Cathy

I learned as we approached a pedestrian crossing - if there were any pedestrians crossing - to slap her round the back of the head.

She would bring the ancient VW to a stop only a foot or two after the stripey bits, giving the pedestrians plenty of time to leap out of the way.

In those days, we could tell an inquiring police officer, "Officer, we have had but one carafe of wine between us and she the driver has drank only a glass of it" and be waved on our way.

None of that "the Leith police dismisseth us", just knowing the word "carafe" was the shibboleth of the Sheventies.

Ah those first footloose and fancy free driving lessons on the local motorway, trying to coax a rusty Nazi sardine can up to 120 mph (here's the science: momentum + 2 btl Blue Nun + 3 btl Bull's Blood + some Nepalese resin), knowing that the non-self-sealing petrol tank (the Nazis never really got the hang of petrol tanks) was only a paper-thin sheet of oxidised iron away from and directly in front of the driver, viz myself.

Better in an emergency to steer left and try to shear off the off and passenger side, rather than risk immolation.

Officer: Are you sure you said "giraffe", Sir?

Self: Panache. Calabash. Caran d'Ache. My girlfriend who as you see is not driving has drank most of it.

Officer: Close enough, Sir, and time to be making your way home.

I last saw Cathy a quarter of a century ago, in Soho, where she was evidently making as bad a fist of prostitution as she had of primary-school teaching.

Bit Less Depressing

This gif animation made me laugh, which is something I haven't done for a while now.

No, I don't know how to insert an animation directly into the blog, and I'm feeling too lazy to work it out, so the still will have to serve as a trailer.

Bit Depressing

Well, it is if one is in UKIP and was hoping that somebody might have objected to the shenanigans over the notaConstitution - the lack of a UK referendum and the way the Treaty got shoehorned through Parliament.

Also a bit depressing if one is anti-BNP, or hoped for a better turnout than 50.32%, down -17.58% from 2005.

Conservative 19, 796 +3.46%
Lib Dem 9, 680 +1.84%
Green 1, 321 +0.54%
BNP 1, 243 +3.58%
Labour 1, 066 -11.68%
UKIP 843 -0.07%

I never got much further than this when I started on it 30 years ago - David Harvey's lectures on Capital

Introduction
Chapters 1 and 2

and more I hope to come: I really want to know what happens in the end.

Drinky Crow

Drinky Crow is right as always.

Soon

Soon my Lord shall come for me

Birds and Beasts

Wile away an idle hour with the Medieval Bestiary.

Here is a Medieval Bloke slinging a stone at a Cinnamologus, an Arabian bird which nests in cinnamon trees. Won't do him any good, you are supposed to use lead-tipped arrows.