The skies are full of falling stars and absconded rubbish

The most peculiar thing happened last night.
Dr Livingstone and I were outside stargazing, enjoying the Perseid meteor shower, when we heard a car pull up to the front of the house.
It left its motor running.
We strolled over to the street side to look what was going on (it had already gone eleven). When Dr Livingstone got there, the car sped off.

Now for the strange part: Our two bin liners full of rubbish were gone!
I'd put them out not too long before and they were stolen!

Why would anyone steal our rubbish?
I know there's talk of crisis and so on but this is a bit freakish to say the least.

There is something you, dear reader, should know before I go on.
Our council has abolished rubbish tax this year. It used to be 30€. Now the idea is you buy the special bin liners with the village name printed on them and add a 1€ sticker. If the sticker is not on the bags, the men who collect the trash leave it outside.

Dr Livingstone has a few theories as to why someone would scarper off with our flotsam and jetsam:

1) They want the stickers.
In my suspicious mind that wouldn't make sense. Why would anyone steal two bags to put stickers on their own liners? They'd have to get rid of two extra bags without stickers on them. They might just as well save themselves the trouble of collecting ours and dump their own straight away. It's only 2€ for pity's sake.

But Dr Livingstone says I mustn't overestimate the criminal masterminds around here.

2) Somebody wants to frame us for some crime
Mr Disasterous Farmer™?
3) Someone needs a random person's address to throw them off a lead.
A mass murderer is stealing random bags to hide body parts in?
4) There's going to be a break in, they're sifting through our rubbish to see if we've bought something worthwhile to steal.
We're not Mr and Mrs Rockefeller-Rothschild.

Now these last three seem like they could be part of a story line to a detective novel. It has literary potential.

And one of my online friends told me it could have been aliens using the meteor shower as a distraction.
I think the other worldly visitors might be in for a little disappointment when they anally probe the bin liner.

We called the police anyway. I don't want to receive a littering fine from some nearby council if our rubbish should turn up somewhere.

Everybody's faking

I just finished Edward Dolnick's The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century

I enjoyed it thoroughly. Very well written, it stands head and shoulders above the previous publication I digested about the Venus de Milo. And it was a better translation too (same publisher). Alas, on page 24 a humongous error appeared which caused all the hairs on my arms to stand upright. The kind of error Dutch people tend to make because they are inclined to write down words more phonetically and mispronounce them differently from us Flemings.
But the book itself it very balanced, has a broad scope and never gets tedious or dull at any stage. It captures some of the spirit of the times (including some 30's and 40's jokes).

I got it as a present for my birthday along with a book published in 1949 by Paul Coremans who was involved in Van Meegeren's trial and gave evidence as an expert witness. It is called Van Meegeren's faked Vermeers and De Hooghs and I'm starting on that one today.
I will probably pick up another book written by Mr Dolnick. I believe he has written on the subject of the stolen The Scream by Edvard Munch.
Funny, as Dr Livingstone was staying in an Osloan hotel just across the road when the painting was in the unfortionate process of being nicked.

In January I heard a lecture given by Jonathan Lopez, also on Van Meegeren, in the National Gallery of Art (the lecture is available online via iTunes). He was introducing his book The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren. He has a different approach to Van Meegeren. Dolnick concentrates more on the ultimate Göring dupe and the lead up to the arrest of Van Meegeren. Lopez talks about the other fakes (among others the Greta Garbo Vermeer), the English connection, his nazi sympathies and more.

A night at the museum

Yesterday evening we spent a night at the museum. Well, several musea.
Antwerp, one of the cities I love to hate, held its annual Museum Night. For a small fee you can visit most city musea between 7 pm and 1 am.
We decided to make a night ou ton the town of it and started with some chinese food just across from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts. Alas they seemed to forget our 2nd course, we were waiting over an hour, so time was slipping by. First we went of to the Photo Museum, the little guide book said there'd be a special exhibition on spy camera's. It was a bit of a disappointment. Two small cabinets with just a couple of A2's with some general info.
There was a very nice exhibition of some British photographers on display. I liked Tom Hunter's work best.
On the top floor some very good work from Geert van Kesteren and his work while he was embedded with American troops in Iraq.
I think it was the most successful edition so far, I've never seen so much people. It looked like I was in the Louvre or something.
In the RMFA it was very hot and sweaty. the hygrometer graphs showed there was nearly a 7% change in the humidity in the exhibition rooms, not good at all for the masterpieces on the walls.
Dr Livingstone accompanied me and he help up pretty well considering he doesn't like (most) art very much.

Dr L: I don't like it
Mrs B: Why?
Dr L: You can't see their faces
(He was looking at Two springs by Gustave van de Woestyne)

Dr L: I don't like it
Mrs B: Why?
Dr L: It's got crosses and holy men and all that crazy religious shit in it
(About 2/3rd of the museum's collection)

Dr L: (upon entering a room) Ugh, this is ugly.
(Proceeds to quick march down to the exit of the Rubens room)

Dr L: Now this I like
Mrs B: Why?
Dr L: It's got all these monsters in them, it gives me something interesting to look at and discover. Shame about the religious stuff in it.
(He was looking at The Temptation of St Anthony by Maarten de Vos)

Dr L: This I like too
Mrs B: Why?
Dr L: I've heard of this guy, I've seen some of his work, he's not a bad painter. Pitty about the religious mumbo jumbo.
(For the record: Dr Livingstone was talking about Jan Van Eyck)

He did really enjoy the behind the scenes look in the Museum's Art Depot and the ongoing restoration of Memling tableaus.
It was too crowded to look at leisure at any paintings, Dr Livingstone needs space and room to manoeuvre. I can't blame him.
The night was a runaway success for Antwerp. Shame the musea never seem to attract a throng of people in the same way through the rest of the year.
We wanted to also see the Museum Mayer van den Berg and the Middelheim but we were short on time. Ah well, a late night culture snack is never bad.

The Steve McQueen donkey™

Well, it finally happened. The animals in the field had an extra curricular activity shall we say. One of the donkeys used the hole in the fence to seek out some greener pastures.
I was standing by with a camera, just in case it would wreak havoc. But it didn't. The Steve McQueen donkey™ couldn't consolidate its escape to the fullest, I think Mr Disastrous Farmer™ saw it and under an hour all the donkeys were put in another field where the fences are in a less deplorable situation then the ones bordering on our drive way and garden.
In any case, he still hasn't mended the rest of the enclosure. He knows if it happens again he'll be in big trouble.
I gather he's not on speaking terms with us anymore since we called the council to have the horse removed.
I really cracked up yesterday when we drove past his house and his letter box was on the ground too.

A translation at arm's length

Yesterday I finished Disarmed: The story of the Venus de Milo by Gregory Curtis.

Curtis does a good job of describing the events of the finding of the sculpture and what happened to it and who was involved, but somewhere half way he gets focused on the sexual deviations of some of the figures (e.g. Winkelmann and Reinach).
It doesn't really add anything to the history of the Venus. After a few paragraphs you start to wonder when he's going back to the sculpture. It is always nice to read about some of the interesting figures of early art history research and about the attitudes of the 19th century, but it starts to drag somewhere.
The last chapter of the book is unimaginatively titled 'The Last Chapter' and should really have been omitted. And the second to last one, about the different types of Veni and iconography should have appeared somewhere in the beginning of the book.
You can tell Mr Curtis is not a historian and tends to drift off in an unguarded literary moment, but all in all the history on the handling of the statue and the people involved with it is reasonably ok. So a good read for the lay person, some interesting items for the amateur, and some titbits for the pro.
On one item I absolutely agree with Curits: the way he has a go at the departure point and some methods feminist art historians employ in their research and writings (p 246 in my translation). It goes along the lines of my blog post 'A critique on feminist contextual approach of Art History'.

I own a Dutch translation of Mr Curtis' book (by Guus Houtzager) and it is absolutely awful. It is riddled with hideous spelling mistakes (e.g. 'verast' where it should have been 'verrast': verast = cremated, verrast = surprised) and some very badly translated words (or rather: badly chosen ones). Sometimes it seems as if the translator was not at all familiar with some words and has just plucked the most fancy sounding one out of a dictionary.

Harvest then and now

Surprising how little has actually changed over a period of 450 years.
Since Pieter Bruegel painted the corn and hay harvests around 1565 and how farmers harvest today.
Only the means of harvesting have changed. Where people in the sixteenth century would spend a day scything wheat, bundling it and threshing it, now it only takes one machine about an hour to mow & thresh and another to make bales.
It only looked impressive to me for the first time this year because I had the Bruegel paintings in the back of my head.
Makes you a bit nostalgic. Farmers don't loiter about in the shade sipping beer anymore. Well, not in my neighbourhood anyway.
And there are no haystacks about anymore. So no frolicking about with the milking maid either.
Or needles lost to be searched for.
But lying about on hay makes you come out in a rash anyway. It is teeming with things that make you itch and sneeze and isn't soft at all. It's a bit like carpet burns. You never find out how bad it is until some time after. Sorry if I've burst someone's romantic bubble.

Someone got cubed

I got bogged down in the book on Florence and the Medici by J.R. Hale. A great read, but a pocket containing pure history does not make good speed reading material. To occupy my wandering mind I resorted to my long forgotten Rubik's cube. A pretty good challenge. My dad used to own a little book on some quick and dirty tips how to solve it. I think my mother threw it out when they got divorced.

Anyway, the Rubik's cube was one of my first methods of duping my parents into thinking I was somewhat special.
Those things were all the rage in the eighties and my father had left one in the living room, not being able to solve it.
When I was alone, I peeled off all the stickers and re-glued them accordingly, all the same colours on one face of the geometrical object.
My mother had left me alone for about a quarter of an hour and was astonished to find, upon her return, I had 'solved' the cube.
I must have been five at the time. I didn't say anything. She just went: 'Did you solve the cube' and I went: 'I made it into what it looks like now'. I never said I'd solved it by actually turning the bits around. And I clearly remember I couldn't actually believe she really fell for it. So I went along with it.
Until the moment had come she'd been bragging all over the place I had solved the cube, then I revealed the secret I had been saving for the opportunity of making her look like a complete ass.

After that my parents thought I was more cunning than special and left it at that.

Another Brand New Donkey

The equestrian nursery has another addition. There are so much animals about these days I didn't even notice Badly Shorn Sheep™'s owner (aka Mr Disastrous Farmer™) has had yet another small donkey added to his collection.
The pater familias jack has fathered this new foal with its two year old daughter.
So it's become a grandfather as well as father.
I didn't notice the littl'n until today, when it was frolicking about with the one that was born at the end of June.

The other animals in the field are beginning to become desperate for food. Mr Disastrous Farmer™ has been away on holiday for nearly two weeks now and his daughters are obviously not looking after the animals (or I should say: Looking after them in the same fashion their father has). Remember the dead horse I blogged about two weeks ago. We had to call the council to have the carcass removed. Rendac, the firm of food crisis fame and the company that carts away and processes animal remains, was closed till the 22nd because of our Independance Day on the 21st. We didn't think a dead horse left lying in the field from Thursday up to Wednesday in this kind of heat was very good for anyone's health. Not for the animals, nor for us. We had a word with the farmer living next door to Badly Shorn Sheep™'s owner, he was really glad we called them, he is terrified his healthy animals might contract something. And because he doesn't have to balls to ring himself.

The horses have resumed the trashing of some fences to get to greener pastures and I don't think it'll be very long now before they end up chewing away at our garden (again).
Mr Disastrous Farmer™ has done nothing to mend his shabby fences. Even though the police told him to last time we called them when four horses were roaming around in our garden. If they really do start munching on our patch, I'll let them and won't even bother telling him about it. Just one call to the sherrifs should do the trick. After they've trashed the garden and we can claim some compensation on him and hire a gardener to do some maintenance.
Last time we called on Mr Disastrous Farmer™ to tell him his goats were out and about on the street he said: 'No they're not, they're inside'. Yeah right buddy. We were standing right next to them with someone on horseback who had notified us of the goatesque escape.

Kensal Green Cemetery Open Day 2009

On the 4th of July I curtailed my sight seeing activities, sallied forth and headed toward Kensal Green Cemetery. Not to negotiate the vending of some cheesy comestibles, but The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery had their annual Open Day.
The oppressive heat of the previous days had waned, the temperature was most agreeable.
It had been well over a decade since I last visited Kensal Green and from what I could vaguely recall, it looked very different indeed.
Last time I entered from the North Gate, this time I entered through the main entrance at Harrow Road.
There was not much activity on this side of the necropolis, so I walked towards the Anglican Chapel.

The first glance of Open Day activities I caught was a vintage Ford hearse. The very same one as used in the straight to DVD 2009 horror spoof Lesbian Vampire Killers .
There was a coffin placed at the end of it, the boot was open. A stuffed crow was tied to the roof. Nice detail.
There was a good crowd gathered outside the Anglican Chapel, I’d just missed Louis Theroux opening the festivities.
I got talking with the Chairman of the Friends who showed interested visitors the entry page in the original 19th century Company Register for the Brunel plot.

He introduced me to a gentleman who was a Byron expert.
I asked him why Byron had become so unpopular and people tended to take more of an interest in his biography than his work.
‘People today don’t want to put any effort into reading him’ he explained ‘Byron is a lot of hard work and they can’t seem to be bothered anymore’. Byron isn’t buried at Kensal Green, one of his mistresses is however. I believe she is buried in the catacombs.
‘Ah, it would be very interesting to open up the coffin of Byron. How wonderful it must be to gaze upon the face of Agamemnon again.’ continued the gentleman.
Then he went on to complain about how the Times had really gone downhill the last couple of years and went off to eye some Goths dressed in Victorian mourning clothes.
More poetry ensued when a fresh faced young man recited some excellent Shelley and G.B. Shaw.

Later on I strolled over to the plot where Harold Pinter was laid to rest last December, just behind the massive memorial monument to the famous Harley Street Quack John St John Long. There is talk of putting up a memorial for Mr Pinter, but it is early days yet. For now the burial site is marked with a simple shiny metal plaque.

I resolved to have a cup of coffee and eat some delicious chocolate sponge cake before going on any of the tours.
Around midday I joined a guided tour along the cemetery with a very nice guide who couldn’t think of the words ‘The Good Death’. Of course I couldn’t resist helping him out a little. It was a very informative walk and talk. The gentleman spoke on the Cemetery’s history, the people who were buried there, the Victorian customs of dealing with death, how the plots are kept,…
I had just finished Catherine Arnold’s book Necropolis: London and its dead, so this was a nice intermezzo before I start with James Stevens Curl’s The Victorian Celebration of Death and Pat Jalland’s Death in the Victorian Family . Both books have been staring at me for a couple of weeks now and are screaming blue murder to have me turn their pages.
Our guide had to speed up his talk, it was only supposed to last about an hour, I had to hurry back to the Anglican Chapel because my Catacombs Tour started at two.

The Catacombs: very special indeed. It was everything I expected it to be. Dark, moist, unhealthy air, nooks and crannies filled up with coffins from ground to ceiling.
By the time I emerged from the vaults it had gone three and I resumed my stroll, by now my back playing up so much I had to lean on my cane.

I conversed with a gentleman who was chiselling some words into a slate slab. I asked him about the various building materials used on the cemetery, he pointed me to an interesting chapter in a publication by The Friends written by Eric Robinson on the geology of Kensal Green Cemetary.
A steal at only 20 quid, I couldn’t resist.
I had enquired where the grave of Wilkie Collins was, he offered to accompany me to it, he knew its exact location. Or so he thought. It is so inconspicuous one cannot find it. I must have passed right by it, when I looked it up it was in the vicinity of the place the engraver thought it would be.
Around five-ish I decided to head back to the Tube and call it a day. My weary legs no longer able to carry me.
I got back to my hotel and watched someone else do the running. Ladies singles final at Wimbledon.

Fahrenheit 451

As you may have deduced by now, I am a prolific reader and notorious horder of books. Dr Livingstone will testify to this fact. A small portion of my catalog has already found its way to the internet and is there for all of you to see. Just click on my LibraryThing sidebar on the right to go to my online library. I don't entirely know if my insurance is quite happy with all that paper being stored in the house.

Now I know bookburning is no longer en vogue and I would be the last person on earth to promote biblioclasm, but I have finally found a book that, if the chance of entrusting a volume to the flames presented itself to me, I'd fling it in without any hesitation whatsoever.
Anyway, I came home from my summer film school earlier this week (will blog about that some time in the future) and found a book that my mother in law had given the Teens™.
It's a Dutch book written by Aaf Brandt Corstius and Machteld van Gelder. It is called Handbook voor de Moderne Vrouw.
It is beyond a shadow of a doubt a collection of the worst load of cobblers and headless chicken-ramblings I have ever read.

A quick glance at some of the entries is all one needs to be convinced. It is just so wrong in every aspect of its wording, message and presumptions .
Its outset is to give the Modern Woman some kind of guideline to find her way around today's society.
Even if it were written tongue-in-cheek (and believe you me it is nothing of the sort) it would still amount to being 445 pages of pure, unadulterated drivel.
It is a plethora of poppycock all these glossy wimmins mags print up. I'll give some off-the-cuff translations, a handfull of uncut gems of absolute rubbish.

p 17: Of course, it could well be he earns less money, isn't as brilliant as you or not as beautiful. That is not at all lousy, as long as he is absolutely brilliant in other areas.

p 25: A couple of years ago the standard on flirting was published. The Rules. Oprah and others have dedicated a lot of shows to it, so you will undoubtedly remember it.

p 117: Advantages of breast feeding: -It's free.

p 118: Babies have an enormous sucking reflex. Rumour has it that if you'd get up, the baby could keep hanging on to your nipple just by the power of its mouth alone.

p 142: We think Rabbi Shmuley is an ok guy.

p 191: Anyone with an inferiority complex about her features and appearance and a small budget can try and manage this complex by using plastic surgery.

p 206: On how to combat a winter depression: Wallow in it! Stay at home. No one will force you to go outside, as is always the case in summer. No terraces, no parades and rosé-drenched barbecuehappenings. Just stay inside with the telly on. A huge pile of DVD's, a tub of pop corn and a tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Because that cursed bikini-diet only has to start at the end of May.

p 213: Cocaine. What's fun about it?

Continues ad nauseam...

To top it off the codswallop is very unnuanced and totally geared towards desperate housewives who're already familiar with this kind of nonsense from day time tv shows (I gather Oprah being one of them) and will just see all that twaddle being reaffirmed.

Oh and too bad if you're a lesbian. You'll be shunned by Modern Women reading this patronizing book who gobble up every word in it. Or you'll be revered as just being the epitomy of playing hard to get. (Oh yes! p 26). And modern women being ... er ... heterosexual women with children married to men who are able to support them financially who have the right to a personal shopper.

I think I'll have to have a word with my mother in law. Giving the Teens™ a book riddled with pseudo science and praising quacks as sensible people is not the best way forward. Not for Modern Women. Not even for mankind in general.

Michael balls - part III

Oh yes, even more post mortem capers. Won't be long now before bigger bits than this go missing:
It is alleged Michael Jackson's prosthetic nose is missing.
So it really was a case of putting your face on before going out.

I prefer to sit in the dark

Read what it was all about two years ago on David Bordwell's blog.
This year he will be lecturing on The Film Year 1960. He has made an international selection from the Cinematek collection. We will be viewing Godard, Wilder, Kurosawa,...
The two other main threads will run on the Hollywood Emigrés (Garbo, Renoir, Karloff, Ulmer, Ophüls,...) and new Korean cinema (Kim Ki-Duk, Kim Ki-Young, Park Chan-Wook, Boon Joon-Ho),...

Nature is a cruel mistress

Mother Nature has been harsh. The new horse that was born Sunday morning lies dead in the field.
The owner has done nothing to remove it. I did see someone there next to the little horse yesterday evening, but nothing has happened. The mother stands over the remains and tries, in vain, to stir it into action with her head.

Let the good times roll

Had two new front tires fitted to my car on Monday.
Vrooom! Look out asphalt, here I come!

Florence Mousergale

Well, it took till eleven o'clock before Mouser stirred out of the sedation. Vomit. Glaze-eyed. Kitteh tried to get up, I put it on all fours.
Stagger, sway, teeter, totter, stumble, wobble. Just up to the kitchen door. There it keeled over gently and slept again. I pulled up a chair so I could watch over the sleepy animal.
After twenty minutes it got up again and wanted to jump on the window sill to get out. I helped. Fell asleep again right there.
More of the Florence Nightingale route, I got a good deal on in the Athelstan mystery I'm reading.
Then Mouser decided to wobble about some more, strolled round the living room, wanted to exit through one of the tall windows. The strut got more steady as kitteh moved about, but I got a look from it as though it said; "Please stop all the furniture from moving and swirling around".
It was trying to make one thing clear: It wanted some fresh air.
So I decided to let Mouser out for a stroll and supervise it from a distance. It wouldn't be going very fast, it was walking about like a drunken man trying to walk on a straight line.
It came with me down the drive and then did a 180º turn and headed out for the road. No cars about, it was well past midnight by now. It stopped at the side of the road and miaowed for the first time as if asking; 'Is it ok to cross the road?'
So I let her. A tractor was making noise working in a field somewhere, I think they're turning mown grass or cutting off wheat somewhere. It induced kitteh to try and run, but kindof stumbled. Then it sat down and relieved itself, letting out a second yelp as if to point out what a good cat it was.
Then I heard a car approach, picked Mouser up and went back indoors.
Far too groggy still to leave out on its own. It was nearly one o'clock and Velvet Claws™ decided to come and sit with me in the couch. A bit unlucky as I have taken off all the covers to take to the dry cleaners and they won't be ready 'till tomorrow afternoon.
But Mouser wanted a spot on my lap and purred gratefully. Then my arm went numb and I wanted to get to bed.
I left the little black hipster on some pillows. It joined me later on upstairs, the pain in her leg had gone. Hurrah!
This morning kitteh was all talkative and back to normal again.
I'm nackered because of the worry from yesterday.
This nursing thing is not for me. But I'm really glad the drugs have worked and I didn't let it saunter off on its own the first time. Mouser's a good cat, it deserves a healthy, cheeky life. I love it to bits.

Mouser's hip to be square

Mouser had been limping for two days in a row now, at times it seemed to get better. This morning I wanted to go to the vet, but kitteh was nowhere to be found.
This afternoon it resurfaced, I bundled Velvet Claws™ into the cat carrier and off we went.
Yelping and whaling from here to eternity in the car.
A busy waiting room: a very nervous Golden Retriever, a very shy black cat and Mouser. After me two more cats and a Jack Russel. Luckily the Golden dog got to see the doctor before the two dogs had a go at each other.
It was very warm, Mouser still resorting to special pleading and unsettling the cat in the carrier next to mine.
Finally the nice doctor took a look at kitteh. She's very fond of black cats. Mouser went very quit when the lid opened up. She took it out. '...What nice shimmering fur! Hello teeny weeny pussy cat! You look in a lot of pain...Hmm...Paw not swollen. Let's take its temperature.'
Mouser didn't like the sound of that, nor the insertion of the thermometer straight after that.
'...Not running a temperature...If you want to I can taken an x-ray to see if puss's broken something. The pelvis or a bone might be broken.'
Sure, no problem, anything to get a correct diagnosis and help out poor kitteh.
'I'll have to sedate her. Cats do not tend to lie still for x-rays. The dog that was just in here had to have an x-ray too, it had a broken paw.'
So Mouser got the good drug to make her go count some sheep (or I guess cats might count something else?), and went all limp after a while. It looks really scary, the eyes are still open but cat is fast asleep.
The vet put some drops in to make sure they didn't dry up.
'Is this the first time you've had an x-ray taken of your pet?' Why yes it is strange but nice lady.
We put kitteh on the xray table and ZAP! the machine sent some hight energy electromagnetic waves through Velvet Claws™.
'The right hip was dislocated, but it popped back of its own accord. That's why Mouser is in such terrible pain. The rest is ok, nothing was damaged. Probably jumped off something or hit by a car. It'll be as right as rain. I'll give something for the pain and against a possible infection. Kitteh will be asleep for another two hours.'
And Mouser still is while I'm typing this up. I haven't moved kitteh from the cat carrier. It's on the floor with the lid open.
I can here deep, heavy snoring. I'm glad it's ok and nothing is broken. I wonder how groggy kitteh will emerge from its lethargic sleep.

A new horse

Yet another animal was born next door. This time it is a little horse. The mare looks a bit tired, she's been popping out little 'ns every year for nearly a decade I've been told.
All the other animals (the four donkeys, four horses and a cheeky black pony) kept me awake all night, making irritating noises and galloping all over the place. Just being obnoxious really.
I think there's something wrong with its legs, it walks all funny and unsteady. Not that I know anything about horses. It just looks as if its got too much leg for its own good.

Michael balls - part II

I've had to catch up with teh intertubes. But as I'd thought, Michael Jackson has already made his first appearance post mortem.
His ghost was spotted haunting the corridors of his Neverland ranch.



Looks like he's a mere shadow of his former self these days.

Google Ads make Giggle Ads

Google ads make me giggle.
Take a look at this advertisement for Java tutorials.

Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty

I'm off today. Meeting Dr Livingstone in London.
Travelling by Eurostar, I so hate flying. First thing I'll do when I reach St Pancras is go to Sir John Betjeman's statue. I always do. Must put some pictures up from last year.
On the other hand, every time I am travelling internationally by train a terrorist attack happens somewhere.
Let's see now:
On the 11th of March 2004 I was on the TGV heading for Nice. Madrid suffered train bombings.
On the 7th of July 2005 I was on the Eurostar heading for Waterloo station. London suffered train bombings.
Oh noes! It's a curse. Something's dreadfull it going to happen today!
...
Now lets add a little bit of scepticism to that shall we?
The last three years I've travellled nowhere by train and there have been train bombings in Mumbai (2006), Novgorod (2007) and Balochistan (2008).
Nope. No pattern there.
See how easy it is to debunk these silly coincidences?

The World According to me - Year 2

This is a bit of a belated post, but here goes: Year two of Mrs B's never ending ramblings. Chuck Norris cake all round!
What has happened on the blog this past year? A quick round up:

-Meh, still no visitors from Antarctica.
Not even now we have our own non-emission polar base.
Looks like I was wrong, no sex crazed scientists on the cold continent looking for a little heat on teh intertubes.

-I saw a lot of traffic about the omega pharma e-waves phone chip scam. It looks like they're trying to find a market for the scam in the rest of Europe. Some people want to find out what these non existent quantum physical information waves are really about.

-Folks want someone to explain post modernism to them, it's a jumbled up handfull at best, I might do a thorough post about this during the summer.

-Cats having thermometers inserted in them is also a very popular search term. Thanks to the Thermometer goes where lolcat.

-Hacking facebook or apps are a popular pasttime too it appears.

-I expect the fashion police had a very busy winter. There was infinite interest in moonboots, how to clean them and which side goes on what foot.

-The LHC particle adventure scored too. Yay for science!

-My blog entry on Colour changing spiders is the most popular one.


Some strangely disturbing search terms found their way to my little ramblings:

-italian +cheese+worms+health risk+once eaten+name+type of worm
Mrs B: I suspect someone had some lovely cheese and crackers and then took a good look at the food and realized it had probably passed its sell by date by a couple of years. And then was worried if there were any health risks involved.

-license to crennelate
Mrs B: Someone looking over the law before they submit their over the top planning permission?

-balls-up maritime expression
Mrs B: Some creative writer/journalist wanting some novel description of the Iran/UK sailor incident?

-do weasel balls float?
Mrs B: I don't know and I'm not going to try.

-hamster lost circulation
Mrs B: I hope you have fixed its wheel by now or taken the rodent to see a vet.

-it will all make sense in the end
Mrs B: Will it really? How very comforting to know someone is reading all the bullcrap I'm typing up. There's hope for mankind yet.

-And a heartwarming: 'The enchanted world of Mrs B'
Mrs B: How very sweet.

-And of course I did get a lot of traffic for people looking for porn. Because that's just what the web is for, right? Sorry to disappoint some of you, but my entry on 'Hooters' really was about owls.

Wikipedia authority

I'm confused about this article in the New York Times.
Keeping News of Kidnapping Off Wikipedia

Did I miss anything? A couple of questions leap to mind:
-Didn't they factor in the possibility they might have known who they were kidnapping in the first place?
-It might be possible they didn't turn to Wikipedia for their information in the first place.
-So you ask fellow newscasters to keep the news of the kidnapping out of their publications. But what about bloggers?
You can place them on the same reliability level as Wikipedia. It is all user-generated content. Bar all the user chats and peer checking going on, it is still some utopian reverie to think everyone who contributes to an article on wiki is truthfull and exact.
But there has been loads of stuff typed up about that already, I'm not going there. Go here for instance.

How come all of a sudden Wikipedia is taken so seriously? Is it because a lot of hacks just look up stuff on it and, frequently to their own embarrasment, copy and print up the exact same faulty details? Maybe they just assume the kidnappers will do the same?

UFO spotted indoors!

Spotted in Dr Livingstone's hotel room in Manchester: a UFO!
And I have proof! Luckily I took a screen shot of the thing before it was gone.
Look at eeet!
It was hovering in the background all the time we were having a video chat.
Dr Livingstone couldn't see it when he turned round, he said there was only a little reading spot above the bed, but no UFO.
It looks exactly like all the other flying saucer's that are found on the internet!
Strangely it mysteriously disappeared when he turned off the lights in the room...



*sniggers

Brand New Donkey

Badly Shorn Sheep™'s owner has gotten yet another mouth to feed. A new sweet, fluffy, adorable donkey was born today.
It's already frolicking about and straying a good while away from its mother.
The donkeys all look like they've finally been brushed clear of all that old hair that had been clinging to them for ages.
Some of them even glitter in the sun.
It's very hot and sticky today, poor beasts are all panting like crazy to cool themselves.
And Badly Shorn Sheep™ is burping all the time. I've never heard it do that before. It sounds like some air escapes a blocked drain now and then.
Or maybe it's scared of The Beast.

Michael balls - part I

Looks like CTV Calgary really got the scoop on this one:

Lawyer Brian Oxman, a sometime-spokesperson for the Jackson family, alleged that prescription medications may have contributed to the death.
"For the last many months, and almost more than a year, this family has been talking about the use of medications by Michael and warning he was going to wake up dead," Oxman, his voice wavering, told CTV News Channel.

Oh noes! Run! Zombie alert!

You tend to read over these things, don't you?

The King of Pop has popped it

I thought I'd woken up two decades ago this morning. I haven't heard so much Michael Jackson songs playing on the radio since the eighties.

I can still remember when the Thriller video directed by John Landis aired for the very first time on the telly. I think it was on a British network, MTV was not available in Europe at the time. Don't recall if it was on ITV, Channel 4 or the Beeb. Announcements went out and everyone anticipated the full length version. I got to stay up late to watch it, and it subsequently gave me a fascination for all things concerning undertaking, interment and funerary architecture.
The thing that impressed me most was the spoken word act by a long time favourite of mine Vincent Price.
That and the dancing zombie with the green tights.

I wonder how long it will take before the nutjobs come a-crawling out of the woodwork saying he faked his own death.
And reports twenty years from now still spotting him alive, just like Elvis.

I hope he will be cremated. I'm sure everyone will not refrain from pointing out he'll resemble himself as he did in the Thriller vid very soon. Or we will probably end up with a neverending stream of reports of postmortem excursions of the body; just like Mr Chaplin. Or parts of it showing up on auction somewhere.

So is the King of Pop going to have a funeral befitting his status?
I mean,the venue has already been booked, a King should lie in state.
As the man said himself: "I just want to say that these will be my final shows in London. When I say this is it, this really means this is it. This is the final curtain call. I'll see you in July and I love you."

AEG Live could make a killing on this one.

Meh, I hate it when Icons die. Let's hope they give him a good send off.

I'm back!

I'm back in the land of the living. Completed my last exam yesterday. All went swimmingly, now still waiting for the uni results.
I got a first (again) on my other Art History course, I was quite chuffed to hear last Saturday. Yay for me!

On an entirely different note: I got rung up this morning at a quarter to eight (not a good time to speak to me on the phone). I had made an appointment for a technician to service our heating system.
But no, I get told the guy hasn't shown up for work today and is probably not going to come in at all. Would another time suit me better?
The guy on the other end of the line got a good bollocking (I'm not very nice in the mornings, Dr Livingstone can vouch for that). I asked him what the point was of making an appointment and then not showing up. I asked for a discount (of course) and invented some excuse I had to take off time from work to be home. He'd pass it on to the people in the office (yeah right).
Anyway, they're coming round tomorrow after lunch.
If they're not hung over or something.

Alligator...

Literal Video Versions

Literal Video Versions: new internet hit?
Gave me a good laugh.



Also check out Billy Idol's literal 'White Wedding' and a literal Rick Roll.

Shoes full of fail

I have a thing about shoes. When I can do without them, I go about bare foot as much as I can. It's healthy and I'm not wearing the heels down either. Anyway, I don't have the need for shoes inside the house.
I used to wear high heels once in a while, but a bad back makes sure I can't wear them as often as I'd like too.
But I'm very particular about my shoes. They need to be top quality leather, no seams at inconvenient places.

These days I go for comfort, but that does not mean I don't care for style.
There are a lot of comfy shoes out there and some are a good alternative to high heels. Take the ballerina for instance. I don't own a pair, but some can be pretty, if they're the right quality. You don't want to have a pair that makes you look like you've just come from your weekly jazz dance lesson or a pair you'd give your kids and say 'You'll grow into them'. So steer clear from the scrunched ones and avoid square tipped ones too.

But there is rather a big segment of the shoe market I find repulsive to the bitter end, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Just to make sure you won't be in them if the worst comes to the worst, be prepared. So to help you stay out of mischief; here's my top ten of fail shoes.
If you own a pair of these, I wouldn't like to be in your shoes when the fashion police come calling! The cells would be crammed to the ceiling.

Mrs B's Top 10 fugly shoe list:

10) boxer type shoes (boots & shoes): It's not fashion sweety, it's made in China and a cheep look. Those ultra flat soles do not help to get a grip. On reality.



9) Hard wedge sandals: They keep crawling from under the woodwork somehow. Style less.


8) Cowgirl boots: no, no, no. Unless you've got the complete kit you wear to your Saturday evening line dance get together. And it's not cool to wear them under a frilly dress either.


7) Boots under frocks: It didn't even look cool in the eighties you know. Don't ever wear ankle boots or even knee high boots with skirts. It's just silly. It really looks as if you're wearing your winter shoes because you've only got one pair and saving up for some new ones. I couldn't even bring myself to googling for an image.

6) Moon boots: Because you had to wear them as a kid doesn't make it ok now you're fully grown up.


5) 80's shoes: You know what kind. The smooth pumps, the ankle boots with the folds. They've been out of fashion for two decades. If you really want to stick to them: get the matching perm and polka dot dress and leg warmers that go with it.


4) Eskimo boots: Seriously, even elephants have a more elegant straddle wearing those.


3) Gladiator sandals: don't go there. It's not because it's called fashion they actually look nice. No matter how much you shell out for a pair, they still look cheap.


2) Flip flops: I'd like to see you catch a metro in rush hour on those and get back to me how many times someone stepped on your toes. Flip flops are something for tourists to wear when they stroll from their hotel room to the beach and back. Something you actually wouldn't get upset by once you've gone for a swim and on your return found out someone nicked them.


1) Crocks: Ah yes. The shoes I love to hate. You do know you look like a dork going around in those? Even though everyone else is wearing them too. Not even winter crocks (with the woolly inlay) or even crock boots (oh yes, they exist!) are even remotely acceptable. If you've got a pair to walk around the house or in your garden, fine. Pass them off as very practical slip ons if you must. But honestly, someone wearing those, especially morbidly obese people, in public have a very low self esteem. They're, come to think of it, a new version of those white orthopedic slippers and wooden shoes the old folk wear. And nurses. And truckers. And Germans and Dutch on holiday.
Like Birckenstocks. It's not even casual. It's uncasual, if there is such a thing.