The bountiful earth

Mac's allotment is really producing this year. We've had all the corn we can handle, and then some. I handed half a dozen cobs to a neighbor last week. In return, we got a couple of pounds of pollack and some mackerel he'd caught.

We've also had a whole load of blackberries and blackcurrants, purple sprouting broccoli, courgettes (zucchini) and, my personal favorite, pink fir apple potatoes.



They're as ugly as sin but they taste divine.

Family life

No 1 Son will be starting at Exeter University next month. Yesterday, he gave me a guided tour of the place. Of course, seeing as how we're living in the 21st century, I didn't have to leave the house to take a look around - I got the virtual tour. It looks pretty impressive, too.

Holland Hall (student residence)
Typical student room
School of Psychology

LHC rap

My kinda crew: the kids at CERN are gettin' down with the groove:-



The Telegraph has details.

Monday roundabout

Norman Geras writes in defense of democratic socialism.

Uncredible Hallq hosts the 24th Humanist Symposium. [Via FIHD]

Oliver Kamm (now blogging at the Times) has "Ten moments from Tony Benn".

PooterGeek reviews "The Dark Knight".

And finally,

The Debatable Land has the video of Boris Johnson's "Ping Pong is coming home" speech.

Suicide vest girl

The BBC has video of the arrest of "Iraqi 'suicide vest' girl":-

A 13-year-old girl wearing a vest packed with explosives has been arrested in the Iraqi town of Baquba, after turning herself in - according to US officials.

She allegedly surrendered to police in Baquba and they had to remove the vest before detaining her. Iraqi police released a video of the incident.

A US military spokesman said she apparently approached the Iraqi police saying she had the vest on and did not want to go through with it. But it was not clear if she had been forced to wear the vest or had done so voluntarily.

What kind of person sends a young girl out to commit murderous suicide?

Her mother and husband tricked her into it according to the Kansas City Star which has details along with a picture of the 15 year-old Raina.

Blog under threat

From Brett at Harry's Place:-

Harry’s Place may be removed (or rather have it’s DNS disabled) after a ‘complaint’ to the company that our domain name is registered with.

We assume after threats were made on the weekend that this ‘complaint’ originates from Jenna Delich or her supporters.

Though we have not yet seen the complaint submitted, we assume it runs along the lines that pointing out that Ms Delich linked to the website of a known neo-Nazi figure and former Ku Klux Klan leader is defamatory.

If Harry's Place is down updates will be available from harryblog at gee mail dot com.

Oh, the humanity!

From the Telegraph: BBC reporter Lyse Doucet says the British media is not doing enough to communicate "the humanity of the Taliban".

Some examples of the Taliban's "humanity" (not cited by Ms Doucet):-

The murder of foreign aid workers.

The skinning alive of captured French soldiers.

The beheading of a teacher in front of his family for the "crime" of educating girls.

Sundry other atrocities too numerous to detail here.

David Szondy at Ephemeral Isle says of Lyse Doucet: "How this remarkably silly woman manages to navigate through life without the smallest fraction of common sense or moral judgment is beyond me."

Me too.

Too real

This is impressive: a computer generated performance from Image Metrics.



[Via Dean's World]

Still In the kitchen

I'm not blogging much because I'm cooking loads. And having a great deal of fun.

Tonight's menu: kofta bhoona served with basmati rice, spiced green beans, chapattis and a mint and onion raita. It really is great to be back in the kitchen!

Don't worry, I'll get over it, and then I'll be back to blogging about current affairs, the state of the world and all the other really important things.

In the meantime, excuse me while I go eat.

Update
Almost forgot, as a perfect end to the evening, Mac and I are going to sit down together, share a bottle of wine and watch "I Know Where I'm Going" - they don't make them like that anymore.

Foodfest

Yesterday was Mac's birthday. We had friends round for tea and cakes. Mac baked a chocolate cake, pineapple passion cake and bramble muffins, Spud (age 10) made flapjacks and, for supper, I cooked giant conchiglie stuffed with ricotta and spinach.

Today, Mac made tomato and lentil soup for lunch and, this evening, I'll be cooking chicken korma with pilau rice and saag bhaji.

I'm still in some pain from my botched op but at least I can eat pretty much what I want now - after months of plain baked chicken and boiled vegetables I've got some catching up to do.

So excuse me but I need to get back to the kitchen.

In between

It has not been a good day in the Junior household. I have been mostly in between - in between going in to hospital and not going in to hospital.

Last week, I was led to believe I would be going in as soon as a bed was available. Today, I was informed there are no plans to admit me: I will be treated as an outpatient.

That's fine, except that the uncertainty of it all has had no small impact on the significant others in my life. Questions have arisen. For example: Do I need to arrange childcare? Does Mac need to take time off work? Do I need to put on hold those (admittedly small number of) commitments I have to other people?

All in all, being in between has not been a comfortable experience: I value clarity. Unfortunately, the National Health Service does not seem to hold it in the same high regard.

As I said, it has not been a good day in the Junior household.

Thursday roundabout

In country: Michael Totten reports from Tbilisi.

Dave Price at Dean's World on infrastructure improvements in Iraq.

Zoe Brain takes the Slavoj Test.

Eddie Campbell has brought a fistful of comics back from his book tour.

And finally,

Life and death in Blue Gel City: Science Punk has taken up ant farming.

Current reading

"The Rise of the Greek Epic" by Gilbert Murray.

Actually, I'm rereading it, and enjoying it greatly. I read a lot of Classics at university and Gilbert Murray's works were foremost amongst them.

I don't often link to Wikipedia but the entry on Murray provides a fairly comprehensive picture of the life and works of a remarkable man.

Funding terror

Newsnight, the BBC's flagship news and current affairs program, reports that UK charity Children in Need provided funding to the terrorists responsible for the 7/7 attacks.

According to a report in yesterday's Telegraph:-

Thousands of pounds raised by Britons for the BBC’s Children in Need charity could have been used to recruit and train the homegrown terrorists involved in the 7/7 terror attacks on London.

Some of the cash could also have been used to fund the propaganda activities of the suicide bombers who killed 52 people in July 2005, according to an investigation by BBC 2’s Newsnight.

The programme reported that £20,000 from Children in Need was handed over to the Leeds Community School, in Beeston, Yorkshire between 1999 and 2002.

The school, which also received large sums from other public bodies, was run from premises behind the Iqra Islamic bookshop which the gang used as a meeting place and an opportunity to radicalise others.

Lightning strikes again

Usain Bolt yesterday after winning the 200m final in a new world record time of 19.30 secs.

BBC video of the race here.

Beijing 2008

Most pointless Olympic sport, ever: Men's Beach Volleyball.

Mac doesn't get it either: "They're wearing shirts?!"

Update
Neo-neocon objects to the "pulchritudinous inequities" of the sport.

Misjudging America

The Telegraph reports that British anti-Americanism is "based on misconceptions".

Tell me about it!

Tuesday roundabout

Ophelia Benson: For women "Afghanistan is pretty much one big prison, run by sadistic rapist guards."

Oliver Kamm (now blogging at the Times) draws attention to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's links with the Communist Party of Britain.

Kings of War examines what motivates the killing of aid workers in Afghanistan.

Jason Rosenhouse at Evolution Blog reports from the Sixth International Conference on Creationism.

And finally,

Orac at Respectful Insolence has a video of all the "Dr Who" episodes compressed into 8 minutes.

Insulting friends

A flimsy article on the difficulties of being friends with celebrities by Sathnam Sanghera in today's Times contains a passage that left me scratching my head.

You may have noticed that one of the main ways in which male friends communicate is through the medium of insult. You find someone's weak point - a big bottom, flappy ears, a flappy bottom, big ears - and tease him about it relentlessly.

This may be true of juveniles but I haven't witnessed it much in grown men and it certainly isn't characteristic of any of my friendships.

It beats me why would anyone want to be friends with someone who did that sort of thing, and yet Sanghera seems to think it's normal. I dunno, maybe I'm the odd one out here but I tend to regard such behavior as being indicative of unresolved personal issues.

Or maybe I'm just taking Sanghera's piece more seriously than it deserves.

The Phelps effect

The BBC's Steve Parry is mobbed by fans in Tiananmen Square as he's mistaken for Michael Phelps.

Weekend reading

Philip Bobbitt in the Spectator: "Russia’s aggression in Georgia is a portent of perils to come".

Condoleezza Rice in Foreign Affairs: Rethinking the National Interest - American Realism for a New World.

From last year's March/April issue of Boston Review, Days of Lies and Roses - Sarah Chayes's experiences in Afghanistan. [Via ALD]

At Slate, Christopher Beam looks at "Five ways Internet tricksters could tamper with the 2008 elections".

Family life

No 1 Son has just returned from a week in the South of France. He didn't take a guitar with him, so know he's back he's playing pretty much all the time. I told you he was guitar mad, right? Well, not content with the sound he was getting from either his Strat or the Telecaster clone he built himself (not "fat" enough, seemingly) he's been out and bought yet another guitar.

It's an Ibanez S470 and it's a real beaut.


He tells me he needs it for Technical Rock - I don't even know what that is!

Balaclava of evil

The Independent reports that the "War on Terror" boardgame has been "branded criminal by police":-

Following a series of raids on the climate change camp near Kingsnorth power station, officers displayed an array of supposed weapons snatched from demonstrators: knives, chisels, bolt cutters, a throwing star – and a copy of the satirical game, which lampoons Washington's "war on terror".
[...]
Kent police said they had confiscated the game because the balaclava [which comes packed with the game] "could be used to conceal someone's identity or could be used in the course of a criminal act".

The balaclava in use (from Cockaigne's flikr page):-


Kent police in action:-

Aprocryphal prejudice

Mark Tran at Comment is Free wades into the debate over the controversial pictures of Spanish Olympic athletes and almost immediately goes off beam:-

Should I get offended by pictures of Spanish athletes and sports officials players pulling back the skin on either side of their eyes, in a slit-eyed gesture?

Not really, but the pictures make me think that Spain is stuck in a time warp when it comes to race relations. The incident brings to mind a story a former university professor told me about American attitudes towards the Japanese during the second world war – American pilots were told by their commanders that the Japanese were inferior pilots because they had slitty eyes.

Hmmm. How is it that a story about the attitude of Spanish athletes towards the Chinese reminds Mark Tran of a story involving Americans and Japanese during the Second World War? I struggle to see the relevance myself. But then this is Comment is Free where gratuitous references to the supposed stupidity and racism of Americans are commonplace.

So, did American commanders really tell their pilots that the Japanese were inferior flyers because they had "slitty eyes"? Well, if they did, it's news to me.

Of course, American attitudes to the Japanese were colored by the attack on Pearl Harbor and the widespread inclination at the time for Westerners to regard themselves as superior physical specimens when compared to "Asiatics" - American propaganda routinely depicted the Japanese soldier as a bespectacled, bucktoothed weakling. But is there any evidence to support Tran's specific accusation? Not that I've come across.

It's true American commanders were convinced that Japanese airmen (and soldiers) had poor eyesight but this misapprehension had nothing to do with the shape of their eyes. Rather, the impression was fostered by the prevalence of corrective spectacles amongst members of the Japanese forces and was reinforced by faulty intelligence early in the war. The following quote from Marine pilot (and Medal of Honor recipient) Gregory "Pappy" Boyington is illustrative:-

I suppose you know that the Japanese are renowned for their inability to fly. And they all wear corrective glasses."

"Captain," said Boyington, "it's quite a setup, but how do you know the pilots wear glasses?"

"Our technical staff determines this from the remains after a shoot-down."

In any case, as Peter B. Mersky notes in "Time of the Aces: Marine Pilots in the Solomons" such misconceptions did not survive contact with the enemy:-

The stereotypical picture of a small, emaciated Japanese pilot, wearing glasses whose lenses were the thickness of the bottoms of Coke bottles [...] did not persist for long after the war began. The first American aircrews to return from combat knew that they had faced some of the world's most experienced combat pilots equipped with some pretty impressive airplanes.

On a more general note, this article (from the January 1941 issue of "Flying and Popular Aviation") demonstrates the tendency of American commentators to underestimate enemy air power based in part on a stereotypical characterization of Japanese abilities. Nevertheless, there's no mention of "slitty eyes".

Mark Tran really shouldn't believe every negative story he hears about Americans: some people might think he's prejudiced.

World's fastest man

A while back, I wrote about my favorite gold medal winning performances from past Olympics (Bob Beamon and Dick Fosbury from Mexico City '68 and Olga Korbut at the Munich games in '72) but today's performance by Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt in the Men's 100m final eclipsed them all.

Bolt didn't just win the race, he dominated it. After 50 metres the outcome was never in doubt, at 85 metres Bolt eased off and cruised over the finish line grandstanding to the crowd for a new world record of 9.69 secs.

It was a truly phenomenal performance. You can watch it here.

Saturday roundabout

Cobb takes another look at blackness, class, politics and identity in "The Error of My Boohabian Ways".

Savage Minds provides an anthropological take on Olympic competition.

Mr Eugenides is the host for Britblog Roundup #182.

Cryptomundo reports on a marriage made in hell: Creationism and cryptozoology.

And finally,

Pootergeek warns of the dangers of "Genetically Unmodified heads of state".

DVD heaven

Recently, I've been feasting on Frank Capra movies: "It Happened One Night", "Meet John Doe", and most recently the restored print of "Mr Deeds Goes To Town".

"Deeds" is regarded by some as an also ran when compared to "IHON" and "It's a Wonderful Life" but, to my mind, it's Capra's best picture. The cinematography is just stunning and Jean Arthur's performance is a wow! It's hard to believe she had to be practically dragged in front of the camera.

"Kick her in the ass!" Capra laughed when asked how to direct Jean Arthur. "She's a funny combination of things. You can't get her out of the dressing room without using force. You can't get her in front of the camera without her crying, whining, vomiting, all that shit she does. But then when she does get in front of the camera, and you turn on the lights - wow! All of that disappears and out comes a strong-minded woman. Then when she finishes the scene, she runs back to the dressing room and hides."

From Joseph McBride's definitive biography "Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success".

Unheath update

Ok, so I haven't been posting much, lately. Mostly, I've been in hospital (three times in the last two weeks) or lying in bed at home. It's becoming increasingly obvious that the surgical team responsible for removing my gall bladder made a bit of a mess of it.

On the positive side: my liver function is fine and I don't have a hospital acquired infection. On the other hand, I'm still in some pain, my blood pressure keeps dropping away to abnormally low levels, my appetite's gone and I'm experiencing intermittent hot and cold sweats. Altogether most unpleasant.

Still, not to worry, I now have a senior consultant on my case and I'm waiting to be readmitted for tests, scans and (potentially) exploratory surgery. Oh joy!

Random nostalgia

The public swimming baths near my grandparents' home in Liverpool, now demolished.



Mom used to take me and my sister swimming there; she always wore a bathing cap. Years later, those bathing caps became highly prized objects - turned inside out they were perfect for Kojak impressions.

The Russian question

A multiple choice for NATO members.

Which of the following is "a faraway country of which we know little":

A. Georgia
B. Ukraine
C. Lithuania
D. Estonia
E. All of the above

Weekend reading

Via Michael Totten: Joshua Kucera's experiences in South Ossetia published in a May edition of Slate.

In the Independent: Paul Vallely on "the global demographic conundrum".

"Who’s Afraid of Friedrich Hayek?" Jesse Larner in Dissent Magazine assesses Hayek's contribution to political theory.

Nicholas Carr at the Atlantic asks: "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

Physics exercises

Fancy a brain workout? Forget Sudoku and Brain Gym: checkout the ticklish physics problems at The Feynman Lectures on Physics.

My personal favorite: boat anchor lake.

Family life

In two months time, No 1 Son's gap year will come to an end and he'll be heading off to university. For the last twelve months, rather than traveling the world, getting some degree-related work experience or doing voluntary work overseas, he's been sitting around playing guitar.

Well, that's not entirely true - he's also been working in the local guitar shop to build up his savings (£500 of which he spent on a Fender Stratocaster), he's built himself a guitar (basically a Telecaster clone but with a bigger headstock) and he's been supplementing his shop earnings teaching classical guitar in the evenings. The rest of the time he's either playing guitar, studying music theory or listening to music. He's pretty dedicated.

He recently came back from a week-long residential course at the International Guitar Festival in Bath. He was on a jazz course but he got to meet and mingle with a lot of blues guitarists (including Matt Scofield and Sherman Robertson). Needless to say, he had a time. And he came back buzzing with enthusiasm.

Problem is, he'll be studying psychology at university not music. So now he's saying if he's not enjoying his degree after six months, he's going to pack it in, move to London and concentrate on music.

What's a father to do?

Dirge to Autumn

During National Poetry Month, I signed up for the Academy of American Poets' "Poem-a-Day" service, and as a result they keep mailing me interesting tidbits from the wonderful world of poetry. Though, sometimes, the stuff they highlight isn't all that wonderful. I am, for example, still waiting for someone to fill me in on M. NourbeSe Philip's effort (I'm not even going to call it a poem - I'm not sure what it is).

Anyhow, what got my goat recently was American poet Stanley Plumly reading "Ode to Autumn" by John Keats - he turns it into a dirge. The delivery is so slow and ponderous it makes the poem sound like a lament. It's an ode, FGS! Keats wrote it to praise autumn not to bury it.

What is it with some poets that they feel they have to put on some kind of slow, somber "poetry voice" when they read stuff? It drives me mad. Really, I'm tempted to do a podcast of "Ode to Autumn" myself just to illustrate the joy in Keats' lines.

Mind you, I suppose I should be grateful Plumly didn't attempt "Ode to a Nightingale". Just the thought makes me shudder.

Update
My mistake: I'm informed that Stanley Plumly isn't putting on a special voice to read that poem - that's just the way he speaks. Fine, but my point remains - it's not really the way Keats should be read, (IMHO).

Update
Also from Stanley Plumly: "The Posthumous Keats: A personal biography". Ron Slate's review at On the Seawall quotes from the preface to provide a context (and some justification) for Plumly's presentation of "To Autumn".

Paris for Prez

It seems we have a write-in candidate for the presidency:-

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

[Via Harry's Place]

Wrong hero

A number of papers report the revelation that one of the British Prime Minister's boyhood heroes was Scott of the Antarctic.

That's a shame. A lot of people in the Labour Party rather wish Gordon Brown would follow Captain Oates' example : "I am just going outside and may be some time."

Change of plans

I'm not supposed to be here. I should be on a beach somewhere in Pembrokeshire with Mac and the boys. That was the plan. Of course, things didn't turn out that way: recovering from the op took longer than expected so I stayed home. Turns out I didn't miss much, the weather in Pembrokeshire took a turn for the worse in the middle of the week; Mac and the boys came home after only a few days away.

Still, we'll get away later in the year, all being well.

In the meantime, expect some blogging.