Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Film poster for illiterates


Spotted this poster on a bus stop last Friday.

Jee-suz fec-king ker-eye-st

Monday, September 29, 2008

Burning Bridges

I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

FailBlog


Pictures of things that are, in some way, less than completely successful.

http://failblog.org/

Beauty, beast.


Friday, September 26, 2008

Antica Trattoria Da Bruno



An unprepossessing exterior and a location within a few hundred metres of the leaning tower do not bode well for this restaurant in Pisa.

Surprisingly, it is extremely good. Middlingly expensive but worth it. Highly recommended.

http://www.anticatrattoriadabruno.com/eng_home.asp

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Syntax, Semantics, Translation

My daily commute, by car, takes me through a couple of tiny villages called the Shelfords. The road through them is quite narrow, and is littered with parked cars - parked by convention on one side of the road.

Traffic in the morning is heavy, and when one is travelling north one jumps from gap to gap in the parked cars - allowing oncoming traffic a clear passage. This is difficult as often you can't see what might be coming south around a corner, and how far away it is.

This morning I jee-yust squeezed into a gap before a line of oncoming cars - unfortunately this gap was very small - and the little car that followed behind me a bit too closely couldn't squeeze completely in as well. I squooshed forward as far as I could - parking sensors squealing in protest. But still the road in the other direction was pretty well blocked.

A couple of oncoming cars managed to wiggle through, but eventually the traffic jammed. Then an extraordinary thing happened. A woman in a south bound car spoke to me in a language foreign to me. I can understand a bit of some Romanic languages, especially if I'm aware of the context. Sometimes, although the meaning is clear, it's hard to guess which language you are hearing. In this case - I'm pretty sure she was speaking "chav".

Chav, it seems, has a quite gutteral delivery - and is best spoken with a wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command. The words are short and simple, meaning it is necessary to repeat them, loudly, even as the person to whom you are speaking is moving into the distance.

Her semantics were:

"Well - I see that, due to an unfortunate sequence of events, we are at an impasse. Although other people with similar sized vehicles have managed to pass through this gap - I don't have the judgement to do so. I note that you are driving a Citroen - I understand that this marque has a corporate tradition of quirky proportions - the front overhang of these cars is quite large - making it hard to be exactly sure where the nose of the car ends. Allow me to be of assistance by pointing out that you have a few inches of clearance left in front of you. I fully understand that you are unwilling to pull out of the gap you are in - because you fear it would be selfish and only exacerbate our problem. However due to my unwillingness to move further forward - the only solution we have is that you push out into the oncoming traffic. We have been here for some time now, and I am feeling a little rushed and flustered. So would you be so kind as to attempt this? Thank you and good day"

Her syntax was perhaps a little curter.

I can well imagine that this woman meets all minor vicissitudes of life shrieking like an ape squabbling over fruit. What a shit.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Bijou little disasterette.

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost my little list of 10 favourite films.

It's of no great consequence to me, let alone anyone who stumbles over this - but I had settled on it over some years, and now I keep thinking of films I enjoyed and wanting to shuffle the list around again, again and again. Here's what it looks like currently:

Brazil
Dark Star
Le Diner de Cons
Diva
Être et avoir
The Fourth Man
Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources
Koyaanisqatsi
Mona Lisa
Withnail and I

Favourite is probably Mona Lisa, a bittersweet love story. At times v bitter.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Enormity of change, change of enormity.

Slow witted people, such as me, tend to object to change. It devalues the hard won currency of experience. Things have a way of continuing to change regardless.

I used to know what enormity meant, and tended to sputter into my Bruichladdic when, in an irony drenched attempt to sound clever, some twunt used enormity as a synonym for enormousness.

I knew this was coming, I have stumbled over the first hint of the word evolving: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enormity

I am seeking solace in "utilise".

Sunday, September 14, 2008

An indubitably fake photo of

Moose-bothering Barbie from Arsewipe, Alaska.

A wayward election and an old man choking on a pretzel, and she could be Captain of the free world.

Her tenure, should it come to pass, might be regarded as less than ideal.

Kiwi Fruit - The Shocking Truth

Friday, September 12, 2008

Faux Ami

Watch out for people who tell you about the number of friends that they have on Facebook. Facebook is for children and these are imaginary friends.

Sometimes small children test boundaries by asking you to stop the car because their imaginary friend has been left behind.

Can you see where this argument is going?

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Timed Shutdown PC Freeware

My family often inadvertently leaves our home computers on overnight. This used to annoy me, but not any more.

Timed Shutdown can be used to automatically shutdown a PC. It supports shutdown, reboot and logoff at a user-specified time, after a countdown has elapsed, when the CPU usage reaches a certain level or when your Internet connection is disconnected. The program sits in the system tray when running so it can be easily aborted. It can optionally display a warning message before taking action. Timed Shutdown can also be run from the command line.

http://tinnes.org.uk/shutdown/index.html

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

The Book of Ebenezer Le Page. G.B. Edwards




The story of a tomato grower and fisherman who lives his whole life in Guernsey.
A languid book of quiet beauty recommended to me by a recently lost friend. Said friend is much missed and was one of the few people who took the same message as me from "Zen in the Art ... " below.

William Golding spoke highly of the Book of Le Page, although his views on island life were not quite so languid.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Zen in the Art of Archery. Eugen Herrigel.


Very little happens within this book, yet it remains applicable to every difficult endeavour (except for synchronised swimming, you people should just be ashamed). Outwardly a diary bemoaning the syntactic frustrations of a western teacher when he becomes a student to an eastern man - it sings praises for determination, humility and perseverance.

There's some archery in it too.

My favourite book. Lent and re bought many times.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

A brief interview with Jesus


Bowerbird: "So, tell me, what *do* you drive?"
JC: "Well, you can keep your holier than thou Priuses. I borrowed this off Dad. Bitchin!"

Bowerbird's Champagne Canon

It seems to me that it is wise to pursue balance in all things. Usually this involves restraint in some form. There is hidden recursion here as "all things" includes pursuing balance itself.
So - it is very wise, every now and then, to do something that is in some way wilfully extravagant.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Charlie Brooker

Acrid ranting and swearing from the clever misanthrope Charlie Brooker.

A mock TV guide he did for a few years: http://www.tvgohome.com/archive.html

His slightly tamer columns in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charliebrooker

Offensive.

Probably not funny for grown ups.

Derisive Snort

"popular mid-noughties social life simulator MySpace"
- Marina Hyde, The Guardian, Fri Sep 5 2008

social life simulator - v funny.

"The three men I admire most"

Flaminio Bertoni - a sculptor who was co-opted to industry. His work always makes me smile, you will have seen some every now and then - but it's unlikely you know his name. Not that it matters I suppose.

Louis XVI - a slightly dim man who bumbled into a job which was way beyond his ability, and cocked it up mightily. He gained redemption through last minutes of nigh on unbelievable courage and dignity.

Theodorus van Gogh - the letters between him and his poor mad brother Vincent show him in a flattering light, filled with unquestioning brotherly love.

Beauty, courage and love. What more could you want?

A round of good toast, perhaps.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Tandem



This is one of my very favourite things. SJS Cycles custom built it, yet still offered a 100 day, no reason required buy back. On delivery the instantaneous decision was that they could keep our money. We still love riding this bike.

http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/

http://www.thorncycles.co.uk/ravenadventure.html


Thursday, September 4, 2008

So, a blog.

Postings will be short, sporadic and consist largely of things which please me. Maybe you will like them too, or maybe you will see them as broken and faded halves of cheap plastic clothes pegs. Tell me what you think - satinbowerblog@gmail.com .