As I’ve said before, families come in all shapes and sizes. Here’s Layla Kumari writing about her plans to marry Gian and raise a family. What makes their part of life’s tapestry a little more technicolour than most is that she is lesbian and Hindu, and he is a gay Sikh. Good luck to them both, I wish them well.
Year: 2007
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A Bit of Excitement
Yesterday evening there was hardly any wind and it was quiet. I was woken from a post-prandial snooze by a roar. It turned out to be the flames of a hot-air balloon coming in for a landing.
They had a nice evening for it…
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Autumn’s Arriving
I can’t help but notice a definite chill in the air when I walk the dog in the morning…
Kai’s noticing it as well…
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Another Country
Jean Kazez worries about those around her. I’m glad I don’t live where she does. -
Clear As Mud
Jesus wishes that Mo would say what he means. -
Steve Ditko
Jonathon Ross has an article in today’s Guardian talking about his passion for the work of comic-book artist Steve Ditko. It’s also by way of an introduction to a programme that Ross has made on Ditko that will be broadcast on BBC Four this coming Sunday.I remember the name Steve Ditko from my youth. I bought comics starting in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and, like Ross, adored the style of Ditko’s art. It’s funny, but I don’t recall specifically buying any Spider-Man comics (the work for which Ditko is most famous). I may well have grown out of comics by that time. I think I must have been avidly consuming comics such as Strange Tales and Amazing Adventures. -
Luscious Libraries
This verges on book pornography for me. I long to be present in these libraries. The only ones that I’ve managed to visit are the Boston and UC Berkley libraries. I see that the Netherlands has a couple of candidates – those I have to see. But, oh, isn’t the library in Rio simply to die for? -
Dennis Potter
Dennis Potter was (IMHO) Britain’s greatest TV playwright. A short extract from his last interview, with Melvyn Bragg, recorded in March 1994 is available here. I have a recording of the complete interview, which always moves me to tears of both joy and sadness. Potter remained impish to the end, and the sight of him swigging morphine from his hip flask while explaining the elaborate joke that he was to play on the TV companies with his final broadcast work always makes me smile. A great human being.Update: here’s another extract from an interview with Potter – this time conducted by Alan Yentob. Not as good as with Bragg, but by god, the force that was Dennis Potter still shines through. -
People’s Lives
A night on Earth. Lovely. We make of life what we can. -
The Utility of Mice
This year we have what seems to be getting close to a plague of field-mice. Working in the garden is accompanied by a flurry of brown or black bodies fleeing for the nether regions.They are also discovering the attractions of staying indoors. I’ve found unmistakable evidence of mice in the kitchen – droppings in the drawers. OK, it’s now down to placing the traps in strategic spots. So far, the score in the kitchen is one down – an unknown number left to go. The battle continues…The victims (from the kitchen and the attic) have thus far been placed in the compost container. PZ Myers draws my attention to the fact that the tiny bodies may have other uses… -
Six Degrees…
And here’s another visit to the world of six degrees of separation again. Although this time it’s even more macabre than the last time. This time, I have to report than I am two degrees separated from the serial killer Dennis Neilsen. A good friend of mine knew Nielsen in, shall we say, the biblical sense. Thankfully, he survived to tell the tale. Others did not. -
Alien Eels
Carl Zimmer, over at The Loom, has a fascinating post about the double sets of jaws possessed by Moray eels. It turns out that Nature got there long before H. R. Giger dreamed up the double jaws for the monster in Alien. -
Apostasy
Here’s an English-language article (from The Times) about today’s launch in The Netherlands of the committee of ex-Muslims. Good luck to them. The Volkskrant today carries a perhaps-less-than-helpful political cartoon showing Ehsan Jami, the leader of the committee, caught in the tentacles of an octopus. One tentacle, behind him, holds a cudgel spiked with nails, which it is raising to strike at Jami.One thing that irritates me about the Times article is that it repeats the canard that links the assasination of Pim Fortuyn with Muslim extremists. Can we please put this to rest? He was murdered by a white, Dutch, non-muslim, animal rights activist…Update: Ophelia also picks up on some of the odd language of the article that I had missed… I’m getting lax in my old age. -
Baked Alaska
That’s the title of a rather depressing blog entry from Carl Safina about a recent trip to the Artic to observe the impact of climate change on both wildlife and human communities there.It’s definitely worth reading, but I did feel a twinge on reading Safina’s (to my mind) somewhat glib summary:As scientists, we have scientific authority. But for moral authority, people look to religious leaders. Scientists develop information about how the world is changing. Religions formulate responses to the changing world.It’s probably true that people look to religious leaders. It’s just a pity that, to my mind, they often have little to say beyond their own dogma. -
A What?
This brought a smile. Clearly there are some young males out there who think this way, but this music video takes the guillotine of humour to cut them down to size.(hat tip to Justin over at Chicken Yoghurt) -
The Fascism Delusion
A peek into a parallel universe. A rather good piece of ironical satire. Godwin’s Law does not apply in this case. -
One Drone Less
While one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, I fear I come perilously close to that after reading this hilarious obituary of what seems to have been a rather unpleasant man. -
Articulation
There’s an interesting article published on the Radio Netherlands web site today. It’s an interview with Farish Noor. He’s clearly an example of a Muslim who embodies nuanced thinking about his religion, and rightly warns against an over-simplistic interpretation of the Koran as evidenced by much of the media, and the Dutch right-wing parties in particular.All the same, I couldn’t help but be slightly taken aback by one thing in the article:Labour party member Ehsan Jami established a committee of ex-Muslims in order to support the right of Muslims to leave Islam. What do you think of his initiative?"If someone decides to leave his religion, then this is his fundamental freedom of choice and the Labour party should support it of course. But the party has to be careful not to give the impression that it only supports apostates. I wanted to meet Ehsan Jami, but unfortunately he could not make it. If there is one thing I would like to tell him it is that he should be very careful not to be used by the right wing by implying that the only good Muslim is an ex-Muslim. He should not forget that progressive Muslims like myself and many others have been fighting since a long time for the freedom of Muslims to leave Islam. And we paid the price for it. A friend of mine had his house bombed. I have lived with death threats for 10 years. People have come to my house to kill me. When people like Jami start to distort the debate in this manner, it may put back our effort 30 years."Erm, who is distorting the debate here? -
Real Fakes
You may have already seen the "Haiti UFO" video. Posted on YouTube a month ago, it’s already been seen by millions, and purports to show a real flying saucer.Of course, it’s a fake.The maker of the video has now followed it up with another "proof" video, this time purporting to show that the flying saucer is a small radio-controlled model being flown by a little old lady. The joke is that in both cases the flying saucer is not real – it’s a computer-generated model. As the article in the eSkeptic magazine says: we’re now definitely at the point where seamlessly photorealistic fake UFO footage can be made on an ordinary home computer, quickly and easily, using only a few hundred bucks worth of software.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 