Depressed chicken loses will to live...

reports the Renfrew Gazette. This sad tale of maltreatment by a nasty farmer might have achieved another ending but for the vet who then broke it's neck. Freed from a lifetime of shit the poor bird glimpsed salvation for the briefest moment cradled in the arms of a kindly grey haired gentleman with warm but firm hands. A little too firm as it turned out. Squawk!

I'm inspired by my friend...

Guyana Gyal to post a link to the marvellous Penguin Cafe Orchestra. I'll say no more, just follow the link for a tiny bit of joy.

Oldest man in Tokyo...

been dead for 30 years reports the BBC. Local officials became suspicious after not seeing Mr Sogen Kato for 30 years. "30 years may seem a long time to some," Said one official, "But we've been busy."

A spokesperson for the records office said, "Mr Kato has now been stripped of his title and sash though he can keep the sash because it's holding him together."

A further spokesperson told Associated Press. "When dealing with the dead it pays to be on your toes. In this case we failed but then again so did Mr Kato whose toes fell off some time ago."

La Grande Bellezza...

or, The Great Beauty is a blisteringly good film about an elegant 65 year old Roman journalist specialising in art, culture and the ocassional catty put down. Rome looks, well, ravishing if a little wrinkled at the edges not unlike Jep himself. An event from the past reaches out to shake Jep's urbane cool and we then follow this quizical comical man who likes to party but wearies of partying. A living saint arrives in Rome whom Jep has to interview but instead she sleeps on his floor. Sipping coffee on his balcony the following morning amidst a gathering of strutting and preening pink flamingoes this dessicated diva archly suggests to Jepp that what he might lack is roots. Watching in astonishment Jep wonders if she might be right.

October...

in West Yorkshire and a bit of Basho...





autumn colors
without a pot
of red-brown soup






"Autumn is marching on: even the scarecrows are wearing dead leaves." -  Otsuyu Nakagawa

Vatican doves...

in release horror reports the BBC. Pope Francis who likes to be known as Francis last weekend released two peace doves from his bedroom window that were promptly devoured by a seagull and a crow. Microphones recorded the following.

Dove one: "I'm free, I'm free. What the fuck!..."

Dove two: "My god they've got Bertie. Fucking hell... Arrrggghhhhh..."

A spokesdove told Associated Press, "No one saw that coming."

Falling into a Black Hole...

is like falling into the fire, or so reports The Belfast Telegraph.

Ruminating over astronauts tumbling into black holes some chap called Polchinski "hypothesised that instead of being gradually ripped apart by gravitational forces, the event horizon would be transformed into a 'highly energetic region', and anyone who fell in would hit a wall of fire and burn to death in an instant - violating Albert Einstein's theory of relativity."

Rather than ripped apart you're burned to death. Phew, and here's me worrying over ripped apart.

Glucose in tears to be...

measured by Google or so claims today's Observer. I understand they plan next to measure orphan's tears for viscosity as a fall back for when the oil runs out. From weeping orphans to fuel security the bastard Tories will salivate even more the moment they grasp the connection. Hmmm, wonder what might be mined from saliva? Quite a lot given the amount currently drooling from the ruling class's sagging jowels.

I don't feel better for writing that... and it's only day 19... grrrr...












 

507 year old clam...

killed on birthday, shock. Or so reports yesterday's Independent newspaper. Having spent the previous half a millennium scratching beneath the cold Atlantic waves off Iceland Ming the Clam died in a pan surrounded by his friends. Chief Scientist Bill Chowder told the waiting press, "Ming gave his life for the advancement of both science and a good lunch. Some think it cruel to eat such aged creatures but we know from previous experience that hot crusty bread and a robust Chardonnay deadens any guilt. And let's not forget that Ming died knowing how old he was. So, another plus there then. Thank you all for coming. There'll be time for further questions after the second course."

Bio-degradable electronics...

only short time away or so predicts some clever professor in today's Observer. 

A simple wafer, swallowed as if at communion will open our innards to scrutiny. Innard data will pour forth with such uncontained force as to place passing children at risk of being bowled over. It will become impossible to stand in proximity to a radio or speakers or someone wearing an ear piece for fear that vital information from our vitals leak across. And who among us would want that?

Awash with tiny devices, up our nose, down our throat, in those hard to reach crevices we'll broadcast like a fucking beacon. What we eat, drink, excrete. Who we slept with, if it was good, if we were good, if we were shite. The particularly sensitive will no longer have to contend only with the chip on their shoulder.

Every morning a dilemma over what to take, every evening a crisis about what we gave. I'm bloody exhausted just thinking about the whole process. Finally though, and happily, these silicone slivers have limited life and dissolve inside of us to be then pissed away. Pissing away ones troubles, ah, if only.

And the madelaines? Apparently next month is the 100th anniversery of something Proust did.

To Manchester Jewish History...

Museum where a section of the Chagall Exhibition currently entrancing visitors to the Tate North in Liverpool is staged. Prior to WW1 Chagall spent time in Paris mixing with others of the Eastern Europe artistic diaspora and the tiny exhibition hosted by the MMJ shows works by Chaim Soutine and Sonia Delaunay and others, as well as Chagall.

By happy coincidence Elaine Feinstein about whom I know very little was also present and reading from her recently published memoir as part of Manchester's Literature Festival. Mrs Feinstein told anecdotes that made us laugh and read some of her poetry but she also read 'An Attempt at Jealousy' by the Russian Poet Marina Tsvetaeva which I thought wonderful. Here it is...

How is your life with that other one?

Simpler, is it? A stroke of the oars

and a long coastline—

and the memory of me

is soon a drifting island

(not in the ocean—in the sky!)

Souls—you will be sisters—

sisters, not lovers.

How is your life with an ordinary

woman? without the god inside her?

The queen supplanted—

How do you breathe now?

Flinch, waking up?

What do you do, poor man?

“Hysterics and interruptions—

enough! I’ll rent my own house!”

How is your life with that other,

you, my own.

Is the breakfast delicious?

(If you get sick, don’t blame me!)

How is it, living with a postcard?

You who stood on Sinai.

How’s your life with a tourist

on Earth? Her rib (do you love her?)

is it to your liking?

How’s life? Do you cough?

Do you hum to drown out the mice in your mind?

How do you live with cheap goods: is the market rising?

How’s kissing plaster-dust?

Are you bored with her new body?

How’s it going, with an earthly woman,

with no sixth sense?

                                                         Are you happy?

No? In a shallow pit—how is your life,

my beloved? Hard as mine

with another man?

1924

I loved the sarcasm and caustic wit but the poem's real power lies in the wrenching finale where Tsvetsaeva's gaze turns inward.

It's not often I'm introduced to two exceptional poets in one day. Lucky old me.

Top five physics discoveries...

chosen by Physics World mag makes today's headlines. In no particularly order these are:

Hadron therapy: Nasty for tumours good for us.
Quantum computing: or, at the quantum level all states can be achieved at the same time and therefore the right answer will also occur in there somewhere. Strikes me as overcrowding by another name, but there you go.
Graphene: super thin material no ones quite found a use for yet but will never make it as a blanket.
Superlenses: or glass beads for superseeing.
Kinetic energy harvesting: or, how flip-flops will light a city. 

Hadron therapy, quantum computing, graphene and superlenses demand we look down at the depth. KEH demands we look down at the shoe. Or, get a load of those shoes, or, more specifically, we can get a load off those shoes. It's best foot forwards from now on methinks.

  

Sundown over...

Matthews Lane. Everyday the sun moves further south and soon will set behind the house opposite.

Ancient flying reptiles reprieved...

or so claims today's Observer newspaper. Pterodactyls, or pterosaurs now called were not the evil bat like creatures with odd shaped heads and long beaks that could pierce the standard chest at a glance. Latest research denies pterosaurs as wilful cackling monsters roaming the Jurassic sky and suggests incredibly long lived and graceful creatures surviving 160 million years. It appears therefore that these hardy flyers have been given a very poor press by the likes of HG Wells and Steven Spielberg.

Yes, if turned suddenly or without warning that beak could have out the average eye and yes those teeth could tear out the average gizzard should the beast be standing on your chest. But times were brutal back then. After all, who of us can be surprised that alongside the evolution of eyes should also evolve beaks for poking them out. Evolution is playful. Before becoming too misty we should remember the pterosaur diet included insects, small dinosaurs and mammals. I'm not much stirred by the fate of insects and small dinosaurs but eating the mesozoic mammal was wrong. Small and furry I know but they were kin and we should not forget that.

Archaeopteryx...

so recently knocked off it's perch by archaeologists makes astonishing comeback in the late heats reports the BBC.

Howard Archaeopteryx, dabbing a fossil tear told reporters, "I spent 150 million years pressed into rock waiting for this day and I've not been so moved since the JCB ran over me head. Finally, I'd like to thank the fans and those who never lost faith, even after we were given the bird. Thank you so much. There'll be time for questions after the buffet."

People chase cheese...

down a Gloucester hill, shock. This weekend thousands of excitable cheese chasers met in leafy Gloucester atop a very steep incline. With no thought to life or limb these hardy souls plunged after said cheese with vigour. More than one race meant everyone could have a go. As I understand it broken limbs were minimal, broken heads minimum and broken jaws, mmmm, mm. In a much criticised move organisers used a fake cheese for safety reasons. It's clear from the photo below that a false cheese made all the difference. Next year they're hoping to arrange proceedings on a false hill. 

As usual local police took a dim view of the event with Sgt Jabez Knacker telling the press, "We take dim view of the event." The ambulance service, on the other hand, had an excellent day out and used up all their bandages.

Awakening after...

after 17 years underground in the US of A billions of cicadas emerge to focus on six solid weeks of sex, drugs and wild partying. 

Speaking for cicadas everywhere Joey Tremblewing told the New York Times, "While the frenzy of sex, drugs, noise, booze and wild partying might appear excessive to some we must not forget those who heeded  the UN's call to eat more insects by plunging into a vat of chocolate."

Eat more insects...

says UN. Marty Bodkin, spokesbug for INSECTS! the main European collective of Insectum and Allied Chitinous Groupings, pictured, told Associated Press, "Just because we're small it doesn't mean we can't love."

Marty, always one to provide a little colour was later seen gorging at the bottom of an unwashed jam jar while belting out that old classic, "If you think we are fucked clap your hands."

Another spokesbug for INSECTS! told the BBC sternly, "It's a disappointment to us that Marty is back on the jam."

Much controversy

at London conference entitled "Did humans come from the seas instead of the trees?" The orthodoxy challenging proposal speculates that humans are descended from apes living aside water rather than wandering Africa's dry savannahs. Professor Rhys Evans says "We are trying to discuss the pros and cons of the theory... But many of the things that are unique to humans - such as a descended larynx, walking upright, fat beneath the skin, and most obviously an extremely large brain - it seems can best be accounted for as adaptations to extended periods in an aquatic environment."

Not being one to jump the gun, so to speak, I can claim a little credit for highlighting some time ago evidence contradicting the standard notion that gorillas are fearful of water.

Dan Flynn, ahead of the pack. Odd I wasn't invited. 

Happily,

Edinburgh University have declared exposure to sun is good for us. Yes, there's a chance of cancer but who isn't willing to take that chance when the alternative is ricketts, scrofula, scrapie and weeping skin lesions only curable through an urchin's touch? Not many of us I'll be bound and especially since the urchin shortage shows little sign of relenting. Unless, of course, at the next election the Tories get in again. If they do we can add being buggered to that dismal list.


Such a miserable post Dan. What the fuck's going on?