Towards a Ginger Rodent Highlander Bakeoff

Okay, Edinburgh is not the Highlands but it is closer than Harley Street.

Bishop

This bishop's mitre is a true work of art, simple and subtle yet very elegant. Created in white and gold it is classy and tasteful, ideal for any bishop. A high quality mitre at an affordable price, this mitre would make a great gift for a bishop upon his ordination or anniversary. Please measure head size carefully and accurately as mitres are custom made and cannot be returned.

Book of the Day

"When the Winos Shout" by Marjorie Schiffel.

Tomorrow is another day.

An Essay Upon Not Fucking

By popular request!!!!

An Essay Not Upon Fucking.

And Or And Or Or Or Or Not An Essay Upon Fucking.

Soon all your Booleans are belong to us.



This happened to me once. You would cry too if it happened to you. Only with me it was thirty years ago.

Incoherence

You think I can't do incoherence?

Suck on this.



...


...


...


... it's... maybe we could mention a rabbit AND a cabbage. No? Maybe turnips and goats. I turnip the goat. I goated your turnips.

I... what is this with vegetable and animal? My sheep is in your cabbage patch.

But then again it is, and it is more feeding than incoherent.

I rock your world. 2x inanimate objects... damn.

I absorb your soup.

Poetry Corner

Were I (who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man)

A spirit free to choose, for my own share,
What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal
Who is so proud of being rational.

The senses are too gross, and he'll contrive
A sixth, to contradict the other five,
And before certain instinct, will prefer
Reason, which fifty times for one does err;
Reason, an ignis fatuus in the mind,
Which, leaving light of nature, sense, behind,
Pathless and dangerous wandering ways it takes
Through error's fenny bogs and thorny brakes;
Whilst the misguided follower climbs with pain
Mountains of whimseys, heaped in his own brain;
Stumbling from thought to thought, falls headlong down
Into doubt's boundless sea, where, like to drown,
Books bear him up a while, and make him try
To swim with bladders of philosophy;
In hopes still to o'ertake th' escaping light,-
The vapor dances in his dazzling sight
Till, spent, it leaves him to eternal night.
Then old age and experience, hand in hand,
Lead him to death, and make him understand,
After a search so painful and so long,
That all his life he has been in the wrong.
Huddled in dirt the reasoning engine lies,
Who was so proud, so witty, and so wise.

Pride drew him in, as cheats their bubbles catch,
And made him venture to be made a wretch.
His wisdom did his happiness destroy,
Aiming to know that world he should enjoy.
And wit was his vain, frivolous pretence
Of pleasing others at his own expense,
For wits are treated just like common whores:
First they're enjoyed, and then kicked out of doors.
The pleasure past, a threatening doubt remains
That frights th' enjoyer with succeeding pains.
Women and men of wit are dangerous tools,
And ever fatal to admiring fools:
Pleasure allures, and when the fops escape,
'Tis not that they're belov'd, but fortunate,
And therefore what they fear at heart, they hate.

But now, methinks, some formal band and beard
Takes me to task. Come on, sir; I'm prepared.

'Then, by your favour, anything that's writ
Against this gibing, jingling knack called wit
Likes me abundantly; but you take care
Upon this point, not to be too severe.
Perhaps my muse were fitter for this part,
For I profess I can be very smart
On wit, which I abhor with all my heart.
I long to lash it in some sharp essay,
But your grand indiscretion bids me stay
And turns my tide of ink another way.

"What rage ferments in your degenerate mind
To make you rail at reason and mankind?
Blest, glorious man! to whom alone kind heaven
An everlasting soul has freely given,
Whom his great Maker took such care to make
That from himself he did the image take
And this fair frame in shining reason dressed
To dignify his nature above beast;
Reason, by whose aspiring influence
We take a flight beyond material sense,
Dive into mysteries, then soaring pierce
The flaming limits of the universe,
Search heaven and hell, find out what's acted there,
And give the world true grounds of hope and fear."

Hold, mighty man, I cry, all this we know
From the pathetic pen of Ingelo,
From Patrick's Pilgrim, Sibbes's soliloquies,
And 'tis this very reason I despise:
This supernatural gift, that makes a mite
Think he's the image of the infinite,
Comparing his short life, void of all rest,
To the eternal and the ever blest;
This busy, puzzling stirrer-up of doubt
That frames deep mysteries, then finds them out,
Filling with frantic crowds of thinking fools
Those reverend bedlams, colleges and schools;
Borne on whose wings, each heavy sot can pierce
The limits of the boundless universe;
So charming ointments make an old witch fly
And bear a crippled carcass through the sky.
'Tis this exalted power, whose business lies
In nonsense and impossibilities,
This made a whimsical Philosopher
Before the spacious world, his tub prefer,
And we have modern cloistered coxcombs who
Retire to think, 'cause they have nought to do.

But thoughts are given for action's government;
Where action ceases, thought's impertinent.
Our sphere of action is life's happiness,
And he who thinks beyond, thinks like an ass.
Thus, whilst against false reasoning I inveigh,
I own right reason, which I would obey:
That reason which distinguishes by sense
And gives us rules of good and ill from thence,
That bounds desires with a reforming will
To keep them more in vigour, not to kill.
Your reason hinders, mine helps to enjoy,
Renewing appetites yours would destroy.
My reason is my friend, yours is a cheat;
Hunger calls out, my reason bids me eat;
Perversely, yours your appetite does mock:
This asks for food, that answers, "What's o'clock?"
This plain distinction, sir, your doubt secures:
'Tis not true reason I despise, but yours.

Thus I think reason righted, but for man,
I'll ne'er recant; defend him if you can.
For all his pride and his-philosophy,
'Tis evident beasts are, in their degree,
As wise at least, and better far than he.
Those creatures are the wisest who attain,
By surest means, the ends at which they aim.
If therefore Jowler finds and kills his hares
Better than Meres supplies committee chairs,
Though one's a statesman, th' other but a hound,
Jowler, in justice, would be wiser found.

You see how far man's wisdom here extends;
Look next if human nature makes amends:
Whose principles most generous are, and just,
And to whose morals you would sooner trust.
Be judge yourself, I'll bring it to the test:
Which is the basest creature, man or beast?
Birds feed on birds, beasts on each other prey,
But savage man alone does man betray.
Pressed by necessity, they kill for food;
Man undoes man to do himself no good.
With teeth and claws by nature armed, they hunt
Nature's allowance, to supply their want
But man, with smiles, embraces, friendship, praise,
Inhumanly his fellow's life betrays;
With voluntary pains works his distress,
Not through necessity, but wantonness.

For hunger or for love they fight and tear,
Whilst wretched man is still in arms for fear.
For fear he arms, and is of arms afraid,
By fear to fear successively betrayed;
Base fear, the source whence his best passions came:
His boasted honour, and his dear-bought fame;
That lust of power, to which he's such a slave,
And for the which alone he dares be brave;
To which his various projects are designed;
Which makes him generous, affable, and kind;
For which he takes such pains to be thought wise,
And screws his actions in a forced disguise,
Leading a tedious life in misery
Under laborious, mean hypocrisy.
Look to the bottom of his vast design,
Wherein man's wisdom, power, and glory join:
The good he acts, the ill he does endure,
'Tis all from fear, to make himself secure.
Merely for safety, after fame we thirst,
For all men would be cowards if they durst.

And honesty's against all common sense:
Men must be knaves, 'tis in their own defense.
Mankind's dishonest; if you think it fair
Amongst known cheats to play upon the square,
You'll be undone.
Nor can weak truth your reputation save:
The knaves will all agree to call you knave.
Wronged shall he live, insulted o'er, oppressed,
Who dares be less a villain than the rest.
Thus, sir, you see what human nature craves:
Most men are cowards, all men should be knaves.
The difference lies, as far as I can see,
Not in the thing itself, but the degree,
And all the subject matter of debate
Is only: Who's a knave of the first rate?

All this with indignation have I hurled
At the pretending part of the proud world,
Who, swollen with selfish vanity, devise
False freedoms, holy cheats, and formal lies
Over their fellow slaves to tyrannize.

But if in Court so just a man there be
(In Court a just man, yet unknown to me)
Who does his needful flattery direct,
Not to oppress and ruin, but protect
(Since flattery, which way soever laid,
Is still a tax on that unhappy trade);
If so upright a statesman you can find,
Whose passions bend to his unbiased mind,
Who does his arts and policies apply
To raise his country, not his family,
Nor, while his pride owned avarice withstands,
Receives close bribes through friends' corrupted hands

Is there a churchman who on God relies;
Whose life, his faith and doctrine justifies?
Not one blown up with vain prelatic pride,
Who, for reproof of sins, does man deride;
Whose envious heart makes preaching a pretence,
With his obstreperous, saucy eloquence,
To chide at kings, and rail at men of sense;
None of that sensual tribe whose talents lie
In avarice, pride, sloth, and gluttony;
Who hunt good livings, but abhor good lives;
Whose lust exalted to that height arrives
They act adultery with their own wives,
And ere a score of years completed be,
Can from the lofty pulpit proudly see
Half a large parish their own progeny;
Nor doting bishop who would be adored
For domineering at the council board,
A greater fop in business at fourscore,
Fonder of serious toys, affected more,
Than the gay, glittering fool at twenty proves
With all his noise, his tawdry clothes, and loves;

But a meek, humble man of honest sense,
Who, preaching peace, does practice continence;
Whose pious life's a proof he does believe
Mysterious truths, which no man can conceive.
If upon earth there dwell such God-like men,
I'll here recant my paradox to them,
Adore those shrines of virtue, homage pay,
And, with the rabble world, their laws obey.

If such there are, yet grant me this at least:
Man differs more from man, than man from beast.

Guess who and what date. I don't care anymore. Clue: naval hero.

Totally stolen from here

Brown Trouser Time

Now that Mr Brown has withdrawn from Public Office

--- as a Chancellor and Prime Minister the like of which our Nation has rarely if ever witnessed before ---

he is able to offer to an Ordinary Person like the Reader the stout and stainproof Brown Trouser.

Hefty canvas reinforcements and drawstrings about the knees.

(get something into the copy about how your children and granchildren will be able to wear the same pair'o'troons as hand-me-downs)

As fine an Heritage, from one of the best Chancellors and Prime Ministers that our Nation has ever had, that our Nation has ever had - the most robust and finest that our Nation has ever had Brown Trouser.

Big Oil Leak Continues

I haven't posted now for twenty-two days.

Blogging is beginning to resemble Marriage.

Very well. I will put in a serious efforts.

Some of my efforts will have to be concealed from the general public, but gentlemen of certain interests will be able to see everything. I have no shame, and nor do they.

England 1 Germany 4

Phew. I hope you gentlemen of certain interests are satisfied. I know I am. They don't call me "Mister Eighteen Times a Night" for nothing.

Who's the Daddy? Genghis Khan is for most of the human race, apparently, but then I don't necessarily stick to the conventional in-and-out.

Divorce has its attractions, including the chance to bounce around in bed with interesting women. And to be interested by them, which was not allowed before.

Folk Song

Oh I wish I were back in Hove again
And a roley, a roley, a roley
With me Times Literary Supplement, me dog and me hen
Sing a roley, a roley, a roley
Where the women were generous and the men were not tight
And I'd sleep in the day and I'd stay up all night
And an' that were my ruin I'd do it all twice
Singing roley, a roley, a roley.

сельдь

Found in a can of Atlantic Herring.

In Russia herring fillets you.

Oh Dear

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

сеятель

Find "The Sower" (clicky piccie to magnificcy) and a whole 'nother cornucopia of pictures from Russia past and present at the very excellent English Russia.

Enjoy.

But not too much. I was three hours late for work yesterday morning because I sat up all night looking round the site and overslept as a result.

Not that it mattered much because I am working for the NHS as a filing clerk, so nobody noticed.

[Later]
Oh dear, it is 00:35 and I am going to make another cup of strong coffee and get all distracted again...[Later still] Oh dear oh dear.

Slow News Day

Sigh.

Wonder what's in the waste paper basket.

rustle rustle rustle

Aha.

Same as last time I looked.

My bus journey to work in Tolworth takes me past a shop with a big and jolly "Kiddies' Corner" sign, bright bouncy writing and pictures of teddy bears and dolls and so on, in the yard. The shop is a funeral parlour and the yard holds the stock of gravestones.

Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?

O'Hara?
Lilit?

When Life Hands You Lemons...

...remember that LEMONS is an anagram for MELONS and SOLEMN.

And N MOLES, a posited number of moles, don't ask me how many.

Why

Search me.

What Does a Real Man Smell Of

A goat in rut.

Plus..!

- or, just a goat;
- salts of aluminium and naphthenic and palmitic acids but mostly gasoline;
- honey, are you sure this vodka comes from a state-approved distillery;
- the car in the showroom;
- stale semen;
- Pall Mall unfiltered;
- that too;
- more goats;
- cheap aftershave (optional).

Political Debate

Citizens: Public sector budgets have already been cut by 12%.

All of them.

We know that.

Politicians: Which is why we are appealing to the people you can fool all of the time.

Radio

Shock Jock: And what about that footballer having sexual intercourse.

Callers: It wasn't with his wife. Or his.

Shock Jock: Who does? Just stirring things up here heh.

Callers: It's like... you're scrambling eggs with a wooden spoon. If I had of said - here is a scrambled egg -

Shock Jock: If you should have said that...

Callers: Then okay I scrambled these eggs with my penis. I put my hands up.

Shock Jock: Okay it is eight-oh-two and it's the next big topic - is Global Warning?

Precepts: an Epistemoligical Approach

Blogonius: Neither a follower nor a leader be.

Readers: There's another big one sunk.

Inside a Modern Brain

Next week: what Artists are like, and why Woman's Hour* cannot cope with concepts like "where r is the radiance of the whole measure of the boundary factor" because they are girls. Offer strictly limited to one Hour per Woman.

* or Kirsty off Desert Island Discs**.

** Melvyn Bragg on the other hand fells an entire cultural or scientific corpus once a week every week with the aplomb of an executioner proving his skill on an ox.

Golfer Has a Fuck or Two

I've never apologised. Then again nobody has ever asked me to.

Am I winning yet?

Sexual Intercourse - Don't Worry, Be Happy

Readers: What am I to do.







Counsellor: Actually it is you who owe us. It is you who are bankrupt, not us. Think about it.








Counsellor: We can come an arrangement, if you are prepared to be humble and honest.


Pohaps if you thought about it you would end up sensible.

The History of the World in 100 Objects - Part 101

Part One hundres and One

This gas-powered Custard Cream mixer can also

Readers: Is there any way of surrendering.

The History of the World in 100 Objects - Part 1

Part One

At 4.28 billion years old, these rocks are

Readers: Is there a fast-forward button?

The History of the World in 100 Objects - Part 0

Part Nought

Blogista: You want to see a picture of an object?

Readers: Maybe next time.

Blogista: I could get one from a museum for you.

Readers: This zippity-zip'll do for now. Looking forward to Part 1.

Blogista: Yay.

Your Government at Work

Oh the Grand Old Duke of York
He had ten thousand men
He marched them up to the top of the hill
And he had them all again.

Th'Greeks are really up the pole.

Thank goodness for those "Gershwin Savings" that will totally save our tushies.

You see anyone raising a clarinet to their snout, you don't even stop to ask them, is this some kind uv of porgie'n'bess or stuff.

Kick it dahn is froat.

Inside a Modern Chilcot Inquiry

"
Yugoder byudiful chiyn
You'v got biudifuul skin
You got uv biudiful faice
U got' tase
Y got biudiful iighes
Yu got byudifuUUUul thighes
"

As for me ---

should you put me to the point --- --- ---

d'you know what?
but d'you know what --- --- --- ?

I could not find it in my heart to fuck either of them.

Murderer: But, I have some... shall we say, "thighes" for you... in these bin bags.

Blogista: They're --- fresh? Not just re-warmed?

Murderer: Wouldn't know how to spell "cellophane".

Blogista: I'll take a hundredweight, but please don't tell anyone.

Kenneth Branagh and I

I am pleased to note (toujours la politesse) that Kenneth Braghaghas (TV's Wallander) has salt'n'pepper hair (not quite grey yet), bags under his eyes, no tie, hasn't shaved, scarcely ironed shirt, rumply navy-blue suit, can't walk on water and a there's a bit of a tummy if you look closely, and is devastatingly sexy. Falls asleep on the sofa all the time.

AAND - he is two years younger than I am :-)

I'm a bit like that m'self. Only older - and better preserved.

Admittedly, he is not a talentless alcoholic - and he probably doesn't have wrinkles on his bags. He won't be eating Polish sausage and baked beans tonite but some posh sort of dinner, probably with salad too. Also his suit must have cost more, you can tell because it isn't a shapeless sack'o'serge, and the shoulders are sharp. He may not be temping right at this moment, y'know doing all filing and stuff, all those invoices in the cardboard boxes in the big cupboard, actually it is more of a room than an actual cupboard. There aren't any cups or boards in it so I'm not sure why anybody calls it a cupboard :-}

But otherwise I - and he's acting as well. Bastard.