Here's amazing footage of the Mars Rover landing. Our first view is the craft's extremely heavy heat shield falling away towards the Martian surface. I couldn't help but think that if there are any natives they'll be really pissed off when that thing lands.

Last weekend enjoyed walking from Chapel en le Frith to Buxton via the path above Combs. It was so cold even the sheep were warning us to keep of't hills.

"Keep of't hills," they said.
"It's bloody cold up there." they said, nodding upwards.
"Aye, and keep of't moors." murmured one sheep.
Another coughed, hawked black spit and muttered, "Aye, ent moors... where's that back rub Jeremy?"
Then they all wandered off to hunt for Jeremy.

It's been some years since I encountered moorland sheep sticking their noses into my business.

Sunday's Observer...

newspaper published an article called "Making a silk purse from a goat's udder." wherein it reported how genetic technology now allows goats with spider genes to produce milk containing spider silk. David Cronenberg dealt wittily with the subject, well I laughed, in his film 'The Fly'.

Inverted goats bleating from the kitchen ceiling. I suppose it's progress, of sorts. 

Discovered this...

whilst looking for something else.

It's footage from 2008 of a man jumping off a cliff, or, basejumping. His parachute fails and he breaks his leg before a tree breaks his fall. Not in the least impressive.

My dad loved...

tripe. Tripe is the stomach lining of sheep and other ruminants, apparently. Tripe really is what it says, it's tripe. Tripe tastes horrible. Dad would poach tripe in milk with onions. Dad would eat tripe raw with vingar and salt. It seems a new book called "Tripe: A Most Excellent Dish." is not tripe.

Dad's lips would also smack for pigs trotters pressure cooked for 30 minutes or so. My childish face would look on aghast as dad chomped and slurped and burped his way through plates of tripe. The years have diminished my aghastness not one jot.

Blondin...

the remarkably hirsute tightrope walker was famous for, well, walking tightropes. Blondin's most spectacular high wire stunt saw him tottering across the Niagara Falls his modesty protected only by a serviette advertising Lyon's Tea.

Plunging is the mode by which most have gone over the falls so it can come as no surprise that the first request for 100 years to cross the chasm by cable has caused quite a stir. As reported in The Independent Newspaper one Nik Wallenda having completed the necessary waivers stands brave chested and foot poised awaiting only the bureacratic nod.

Compared to plunging your man Wallenda's method is the very epitomy of sensible as can be seen is this report from 1951. 

"A British barber, Charles Stephens – known as the Demon Barber of Bristol – is killed when he plummets in a barrel with an anvil attached to his feet. Only Stephens' right arm is found."

This is Liverpool...

on a miserable August Bank Holiday. The Mersey, resplendent in grey is lashed by squalls ripping in off the Irish Sea. The photo was snatched  during a moment of calm. In the distance, bottom left, is the tower of a church in Birkenhead and to its right the Queensway Tunnel air vent.

Ah, the English autumn, neither mist nor mellow fruitfulness.

Today...

was cycling down the Mersey from Jackson's Boat to Stockport and took this rather fetching photo of the M60's underside.

A rat scurried by, up to no good I'd wager.

Spring has sprung...

and all the little animals, so long tucked in their beds are up and lively. The country is awash with furred and feather creatures. Rabbits, hares, badgers, hedgehogs, field mice, shrews, moles, herons, I could go on, for they certainly are. Driving has become hazardous, a life and death affair.  Some country roads are like butcher's slabs. All that mess, it can upset the equilibrium. Nature red in tooth and claw, indeed. There's plenty of red, loads of tooth and quite a bit claw though mostly spread like jam. On such scarlet surfaces a person could skid, lose control, crash. One slip and it's  my tooth and claw feeding the freeloading crows.

Should such a thing happen there'd no doubt be a shrine. A simple menhir,  and dedication would do the trick. "Dan smorgasbord Flynn. Giving, even as he was taken away."

Just thinking of the crowds chokes me up.

The universe...

is a funny old place and full of surprises. By all accounts the great black yonder, until now thought to be a place of peace and quiet is instead stuffed with singing stars  all lustily blaring away like there's no tomorrow.

It's little wonder I can't sleep at night.

It is spring...

Hurrah!

Yesterday me and a lonely daff enjoyed the sun that beat down on meandering River Mersey as it rolled past Didsbury.  With bike under bum, a trusty steed indeed and warm westerly breeze the ride was heaven on earth and not in a religious way either, oh no.

A wandering stoat, it might have been a ferret, skipped from the bushes, scratched it's ear, picked it's teeth, took a look around and declared 'Fuck me, it's spring.'

"It is that sir," replied I, stopping so as not to crush the tiny creature beneath freedom's wheel. And not before time too."

The stoat appraised me with a stoney eye. "Why are you dressed in yellow?" It asked.

"The yellow is reflective safety wear used when riding on roads so vehicles can see me rather than kill me."

"But you're not on a road," Said my minuscule yet oblong friend. "This is the countryside, a riverbank in fact."

"Well spotted, " Said I, thinking, who'd have thought it, a pedantic stoat, "But I had to cycle down a road to get here."

"What's a road?" It said in that superior yet stoatish way

Reader, I ran it over, well, tried to run it over but stoats are wily buggers.

"Wanker." It shouted.

"Wanker back." I replied but by then the moral high ground had gone.

Captain Ska

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQFwxw57NBI

Fantastic stuff. 

Winter...

.

has arrived in the UK from Siberia, or Norway, or the arctic. Worried newscasters and trembling weather people declare hourly that we're all doomed unless temperatures begin to rise. Snow covers Scotland, Newcastle and the eastern counties. Many hands thrown up in despair snapped off so vicious is the cold. A variation of boules involving snapped hands became the main sport in some areas for a short while. Unimaginatively called, 'Hands' it was the snatching dogs that stopped the whole thing going global.

To G. x

Bloodsuckers...

cause panic in New York, or so says Friday's Guardian Newspaper. Rather than another acid tale of Wall Street high life this creepy story focuses instead on New York low life, to wit, bed bugs. So confident have our little friends become, it is reported, they're parading openly and some might say brazenly in department stores and upmarket residences. To curtail ensuing panic the mayor has demanded their extinction.  A mayoral spokesperson said, "We demand their extinction." Speaking on condition of anonymity a spokesbug declared, "The hysteria may be entirely justified given our nature but hey man what all this stuff about extinction? Jeeze, even Hedge Funds get a better press."

Later, whilst mopping brow the spokesbug was overheard telling a friend.

"Damn, wish I'd not linked us to Hedge Funds."

Yesterday's...

copy of The Independent  reported on a study done at the University of Kentucky demonstrating  that pigeons are inveterate gamblers. The four birds involved: Eddy 'The Pigeon' Pigeon; Johnny 'Are You Looking at Me?' Pigeon;  Leon 'Stumpy Pigeon' Pigeon (so named because he has no feet) and his cousin Dermot 'These are not my wings' McGuire Pigeon are well known amongst the Columbidae as fleecers of the unsuspecting. Gerald 'I've a Migraine' Pigeon, spokesbird for the Kentucky Chapter of "Nod and Poo, Nod and Poo" told a local reporter, "Recently we've been trying hard to clean up our act, staying off window ledges, eating stodgy food, that sort of thing so it's disappointing when studies such as this appear. It sets us back. I'm afraid those four wily birds have done us no favours whatsoever. Sorry, but you'll have to excuse me, I'm desperate for the bathroom... yes right now... fortunately there's a car... it's your car... bollocks..."

You learn something new everyday.

I've returned from...

two weeks in Tokyo and Beijing.  Both cities I thought astonishing. Tokyo is awash with sky scrapers whereas Beijing is simply huge, a great city bounded by westerly mountains and endless plains to the east and south. I was in awe of the two capitals  and though each were welcoming, the Chinese being the most open and friendly, I felt dwarfed by Tokyo heights and the grand open spaces that characterised central Beijing. Coming from a small Island crammed with 60 million people there's little sense of big space in the British psyche. Maybe it's experienced in sparsely populated Scotland, upper northern England or the flat-lands of Norfolk but as a citizen of comfortable old Manchester I found big space a tad intimidating. Nicely intimidating because Tokyo and Beijing, so different in culture, history, layout and architecture are cities first and foremost and being a city boy I fitted in very well. Tokyo was the more modern with a centre so clean one could eat dinner off it whereas Beijing was more fun, more frayed and less exact. Tokyo felt like a bright new ipod packed to the gunnals with sharp technology whilst Beijing was the clever old uncle slightly scuffed but smart as a whip. I fell in love with both towns, dear reader, I really did. Sigh.

Spring

is sprung. Ha ha. Snowy weather delayed the affair but this past four weeks spring has definitely sprung.

An ode to spring...

Oh spring,
fucking fantastic
say no more.

We're not used...

to cold weather in the UK. Being an Island kept balmy by the warm gulf stream it's not very often arctic temperatures descend on these shores. However it has been so cold even the Great British Penguin has sloped off to sunnier climes. The GBP, not a native of these parts usually swims north for the shopping but lo, the weather closed most shops, as can be seen in my photo.

Whilst I appreciate this bit of snow doesn't seem much to hardier types who live on cold continental land masses it does mean a great deal to me. Wey hey!

Of late...

I've begun to notice an increase in South Manchester of home owners who've furnished the front of their properties with electric gates. Yesterday whilst driving through leafy suburbs I passed more than my fill of gates large and small guarding houses large and small. Gates that slid to the left, gates that slid to the right, gates that slid into the ground and even ridiculous gates that rose either side similar to those found at railway crossings. Some gates were fancy and topped with wrought iron spikes and one or two were developed with panels portraying worthy themes. One theme showed Noah's great ark stuffed with every type of animal though I thought the gun deck a fanciful addition. Another gate featured little orphans fleeing a workhouse fire. The orphan theme reached a bloody climax as the evil owner, whilst forcing the tiny children back through a burning doorway door above which, incidentally, crackled the words, "Children, Best Prices" was himself crushed beneath a falling safe. Filled with ill gotten loot the safe had been pushed from an upper window by his two sons bitter at their exclusion from the family Will. The concluding motif shows the assembled but happy children dancing around the owner's smouldering remains pausing only to stir a pan of port mulling on the heat. Being stuck in a line of slow moving traffic gave me time to appreciate this parable in iron.

Having returned home I googled the costings of your average gate and knowing a little of house prices in the area it was obvious that some gates were more expensive than the home they were designed to protect. It would be cheaper to live in the gate.