A Generous Offer To The World

Our esteemed Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, made a speech to the United Nations this week, in which he outlined Britain's commitment to reducing the world's arsenal of nuclear missiles.
Britain has, hm, so far as the country will admit, about 160 nuclear weapons. Some of those are always at sea, in our nuclear submarine fleet, in the Vanguard class, designed to launch Trident missiles. However, its replacement is in development, how many will we need? Current plans are for a fleet of four submarines, but mister Brown said we might be prepared to get by with just three.
Of course, this largesse would have nothing to do with the fact that these things cost billions, and the country's broke?

And of course, as the nature of world politics changes, nuclear weapons seem less of a deterrent.
So if we Brits buy one less megasub, the world can breathe a sigh of relief.
Whilst trying not to think of the 2,200 nuclear surprises that the U.S. holds, or the 2,800 the russians have, or the israeli ones, the pakistani ones, the indian, the north korean, the chinese..... Or the 300 in France.

Yerba Mater.

From Poland.
This one is so peaceful.

However, Yerba Mater also play bhangra inspired music, with throatsinging overtones not dissimilar to those of Tuva.



After a week of being attacked by some nasty virus (not the computer kind, the one that makes you cough, sweat, feel as if your head's stuffed with porridge, and so on), I'm promising myself clay time tomorrow.

Going Up in the World

I needed to get up on top of a roof, to fix a leak, but it was a long way up, and having tried it off the big ladder, and discovered there was no way to secure the ladder, so it kept sliding sideways as I tried to step off the top, onto the parapet, I'd almost abandoned the job... But Steve, driver of the big green thing, happened along and said "I can put you where you need to be".

I've worked off various sizes of cherrypickers, and I'm used to a set of controls in the basket, being able to control it from above. This thing's more of a sixty foot reach loader, with a platform on the forks.
Lots of twirly pointy hand-signals are the way to control it. And trust in the driver. Thanks, Steve.

I used to fairly regularly hire 120 foot platforms. Currently the world's biggest platform lifters are built by Bronto Skylift in Finland, and can extent to 104 metres 341ft above the ground..

"What You Talking About?" Paul Pena, and Kongar-ool Ondar.

Paul Pena, and Kongar-ool Ondar combine the blues, and Tuvan throat-singing, -to hear more and learn a little more, you could go far back in time within this blog, to february 2007....
http://gritinthegears.blogspot.com/2007/02/kargyraa-moan-paul-earthquake-pena.html



From Wikipedia: While searching for a Korean language lesson on shortwave radio on December 29, 1984, Pena was intrigued by an example of Tuvan throat-singing he heard on a Radio Moscow broadcast. Seven years later he found a Tuvan record at a local record store called Tuva: Voices From the Center of Asia.
Based on that record and extended experimentation, he was able to teach himself the vocal techniques called Khoomei, Sygyt and Kargyraa: " After playing the CD continuously for several months and driving many of my friends away by making weird noises while experimenting with my voice, I finally learned a few of the basic techniques of this fascinating group of vocal styles by remembering the styles of some of the blues greats of the past — especially Charlie Patton, Tommy McClennan, and Chester "Howlin' Wolf" Burnett. "
Pena also taught himself Tuvan. There were no Tuvan to English translation dictionaries, so Pena used two dictionaries: a Tuvan to Russian and Russian to English. He used a device called an Optacon to scan the pages and convert the printed words into tactile sensations he could read with his finger. Pena attended a performance of Tuvan throat-singing at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco on February 6, 1993. He performed an impromptu Tuvan song in the kargyraa style, which impressed famous Tuvan throatsinger Kongar-ool Ondar. Ondar invited Pena to sing in the second international Khoomei Symposium in 1995 in Kyzyl, Tuva. Pena travelled to Tuva and was the first westerner to compete in the Symposium. He placed first in the Kargyraa contest and also won the "audience favorite" category. Tuvans affectionately call him "Cher Shimjer" (Earthquake), because of the deepness of his voice. Pena said "My voice is lower than most Tuvans. They have a style that makes your voice lower. When I use that, there's a slow song when I hit a note that's four white keys from the left of the piano."
The 1999 film Genghis Blues documented Pena's journey to Tuva. It won the 1999 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for a Documentary. "

Paul Pena died on the 1st October, 2005, of pancreatic cancer.
His life was not without difficulty, he was born with congenital glaucoma, and attended a school for the blind. By age twenty he had no sight at all.

A Re-Post, for Gary, "Love Will Tear us Apart, Again",

A Joy Division number, as covered by Outer Mongolia's Tuvan punk-rock throat singing star, Albert Kuvezin, and his band, Yat-Kha. From the album Re-Covers.

Listen to the other albums... If you ever get accused of having only mundane music tastes, Yat-Kha is the antidote!

Rockfish

More Music,

A quiet girl like this....

became, in a few years, a loud one like this.

Having just posted Suzi Pinns, from 1978's "Jubilee", (yes, I know... Queen Elizabeth II's silver jubilee was in 1977, the film arrived a little late).... it brought me to thinking of other women in the punk era. And to Nina Hagen. Nina was born in the same year as Ms.Pinns, 1955, but in East Germany.
By the time she was nine she was considered an opera prodigy, she was expelled from the Free German Youth group at the age of twelve, left school and joined a band at sixteen, went to stage school, formed a band... 'allowed' to leave East Germany in 1976, she was listening to punk music in Hamburg, travelled to London, mixed with the Sex Pistols, The Slits, and othercentral figures of the punk movement. (I got all that from Wikipedia)... I first heard her when Icelandic punk friends played her records to me.
(disclaimer: I was NEVER a punk.)
I did, however, have a couple of her albums, on tape, which I'd listen to whilst working.

I'm sure she's absolutely deranged, but hey! she makes me laugh.



Quote: "I can't sing gospel, I'm a white chick"

Ha! makes Debbie Harry look like Goody Twoshoes!. Mind you, this is her being the very model of genteel restraint.
Here she is being a bit more herself.....

Jerusalem, Rule Britannia, Suzi Pinns.

From the 1978 film, 'Jubilee', dir Derek Jarman.

JERUSALEM

William Blake (1757-1827)

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear!
O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.


Suzi Pinns was the character Amyl Nitrate in the film, she was not really called Suzi Pinns, she was called Jordan, well, that was her assumed punk-name, when she worked in Vivienne Westwood's King's Road boutique, of course, Jordan wasn't really her name either.
Her real name was Pamela Rooke.
She sang with Adam and the Ants (who were also in Jubilee) and managed them for a while. Was stripped on stage by the Sex Pistols....
The Interweb tells me she now works as a veterinary nurse and breeds Burmese cats.