Oh Beautiful! I Want an Air Penguin.......

And the graceful Air Jellyfish...



These are made by German firm Festo, exploring the future of robotics, but crossing a border into bio-mimicry and art. In my huge mansion, that I will one day have, I think I'll have shoals of these roaming the atrium.



Click the video embedded links or google Festo for lots more, but for me, these are the most beautiful of Festo's creatures.

Eight Miles High, Byrds.

A live concert recording from the Byds gig, the Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco, 1968.
I loved this song in 1968, no less now. In 1968, the first manned Apollo mission was launched, (Apollo 7) the first space mission to carry a three man crew, a previously unheard of eleven day orbital mission, later that year Apollo 8 left earth orbit and travelled to the moon on a three-day journey, completing ten lunar orbits, in preparation for the moon landing in july '69.
1968 was a time of unrest and rebellion, of assassination and unease, Russian tanks crushed the Prague Spring rebellion, Paris was ablaze, Martin Luther King was murdered. Baader-Meinhof guerilla gang bombs go off in Berlin, Wiki 1968.
Others were exploring inner space.
"The obscure lyrics, penned by Clark, are about the group's plane trip touring England in 1965. "Eight miles high, and when you touch down, you'll find that it's stranger than known." Airliners fly at an altitude of six to seven miles high; but it was felt that "eight miles high" sounded better. Unconvinced, the BBC banned the song"
The BBC didn't like that word "high"........

Bookshop of my Dreams, Oporto.

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Tea -Carol Anne Duffy

I like pouring your tea, lifting
the heavy pot, and tipping it up,
so the fragrant liquid streams in your china cup.

Or when you’re away, or at work,
I like to think of your cupped hands as you sip,
as you sip, of the faint half-smile of your lips.

I like the questions – sugar? – milk? –
and the answers I don’t know by heart, yet,
for I see your soul in your eyes, and I forget.

Jasmine, Gunpowder, Assam, Earl Grey, Ceylon,
I love tea’s names. Which tea would you like? I say
but it’s any tea for you, please, any time of day,

as the women harvest the slopes
for the sweetest leaves, on Mount Wu-Yi,
and I am your lover, smitten, straining your tea.