…well, perhaps not quite yet. But Spiegel carries an English-language article about an unlikely event: a Sex Industry convention held in Singapore… As ever, Dr. Judy gives good quotes…
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Two Down…
…three to go? The inimitable Steve Bell puts out his take on the latest Bush rumour. Meanwhile, al-Jazeera staff have started a blog to plead Bush not to bomb them.Leave a comment
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Today’s Anniversary…
…is that today (25th November) is designated the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.And if you think that that’s another pointless checkmark in the touchy-feely box, then just ponder on the fact that the World Health Organisation said yesterday that one in six women worldwide suffers domestic violence. Sometimes I find it difficult to like my species…(hat tip to Anna over at Sepia Mutiny for reminding me)Leave a comment
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The State of British Comedy
Programme schedules for Thursday nights on BBC TV now bring three half-hour comedy programmes back-to-back. There’s a joke somewhere in there about London buses…Last night I sat down to watch all three, curious to see whether I’d last the course, and also curious to see how alike, or different, they would be to each other.First up was Little Britain. I have to say, this was the first time I’d ever watched it all the way through, although obviously I’d seen snippets elsewhere and heard the catchphrases: "Yeah but, no but, yeah but…", "I’m the only gay in this village". At the end of it, I wondered why Little Britain is so wildly popular. Thin (catchphrases do not, by themselves, good comedy make), misogynist and racist were the typical words running through my head. I found it profoundly unfunny. I thought it must be me, but I see I’m not the only one. Little Britain seems to be often compared (favourably) with The League of Gentlemen. There’s no contest, as far as I’m concerned; the LoG was furious, dark, unsettling, and it had great writing to power it along.The next bus to come along was The Worst Week of My Life. I liked this much better. It feels curiously old-fashioned – a comedy of errors with more than a whiff of a Brian Rix farce. The actors are good and the material is not at all bad. I laughed.But the best was the last: Sensitive Skin. A jewel of a bittersweet comedy over on BBC2. It is obviously considered a minority interest, because it doesn’t have its own web site on the BBC web pages. A fine pair of actors (Joanna Lumley, Denis Lawson) and including masterful performances last night from David Warner and Jonathan Miller. Superb.Update: Vindicated. It’s apparently not just me; Nick over at The Sharpener also thinks that Sensitive Skin deserves more recognition than it’s getting.Leave a comment
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Boris Puts His Neck On The Line
Boris Johnson looks like a buffoon. Sometimes he behaves like one. But not always.The news story – that Bush wanted to bomb the al-Jezeera news station in Qatar – is still rumbling on. It wasn’t helped by the appearance of Frank Gaffney on Newsnight the day the story broke. As CuriousHamster reports, Gaffney said two things: a) the allegations weren’t proven and b) al-Jazeera probably should be bombed by the US government. Way to go, Frank. Mind you, even though he’s the president of the Center for Security Policy, he does seem to have a habit of saying some pretty ridiculous things.Leave a comment
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The Mating of Leopard Slugs
Well, it looks as though David Attenborough – that grand old institution of nature films – has done it again. Last night the first episode of his new series – Life in the Undergrowth – was aired on BBC TV. I sat in front of it with mouth open and eyebrows raised for most of the time at the beauty and diversity of life on spaceship Earth.And nowhere more so than at the sequence of the mating of Leopard Slugs. The BBC has put a shortened (they’ve cut out the foreplay!) video clip of it up at the programme’s web site here. It’s pretty low quality (I never did think much of Real Networks technology), so you’ll miss a lot from the original. Nonetheless, something of the beauty and strangeness of this hermaphroditic mating comes across.Leave a comment
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Fun With Coprolites
I’ve come across some weird games in my time, but this one is not only passing strange, but strangely educational.7 responses to “Fun With Coprolites”
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Geoff, you have WAY too much free time to be finding these things.But I’m glad you do cos they entertain me!!!Keep blogging!Kate
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Hi, Kate – welcome on board! I like your choice of online name as well. Cheers, Geoff.
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Oh, and about having too much free time on my hands – this (http://www.flickr.com/photos/73337715@N00/ ) is what I would call having too much free time on one’s hands… 🙂
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How on earth did you find that?!Wait, wait, I don’t think I want to know…
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Ooh, I’ve got plenty more where that came from. How about this: http://www.lesliehall.com/8-sweaters.html Have a good weekend!
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… It’s the gold lamé stretch pants that I think are the really classy note, doncha think?
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I’m now just scared.And blinded.
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So Dip Me In Chocolate…
…and throw me to the lesbians…My favourite line from Jerry Springer – The Opera. It’s now out on DVD, and I’ve just been watching it yet again. It’s humanity – good and bad – writ large in operatic tones (as wot true opera should be about, anyway). The sight of God singing It ain’t easy being me, billions of voices making all the wrong choices, and then turning around and blaming me… is so uplifting, and right…Brilliant production, brilliantly performed. Forget the swearing, this is a psalm to being alive and treating each other better than what we do.Leave a comment
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The World According to Leo Blair
The art of the polemic is not dead – or, as yet, illegal. Warning, may be slow to load, but stick with it.(hat tip to CuriousHamster)Leave a comment
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Bush On Wheels
It’s a pity he hasn’t been honing his morals at the same time. Those might have had a better effect on the rest of the world.Leave a comment
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Chihuly At Kew
Dale Chihuly is an artist working with glass. I’ve seen his chandelier in the V&A museum in London and been duly impressed. I’d like to be able to wander around Kew Gardens at the moment to be able to see his current exhibition there. The interplay of natural organic forms and Chihuly’s versions in glass looks really stunning. Check out the video as well.One question that nags me though, how on earth do you keep this stuff clean?(hat tip to Ophelia over at Butterflies AndWheels)Update: Lots of photos over at Flickr…2 responses to “Chihuly At Kew”
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great links very interesting
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Thanks, Karen. BTW, I’ve tracked down another location for Rare Exports Inc. on iFilm: http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2483629?htv=12&htv=12
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Was Bush Joking?
This is an extraordinary story, if true. And I hope that if it is true, then Bush was making a crass joke. The alternative – that he was being perfectly serious – is almost too horrifying to contemplate.Leave a comment
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Microsoft Opens Up Office
Interesting to read that Microsoft has announced that it will be submitting the XML formats of Office to the standardisation body of Ecma International together with other companies.Even more interesting to read that the companies include BP and Statoil. I am a bit disappointed that Shell was not in the list.Leave a comment
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The Battle Of Poznan
Even in the EU, not all countries support equal rights for gay people. Witness this report from Poland.Leave a comment
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More Executions
Two more gay men have apparently been publicly executed in Iran for the ‘crime’ of being gay. As I’ve said before, I have a lot to be thankful for about the accident of my birthplace.Leave a comment
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Talk To The Hand
A rather good interview in the New York Times. It’s by Deborah Solomon, who interviews Lynne Truss, the author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, and now Talk To The Hand. I get the feeling that Ms Solomon didn’t quite know what to make of Ms. Truss; the feeling was probably mutual. The interview also contains an extraordinary anecdote about Michael Cunningham, and I don’t know quite what to make of that.Leave a comment
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At Swim, Two Boys
We went to the local theatre last night. We had tickets to see "At Swim, Two Boys" – a dance work produced by Earthfall, in collaboration with Jamie O’Neill, who wrote the book of the same name. The book is huge and complex. It is set around the time of the Easter Uprising in Ireland (1916), and concerns the love emerging between two teenage boys, while reflecting that through the society, and in particular the character of Anthony MacMurrough, who is a less than disinterested observer.With such a scope, it was inevitable that the dance piece had to cleave to the central image of the book – two boys meeting on the shore and swimming – and ditch practically all of the rest. With just two dancers, how could it be otherwise. The Uprising was hinted at through the use of film, and formed the mainspring of the dance’s climax.The staging was very well done – there was real water, and plenty of it. We were in the front row, and got sprayed a number of times by the dancers. Music was provided by two musicians who created a sound palette worthy of an orchestra.This was not classical dance – this was grittily physical, acrobatic choreography, in the style of DV8. I enjoyed it, although it was less to Martin’s taste.The subject matter seemed to have attracted the attention of the local gay male population as well, I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite so many gay male couples sitting in an audience in Gouda before…After the performance, we got chatting to the director of the theatre (Martin knows her quite well, since he has had a number of performances of his ballet school held in the theatre). She invited us into the main auditorium of the theatre where the Nederlands Dans Theater were just about to perform their final piece in their programme: Chapeau. This was much more to Martin’s taste – a witty ballet celebrating Queen Beatrix’s well-known love of hats. I enjoyed it as well, the choreographer Jiri Kilian has produced a sugar and spice bonbon fit for a queen (and queens).2 responses to “At Swim, Two Boys”
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Okay, I’ll bite. How does a ballet become "witty"? I ask quite seriuosly and in total ignorance, having never actually been to a ballet. (Opera, yes. Plays, yes. Dances, no.) I understood ballet to be largely instrumental accompaniment to dance – how is wit conveyed?
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Hmm, OK, here’s my attempt at replying… First, let’s define the word. Thus: wit is defined as e.g. (a) "a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter" or (b) "Wit is a form of intellectual humour based on manipulation of concepts, a wit is someone who excels in witty remarks".OK, Kilian’s choreography is, in effect a message (you must have heard the expression "the language of dance"?) and Chapeau is an ingeniously-choreographed ballet, stuffed full of incongruity (both the men and the women are wearing flouncy gold dresses, for a start). Kilian’s skill as a choreographer allowed him to construct a series of dance statements that were both pleasing to the eye, ingenious and incongruous – with the result that Chapeau was judged by the audience to be a witty ballet, and Kilian is a wit.. How’s that?Really, though, the best way to appreciate it is to see it. I feel that I’m trying to describe colour to a blind man…I see that Matthew Bourne’s version of "The Nutcracker" is available on DVD from Amazon in the US. You could do worse than buying or renting that. Bourne is another choreographer who is capable of wit, and it’s displayed to great effect in his version of the ballet.
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Has the World Gone Mad?
It must have, if Baileys is truly the best-selling liqueur in the world.Leave a comment
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Christmas Is Coming…
So here’s a gift idea for you. Tasteful, doncha think? I’m sure, as the blurb says, that it would be a conversation starter at any gathering – as in "who let that loon in here?" or "I wouldn’t be seen dead wearing a man like that".(hat tip – in more ways than one – to Twisty Faster)Leave a comment
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OLPC
That stands for One Laptop Per Child – a project aimed at providing a cheap and robust laptop to children in developing countries. It’s aimed at bridging the so-called Digital Divide.It’s certainly an ambitious project, and has caught the attention of both the UN and the geeks. And while I’m certainly not decrying the value of education alongside solving other problems like disease and hunger, I’m not convinced that this device will turn out to be the best solution. The phrase "cheap and robust" sounds too much like an oxymoron when applied to computers. Even when it’s "expensive and robust" it’s often the same – witness Apple’s problems with its iPOD Nano – they couldn’t make that robust, and it’s not even a proper computer, just a playback toy.Lee Felsenstein dissects the OLPC in greater depth, and the prognosis is not good.Leave a comment
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