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Nonsense on stilts, German style

Wednesday, July 09, 2008
From The Local:

"More than 40 German deputies on Tuesday proposed that the voting age be lowered to birth to give children a say in the country’s political future, the parliamentary press service said...They proposed that parents be allowed to vote for their offspring, until such time that the children felt they were ready to cast ballots themselves".

One of the partisans is named as a Free Democrat, the FDP being reasonably sound, generally. I will accept that 16, 18, 21 or whatever is an arbitrary age, and would regard dropping the voting age to 16 in these parts as being reasonable, with this the youngest age regarded as a threshold of adulthood.

What our woolly-minded German friends do not seem to have factored in is that an awful lot of pater and mater familiases will deem their progeny incompetent to vote, and should mutti, vatti and die kinder kick off in a polling station, who decides who gets to exercise the franchise? I forsee lots of litigation, lots of harassed polling officials, domestic violence and probably an outbreak of parties bribing younger voters with the promise of jelly and ice cream rather than the traditional cakes and ale.

Truly etc etc.

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Headline o' the day

Friday, June 20, 2008
And it is a winner:

"There will be no Armageddon".

The denial of the End of Days comes from Yury Zaitsev writing for Russian news agency Novosti, although at the end it notes 'The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti'.

So, truly the apocalypse is, or is not, upon us.

(The item is actually about the launching of a Large Hadron Collider at CERN)

Just thought I'd add this, from those nice people at xkcd, who have a creative commons licence for their stuff:

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Words fail me. Almost

Friday, May 30, 2008
Verity having pointed out the following "Hans Christian Andersen is the spitting image of a 19th Century British writer but I can't think who. Maybe George Elliott ... or one of the Brontes. Or someone else. But he is the spitting image of someone", I have been sniffing around the internet in search of the match. No luck so far, but look what I've found:


Why, yes - it is the Jane Austen action figure, as sold by the Library of Congress thusly:

"Jane Austen was one of the greatest English novelists in history. Despite a rather sheltered life, she was able to capture the subtleties of human interaction so perfectly that her novels continue to be immensely popular to this day. This 5-1/4" tall, hard vinyl action figure comes with a book (Pride & Prejudice) and a writing desk with removable quill pen!"

Yours for $8.50.

Other writers available are Poe - "with a hauntingly pale complexion and a removable plastic raven" and Shakespeare. Nominations for the accoutrements that would suit other writers, should they be immortalised in hard vinyl, are welcome - Solzhenitsyn's foot cloths maybe or De Quincey's laudanum bottle.

However, it would be selfish of me not to point out the star attraction:

"If you just can't get enough of the Dewey decimals or if you go bananas for books, chances are you have a Librarian Action Figure. Nancy Pearl's likeness made history as the best selling Librarian Action Figure of all time".


Looks like Nancy can move her arms but lower body movement would appear to be beyond her.

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Further portents of the Apocalypse

Friday, May 16, 2008
The great British costermonger, celebrated in verse and prose, is renowned for wit, banter and downright salesmanship.

So, consider, if you will, how disappointing I found this effort, overheard in Surrey St market yesterday:

"Pound a bowl, pound a bowl, pound a bowl, pound a bowl, pound a bowl"

The woman was out of earshot a little after that. However, there was no attempt to name the fruit, extol its quality, taste etc etc, and in this innumerate times one might further note that fruit is being sold by volume, not weight.

The vendor was not in the first flush of youth either, so no excuse there, and plenty of other market traders make a somewhat more impressive pitch.

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Good grief

Monday, May 12, 2008
Following a link trail, I ended up here:

The British Parking Awards. As in parking of a car. "[the] award was announced by actress and journalist Meera Syal". Well, a resting actress is entitled to make a living, but how in Vishnu's name did she keep a straight face?

I am *not* making this up, and I fear that words have actually failed me, so I will fall back on the old line about the apocalypse. I think I can hear hooves in the distance.

A little further digging shows that Adrian 'Voodoo' Chiles presented the awards in 2007, and showing the neutrality we expect of BBC figures referred to himself as "a leftie liberal". Yes he did.

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Conclusive proof that the Apocalypse is upon us

Sunday, February 24, 2008
There have been any number of false alarms, and I will plead guilty to having raised some of them, but I have stumbled upon definitive and conclusive proof:

It does not appear possible to buy black pudding in Croydon. Not anything especially fancy, nor yet a winner of some concours d'élégance for boudin noir, just common or garden black pudding, for frying, erm, grilling and having as part of the breakfast of an Englishman. But no, it was not to be found in establishments that saw fit to purvey all manner of exotic foodstuffs. The infinitely Better Half, having Northern tendencies, was also sorely disappointed.

Presumably the local merchants deem there to be insufficient demand to make it worth their while to stock suggesting the locals are beyond redemption.

And here's some black pudding just to tighten the thumbscrews on anyone feeling a little peckish:


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O tempora, o mores

Friday, February 01, 2008
Woolworths is justly famous for the less than razor-sharp minds operating its tills, but it would appear that are plenty of remarkably dim people further up that particular food chain, as this tale from The Standard makes clear:

"An online campaign by a group of mothers has forced Woolworths to withdraw a line of bedroom furniture for girls called 'Lolita'....A spokesman for the company said: "What seems to have happened is the staff who run the website had never heard of Lolita, and to be honest no one else here had either".

Only one of the most infamous books of the last century, isn't it? And furthermore one which has seen the L name become tabloid speak. Perhaps I should go for a nose around its website to see if they sell anything called Humbert.

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"Rock stars, is there anything they don't know?"

Friday, January 18, 2008
I ask, because a WEF survey suggests that is what a rather alarming percentage of Germans, Belgians and southern Irish think.

Asked 'Which of the following types of people would you like to give more power to in your country?', 34% of our Belgian chums said musicians, as did 28% of Germans and 20% of southern Irish. I am not, as God is my witness, making this up. Follow the link, and there it is on page 45. We were polled too, and 2% of Britons agreed with that proposition.

So, which musicians might we expect to see in the next Belgian cabinet? 2 Unlimited, Technotronic, Front 242 and maybe Johnny Hallyday. I suppose Kraftwerk are a shoo-in for the German ministry of industry, and the Dubliners will be taking charge of urban planning in the Republic.

'Hello' culture seems to have seeped deep into the core of the Belgian, German and southern Irish souls, as it is not just musos they want in government, they want film stars and sports stars too - 26% of Belgians want sports men and women with more power, and 14 % of Germans want more power for film stars. I am at least as happy as the next man to see more of Nastassja Kinski, but.....

Away from that particular set of jaw droppers, intellectuals are disturbingly popular as candidate for greater power - 60% + in the three countries at issue, 24% in France (Ha - take that BHL) and over 50% in both Thailand and Taiwan. We manage a fairly sensible 13%, so that's hard cheese for Stephen Hawking, inter alia. The track record of intellos in power has not been an entirely happy one, shall we say, and I would recommend our neighbours read up on former professor Abimael Guzmán, or Presidente Gonzalo as he preferred, and the Sendero Luminoso...

There's more, much more, in the WEF survey, and I may well be returning to this.


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What do 'confidence, equality, progress and efficiency' smell of?

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
A question many of us have suffered sleepless nights over, no doubt. However, they smell of patchouli and rose petals, apparently.

And how does this information come to be in the public domain? Because 'the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) on Monday unveiled Spain’s first politically inspired fragrance'. (Although there are plenty of smells that make me think of the Left....)

"The red-coloured air fresheners are supposed to be inspired by the values of the left. “Confidence, equality, progress and efficiency”. 'Efficiency', eh? Now that is a good one.

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Good grief....

Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Always supposing one was a keen green, would targeting the use of candles be the top of one's agenda for 'saving the planet'?

Well, it is for the Green Hanukkia movement, as the Jerusalem Post reports. Fellow goyim may not be aware that Hanukkah commenced yesterday, and continues for a further seven days. In very basic terms, it commemorates the miracle of the candle oil after the re-dedication of the Temple after the victory of the Maccabees. (Brief sidetrack - there is the old joke that all Jewish holidays can be abbreviated thus: They tried to kill us. They failed. Let's eat!)

So, the use of candles is central to the celebration, but the tree huggers have calculated that each candle emits 15g of carbon dioxide. Just as a point of comparison, the average person will breathe out 60 times as much in a single day, apparently. The campaign notes, "We have many environmental traditions in Judaism like Tu Bishvat and Succot, but there are also traditions like Lag Ba'omer and Hanukka that made sense when they were instituted but are more problematic now in the days of global warming".

Truly the apocalypse is upon us.

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The Great British public - leading Europe for ignorance

Friday, November 09, 2007
At least judging by this poll for France 24 and the Herald Tribune.

We, along with the Americans and the four other most populous western European nations were asked whether they viewed a range of well-known national leaders favourably or unfavourably, and lo and behold the following percentages of my compatriots (they didn't ask me...) were unable to express an opinion on the following:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - 44%
The Pope - 36%
Brown (yes, really) - 21%
Bush - 17%
Castro - 38%
Chavez - 68%
Sarkozy - 50%
Lula - 72%. (OK, I'll accept that he is not that well known in these parts. And yet 31% think Brazil's influence on the world is important)
Merkel - 51%
Putin - 35%
Prodi - 63%
Zapatero - 65%


In each case we led the European quintet for 'don't knows', except with regard to Broon.

Mind you, supposedly 7% regard Ahmedinejad favourably, likewise 18% for Castro, and 11% for Chavez. I will happily contribute to a flight fund for Britons who wish to take up the delights of Iranian, Cuban or Venezuelan nationality. Especially the first, as 12% of Britons polled do not think we should even apply diplomatic pressure to Iran over its nuclear programme. Ye gods...

Subsequently the poll asks about perceptions of the power or otherwise of sundry nations, I blogged on the previous report last December, and those of my compatriots rating France as having an important influence has fallen from 66% to 58%. Clearly stung by the last set of results, France has dropped the UK from 86% to 85%


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Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...

Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Possibly in the face of stiff competition, it is New Delhi that has the doubtful honour of hosting the seventh World Toilet Summit. I am not making this up.

This is held under the aegis of the Singapore-based World Toilet Organization, and said WTO uses a heart shaped loo seat as part of its logo. Moreover, make haste to its merchandise section, where one can avail oneself of a logo polo shirt, with early purchasers also entitled to a rather fetching dual pin badge. There is also a section of quizzes and games for those interested in such things.

Doubtless this summit is a worthy endeavour, but once a schoolboy, always a schoolboy. Highlights of the programme include "the issue of hygiene in Indian villages, preventing water-borne infections and global access to toilets. An Australian delegate will deliver a report on toilets in TV and a Greek speaker will talk latrines in Ancient Greece".

Meanwhile, I will take my cue from Nancy Mitford, and wish it would re-name itself the World Lavatory Association, meanwhile quite possibly the Apocalypse truly is upon us.

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They do things differently in....Sweden

Monday, October 29, 2007
"A church in Västerås is asking parishioners to donate enough pieces of white Lego to create a life-size statue of Jesus. A local priest is leading the drive to construct a white plastic Jesus in the central Swedish town". Source. No indication as to whether it will be an Ecce Homo, Man of Sorrows, Salvator Mundi or a Majestas Dominiis, but presumably not a pietà.

Despite the use of 'priest' to describe the man of the cloth, it is far from clear whether he is a Catholic, (Lutheran) Church of Sweden or another denomination entirely. Must say it does not sound like something I imagine Martin Luther would approve of.

Anyway, here's the punchline: "And the priest was insistent that the statue should be made up only of white pieces, as anything else might be considered tasteless". I am not making this up.

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Mmm, tasteful...

Sunday, October 07, 2007
Pianos are black, sometimes brown, and for those lacking taste, white.

However, Baldwin Pianos would seem intent on underestimating the taste of the American public (at least I hope so), with the following:






There is plenty more of the same at the website, but I felt two was enough. Perhaps encouragingly, the press release (registration required) suggests that these are not aimed musicians, but rather at the same people who buy quarter bound books in leather by the yard for decoration rather than for reading:

"From a striking striped zebra print to a whimsical abalone white grand, to a tied-dyed design with a happy face and one with a Hawaiian style sunset, Baldwin Custom House has created pianos that can serve as works of art in any finely designed home or as a stylized gift to fit any personality".

I had hoped to point out that Steinway does not engage in this sort of thing, but they do:

I think I need to lie down in a darkened room for a bit, and in the meantime offer my apologies to any readers feeling nauseous.

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Anyone described as 'famous' almost certainly is not

Monday, September 24, 2007
Try it - famous President George Bush, famous footballer Pele etc etc.

So: "well-known German vocalist and activist, Wolfgang Hildebrandt". I have never heard of him, he does not appear at allmusic.com, Wikipedia English or German. So perhaps not a household name. He does, however, have a myspace page, wherein is declared "OF ALL THE AMAZING TALENTED PEOPLE IN THE WORLD OF INSPIRATIONAL MUSIC, Wolfgang Hildebrandt soars to the top of the charts".

And why am I telling you this? Because the UN has come up with another one of its brilliant ideas: "An international galaxy of stars will take to the stage...aimed at raising both funds and awareness to educate and empower children around the world".

And it is called "World Peace Tour 4 Children". Has no one told them that text speak is soo last week?

And who is in this galaxy of stars?:"Joining the Tour would be Kool and the Gang (They have had one US chart single in the last 18 years. C), Peabo Bryson (who sang with Celine Dion on the soundtrack of Beauty and the Beast), Andrea Bocelli, Carlos Santana (who is 60), Quincy Jones (who is 74) and Whitney Houston (out of rehab now?) , said Mr. Hildebrant, adding that former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev would act as master of ceremonies. The actor Richard Gere would also participate".

The tour kicks off in Namibia, and I for one find it a little hard to imagine that Gorby will take to the stage in a spandex cat suit and declare 'yeah, awright, we are going to rock you Windhoek'. Still, stranger things have been known.

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">"Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast"

Monday, September 17, 2007

Not since Susan Sontag decided that what a besieged Sarajevo really, really needed was a performance of 'Waiting for Godot' (I'm not making this up) have artistic types come up with something quite so spectacularly muddle-headed:


The United Nations orchestra.

Yes, really. If all the UNO was intent on doing was playing high-end elevator music for sundry dictators and so forth, the initiative would not be of any great note, but nope, it has much, much greater ambition:

"The Orchestra is a unique project which will galvanize support for the UN through music and multi-media projects focused on the UN’s ideals, values and priorities"....The innovative concept is the brainchild of [Director of the United in Music Foundation] Mr. Boogaard who approached the United Nations with the support of the Government of the Netherlands. The most important objective of the Orchestra is to communicate the essence of the United Nations to hundreds of millions of people and to show the world what the United Nations stands for. In so doing, the Orchestra will become a communications tool for the UN. “We often need a thousand words to get a simple message across and sometimes we only need one language: music. I view music as a way to inspire people to embrace the ideals of the United Nations and to feel the need for voluntary action.”

"Mr. Boogaard’s career has included five years as a business manager of the Ricciotti Ensemble -- a 40–piece youth orchestra -- during which he produced some 400 concerts in unusual locations, from the cathedral tower in the city of Utrecht to the southernmost point in Africa on the Cape of Good Hope, from an opera for the homeless to a concert tour through war-torn Bosnia".

Mr B is Dutchman. I wonder if his concert was in Srebrenica....

The orchestra, naturally, will not be sticking to Mozart: "The Orchestra will be composed of 52 professionally-trained young musicians from all the world’s regions and cultures (Only 52 regions and cultures? Fancy. C). When the Orchestra plays abroad, it will include guest musicians from the countries being visited. The Orchestra will play music from around the world or music specially composed for it, but will not be a classical orchestra".

I look forward to the Janjaweed militia laying down their arms, and outbreaks of peace, love and understanding in trouble spots worldwide.

Suggestions for the orchestra's repertoire would be most welcome.

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Visit Germany and see the Brandenburger Tor, the Hermannsdenkmal and the Dessau pyramid

Wednesday, September 05, 2007
At least if the volk behind this project get planning permission. German entrepreneurs have come up with the idea of building a pyramid near Dessau, deep in what I regard as Prussia, but what is now the land of Saxony Anhalt.

The pyramid is not intended to house the mortal remains of Angela Merkel, or come to that, 'Kaiser' Franz Beckenbauer, but rather to be a rather large pile of concrete blocks housing memorial urns and, for the better off, tombs.

They are deadly serious, have raised pathfinder funding and are thinking in terms of building a structure circa 450' feet tall. As the mock up shows, it fits into the Prussian landscape beautifully:


The jpeg I borrowed from their website calls itself 'tgp22-conceptual-small.jpg', and I do worry that 'small' applies to the picture rather than the pictured.

You too can reserve a slot, at no obligation, here. Be warned, however, "You will receive a mail that asks you to confirm your reservation. GMail and some other services might store that mail in your spam folder. We are working on a solution to that".

Of the 144 names listed as having signed up, there are two Egyptians, nine Americans, nine Belgians, two Britons and one 'European Union'. Just under 1/6th of the names listed look to be female. Fancy....

There is no indication as to whether the descendants of Leopold I, der alte Dessauer, and our ally at Blenheim, wish him to be interred there....

And meanwhile, The lone and level fields stretch far away

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Nonsense upon stilts

Friday, August 17, 2007
I am not a big fan of Bentham, but his terming of 'human rights' as 'nonsense upon stilts' seems quite extraordinarily apt in the case of those deemed to apply to protesters in Ottawa.

Bush, Calderon and Harper are having a summit meeting in Ottawa next month, and doubtless it will prove a fairly pointless exercise, in common with G8 meetings and the like. Why they can't do a bit of video conferencing is beyond me.

Anyway, politicians cannot hope to meet up anywhere without there being a rag bag of lefties, greens, and 57 varieties of other loons following the baggage train, and so it will be in Ottawa. Doubtless politicians everywhere regard the camp followers as just one more pain in the backside, but which can be shut out once inside the summit venue. Not, however, this time:

"There will be a video feed of the protests inside the buildings," a senior official said at a media briefing on the summit. "People have a legitimate right to protest."

The government said the decision to stream footage of the protests in view of the three world leaders is consistent with the protesters' human rights and assertions in courts that protesters have a right to be seen and heard".

Right. So it is not enough that one has the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, but rather Ottawa falls just short of supplying the venue, soap boxes and bullhorns. Having once started on this folly, where will it all end, and might Bush, Calderon and Harper decide that they want to exercise their freedom of speech by having their bon mots relayed to the crowd by speakers mounted on Chinooks or somesuch?


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For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"

Friday, July 27, 2007
And, alas it would appear that he is no longer "Saviour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot".

A profoundly depressing tale of quite what a ghastly place this country is turning into, courtesy of the Epsom local rag:

"Neighbours have launched an offensive over proposals to convert a £1.7million property in Ashtead into a guest house for relatives of servicemen wounded in Afghanistan or Iraq....about 100 local people objecting to the proposed alterations, which include fitting a wheelchair ramp. Their main complaint was that increased noise and traffic would "ruin the special character and appeal" of the private lane. Other criticisms were that the families "would not be welcome" and that their arrival could destroy the "unique charm" of multi-million pound properties".

A spokesbod from Mole Valley District Council hits the nail squarely on the head:

"The objectors clearly don't understand what it feels like to have your life changed in a second by a bomb blowing up in Basra."

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A new low for reality TV?

Sunday, May 27, 2007
A competition to see who gets a kidney transplant, airing next week in the Netherlands. Yes, really.

"Dutch broadcaster BNN plans to air a television show next week where a terminally ill woman will decide who out of three young patients will get her kidney, Dutch media said on Saturday. Viewers will be able to advise the 37-year-old woman, known as Lisa, via SMS which of the candidates to pick, the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper said. The show is scheduled for next Friday in a prime-time spot". It comes care of the people who cooked up Big Brother.

Supposedly it "is meant to highlight the acute shortage of donors in The Netherlands". Uh huh.

While this is likely to attract more attention than a plodding documentary, one does have to wonder about the moral compasses of those involved in this project.

The concept of willing trade in kidneys may well be not an entirely pleasant one, but I find it less offensive than the prospect of the nationalisation of our viscera, which is the de facto solution others would wish upon the populace.

Anyone seen 'Network' recently?

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