Aerobatic Snowmen

If you're allergic to Aled Jones singing "Walking in the Air", then don't click play. 

I like it.

From Raymond Brigg's "The Snowman"

An Atkinson Grimshaw Sky

 

Friday night's full moon as I was leaving work.

Taken on a Sony-Ericsson C905 phone camera, on auto. I didn't use any of the fancy settings, it seems to do okay on its own.

It's a Good Thing I'm Not Claustrophobic

Did I volunteer for this? we refurbished this space a while back, and as there was a fair bit of unsightly pipework at one end, it was decided to build a false wall to screen it. Now there's a new tenant wanting the space, and he wants a heating system with radiators. So I have to stick a boiler and pipe runs and new waste pipes for the new kitchen and toilet in there too. But: nobody measured the width of my shoulders before the wall was built. It's tight.

Spelunking tight.

Not enough room to swing even a very short cat. That clipboard's paper is 11.72x8.3".

Had to put a new piece in here. But the other end? there's a lot to get into there. Update picture on monday, all being well.

And here? just behind me is the vertical pipe that I can only squeeze past whilst facing one way. I can't turn around at all. I can't crouch down. If I drop something that rolls under that black pipe, I can't reach it without being very inventive.
By the end of monday I'll either be finished with this space behind the real world, or entombed there forever.

Rest Easy, Citizens!

 

Knowing that the ever-vigilant officers of the law have successfully thwarted attempts to
'Occupy the Litter Box'.

Seasonal Gratings.

This blogger is an old curmudgeon, and not much one for the whole christmas shtick. However, occasionally there is a grating and scraping noise, as his cast-iron armour loosens for a moment.

I was reminded by another blog that it's almost time for Luciafest in the northern regions. Here, we've forgotten, mostly, that christmas is not just a christian festival, not just a major marketing opportunity for mammon, but also a far older thing, celebrated long before the mediterranean religion came.

It's Yule. or Jul.

All about the darkness of winter, the dying of the sun. And rebirth. A new beginning, the coming of the light, and the celebration of the solstice.

My first introduction to Lucia-fest was in 1979. I was living in Iceland, working as a potter. my friend was dating a swedish girl, who worked in a hospital at Reykjalundur, and I got to know a group of friends working there and in other Reykjavik hospitals.
On the 13th december, Luciafest, I was invited to Reykjalundur, where the swedish girls had chosen their Lucia.
We waited in darkness, and the singing started. And the procession entered, a blonde girl with a green garland in her hair, a crown of light, wearing a white robe, with a red sash,  singing. And, following her, more girls, each carrying a candle, their faces uplit, for a curmudgeon like me, it was beautiful, it was spiritual. 'Lucia'  told us about the meaning of the tradition, we ate a meal of seasonal swedish dishes they had cooked, then someone told us the Northern Lights were in the sky, so we all went out, and lay on our backs on the grass, watching curtains of ethereal light flicker across the sky. It seemed a perfect companion to the bringers of the light.

In pagan times, people were never sure that the world was not ending, condemned to darkness and cold as the sun died. Only by festival and sacrifice could the sun be reborn, through death to renewed life.
But when christianity came to the north, there were two gods to appease, two rebirths.
The Norse king, Hakon the Good, made it the law that Jul (yule) was to be celebrated at the same time as the Chritsians celebrated  Christ's Mass, this was his first move in converting his pagan countrymen to christianity, a stealth move, he knew his religion would be rejected if he proclaimed it openly, so he sought to gradually introduce it, as he built his own popularity.
"King Hakon was a good Christian when he came to Norway; but the whole country was heathen, with much heathen sacrifice. As many great people, as well as the favour of the common people, were to be conciliated, he resolved to practice his Christianity in private. He kept Sundays, and the Friday fasts, and some token of the greatest holy days. He made a law that the festival of Yule should begin at the same time as Christian people held it, and that every man, under penalty, should brew a meal of malt into ale and keep the Yule holy as long as it lasted."
  (Saga of Haakon the Good)

"Midvinterblot", Carl Larsson.

The sagas tell that, following several years of famine, which was held to be the fault of King Domald, and those previous years sacrifices of oxen having not appeased the gods, it was decided that the only sacrifice great enough to bring back the favour of the gods, would be the sacrifice of the Domald, the King himself. This was at  the great temple of the gods, in Uppsala. Not quite co-incidentally, the cathedral in Uppsala, Domkyrkan, in which those girls in the video above sing to Lucia, is said to be built on the site of the temple where Domald's sacrifice gave life back to the land. 

I prefer the singing and the white-robed girls and their candles, bringing back the light, I'd rather live in the world Hakon envisaged, than the one where  Domald died.

So, a toast to Lucia. 

candle trails at Salisbury Cathedral via The Nag on the Lake

Light your candles on Lucia's day, December the Thirteenth, and know that winter will end, the sun will return. And actually it will do that no matter what your beliefs, no matter what rituals you follow in the coming weeks.

Gledelig Jul!

Ersatz Soubriquet posts Ersatz Coffee

This via a comment on Red Dirt Girl's blog, by Goatman.

Goatman referenced "Don't crush that dwarf, hand me the pliers" by The Firesign Theatre Company, 1970.
I had google it, which led me to this.

"In 2006, 'Don't crush that dwarf, hand me the pliers' was added to the National Recording Registry, a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States."

Poo.

How Much Toilet Paper?
The Telegraph has a story that schools in Catalonia, Spain, are trying to keep their operating costs down, by seeking to reduce wasteage and over-consumption.

"The northeastern region has been ordered to rein in its deficit and has embarked on a series of stringent austerity cuts.

The latest edict issued by the region’s ministry of education instructs state schools to cut “excessive consumption” of toilet roll among pupils and limit the quota to a maximum of 25 metres per child per month."  ( 1 metre is approx 39 inches -3ft 3inches)
Wow! Austerity! or is it? Well, assuming children are at school on average for 23 days per month, then that works out as........ 1.08metres, or about three and a half feet of toilet paper per day.
And the school day lasts what? six hours?
Now,  I ask  you, for six hours, do you need three and a half feet of toilet paper? you can't go at home before you leave for school?

It strikes me as not really the shock/horror story the Telegraph would like to pretend.
Spain is, as a nation, in financial difficulty. Not so bad as Greece, but in a tough place and working to keep from getting deeper in debt. If your kid's using three and a half feet of toilet paper, in a six hour school-day, then maybe the kid should learn to use it more efficiently, or maybe, just maybe,if your kids can't learn, then they should take their own emergency supply with them.

In part of my life, I'm a plumber. Most toilet blockages are caused by people trying to flush too much toilet paper.
Dammit, you don't need half a roll every time you go.

Who Do You Think You Are?

Yesterday, at lunchtime, I made a quick foray into the supermarket, directed shopping, vector in toward target... acquired, basket, check-out. No unnecessary aisles, in and out, like a commando raid behind enemy lines.
Or so it was meant to be, but as usual, most of the checkouts were not in use, and those that were, had huge backlogs.... So, I went along to the rapid self-checkout tills. And blocking access to those were two women, with loaded trolleys*, and kids, gabbing about whatever... 

"Excuse me?" I murmur, politely, pointing to the vacant, unused till ahead of them. They ignore me, continuing to talk, kids busy tearing open packs of colourful* sweets* from the reachable shelves.

I'm in a hurry. There's a truck on its way, and I promised I'd meet it at gate one, and show him where to crane-off the load. So, supermarket to buy lunch.

"Harrr-hum!" I cough. "Ladies?"

They ignore me.

So I do the only thing I can think of. I push a trolley aside, and go scan my goods. All of a sudden, behind me is a very loud silence.... You know that one in the movies? where the very bad scary thing is rising up out of the darkness and the hero's back is turned, oblivious?

I tap in my pin number, pick up the bag, and one of the lane blockers says, in an outraged voice, "Just who do you think you are?"

I think they've only just noticed me, I'm just a tiny irritation to them. 

I shrug and walk away, in time to hear one saying to an assistant "That man pushed in front of us!". They're probably dreaming of claiming damages from the store for hurt feelings.

Anyway. 

"Who do you think you are?"

That's a deep one. Because, until it was questioned like that, I'd have answered "I'm me."

But now I'm not sure. The very question evinces doubt. I slept on it, troubled, probably muttering, and grinding my teeth.

And in the morning, I perused myself carefully  in the bathroom mirror. All looked normal. Or almost normal. I looked really closely. If that's an impostor, all I can say is, it's a great job, very convincing. Even got all my flaws just right.

On the way to work, I noted that "I" seemed to know the way, without prompting.

And, if asked, I can recite my grandmother's maiden name, and the name of my first school-teacher. Or so I think.

I'll be watching myself carefully for the next few days to see if I'm genuine.

*uk Trolley =  u.s. 'cart'.
*uk Colourful = u.s. 'colorful'
*uk Sweets = us 'candies'