only connect

a periodic table of swearing is a fine idea, though this one, from scurrilous publishers modern toss, can only be viewed as prototypical as there aren't nearly enough rows and columns to suit every purpose

for instance ... the old  dog wanders, lags, deviates, hesitates, strays, and generally retards my progress whenever i hobble across clapham common but ... if i should sit down to read the paper or jot something in a notebook, or just to ease my aching feet ... then she's right there in my face with her complaining and her whimpering

the new heavy duty attack element for doggie discipline i should wish to introduce to this revised post-quantumnal age table would be the conversational heavy element number 999 ... "STFU !"

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=stfu

three beautiful things

RUNNERS. At weekends, one is always enchanted by fleeting glimpses through the trees of spring-heeled goddesses scampering around the common. Today come several hundred, half of them dressed in pink, on a fun run that seems too arduous for most in this sticky humidity.


http://www.raceforlife.org/choose-your-event/london--clapham-31-jul-10-1.aspx


A LITTLE BOY, maybe six or seven years old, gets on my bus and climbs on to a high seat. He is un-believably girlishly pretty, but undoubtedly boyish because he is absorbed in contemplation of his new boy’s toy, a Lego Clone Walkers Battle Pack, still in its unopened box. Throughout the fifteen minute journey he does not speak, but reads the box’s facets over and over whilst he hums the Star Wars theme, very loudly.


WOODPECKER. We awake to steady rain after a drought. Two squirrels dash hither and thither among the great dark boughs of a Cedar of Lebanon, fetching twigs vandalised from a neighbouring lime tree to fortify their dray. A woodpecker flies in at speed from one side and settles in classic profile, so to speak, before commencing her methodic ascent, regardles of squirrel chaos, tap-tapping as she goes.

i must remember to wash the windows this year

lucas ...it says here

austin of england

framfield church

the first three pages of a letter from the late sylvia forward ( my mum ) to sheila evans ( almost certainly the best friend anyone could wish for )

any historian with half a brain will remind you of the necessity, and the fun, of using primary sources

dappled

good job no one was listening ...

"darling, if i were rich, i'd have cardboard cut-outs of you in every room ... holding trays of drinks and chocolates"

apropos de nuffinque ( part 1001 ) ( votre chaumes en feu )

or should that be "votre toit" ?

noctilucent clouds photographed in sweden by p-m heden

leading on from an interesting little slide-show on the bbc weather pages

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10635796

the bookworm ( part 999 ) ... possibly my most treasured possession

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO7eSMPEd2k&feature=related

and yes !  i scored 999% in the on-line diabetes test !

http://www.diabetes.org.uk/Riskscore/

and a little something for book lovers from metafilter ...

http://www.papervision3d.org/demos/panorama/

putney ambulance station, west hill, wandsworth ... at the crack of dawn

oh, and that's Saint Thomas a Becket Roman Catholic Church, designed by Edward Goldie (1856-1921), an impressive Victorian Gothic Grade II Listed Building situated on Wandsworth's West Hill, where it has been "stood standing" since 1895

the archaeology of fun ( part 99 ) ... i've been snoozing and had missed the whole lipdub phenomenon ... even in remote herreruela the people are living proof that there's no such thing as a sleepy village in 21st century spain

WARNING: only allow yourself to click on this link if you sincerely believe in the potency of cheap music

i do !    i do !    i do !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rajHG-co4RQ

... later ... i'm just checking out the history of Lipdub on wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipdub ... which soon leads me on ...

to discover hundreds or thousands more lipdubs on YouTube ...

here are a bunch of French students ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCthDQ49_cU

and  some Catalan students ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeGDRSWB46w&feature=PlayList&p=FFBA25B77DD79C05&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=47

i haven't found many british ones yet, but ...
http://vimeo.com/channels/lipdub#348372 ...
nope, she's american

and we'd better not try to stop the Germans now ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY6tRFaQKt4

or the professionals ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I550asEfgz8

of course it all started years ago and i'm surely the very last person to catch on ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw5tLv9mpIw

etc etc

arthur is probably the oldest cat in lavender walk ... his pedigree is uncertain, he just walked in to his current house and stayed

hmmmm ! how our leaders blundered into iraq

from today's session of the chilcot inquiry

http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/47534/carne-ross-statement.pdf

waiting for a train

hurrah

watch this clip through to the slow-motion close up in about the twentieth second

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2010/8808889.stm

despite the english referee's laissez-faire attitude to extreme violence, the best team prevailed and justice has been served

good old tolstoy ... never wide of the mark

rory stewart mp

I read Rory Stewart's account of his walk across Afghanistan a while back and went to look at his website this morning because he's  recently become the MP for Penrith and the Border.

He still writes from a uniquely individual viewpoint ...

... whether through statistics, or anecdotes, or narratives of the past, the real language to describe what I feel about Cumbria eludes me. Take my Sunday walk for example. I walked out of my front door and reached the top of Knipe Cragg at three in the afternoon. It was very hot. Three days earlier in London I had twenty-one appointments in a day, 35 people came to the constituency surgery, and the previous day I been at Glenridding to canoe with the Ullswater Community college, at Brampton cottage hospital fete and at Crosby Ravensworth where they were abseiling for the tower. But there was nothing in the diary for Sunday afternoon. So I continued on down to Little Strickland. Except for the retired Bishop of Newcastle exercising his neighbour’s dog, I saw no-one on the fells. Turning North, I stopped in Hackthorpe for supper in the Lowther Arms.

A regular told me that he was in the pub to give his wife two hours’ free to watch the soaps. I shared some chips with him; he seemed pleased that I would be walking back to Bampton after supper. He asked what I did and I told him: “No” he said “You’re not, you’re having me on. I follow politics, you’re not an MP” and, taking a final chip, retired to sing to himself in a corner. I walked back, past a great red bull, with a blood red sun falling behind Blencathra and saw beyond the telephone box at Knipe the white path stretching up to my cottage. Crossing my threshold again at ten minutes to midnight I could still see Cross Fell. It seemed hardly possible, on that longest day, that half a year had passed since I walked on the longest night, with all the East Fellside blazing in snow and moonlight, to Castle Carrock. How can I ever fit any of this into the language of a London office?


http://www.rorystewart.co.uk/