The Punisher

I should publicly thank Ben for his 'Stop! Grammar Time' pun. We are humbled in the presence of a master. 

Talking of humbled, the richest team in the world have been, by 10-man Stoke City. All hail the mighty Potters!

Hubble, bubble…

I know that most Americans are kind, intelligent and dignified people, and I'm wary of the easy slip from critiquing that nation's shocking governance over the past few years into generalised Yank-bashing, but this really is a shocker: schoolgirl harassed by local education authority for witchcraft - specifically making a teacher sick by cursing her. No, really, now and not in Salem but in Oklahoma - story covered by Pharyngula here and the ACLU statement here.

OK, so Brandi Blackbear is a Wiccan and therefore a typical teenage misfit and wacko, but that's no reason for the school to take her seriously. Furthermore, doesn't suspending someone for successfully hexing the teacher mean that the school board are Wiccan believers too? They've also banned all non-Christian symbols in school, despite the Founding Fathers' (see that apostrophe use?) insistence that the US be founded on non-discriminatory grounds. 

My thought's on apostrophes'

Cynical Ben has reached the giddy heights of blogging fame: somebody he doesn't know personally has listed him on their blogroll (there's a fortuitous word invented by Americans with little grasp of colloquial English). 

As usual, he's written rather a lot of good sense over there, and seems to want to goad me into ranting about Birmingham Council's attack on apostrophes. However, this piece of news merely depressed me and confirmed my suspicion that the world is being run by my students, who have prosecuted their own war on grammar for many years. Let's be clearly: apostrophes distinguish alternative meanings. However, I do remember proposing a lucrative little business: sheets of self-adhesive apostrophes of varying sizes and fonts handily packaged for the mobile grammatarian. Now Ben's inspired a name: Stickler's Stickers. Any backers?

I do like his vision of me as a man 'marking the world's biggest essay'. I award the world an E on current performance.

Ebony and Ivory

Hat-tip to Alex Ross who pointed out that Amazon has the complete Stravinsky, on 22CDs, recorded by top orchestras, for £17.99. Admittedly, I didn't think that he'd written 6CDs-worth of ballet, but it's still an astonishing bargain. I don't mind plugging Amazon in this case: Wolverhampton doesn't have a classical music shop. HMV is pitifully inadequate for anything outside the top 40, let alone top composers. Try asking for Nono in there… I'm also revelling in the Perahia and Gould Goldberg Variations. Perhaps the Perahia is technically superior, but there's just something weirdly compelling about Gould's twisty, moaning performance that tops every other recording since 1955. Phantom Band's Checkmate Savage is also doing it for me today.

Obamania… yn Cymraeg

Ie - gallwn ni! (Or 'Yes, We Can', in Welsh).

Oops…

Welcome, fans directed here from Richard Thompson's site. Come for the music criticism - stay for the cheap sarcasm…

For the rest of you, last night I went to Richard Thompson's '1000 Years of Popular Music' show. He's the brilliant folk/rock guitarist formerly of Fairport Convention fame, of whom you should have heard. I was definitely the youngest person in the audience, which was a shame as the show was astonishing. 

I missed the first 15 minutes, so arrived in time for 1603 - madrigals, some Purcell, then a stream of strikers' ballads, music hall, light opera, country, jazz, rock'n'roll, Australian Beatles-light, The Korgis, a Beatles medley (would the purists approve?) and finally a Nelly Furtado track, all sung by Thompson, Debra Dobkin (a cool drumming singer who looked like Marsha from Spaced) and Judith Owen who rather over-egged some of it, such as Down By The Sally Garden. What a raconteur RT is too - almost as good as Julian Cope, who actually made me cry with laughter at the Glee Club a couple of years ago.

Here's Thompson doing his party-piece. 

Possibly the highlight of my sporting career

Most of what I laughably consider my achievements are tinged with disappointment. Not last night's glory though. Last night, I executed a perfect prime parry-riposte. Obviously this will thrill precisely none of you, but it impressed me, and my opponent, who clearly wasn't expecting me to land something which requires precision, speed, timing and low cunning. When you have a plan and it works, time slows. You can both see what's happening - the inevitability of the hit is apparent from the first move. Nothing is so satisfying - or nothing in my life anyway!

Though looking back, should I feel bad that my victim, Becky, is off to Uganda to do charitable work? Her last action as a fencer was to receive my wrath - though perhaps the multiple bruises I carry from fencing her should compensate for the humiliation.

The photo isn't of me, and there's a far more dynamic shot in this month's The Sword which I'll scan in another day.

Ben - another apology

I also feel slightly guilty towards Ben for playing 'Short Fat Ben' while Djing his wedding to Jo. The chorus does ameliorate the cruelty - 'You ought to see that fat man dance / oh dance dance dance / fat man dance dance dance…'

Clearly I've harassed him into exercise driven by self-loathing. Welcome to my world

We're with you, Cynical Ben

I feel quite guilty now. Over at Cynical Ben, he's bemoaning the misery of exercise, forced on him by a steadfast and admirable refusal to give up his diet of cheese (and civet-intestine coffee). I'm feeling bad because I just sent him a link to The Cheese Boat, which is currently infesting my dreams. Despite Ben's diatribe against BMX-riding youths turning into the comment section of the Daily Mail website, I do sympathise. I too, am a victim of The Youth - for things like picking their litter up, and looking like a porky David Mitchell. 

My response was similar - I started swimming, partly because I couldn't keep up with the Map Twats and because I went to a meeting with the British Olympic Association and noticed, passing the plate glass windows, that I was half the height and twice the weight of my colleagues, few of whom were endowed with the sagging breasts of a lazy 50-yr old. 

I am reformed. I drag my carcass to the pool for 40-50 lengths three times a week, plus fencing once or twice. Am I better for it? Spiritually, no. I'm still spiteful, sarcastic, misanthropic and boring. But at least I've added a few more years to my life expectancy in which I can hone these qualities. I've lost a fair amount of weight and appear to have developed a waist and pectorals. My knees are now within visual range and I can stagger a little further on our walks. I hate swimming though - the boredom's broken only by the frequent sense that a watery doom is imminent. It's not made better by Neal's seal-like speed and grace. 

Still, if I capsize the Cheese Boat, at least I'll be able to swim to safety, perhaps dragging a sack of salvaged cheese behind me. 

Another random act of bibliophilic kindness

A few weeks ago, Brunhilde sent me a rather rare book out of the blue, to thank me for a bit of help I gave her. Today, I got another very fine book in the post. Peter Dean (of that very fine company, Advertising Constructions - for all your exhibition needs) sent me an Arnold Bennett collection, The Matador of the Five Towns, which his accompanying note describes as 'the best collection of short stories I have ever read' - and he's a man who knows. As a Potter and a reader (a rare combination, I can hear you exclaiming), it's a doubly excellent gift. Thank you. 

A little light blasphemy

I was speculating about the reasons behind priestly celibacy yesterday, as you do while wandering Asda's aisles looking for something that tastes of food (mission failed). The official reason for banning priests from marrying seem quite good. They were married until the 1300s, when it was decided that families complicated the relationship between priest and congregation, and cost a lot of money and legal hassle. 

But that's just the official discourse. Imagine yourself in a Jerusalem bar, c. 45.

'Hello love. I'm Peter. I'm a tramp with an anger management problem - cut off a bloke's ear once for looking funny at my mate. Wander around the Med most of the time. I used to be a fisherman until I met this bloke who fed 5000 blokes with two fish. Bottom of the market dropped out after that. Anyway, I got to know this bloke and it only turns out he's God and I'm his PR man. Anyway, mind if we go back to your place sharpish? Only I've got the Roman Empire looking for me and I don't want them to turn up before the Second Coming - know what I mean?'

Och no!

I was meant to go to a Burns night supper on Sunday, but had to disappear for an unexpected family event. No haggis, no cranachan lovingly handmade by a MacBeth (though I seem to remember that an earlier dinner with the MacBeths went quite badly - someone got drunk and thought he might have seen daggers floating around). So I felt rather guilty and very pleased to hear that Burns Night was postponed until I can make it. 

On culinary matters, the Map Twats are also going to pursue and board The Cheese Boat. What a work of sublime genius - a narrowboat which patrols the canals, selling cheese.

Ode to the Vole

Comrade Gerry has written a poem in honour of The Plashing Vole. A rhyming dictionary may have been consulted…

The plashing vole

has its eye on the goal

it scoffs at those

that would console

and from its knoll

it exerts control

with a hard blank eye

upon your soul

 - oh no, sorry, that's the plashing pit viper I had in mind...

Why Paul Dacre should commit hara-kiri, pt. 93

Headline in today's Daily Nazi: 'Coffee May Raise Child Cancer Risk: New Evidence that Caffeine Could Damage Babies' DNA'. 

Incredibly irresponsible (though packed with conditionals) and unscientific headline anyway (which is why BadScience.net sells a t-shirt reading 'I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that' - I've bought one), but if you steel yourself and plunge deeper into the cesspool, you find in the third paragraph that the research hasn't actually been done! There's a lot of 'doctors believe' and 'scientists think', but Dr. Marcus Cooke thinks that he might find a link when the study starts - hardly 'evidence' (and he's careful to say that ruling it out is equally plausible). The poor lamb seems a bit confused though: 'Although there's no evidence at all of a link between caffeine and cancer…' he says - which somehow translates as "Coffee May Cause Child Cancer risk". I wonder exactly how much caffeine might 'raise the risk' and how much may 'damage babies' DNA'. A shovelful? A truckful? Let's not be picky - it's a great scare story. Back to water for you, mums.

Genuine art masterpieces

If you're stuck for presents for that difficult person who has everything, how about a photographic print on canvas of a daytime TV presenter. I kid you not, they're on Amazon and the customer base is, well, sarcastic, judging by the brilliant comments. (Hat tip to Phil).

It's OK, the cavalry's here

Of all people, Alistair Campbell and John Prescott have decided they're the team to save the Labour Party! They're involved in a campaign called 'Go Fourth' (and multiply?) which refers to seeking a fourth term. Go fourth? Come fourth more likely… I've put John's Blog in the list on the left - and if you think he's writing it, you probably think property is a good investment.

Evil, cynical genius

In the old days, politicians would appeal to your political interests. Now, it's just a matter of selling you a lifestyle. This is both the best and worst political broadcast I've ever seen. Want policies? Tough. The message is, nice girls don't boff socialists (she cries because she's just slept with someone who has filled in an application for the Socialist Party of Austria). But that doesn't matter. It could just as easily sell holidays, insurance, the Nazis, whatever. Hollow… so hollow that it doesn't need dialogue.

Stream of consciousness

Temporarily away from my music (because it's on an external hard drive I keep in the office, and on vinyl at home) but in range of wi-fi, I've finally seen the point of Last.fm - I'm not convinced by all of its recommendations but there's enough streamed music by people I like and plenty of potential new finds to surprise me. I'm listening to John Adams' Phrygian Gates and planning to see what other fans think I should go for next. Like most music sites though, it's weaker on classical and related music than any other genre. 

Mmmmacintosh

I haven't posted anything geeky for a while (hey, by my standards anyway), so here goes. I run Mac OS X 10.4 on an old iBook G4 which is frankly struggling now. However, it means I can run Phantom Gorilla's Unofficial BBC Widget - a brilliant, free little app on the Dashboard which simplifies listening to the BBC's radio streams like you wouldn't believe. As it's a good idea invented by a person who only wants to help us and support the BBC, the inevitable result was harassment by letter, e-mail and phone by the BBC legal department - despite technical support from BBC geeks- for using BBC logos in the display. The absolute morons. 

Happy Birthday, old man

Happy Birthday to Alan Apperley, star of stage and lecture hall. He's the dazed looking one on the right… and he's 51. Inspiration by…?