Tuesday, 25 December 2007
Happy Christmas, to One and All
By the way. This blog came into existence on the 26th december a year ago. Is it time to quit?
I'm not any more sure of what it's about now than I was on day one.
HUMBUG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, okay then... a little curtsey to the season on Grit in the Gears. Sigh.
Oh..
You'll need google earth to see the full mashings.
Yes.
Full Mashings.
Oh well, I can't translate EVERYTHING into universal english.
Thingummies
Gubbinses
y'know?
Friday, 14 December 2007
Surreal........................ Sweet Home Alabama
Sweet Home Alabama
As you never heard it before.......
The Leningrad Cowboys, (from Finland) and the Alexandrov Red Army Choir.......
at the Total Balalaika Show, Helsinki, Finland, June 12th, 1993.
As you never heard it before.......
The Leningrad Cowboys, (from Finland) and the Alexandrov Red Army Choir.......
at the Total Balalaika Show, Helsinki, Finland, June 12th, 1993.
"European Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2, 239-257 (1998)
DOI: 10.1177/136754949800100205
© 1998 SAGE Publications
Shifting spaces, shifting identities
'The Total Balalaika Show'
Timo Cantell
City of Helsinki Urban Facts
The 'Total Balalaika Show', a rock concert of extraordinary proportions, was held in Helsinki in 1993. The audience numbered 80,000. This concert is analysed by reference to Bakhtin's explorations of carnival, highlighting the ambivalent nature of the event. Both the performers and the venue of the concert (the historical Senate Square in the centre of Helsinki) are characterized by the uncertainty of temporal and spatial categories. The concert is also interpreted as constituting an integral part of the new cultural situation in Finland: a situation in which this small country and its comparatively homogenous culture will increasingly have to see questions of identity pushed into the domains of reflexivity and uncertainty. The concert also provided an opportunity to negotiate the history of Finnish—Soviet relations and the problems involved in those relations."
Bring it ON!
Over at The Sisterhood of the Pointy Heels' blog, Atyllah has posted pics of warrior girlies in armour.
Terrified, Me,...........................
HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Terrified, Me,...........................
HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
Radishes. Not as good as they used to be, I tell you.
Have you noticed how radishes are not as good as they used to be?
Long ago, and far away, the best radishes and carrots were the ones in Mister Watson's allotment, which was next to ours. My sister and I had been specifically prohibited from pulling up and eating the various vegetable goodnesses in our allotment, but no specific statement had been made regarding Mr Watson's garden. If you were a politician, you would know that not having a prohibition being read out to you and being forced to sign an acknowledgement is roughly equivalent to, um, well, the opposite. If you weren't told NOT to do it, it obviously must be quite alright.
So we pulled up radishes, wiped the muck off, and ate them. Carrots too. Potatoes were not very nice, a couple is too many. Our mother had demonstrated that a carrot top in a saucer of water will sprout and thrive. So we never ate the top quarter inch, and carefully re-planted them. Obviously, no harm was done, and they'd just regenerate theirselves overnight.
Imagine the outrage when called in to meet the irate neighbour, and the shouty parent, and the confiscation of toys, loss of privileges, and being banged up in solitary, -sent to bed in the daytime, no toys or books allowed. Damn those grown-ups.
Mr Watson had two names. To grown ups he was called Frank, but children were told not to be cheeky if they referred to him by that name. And he had a pond with special goldfishes.
Radishes now are too clean, no mud at all, and though big, do not make me sneeze, which I seem to remember was the point of it, biting a radish and seeing how long you could go, eyes watering, before the explosive sneeze and fits of giggles.
Whales were bigger too, in those days. Bigger than a ship. That one in the Thames last year must have been a fake one, animatronic or something cheap and shoddy, because they can fight giant squids and are fierce. A real whale wouldn't just swim up a river, dither around and die, would it?
Could a whale beat a bear in a fight? Simon thinks they can, but even cowboys are afraid of bears. And squids have suckers.
Moby Dick could beat a squid though.
I always wanted a better name than the one I was given. Especially when I read Moby Dick...
Long ago, and far away, the best radishes and carrots were the ones in Mister Watson's allotment, which was next to ours. My sister and I had been specifically prohibited from pulling up and eating the various vegetable goodnesses in our allotment, but no specific statement had been made regarding Mr Watson's garden. If you were a politician, you would know that not having a prohibition being read out to you and being forced to sign an acknowledgement is roughly equivalent to, um, well, the opposite. If you weren't told NOT to do it, it obviously must be quite alright.
So we pulled up radishes, wiped the muck off, and ate them. Carrots too. Potatoes were not very nice, a couple is too many. Our mother had demonstrated that a carrot top in a saucer of water will sprout and thrive. So we never ate the top quarter inch, and carefully re-planted them. Obviously, no harm was done, and they'd just regenerate theirselves overnight.
Imagine the outrage when called in to meet the irate neighbour, and the shouty parent, and the confiscation of toys, loss of privileges, and being banged up in solitary, -sent to bed in the daytime, no toys or books allowed. Damn those grown-ups.
Mr Watson had two names. To grown ups he was called Frank, but children were told not to be cheeky if they referred to him by that name. And he had a pond with special goldfishes.
Radishes now are too clean, no mud at all, and though big, do not make me sneeze, which I seem to remember was the point of it, biting a radish and seeing how long you could go, eyes watering, before the explosive sneeze and fits of giggles.
Whales were bigger too, in those days. Bigger than a ship. That one in the Thames last year must have been a fake one, animatronic or something cheap and shoddy, because they can fight giant squids and are fierce. A real whale wouldn't just swim up a river, dither around and die, would it?
Could a whale beat a bear in a fight? Simon thinks they can, but even cowboys are afraid of bears. And squids have suckers.
Moby Dick could beat a squid though.
I always wanted a better name than the one I was given. Especially when I read Moby Dick...
"Mum," I said, "Can I be called 'Queequeg' from now?".
"No." , she said. And that was the end of that idea.
Monday, 10 December 2007
Thursday, 6 December 2007
Wuppertal, Tuffi the Elephant.
I could tell you the story behind this......
But I like mystery better.
The SECRET Carrot Cake of Pasanen......
Thanks, Pasanen....I have no idea who Pasanen is?
I stole this off a blog, forgot where. Sorry Blogger, I'd give you credit but Pasanen gets it in lieu.
I believe it vital that this secret is kept secret.
Orpheus by Sir Osbert Sitwell:
Orpheus
When Orpheus with his wind-swift fingers
Ripples the strings that gleam like rain,
The wheeling birds fly up and sing,
Hither, thither echoing;
There is a crackling of dry twigs,
A sweeping of leaves along the ground,
Fawny faces and dumb eyes
Peer through the fluttering screens
That mask ferocious teeth and claws
Now tranquil.
As the music sighs up the hill-side,
The young ones hear,
Come skipping, ambling, rolling down,
Their soft ears flapping as they run,
Their fleecy coats catching in the thickets,
Till they lie, listening, round his feet.
Unseen for centuries,
Fabulous creatures creep out of their caves,
The unicorn
Prances down from his bed of leaves,
His milk-white muzzle still stained green
With the munching, crunching of mountain-herbs.
The griffin, usually so fierce,
Now tame and amiable again,
Has covered the white bones in his secret cavern
With a rustling pall of dank dead leaves,
While the salamander, true lover of art,
Flickers, and creeps out of the flame;
Gently now, and away he goes,
Kindles his proud and blazing track
Across the forest,
Lies listening,
Cools his fever in the flowing waters of the lute.
.......................
But when the housewife returns,
Carrying her basket,
She will not understand.
She misses nothing,
Hears nothing.
She will only see
That the fire is dead,
The grate cold.
.......................
But the child upstairs,
Alone, in the empty cottage,
Heard a strange wind, like music,
In the forest,
Saw something creep out of the fire.
Sir Osbert Sitwell
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