To stay or go

A browse at a charity shop yesterday made me think  it’s as interesting to consider what people do not throw out, as much as what they do chuck.

People do not dump Scrabble. They do toss Scrabble Junior, Trivial Pursuit, odd looking games that may be inspired by tv shows that I would recognize if I could find any tv shows, but my television has gone on a strike refuses to display any pictures except fizz. Jigsaw puzzles. Bakelite ovens, whatever they may be. Gilbert and Sullivan records. 

The best thing I spotted was a foot spa … with the water still in it.  A red petrol canister nearby made me wonder if it too came complete with fuel.

In a burst of nostalgia I considered bringing home a hoover that we had in our house back in 1975. But the other four vacuums presently co habiting in my cupboard do not deserve another pal to the tune of 34 dollars.  Really 34 bucks. Charity shopping is enjoying a very high rate of inflation these days. Gone are the days of picking up a nifty old radio to gather dust.

Goodnight Mr V.

For those of you reflecting or saying bon soir there’s some great columns he wrote here. Also The New York Times have collected some of his articles in one useful spot

 Was wandering along the road reading the introduction to his essay collection today and chortling, when a woman passing said “he’s very dead” which provided me with a good solution to my usual emotive whittering along the injustice of writers I like not being immortal. One could just as easily insist he’s not dead. “Not at all, I’ve just seen him,” I could have called back. Immediately felt better about the fact he is. The long pause between books would give sufficient time for necessary acceptance. This 24 hour news culture means we are getting news so rapidly, far too rapidly, before we’re ready for it.  In anycase in that introduction … he’s hilariously alive. Look it up. Mustily must, mustily must.

A wandering with The Met

So there I was a wandering along the street with this opera broadcast in my ear  — in an attempt to block out the din of the traffic more than any true operatic appreciation — when I made the astonishing discovery. Football and opera: nothing in between them.

The CBC radio 2 have this rather useful broadcast each weekend Live from the Met in New York. Seemingly it broadcasts to dozens of countries and that’s why it takes so long to hook up. There’s a lengthy preamble, according to the website it’s a man called Howard, but it was a husky voiced woman in my ear. The reason I was so acutely aware of the preamble was because I was desperately awaiting the orchestra to strike up a note. Anything.. the tap of a baton would do, but no instead much speculation about the Italian opera whose name was mentioned 24 times and I have subsequently forgotten, followed by resident experts (a young sounding bloke perhaps) commenting on its origins, its intentions blah blah. Exactly like they do before a football match. You know Johnny’s knee injury set him back last season, watch Jimmy carefully who learned to play in the back alley kicking around an old can except obviously the comments were a bit more sophisticated. “In the second act …. this composer likes a lot of bodies on the stage … he was very influenced by the colour red … his mother forced him to sew curtains endlessly thus this opera really is a hommage to a hem ..”  But it provokes the same frustration. Would you ever get on with it? Blast that trumpet, raise that curtain because I can still hear the darn traffic and I only want some music to get myself across 12 streets and I’ve now crossed ten of them and no one has sung a note and I am refusing to push the button on the player for fear I might crash unexpectedly into some country tune about widows needing cars.

Finally a note did arrive. A note that sounded out of tune but is likely not out of tune it’s my hearing that’s out of tune with opera. I feel like opera is something a mature ear has to confront, so my ears have been signed up for confrontation.

Spotted: iceclimbers on global warming

Awash as I am with admiration for anyone who climbs anything, having recently climbed a little something myself, I was initially curious about this story. Not sure you need to really be climbing to see effects of global warming; a quick peek out the window or at the barometer should suffice. Also, I’m sure they didn’t hop to Kenya or any of those mountains.  I wish those 7 day ships between New York and Liverpool like the Queen Elizabeth with deck class would make a comeback.

Iceclimbers give eyewitness accounts of global warming 

The Associated Press

Mountaineers are bringing back first-hand accounts of vanishing glaciers, melting ice routes, crumbling rock formations and flood-prone lakes where glaciers once rose.
  
The observations are transforming a growing number of alpine and ice climbers, some of whom have scientific training, into witnesses of global warming. Increasingly, they are deciding not to leave it to scientists to tell the entire story.
  
“I personally have done a bunch of ice climbs around the world that no longer exist,” said Yvon Chouinard, a renowned climber and surfer, and founder of Patagonia, Inc., an outdoor clothing and gear company that champions the environment.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/04/07/climbers-warming.html

o’incroyable

Continuing on the theme of the small Puffin’s dedication to the written word (lately especially of Mr Ransome)… Puffin was besieged by terrible bug and amid bonfire style temperature, puking his ring up, incapacitated by headache and drowsy state could be heard requesting in a delicate voice in the dark “I wish you could read …” . Point out to Puffin since he’s finding the light very troubling and they are all turned off it would be difficult to read in the dark. “You could go stand in the next room and call out the words to me from there…”

Really, bless, bless. 

Not to be getting to evangelical about literature, oh what the heck, literature can save us. It also got us through the chickenpox a few years back and we’ve walked miles walking and reading, which sounds bizarre probably, but no more so than walking and talking on the phone. 

 Am finding bird population marginally more remarkable than ever previous in this lifetime, probably because I never looked at them til Puffin insisted we bird watch in the middle of busy city streets. Really gulls aren’t bad looking, when they’re not staring at you and 7 songbirds outside the window today in some kind of birdy Eurovision had me feeling quite remarkable. Now Puffin stops on the street to take in some hidden clump of feathers and immediately passing strangers stop and stare up same way people do when there’s a road accident or a fight breaks out. Beginning to think the UN should hand out binoculars ….

Bush’s reading wars

Hmmm. Bush has quietly declared a war on reading. 2 million bucks? My own experience with this new emphasis on phonics is it’s a major pain in the arse for the children who were doing quite dandy on the whole language route because you’re now under pressure to sound everything out, despite it being an extremely tedious way of learning. It reduces language to a packet of tic-tacs.

 Besides it’s hard not to be deeply suspicious of something Bush supports — he’s hardly an example of fluency himself. I must dig out the nuclear example. (There’s a great gaff during a speech on literacy floating about, not on this link though) or http://www.dubyagump.com/ (This fella, of f. u. Cheney fame, has a follow up Dubya moment on youtube that’s very funny.

(From New York Times) 

Across the country — in Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maine and New Jersey — schools and districts with programs that did not stress phonics were either rejected for grants or pressured to change their methods even though some argued, as Madison did, that their programs met the law’s standard.

You can see the future, school budgets will be based on how many copies of the bible in the school library …  a bonus for statues and religious iconography. Jesus Camp (clips can be found on youtube) is a great view for anyone interested in the indoctrination of children. It’s not just religious anymore, the documentary exposes the politicisation of these children, who were shown praying for the election of particular Judge (with an anti abortion position), praying intensely for a right wing government. It’s a fascinating documentary.

And down came the flag

Enjoyed this story:

 Vandals have stolen the huge Olympic flag that has been flying at Vancouver City Hall the past year.

Police say someone broke the lock on the flag pole early Tuesday, cut the rope, brought the flag down to the ground and then ripped it off the cable.

Just a small strip of cloth, about 10 centimetres by a metre, was left behind.

 It must be said that it was quite athletic feat to get the thing down, not entirely sure why they are calling them “vandals” ..they’re obviously activists. The average vandal doesn’t shimmy up a pole to make a point, usually a can of spray paint or a brick suffices. The flag dipped just as some important international crowd was arriving to celebrate it I believe.

Sack race

Japes they are gibbering on over on the Guardian ’bout the GLA (not to be confused with Ransome’s GA or the Great Aunt lest any 7 yr olds be reading) Britain’s greatest living author. Would there be any difference in this question and lining up six different varieties of puppies, lying down on the pavement, and trying to assess which was the best tail wagger. I think not.

 I have a much more cavalier solution to the quest. Stick the writers into sacks and instigate a race, preferably down a traffic congestion charge street to add challenge as they locate change. Or make them trot the railway tracks to Dundee. If there’s no track due to the Tory assault on British Rail, then make them lay one, pick axe and bucket provided. Finally take all tomes dump them in deep bucket of water and then sling them at various heads of candidates or volunteers to be entirely democratic, and let them decide which title makes the most violent impact. Eh voila.

The World’s Greatest Reader is certainly the Puffin who I noted kissing a book the other day and murmuring to himself “it’s so beautiful.” I doubt even the edgy — voice of a blah blah generation, I can describe a traffic light like no other, verbally plumb in a sink before you’ll find the plug and get to literary grips with the arse of end of donkey … Monsieur Amis can top that.

Mr A is however my best hope for a novel about teeth and dodgy jaws.

Heart valves

Heart valves are pretty important to myself and the Puffin and I was very encouraged to read this story about new progressive procedures, which can mean avoiding open heart procedures.

Four patients have undergone new valve implant surgery that has helped them avoid invasive open-heart surgery, say surgeons at a Montreal hospital that is among five in the world certified to perform the procedure.

Cardiologists at the McGill University Health Centre performed the procedure on two adults and two teens.

The treatment, called percutaneous valve therapy, is used to treat narrowing or leaking pulmonary valves. It involves replacing a valve between the heart and lungs with one created from a cow’s jugular vein.

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/02/22/heart-valve-implant.html

Jazz knees

Having only recently learned about the Jazz funeral and seen what it involves I can’t help wondering about the knees on the man (or woman?) who leads the procession. Also, in the various parades where they do the dipping dance. I have this resounding wonder about their knees and how they manage to support their body weight doing all those moves and not get trouble with their ligaments? The parades must go on for miles and yet they never loose the moves. Or perhaps the one I saw was a more adventurous dancer. In anycase it’s a great send off they give you.