(As you will see, I wrote this some time ago. Well it is time to have another go. Bare with me.)
No body is reading this, or if they are they are just effing lurking. Thanks to two or three obvious exceptions who bothered to leave a comment. It makes you feel you are not talking to yourself.
Anyway. I put a lot of effort into this blog and frankly, I think it has served its spurious purpose, which is a sort of way of avoiding proper writing, and exploring ways of expression which is what I am supposed to be doing.
It does not take a moment to leave a comment on someone's blog, however bland or fatuous. It shows appreciation. You who lurk and go should be ashamed of yourselves.
Well I am done. I am not inviting comments, nor do I expect a raft of people pleading with me to carry on. In any event, I have turned off the comment facility since the last thing I want is that kind of attention.
There are something like 250 articles in the archives. They have all been created, considered and painted by me. They are me. Or a part of me. I invite you to look and enjoy.
Thank you and goodbye.
Wrinkled Weasel
Looking through MARGARET GILMOUR'S Eyes
WW has given me this opportunity to tell you about my week. Well, it's been another week of standing outside New Scotland Yard next to that silly revolving sign. I am told that if I wait long enough, Sir Ian Blair might come out and say hello, and then, if I can see his shadow it means there will be another week of bad Metropolitan Police Stories. (Or am I getting it all mixed up with Groundhog Day when the same thing repeats itself over and over again?). Well, it's getting late. I have to go home and tonight I've got a stuffed pepper meal for one from Tesco Metro to pop in the microwave, and perhaps I might put my feet up and have a nice glass of Orvieto. Then i might read a book and have a bit of a cry. Love Margaret.
Guest Contributor - CAPTAIN NICE
Hello, Captain Nice here, as usual, cawwying on the fight against all things not quite nice. I am delighted to tell wegular weaders that I have started to compile a list of the top nicest people, just in case you are at the BAFTA’s or the IVY or the Gwoucho Club one night and you are wonderwing who to go over and shake hands with. Of course, you could say “hello” to people not on the list but then wun the wisk of incurwing chagwin and wancour.
1. Bob Holness. (Inspired by (I hope I can call him my fwiend) Asterwisk)
2. Sir Cliff Wichard. (Well, he had to be on didn’t he?)
3. Sir Twevor McDonald
4. Wolf Hawwis
5. Wowan Williams the AB of C (or indeed anyone with excessively bushy eyebrows)
6. Shirley Henderson
7. Edith Bowman
8. Michael Martin (Speaker of the H of C)
9. John Malkovich
10. Shami Chakwabarti (Diwector of
Well, folks, there must be a lot more nice people out there apart from yourselves, of course, so let me know if you want your own favourwite on the list.
With the kindest wegards, your friend,
CAPTAIN NICE
We're chickens having fun
Here are some of my chickens in one of their favourite places - the old coal hole! The coal hole looks unhospitable and is dark and a bit dingy but it is a favourite with the chickens, so I relented, cleaned it up a bit and put a perch in it.
During the day they have acres of land to roam on from rough grass to my best efforts at a lawn. (And the flower beds, the gits) At night they retire to Chicken Central, a palatial split level residence with integral nest (which rarely gets used - we go egg hunting these days).
See them scratching around, having dust baths, chasing moths, and having fun. They come to my back door most mornings and ask for food. Sandra will come in and eat from my hand. They have a passion for bananas and rice and peas (a very big treat)
I look at them and cannot imagine that a chicken can be comfortable in a cage where it cannot turn around or indeed in a barn where it is overcrowded and unable to go about its natural business without being pecked. Chickens need room to retreat like most animals. Pack them in and the bickering gets worse than Big Brother.
This is a plea from the Weasel to consider that next time you buy chicken to eat (which I do but I don't eat chickens I know) please go for free range. Please encourage the money people to follow the money and favour farmers who treat chickens like living creatures and not like a product. Please. Thank you. And now back to the callathump.
GUEST CONTRIBUTOR - Colonel Mustard
Hello me! Meet the real me! Like the music Weaz, you old fag hag! Just thought I would breeze in and tell you how daft you are for liking little fluffy chickens. I bet you even eat ethically. Well it's all a load of Birkenstocks to me. I like my eggs from a proper factory with no shit on them and in plenty of plastic packaging so that the stinky shelf fillers can't touch em.
Football! Oh don't start me on football. The smell! The unwashed abroad. The terminal disappointment, tempered by cheap beer and German prozzies who are all septuagenarian trannies with big hands and chapped lips. No wonder Wayne Rooney looked upset.
And now I hear that Top of the Pops is finally admitting that it's dead. It was never the same after Pan's People started having babies and wearing sensible knickers. (Nothing to do with me) Gnarls Barkley is a computer programme generated by two students in Manchester. God I love QVC, but I am in ecstasy about Price Drop TV. How can they do those prices?
WWJD?
Question. Would Jesus have been surprised if the disciples had clubbed together and bought him a new pair of sandals - or would he have discerned this charitable act in advance?
Would he, therefore, have said, "oh yes, sandals. Of course I had foreknowledge of this" - or - would he have been genuinly surprised, or, would he have had foreknowledge but feigned surprise just to be nice?
Now I have to go. It gives me a migraine headache, just thinking down to your level, and anway I feel inclined to cause mayhem and confusion at Lidl by putting "bogofs" on all the personal hygiene products.
your best mate
COLONEL MUSTARD
making plans for Nigel
Little Nigel (or could it be Nigella) is now 12 days old and going strong. He spent last night with his adoptive mum and his natural mum (Buffy and Alice) and is just full of life.
I enjoy the occasional 18 year old
Living north of the border you sort of have to have at least a couple of single malts on the go. It helps you cope with the shite weather.
At the moment I have a Bowmore 12 year-old, and an 18 year-old Caol Ila, (pron. cowell eela) a more subtle, but still peaty Islay. We are lucky enough to live near a distillery, the Glenkinchie, also one of my favourites and quite popular with our visitors too!
It is best sampled in the far north. When you experience a dreach highland day and you look out at the mist shrouded glens, a glass of single malt somehow is just the right thing, as if the atmosphere around you has infused the glass of whisky with its calling card.
Hate Crimes
We have been hearing a lot recently about sex crimes. We have also been hearing calls for the perpetrators of these crimes to be variously, castrated, hanged, kept in prison forever, executed, etc, etc. This is just not rational, it is born out of hatred. They have become an impersonal totem of evil and we can now dance maniacally at the foot of the totem without let or hindrance – or consideration of the facts. It is all too convenient.
Let me now turn to hate crimes. Recently two men were jailed for the murder of Jody Dobrowski. They kicked him to death because he was homosexual. I cannot think of a mainstream world view, interpretive community or belief system that could declare this to be an acceptable act. If there is such a thing as evil, this murder is a paradigm of it. I believe that Jody Dobrowski was a focus of hatred. It was wrong.
Also recently, we have seen the emergence of racial hatred from within our own Union; the assaults, by Scots, upon wearers of “England” shirts. The victims this time were a seven year old boy and a disabled man.
Its easy to forget, but we certainly should not forget, that a young black man, Anthony Walker was beaten to death with a baseball bat in another racist attack.
In the murky world of illegal drug gangs two young girls were tortured, raped and shot. Mary-Ann Leneghan died. One defendant at the trial was reported as saying that there was an atmosphere of evil in the room that night.
And now a question for you. To which of the above do you think the Judge, in passing sentence, applied these words:
The crime of which you have been convicted is so bad that one has to put stern restraint upon one's self to prevent one's self from describing, in language which I would rather not use, the sentiments which must rise to every person who has heard the details…People who can do these things must be dead to all sense of shame, and one cannot hope to produce any effect upon them. It is the worst case I have ever tried
I shall, under such circumstances, be expected to pass the severest sentence that the law allows. In my judgment it is totally inadequate for such a case as this.
A trick question I am afraid. It is the judge in the second Oscar Wilde trial which took place over 100 years ago. His crime? – “Gross Indecency” with a male prostitute. For this crime, Wilde lost everything – his home, his family (he was denied access to his children and never saw them again) and his desire to create. Prison broke him. That is all it did. It did not stop him from being homosexual. (It is worth recalling that today, Mark Oaten MP was found to be doing exactly the same thing, but is now to all intents and purposes, rehabilitated in the eyes of the general public, or at least the BBC.)
But this article is not about homosexuality, it is about hate. The same people who hounded Wilde to death, who destroyed his life and who cheered at the verdict – they are no different to those who today want a blanket moratorium on mercy for sex offenders.
I am not talking here about murderers, rapists and torturers who prey on young boys and girls. I want to make that plain. They deserve the full weight of the law. But consider the situation of someone who may have had a fumbled sexual encounter with a fourteen year-old boy and is now in prison for longer than a murderer. Would it, I wonder, be ok for a few of us to get together and kick the shit out of him when he gets out of jail? Will you join in? I hope not.
In condemning such an individual, in screaming for castration and torture (which some are) are we not guilty of the same sort of hatred and lack of humanity that killed the victims I cited?
Neither you nor I can allow our souls to be degraded by allowing our own less attractive instincts to find a convenient scapegoat, whether it is those of other races, sexes, attitudes or whatever the latest media kicking post is.
We can do better than that.
Let me now turn to hate crimes. Recently two men were jailed for the murder of Jody Dobrowski. They kicked him to death because he was homosexual. I cannot think of a mainstream world view, interpretive community or belief system that could declare this to be an acceptable act. If there is such a thing as evil, this murder is a paradigm of it. I believe that Jody Dobrowski was a focus of hatred. It was wrong.
Also recently, we have seen the emergence of racial hatred from within our own Union; the assaults, by Scots, upon wearers of “England” shirts. The victims this time were a seven year old boy and a disabled man.
Its easy to forget, but we certainly should not forget, that a young black man, Anthony Walker was beaten to death with a baseball bat in another racist attack.
In the murky world of illegal drug gangs two young girls were tortured, raped and shot. Mary-Ann Leneghan died. One defendant at the trial was reported as saying that there was an atmosphere of evil in the room that night.
And now a question for you. To which of the above do you think the Judge, in passing sentence, applied these words:
The crime of which you have been convicted is so bad that one has to put stern restraint upon one's self to prevent one's self from describing, in language which I would rather not use, the sentiments which must rise to every person who has heard the details…People who can do these things must be dead to all sense of shame, and one cannot hope to produce any effect upon them. It is the worst case I have ever tried
I shall, under such circumstances, be expected to pass the severest sentence that the law allows. In my judgment it is totally inadequate for such a case as this.
A trick question I am afraid. It is the judge in the second Oscar Wilde trial which took place over 100 years ago. His crime? – “Gross Indecency” with a male prostitute. For this crime, Wilde lost everything – his home, his family (he was denied access to his children and never saw them again) and his desire to create. Prison broke him. That is all it did. It did not stop him from being homosexual. (It is worth recalling that today, Mark Oaten MP was found to be doing exactly the same thing, but is now to all intents and purposes, rehabilitated in the eyes of the general public, or at least the BBC.)
But this article is not about homosexuality, it is about hate. The same people who hounded Wilde to death, who destroyed his life and who cheered at the verdict – they are no different to those who today want a blanket moratorium on mercy for sex offenders.
I am not talking here about murderers, rapists and torturers who prey on young boys and girls. I want to make that plain. They deserve the full weight of the law. But consider the situation of someone who may have had a fumbled sexual encounter with a fourteen year-old boy and is now in prison for longer than a murderer. Would it, I wonder, be ok for a few of us to get together and kick the shit out of him when he gets out of jail? Will you join in? I hope not.
In condemning such an individual, in screaming for castration and torture (which some are) are we not guilty of the same sort of hatred and lack of humanity that killed the victims I cited?
Neither you nor I can allow our souls to be degraded by allowing our own less attractive instincts to find a convenient scapegoat, whether it is those of other races, sexes, attitudes or whatever the latest media kicking post is.
We can do better than that.
Stand By......
....open channel D - overseas relay. You are about to enter the exciting mohair world of.....
U.N.C.L.E.
I was a big fan of those chaps from U.N.C.L.E and used to spend my pocket money on UNCLE bubblegum.I was shocked to find that Robert Vaughn actually sells his own autograph on his not very interesting website.
Leo Carroll is of course dead, and looked on the verge of it even during the show.
David McCallum doesn't look a day older, even at 70!
Sad that U.N.C.L.E does not exist and never did (though many were fooled by the credit to them on the end titles)
We still need someone who will continue the battle against the international discomfort of THRUSH.
How Prescient
This Side of Paradise is F Scott Fitzgerald's first novel and in many ways it is best read when you are yourself young. It is a sort of way-mark for youthful discovery. In retrospect, the book seems to me to be a warning of things to come; an anatomy of the formative processes that led ultimately to the Gordon Gekko generation that said that "Greed is Good" The main protagonist is Amory Blaine. He is a young man who is coming to terms with life and love around him. In the end he is morally bereft and cynical and has set the mood for the awakening of the American Dream:
"I detest poor people," thought Amory suddenly. "I hate them for being poor. Poverty may have been beautiful once, but it's rotten now. It's the ugliest thing in the world. It's essentially cleaner to be corrupt and rich than it is to be innocent and poor." He seemed to see again a figure whose significance had once impressed him—a well-dressed young man gazing from a club window on Fifth Avenue and saying something to his companion with a look of utter disgust. Probably, thought Amory, what he said was: "My God! Aren't people horrible!"
Festival of Glam...
Just a short visit to the lovely black and white world of puttin on the Ritz...
Is that a phone or is she just wired?
Nostalgia fest
Spend a moment thinking of those days when you dressed up to go out on the town..Ciro’s
Ciro’s
1 1/2 Shot(s) Gin
3/4 Shot(s) Triple Sec
1 Shot(s) Lemon Juice
1 Bar Spoon Sugar Syrup
1 Shot(s) Egg White
Just thought you would like to know.
Were those the days?
Lots of nostalgia
"Where we're goin' How where goin'
How can we be sure?
I'll lay you eight to five
that we'll meet
Dorothy Lamour"
Nostalgia Central
"A gentlemen friend and I were dining at the Ritz last evening and he said that if I took a pencil and paper and put down all of my thoughts it would make a book. ...So this gentleman said a girl with brains ought to do something else with them besides think"
(from Gentlemen prefer Blondes, by Anita Loos) (no relation to that publicity seeking tramp that shagged David Beckham)
Oscar Peterson - Easy Does It
Of all the masterpieces on the Verve label, "Night Train" is the one which so comfortably fits into a "mood slot" It's late at night. You have a bourbon on the rocks and another cigarette. The scent of someone special lingers, fanned by the half open book you never could quite finish. You feel mellow and replete. This is the record to go with your mood.
Someone called C.M-T played it for me, many years ago. We drank Eau de Vie and talked of life, and later in the morning light drove along the foothills of the Massif de la Chartreuse.
Not the sort of moment you can forget. Thank you, C.
Our latest little friend
Permission to say "aaah" all regions, free of fees.
It is hanging on to life. Sadly its sibling struggled and died yesterday, but, that's life.
It's the first chick we have ever had.
Album Cover models of the 60's - Kelly Lungstrunk
It takes time to track down the people who modeled for album covers from 40 years ago. I am indebted on this occasion to Rita Harpur, formerly of the Philip Morris agency who booked Kelly Lungstrunk for the mermaid photoshoot that finally became the cover of Leo Diamond's Skin Diver Suite.
(My contract with Miss Lungstrunk's current agent demanded that the interview be published unedited.)
WW: Had you done a lot of modelling before the mermaid shoot?
KL: No, but I had been working in Macy's store doing the Aquatic department displays, so I guess I had some idea of what was required, like how to move and keep moist.
WW: Were you worried about the nudity aspect?
KL: Not really. I meditated, and asked my spiritual advisor and he said go ahead. He even let me practice at his place.
WW: Were you wearing panties?
KL: What? At my spriritual advisor's place? Or do you mean at the shoot? Look honey, I don't mind doing the interview, but you are getting a little personal. Can we talk about my new DVD?
WW: Tell me about the DVD
KL: Well its targeted at women who have had an abusive encounter with an aromatherapist, or are considering doing so.
WW: Is it autobiographical? I mean were you abused, and in what way- was it a group thing for example?
KL: It's mainly about....There you go again. You are just a bastard like all men. Take your hands out of your pockets, creep and try making eye contact once in a while.
WW: Sorry, Kelly. Can we start again? From the Top?
KL:No! You have made me cry!
(The interview ended there.) Kelly Lungstrunk's DVD is available in NTSC format US region only entitled, "Exercises for Getting Over a Stinker"
(for my piece on another star of old album photo shoots, click HERE
Guest Contributor - Captain Nice
Hello there fwiends. (Well I certainly hope I can call some of you my Fwiends) Captain Nice here. The superhewo who fights the constant battle against all things not nice, and does wandom acts of kindness. I want to tell you about my newly acquired super power; that is, the ability to tell which sweets and candies you like, just by squeezing your hand!
As superpowers go, it's one of the less useful ones, but I have to count my blessings.
Nice weather we are having. All the best fwom your fwiend, CAPTAIN NICE
little trinities
The Celtic People with their love of significant numbers have always given special significance to the Triad, and arrangement of three statements which summed up a person, a thing or a situation, often with a blend of light humour, deep meaning and paradox.
Three sisters of lying: perhaps, maybe, guess.
Three sources of new life: a women's belly, a hen's egg, a wrong forgiven.
(attributed to Thomas Merton)
Guest Contributor - COLONEL MUSTARD
Hello ready-meal buyers and tax dodgers, and oh yes the occasional masochistic member of the legal profession. Colonel Mustard here, to make your sad repetitive lives a bit more interesting. Who gives a rat's bum fluff about Wayne Rooney? Apart from his Bus Pass carrying girl-friend. Our haggis and deep fried Mars Bar eating Caledonian friends, in their inimitable racist way, are saying, "support any team but England". I say bugger the lot of them. Who's interested in football any way. And oh, all that nasty synthetic material against the skin. Even the fact that the supporter's shirt cost you an arm and a leg does not mitigate the fact that you look like a Strawberry Solero.
Why not do the next big chav thing, which is of course Croquet. I hear Prescott has ordered a special edition set from Burberry, although he could well get a set of tiddly winks for all the sense he speaks.
your best mate,
COLONEL MUSTARD
ps this will make no sense whatsoever to our Colonial friends in the good ol US of A, but, who gives a toss! They are all stupid and smell of chemicals and their footballers are all nancy boys.
Oh. I hear James Blunt has caught bird flu. Or is it wishful thinking on my part?
Barbara Jo says:
Barbara Jo feels she has to speak out. She writes:
The primary theme of the works of Madonna is a mythopoetical totality. In a sense, the subject is contextualised into a subtextual semantic theory that includes consciousness as a paradox.
The example of subtextual semantic theory which is a central theme of Madonna’s Material Girl is also evident in Erotica, although in a more subdeconstructivist sense.
Don't you all agree boys?
Down the pub
I used to draw and paint. This is one I did over ten years ago.It's a bit literal I suppose, but I became obsessed with getting the violin and the fingering right. As you do.
(click on the pic for a larger view)
ooops!
Sorry to be a little bit political here. Well I am not sorry actually, cos it's my blog and I'll plodging do what i like.
The Metropolitan Police have raided a house, searching for some sort of chemical weapon. Somebody got shot (again) and nothing has been found.
They say they had compelling "intelligence". Is this the same kind that insisted there were WMD'S?
They went in heavy. So, ok maybe they thought they needed to. So, there is a terrorist threat.
But if they have gotten this so badly wrong, (again) the Met are going to look like utter plonkers and bastards. This does not bode well for community relations and the public relations disaster that will follow. If they carry on like this we will have a situation where there are mass riots and looting, because there will be those who will use the police stance as an excuse for it.
Someone has to tell them that Asian appearence, plus islamic beard, does not equate 100% with terror suspect. They really do seem to run on tram lines in their thinking.
At least Black People can relax for a while.
bottoms = chick peas
Is it me, or do you think of little bottoms when you eat chick peas?
What, you say, about bananas, cucumbers and carrots? Don't go there, just don't.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)