Removed Content

Video Removed, Content reported to be in violation of terms of use.

1. First point. Who reported it to be in violation? Might be someone who is simply malicious?
2. Is there evidence that the objector has any rights over the content. or evidence of a breach?
3. Terms of Use? Search Blogger Help. Terms of Use. No. There are none. Terms of service, yes. Terms of Use no. How is the post in violation of non-existent terms?
4. This was a linked video, from a site which freely posts html code to embed their player in a blog. The video is still there on that site. Slightly curtailed, but there
   
5. Also on the site where I first found it.
6. Also at youtube.
7. So. If I committed a violation of the non-existent terms, please have the decency to explain what the term was, and what the violation was, and it would be nice to know who objected, and why.
   

The Snail's Dream.

Minuscule - Le rêve de l'escargot

Removed by Blogger Control, without explanation.
Presumably someone objected on copyright grounds?
But nobody told me.
Futurikon's films are out there. On the web.
In the public domain. I'd see my post here as a free advertisement for them, I presume somebody feels that in some unknown way this is depriving them of revenue?
I doubt it does, or did.
But I leave you with this thought.
You can watch their animations because they themselves put them on the web.
And I found dozens of sites, including their own.

I get this feeling about Memes

Pepeland.com Changes

"Leroy", Family, 1973

From the album 'Only a Movie'

"Leroy"
(spoken:) "Leroy... and his Campus Queen, what she means, what she means"
Leroy was a cat, always knew just where he sat
In his rise up to riches and fame
The chick that he'd choose, would have dollars to lose
And a love, lotsa love in her heart for his name

One girl that he'd seen was the Campus Queen
She had looks and her Daddy had lotsa loot
So he made her his aim, in his heartless game
He had looks, he had nerve, boy was he cute

He craved a FLAT TOP WINNER, WITH A 2 SPOT DIMMER
And a roof that rolled back for the sun
Then add a V-8 HOOD, LOTSA CHROME ON THE HUB
SPEED that says 160 and some, ah that's fast

With his charm and his poise, he out classed all the boys
In the race for her hand he secured
He met her Mum face to face, now she adored all his grace
His place at their table was assured
"My boy" said her Pa, "Now what you need is a car, call me Dad
Gee whizz, you're my son"
Get a 2 toned flyer, with white walled tyres, and a gas tank
You make sure it's got plenty of gun

(REPEAT CHORUS x 3)

Unicorns, For Aurora.

"The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown
The lion beat the unicorn all around the town.
Some gave them white bread, and some gave them brown;
Some gave them plum cake and drummed them out of town."

Aurora is the daughter of Trollop23
She asked for a little more on the Unicorns and fancy creatures

I sent the story of the Industrious Mole to my friend in San Francisco. Here's what she wrote back:
"Elizabeth, Sophie and I enjoyed your story very much. Just the thing to share over hot cocoa after a full day of ice skating on a rainy Sunday afternoon. The girls were particularly enchanted with your Unicorn horn tips and immediately gathered paper colored pencils to design a few of their own. (They plan to actually fabricate these when our ceramics workshop starts up again in April, though in red Navajo clay rather than porcelain.) They totally identified with Unicorn vanity and excess, plus chronic tardiness for appointments due to the rigors of accessorizing. We wondered if Unicorn horns are twisty-swirled, like a narwhal's tusk and certain lollipops, and decided they must be and that the porcelain tips surely screw on one-way only, thus secured against accidental loss. Otherwise how could a fashionable Unicorn build a collection?"

I replied:
Unicorns are rarely seen by humans, and then mostly by girls under the age of twelve. Sometimes, only sometimes, they will allow mothers to see them, but the mothers must not move, or even worse, say something so stupid as "Oh look! A Unicorn!" because that would be a very silly and grown up way to behave, and a self respecting Unicorn would be so embarrassed at such a lapse of manners that it would immediately become invisible and vanish. It is said, in the old writings of Ersatz, that should a grown up lady wish to see a Unicorn, she should sit, quietly, beneath a blossom covered tree, wearing a white dress, and braid flowers into a garland, She is allowed to have helpers to pick wild flowers, but she herself must be quiet, calm, and without turmoil.
If her garland is sufficiently beautiful, and fragrant, (as should she herself be), a wild Unicorn, may approach and, watching the making of the garland, forget to be invisible to her. If the lady should then see the Unicorn, she should raise up the garland, and hold it before her, at which the unicorn may approach and lie down in front of her. And then, if she loops the garland gently over the twisted horn, the unicorn will be her invisible friend for all her life.
This doesn't happen often, and most people can not lose the bustling thoughts that scare Unicorns away; reading thoughts, the gentle beasts fear worry, confusion, and crossness.
A calm person, filled with peacefulness, sunshine, and smiles, is, to a Unicorn, nicer than chocolate.
The horn of a unicorn is always spiralled, like a Narwhals tusk, -how did those girls know that? most people think they are smooth and straight. But there is a problem they may not have noticed. Some unicorns have a right-hand clockwise spiral, but a rare few have a left hand, anticlockwise spiral. Which of course will not fit a standard right handed horntip. So they need specials. Made to order. Then there is the pitch of the spiral to consider, many twists or few.. The tips do screw on, but they cannot be too tight a fit, because that might hurt, so over the last thousand or so years, the practice of putting a sort of sock of silk over the horn has developed. This packs the space , like wearing socks in shoes, so they don't fall off.
On especially festive occasions, ribboned silk may be worn. And recently, ribbon with wires in, that can be bent to shape, has become very popular. this is best worn with a horntip which has ribbon holes or loops.
It is said the very rare North American Unicorns do wear red clay horntips, sometimes with pueblo designs. Little pieces of them are often found in big museums, usually wrongly labelled.
'Thimble?' 'decorative small vessel?' 'ceremonial votive object?'
Besides, what museum curator knows anything about a Unicorn?

Older and Wiser Now, the Lion and the Unicorn are Friends

"Lives and Ladies" -Family, 1970, from 'Anyway'

Written in the Vietnam era, but so relevant right now.

Family were a British band who produced a lot of distinctive and original work, but refused to bow to their record company's demands for catchy singalong chart numbers.
They toured in the US, but failed to break into the charts there.
It's rumoured that Roger Chapman's nearly decapitating Billy Graham with a flailing mic. stand at the Fillmore East earned them a bad press they never recovered from.
Were they any good? John Lennon said in 1970 "They're the best band around"

"Lives and Ladies"

People that you send to war
Who don't know what they're fighting for
Leaving their loved ones at home
Wondering if they're on their own
Oh, if they're alone

Mothers and fathers that wait
For news of their innocents' fate
Raising a son for some years
Only to end it in tears
Oh, only to end it in tears

You being masters of war
You never knew your fathers, that's for sure
Just counting the numbers that died
I hope that you're satisfied
I hope that you're satisfied

My friend he's a salesman up in Leicestershire
His wife and baby love him, to him they're all so dear
We got talking together about some rights and wrongs
And just before I left there, I heard him sing this song:

I love my lady and baby
And I'm sure that you love yours
We want to care for each other
That's what we're here for
Yes, I love my lady and baby
And I'm sure that you love yours
So don't go pulling your switches
We don't need your wars

My friend he's a tailor up in Leicester town
He works his own shop there, and I know he's alright now
He's got his way of thinking, and know's that I've got mine
There's mostly only one thing we agree on all the time

We love our lives and our ladies
And we're sure that you love yours
We want to care for each other
That's what we're here for
We love our lives and our ladies
And we're sure that you love yours
So don't go pulling your switches
We don't need your wars

He loves his lady and baby
And he's sure that you love yours
They want to care for each other
That's what they're here for
He loves his lady and baby
And he's sure that you love yours
So don't go pulling your switches
They don't need your wars

The Industrious Mole

A report by our roving reporter, Bogus Cognomen.
(This being mainly a story for children)

Just North of Banbury, and a little to the left of Bicester, in the county of Oxford, England, lies a small and isolated village, bypassed by the main roads, and stumbled upon but accidentally by our correspondent in these parts.

This village has a population of 96 moles and seven dragons. Its name, though you’ll have a hard time finding it on any map, is “Much Scrabbling ('Neath the Turf)”. At the Northern end of the main street is a small thatched pub, the “Shovellers Arms”.
When our reporter entered the pub, he found, much to his surprise, a dragon in working clothes sitting by the window, toasting a cheese sandwich with gentle and judicious puffs, and opposite the dragon, a small mole, with dirty arms. Yes. At last our correspondent had tracked down the proprietors of the famed “Spinning Mole’ Pottery”.

Almost the entire adult population of Much Scrabbling (Neath The Turf) is employed by the Spinning Mole Pottery.
So he was very lucky to find Elijah Muldwarp and Llewellyn the dragon taking their lunch break.

After a few toasted sarnies- in fact rather a lot, as Llewellyn enjoys toasting sandwiches even more than he enjoys eating them - we were privileged to learn the economics and methods of the pottery.

The main workshop isn’t in a house as we know it, but rather in a bank.

No, not a Barclays Bank, nor a Lloyds, nor even a Williams and Glyns, but an earth bank, which is a fine place for a mole to live.

Outside in the sun a lot of freshly made pots were set out in the sun to dry. Elijah seated at his wheel explained the need for only the best clay.

Well, asked our writer, what is the best clay? The very smoothest replied the little mole. The very smoothest, and from each place comes only a little, for although humans use great machines to tear great pits deep into the earth, the moles are able to use only their small hands, and tiny shovels made from ground down tea-spoons. So they can’t go very deep, also moles are great perfectionists, and only the best will do, so they range far and wide, taking but a tea-spoon here, and a tea-spoon there.

“Where do you find the best clay?” “Oh well, hard to say really, but as a rule of thumb, stoneware clay for big pots is often to be had near river banks, under meadow fields, whereas porcelain, that now, there’s a difficult one. Almost always underneath cricket pitches, tennis lawns, that sort of thing. ‘Course, you have to tunnel a fair bit, and even then you might not get any,

Best to take all your diggings up top and make a nice neat pile, then you can sort through it and see what you’ve got. If aught looks promising, you stick another candle stump in your hat and down you go again. Scrwrawp, Scrowp, Scrawp, ‘till your barrow's full, then off down the passage-ways, till you can dump it onto the “Much Scrabbling Underground Railway”.
The railway runs from the village to workings all over the country, and for almost all of its length it runs underground. Using it, all the digging moles can leave home after a leisurely breakfast, do a full days work far from home, and be back with a cheery whistle (Wheep! Wheep! Wheep!) in time for tea. Of course, working underground as they do, there is always plenty of coal for the engine, but to stop the tunnels from getting dirty, and making one cough, the engine carries a large supply of paper bags - like vacuum cleaner bags - to fill with smoke. This way they can put all their smoke in the dustbin on a Friday for the bin men to take away.

When clay reaches the pottery, it is made into pots of many shapes and sizes by Elijah Muldwarp, and, as we have previously seen, the pots are set out in the sun to dry.

When dry the pots are carefully inspected for cracks, spider foot prints or other faults and coated with a mixture of powdered rocks, (which are collected and crushed from untidy places like rockeries, and the edges of garden paths), and then just as carefully, the pots are loaded into the kiln.

“The Kiln”, I said, but like most potteries, the Spinning Mole has more than one kiln.

For ease and clarity I have shown the small cross draught kiln. This one has the door bricked shut every time. Very time wasting, but, whatever was good enough for the moles grandfather is good enough for him. Actually he’s too busy, or too lazy to set to work and make a hinged steel door packed with fireproof bricks. A much bigger sort of kiln (as seen below) is built on the side of the nearby hill, it’s like a lot of separate kilns joined together, each one a little bit higher than it’s neighbour. So flames put in at the bottom travel through not one but seven separate chambers, which means that every chamber has a different heat, which means that the moles can make a lot of different glazes work in one kiln. This one is what is known as a “Noborigama”. In Japan and China there are Noborigamas that have been in use for over 500 years

The moles favourite kiln, though, is yet another design, it’s called an “Anagama”, which may give you the idea that it’s like the last one. Well it is, a bit, in that it’s built on the side of a bill, and has a long sloping roof above it to protect it from the rain, but an anagama has but one big chamber. In China, these are known as Dragon Kilns, and they were sacred. Anyone who damaged a dragon kiln could be thrown into prison for ever and a day.

This is where the Dragons work, Llewellyn is the leader of the group, and he does all the fire for the anagama on his own. It's hard work for a dragon, because you have to keep the flames going for 22 hours or more. Some of the Chinese and Japanese anagamas had teams of dragons working day and night puffing fire for up to seven weeks at a time, but mole size pots don’t need so long. The dragons start with a gentle flame but, as they go on, they take snacks of curry paste, jalapeno peppers, cough sweets, fuel oil, all sorts of hot things, even whisky. Of course most of these things would make a human very poorly, but for dragons they’re a different matter altogether, they even like the scrapings out of the bottoms of burnt pans. After puffing fire all day it’s quite common for a dragon to be a stone or more lighter, and very tired and weak- usually they just go home to their caves, drain culverts, castle dungeons, underneaths of beds, broom cupboards, etc, and sleep for three or four days at a time.

Dragons sleep very loudly, as you may have noticed.

Some towns have bylaws forbidding dragons from sleeping under people's beds. Which isn’t really such a mean idea as it sounds, because dragons under beds are a fire-risk, especially if there’s a lot of fluff that hasn’t been cleaned in a while. It has been known for whole houses to be burnt down because of dreaming dragons igniting carpet slippers and dustballs under the bed. The flames and smoke destroy the house, but the dragon snoozes right through it all, thinking what a nice warm snoozy place he’s got.

However, kiln dragons rarely do this, because after a firing their flame is so used up, they don’t have enough spark to light a candle, which state they are in for about a week.

After the dragons have fired the kiln, they sleep for three or four days, until the alarm clocks shrill and clatter, (usually at about 5 o’clock on a Thursday, just after the sun comes up). All the dragons stretch, polish their scales, gargle with fire water, and rush down to the pottery, where they mill around in excitement, as Llewellyn carefully takes the first bricks out of the door. As it’s still quite hot, the dragons all work together to start with, and unpacking a kiln is usually an exciting job, so you can imagine the scene. Seven dragons delving into a hot dark space and handing out their finds, bowls, bottles, cups, vases, teapots, casseroles, plates, all manner of new pots, all in bright colours and 100% clean and clear - cleaner than any washing up liquid, or even a washing up machine can make them. In the fire, that clay and covering of crushed rock has turned into something completely new, pottery that rings like a bell when you tap it with your finger.

Usually they do this bit early in the morning, before the moles get up, and the dragons chat happily as they go along.

Then at 8:15, after breakfast, the moles arrive and set to work to sort everything out, check for seconds, break any pots that aren’t up to standard, and pack other pots up to take to market.

By four in the afternoon all the pots are out of the kiln and some of the smaller moles go in and set up candles on the shelves while they check for glaze spots on the shelves, cracked bricks and so on, and generally clean any dust and grit out of the kiln interior.

They then start to fill it with pots for the next firing. whilst other members of the mole community take the pots off to market.

Pots are sold to all sorts of creatures, rabbits, voles and even stoats, weasels, foxes and badgers. Otters like long oval casseroles to do fish in. Bears, mostly the teddy variety these days, buy mostly honey jars.

Paddington bear owns a specially made marmalade jar, and a specially made square sandwich plate. Pigs buy decorated troughs and a very special part of the pottery's work is in decorative porcelain horn tips for Unicorns.

Unicorns are prone to poking and digging with their horns, and it does tend to make the ends rather tatty, but with porcelain all their troubles are over. Mostly they’re very vain, so its not unusual for one Unicorn to own over 50 different decorative horn tips.

This sort of Unicorn is nearly always late for appointments, due to the time spent in deciding which tip to wear.

Dragons, of course, require all their household crockery to be flame proof. This is a problem, but largely solved by the use of clay which, with mixed in talcum powder (Lily of the Valley smell), fires to produce cordierite, a material that can be taken off a red hot cooker and dropped into cold water without cracking.

So, now you know why cricket pitches, lawns, and tennis courts often have little heaps of carefully shovelled earth dotted about them, and if you ever hear scrabbling underneath the soil, and faint steam engine whistles, you’ll know what’s going on.

And this, for the moment, is the end of my story.

Persian Love, Holger Czukay.

I first heard this over twenty years ago. Just a hauntingly beautiful sound.
Holger, better known for the experimental music group, "Can", was listening to crackly channels on a short wave radio. He heard this song on Radio Tehran, in 1979, taped it, and then set to creating the music, splicing and editing the voices...

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But rather than me write the story, I'd recommend you read this piece from Alan Warner in Granta.