Saturday, January 13, 2007

[blogfocus saturday] of war and the human condition

Our 9th blogger this evening

The escalating war – Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran …

This particular series of wars across the east are deeply worrying because to many, they are just the trial run, the practice run, before the real thing. Britain is already mobilizing, issuing bio-ID and gasmasks, which is quite a departure because Britain has traditionally been caught flat-footed.

1 Many truisms spring from war and many analogies can be made. Bryan Appleyard opens fire with the analogy to end all analogies:

When - if - Blair stands down and when - if - Brown succeeds, I forecast British politics will mirror Iraq's. The Shias - Brownists - having gained power, they will do all they can to suppress the Sunnis - Blairists. The Sunnis, meanwhile, will launch a fantastically brutal insurgency, the main weapon of which will be Blair's insistence that the entire New Labour projected was, from its inception, crippled by Brown's vengeful bitterness.

2 Vox Day maintains that a country needs to be at one with all its constituent parts before even contemplating conflict:


Finally, if the national unity is not there, then don't go to war! This has been known since Sun Tzu was writing about the Moral Law and the importance of harmony between the ruler and the ruled. If the ruler does not have the confidence of the ruled, he will likely lose his war. And blame for it will lie with the ruler, not the ruled.

3 International Political Will takes issue with the anti-war lobby but for reasons not immediately apparent:


The anti-war camp claims to own the moral high ground, to care about human life, to respect the rights of people, and asserts that war obliterates all those in the name of power and money. But in the same breath, they call for American troops to come home. Are Americans so callous that they are willing to sacrifice the lives of millions of Iraqis just because they aren’t falling in line with the pre-designated ‘plan?’ Are Americans so heartless as to only care about American soldiers’ lives, and not at all for Iraqis? Do Americans only value that which is red, white and capitalist – and care nothing for the brown, Muslim and other? America got itself into this war based on lies and misinformation, aided by propaganda spewed by the allegedly “liberal media.”

Eleven more bloggers plus the Mystery Blogger here.

[january 13th] happy new year, everyone

Well, we’ve had Christmas on January 7th and now we’re only an hour and a half away from New Year. What are you doing this evening? Me? Well, there was this girl, you see, a New Year tree, a little bit of the fortified liquid and a whole lot of cheer.

Even London is getting in on the act but be warned when following the link – Red Ken will be looking upon you.

В ночь с 13 на 14 января более половины населения России, Украины и Белорусии отмечают старый Новый год. Эта традиция возникла после 1918 года, когда в России было введено новое летосчисление.

Anyway, to everyone everywhere – Со Старым Новым годом!!!!

[puddings] my very, very favourite of all

GRANDMA'S BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING

8 slices of bread
150 grams of sultana and raisins (75g +75[each])
1/2 jar of jam (strawberry or raspberry)
200 g butter/ spread
250 mls milk
2/3 eggs
sugar (to sprinkle on top)

Serves about four portions.

Preheat oven to about 180 C (350 F). Then, whilst you wait for it to heat you SHOULD have enough time to do the rest.

Get a suitable cooking dish [personally I used a 30x30 (cm) smear some butter on the bottom (and sides) of the dish.

Take four slices of (preferably semi stale, although it ultimately makes little difference) bread, and butter each on both sides; place them in the dish.

Now, add your Raisins and sultanas, simply sprinkling them on top of the bread. Once you have spread the raisins and sultanas evenly over the bread, spread half a jar of (strawberry or raspberry) jam over the raisins and bread so that the jam absorbs the fruit and keeps it in a sort of stasis.

Next, take the other 4 pieces of bread and butter them (on both sides. Place the bread on top of the jam, raisins, etc. and then cut the four sandwich-like portions into halves or even quarters so that you will have smaller pieces.

Put milk into a mixing bowl and whisk in the eggs. When this becomes an almost-cream like colour (or just white with yellow parts), pour the mixture on top of the bread.

Sprinkle a small amount of sugar (optionally) and bake in the oven for about 45 mins. Serve with cream or custard for best flavour.

Submitted by: Lewis Arran Husbands

[gastronomy] pudding on my mind

Later this evening I'm going to post my very, very favourite pudding. Can't get it over here [good as the puddings are]. In fact I'm going to try to make myself one tomorrow.

[spring weather in russia] fishing for answers

Fishing in happier times

With the climate change, the effects in Russia are perhaps more pronounced than in the rest of Europe and Britain.

Russians are very straightforward people and when they see spring type rain everywhere in mid-January and no snow anywhere to be found and when this has been increasing year by year for the last five years, then they wouldn’t be so stupid as to pretend it’s not happening, unlike some in Britain and Europe who are closing their eyes and calling it a myth.

It’s particularly hard on the fishermen who love to go out and cut holes on the ice, sheltering behind windbreaks and generally spending their afternoons this way. It gets them out of the flat, gives their wives a break and there’s a strong sense of cameraderie and a certain amount of vodka consumed in the process.

Today, on the way home from work, they were still out there but there was a layer of water across the ice and in places it was breaking into drifts, with the fishermen on them. It’s not unusual for deaths to occur when they crash through to the freezing water below.

The general word around these parts is that it’s a terrible situation. The land needs this frost [Russian-speak for minus twenty and a metre of snow] for the flora to regenerate and this year it just doesn’t seem as if it’s going to happen.

The drivers have now taken off their winter tyres and are back on the summer tyres and that's never occurred before.

The mood is sombre.

[notices] blogfocus, testimonials and visiting

Blogfocus is ready and will go out sometime between 19:00 and 21:00, London time, depending on ... er ... one particular young lady. [Saturday night and all that.]

Testimonials will continue tomorrow morning with the next 10 from the keyboard of Higham.

Visiting is ongoing and I'll be round to you by tomorrow morning.

[jimmy carter] you really should be accurate, you know

I haven’t seen a lot of this in the blogosphere but that’s maybe because I haven’t looked widely enough. The thing is, Jimmy Carter does not come out of this smelling of roses.

Kenneth W. Stein, who was the center's first executive director, told a Los Angeles audience Thursday that his concerns grew out of what he called Carter's "gross inventions, intentional falsehoods and irresponsible remarks." That’s not mincing words.

He said that the two most serious errors were when Carter misrepresented the wording of a key U.N. resolution and gave a false account of a 1990 meeting he held with former Syrian President Hafez Assad, which Stein attended.

The conclusion which can be drawn is that Carter doesn’t like the hardline Jewish negotiating manner. How much can be read into his Southern Baptist background and how much is personal antipathy is still not clear. Also, does it matter? The man is getting on in years and it’s only a book, after all.

Yes, only a book but one which can be seized on by one particular side to fuel the conflict. Carter is not exactly Joe Bloggs from Idaho, the illiterate street sweeper. People will take his words as carrying authority.

More on this after adequate research.


Friday, January 12, 2007

[lexicon] third ten handy shakespearean taunts

The first ten can be found here.
The second ten can be found here.

The third set of barbed taunts to hurl at the unworthy can be found below. Which are the best?

1] Most shallow man! Thou’re worms-meat in respect of a good piece of flesh indeed! [As You Like It ]
2] Away, you bottle-ale rascal, you filthy bung, away! Taken from: Henry IV, part 2
3] Thy lips rot off! Taken from: Timon of Athens
4] Canst thou believe thy living is a life, so stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend. Taken from: Measure for Measure
5] Peace, ye fat guts! Taken from: Henry IV, part I
6] Hence rotten thing! Or I shall shake thy bones out of thy garments. Taken from: Coriolanus
7] [Thou] small grey coated gnat. Taken from: Romeo and Juliet
8] Thou crusty botch of nature! Taken from: Troilus and Cressida
9] Thou art only mark'd for hot vengeance and the rod of heaven. Taken from: Henry IV, part I
10] You starvelling, you eel-skin, you dried neat's-tongue, you bull's-pizzle, you stock-fish - O for breath to utter what is like thee! - you tailor's-yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck! Taken from: Henry IV, part 1

[george bush] misunderstood and maligned [4]

Well, Laura’s never complained, let’s put it that way.

The idea is to vote for the best three from each ten [50 overall] and then we’ll find a grand winning quote.

Click for Part 1, Part 2 or Part 3.

31] "They misunderestimated me." - Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000

32] "They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind of federal program." - St. Charles, Mo., Nov. 2, 2000

33] "Actually, I...this may sound a little West Texan to you, but I like it. When I'm talking about...when I'm talking about myself, and when he's talking about myself, all of us are talking about me." - On the coming Social Security crisis; Wilton, Conn.; June 9, 2000

34] "I think we agree, the past is over." - On his meeting with John McCain, Dallas Morning News, May 10, 2000

35] "It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it." - Reuters, May 5, 2000

36] Gov. Bush: "Because the picture on the newspaper. It just seems so un-American to me, the picture of the guy storming the house with a scared little boy there. I talked to my little brother, Jeb...I haven't told this to many people. But he's the governor of...I shouldn't call him my little brother...my brother, Jeb, the great governor of Texas." Jim Lehrer: "Florida." Gov. Bush: "Florida. The state of the Florida." - The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, April 27, 2000

37] "I was raised in the West. The west of Texas. It's pretty close to California. In more ways than Washington, D.C., is close to California." - In Los Angeles as quoted by the Los Angeles Times, April 8, 2000

38] "It is not Reaganesque to support a tax plan that is Clinton in nature." - Los Angeles, Feb. 23, 2000

39] "I understand small business growth. I was one." - New York Daily News, Feb. 19, 2000

40] "The senator has got to understand if he's going to have...he can't have it both ways. He can't take the high horse and then claim the low road." - To reporters in Florence, S.C., Feb. 17, 2000

[the eu and scotland] what thinkest thou

David Farrer said:

What it apparently boils down to is this: If Scotland decides to be independent, would what's left of the existing entity be deemed to be the continuing UK? I think that this is one of those "not-proven" situations …

To which, the ubiquitous dearieme said:

Without the Scottish seats for Labour, an English Tory government might just seize the chance to declare that Scotland is the successor nation and that England has thereby left the EU.

To which the anti-separatist, james higham, said:

Doesn't Scotland realize and doesn't England realize that separately, neither has anywhere near the clout which the Union had before. Margaret was the head of Britain, not a fragment of it. The EU are going to brush Scotland aside and gobble up England. This was always the plan and they played on Scottish Nationalism to get there. A house divided, didn't someone say?

To which you say?

[philosophy] in the end, who’s to say [1]

There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true. [Winston Churchill]

In any philosophical discussion, there has to at least be agreement on the terms of reference, on the terms used themselves, of the parameters of the field in which you agree to argue and in a psychological predisposition to accept points made by the other side. Even more than this is the uselessness of placing oneself in the centre, the Me stance and demanding that you convince Me. Who am “I”?

This presupposes that You are sufficiently equipped, mentally and by dint of vast knowledge, to ultimately comprehend the Truth. I make no such claim, as I am no humanist, placing Man at the centre, with the sun, stars and the elements orbiting around Me. Rather, I am a speck in the firmament and yet, as the Australian aborigines believe, acting on and affecting all other elements of the earth and sky.

But evidence is not enough. Depends how it’s served up. Knowledge about dinosaurs is derived from a variety of fossil and non-fossil records and has the backing of the scientific community. So what do you make of this fossil record? If you’re half willing to accept this, the moment I place it in its original context, it will be rejected because of the guff written around it . Yet how does the guff alter the record itself?

Put the Nephilim in a biblical context or in an apocryphal and they’ll be rejected immediately. Start rabbiting on about Annunaki and you'd be consigned to the funny farm. Which leaves the eternal question: “Have they been finally disproved just because kooks are into them?” There’s at least circumstantial that they did exist.

And finally – if your reaction is to smile and say: "Of course it’s rubbish," my question to you is – on what are you basing that view? Archeology, philosophy or your own psychology? And if you say: "Evidence, man. With the dinosaurs there was evidence," I ask: "And what of the fossil record link here?"Then I ask a second question: "Why are you so quick to accept archeological evidence of one and so determined to reject the other?"

Thursday, January 11, 2007

[brain drain] surfeit of philosophers

In case you missed it by some ill fortune, get thee over forthwith to the peerless Tiberius Gracchus, from Westminster and have your clicking finger ready.

You’re about to have a feast of philosophers. Never mind the mealy-mouthed Philistine le Higham’s less than gracious remarks in the comments section. This is one of the best collections you’re ever likely to have in one place at one time. Now, my contribution, alas unoriginal, is:

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable;

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table;

David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

And Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'bout the raising of the wrist;

Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, on half a pint of shandy was particularly ill;

Plato, they say, could stick it away - half a crate of whisky every day;

Aristotle, Aristotle, was a bugger for the bottle; Hobbes was fond of his dram

And René Descartes was a drunken fart: 'I drink, therefore I am.'

Yet, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed - a lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.

[dolphin swim] better in the wild, perhaps

American actress, Tara Reid, said of her swim with dolphins at Brisbane’s Sea World:

"It was one of the most magical moments of my life. I think this is my favourite experience, it's amazing. It's so funny because in America everyone has dreams of what they want to do. That's one of the things I've always wanted to do in my life and never accomplished and I just did now. I'm on a tour high."

My first question is why she hadn’t done this in the US. My second question is how she would feel about not only swimming with but feeding dolphins in the wild. It’s such a pity I can’t post photo slides on the web because I have two here of me doing just that in Western Australia. Two dolphins swam in from the deep [never mind the sharks] and one swam round me and under my legs before popping his snout up for a fish.

How did it feel?

"It was one of the most magical moments of my life. I think this is my favourite experience, it's amazing. It's so funny because in Britain and Australia, everyone has dreams of what they want to do…"

[uk tories] how to do a defection properly

After this Dale reported fizzer, perhaps the Brits should take a leaf out of the Canadian books:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper improved his odds of avoiding an early election yesterday by welcoming Liberal MP Wajid Khan into the caucus of the minority Conservative government.

[french rethink] l’ouverture des magasins le dimanche

Avenue des Champs-Élysées from Arc de Triomphe, looking east towards the Louvre

Le Figaro: Que proposez-vous?

Renauld Dutreil: Il faut commencer par mettre fin à quelques aberrations dans les zones touristiques. Actuellement, sur les Champs-Élysées par exemple, Lacoste n’est pas autorisé à ouvrir le dimanche alors que Quiksilver et Nike le sont. Toujours à Paris, rue des Francs-Bourgeois, la boutique Anne Fontaine est fermée le dimanche par décision préfectorale. En revanche, ses magasins de Trouville et Deauville sont ouverts.

Le Figaro: Faut-il attendre la présidentielle pour changer la loi?

Renauld Dutreil: J’ai proposé au premier ministre d’agir en deux temps. Tout d’abord, en modifiant le décret de 1994 qui régit l’ouverture des magasins en zones touristiques. Les contours du décret méritent en effet d’être précisés.

Is this just one more battle in the never-ending war between church and state or is it the overthrow of the traditional French way [after all , le Figaro did ask: Ce commerce se fait-il au détriment du commerce traditionnel ?] or is it common sense to at last catch the tourist trade?

[word verification] can’t we lower the tone

Be honest - Don’t you look up to the tattooed Posherexia as your role model?

You know, while you’ve all been surfing around, reading about Kate Middleton and Posherexia and so on, I’ve also been surfing and coming up against the deeply annoying but necessary Word Verification in most cases.

Or else I was being told that my language is not the same as the poster’s or that I had to now prove I was human. Strange, I’d thought we were both writing in English and I feel semi-human.

That got me to thinking about this. Aren’t there a lot of ‘q’s and ‘z’s in WV? Have you noticed? Then came this one: twaton. Of course, that’s how to relieve the boredom. We could have a variety of pre-packaged WV gems mixed in with the regular nonsense. For example:

# ertoss
# ushloofl
# uroftsul


And so on. Perhaps you could dream up some of your own. Then having to type in that dross, ably assisted by the autohelp’s suggestions, would be less of a burden.

[notice] to blogpowerers

Please take the poll on the Blogpower site. It's fairly necessary.

[records error] looking beyond the lying itself

Happier days for Joan Ryan

The Association of Chief Police Officers confirmed that the Home Office rejected its plea last autumn for more cash to help it deal with a backlog of 27,500 cases which had not been entered on the Police National Computer. And it revealed that Ms Ryan - who has responsibility for criminal records - replied to its letter detailing the work of the three-strong unit processing the cases and voicing concerns about the sharing of criminal records across Europe.

This blog is not going to give this matter the Dalesque or Kitchenesque treatment. Go to the sidebar, click and any number of sites will deal with this. It’s simply going to ask a question and hopefully the question is not too stupid:

Why is it the case that the higher one rises in power, the more corrupt one becomes?

Why, for example, doesn’t a government minister tend more naturally to altruism, patriotism and citizen concern, the higher he or she rises? There are countless examples of young MPs going into parliament with high ideals, before they meet the whips, that is. Look at Tony Blair in his early days and look at him now.

Surely, the higher one rises, the less need for cash and the less pressure to be corrupt? And surely, in Britain, Wikipedia’s criteria for non-corruption have already largely been met and yet it goes on. Like with the non-necessity of Richard Nixon to do what he did, Britain’s pollies just do it.

Plato said take power out of the oligarch’s hands and give it to the philosophers. One blog says the way to cure corruption in high places is to take away the high places. A lovely but naïve idea.
Stumbling and Mumbling would say put an end to managerialism.

Being of the Christian persuasion in this matter, it seems clear to me that, just as a baby is not born corrupt in real terms [leaving aside the argument over original sin], so the dirt trickles down from the top, not the other way round. But where exactly is the top? The PM or President? Higher? This quote gives one answer. But if that is so, then, in Fraser’s words from Dad’s Army: “We’re doomed, I tell ye.”

Everything seems to indicate that when men and women enter the sphere of power, they come up against, not the power itself but the minions and agencies of it, who are powerful enough adversaries anyway. I often quote Woodrow Wilson’s “since I entered politics …” and it's hard to refute. Given that, then the next question is what can be done about it.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

[delayed meme] clearing my debt

Oh well, s’pose I’ll have to do this but I’m getting all Praguetory about it now. And to think I even started one of these before New Year, out of spite.

So, five things you might not know about me:

1] I once had a gardening practice, then a screenprinting business [of sports outfits]. The latter was called Sportsprint. When we tried to start up Futile Enterprises, Truly Ruly, marketing irrelevancies to the general public, they wouldn’t register us. We’d written the articles of association too but they felt we weren’t being serious. Us? And I gave it up for education. Is that crazy or is that crazy?

2] We had a mixed Indoor Cricket team which made the final, largely on the strength of our girls. It was called Silly Point and was the greatest rabble you’re ever likely to see. We had a couple of top lads who always weathered the storm early but the runmakers were a lady cricketer and myself. She could hit but not run. I could run but not hit so we stole almost every run. They stopped us in the final by drifting across our path slightly before the ball was bowled.

3] I used to make films and that got me into sound and light, which led to theatre, which led to directing several plays but my favourite of all time was a Wodehouse piece which went as per plan but the jazz music soundtrack was what people wanted to purchase later. Pity I didn’t follow through with that. We even had young ladies dressed as maids to serve refreshments at interval during that run and one or two were possibly available. Pity I didn’t follow through with that.

4] I rally drove a veedub for three years. I pitied the navigator, Halda or no Halda but only ended nose up the hill once. The skills learned at that time now stand me in good stead on the totally lawless Russian roads but the roads I rallied on were marginally better than the ones over here now. Plus there were no policemen suddenly leaping out at you from behind bushes, wildly gesticulating with black and white battens and falling flat on their backs on the ice.

5] On a mountain top, I proposed marriage to a lady whose face was covered in glitter and when she accepted, I said, ‘Pardon?’ I discovered that night that backseat shenanigans are anatomically difficult for the uncoordinated. One learnt though.

I’m not passing it on to anyone because it is cruel and inhumane to fellow bloggers. Except for the Canny Greek, of course, who thought he'd escaped last time.

[lpt] tell the truth

I scored 136. Maybe I lied.

[food prices] not lowered as much as promised

What an extraordinary headline, even for Iceland. Read on:

Sigurdur Jónsson, manager of the Federation of Trade and Services, said yesterday that Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde had promised more than he could deliver when he said food prices in Iceland would be lowered by 16 percent. Last year Haarde declared that the value-added tax (VAT) of food products would be reduced as of March 1 2007, resulting in an up to 16 percent price cut in groceries so that food prices in Iceland would be comparable to that in the other Nordic countries.

Er … how?

Jónsson further criticized the prime minister’s statement that dairy products will be lowered in price. What Haarde meant, Jónsson said, is that the price of dairy products will not increase, but not drop either.

Here is the government’s explanation:

Ragnheidur E. Árnadóttir, political assistant to the prime minister, told Fréttabladid that the economic term of a price of something remaining the same is “factual reduction” and therefore Haarde cannot be criticized for saying the price of dairy products will be lowered.

Yeah, right. So how about maths in general?

Árnadóttir said that the price of groceries will be lowered by “roughly ten percent,” which in Árnadóttir's opinion, could refer to 16 percent.

Meanwhile, another Árnadóttir [Ragnheidur's dóttir perhaps] is one lovely, quirky gal [check her clothed photo] into naturism in Iceland, presumably in winter. Won't any of you bored and lonely Londoners help her out?

[lazarus of the blogosphere] oh wonder, oh joy, he’s back

Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað

[the eu] ravening monster, paper tiger or both

Now, as you’d imagine, I’m right behind Russia in its dispute with Belarus and the upstart Gruzia and yet … and yet … an oil and gas pipeline is a linear affair and if you’re downstream from a fuel dispute, things start to get nasty.

Such as poor western Europe, dependent on Russian supplies. Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso announced plans for a new energy policy that would take shape under Germany's six-month presidency of the EU.

The two leaders voiced strong criticism of President Vladimir Putin over Russia's decision to halt oil supplies through the Druzhba (friendship) pipeline without warning. 'It is unacceptable when there are no consultations over such actions,' said Merkel, adding: 'This destroys trust again and again.' To avoid a repetition, Merkel said it was necessary to strengthen the strategic partnership with Russia, a major European energy supplier which delivers 20 per cent of Germany's crude oil and 30 per cent of its natural gas.

This is one of the spinoffs of being dependent on the EU. On Wednesday, the EU Commission is due to unveil its long-awaited energy plan, outlining moves to increase competition among energy providers and improve environmental protection. Energy plan, smenergy plan – whatever the eurocrats dream up, at unbelievable expense to the rest of Europe, it makes not one scrap of difference to Russia, whom they froze out of Europe.

The EU is an abomination, a ravening monster, excreting wastage and hell-bent on working against the best interests of all people suffering under its sphere of influence and now that Britain is hell-bent on breaking into little pieces because of sectarian differences, the EU must be licking its slavering chops, waiting to snap up the remaining pieces and gobble them up. Their traitorous double-agent, Blair, is fast becoming an irrelevance in this respect.

[big apple] something smell a bit off to you

Admittedly I’m a bit late for this one but all the same – this recent pong from New York to New Jersey - Charles Sturcken, a spokesman for the city Department of Environmental Protection, said the odor could have been caused by mercaptan, the chemical added to normally odorless natural gas to make it easily detectable, but he added, "Nothing has been confirmed."

In 2005, a mysterious "maple syrup" scent blanketed Manhattan twice in a matter of weeks. Last August, seven people got sick after an odor of gas was reported in Queens and Staten Island. The source of that odor is still unknown. This situation is no different this time. The only difference, perhaps, is that city officials reportedly are blaming the stench on New Jersey this time.

Anyone heading for New York?

[queen kate] wouldn’t it be nice


# Network ITN hired a lip reader to decipher her every utterance.

# Welcome to the world of the woman who might someday be Queen Katherine.

# Speculation that Will would pop the question was so intense that by 6 a.m. more than 50 photographers and camera crews were waiting outside her apartment in Chelsea.

# Woolworths is so confident that it’s designing commemorative royal wedding tchotchkes, from mugs to mouse pads. Store officials said the company "missed out" in 2005 during the two-month engagement of William's father and Camilla Parker Bowles - a multimillion-dollar slip that won't be repeated.

# Kate is a middle-class descendant of a coal-mining family, with an art history degree and conservative hemlines. She is as English as thickly buttered toast, and roughly as controversial.

# She doesn't smoke; she blushes. She shops with her mom (a former flight attendant who has an online business selling children's party supplies).

Can’t believe nourishing obscurity has jumped onto this bandwagon? This blog has a tacky history of doing this – the most recent was Princess Mary of Denmark and on this computer are countless photos of same. This blog, in other words, is totally and unashamedly unreconstructed.

Yo, Queen Kate!

[update] higham's [sort of] back

1] The less said about the op the better. It got messy, apparently but I wasn't to know that because I was out of it. Had to [sort of] laugh though. The doc took one look at the mouth, muttered: "uzhas" [Russian for horror] and demanded to know who had done the last job on it [a state clinic doctor]. After picking all the mangled metal out, he got to work. So, last night was not one of the best but the drugs are working well today and all the other herbs and grasses meant to cut the complications. In fact he did such a good job that my girl has decided to transfer her custom there, expensive though it is. Wonder how Morag's similar situation is going.

2] Back to normal blogging later today, so expect to be annoyed by my comments later. It'll take two days to get through the roll.

3] Had to smile at the 'no comments' on the Lady Di post. Friends politely refraining from taking me apart and the rest not reading the blog currently. I knew it was a controversial opinion. Sorry.

So, back on track and best of luck to you all today too. Meet up with you later, OK.

Monday, January 08, 2007

[lady di] that’s all very well but …

Just one post before Wednesday.

I like to get American news from the Brits and vice-versa because the perspective is often a little different. As for the Di Inquest. Bloomsberg states:

The inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, won't be heard by a jury drawn from members of Britain's royal household, after a coroner today declined to invoke historic rules. The inquiry, which is standard in the U.K. for unnatural deaths, will publicly scrutinize how the princess and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed died, in a final bid to quell the conspiracy theories and speculation that has swirled since the 1997 car crash in Paris that claimed both of their lives.

Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, the retired judge who is presiding over the inquest, agreed with lawyers representing both Queen Elizabeth II and Fayed's father, Mohammed Al-Fayed, that a royal jury would have created the perception of a biased review. ``Justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done,'' John Nutting QC, representing Queen Elizabeth, told the High Court in London.

Oh really? And how does Elizabeth Butler-Sloss constitute unbiased? Have you read up on her? Now to the words ‘in a final bid to quell’. Not ‘in a final bid to get at the truth and not sweep anything under the carpet’. No sir. This inquest will do nothing because it is biased in its head, in its aim and has absolutely no intention of asking the key questions which just will not go away.

I’m at one with the bloggers who cry: ‘Just let the lady rest in peace.’ There’s nothing anyone would like more. Unfortunately, when it is, as Bloomsberg called it, a case of ‘unnatural deaths’, then there IS no peace on either side of the River Styx until the truth finally comes out. This is why Hamlet’s father returned and this is why inquiry after inquiry will go on and on because the truth is just not being told e.g. the goings on in the room at the hospital where she was eventually taken.

[greetings] plan to be blogging wednesday

I’d like to thank those who’ve posted comments and I’ll answer them individually when this thing is over. I’ll check the e-mail and then give it away for the evening.

Strange as it may seem, they do use anaesthetic in the pay clinics, where I go tomorrow at 16:00, my time. Trouble with the pay clinics is they’re totally overrun with people wanting dentistry and so I’ve had to wait, using a combination of sleep and Pentalgin [like aspirin] to keep the pain down. Like Morag, that’s going to happen tomorrow as well.

So this post is just to let people know I plan to be back at the keyboard Wednesday morning and regrettably, Blogfocus Tuesday must now become Blogfocus Saturday. Hope you’re well, posting heaps and raking in the shekels in your day job.
I'll get back to you.

James