Thursday, 5 June 2014
The Last Leviathan......
Siggy Stern, singing a beautiful song, by Andy Barnes, recorded and better known by the Dubliners, Siggy, to me, does a better job.
Not a recording artist, she has uploaded a few songs to YouTube.
This song came to mind when I was viewing a post by 'Nag on the Lake' about a dutch painting, that in restoration was found to have originally featured a beached whale.
The Lost Whale
Monday, 2 June 2014
Brazilian Furniture
I was going to buy, but then I realised that it would always be in need of waxing......
Friday, 23 May 2014
The Curtain Rises. And Billows.
The Scene: centre stage: darkness, a bedroom, a bed.
3 a.m.
Silence.
A sleeping couple.
Loud farts... Several. In quick succession.
Him: I can't believe you did that!
Her: What?
Him: You just shattered the silence with a barrage of bottom-burps!
Her: Wasn't me!
Him: Who then?
Her: Sam Houston did it.
Him: Sam Houston was in our bedroom?
Her: Yes.
Him: And he got here how?
Her: In his buggy.
Him: So you're saying, Sam Houston, (first president of the Republic of Texas), who died in 1863, resurrected himself, and harnessed up his ghostly horses, drove in his buggy to our bedroom, where he let loose a trombone solo in the vicinity of your rear end, then got in the buggy, flicked the reins, and trotted off down the stairs and into the night?
Her: Yes. That's right.
Him: Oh.
They go back to sleep.
Outside, ghostly hooves and creaking of harness fading to the distance.
In the morning he asks her about Sam's visit. She has no recollection. And no shame at trying to pass off her farts as those of a hero of the Texas revolution.
From now on, mystery occurrences in this household, from trumps to empty ice cream cartons in the freezer, will be blamed on Sam Houston.
(When we first met, back in 2007, and she visited me in England, as we were carrying her compendious baggage into the house, somebody farted, and it wasn't me. She looked me in the eye, and with a straight face, said "did you hear that?" "I did, I heard a fart."
"No", she said. "A bark. -it's the barking spiders."
She persisted in trying to tell me the sounds I kept hearing were made by barking spiders, a subset of arachnid I had never previously encountered. And they had followed her, from, she thought, the airport in Atlanta, Georgia, perhaps stowing away in her baggage.)
More from the bedroom: The Morning After.
3 a.m.
Silence.
A sleeping couple.
Loud farts... Several. In quick succession.
Him: I can't believe you did that!
Her: What?
Him: You just shattered the silence with a barrage of bottom-burps!
Her: Wasn't me!
Him: Who then?
Her: Sam Houston did it.
Him: Sam Houston was in our bedroom?
Her: Yes.
Him: And he got here how?
Her: In his buggy.
Him: So you're saying, Sam Houston, (first president of the Republic of Texas), who died in 1863, resurrected himself, and harnessed up his ghostly horses, drove in his buggy to our bedroom, where he let loose a trombone solo in the vicinity of your rear end, then got in the buggy, flicked the reins, and trotted off down the stairs and into the night?
Her: Yes. That's right.
Him: Oh.
They go back to sleep.
Outside, ghostly hooves and creaking of harness fading to the distance.
In the morning he asks her about Sam's visit. She has no recollection. And no shame at trying to pass off her farts as those of a hero of the Texas revolution.
From now on, mystery occurrences in this household, from trumps to empty ice cream cartons in the freezer, will be blamed on Sam Houston.
 |
| Sam Houston at the Battle of San Jacinto |
(When we first met, back in 2007, and she visited me in England, as we were carrying her compendious baggage into the house, somebody farted, and it wasn't me. She looked me in the eye, and with a straight face, said "did you hear that?" "I did, I heard a fart."
"No", she said. "A bark. -it's the barking spiders."
She persisted in trying to tell me the sounds I kept hearing were made by barking spiders, a subset of arachnid I had never previously encountered. And they had followed her, from, she thought, the airport in Atlanta, Georgia, perhaps stowing away in her baggage.)
More from the bedroom: The Morning After.
Friday, 9 May 2014
Thursday, 8 May 2014
Shock News!: Grit in the Gears Written by Robot!
Picture found by Red Dirt Girl on Pinterest, this is an assemblage by Brian Marshall.
As is this.
The author of this blog sometimes feels like he's a machine, and right now he's got a cramp in his left side rib actuators. He identifies with these fellows.
Un-grit my gears, gimme oil!
Saturday, 3 May 2014
"Nothing is More Dangerous to Men Than a Sudden Change of Fortune". -Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (Quintilian).
 |
| Fortune Cookies |
 |
| A Bakery Dough Mixer |
I have never put my faith in Horoscopes. I don't believe the relative position of the stars in the sky, as viewed at and from the place of my birth, can realistically be said to predict my character, nor my fate.
I hold no truck with the Tarot, nor Gypsy Rose Lee, nor the lines on one's hand, nor the disposition of tea dregs, nor the entrails of a chicken as guides to the future.
And especially I don't believe in Fortune Cookies.
Not after this, anyway: A worker at the Wonton Company's factory in Houston, Texas, was recently found
deceased, in the dough mixer used to make Fortune Cookie dough. Foul play
not suspected, "Death by Misfortune"?
"The Wonton Food company operates facilities in New York, Texas and Tennessee, where it manufactures food products including noodles and wonton wrappers, and is one of the leading fortune cookie makers in the country, making around four million cookies a day in its New York headquarters and a smaller number in its Houston factory."
"The Wonton Food company operates facilities in New York, Texas and Tennessee, where it manufactures food products including noodles and wonton wrappers, and is one of the leading fortune cookie makers in the country, making around four million cookies a day in its New York headquarters and a smaller number in its Houston factory."
(It was NOT this machine, but probably something very similar.)
p.s...... I learned this not by local news, despite being fairly close to Houston, but Via "Nothing to do With Arbroath", a blog which has been a regular read for me for years, I recommend it, and if you don't know where Arbroath is, then don't worry, because the blog is NOTHING to do with Arbroath.
pps: I'm aware that the event is, in fact, a terrible tragedy. But I can't resist making quips about the situation. "He was a crazy mixed-up kid....."
I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way.
Monday, 14 April 2014
And So
Here in the U.S., it's tax-filing time. I'm blissfully ignorant, of course, as to the fineries, as she who is awesome did it all.
I remain in the endless limbo of being a legal alien. I was given the right to enter the United States, in order to marry a U.S. citizen, within 90 days of my arrival, or leave again.
We married ten days after my feet touched the ground, at which point, or within the ninety days, the holder of a K-1 visa then must file for 'Adjustment of Status'.
In the period in which the adjustment is being processed, I have no automatic right of residence, no legal status, I can't vote, nor can I claim upon any of the rights of a citizen.
If I were to exit the U.S., for a holiday or any other reason, I would be refused re-entry. I couldn't enter on a tourist visa, nor a business visa....
I could get a 'letter of advanced parole', which in theory would persuade the guy on the desk to let me in, but it's not a guarantee.
Meanwhile, six months after I arrived, I'm not strictly speaking, a resident, nor am I a non-resident. I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien.
I'm not allowed to work, nor to earn money.
I have a Social Security number, but that's merely because all manner of activities, such as accessing my money in the bank, require it.
But it confers no security, social or otherwise. Should anything happen to me, then my wife is fully responsible. The Social Security administration would simply yawn, and look away.
Uncle Sam has the gall to demand taxes from me.
I earned $1.14 cents, on my bank balances, and I have just been taxed 29 cents on my earnings.
This is not my first, only, or greatest payment to the United States Government, we've paid up large lumps every time another form has to be filled in, but this is my first contribution in income tax.
The next time I see any sort of federal employee in uniform, I'll look closely at one of their buttons, and muse to myself. "I might have bought that very button for the United States Of America!"
Or the flag being hoisted over the capitol..... No. Not the whole toggle, but maybe a little of the varnish on the toggle on the up-haul rope, maybe I bought that.
Cue National Anthem.
I remain in the endless limbo of being a legal alien. I was given the right to enter the United States, in order to marry a U.S. citizen, within 90 days of my arrival, or leave again.
We married ten days after my feet touched the ground, at which point, or within the ninety days, the holder of a K-1 visa then must file for 'Adjustment of Status'.
In the period in which the adjustment is being processed, I have no automatic right of residence, no legal status, I can't vote, nor can I claim upon any of the rights of a citizen.
If I were to exit the U.S., for a holiday or any other reason, I would be refused re-entry. I couldn't enter on a tourist visa, nor a business visa....
I could get a 'letter of advanced parole', which in theory would persuade the guy on the desk to let me in, but it's not a guarantee.
Meanwhile, six months after I arrived, I'm not strictly speaking, a resident, nor am I a non-resident. I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien.
I'm not allowed to work, nor to earn money.
I have a Social Security number, but that's merely because all manner of activities, such as accessing my money in the bank, require it.
But it confers no security, social or otherwise. Should anything happen to me, then my wife is fully responsible. The Social Security administration would simply yawn, and look away.
Uncle Sam has the gall to demand taxes from me.
I earned $1.14 cents, on my bank balances, and I have just been taxed 29 cents on my earnings.
This is not my first, only, or greatest payment to the United States Government, we've paid up large lumps every time another form has to be filled in, but this is my first contribution in income tax.
The next time I see any sort of federal employee in uniform, I'll look closely at one of their buttons, and muse to myself. "I might have bought that very button for the United States Of America!"
Or the flag being hoisted over the capitol..... No. Not the whole toggle, but maybe a little of the varnish on the toggle on the up-haul rope, maybe I bought that.
Cue National Anthem.
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