Comments;- At last I notice a backlog.

Sorry, folks... If you left a comment, and I've only just noticed. -I enabled comment moderation as an experiment, but didn't realise that Blogger wouldn't tell me that there were comments. I have remedied the issue and apologise profusely.
I keep writing blogposts in my head... but I have blogger's block when I get here. Ho Hum.
I'll get unstuck, eventually.

Levitating Kayaks

This one's for Dave.

It's a Flyak, from Norway's Foilkayak.com

This Door is Alarmed

I thought it only looked a little nervous.

Labio Dental Fricative

Sorting through my blogger editing archives, I found this post drafted long ago, but not published, so I thought I'd chuck it toward the light, in view of my paucity of posting.

Labio Dental Fricative



The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.....
This was in response to a post by The Inner Minx, and the ensuing comments thereon.
"Soubriquet said... Oh , hello, me again. See there was a misunderstanding about Labio-Dental Fricative, and a correspondent suggested it was suggestive, and that my comment was naughty. It was the Labio bit that brought about the tut-tuttage.So, let me clarify.Ladies, this is NOT about dentists in your undercarriage, the labile constituent of a Labio-dental fricative is your bottom lip... No, the one on your FACE...Labio-dental fricative describes a sound, made by passing air through a narrowed channel (fricative) modified by the bottom lip (labio) meeting the upper teeth.(Dental)So Labio-dental fricative is a linguistic term to describe a sound. In English, the letters F and V are labio-dental fricatives...The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band sang a song of that title. To which I referred.
Sheesh! surely you all knew that?"

Labio-Dental Fricative (Stanshall/Innes)

Cannibal chiefs chew Camembert cheese
'cause chewing keeps 'em cheeky
Big Fat Fred sticks fur to his head
'cause he thinks fur makes him freaky
Benjamin Bland and his Bugle Band blow the blues bi-weekly
(Yee hoo hoo!)
How many pies can a porpoise poise on purpose if she pleases?

I got up at eight, it was half past two
I said to myself, "Well, how do you do?"
I've gotta get on, so I soon got off
Stuck a clean shirt on, and had a good cough
Back at the boozer, a bloke I knew
Said he knew a secret no one knew
He pinched some snuff, and he sniffed and sighed
So I pinched his snout, and he replied,

"Cannibal chiefs chew Camembert cheese
'cause chewing keeps 'em cheeky
Big Fat Fred sticks fur to his head
'cause he thinks fur makes him freaky
Benjamin Bland and his Bugle Band blow the blues bi-weekly
How many pies can a porpoise poise on purpose if she pleases?"

Here am I a sailor
Seabirds fly above me
Listen to their cry
See them in the sky above me
Here am I a sailor
Fishes swim below me
Even while I sleep
Growing in the deep below me

I rode a long worm to the end of the line
I asked Tin Man if he'd tell me the time
He took off his hat, and he took off his head
Took off Max Bygraves, here's what he said,
"You take first right and second left."
The man in the moon says, "How's your chest?"
The man in the sun says, "Have another one!"
So we're all tanked up and singing along

Cannibal chiefs chew camembert cheese
'cause chewing keeps 'em cheeky
Big Fat Fred fixes fur to his head
'cause he thinks fur makes him freaky
Benjamin Bland and his Bugle Band blow the blues bi-weekly
(Mmmmm, mm)
How many pies can a porpoise poise on purpose if she pleases?

Human Behaviour

Right now, Iceland is in the news in Britain, mainly because of the collapse of its banking giant, Landsbanki, and the subsequent suggestion by the Icelandic government that the reported several billion pounds of money placed there by british investors, (such as the Local Government Association (LGA), which represents local councils, which said that 108 of them had deposited nearly 799 million pounds (one billion euros, 1.4 billion dollars) in Icelandic banks) is unlikely to be paid back.
Transport for London, the agency responsible for the capital's public transport, had 40 million pounds invested with Landsbanki's subsidiary, Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander. Fifteen police authorities had nearly 100 million pounds invested in Icelandic banks, according to the Association of Police Authorities, with London's Scotland Yard authority saying it had 30 million pounds invested.
This put our government in such a tizzy that Prime Minister Gordon Brown was moved to a cunning stroke... Let's use our newish laws designed to stop terrorists money laundering through british banks.... And seize all Icelandic assets in Britain!

Some of that money's not been there very long. Foreign banks got a lot of british money as british banks wobbled under the hit they took with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the U.S.
Here's the take on Landsbanki's Icebank on the 18th September, less than a month before it collapsed.


"A large number of savings account holders in the UK transferred their funds to Icelandic banks on Monday, reports Mbl.is Icesave, a savings account offered by Landsbanki, and Kaupthing Edge, a similar high interest product offered by Kaupthing Singer Friedlander, saw a surge in business after UK customers lost faith in their own banks, according to Kaupthing.
“Savers in the UK became somewhat nervous of their banks and moved their money over to us,” said Gudni Adalsteinsson, managing director of Kaupthing’s Treasury Department.
The share prices of major British banks such as HBOS and Barclays plummeted in value on Monday, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank in the US. Kaupthing said that Monday was in fact the fourth best day of business since it launched its Edge savings account in February this year. The two Icelandic banks have completed this year’s refinancing of ISK 820 billion (USD 8.7 billion, EUR 6 billion) worth of loans and next year’s is well underway."

These market experts are so wise, we should always trust their utterances, shouldn't we?

This rather sets the cordial relations between the U.K. and Iceland back a bit.
Almost to the Cod Wars...
Or the British invasion of neutral Iceland in 1940.

Anyway, it seems we are seizing Iceland's assets even as I write. I would argue that using the anti-terrorism laws is of course, nonsense, and I expect Iceland to challenge the legality of Brown's move, and he's hardly in a position to criticise the Icelandic state's lack of foresight, as Prime Minister Brown, with a number of years as Chancellor of the Exchequer, britain's top money-man, under his belt, proved no more prescient as british financial institutions collapsed and were bailed out by the state, following the New York debacle.

Here to Cheer you up, is Iceland's nuttiest song-pixie, crazy as a box of frogs, but oddly appealing :-

Björk




HUMAN BEHAVIOUR

If you ever get close to a human
And human behaviour-
Be ready to get confused
There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic
To human behaviour,
But yet so, yet so irresistible
And there's no map
They're terribly moody
And human behaviour
Then all of a sudden turn happy
But, oh, to get involved in the exchange
Of human emotions is ever so, ever so satisfying
Oh oh, and there's no map
Human behaviour, human
Human, human behaviour, human
Human, human behaviour, human
Human behaviour, human
And there's no map
And a compass
Wouldn't help at all
Human behaviour, human, human
Human behaviour, human,
Human behaviour, human,
Human behaviour
There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic
Human, human
Human behaviour
Human.
There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic
Human, human, human, human.

It's So Quiet

It's oh so quiet : it's oh so still
you're all alone : and so peaceful until

You fall in love (zing! boom!)
the sky up above (zing! boom!)
is caving in (wow! bam!)
you've never been so nuts about a guy
you wanna laugh you wanna cry
you cross your heart and hope to die

'Til it's over and then
it's nice and quiet
but soon again
starts another big riot

You blow a fuse (zing! boom!)
the devil cuts loose (zing! boom!)
so what's the use (wow! bam!)
of falling in love

It's oh so quiet : it's oh so still
you're all alone : and so peaceful until

You ring the bell (bim! bam!)
you shout and you yell (hi ho ho!)
you broke the spell
gee, this is swell you almost have a fit
this guy is gorge and I got hit
there's no mistake : THIS IS IT

'Til it's over and then : it's nice and quiet
but soon again : starts another big riot

You blow a fuse (zing! boom!)
the devil cuts loose (zing! boom!)
so what's the use (wow! bam!)
of falling in love

The sky caves in! the devil cuts loose!
you blow blow blow blow blow your fuse!
when you fall in love

Ssshhhhhh...

Seen in Bridlington, North Yorkshire

As usual, Click for Embiggenment
My pic, by the way, not outsourced or googled or whatever.

Van Pic

Sent by a friend. Source of picture says it was taken in Bristol U.K, recently.


 

Brits Complete First Ever Road-Vehicle Crossing of the Bering Straits from Russia to Alaska.

You can trust gritinthegears to bring you occasional snippets of news that have slipped through the cracks in the mainstream media.

I bring you here a report from the Bering Straits, it took a long time to reach this page because I'm a procrastinator with a chance of olympic gold in procrastinating...... If I ever get around to seeing if there's a procrastinating category in the olympics...

I like the idea.
"BANG!" And the runners are off to a good pace, the leaders are now breaking free of the pack and surging forward in the second turn......
AND LOOK! yes, there, in the entry way of this great stadium, we see Great Britain's entry, Soubriquet... he's scratching his head and yawning, looking a bit bewildered.... I think he's about to get changed into his running shorts.... Oh, no, he's stopped to accept a nice hot cup of tea, he's sitting down, oh! he's taken a book out of his bag... he's reading... and it's the Kenyan in front as they hurtle around the final lap, the german is gaining on him, and it looks as if OH! Peru's entry just stumbled, bringing down the leaders as they attempt to lap him... the track is chaos, runners everywhere, falling over the leaders... oh... Soubriquet is strolling toward the finish line, still reading he steps over the fallen athletes.. as he nears the line, sweden and japan's runners are up and sprinting in deadly earnest, Soubriquet yawns again... stops, farts, steps over the line to take gold, sits down and continues reading... this man is the very pinnacle of achievement for procrastinators... see the toothbrush in his pocket?
Yes, at four in the afternoon, Soubriquet is still heading vaguely toward breakfast... A well-earned Gold for procrastination there!!!

What? Bering? oh yes. A first! A first for Great Britain, and a first for Yorkshire!!!!!
The first ever successful amphibious crossing of the Bering Straits occurred on the 8th August, 2008, when an amphibious Land Rover finally made landfall on Little Diomede in the Aleutian Islands, having crossed the international date-line from Russian Great Diomede island, driven by Yorkshire farmer and adventurer Steve Burgess, navigated and abetted by Dan Evans.
The expedition drove on the sea ice of northern Siberia to Uelen, where the land Rover was left until the strait thawed. Floatation units designed for the crossing were attached and they then set off into one of the world's most famously hostile and changeable seas, for Little Diomede, the first point of contact with the United States of America. Storms there caused a delay, but when the weather calmed enough, the team continued the voyage to Wales, on the mainland of Alaska.
http://www.capetocape.org.uk/
Video here... it's in Russian.


Governor Palin, so far as I know, was not present to greet the adventurers.

(It's worth noting that the first ever successful foot crossing of the strait was by a two man team of French/American Dimitri Kieffer and Yorkshireman Karl Bushby in march 2006.)