What? Can this be true?

The Weasel has found a new habitat. He has tired of things ephemeral for the moment and has returned to his favourite woodland bower.

The curious among you may visit him at From The Wild Wood.

Whilst there you may discover the secret of the fairies and how one day, long ago, someone took this photo and turned a fairy to stone.....

Groundhog Day?

This incessant, daily crap weather makes it look that way. All I need now is to wake up every morning to Sonny and Cher.

Bad Hair Day?

You are lucky. My hairdresser has injured her arm and has a back log of clients.

You see, my hair always looks like it's a syrup* when i dont get it cut and that is worse than looking like a poofter, which also does not help


*(americans...cockney rhyming slang for wig -syrup of fig - irish - irish jig.).

Caught!

 

Please have a look at my other blog!!

IT's HERE!!!! and its called From the Wild Wood.

Guest Contributor - CAPTAIN NICE

Hello fwiends, Captain Nice here. Now, I know that some of you would wather it was that all wound wotter, Colonel Mustard doing this, but he is away being perfectly howwid to somebody.

Anyway, here are my answers.

I AM: a Superhewo with a slight speech impediment
I WANT: world peace and harmony and most of the things in the American Declaration of Independence, especially,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

I HATE: having to clean my super suit.
I MISS: my Gwan and her funny smell
I FEAR: not having a girlfwiend at the moment
I HEAR: Angels singing - smack in the middle of May. I go around like there's snow around...
I WONDER: what you are.
I REGRET: my pwesent choice of superpowers e.g. the ability to identify cwisp flavours whilst wearing a blindfold. Gweat at parties, but wubbish in the fight against all things not nice.
I AM NOT: Gay, but will fight for the wight of people to be so.
I DANCE: don't have the time!
I SING: the body electric, The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them.
I SEE: for miles (one of my better super powers and not the wesult of too many dwugs)
I CRY: never cwy.
I AM NOT ALWAYS: able to make myself understood
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: tectonic plates
I WRITE: to heal the world of things that are not nice
I CONFUSE: people called, "Fwank" and compliments with mild pity.
I NEED: parity with Superman and Batman
I SHOULD: go soon and wescue a distwessed Liberal Democwat.
I START: with a big heart and kind words
I FINISH:..Yours sincerely, CAPTAIN NICE

I suppose i have to do this....

I AM: a woodland creature
I WANT: A ride-on garden tractor
I HATE: culturally sanctioned violence like Boxing.
I MISS: certan smells, like old car smells and diesel engines. I miss R&J.
I FEAR: nothing...no, no, I mean the concept of "nothing"
I HEAR: Max, the cockerel and the hum of the computer.
I WONDER: how forgiving God really is.
I REGRET: very little, except maybe not having matching ears, and sometimes running away from problems.
I AM NOT: interested in sport or available for weddings or barmitzvahs
I DANCE: when no one is looking, just like a dancing dad.
I SING: all the time, pretending to be Louis Armstrong
I SEE: trees of green, red roses too..
I CRY: at stupid soppy films and over lost love.
I AM NOT ALWAYS: keen on seeing people or shaving.
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: intricate clockwork dildos with rubber tentacles to sell at farmers' markets.
I WRITE: because of the voices...
I CONFUSE: most people, most of the time, especially sales assistants.
I NEED: A holiday and some 20mm gravel for the garden
I SHOULD: be very wealthy and have lots of adoring, intelligent, brunettes wanting my body. And I should have published my book by now and finished the ironing pile.
I START: sorry. Mrs Weasel says, "don't start anything"
I FINISH:..nothing satisfactorily

Next week's movie quote....

 












 It is the most shattering experience of a young man's life when he
     awakes and quite reasonably says to himself: 
    I will never play The Dane. 
   When that moment comes, ones
    ambition ceases. Don't you agree?

Yes, Monty.  I am in total agreement

This week's movie quote...

And before anybody suggests it, no, it is not a Hell's Angels version of Brokeback Mountain.

All that Jazz

I was brought up in a jazz Club. When President Kennedy was shot, my Dad was playing clarinet. Like all the smoke, the music got into my skin. I never saw the big names, just the regular jazzers who came to our gig: Alex Welsh, Wild Bill Davidson, Max Collie, Ken Colyer, Ruby Braff, Terry Lightfoot, Alan Elsdon, and a host of others whose names are lost to me. I have one recording of the era, a CD of Ken Colyer at the club. I think I am very fortunate to have a slice of audio, from the 1972, of a bit of my history.

These days I am less into "Trad" and more into the music of Artie Shaw, Miles Davis or Dizzy Gillespie.

Guest Contributor - COLONEL MOUTARDE

Hello Bottom Feeders! What Crapulous dick feed this blog is. Weasel needs a good slap if you ask me.

Notice the French theme? That's because I cannot help laughing out loud about those crunchy frogs who are now deeper in the merde than our own M Blair. As if Jacques Chirac has not got enought problems when his presidential immunity runs out, it now transpires that himself and his mate, Dominique de Villepin, has been a bit careless with the French Security Services when it comes to getting a bit of dirt on the opposition.

As we know the French spooks are not averse to shafting people they don't like, or even blowing them up.

Of course it will all blow over amid more backhanders, corrupt local officials and "friendly" media sources. Apparently, the key witness in the affair is now refusing to speak. I love the French sense of Justice. ....J'Accuse!!!! (clever bastards will get the ironic nuance in that expression)

And Paris stinks of piss and beggars.

your best mate, COLONEL MUSTARD

Phony Tony in Iraq

I notice Tone has gone to Iraq to avoid all the embarrasment at home. The BBC have covered it of course.

Mr Blair said this was a "new beginning" which would allow Iraqis to "take charge of their own destiny".

Well, I have decided to resurrect my old hero, Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf, aka the erstwhile Iraqi Information Minister. to help the cause.

MSS thinks it is a lot of fuss over nothing.

"In fact Saddam is still in charge as you can see by his daily court appearences on television. In fact, the infidel Tony Blair has been captured and is now in Iraq awaiting the justice of our great leader"

Oh I wish.

New Chickens by Jon Cox

Jon has kindly made me a chicken for my flock.

He does all sorts of art works and has his own site at:

Art is life, life is art.

check it out.

Ah well, some of us just know when something is right

Yes, The Weasel's favourite pick for Eurovision won and I cannot let this opportunity go by without reminding all my dear readers. Well done Lordi!!!!!

We will draw a veil over Las Ketchup who were erm, bloody awful, and apologies for missing the surprise loony entry, "We are winners of Eurovision" by the plucky Lithuanians.

Our very own Daz (Gawd what a name) came 19th, with his backing band of "schoolgirls". I mean, it was not very clever was it - if you want women in pigtails dressed as schoolgirls there is the internet for that sort of thing. Perv or what? And very naff.

Well it is over for another year. See you all in Helsinki.

Ruritania's Entry for Eurovision Song Contest

Stop Press!!!!! A late entry into the Eurovision Song Contest. Ruritania's Ludmilla Bathory has provided us with the quintessential Euro Song,

SAVE ALL THE LITTLE CHILDREN AND ORPHANED FLUFFY KITTENS.

( All proceeds to Elastoplast)

The World is very hard
And sometimes not so nice
The iron grip of indifference
holds me like a vice
but when I see a kitten
or a crying child
I drown my sorrows down the pub
with a pint of Mild

SOrry - I cannot go on - I am choked with emotion.

Less than 48 hours to Eurovision

And the Weasel's favourites are:

1. Finland - Lordi - Rock and Roll Hallelujah
2. Denmark - Sidsel Ben Semanne - Twist of Love
3. Espana - Las Ketchup - Bloody Mary

Are you not wetting your pants with excitement? I am.

Cities I like

Helsinki and Venice.

Helsinki because of the quiet, modest people and the very lack of snobbery and class structure. It beautiful, for a city.
Venice. It is like being in a movie - not sure if that's Don't Look Now, or Death in Venice or what, but it is far more than you can imagine.

Never know quite what to say in those awkward moments?

My physical type cannot be classified by science, my `familiar' is a triceratops, I feed it dipshits! For I speak only the GOD DAMN Truth, and never in my days have I spoken other than! For my every utterance is a lie, including this very one you hear! I'm fuel-injected, I'll live forever and remember it afterwards!

Have hours of fun with the random brag generator at

Sub Genius Brag Generator

Only three more days to EUROVISION

Go Lordi, Go!

Skegness

Skegness

Occasionally I get nostalgic, not very often, but I get wistful about the places I went in my young days. Now, Skegness is nothing really to get nostalgic about. It has always been perfectly horrid. But therein lies its charm; Judges go to a dominatrix for a spanking, movie stars go shop-lifting, other people vote Lib Dem, others slake their masochistic thirst with trips down memory lane to places where frankly, you were always glad to get out of. I visited a few years back and it had not changed in the 50 or so years I have been aware of it.

Yes, there is a Lap Dancing Club, but that is only a bit of natural evolution from the strange "What the Butler Saw" machines that my Dad held me up to the viewfinder to watch, on Skegness Pier.

These machines contained pictures from the 1920's, or earlier, and might have revealed a bosom or two, that's all. I never figured out why my dad was so keen to help me along the pathway of knowledge in this particular way. Skegness is what it always has been; tat and more tat with rock and fish and chips. You may not know of course, that the surrounding coastline is one of the most breathtaking, some would say, bracing, in the country. You pays yer money, you takes yer choice.

And yes, the beaches within a few hundred yard of the town centre can be that empty, since most holiday makers cannot drag themselves away from the slot machines and chip shops. Mind you, they do a rather yummy fresh hot doughnut...

try this sometime

http://www.25peeps.com/r/1067

Eurovision

Eurovision! I have been a fan for years, probably too long - I can almost remember Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson doing "Sing Little Birdie".This year is going to be dominated by the Scandinavians - no real surprise there - and above all those Norse Monsters from Finland, Lordi.

They are a band for whom the phrase "over the top" somehow fails to capture their massive presence.They wear very elaborate make up and costumes and play heavy metal rock, refusing to appear out of character or revealing their true identities, which probably means they are all Lutheran Pastors from Finnmark.The Clue to this enigma, remember you heard it here first, is in the song title which is called Hard Rock Hallelujah

You can hear the song on their great website: http://www.lordi.org/

The neodialectic paradigm of consensus and the cultural paradigm of narrative

1. Fellini and the cultural paradigm of narrative

2. Discourses of economy

3. Predeconstructive discourse and the capitalist paradigm of reality

4. Expressions of stasis

For a pdf file of this essay, please email me.

A quiz

You gotta do this one. So. What is the connection between John Peel, late, great Radio DJ and all round giant, and Darth Vader, asthmatic bad guy? Believe me, there is one and it involves the actor who is revealed as DV and JP's Mum. Answer will follow eventually but why not have a try at getting it yourselves?

This Week's PANTS OF DESTINY AWARD

So, you ask. What exactly is the PANTS OF DESTINY AWARD?

It's a prediction - the Weasel's prediction of something that is crap about the way our society is going.

In this case, Classical CDs at major record stores.

I took a look recently in Borders (who have a deal with Amazon) and HMV for a Classical CD. Neither had it, and neither did Amazon.

You see, classical music is now a niche, niche market. If you want James Blunt, you can get the fucker anywhere. But Sibelius? Not a lot.

It looks as if the major stores are winding down their classical sections. In fact, they have ceased to be truly classical at all, instead preferring those putrid "cross over" recordings and the likes of "Il Divo" and Hayley Westernrarse. For a Grumpy Old Man, like me, it is the end of civilisation.

Sooner or later, you won't seen classical cds in the shops. You will have to go to a specialist. Bum!

And as the pants of destiny creep up the bum of time, we say, "goodbye" to classical cds in record stores.

More about the Weasel. Trafalgar - 1805 and all that

The Weasel's ancestors were all very nautical. His grandfather and great-grandfather died at sea, the former by a mine and the latter in a storm.

There exists a fully restored vessel, commissioned by another Weasel, in one of our maritime museums.

At least two direct ancestors of the Weasel served on ships at the battle of Trafalgar; Spencer Weasel, rated AB, on the Achilles and John Weasel, ranked Private, Marine on the Bellerophon. I don't know what became of them - they were ordinary men doing their jobs. We do know however that the Bellerophon took heavy casualties, among them the Captain, who, like Nelson, died with dignity and bravery.

I cannot imagine what it was like, but you get a very good idea in Patrick O'Brian's fictionalised accounts of life in the Wooden World at the time of Nelson.

I sometimes wonder about how I got to be here, where I am. Like anybody else, I am the result of a thousand mundane decisions like, "should I travel on the tube today" or "Should I call in sick and not go to work at the World Trade Centre" How do I know for certain that, if it were not for a stray musket ball, I might not be here?

Freddie Gage speaks exclusively to the Weasel

WW: So Freddie, how did the idea for the album come about?
FG: Funnily enough, i got the idea from Charlie Manson. He suggested "Helter Skelter" for the title, seeing as it is his favourite Beatles track, especially when played backwards.
WW:Played backwards?
FG: Yeah. If you play Helter Skelter backwards a crazy voice tells you to kill people!
WW: So, would I be right in thinking "All my friends are Dead" is autobiographical?
FG Too darn right its auto bio.. whatever you said. All my friends are dead 'cos I strangled 'em, and you know, they just whinged and whined while I did it. A bunch o' chickens if you ask me, gasping fer mercy as the ligature tightened around their miserable necks.
WW: Freddie, I don't like the "Chicken" analogy. You know, actual chickens are not cowardly at all. They just have a realistic sense of Health and Safety Issues.
FG: Oh. Sorry.
(The interview ended there when the warder came to take Freddie back to his cell.)

All my Friends are Dead is soon to be reissued as a remastered Fatboy Slim remix CD, with bonus tracks of his victims screaming in terror. All proceeds from the sale of the album will go to the Radclyffe Hall section of the Offa's Dyke restoration project.

Louis "The Nose" Spigolosa - Master Detective!

The dining-room was hung with black and looked out on a strangely metamorphosed garden, the walks being strewn with charcoal, the little basin in the middle of the lawn bordered with a rim of black basalt and filled with ink; and the ordinary shrubs superseded by cypresses and pines. The dinner itself was served on a black cloth, decorated with baskets of violets and scabiosae and illuminated by candelabra in which tall tapers flared.

While a concealed orchestra played funeral marches, the guests were waited on by naked negresses wearing shoes and stockings of cloth of silver besprinkled with tears.

The viands were served on black-bordered plates, - turtle soup, Russian black bread, ripe olives from Turkey, caviar, mule steaks, Frankfurt smoked sausages, game dished up in sauces coloured to resemble liquorice water and boot-blacking, truffles in jelly, chocolate-tinted creams, puddings, nectarines, fruit preserves, mulberries and cherries. The wines were drunk from dark-tinted glasses, - wines of the Limagne and Roussillon vintages, wines of Tenedos, the Val de Penas and Oporto. After the coffee and walnuts came other unusual beverages, kwas, porter and stout.

Just then a welcoming attendant said (rather belatedly I thought), "Have you been to a Harvester Restaurant before?"

Crazy things I did number3 - Shared a remote farmhouse with a homosexual

It did not work out. That is all you need to know.

Crazy things I did number2 - met Thatcher

Well actually, she met me. I was in a corridor, somewhere, and she looked over to me, and walked over. Mrs Margaret Thatcher, asking me questions.

We started chatting. I can't remember much about the conversation because situations like that are so surreal you tend to spend the moment in mild hallucinatory panic.

I also winked at Norma Major, and she did not take kindly to that.

This item contains a picture of me because I could not bring myself to put a pic of Mrs T on my blog.

I really do not make these up.

Crazy things I did

Bumped into Jane Russell in Ronnie Scott's one evening. Literally. She does have an enormous bosom and it nearly poked my eye out.

You think I make these up?

At the time, I apologised, but she was not impressed.

Noggin the Nog

"In the lands of the North, where the Black Rocks stand guard against the cold sea, in the dark night that is very long the Men of the Northlands sit by their great log fires and they tell a tale..."

Thus began the saga of Noggin and his folk. A charming and wonderful set of stories about Norse types.
for more info, go here

I attended a lecture by Oliver Postgate, co-creator of Noggin, (and the Clangers, Bagpuss, Captain Pugwash, etc etc.), shortly before he died.
About one hundred grown ups squeezed into the small room, and sat, in hushed silence, at the feet of this true-life Dumbledor, this weaver of dreams, his hypnotic voice transporting us all once more to childhood.

Rubovia

Welcome to the little world of Rubovia. You see, it really exists - according to its creator/god Gordon Murray:

The time is the present. It's just that Rubovians are out of touch. Everything in their blissful country stopped at gas and steam. They love clockwork, and spring-driven gramophones, and things worked with bellows and bits of string. They've no telephones either. You see, they've never heard of electricity. That's why they're so happy

A magical world where time has stood still for centuries. Where the Royal Family are eccentric and out of touch, but charming.

Never heard of Rubovia? Go here and find out!!!!

Album of the Week - Songs for Swingin' Lovers

The songs on Frank Sinatra's Songs for Swingin' Lovers are so imprinted on our brains that you can almost be not conscious of them. The album was released 50 years ago this year and is as sparkling, as swinging and as vital as the day it was pressed.

I well remember it from my dad's record collection, and how it regularly got plays on the turntable. What else is there to be said about Frank's phrasing, his seemingly effortless and seemless affinity with the material, Nelson Riddle's tight, punchy arrangements and the sheer effervessence that comes out like a cork from a champagne bottle and never goes flat.

It's impossible to pick out individual tracks. This is an album that does five gold stars from beginning to end. Gets my ars longa vita brevis award for classic status

Nepotist of the Week - Admiral Byng

The Hon John Byng, Admiral of the Blue, according to the Newgate Calendar was, Shot to death on board the Monarque, at Spithead, for Misbehaviour before the French Fleet in the Mediterranean.

Poor bloke had too much of an easy ride in his career with His Majesty's Navy. He was well connected (his father was an enobled Admiral), but not enough to save him from the political intrigues of the time. He was made a scapegoat, some say to draw attention from the chaotic state of the Admiralty and sentenced to death for "failing to engage the enemy" at Minorca. He took his punishment well, we are told.

Spring Has Unwrapped Her Flowers

You should be able to get a Wenceslas pizza - Deep Pan, Crisp and Even. He was a victim of sibling disharmony. His mother didn't like him either - she was a granny murderer. His dad died when he was 13. How can you stay good after all that? He died young, as befits the good, at the hand of his wicked brother.

Meanwhile in England, Athelstan ruled, more or less over the whole land. His main achievement seemed to be to keep the Welsh on the right side of Offa's Dyke. Athelstan, being quite good himself, though eshewing the epithet good for the sake of brevity, took care of another nice guy, Hakon the Good, who later became king of Norway. Hakon, of course, dies heroically, and his imminent arrival in Valhalla is recorded:-

Then Skogul said, `My coal-black steed,
Home to the gods I now must speed,
To their green home, to tell the tiding
That Hakon's self is thither riding.

This outbreak of Niceness and Goodness towards the end of the first millenium deserves further research.

Maybe, we are due another one.

The song, "Good King Wenceslas" is based on a 13th Century tune called Tempus Adest Floridum or Spring has unrapped her flowers. Thank you for reading this far.

other blogs - Guest Contributor - COLONEL MUSTARD

I went exploring out there to see what other people do on their blogs. It's depressing. They moan and moan and moan. They talk about getting drunk the night before. They moan about their jobs or how highly paid or not they are. They particularly moan when they live in London because, for some reason, London is the centre of the universe.

Well London stinks of piss and is full of beggars. Its overpriced restaurants serve shite to the credulous overpaid wannabees who live there. In London you live in a crap suburb, in a flat that costs more than a small county and you still think it is cool that your phone rings all the time, since it proves you have friends.

Your idea of a good time is that you cannot remember what you did the night before. Just as well your memory fails you, because last night was just as joyless and synthetic as they all are.

Ersatz

ARSEOLES,
COLONEL MUSTARD