrudes and there are always a zillion things [I’ve told you a million times not to exaggerate] to look after – figure out – pay for – sort out – not least of which is getting up at the crack of dawn and doing my job. Fortunately for me I work at home and can come and go as I please although that means mostly ‘going’ as I deliver kids to school, run the endless errands, take the dogs for walkies, feed the birds, feed the fish, feed the turtle and the gerbils and the guinea pigs, take a few courses at the university, sit on a few committees and generally run around all day like a chicken on crack. Figure into that runs to the doctor and the pharmacy to pick up another few dozen bottles of all these heavy duty pills I’m on for all my various ailments – and how the HELL did I get so old! When I look in the mirror there’s this old hag staring back at me. What happened to that trendy bright eyed, blue-eyed girl from the 60’s with the frizzy blond mop [courtesy of Revlon], the high-heeled winkle-picker shoes and the skirts so short that she had to become adept at the bunny dip to pick up pencils off the floor? Life is cruel chaps – but perhaps I don’t have to tell you that?</p> <p>Anyway all this is leading up to a major life-decision that I’m on the brink of making – or at least I’m on my tippy-toes at the end of the diving board peering at the water. For a few years now books and articles have popped up under my nose on a frequent basis, causing me to shore up some of my sagging beliefs – one or two of which have to do with fate. It started a few years back when Shirley MacLean started churning out her books on spiritualism, the cosmic consciousness, Karma [I’ll get you Dorothy and your little dog too..], and something called the chakra centers which I assumed were Indian social clubs of the time. She’s quite the gal is Shirley – she travels all over the globe solo and can be occasionally spotted hiking up some mountain pass in the Himalayas or wreathed in fog at Machu Pichu. Not your average self-absorbed celebrity at all. She sometimes even neglects to visit her hairdresser and her manicurist for weeks at a time – gasp. However, one book in particular caught my eye. She had just come back from Spain [Shirley not the manicurist] where she had spent a month walking the Camino. Now vat is zis Camino I thought to myself [..with a fake German accent. I often do this don’t you? It makes mundane thoughts so much more interesting] as I scanned the back cover for the – hopefully discounted – price.</p> <p>Well what it is apparently is a very long walk through the northern half of Spain. And I mean a *very* long walk. So long in fact that you have to have special hiking boots, special hiking shirts, belts, socks and undies and a very trendy back-pack and possibly some Lycra skintight something or other holding in your tum. No not really – in fact this goes completely against the spirit of the Camino which was – and is – a pilgrimage route running from the border of France at one end to the border of Spain and the sea at the other. Chaucer himself walked – or rather rode – the Camino, which is possibly where he got the idea of writing about that other famous pilgrimage to see Becket at Canterbury. Not the play – the saint– or rather his rather moldy bones by now I would think. Although if you’ve seen Becket the movie with Peter O’Toole and – erm – another actor – the Archbishop was a rather naughty boy and a decided pain in the bum who practically forced poor King Henry to have him offed in the vestry by several overly enthusiastic hangers on who were more than happy to oblige. But I digress – as usual. The Camino has been traversed for thousands of years – long before the Church got the decidedly modern capitalist idea that relics wuz BIG business - Oley! No sooner had some monk in a cell with nothing to do but play with his abacus all day worked out the details of such a vastly untapped market than the Holy Roman Church practically fell over itself to encourage poor pilgrims to make the trek from far and wide as often as possible and to part with a few groats - or preferably more - along the way. I mean – all those crusades were becoming bloody expensive and they were probably running out of heathens to convert or slaughter even though the local Swords r Us was making a mint. And all the church had to do in return was offer time off from purgatory. The longer you walked the more time you got off – and of course the more money you spent – Voila! Business school grads take careful note.</p> <p>The modern Camino is almost as popular now as it once was and you don’t even have to be a religious nutbar to do it. This is the bit that intrigues me. I’m an agnostic you might say – or you might say that I prefer to hedge my bets and not commit myself totally to either side just on the off-chance that they’re both wrong. However I do think – along with Einstein – that there is some intelligence to the universe [not here obviously but out there somewhere beyond the stars]. The trek to visit the church of Santiago de Compostella in fact means ‘St. James in the field of stars’ - wonderful. Therefore I’m going to undertake the Camino as a spiritual exercise – both literally and figuratively. Since I can’t get off the planet - although I’d certainly like to – next year in May I’m going to opt out al la Shirley for a month’s walking. 500 miles from France to Finisterre [end of the world – and I’m sure it will feel like it]. Perhaps the solitude and the connection to nature – or the dust, the rain and the heat – will [un]focus my mind away from this rat-race I live in – just for a little while. Thoreau did it in the woods – I’m going to do it in Spain. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/10/31/a_long_walk_in_the_woods~3224320/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>the-caminopilgrimagebecketspainhikinghttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/10/31/a_long_walk_in_the_woods~3224320/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/10/03/future_day_dreams~3079136/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-10-03:/2007/10/03/future_day_dreams~3079136/Wed, 03 Oct 2007 17:01:23 +0200 <p> The Numa-Tube [patent pending] - a Proposal to Save the Planet</p> <p>The Problem</p> <p>We have too many cars. Cars pollute the atmosphere, deplete our stocks of fossil fuels, promote competition and greed, capitalism and rampant consumerism, disrupt both our mental and physical well-being and enable a constant search for oil which leads to price-gauging, invasion and war.</p> <p>The Solution</p> <p>Get rid of cars. Hmm - a bit too simplistic. We are in love with our cars. We strive to procure the biggest, the flashiest and if not the most extreme, at least the latest model – the one with the most knobs and dials, the back-up camera, the OnStar GPS, iPod dock, heated leather seats and the lumbar support – not to mention the drop-down video screen, the programmable AC and the dashboard designed by NASA . Entire industries worldwide are inextricably entwined with the production, the maintenance and the manufacture and sale of a million different accoutrements that go along with the ownership of cars. Huge conglomerates, i.e. primarily the oil companies and their subsidiaries, make trillions of dollars per year in profits, investors become rich, governments pay down the national debt with gas-tax dollars and dealers spend their winters in Hawaii with the proceeds from the buying and selling of cars. The car has become an iconic symbol of Western culture. We must have a new one if not every year then at least every couple of years at the very least because we tire easily of the old ones and must have the latest, the biggest, and the best. We ‘wear’ our cars like we wear our clothes – they signify success. The owner of a car more than five years old is pitied as poor, unaccomplished, un-ambitious and in every sense of the word a failure. Therefore any full or partial replacement for the car must be subtle, and sneaky – a very gradual change over time.</p> <p>So the question becomes “if we want to supplant the car what do we put in its place?” Simple – provide cheap, fast, reliable, attractive, safe and comfortable public transportation – an alternative transportation network that not only services immediate local areas but is easily expandable to become trans-continental as well. </p> <p>Therefore, I would like to present to you the “Numa-Tube” – a system of interlocking transparent tubes [imagine a series of interconnected brightly coloured ‘hamster’ tubes], that can be subterranean or not depending upon aesthetics and cost-effective design. Inside the tubes are a series of ‘ball-shaped’ cars containing seats for 4 [see diagram], mounted on gimbals for stability and comfort. Extremely fast forward motion is produced by expelling air at various points along the tunnel in order to create a partial vacuum. This has the effect of ‘pulling’ the cars forwards until an optimum speed is reached. The slowing of the cars at each ‘station’ is accomplished by allowing less air to be expelled. Of course, sudden violent forward motion – not to mention any sudden stops at the end - would obviously have a detrimental effect upon any human body – much like the end-result of jumping off a tall building. Therefore gradual acceleration and deceleration is produced by a series of ‘on-ramps’ powered by, possibly, a mag-lev system - an arrangement of magnets in series along a track. </p> <p>The ball shaped cars travel rapidly and continuously through the tunnels [which are pleasingly lit by ‘rings’ of phosphorescent crystals]. For safety and security each car is equipped with state-of-the-art video surveillance and a two-way voice system. The walls are sound-proofed to the extent that any loud or sudden extraneous noises are filtered and soft music, climate control and subtle lighting provides a relaxing ambient effect. Four comfortable recliner seats upholstered in organic, plant-based fabrics in neutral colours are arranged around a table/desk containing a computer console that can be activated to provide on-board games, movies and music as well as Internet access. Power is generated by the movement of the cars through the tunnel by means of a dynamo system in contact with the external tunnel wall, making the ‘energy foot-print’ virtually non-existent. The air under pressure expelled from the tunnels to create the partial vacuum can be directed to wind-farms which in turn produce the power to expel the air and power the tunnel system. Any energy produced that is surplus to requirements can be channeled off for other uses – providing ‘power-docks’ for small electric cars that may be used for traversing city streets for example [because people will still require/prefer cars to reach out of the way places no doubt].</p> <p>Numa-Tubes can cross oceans by the simple expedient of sinking the tubes to neutral buoyancy depth, far below any turbulent waters, but not so far down that extreme pressure and cold presents an obstacle. The extreme speeds produced by the full or partial vacuum can be easily tolerated by the human body once full acceleration has been accomplished. In fact, the occupants of the cars would probably have no sensation of speed at all, much like travelling at supersonic speeds on an aircraft like the Concorde or the Space Shuttle. Lengthy travel times will become a thing of the past because speeds reached will be in excess of two thousand miles an hour – making a trans-continental trip that used to take 8-10 hours [from Toronto to London say] possible in less than two hours. </p> <p>Objections</p> <p>The immediate, and possibly loudest, objection will come from the oil conglomerates and subsidiary industries that support the present car-based infrastructure. If the Numa-Tube system [ultimately] obviates the need for gas-guzzling cars and planes then the oil and gas industries dependent upon them – the oil companies will say – will collapse, making millions of auto-workers redundant and throwing social support systems, not to mention middle-eastern governments, into an economic tail-spin from which there is no return. The world as we know it will end.</p> <p>Refutation</p> <p>Any savvy Business Studies Grad type worthy of the price of his Ivy-league admission will realize that vast revenues can be made from diverting oil-based industries into other modes of production – into plastics for example [as the Graduate would have said]. It is to be hoped however that oil production companies would simply re-tool their lines to produce ‘green’ products instead and collaborate with other industries to find alternate power sources, produce electric, solar powered or hybrid cars for about-town use – producing ‘green’ fabrics that are non-animal based, building Numa-Tubes and ‘train stations’, digging tunnels, maintaining and servicing the transportation system as a whole. Line workers by their very nature can be retrained to work on any line – whether it produces cars or solar panels or widgets of any shape or size – it really makes no difference at all – and if GM can retool its lines to make a different model of Land Crusher each and every year as it does now then it can always churn out Numa-Tube cars instead.</p> <p>Existing sub-way systems can easily be adapted, extended and modified to hold Numa-Tubes and since the entire system is, ideally, underground, more green-space and arable land is freed up, roads and expensive road maintenance infrastructures become redundant, saving millions of dollars in road maintenance and repairs, not to mention salting and sanding equipment, and pollution falls to manageable or hopefully non-existent levels within ten years.</p> <p>To wrest such a symbol of success and power that is the fast expensive car from the hands of the wealthy may be more of a challenge however than getting GM to retool its lines. The car is the ultimate signifier of power in many minds therefore Corporate types must use the power of advertising to ‘sell’ consumers on the idea of environmental not to mention fiscal responsibility. We need to sell the idea that dispensing with your car is to act not only as a role-model to the masses but will gain you status, kudos and approval as well – akin to donating to some worth-while charity or travelling to Africa to work with orphans or adopting a child from a third-world country. You and your corporation will be viewed as heroes of your time.</p> <p>If we have more green space we can have more bike paths, more village greens, more community, ample and less crowded inner city housing and therefore less crime, and thus far less strain on essential services and social supports. Biz Grads will immediately recognize the revenues to be made from populations that are living longer through healthier living, a clean environment and no pollution i.e. retirement communities, travel, fitness clubs, leisure industries, bicycles and other modes of ‘people powered’ transportation systems. For the young we will have more playing fields, more stadiums, more swimming pools, more athletic clothing – and all the commercial opportunities that go along with that, the Ivy grad would say.</p> <p>Remote working with the Numa-Tube is a distinct possibility. Presently we are restricted to work places that are within a certain narrow ‘transportation’ range – just as many of us are restricted from extensive international travel due to time constraints and cost. However, if I can travel a distance of a thousand miles in under an hour then I can conduct work searches over a much wider area. It may even be possible eventually to live on one continent but work on another. This will have several distinct advantages from a social standpoint. If I can work in any urban centre and live in another – or even live in my log cabin in the back woods of Lake Superior but work on Wall Street this will have the added effect of – eventually – breaking down international boundaries and barriers as well. What will this do for commerce and trade? I would say it would open up hitherto undreamed of possibilities for trade on a global scale. Similarly the population as a whole will ultimately become amorphous which will have the effect of breaking down race barriers as well. If we are citizens of the world and not one particular country or another there are no boundaries left to fight over.</p> <p>Consumers in general will adapt to the system readily provided it remains reliable, fast, comfortable and inexpensive. If, for example, I can travel from Toronto to Paris or even from London Ontario to Ottawa for a fraction of the current price, not to mention a fraction of the time, then I would opt for the Numa-Tube over Air Canada or CNN any time. I would also readily dispense with my environmentally unfriendly car, as I’m sure most of us would, if I could replace it with a convenient cost-effective alternative – particularly during an Ontario winter. Fighting traffic, breathing fumes and paying exorbitant prices for gasoline will become a thing of the past – as will pollution related illnesses such as Asthma, bronchitis, various cancers, many allergies and possibly even colds and flu too. </p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>It is obvious that the Numa-Tube is the way of the future. With the Numa-Tube in place we can dispense with cars and therefore roads, and of course the main by-product of the automobile, pollution. No pollution means fewer health-related issues and lower medical care costs, a healthier planet, healthier children, an emphasis on ‘green’ production, the global workplace, breaking down of race barriers, the dissolution of borders, more green space, more arable land, more leisure, less stress. We can then perhaps make our planet into the garden it once was.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/10/03/future_day_dreams~3079136/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>carshamster-tubesgreening-of-the-planetnuma-tubepollutionalternative-transportationplanethttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/10/03/future_day_dreams~3079136/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/08/30/size_matters~2895083/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-08-30:/2007/08/30/size_matters~2895083/Thu, 30 Aug 2007 13:25:13 +0200 <p>I’m a researcher – or perhaps I should say I’m an information broker – someone who finds and sells information to clients around the world [insert shameless plug here]. It also means that I spend much of my day surfing the Net and trolling through databases of various kinds, together with other online and offline sources and newspapers. The rest of the time I play Warcraft, read blogs and buy things off eBay, but that’s beside the point. What I wanted to talk about was some of the very surprising things I find while surfing around cyberspace, a great deal of it pornographic. The other day, for example, I was searching for something innocuous, like the standard medical treatment for some disgusting disease or other, and although I usually use some highbrow source like the National Library of Medicine for such a search I often drive off the info highway down a side-road and Google it as well – just to be thorough and have a little fun looking at all the wacky advice and info out there – such as can be found on Wikipedia for instance [Oh sit down you at the back – yes I know you love Wikipedia – but did you know the last entry was probably inserted by your addled old granny and has as much authority as my six year old grand-daughter reading the back of her crisps packet hrrrumph]. Anyway, as I was saying before I rudely interrupted myself for a bit of a rant - yes – I was looking for something to do with the treatment of scurvy or some such [don’t ask – but sailors have info needs too you know, and not all of them to do with dalliances with ladies they met in Thailand].<br> I clicked some innocuous sounding link and before I knew it - rather like rubbing Aladdin’s Lamp – oops wrong metaphor - up popped [stop it] the most improbable [and possibly impossible] images I have ever seen. Come on guys out there – tell me how it is possible for one man – black of course because racial stereotyping is alive and well in the porn industry – to have an – ahem – member [nudge nudge wink wink] thicker than a tree-trunk and twice as long as his leg? I did pity his unfortunate girl-friend - or six actually, all of whom were wearing bright red lipstick, red shoes and nothing else and doing a lot of pouting and mouthing and licking of lips with what I take was meant to simulate orgasmic expressions on their Barbie-Doll faces. The last time I saw a male member [and I’m not talking about the Masons] that size it adorned a Greek pot in art class and belonged to a Satyr who would obviously have had some difficulty running to the Bacchanalia had he jumped down off his rock in a hurry.</p> <p>The Internet porn industry aside we have always liked to adorn our houses and gardens, not to mention our offices and our cars and just about everything else with phallic symbols - that and the apotropeic eye to ward off evil but now of course we just have CCTV cameras. The Romans used to place bloody great stone replicas of penises around their arenas and outside the door – just in case someone came along and accused them of being weeky weedy wimpies or something. They just couldn't resist a bit of male posturing in some sort of sublimated territorial display that said – keep off – this is *my* patch –grrr [cut to shot of caveman beating his chest while wifey – clad in fur bikini of course – looks on admiringly]. Today they would just be driving around in Corvettes or some other enormous great expensive car shaped like a torpedo to demonstrate just how big *theirs* is. It doesn’t take much to see what I mean – look around you at that tube of toothpaste, that car, that missile, that jet-fighter, the CN Tower, the Post-office Tower, Cleopatra's Needle, all those ancient Greek columns, that microphone clutched in the hands of some blond bimbo singer with her red lips so close … need I say more? You don't have to be an iconographer - let alone a pornographer - to get the symbolism there now do you? Anyway - now I’ve got you thinking I’m going off to go get some lunch – hot dog anyone?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/08/30/size_matters~2895083/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>symbolismiconographyphallic-symbolspornographyhttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/08/30/size_matters~2895083/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/08/15/open_to_the_public~2813100/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-08-15:/2007/08/15/open_to_the_public~2813100/Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:12:07 +0200 <p>I’ve been mulling over the question of ‘Privacy’ lately – sparked by a recent media row that caught my attention whereby a Canadian doctor who is a writer as well as a military man wrote an article for the American magazine “Mother Jones” [http://www.motherjones.com] entitled “Talk to me like my father; Front line medicine in Afghanistan“, about his recent tour of duty and the things he experienced while there. There would be nothing remarkable about that – and it was a well-written piece – if he had not described in graphic detail the heroic efforts made to save the life of a Canadian soldier who had apparently been shot accidentally by a tent-mate and died shortly thereafter. Again – nothing remarkable about that – in fact, some would say that it is laudatory that the author brought the harsh reality of life ‘outside the wire’ to the public consciousness. The fatal error on his part however, was that he actually identified the soldier in question by name – thereby , some would say – violating patient-doctor confidentiality, committing a gross invasion of the deceased soldier’s privacy, not to mention the privacy of his grieving family and also cast into question his own ethics both as a writer and a ‘war correspondent’.</p> <p>So the dilemma is now – should the doctor in question be sanctioned or not – and by whom? The Canadian Military? The Medical Board of Canada? Should he be sued by the parents and family for invasion of privacy – breach of confidence – what have you? At the very least, should he be pilloried in the Press for his actions? The other side of the coin is that the doctor/writer was instrumental in recruiting civilian doctors to work with the troops in Afghanistan in the first place. He is also lauded by his literary colleagues and has won various prestigious prizes for his writings. Does that however give him the right to breach the [implied] confidence of his patients? Is a war correspondent exempt from the normal expectations of confidence and ethics? If I was a war correspondent in Iraq for example – do I have carte blanche to describe everything I see in graphic detail as well as identifying the protagonists on either side? The answer appears to be – it depends. When American soldier Jessica Lynch was captured during the Golf War at the Battle of Nasiriyah in 2003 her story spread like a brush fire through all the major newspapers around the world. She was not only identified by name [and in photographs] but her injuries – either real or imagined on the part of the reporters – were documented fully. The identity of the man who informed the Americans of her whereabouts was also fully disclosed with the result that he and his family were subsequently granted asylum in the States for fear of their lives.</p> <p>You young things out there will no doubt have only ‘seen’ the Kennedy assassination through old videos on YouTube but I remember the day’s events fully. It was one of those ‘you remember where you were when’ moments, like the death of Diana or the death of the Big Bopper [gotcha there huh?]. The newsreels played the scenes over and over again – the crowd running, shaky camera angles as the reporters scrambled to get a shot, the indelible image of Jacky Kennedy climbing over the back seat to get at her dying husband, the blood on her otherwise immaculate pink suit as she stood by the president elect as he was urgently sworn in… Now I ask you – was this the grossest invasion of privacy or was it an historical moment and therefore above and beyond the normal mores of society? Because the central character was a Head of State were the newspapers absolutely duty bound to show us, the reading public, those images over and over again without cease for days on end? And what about the death of Diana? A British television documentary program has just aired several hours footage dealing with this very subject – a documentary that has outraged her sons and her family because it purportedly shows images of her dying moments while she was still in the car in the Paris tunnel. Has this so far exceeded the bounds of propriety that it should never have been shown? Or is it just that we have the right to know everything when it comes to a head of state and/or a celebrity because this is part of the historical record, but the same does not apply in the case of an ‘everyday’ citizen? If this is true then what about all the stuff plastered around the news about Jessica Lynch? She was an ordinary citizen wasn’t she? Or was she different because she was a soldier - or a female - or just a handy propaganda tool …</p> <p>If we had had newspaper reporters and video cameras when Mary Queen of Scots or Anne Boleyn went to the block, or a few aristos in France met their maker would we have all sat around watching it live on News at 10 or reading about it in the ‘The Daily Distress’ instead of standing outside with the unruly scrum knitting and jeering? Has the world gone mad? Are we so insatiable for gore and voyeuristic detail that we take positive pleasure in the suffering of others – there’s that old Schadenfreude raising its ugly head again - or are we justly entitled to be well-informed of all the world’s events – ugly and distressing as they may be? And of course if some people are hurt along the way – such as the heart-broken and grieving family when their son is identified by name and his death is described for all the world to see – well that’s just too bad in the larger scheme of things. We the public have a right to know!</p> <p>Comments on a post-card please. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/08/15/open_to_the_public~2813100/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>head-of-statecelebritynewspapersdianaprivacykennedywarhttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/08/15/open_to_the_public~2813100/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/31/book_report~2733286/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-07-31:/2007/07/31/book_report~2733286/Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:34:18 +0200 <p>I haven’t had much time for blogging this week because I have been reviewing books. Yes chaps I am a book reviewer – well – I’ve reviewed one or two probably not very well and not very accurately because I did drop one of them in the bath and the pages stuck together but there you are. I can now say that I have joined the ranks [tatty fringes] of serious journalism. Of course it would help if I could write in terse, well-crafted, precise sentences instead of waffling on for ages and then flitting off on tangents as soon as the fancy takes me. I notice that if you were to read any of my wordy constructions aloud you would probably die of asphyxia long before you got to the end. I should write thrillers – all beginning “It was a dark and stormy night” and go on for six pages without pausing for breath. Of course there was a time when short sentences were anathema – [now there’s a new word for the day] and were frowned upon especially by those of the legal profession who were paid by the word. That’s why your lease is forty-five pages long and dotted with hithertos and theretofores like currants in a figgy pudding. Plus it makes the author appear more substantial and formidably erudite the more words s/he uses even though s/he probably has no more idea than I do about what the hell s/he’s driveling on about. And as an aside if you want to appear to be the final authority on some topic or other it also helps if you can sprinkle your text liberally with quotations from Virgil or the Bible – using the original Latin Vulgate of course – or perhaps include a few pithy Bon Motes in Arcadian French. </p> <p>But I digress – where was I? Oh yes – reviewing books. I enjoyed a couple of them – in fact one or two were a really interesting read i.e. Gordon Ramsay’s recent autobiographical offering: “Roasting in Hell’s Kitchen” – which goes quite some way to explaining just why he loses his temper so often and uses swear words as punctuation and hates his dad and has a low sperm count [standing in front of hot stoves all day – be warned] but then I ran into a veritable Great Wall of China of a book, which as you know was built to keep out invaders – and obviously book reviewers as well. I could not get through it with a steam shovel – or possibly a conquering horde of Mongolian Marauders. So now I’m on the horns of a dilemma [there’s those dilemma horns again]. The work is self-published – what was once called a ‘Vanity Press’ production – and before you give us the old French shoulder shrug and sneer at this, I believe Honore Balzac [also known as Honorary Ballsack amongst the uncouth classes] availed himself of the Vanity Press of his day – although I could be making that up – my memory for Farcical French potboilers is somewhat hazy.</p> <p>Anyway – what to do about a really bad book? Do I slam it to the ground and jump up and down on the authors literary day-dreams or do I try and be politically correct – sort of like being the Paula Abdul of the book reviewing world – and say something along the lines of “this book was written entirely to the author’s own personal standards of satisfaction and was no doubt enjoyed by not only him but all of his friends and relatives too – and by the way I liked his picture on the back”, or do I go off on a Gordon Ramsay and declaim that he writes about as well as my old aunt Sally who is chained to a wall down at the local looney bin and thinks she’s the Shah of Iran? If there are any ‘real’ reviewers out there perhaps they would be kind enough to share some insights with me. In the meantime I have found a suitable use for what I like to call the ‘Doorstopper’ book – it’s quite good for resting your coffee cup on while you read about Jamie Oliver roasting his wienies over a slow fire [he evidently likes to cook in the nude – I never realized that his TV show the “Naked Chef" meant precisely that].</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/31/book_report~2733286/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>great-wall-of-chinagordon-ramsaybooksbook-reviewsjamie-oliverhttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/31/book_report~2733286/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/19/pottermania~2664665/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-07-19:/2007/07/19/pottermania~2664665/Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:20:28 +0200 <p>Now I know what [crap] writers block is. For a week I’ve been trying to think of something moderately interesting, faintly controversial, vaguely sarcastic, slightly funny, deeply profound in the shallowest sense - or whatever – anything - to blog about and coming up blank. What must it be like for real writers like J.K.Rowling, contractually obligated to churn out seven Harry Potters in a row, whether she wants to or not, whether she’s absolutely sick and bloody tired of sodding Harry Potter and the wand he rode in on? Now that’s pressure. I ordered my copy early – about two months ago – and so added to the mountain of cash about to flow her way – again. They say that she’s the richest woman in England. She’s got more money than Liz and Phil and the crew – she’s probably got more money than Bill Gates and that’s certainly saying something. He has enough to have a string of bonfires down the west side of the United States and up the other entirely composed of tenners if he so desires - and I hope he doesn’t because think of all those people starving in gutters who could do with one or two. You know them, they are the people sleeping on heating grates [in Canada at least] – we step over them on our way to work in the mornings. </p> <p>The latest and last [maybe] Harry Potter comes out, in what, two days from now? Spoilers on the Net are rife [it’s ok you can uncover your eyes because I’m not gonna tell you the ending although I do know that, according to Rowling herself, the last word will be ‘Scar’. Hmm. We will have to ponder on the meaning of that won’t we chaps.. But you can bet your bat cape that the dastardly Voldemort will have something evil to do with it. Anyone want to start a betting pool?</p> <p>So what is Rowling going to do now then? Having finished her Opus Dei she can hardly dispense with the old ink pot and hang up her quill pen now can she? I can’t see a steady stream of seedy murder mysteries suddenly springing forth can you? Mind you – it’s possible. They could feature one PC Potter of the Dales who solves crimes right from under the noses of those smarty-pants London cops using his crystal ball and a divining rod. He will be at odds with the senior inspector, one Detective Inspector Snape, who keeps an odd assortment of pets and things in dusty jars on his desk.</p> <p>They say that Arthur Conan Doyle, after dispatching Sherlock and his arch-nemesis Moriarty to watery doom down under the waterfall, flung his pen against the wall so hard that the steel nib stuck in the wood paneling with a resounding ‘sproingggggg’. He no doubt uttered a few choice Victorian epithets as well but we will probably never know. Not unless he comes back from the afterlife and tells us that is. After all, he *was* president of the Psychical Research Society and is possibly up there discussing further plot developments with H.G.Wells, Henry James, Verne, and his other mystical buds.</p> <p>Many authors get caught on the horns of the same dilemma [how come dilemmas have horns]. Anyway …. Many other authors have discovered to their dismay that they are locked into writing about the same characters forever. Think of Ian Fleming who could no more dispense with Bond than put on bat wings and fly to Gotham. Fortunately – or unfortunately as the case may be – he conveniently died before he got the chance to find out. Clive Custler has recently made a few unsuccessful and financially suicidal attempts to knock off his long-time hero Dirk Pitt in order to substitute one Kurt Austin instead. However, Kurt bears some slight resemblance to Dirk – he is tall and athletic, loves old cars, has or rather had dark wavy hair now gone a pleasing – but manly – shade of silver. He has a cheerful indomitable side-kick – is a member of NUMA and has a habit of getting himself embroiled in international incidents having to do with evil corporations hell-bent on polluting the oceans and murdering innocent cruise-ship passengers who only signed up for a last-minute trip around the Bahamas. Hmm. </p> <p>So I don’t know what Rowling will do without Harry. I suppose sitting in the basement of the mansion counting up the money could take quite some time so that will keep her occupied for a bit while she ponders the exact meaning of the word ‘obscurity’. Listen – what’s that sound I hear? Oh I think it’s the sound of her publishers crying their way to the bank one last time …</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/19/pottermania~2664665/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>bondjkrowlingclive-custlerpottermugglesdirk-pittian-fleminghttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/19/pottermania~2664665/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/11/private_lives~2615759/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-07-11:/2007/07/11/private_lives~2615759/Wed, 11 Jul 2007 15:52:46 +0200 <p>Do you ever get the feeling that someone’s watching you? You’re probably right. No it’s not just the nosy neighbours who want to know why you feel the need to go to the store seventeen times per day, it’s the Traffic Cam and the Bank Machine Cam, and the Toll Road Cam [easy to fool that one – just drive backwards up the highway – but then of course you’ll have your face on Police Cam not to mention ‘America’s Most Wanted’ and possibly TMZ]. We live in a surveillance society – some of us more than others. I read that in the UK there are more cameras than people and there are entire police forces devoted to searching through hours and hours of video tape looking for that terrorist face in the crowd or maybe that grannie trying to smuggle soap powder to her relatives in Lithuania, we can never be sure. Or just maybe that grannie has swallowed a condom full of some naughty substance and is now incarcerated in the special ‘holding room’ at the airport while the customs blokes scrutinize her every movement – so to speak.</p> <p>So it seems that someone or some thing i.e. a camera, has our fizzogs on tape just about every minute of the day that we spend outside. Inside the cameras watch us through the Web instead. Big Brother would be proud and no doubt a member of FaceBook. Mind you I had to dismantle my own web cam – for one thing people out there in webland could not possibly be interested in watching me staring into space for hours on end apart from the mentally challenged – and speaking of the mentally challenged, I also got rid of the web cam because certain ‘photographers’ kept sending me live pictures – of things – usually very small things it must be said, but not things I would want on the screen when the kiddies walked in.</p> <p>Many people feel discomforted that personal privacy is coming to an end – if it ever existed at all that is. History is full of allusions to people living in tribes which also meant sharing the old longhouse or the log hut or the cave because if you didn’t you were likely to wind up inside a hungry dinosaur’s tum [yes yes I know that MAN and dinosaurs didn’t exist at the same time – but you get the idea] having been naturally selected as it’s afternoon snack while you wandered – foolishly – alone around the plain looking at daisies. There was safety, not to mention warmth and security, in numbers. Privacy – in the sense of personal privacy that is – appears then to be a modern invention. Up to a few hundred years or so ago we all lived together for all the reasons I’ve mentioned above plus it was much easier to pay the rent if there were several of you bringing in the groats at the same time. People lived in extended families which included several generations from the very young to the very old and cantankerous – unless you were members of a certain native group that is, who chose to set old grannie and granddad afloat on an ice-flow for the polar bears to eat instead when they got too annoying and started drooling on the rug. </p> <p>Living the communal life had many side-benefits. You always had someone around to babysit the kids for instance while you went out to join in the monthly sun dance, and more kids meant more hands to the plough, or the threshing thingy or the mill wheel – which had the added benefit of saving on donkeys, and hence freed up more grain for the oat-cakes, or the whiskey, whichever your preferred. Of course more whiskey also meant more kids so you see it was a sort of self-fulfilling cycle and everyone was happy – except grandma of course who had to babysit all those little nippers running around the cave floor and falling in the river. This may have been why certain children [usually females] were deemed to be surplus to requirements and were left out on the hillside as offerings to the Gods, or the hyenas, whoever got there first. [All together now: Awwww].</p> <p>More privacy means less communal support. It also of course means that more money in the form of wage labor [I see all you Marxists out there sitting up and opening an eye] must be produced in order to support the family unit. And mum cannot be expected to work out in the fields all day while the kids run wild at home even though Social Services didn’t exist at the time and if they had would be too busy scooping up squalling babies off hillsides to attend to *your* lack of parenting skills. This means that dad had to get up off his duff, stop dozing in the sun while the women did all the work and go out and find a job! There was a price to be paid for privacy you see. Gone was the old way of life and it was in with the new – which meant a need for transportation, which meant a need for cars and buses and trains and planes and motorbikes – and roads and runways and bicycle paths. And of course dad couldn’t just turn up at the office in his loincloth now could he? So that meant a need for clothing stores and shoe shops and sweat shops and Nike.</p> <p>So it seems then that the cost of personal privacy is the end of civilization as we know it – and it’s possibly responsible for global warming too. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/11/private_lives~2615759/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>communityprivacydinosaurshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/11/private_lives~2615759/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/07/sicko~2590278/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-07-07:/2007/07/07/sicko~2590278/Sat, 07 Jul 2007 13:30:16 +0200 <p>Last night we went to see ‘Sicko’ [http://www.michaelmoore.com/], the latest offering from famed documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. This is the first time, certainly in our family’s memory, that we have ever paid good money to go and see a documentary for heavens sake in a mainstream theatre – which is witness to the growing fame of Moore, who previously won awards for ‘Bowling for Columbine’ which, like ‘Sicko’, is an indictment of the sickness [no pun intended] within modern American Society today. As a British Canadian I was appalled by the abuses wrought on the poor and the sick by the monopoly of the ‘always for profit’ run HMO’s [Health Maintenance Organizations] and the careless disregard they evidently have for the welfare of patients and their families who seek any kind of medical intervention. Many of them have paid hefty premiums all their working lives in order to make sure that in the event of catastrophic illness they and their dependents will be covered for the exceptional expenses lumped upon them by privately run medical facilities in the States. Like you no doubt I knew that sick people in America were in deep trouble if they had no health insurance – but it never occurred to me before I saw the film that those who could actually afford to pay their premiums would also be sailing in the same boat.</p> <p>It appears that HMO’s deny claims at the drop of a hat – deeming the most routine treatment plan or procedure to be ‘experimental’ i.e. a hysterectomy for cervical cancer, or a bone-marrow transplant for a leukemia sufferer, leaving the patient without other resources, literally, to die. Physicians and hospital administrators admit that they turn patients away if the HMO denies the claim, leaving them to find a ‘mission’ hospital or to sell everything they own to raise the cold hard cash baby – that’s the choice. And with increasing frequency the choice is to die because there is simply not enough money in the house or the car or the furniture to cover the escalating cost of medical treatment. The price of prescription drugs is excessive and can represent a crippling burden to a chronic sufferer – particularly if that sufferer is elderly and living on a pension perhaps or else is someone working three menial jobs to keep their family afloat. No wonder they often try to sneak over the Canadian or Mexican border to save a few bucks at the pharmacy or to secure treatment if they can.</p> <p>A few years ago I had a series of crucial operations, without which I would probably be dead myself by now. The Canadian government sponsored Ontario Health Insurance Plan covered all of my expenses, including a lengthy [by today’s standards] hospital stay and the services of several first-rank specialists, nurses, anesthetists and surgeons. This series of treatments would have cost me well over half a million dollars had I been a United States resident at the time. And of course if I wasn’t a resident I would have had to pay for it out of my own pocket – and if I didn’t have pockets that deep well then it would have been ‘bye bye seeya’ and have a nice day – or whatever portion of the day you’ve got left that is.</p> <p>The health care system here in Canada, fortunately, is not run for profit, but of course is not without its faults. There are frequently long delays and wait-lists for certain treatments, orthopedic surgery for example, and now and then we read of cancer patients being transported to treatment centres that are lengthy distances away from their homes and family. Some treatments are inexplicably deemed to be ‘cosmetic’, i.e. breast reconstruction after a mastectomy but it is at least open to argument and appeal – or if that fails you can always start shouting to the newspaper. I take it that in the case of the HMO’s ‘NO’ means ‘NO’, and that’s that – end of discussion.</p> <p>There is a critical shortage of medical personnel in Ontario after the depredations of a certain politician named Mike Harris pared the health-care budget down to zip. We need more nurses and we need more doctors, particularly general practitioners, because many of us have been ‘off-list’ when it comes to having our very own family doc for many years. We make do with teaching centers that rotate their newly qualified doctors every four months, which means that you seldom encounter the same doc twice. This seriously impedes any semblance of continuity of care and any kind of personalized treatment plan. The doctor you see is the one that happens to be on call that day and to him/her you are not really much more than a number, just another patient in the crowd. S/he doesn’t know your name, s/he doesn’t know the name of your cat or the fact that you are allergic to cotton balls and she would pass by you blindly in a crowd... BUT we have some of the finest hospitals in the world – we are in the first rank when it comes to cardiac care, reconstructive surgery, pediatrics, cancer care etc. People come from all around the world to be treated at the very best facilities that you will find anywhere. And with few exceptions we don’t present you with a bill. We don’t ask to see your insurance card before we load you into the ambulance and we don’t let you die alone on the sidewalk on Yonge Street if you don’t have one. The only bill you are likely to receive from a Canadian hospital is the bill for your TV rental and your phone, and that’s about that. Well, you might have to stump up [pun intended] something towards the cost of your crutches and your cast now and again but nothing for that MRI or that X-ray or those blood tests or that 10 hour op.</p> <p>When I lived in England the National Health System was amongst the best medical insurance plan in the world covering just about any treatment or procedure you could mention with the possible exception of that face lift you were forced to travel to Poland for. But apart from that as far as I remember everything else was covered – eye-glasses and dental treatments too [something which we have to pay for unless we contribute to an extended health care plan usually available through employment]. I don’t know about now because I’ve been away for 40 years and things may very well have changed. I do remember sitting on a hard bench in a crowded casualty room for hours on end waiting for my number to be called but that’s probably the same the world over. Moore’s documentary suggests that the French health care system is actually even better than the NHS [didn’t know that did you], and in fact is probably the best in the world. And compared to the United States even a poverty-stricken country like Cuba easily outstrips the States in quality of care and accessibility for all to modern facilities and treatment centers. No one is turned away and no-one dies in the street for lack of medical attention in Cuba anymore than they do in any of the ‘civilized’ countries in the West - except for the States. And if France ranks number 1, the US ranks somewhere around 38th in the world, just above Slovenia in standard and accessibility of care. This is pretty frightening. I think it’s going to be the last time I travel to Florida for that annual holiday to Disney or the winter trip to Vegas without seventeen insurance policies and a return flight ticket clutched in my shaking hands - don’t know about you...</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/07/sicko~2590278/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>ohipsickounited-states-health-care-systemnhshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/07/sicko~2590278/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/06/ghost_stories~2582418/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-07-06:/2007/07/06/ghost_stories~2582418/Fri, 06 Jul 2007 03:15:15 +0200 <p>Have you ever seen a ghost? I have – several in fact and not only when I’ve had one too many vodka spritzers. We live in an old Victorian house and although there are no bumps in the night and physical apparitions going on here – well, there may be but I rely on the dogs and cats to warn me because I read somewhere that canines and pussies are much more ‘sentient’ than we are. However so far the only reaction I’ve got from them is mad barking every time the screen bangs against the front door or one of the goldfish farts. The rest of the time they spend snoring with their legs up in the air and their tongues lolling out – indicating to me that they would be less than useless if burglars broke in let alone ghosts. But we do have a ghost in the house – I swear it. He – or she – likes to hide things and after a few days of watching us tearing the house apart looking for the car keys puts them back in really obvious places – like the middle of the carpet where we will be sure to trip over them if we’re not careful.</p> <p>This has happened many times. Once I lost my cheque-book and went through the house as usual throwing things around and swearing only to find it right in the middle of the floor. Another time I set my new barbecue scraper-offer down on the kitchen table but when I went to use it found it was gone. The expected mad scramble around the house ensued with the usual accusations and recriminations and refusals to admit that anyone else had even seen it let alone moved it. Three days later there it was hanging from the key rack outside the backdoor large as life and about as close to my nose as you could get without squinting. So what is going on here? The only explanation is that we have a ghost with a sense of humour who likes to have a giggle at our expense. Just in case I’ve tried asking said ghost to aport a million dollars or so on to the coffee table but with no success so far. I’ll keep you posted.</p> <p>However, I have experienced more tangible evidence of ghosts than the one who hides the barbecue scraper. I once saw my son-in-law, deceased about a year, driving down the street alongside me. I looked at him – he looked at me – and then he was gone. This would have been a perfectly ordinary occurrence if hadn’t been for the fact that he was dead. He looked quite solid and just as he always did and in case you think I might have been hallucinating or drunk it was about 11am in the morning and far too early for tippling and besides that, his wife was sitting beside me and she saw him too. Years before that I flew back to England with my ex-husband after receiving an urgent call that his dad was slipping away fast and time was short. Half-way across the Atlantic I distinctly heard a voice in my ear saying ‘I’ve gone now’ and I knew we were going to be too late. When we got there I was not at all surprised to discover that he had passed at the precise time I heard his voice. We stayed of course for the funeral which was held on a dreary day in Devon in a dreary old church that he had never attended. A heavy depression lay upon the mourners as we listened to the eulogy and the service. Afterwards we walked up the aisle in respectful procession with our heads bowed but out the corner of my eye I suddenly caught sight of an old man sitting in one of the back pews with a wide grin plastered all over his face nodding to us all as we passed. I thought it was somewhat inappropriate to be having a laugh when someone had just passed on but assumed it was some mad old relative suffering from severe dementia and the notion that he was attending a tea party with either the Queen or Alice – I couldn’t be sure. But later, at the family gathering, out came the photo album, and you guessed it, it was dad that I had seen in the church, no doubt having a giggle at attending his own funeral and obviously pleased as punch at the turn-out.</p> <p>One of my favourite Brit shows is ‘Most Haunted’, although they never seem to get anything substantive on camera and Derek Acora’s ‘possessions’ did appear to be somewhat contrived after a while. I much prefer David Wells who seems to have the more genuine gift of the two although Cieran O’Keefe keeps trying to spoil it all by coming up with various ‘logical’ explanations to discount psychic phenomena. Did you see the one on board the Queen Mary? I couldn’t sleep for a week and I haven’t been near a swimming pool on a deserted ship since. Got any ghost stories to share? Come on then – I’m listening..</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/06/ghost_stories~2582418/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>seeing-thingsapparitionsghostshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/06/ghost_stories~2582418/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/04/independence_day~2572613/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-07-04:/2007/07/04/independence_day~2572613/Wed, 04 Jul 2007 16:27:52 +0200 <p>Today is July 4th, celebrated by Americans around the globe [or ‘Merkins’ as we prefer to call them] – getting all in a lather about the final ratification of the Declaration of Independence. You know the one – the document that gave all Americans – or so they believe – the right to bear arms and so blow each other’s brains out whenever they feel like it. Well – not exactly when they feel like it but certainly if another of their number attempts to gain unlawful entry to their property or wants to grab their money at the cash machine. This holiday – and let’s be honest here, all these civic celebrations are merely excuses to take an extra day off work – was substituted for the other celebration that had marked the date of the Boston Massacre in 1770, when us Brits killed 5 local soldiers. I don’t know much about the circumstances that led up to the event but it was hardly a massacre was it? </p> <p>Question for the day class – “How many people must be popped off for a murder to become a massacre?’. It also of course depends upon which side you take in the debate. When Custer for example met his Waterloo [not to mention a few thousand very annoyed Indians] on the greasy grass of the Little Bighorn it was widely reported in the newspapers of the time that he and the 200 or so men he had with him had been ‘massacred’ by the Indians. However, it was also reported that he and his men fought to the last man and that gallant Custer himself was the last to die in what was to be his final glorious battle*. So it’s a battle if you are on the ‘good side’ and a massacre if you’re on the ‘bad’. Are you wearing a black hat or a white hat – carrying a rifle or a tomahawk – well, the Indians had rifles too and from all accounts were far better shots than the US cavalry but that’s beside the point. The point is that the evil savage Indians apparently went around massacring people for no good reason other than they were savages and the noble cavalrymen fought glorious battles against said evil Indians in order to show them the error of their ways – such as protecting their wives and children from slaughter, or fighting to defend their traditional hunting grounds against the encroachment of the white settlers, not to mention their culture, their religious freedoms, the freedom of the ranges and other entirely inappropriate things like that.</p> <p>We have a lot to answer for don’t we – and by we I mean us the dominant white race that has from time immemorial taken what we wanted whenever we wanted it without regard to the people or peoples who stood in our way. When we wanted slaves we imported them from Africa and forced them to work for nothing on our plantations – and in this the Brits are just as guilty as the Americans – and when we wanted land and gold we just moved the Indians out of the way and stuck them on reservations where they ultimately became dependent upon us for just about everything. For a nomadic people this was tantamount to cultural genocide. Here in Canada we do at least make an attempt to encourage our indigenous peoples to retain the old customs but of course there is still much abuse of this system and the debate is far from over. Old tensions still run high as I imagine they do in all countries with ‘first nations’ people – i.e. those who got there first, like the Maoris, the Australian Aborigines, the Canadian Inuit. </p> <p>Of course none of any of this is new – the dominant race has always subjugated the weaker one. Look back a few thousand years in history if you don’t believe me. I bet Attila the Hun for example was a real old sweetie to the tribes he conquered. In Athens and Rome slaves outnumbered ‘citizens’ something like two to one [which obviously begs the question as to why the slaves didn’t just rise up and knock off the opposition? But of course they did from time to time and the roads leading from Rome were lined with the corpses of those who had tried – and failed – to do so]. I know for a fact that Kirk Douglas was there – jutting dimpled chin and all – I saw the movie myself.</p> <p>And what has this to do with July 4th and the Declaration of Independence? Well nothing – but it gives me an excuse to discuss the idiocies of Custer and deplore our treatment of native peoples. I bet they would have liked to celebrate an Independence Day too.</p> <p>* This is all bunk – we don’t know who was the first and who was the last to die at the Little Big Horn, for the simple reason that there were no survivors and the other troops were far enough away that they didn’t even know Custer and his men had been killed until days later. Several Indian scouts did come forward afterwards with various reports to that effect but it is now a reasonable certainty that they had actually left the scene <em>before</em> the fight took place and were just telling the reporters what they wanted to hear. It is also clear that Custer was either breathtakingly arrogant or otherwise terminally stupid. How else can you explain the fact that he ordered Reno with his 120 some odd men to charge across the river to meet a force of more than 1500 enraged Indians while he and his band of 200 or so raced down the hill on the other side. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/04/independence_day~2572613/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>july-4thdeclaration-of-independenceindiansindependence-daynative-peoplescusterhttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/07/04/independence_day~2572613/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/29/title~2542926/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-06-29:/2007/06/29/title~2542926/Fri, 29 Jun 2007 16:20:46 +0200 <p>So what is this fascination with Big Brother – the show that all you Brits are gaga about - if the tabloids can be believed that is? I haven’t actually watched it myself I must admit but I get the general idea that it’s like all those other crap reality shows – people marooned on an island, at the bottom of the sea, on a pirate boat, half-way up Mount Everest, whatever, backbiting and scheming, stabbing each other in the back and generally displaying the very worst of human nature. What is so interesting about that? I can’t see it personally but obviously millions can. Since we in Canada are fed a constant diet of American TV shows we probably get even more purulent programming than you do – for example, shows that put happily bonded couples together on a tropical island with a bunch of ‘beautiful’ people whose only reason for being there is to get off with your significant other and embarrass you mightily while the rest of us take our vicarious pleasure in your distress - a real winner in the most distasteful TV programming of the year contest that one. But of course you have to ask yourself the question – are these shows for <em>real</em> – pun intended? Are the housemates or beach mates or half-way up Kilimanjaro mates as temperamental, greedy, conniving, spoiled, racist, lying, cheating and sexually predatory as they are depicted? Surely not [and don’t call me Shirley] – because if they are then there’s no hope for the human race – on either side of the TV screen. You would have to hope that much cutting and splicing in the editing room is taking place behind the scenes - which leads me to another point. </p> <p>Documentaries are currently in vogue in North America – I don’t know about Europe. Michael Moore has had great success with productions such as ‘<em>Bowling for Columbine</em>' and his latest, '<em>Sicko</em>’ which aims to expose the dark underbelly of the American, ‘Pay up or Die’, Health System. [Strange that – America’s health system being so bad that you can literally die in the street if you can’t afford to pay for insurance and yet they have to run an annual lottery for people seeking asylum/citizenship in the United States. And here I thought that all immigrants were only after the free hand-outs, silly me…]. </p> <p>‘<em>Supersize Me</em>’ has also enjoyed a successful run in main-stream theatres, which is almost unprecedented, given that people don’t normally pay to see anything that does not involve car chases, lots of shootings, gruesome murders or crazy people in hockey masks massacring coeds in dorm rooms. It’s a mystery. All of a sudden ‘reality’ has become fashionable. It must appeal to the ‘peeping tom’ complex in many of us – that nasty little urge to spy behind the curtains, to eavesdrop on the neighbours, to read all about the escapades of Paris Hilton and Britney in the rags, or of course to hound people like Princess Di to death in order to get a good story. </p> <p>Is there something in us that takes pleasure in the pain of others [see previous post: <em>Schadenfreude</em>]? We don’t root for the good guys anymore it seems – we root for the most devious, the meanest, the one with the loudest mouth, all the while pretending to be outraged at their antics. Mind you a good villain – in a fictional creation – is hard to beat. Joachim Phoenix as Commodus for example in the movie ‘Gladiator’ was so brilliantly awful and slimy and downright evil that it was a real tragedy that he didn’t get the Oscar for his work. I thought he was absolutely wonderful! But I’m not talking about fiction I’m talking about reality. And of course is there really anything that is real/truthful in these reality shows or these documentaries at all? All documentaries, like all ‘reality’ shows, must be heavily edited otherwise they would have to run on for about a thousand hours of nothing happening except someone scratching his/her butt or gazing in the mirror. </p> <p>The minute you take the editing splice to the scene you lose the ‘truth’, whatever that might be, and let’s not get into a long and tedious debate on the nature of truth – we’ll leave that for descendants of Descartes. But the truth is – lol – that as soon as you cut the film, I would say that your documentary or reality show or whatever it is, has become fiction [with me so far class?]. Even Nanook of the North, the benchmark documentary studied endlessly in film classes, contained contrived scenes and ‘actors’ made to rehearse their onscreen activities in order to depict a way of life that was not extant at the time; certainly not in 1922 when Flaherty released it. ‘Real’ Eskimos just did not exist anymore, in the sense that they were a totally independent people isolated and immune to the ‘White Man’s’ influence – or the Hudson Bay Company, which is the same thing.</p> <p>These are weighty questions – great for a good ponder when you haven’t got anything better to do. In my opinion the only ‘real’ reality show would be – perhaps, maybe – the unedited footage from a CCTV camera. BUT – even then it would depend where you placed the camera because the very fact that you placed it where you did constitutes editing does it not? Damn – and I thought I was just going to rant about Big Brother. I’ve got to stop listening to those voices in my head. Argument on existentialism anyone? Fee is five bucks and the first one to prove the existence of the other one wins.</p> <p>Joke:</p> <p>Jean-Paul Sartre’s answering machine: “I don’t exist, you don’t exist, there is no beep, do not leave a message”.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/29/title~2542926/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>jean-paul-sartretruthgladiatorrealityjoachim-phoenixbig-brotherhttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/29/title~2542926/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/27/the_young_and_the_breastless~2530454/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-06-27:/2007/06/27/the_young_and_the_breastless~2530454/Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:02:00 +0200 <p>I’m getting a little tired of the young. All I ever see on TV are actors young enough to be my kids - ditto with movies. Well it’s not so much their ages as it is that all of them are slim, toned, and stunningly beautiful with improbably straight white teeth, perky tits and perma-tans. Victoria Beckham comes to mind although *her* tits are most definitely 90% silicon [oops – should insert the word ‘alleged’ there since she’s in the habit of suing people but since I’m skint I doubt that she’ll get much change outta me]. OH COME ON! As Gordon Ramsay might shout – you can’t weigh little more than a half-starved hamster and have *any* tits let alone perfectly round ones that stick up all by themselves. Speaking as someone who has been sadly and unfairly affected by gravity I know!</p> <p>This is why I prefer Brit TV over the American shite that we are served up on a daily basis here. We don’t have shows of our own you see – all Canadian productions, at least on TV, are low-budget affairs which are usually set in fishing villages in BC with a few grizzly bears , an evil logging conglomerate and Ann Heche. The irony of course is that many Hollywood productions are shot in either Vancouver or Toronto and in fact Toronto is known as Hollywood North. We’re cheaper [not to mention cleaner] you see and we have lots of tall buildings that can stand in for the New York Skyline. Staying in downtown Toronto is like visiting the set of Diehard 17 – in fact it probably *is* the set of Diehard 17, complete with car chases, explosions and dare-devil feats involving airplanes [Lester B Pearson International is just around the corner]. We have large tracts of green areas [Central Park], a big lake and an island [Manhattan] and some impressive early colonial architecture complete with Doric columns [New York Public Library, Supreme Court] and even an ivy covered university [Yale and Harvard].</p> <p>But I got sidetracked as usual – what was I talking about again? Oh yes – the Young and the Beautiful [could be a soap opera but I think it’s been done already]. As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself, everyone I see on TV is just too flawless for words. They must breed them in a lab somewhere. I often get the urge to mash muffins in their perfectly made-up non-wrinkled faces, especially just after I’ve been running [walking] on the treadmill of a morning and caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror, bright red face, last night’s make-up that I forgot to take off still smeared all over [bugger that means an image of my face is going be indelibly etched into the pillows again] and hair plastered flat and glistening like some dreadful B-list movie star of the fifties.</p> <p>Now give me Coronation Street over CSI any day. Corrie is about the only show that anyone watches on CBC unless you’re into endless re-runs of Anne of Green Gables that is [I saw her once on stage at Stratford – not the character – the actress, starring in an otherwise magnificent production of Amadeus. She was crap]. Corrie characters are ‘real’ – some of them, in fact many of them, are actually over the age of 25 [gasp] and they have – wait for it – wrinkles, and sagging tits [Deirdre really should wear a bra] even white hair, and in Ken’s case, a paunch. We have our affectionate names for them - Deirdre the Neck, Gale the Turtle, Ken the Boring, Tracey the Slag. Watch the show and you’ll see why. But my point is these characters are portrayed at least as real people – they have warts, they dress badly, their teeth are crooked, they smoke incessantly, and there does not appear to be a Mercedes or a mansion among them. That’s another thing – how come all American TV stars are barely out of their teens but live in vastly spacious apartments in Manhattan, mansions in Malibu, or on ranches with seven hundred acres complete with race horses? Can’t see Vera Duckworth or Jack or Tyrone having to do with any of that, can you?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/27/the_young_and_the_breastless~2530454/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>lester-b-pearsonanne-hechetv-showstorontovictoria-beckhamhollywood-northhttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/27/the_young_and_the_breastless~2530454/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/24/bring_me_your_tired_your_hungry_your_poo~2510313/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-06-24:/2007/06/24/bring_me_your_tired_your_hungry_your_poo~2510313/Sun, 24 Jun 2007 14:37:07 +0200 <p>I migrated to Canada 40 years ago at the end of the sixties when I was fed up with everything but mostly bored and the grass was greener on the other side; thus missing the Beatles revolution, Carnaby Street and Vivien Westwood [pre-Britney] turning up at the Queens’ tea party sans knickers. However, I believe that since then I’ve made my own small contribution to this country. I met my husband here; my kids were born here and have grown up here and although I still have a strong allegiance to England, this is my home.</p> <p>In those early days of immigration the Canadian government provided interest free loans as incentives to would-be settlers and many employers were so desperate for British workers that they would pay the lot on your behalf and even put you up in a hotel to boot with an advance on your wages. Not now mate. Nowadays the Canadian Government views your motives with deep suspicion and puts you through the proverbial wringer – just as I imagine the Brits do to worthy oriental gentlemen who wish to relocate to Wiggan.</p> <p>If you want to embark for Toronto you had better have lots of money in the bank with which to support yourself while you look for that non-existent job because heaven forbid that you should land yourself on our welfare system despite the fact that we have plenty of lazy indigenous yobs hanging about on street corners that already have. No matter that you were an engineer or a doctor in your home country and are fleeing from some repressive regime run by some tin-pot dictator [did someone say Bush?] and are seeking asylum in a country that will welcome your pioneering spirit, your expertise, your value to the economy. Not on your life Charlie. We make fully qualified doctors from Russia or Poland or Uzbekistan sweep floors and work as waiters even though we have a critical shortage of medical personnel and most people of my acquaintance – including myself- have not had a personal family physician for many years. We make do with teaching clinics and ‘walk-in’ urgent care centres unless we’ve been run over by a truck in which case we can take our number at the local emergency room at the hospital and if we’re lucky be seen by a junior intern next Friday.</p> <p>My hairdresser – well she’s not mine she does other people too but I see her once a year or so when I’m feeling flush – was once a chemical engineer in her home country. Her husband ran his own company with a fleet of transports. Now he drives a cab downtown and dreams of the day he can buy another one. Fat chance – it costs more to run a cab than it does to make a profit what with high insurance, maintenance, licensing and plate fees, not to mention gas prices through the roof. But I digress. It’s surprising if you think about it that people such as these two have put themselves through all that aggro and given up professional careers to come to a country that does not value their professional qualifications at all. Things must have been pretty bloody rough for them before don’t you think?</p> <p>I hear that doctors for example – if they want to practice here – must repeat practically *all* of their medical program and write all of the exams again – even if they were highly regarded consultants or surgeons or specialists before. Except that they can’t get into the medical schools because most universities cut enrollment numbers down to zip. God knows why – maybe it adds to the exclusivity of the club? Maybe since the government pays them when they get out they are keeping down the numbers to save money – which seems to be short-term thinking in the extreme because most of them probably bugger off to the States once they figure out they have to work 100 hours per week and move to Nanuctuk. Who knows.</p> <p>It makes no sense at all to me that we are wasting such a pool of talent for no better reason than we arrogantly assume that they must somehow be of a lower caste. It reminds me frankly of all the shouting that I read about in the Brit papers re ‘Asylum Seekers’. My cousin, who still lives in Portsmouth and is actually older than me which is quite some feat bends my ear every time I speak to her about those bloody ‘asylum seekers’ and did I know that the Government gives them a free house, a car and a paid-up cell-phone the minute they step off the boat? Sounds great to me – how do I apply? But it’s this kind of narrow-minded thinking that leads to xenophobia both in Britain and here. Although here it’s less overt – here we welcome asylum seekers with one hand and then just point the way to the unemployment centre with the other. I say again - what an incredible waste of talent.</p> <p>What ever happened to a land that whole-heartedly encouraged immigrants so that they could build the country into what it is today – well the bits that aren’t xenophobic, racist and intolerant that is. Last week there was a ceremony to open ‘Ireland Park’ in Toronto. That was the place where thousands of Irish families landed after fleeing the great Irish Famine of the 1840’s. They braved a horrendous sea voyage, sickness and an overland trek that killed most of them to make a new life for themselves and they practically built the entire city of Toronto from scratch. They worked their bums off to feed their families and carve out a little niche. But the irony is that their arrival was greeted, unsurprisingly, by the current inhabitants with outrage and letters to the papers about loss of jobs, lack of resources, the imminent downfall of civilization as they knew it, and all the old tired cliches about upsetting the status quo. Never mind that these poor exhausted people were literally starving and only wanted to make a place for themselves in a country that was, in terms of land area, more than twenty times the size of their homeland and there was plenty of back-breaking labour and hard work to go round. Talk about the sour milk of human kindness.</p> <p>In those days the Government would allow you a portion of land provided you cleared it yourself and made your humble cabin out of logs you had felled yourself. And you had to be quick about it because if you weren’t the winter would arrive and put paid to you and your plans toot sweet. My husband’s great-great-grandfather came here in 1853, losing his wife along the way to ‘shipboard fever’ which was probably Cholera. In his case he had fled England because he was working as a cobbler and I guess since not many people could afford shoes he was in a negative financial situation and one step – so to speak – from the poorhouse. But he persevered, carved out his little plot of land, cleared the forest, built his barns and his log cabin, grew veggies, kept chickens, made maple sugar and sold enough to buy an ox to pull the plough and all in all prospered through hard-work, bloody-mindedness and determination. He was a pillar of the community. Nowadays we would of course tell would-be migrants like him to sod off back where they came from. We don’t want any hard-working salt of the earth types here! Clear off and tend your own backyard – even if there isn’t one and you’ll probably be shot and/or tortured if you do. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/24/bring_me_your_tired_your_hungry_your_poo~2510313/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>irelandirish-famineimmigrationhealth-carehttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/24/bring_me_your_tired_your_hungry_your_poo~2510313/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/23/vacations_to_go~2505812/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-06-23:/2007/06/23/vacations_to_go~2505812/Sat, 23 Jun 2007 16:23:10 +0200 <p>This morning I’ve been musing about vacations. I don’t know where I’ve been for the past five years or so but is it just me or have the prices on travel suddenly tripled while I wasn’t looking? In Canada here our money is only good for papering the walls or playing Monopoly and buys you nothing very much, especially in other countries – in fact, even our own merchants insist on payment in ‘real dollars’ – which for your information are those tatty American ones that are all the same colour so that if you don’t watch it you can pay for your taxi with a two dollar bill – which can provoke outraged curses in Arabic and fumblings under the seat for the baseball bat. If we should so desire to take our annual hols in Italy or heaven forbid, England, the exchange rate is practically 3 to 1 – and not in our favor; which means that everything is three times the price for the hapless Canadian tourist tootling off to visit Hampton Court or Stonehenge or the Tower. Even a vile McDonald’s hamburger translates to about 20 bucks a Happy Meal but at least you still get the same amount of fat and grease, beef tallow and coronary artery disease that you can here [there should be warning labels on each wrapper, “after imbibing this burger please proceed directly to your cardiologist”]. </p> <p>The situation has improved somewhat in the past year or so after the Blair and Bush comedy team over-ran someone else’s country and found only sand spiders, scorpions and suicide bombers under the rocks – oh yeah, and oil of course, not that that has anything to do with it… What the hell are we doing in Iraq? Or Afghanistan? Can someone explain this to me? Anyway - nowadays the Canadian dollar is almost on a par with the American dollar, which means that the government must take immediate steps to dampen our enthusiasm at finally being able to afford tickets to Disneyworld by raising interest rates, putting out frequent warnings of imminent doom and financial collapse and announcing that since the sky is falling, please bend over and kiss your ass goodbye. Thank you, and have a nice day.</p> <p>I do hear that there are some countries in the world where our money is actually worth more than theirs! New Zealand for example and probably Zimbabwe but I can’t be sure. Of course getting there costs you as much as the national debt but there you are – can’t have everything. </p> <p>I don’t know about you but our family income has not increased very much in the past five years – and as soon as it does go up a bit a sensor down at the income tax department lets out a warning beep and they run over to collect it. They just live for the day when they can dispense with all those untidy forms and costly collectors and just have your employer send over all of your salary by fax. So much more efficient and cuts out the middle-man – you. </p> <p>We were back in Portsmouth for a week a couple of years ago. Fortunately I still have relatives over there that we could land on because we would have been staying in the local seaman’s ‘hostel’ or kipping on the beach if not [not a great prospect in February but then they seldom have seven foot snow-drifts in Portsmouth and temperatures that drop below absolute zero of an evening]. We took a couple of thousand dollars so that we could have a good time or even a pint or two at the Still and West and a pickled onion but it was not to be. Once the bank-teller had got through laughing and dispensing the 500 pounds or so that our money finally translated to we had enough left over to share a bag of chips and a glass of water.</p> <p>Excuse me while I go back to my brochures. Hmm - Spirit Airlines has a deal to Gatwick for only three hundred bucks in July. Oh but wait - taxes are 400 bucks each and that price is only one way plus you have to leave at 3am on a Tuesday from Gander. It’s a right kerfuffle.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/23/vacations_to_go~2505812/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>ganderholidaysvacationtravelincome-taxhttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/23/vacations_to_go~2505812/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/22/film_faves~2500674/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-06-22:/2007/06/22/film_faves~2500674/Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:55:39 +0200 <p>OK class – today let’s talk about movies – sorry, films for the Brits among you. I was watching TV this morning while pounding away on the treadmill – well, strolling along the treadmill – well alright standing on the treadmill - when they started discussing the top ten films of all time. Their list contained the usual suspects – Casablanca [yawn], Citizen Kane [yawn], Gone with the Wind [please!] and the Wizard of Oz [well alright that one was good and it has given me years of pleasure doing my “I’ll get you my pretty and your little dog too! He he he he he he he” impressions].</p> <p>Actually I think we only remember most movies by their ‘catch phrases’ – let’s have a quiz – identify the movie and who said it for a chance to win a cruise around the world or at least a mention in my blog:</p> <p> 1. Hasta la Vista Baby [sounds of gunfire and breaking furniture]<br> 2. Play it again Sam [sounds of clinking glasses]<br> 3. Rosebud [whispered]<br> 4. Stella [ vastly over-acted using loud Noo Yoik accent ]<br> 5. Frankly Scarlet I don’t give a damn [furrowed brow and tons of Brylcream]<br> 6. Do you feel lucky punk? [waving very phallic looking magnum around]<br> 7. Is that an African or a European Swallow? [sounds of coconuts clacking]<br> 8. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a little chianti [sounds of slurping]<br> 9. Have you ever wondered if there was more to life, other than being really, really, ridiculously good looking? [posing]<br> 10. Carpe Diem [for intellectuals]<br> 11. I’m going to Greece. It’s going to be sex for breakfast, sex for lunch and sex for tea. [leaning out the window]</p> <p>I’ve got a million of ‘em. Another interest of mine is art history and it’s surprising how many movies include references either direct or indirect to works of art. The da Vinci Code for example [and *I* thought Tom Hanks was very good despite the critics who said he was crap and had a funny hair-do]. The only mystery with the da Vinci Code as far as I’m concerned was the scene when the curator of the Louvre spent all that time getting naked and then drawing a large square and a circle around his body in his own blood. Since he was in the Louvre already why didn’t he just run over and point at the Vitruvian Man hanging on the wall just down the corridor on the left? If *I* had a gaping gunshot wound in my stomach I wouldn’t exactly be thinking of arranging myself artfully on the floor to demonstrate how erudite I was before passing on to that great museum in the sky. Personally I would be shrieking at the top of my lungs for Le Medics and bugger the Illuminati. But I digress. How many ‘art’ references can you come up with in movies you’ve seen? I’ll start you off – there’s a scene in the movie MASH where the characters momentarily arrange themselves into the tableau from the Last Supper – have you seen that one?</p> <p>If you don’t want to strain your brain with that last one – how about the most famous scenes from movies – the absolute iconic defining moment in a classic film i.e. the shower scene in Psycho and that close-up on Janet’s eye [she said she got eye-strain from doing that without blinking for hours]. What about the panoramic shot of the lone horseman [or maybe it was a camel] coming across the horizon in Lawrence of Arabia? The chariot race in Ben Hur? Moses Parting the Red Sea? The look on Nicolas Cages face when he spies Cher outside the Met in Moonstruck?</p> <p>Well come on come on then – get the old thinking caps on. I’ll be waiting here with the popcorn and the Coke [diet of course].</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/22/film_faves~2500674/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>catch-phrasesmoviesben-hurda-vincimashmosespsychofilmshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/22/film_faves~2500674/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/20/is_there_a_doctor_in_the_house~2488143/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-06-20:/2007/06/20/is_there_a_doctor_in_the_house~2488143/Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:16:15 +0200 <p>Ok now – hands up all those who love going to see the Doctor? All those Hypochondriacs and weirdos among you put your hands down; I’m talking to those who – maybe – might be counted as ‘normal’ in the bunch. Har Har. When you get to my age – ahem - 25 or so, [Who said 125? Sit <em>down</em> you at the back!] – you find that your visits to said doctor increase in both length and frequency and what’s more they tend to keep finding more things wrong with you every time you see them. We all know that doctors live to find exotic diseases in all their patients so that they can write it up in the Lancet or the CMAJ and so become esteemed among their kind but never mind the poor patient who has just been diagnosed with something disgusting and probably fatal ; he or she has now become merely a lab rat on which to practice their arcane and mysterious medical arts.</p> <p>Who is it that invented most of the tests that Doctors visit upon us? My opinion is that it must be some direct descendant of Torquimada – you know the one – the bully boy of the Spanish Inquisition who had lots of fun pulling out finger nails and winding up the rack while cackling fiendishly and flapping his red cloak. Ok I added that last bit just for a bit of colour, no pun intended. I don’t know if he flapped his cloak but I’m willing to bet that he certainly went in for a bit of cackling. Now where was I? Oh yes – Doctors and their fiendish tests.</p> <p>In the middle-ages Doctors had their instruments of torture always ready to hand. They carried their leeches and maggots about in a jar along with pincers and lancets of various sizes and their little suction cups the better to suck the life out of you with. During the Plague Years – and no I’m not talking about Tony Blair – they had several handy dandy remedies to administer to those about to expire. They had oranges stuck with cloves, or little flower posies for you to smell and thus take your mind off your own stinking putrid flesh not to mention your imminent demise. If that didn’t work they sucked large quantities of blood out of you in order to drain off the ‘bad humours’ [I would be in a bad humour too if someone sucked off a couple of quarts out of me wouldn’t you?]. And if that didn’t work they could always bore a few holes in your head. Trepanning has been popular for quite some time it seems. There are Mayan skulls with holes in them as well as ancient Egyptian ones and probably a few Sumerian ones scattered about somewhere in the vicinity of the Red Sea or the outskirts of Baghdad. Or maybe, just maybe, the archeologists are all out to lunch and they are actually holes caused by blowing your ancient brains out with an early prototype of the Lee Enfield – the better to escape the tests with.</p> <p>In ‘modern times’ the medical profession has developed tests and procedures along similar lines. Who dreamed up the “attach the patient’s head to electric wires and shock the shit out of him” protocol I wonder? The logic is that if they run 40,000 volts through your brain things will be reset [no kidding] and you will cease to be depressed – or suicidal – or manic – or possibly schizophrenic. Or perhaps if you weren’t when you went in you will be when you get out, we can’t be sure.</p> <p>Think what it must have been like aboard His Majesty’s Ship Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar for example. As if it’s not bad enough to have several of your bits blown off by incoming cannonballs it was quite possible for you to be carried below to see the <em>Surgeon</em>, an ex-barber who was waiting for you with a lot of very large knives, a leather strap for you to bite on, a bottle of rum and a tub of steaming pitch. No anesthetic in those days you see – you had to just grin and bear it – so to speak. Oh and no sterile procedures either so your chances of survival were somewhere in the vicinity of zip.</p> <p>An entry in Samuel Pepys Diary details how he was finally forced after much pain, discomfort, denial and stalling to go and have an operation ‘for the stone’. He must have been cheered by the fact that surgeons of the time were warned that “In this great and dangerous Operation, life and death doe so wrestle together, that no man can tell which will have the victory” and patients were advised to make their peace with God [and no doubt draw up the Olde Will] forthwith. On the day, in lieu of an anesthetic, or even a bottle of rum, poor Samuel was made to swallow a drink made of liquorice, marshmallow, cinnamon, milk, rosewater and the whites of fifteen eggs, for no discernable reason other than to take his mind off forthcoming events and make him gag. Then they grabbed him, trussed him up like a chicken, tied him to a chair, called upon several strong men to hold him down and came at him with a knife. Shudder – intestinal fortitude must have been at a very large premium in the 17th-century. Personally I would have been seen running down the street screaming.</p> <p>Hmm – in retrospect then perhaps having to suffer the annual proctology exam or having your boobs squished in that awful mammogram machine is not so bad after all. And having things poked in your ear or up your nose or other orifices I shall not mention is obviously a mere doddle in the larger scheme of things. If it comes to a choice of being strapped, fully conscious, to a chair or wafted off into the arms of Morpheus I’ll take the morpheus every time. A large dose please. And if you really must use that big knife on me make sure that I am somewhere far far away before you do it.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/20/is_there_a_doctor_in_the_house~2488143/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>surgeonoperationsvictorysamuel-pepysdoctorshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/20/is_there_a_doctor_in_the_house~2488143/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/19/adam_and_eve_and_all_that~2478120/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-06-19:/2007/06/19/adam_and_eve_and_all_that~2478120/Tue, 19 Jun 2007 01:53:56 +0200 <p>Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a young woman who lived in a garden with her boyfriend Adam. She didn’t have any clothes on but then neither did he. Nobody seemed to notice [mostly because there was no-one else there – she could have been wearing a feather boa and combat boots and it wouldn’t have mattered really] - and anyway it was fine because global warming kept them both snug and toasty and the garden was quite some distance from the North Pole. This was somewhat strange though because Global Warming hadn’t been invented by politicians yet and carbon emissions were mostly absent – never mind, solar perturbations and cosmic rays probably accounted for some if not all of that. . When she was hungry she ate nuts and berries and sometimes apples from one of the many abundant trees that were dotted around the landscape. </p> <p>One day, and much to her dismay, the apple she was about to pick came wrapped in a serpent, a lowly creature who had only recently evolved it seems and didn’t even have legs yet. Well it hadn’t evolved because of course evolution didn’t exist either but that’s beside the point. It didn’t have any arms or fingers either which is why it was wrapped around the apple and couldn’t just hand it to her. Mysteriously it was a talking serpent because it told her to have a munch but not to be greedy because no doubt her boyfriend, who was hanging about nearby kicking stones into the lake, would want some too. So she handed him half the apple and he took a bite after carefully wiping it off on some leaves or some such – whereupon all Hell broke loose! God appeared in a fiery cloud in a tremendous hissy fit - so angry that he could very well have smote the pair of them there and then but he thought better of it and just chucked them out of the garden instead, never to sully the doorstep again. So Adam and Eve were cast out into the wilderness for munching on an apple – a rather harsh sentence if you think about it. Rather like putting people in jail for life for embezzling money or driving on a suspended license. God obviously was having a bit of an off day that day. </p> <p>So there they were – naked and shamed, out in the wilderness with the vultures and the scorpions. What else was there to do then than start off the human race by producing Cain and Abel? The bible is somewhat mute on the topic of how the rest of us got here because so far as I know two blokes can’t produce offspring and then there’s the uncomfortable consideration that they were brothers and mum was the only female around. Hmm – let’s not go too far up that road.</p> <p>And so religion was born, or the early beginnings of it anyway because it was quite some time – and nobody seems to know quite how much time, before a few prophets like Noah or Jesus of Nazareth came on the scene and started gathering followers. Jesus was quite some lad. His mum was a virgin – or at least that’s what she told dad – he could walk on water and he was a dab hand at converting water into wine – which made him much sought after at weddings on a budget. He could feed five thousand people with just a couple of loaves of bread and a few sardines and could even raise people from the dead if he felt so inclined. When he died, after losing a dispute with the local constabulary, and being ratted out by the local Pharisees, he rose from the dead himself and popped round to see his disciples for a quick chat before ascending to heaven in a blaze of glory.</p> <p>Strangely enough the ancient Greeks had a hero figure that was very much like Adam except that his name was Apollo – they even looked something alike according to the artists of the day. I never could understand BTW how come both Adam and Eve are always shown with navels? Anything strike you as odd about that? But I digress, as usual. The God figure that visited that garden bore more than a passing resemblance to Zeus – long curly beard and all – not to mention all the trappings such as bolts of lightning and fiery clouds. Later on He – or maybe it was his mate the Holy Ghost – had congress with a descendent of Eve and produced Jesus.</p> <p>Now then, ‘coincidentally’ the Hero of ancient mythology was a son born of a divine father and a mortal mother and furthermore he was subsequently charged with undergoing certain trials and tribulations before coming to a sticky end for his troubles. Hercules for example, spent his time doing things like cleaning out stables, fighting huge bad tempered boars, strangling giant snakes with his bare hands, killing his family in drunken rages and setting himself on fire after being poisoned unwittingly by wifey. Quite an interesting autobiography he could have written don’t you think? Or even an ancient blog.</p> <p>Jesus was said to be the SON of God – not much of a stretch from the SUN of God of many ancient religions – Sol Invictus for example, or Helios, or Baldur who in Norse legend was the God of Light [so was Lucifer but we won’t talk about him]. In ancient Egypt there was Ra and then Amun. Referring to Jesus the King James Bible says: [ John 1:9] 'That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world'.</p> <p>Many cultures embrace the cult of the ‘sun-hero’ who is connected to the ‘demiurge’ or creator and who in turn is the saviour of the world – one who brings about a new world order or a new beginning. Ringing any bells here?</p> <p>But my point is – and you just knew there was one in here somewhere if you stuck with it long enough – that the beginnings of the Christian religion bear a remarkable resemblance if not a direct retelling of Greek Mythology not to mention snippets and echoes of many others - gasp. In fact, there are so many ‘cross-references’ you might say [too many to detail at length here but you can email me for a list] as to make one believe that they might just – if you squint your eyes and hold your breath, cross your fingers and hope to die – be actually one and the same thing! Perish the thought – what will us unbelievers come up with next… </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/19/adam_and_eve_and_all_that~2478120/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>adam-and-evegarden-of-edensol-invictussun-godsserpentsreligionhttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/19/adam_and_eve_and_all_that~2478120/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/11/a_hot_topic~2434594/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-06-11:/2007/06/11/a_hot_topic~2434594/Mon, 11 Jun 2007 18:59:50 +0200 <p>Last week Al Gore rolled into town – closely followed by Arnold who was out to deter Canadians from consuming more than their fair share of non-renewable fossil fuels and urging them to do their bit to save the environment. No matter that he arrived in his king-sized Hummer that gets 2 miles to the gallon and has to be refueled every five minutes by a tanker truck hired especially for the purpose. Well alright I don’t know if he actually showed up in his Hummer but I know he’s got one – or maybe four - stashed away someplace on one of his vast estates in California that he uses to escort Maria to her Pilates class or maybe it’s McDonalds – which is doubtful considering she could give Nicole Richie a run for her money in the ‘skinniest person still breathing’ stakes. </p> <p>Al Gore – oh yes I was talking about him wasn’t I. He was here in Canada to publicize his film and book ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, <a href="http://www.climatecrisis.net/thescience/,">http://www.climatecrisis.net/thescience/,</a> an opinion piece about Global Warming and other politically timely environmental issues. I say “Opinion Piece” because in my humble view Global Warming is an unproven theory at best. We cannot know for sure if ‘carbon emissions’ for example, will affect our planet catastrophically unless we carefully consider all of the evidence, both pro and con; and despite the fact that a great deal of preliminary research exists the consensus is that we don’t really know all that much about it at all. Does that surprise you? The fact of the matter is that there has simply not been enough time, or money, to study every aspect of things from every angle. There are those for example who say that carbon emissions may have nothing much to do with anything and cyclical solar activity could just as well be the culprit as any other. Furthermore, as far as we can tell from the geological record the Earth as a dynamic system has gone through many periods of both warming and cooling, not to mention pole reversals, and rather than warming up in the near future we may very well be in for an extended period of cooling down before the end of this century. Those nomadic beasts that are moving up north because they’re too hot will more than likely be moving to Barbados within 20 years because they’re getting too cold.</p> <p>Climatologists admit that they still know very little about climate change either but they do say that increased hurricane activity over a period of a few years for instance is no reason to state that hurricanes are increasing in frequency and severity over the long term. And there is no hard evidence that Global Warming is to blame – if it even exists. There is some evidence out there, dismissed no doubt by Al’s camp, that indicates that the Antarctic is actually cooling by a fraction of a degree every year. The Vikings called Greenland GREENLAND because it was green - at the time. And another thing – Mars is also going through a warming trend right now because its polar ice-caps are seen to be melting. How do you explain that then Al, when as far as we know, there are no factories or 747’s, or even Hummers on Mars.</p> <p>There was a very interesting series of articles published by the Financial Post last April <a href="http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=22003a0d-37cc-4399-8bcc-39cd20bed2f6&k=0">http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=22003a0d-37cc-4399-8bcc-39cd20bed2f6&k=0</a> which spotlighted the debate between the ‘Deniers’, those who believe that Global Warming is a figment of Al’s imagination, and the, let’s call them, ‘The Embracers’, those who believe that the Earth is on an imminent course to disaster and that little red LED machine in the sky has started flashing ‘Self destruct in Four Minutes’. The Deniers believe that the debate is far from being settled and that much more research is required before we push the panic button. They make a compelling argument.</p> <p>This is what concerns me about activists such as Al Gore – we are being force-fed his views without adequate study to back them up. If the evidence was all in I would say that we should whole-heartedly and unreservedly embrace his message. But it appears that the evidence is NOT all in, and it worries me that this sort of propaganda is being promoted as gospel within our schools and children are being made to swallow this information whole because it sounds plausible – and admittedly it does. But that doesn’t make it right – or true. I may be a cynic but something smacks to me of big business and profit here. There is a bad odor somewhere. I have the feeling that there is a whiff of a financial motive at the very bottom of this – if it is not manifest in increased sales of ‘environmentally friendly’ products and services, it certainly garners lots of free publicity, and is at the very least a great vote getter. And I’m not saying that we should continue to pollute our planet and poison the seas. Obviously it only makes sense to be environmentally conscious but that’s another matter entirely. I disagree with being beaten over the head with only half a stick and I have a sneaking suspicion that once we all blow ourselves to Kingdom Come in some half-baked argument over religion, politics, territory, oil or whether or not Paris is hotter than Britney, the old Earth will just keep rolling around the sun as always, heating, cooling and ticking like a clock – with or without us. The dinos found that out the hard way.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/11/a_hot_topic~2434594/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>global-warmingweatherarnoldal-gorehttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/11/a_hot_topic~2434594/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/09/schadenfreude~2422121/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-06-09:/2007/06/09/schadenfreude~2422121/Sat, 09 Jun 2007 14:04:57 +0200 <p> Have you ever heard of Schadenfreude? No? Then you’re obviously not a Boston Legal fan – but I digress. Schadenfreude is the unpleasant delight that some of us humans take in the sufferings of others. Hitler, I’m sure, would have been a major proponent but then of course he never got the chance to watch much telly – not when he was busy with other things like invading Poland and murdering Jews. After all, being a house painter must get pretty boring after a while and you would be almost forced to take up another hobby before you went postal. Thankfully however most house-painters of my acquaintance don’t go in much for genocide – the odd paint-roller melee perhaps but no genocide.</p> <p>I was reminded of Schadenfreude this week by the Paris Hilton rolling sideshow that has been taking place in all the papers. Just in case you’ve been living under a rock in Siberia this past week or so let me recap. Paris has been a naughty little rich girl and has been caught driving with a suspended license once too often to the exasperation of the local courts and has thus invoked the full weight of the Californian legal system. A system let me remind you that recently let drunken racist scumbag Mel ‘Sugartits’ Gibson off with a stern warning and a get out of jail free card so that he could release sado-masochistic movies like Apocalypto upon the unsuspecting world. He should most definitely have been slung in jail for that, never mind being drunk and disorderly and driving the wrong way up the freeway. Ditto his racist scumbag compatriot Michael Richards, who was lovable bumbling Kramer in Seinfeld and is now unlovable shunned ex-Kramer no doubt standing in a dole queue someplace far far away if we’re lucky.</p> <p>But I was talking about Paris. She was released from jail after only three days for undisclosed ‘medical reasons’ and then was unceremoniously ordered back by a judge who was not amused – at all. She broke a nail perhaps or her hair extensions fell out, we may never know. That being said though shouldn’t we have even a modicum of sympathy for her? She is not a hardened criminal, has never murdered anyone to my knowledge and does not peddle drugs or her body on the streets – well, in mags and home videos yes, but not the streets. Is it fair that she should be incarcerated, in solitary confinement, in a jail that evidently houses hardened criminals and pond scum and bears more resemblance to the ‘Big House’ than a disciplinary institution more suited perhaps to punishing people like Paris who violated her probation? Yes I know she had been caught driving again in defiance of her probation order which was meted out in the first place because she was caught drunk at the wheel. But she had not injured anyone and you would have expected the court to have removed her license for an extra term – a year or two perhaps – and slapped a largish fine on her. In many countries the penalties for drunk driving escalate according to the number of convictions which is only right and proper for those with blatant disregard for the law and the reckless endangerment of others. But Paris had not been caught driving drunk again – she drove on a suspended license. Now that was very naughty of her, not to mention, some would say, arrogant and typically air-headed of her. But if we imprisoned every stupid person in the world we wouldn’t need jails we would need an entire continent to house them all. Believe me; I’ve met most of them driving up highway 7.</p> <p>However, I take no delight in seeing Paris dragged screaming back to jail – if Martha Stewart could be sent to an ‘open prison’ then why not Paris? And let’s face it – if people like OJ Simpson can get away literally with murder why should Martha or Paris be there in the first place? Do we wish to make an example of them just because they are rich and famous and we’re not? Is there perhaps a teensy tiny bit of jealousy at work here? But Justice should be blind should it not? Take away her civil liberties perhaps – her right to vote, her right to be famous for nothing more than being famous. But there are lots of people guilty of that – Britney Spears comes to mind. And what about that silly bitch Lindsay Lohan? Throw her in jail too?</p> <p>Incarcerating someone like Paris, or any of us normally law-abiding citizens for that matter in a cold bare cell for 23 hours out of 24 with nothing but a scratchy blanket and no iPod is cruel and unusual punishment. Come on now – haven’t all of us transgressed the law at some time in our lives? Fess up now. Haven’t we ever been guilty of some infraction even if it’s lying to the tax man and inflating our resumes and wouldn’t we be guilty of even more if we thought we could get away with it? And what about the military – if you become a soldier does that give you the right to behave like an animal once society’s sanctions are removed? We can read about it for ourselves in the papers – and don’t think it’s some other country’s military and not ours – think about Guantanamo Bay for just one example. And don’t get me started on the legality of lying to the voters and invading someone else’s country for nothing more than profit and gain – not to mention oil.</p> <p>Taking delight in the misery of others is Schadenfreude and howling for the blood of people like Paris seems unseemly, sadistic and cruel to my mind. If you disagree then that’s your right of course, but just consider this – it’s a short step from laughing as someone else falls into ruin and despair to tripping over that step yourself. The quality of mercy and all that…. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/09/schadenfreude~2422121/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>schadenfreudenewslindsay-lohanbritney-spearsparis-hiltonmercyhttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/09/schadenfreude~2422121/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/07/ancient_greek~2411169/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-06-07:/2007/06/07/ancient_greek~2411169/Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:57:09 +0200 <p>Ancient Greeks used to resolve disputes by a process of what was called ‘Dialectic’ – which meant you strolled around the Agora in your toga – oops sorry, that was the Romans and they did it in the Senate. No – ancient Greeks strolled about wearing Chitons [a sort of draped and folded double sheet affair cinched with a Zoster] and not much else and sought to out-argue each other. Ideally one proposition or thesis would be contrasted with another until a sort of middle ground or synthesis was reached. The one with the best argument won something like the closing speeches of lawyers on Boston Legal. In actuality, although the records are sparse on this point, there was probably a lot of pushing and shoving and biting of thumbs, especially when that argumentative sod Socrates insisted on answering every question with another question and driving everyone mad until one was forced to put the ancient boot in while calling for the Hemlock. </p> <p>But if it worked in theory if not necessarily in practice it would be a great way to head off wars before they got the chance to grow into global conflicts involving massive armies and WPD’s wouldn’t it? Can you imagine? There might be some hope for our species after all. Leaders of opposing factions could sit down together and undertake a process of logical argument until the one with the best grasp of rhetoric won. That would be a political debate on steroids – one that might actually accomplish something other than allowing for a lot of grandiose posturing, general insults and vote gathering. Sounds all very civilized to me, rather like those Chinese emperors who – apparently - sat down and decided the fate of the known world over the chess board. “Check-Mate mate” “Oh alright then, you can have all of Outer Mongolia and I’ll have the bit on this side of the wall.”</p> <p>Shakespeare said ‘First let’s get rid of all the lawyers” or perhaps he meant Paris Hilton, can’t be sure - and I would also suggest that we include on that list all generals, armies, long-range missiles, religious leaders, fanatics of any kind and George Bush. I think the world would be a better place without any of them and perhaps we could get back to essentials like trying to get along, saving the whales, repairing the ozone layer and feeding the homeless. Perhaps we could mind our own backyards instead of slavering over yours.</p> <p>At the very least we could declare all weapons of modern warfare totally off limits and if you really must fight you have to agree to nothing more lethal than a wrestling match down at the local arena on a Saturday night where we can all watch it on the big screen. Think of it – too bad they topped Saddam already because we could have a tag team match – Blair and Bush v Saddam and Osama – winner gets a years supply of Middle-Eastern Oil and a Toyota Prius and loser is banished to an island off the coast of French Guiana with all the rest of the shit-disturbers. Either that or you have to fight Ancient Greek style – meaning you go up against Osama naked armed with nothing but your little round shield, your sword, pike and armored breast plate. I suppose there must have been a gentleman’s agreement not to strike below the belt so to speak since you were only wearing your shin guards down there – bit dicey, not to mention drafty if you ask me, but there you are, I’m sure the Ancient Greeks knew best and “You there, Jones in the back row – stop tittering boy – and come and see me after lights out – I mean prayers – you little weed.”</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/07/ancient_greek~2411169/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>warancient-greecesocratesdialecticagorachesshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/06/07/ancient_greek~2411169/#commentshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/05/31/if_music_be_the_food_of_love_play_on~2367655/tag:thysbe.blog.co.uk,2007-05-31:/2007/05/31/if_music_be_the_food_of_love_play_on~2367655/Thu, 31 May 2007 15:13:10 +0200 <p>What kind of music do you like? Me – I’m sort of non-denominational when it comes to music although there are certain genres that I hate more than others. Rap for example is complete crap, not to mention a total rip. Every ‘song’ sounds the same and every singer sounds the same. Thinks - maybe there is only one song and one singer. Come to think of it since they all dress the same they may very well be the same person - Milly Vanilli probably. Just about anyone could be a rapper I should think. After all, it’s not necessary to have a good voice you just have to wear your baseball cap on sideways and pants that fall around your knees and a size ‘Jumbo’ baseball shirt and use lots of unnecessary expletives while thumbing your crotch. Oh and bling. Bling is essential. If you haven’t got a cross the size of the Titanic’s boat anchor around your neck you are not a rapper – simple as that. You don’t have to be black, although it helps, but you can always have pretty black dancers wearing shorts that would fit Barbie [or possibly Nicole Ritchie] waving their boobs and bums around behind you – and of course setting the Women’s Movement back a few hundred years. This is no doubt a subtle device to distract the audience from the fact that you can’t sing, you can’t dance and what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. Oh sorry – some would say it’s actually <em>social commentary</em>, all about growing up dirt poor and black in the Ghetto and a mum who holds down six jobs and a sister who is a Ho. Well that might be true for some – very few – rappers but it’s certainly not for people like P. Diddy or Puff Daddy or Diddy Puff or whatever he’s calling himself now [he changes his name more often than Prince]. You know the one. He has his own clothing line – just like everyone else in the music biz it seems. Gwen Steffani has LAMB, Diddy has – SEAN JEAN, Madonna has something or other – can’t remember now, possibly 'SLAPPER' – and Paris Hilton designs sparkly little doggy collars for her sparkly little doggies – or perhaps her boyfriends, it’s hard to be sure.</p> <p>Another genre of music that I hate is country. Oi! Whining nasal voices and fiddles and big hair - probably Stetsons, and cowboy boots so pointed that they can only fit people with one toe. Lyrics about losing your wife to your best friend and running over your dog and being thrown in the gutter – very uplifting stuff. However if things get too rough, or you get too drunk, you can always invite Jesus to Take the Wheel. Did you know by the way that if you play a country CD backwards the wife comes home, the boyfriend takes off in his Ford Bronco and the dog is still sitting on the porch barking at the moon. </p> <p>Dolly Parton – now there’s a country singer with talent who writes and sings her own music but sadly has become a caricature of herself in recent years. She lost so much weight – although mysteriously her boobs appeared to get bigger – that she now looks like a toothpick with eyes wearing way too much makeup and a wig. I saw her recently on some awards show – she was wearing a skin-tight white coat and tails outfit that made her look like the MC at the circus, her face was stretched and gaunt almost like that woman, Helen Gurley Brown, who herself looks like she has recently been mummified alive in some horrible experiment gone terribly wrong. Either that or someone stole her painting out of the attic and now we get to see the *real* thing. But I was talking about Dolly. Now come on girl – there comes a time in every woman’s life when you have to fess up to your age and dress appropriately. Boobs and rhinestones might have been de rigueur 40 years ago but you are past it woman! And so is Joan Collins who must be 80 by now if she’s a day. Sorry love – but mutton dressed as lamb doesn’t even *begin* to describe it. It’s like something from a Steven King novel.</p> <p>Music that I *do* like is mellow and haunting, or bluesy or rock and rollsy or operatic, or classical. A bit of Mozart in the mornings goes a long way to setting up the day wouldn’t you agree? When I was a teenager in Portsmouth we used to get visiting ‘off-West-End’ plays and concerts that could be attended for a fraction of the price demanded by the big theatres in London. Hence I was able to attend a memorable concert given by Sir John Barbirolli and the Halle Orchestra performing the Firebird Suite one week and Conway Twitty the next [what do you mean you’ve never heard of Conway Twitty? You’ll be telling me next that you’ve never heard of Cliff Richards and The Shadows]. I did miss the Beatles though by migrating to Canada to avoid the rain and getting seven foot snowdrifts instead. Mind you they did play once in Toronto as they passed through to more lucrative venues in the States. I missed them that time too. Bugger!</p> <p>Good thing for me that many of the old 60’s groups are still alive and kicking – albeit a little less vigorously than before. Most of the survivors are in their 60’s now – baby-boomers like most of us. Groups like the Stones and the Who are still touring although the band members are dwindling. Many of them are sadly no longer with us because some of them subscribed to the belief that to be a ‘rocker’ you had to live fast and die young, preferably on the toilet. Someone should do a study. Elvis, Janice, Hendrix, Johnny Rotten. Mind you some were a little more creative – Keith Moon fell in a drug induced stupor into his swimming pool never to reemerge - not breathing anyway. Michael Hutchins of INXS died most embarrassingly hanging naked from a door jam in his hotel, rather like that MP a few years back who was discovered dead on the kitchen table wearing black suspenders and a garter belt with an orange in his mouth and a rubber garotte around his neck. Hmm. Note to self – don’t commit suicide or play kinky sex games in compromising positions where the cleaning lady will come in and find you. It’s hard for the family to explain to reporters from the News of the World just *what* you were doing with that gag and that orange – and they would definitely have to throw away the table before the next dinner party.</p> <p>Ah well – back to work. Let’s dial up some Clapton and J. J. Cale on the old iPod and get down to some serious tub-thumping. Fluffy no talents like Britney Spears and Hilary Duff will be gone in a year but Clapton will be here forever [unless he suddenly decides to go swimming in the pond at midnight with a pound or two of illegal substances stuffed up his nose that is] </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/05/31/if_music_be_the_food_of_love_play_on~2367655/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>jjcalehendrixmusicrock-and-rolljohnny-rottenmozartclaptonblueshttp://thysbe.blog.co.uk/2007/05/31/if_music_be_the_food_of_love_play_on~2367655/#comments