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/

torolf sauermann ... it's easy when you know how

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


http://www.evolution-of-genius.de/

cognitive dissonance

is it me ?

or is there something slightly germanic about the design of this british war memorial at the site of croydon aerodrome ?

a little light reading on clapham common

street furnishings on lavender hill

the hippocrene gate in lavender walk

if only i could sing ...

a great school for singers ...

http://www.nationaloperastudio.org.uk/

all the world's a shallow grave

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/padre/hoy/podria/ser/hijo/elpepuesp/20100703elpepunac_7/Tes

... from today's el pais

from the occasional series "it's easy when you know how" ...

not glass, but wheel-cut rock crystal made in egypt in the eleventh century

a rarther untidy piece of sky above lavender walk

well spoken, bradley voytek on cognitive neuroscience

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki24i6NPic0

found at

http://www.mindhacks.com/

so light on their feet they seemed to flow over the ground

details of the 1914-18 war memorial at forest row

peddunts korner ... shrek3

dreamworks artists certainly love their history ... not only is shrek standing in for the king, but when you look at the wall behind him, one of the court painters has already created a full-scale scene of his apotheosis in the french style ,,, but which painting have dreamworks used to create this brilliant pastiche ?

the wellcome collection is a great medical museum and gallery and never fails to stimulate

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/Media-office/Press-releases/2010/WTX058379.htm

the loved one had most probably already noted in her sensational diary that the tea at the wellcome collection comes in green mugs

quantify your luurve

a spanish friend, whenever his wife asks how much he loves her, wisely replies ...

"more than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow"

but in the modern age, where moderation is our watchword and every transaction should be audited, this is clearly the kind of loose talk that will allow her to falsely claim the ownership of ideas that are markedly above her station

in the interests of regulated and consistent growth, i would suggest the following formulation  ...

"two per cent more than yesterday, but roughly ninety eight point zero four per cent as much as tomorrow"

plain speaking is the stuff of modern concord

poossy cat lively up in summer evenins