to prince's ...

.. where i encounter one of ponty's most magnificent old boilers !

its a traditional welsh unicorn trap, mr spock ...

... they used to bait them with maidens back in the day


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn

are we adrift in some kind of time warp, scottie ? or have we strayed in to an unfolding alternative universe, spock ? .... the federation's clear-desk policy clearly isn't holding

i've been reading about all the methane in the farts of the herbivorous dinosaurs ... but what about the stench from the carnivores' ?

shadow self-portait ... anyone might think it was the mayor of london creeping ...

"The Trap" 

The first night that the monster lurched
Out of the forest on all fours
He saw its shadow in his dream
Circle the house, as though it searched
For one it loved or hated. Claws
On gravel and a rabbit's scream
ripped the fabric of his dream. 

Waking between dark and dawn 
And sodden sheets. His reason quelled
The shadow and the nightmare sound.
The second night it crossed the lawn
A brute voice in the darkness yelled.
He struggled up, woke raving, found
His wallflowers trampled to the ground. 

When rook wings beckoned the shadows back
He took his rifle down, and stood
All night against the leaded glass.
The moon ticked round. He saw the black
Elm-skeletons in the doomsday wood.
The sailing and the failing stars
And red coals dropping between bars. 

The third night such a putrid breath
Fouled, flared his nostrils, that he turned,
Turned, but could not lift, his head.
A coverlet as thick as death
Oppressed him: he crawled out: discerned
Across the door his watchdog, dead.
"Build a trap," the neighbours said. 

All that day he built his trap
With metal jaws and a spring as thick
As the neck of a man. One touch
Triggered the hanging teeth: jump, snap,
And lightning guillotined the stick
Thrust in its throat. With gun and torch
He set his engine in the porch. 

The fourth night in their beds appalled
His neighbors heard the hunting roar
Mount, mount to an exultant shriek.
At daybreak timidly they called
His name, climbed through the splintered door
And found him sprawling in the wreck,
Naked...with a severed neck. 

~ Jon Stallworthy

seen through a glass, darkly ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

revised travel plans

the blessèd tom denny at malvern priory ... i haven't been there yet, these pics from flickr are by Aidan McRae Thomson

there is an article about tom denny with an interview by ann wroe, the author of that wonderful book about orpheus ...

http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/arts/ann-wroe/alive-and-glowing

tom denny

i think i might spend a little of next week's holiday tracking down some of tom denny's windows

http://www.moreintelligentlife.co.uk/content/arts/ann-wroe/alive-and-glowing?page=0%2C0

maurice sendak has left the planet

the loved one and i like to pop out some evenings ...

... when she can decide what to wear !

dear diary ...

i haven't bothered to get my hair cut for ages so i'm beginning to look like a mad professor

and i desperately need an emergency make-over

maybe i could apply for an improvement grant from the national lottery foundation

heaven knows they owe me !

i might check out the scurrilous rumours about the down-market clientele when i'm on my way from london to carmarthen next week ...

if there is a god, and so when i get to heaven, then i shall walk straight up and demand to know why he never gave me hair like jean gabin or jean marais ?

leave 'em out ... ida lupino and michelle morgan have nothing to do with the argument

deux huiles de noix

a nice introduction to welsh painters

http://mubi.com/lists/kenjis-welsh-art-gallery

curt note for the ponty word-police ... now get up on those tables and dance 'til you drop !

ref:

"... words are like a certain person ... can't say what they mean, don't mean what they say ... "

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blBDWv1y7_g

is it one of ours ? i haven't heard a siren ...

apropos de nuffinque ... here is remedios varo's last painting

i speculate ( because i don't know ) whether this painting conceals multiple layers of ambiguity ... but the question of concealment doesn't matter to much because, even when not intended, the ambiguities are still suggested

a quote from a confidential consultation ...

before being prescribed a daily dose of aspirin and statins for obvious reasons ...

"i eat all the right kinds of food ... its just that i supplement them with all the wrong kinds !"

in battersea, where prurience and modesty are almost siamese twins, you can't have too many net curtains ...

she isn't eccentric, she's just a mountain person ...

...who calls herself my friend,

and begins a letter but can't be hurried to finish it,

or even post it ...

and then she starts another !

and eventually, after months of vexatious anticipation ...

the two arrive in the same post.

in the online version of the spanish newspaper El Pais, we see that spanish doctors who treat illegal immigrants are facing awful ethical dilemmas

"First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came%E2%80%A6



i'm sorry what follows is so badly translated but I'm sure you'll get the general outline of the picture ....


http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2012/04/26/actualidad/1335468837_751700.html

See the cover of the national edition Of El Pais , for April 28, 2012  »

SANITARY ADJUSTMENT

"I treat people who are uninsured"

The clinics appeal to their code of ethics to defend illegal immigrant care

The industry complains that it can not be vigilant system

MARY R. SAHUQUILLO / EMILIO DE BENITO Madrid 26 ABR 2012 - 21:35 CET557

IIl treat people who are uninsured." Josep Basra, president of the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (Semfyc), it is clear.  Always from a personal point of view, the decree that prevents serve illegal immigrants is not in our ethics.  "If I have a person before me, I do not care whether foreign or not, I have to meet them." he says.  A vision shared by the president of theMedical Association (WTO), Juan Jose Rodriguez Sendin:  "Just as I can not be compelled to perform euthanasia, so they can not force us to not to treat a patient."

The approach of Rodriguez Sendin and Basra is the same for most concerned health professionals that appeal to their code of ethics to defend treatment of illegal immigrants from Sept. 1 who are not entitled to a health insurance card, as the Royal Decree of settings published this week by the Government. 


"A patient is a patient black, white or mediopensionista, and we can not abandon them deontologically. It's crazy. We are not policemen or inspectors, if they ask me to support them as a doctor then I have to, another thing is you can not use the best technologies that I prefer - and then we'll see the administrative side, "says the president of the Spanish doctors. And this idea that they are going to have to act as policemen of the system to avoid suspected fraud or simply enforcing a rule bother them greatly. Some say they do not agree. Go for it, say, the insubordinates through some kind of conscientious objection, but in reverse.

The Coordinadora Anti-Privatisation of Public Health in Madrid has been the one that has lit the fuse. "We call on the ethics of any and all public health professionals for full attention to this population [over 150,000], belonging largely to disadvantaged groups. At the same time, we claim the right to conscientious objection on the part of all professionals to the effective implementation of Royal Decree, an immoral law, unjust, and dangerous in terms of public health, "say.

Semfyc, society presiding Basra, more than 20,000 professionals,"expresses its opposition to the ministerial decision to limit access to health care to immigrants "without papers". Also, like "warn of health risks" of leaving "without access to a continuum of care, and to restrict their attention through emergencies can generate higher spending and hamper disease control."

MORE INFORMATION

·        "People will die for this"

·        The move threatens disease control and emergency saturate

Maximo Gonzalez Jurado, President of the General Nursing Council, believes that professional ethical principles collide with the action taken by the ministry of Ana Mato. "The legal parentage of the patient is not our problem when it is a person who has a health problem. It is clear that we can not deny these children. Especially if we have no guarantee that those people who have been our patients can receive the care they need by other means", he says. "We do not begin to analyze the problem of illegal immigration, and who also is a medical tourist," he says. "But if these people are in Spain and need health care, as professionals we must give it. It is another thing is to have filters before reaching us," he says.

Jury Gonzalez does not dispute that the health system need measures to ensure sustainability, but criticizes the Government's health reform has been produced without the opinion of the professionals who have to implement it.  Although he believes that on that point they will not. "No doctor or nurse will stop giving a person the assistance they need. We have no obligation to ask the person the insurance card, "he says.

"Patients are not just a history. There is a person.  As professionals, they know we've had a relationship with them, "criticizes Pilar Navarro, secretary of the Health Sector Public Services Federation of UGT, which also argues that "professionally" they can not leave their patients unattended."This situation must be resolved because it is unfair humanely, if people can not reach us first, denying them assistance".

A similar idea is repeated from the College of Physicians of Madrid."From the ethical point of view no physician can fail to respond to any patient in need," said a spokesman.

A  health  coordinator  called  for  disobedience  to  the  dictate

Altisent Roger, a professor of bioethics at the medical school of Zaragoza, explains that from the standpoint ofMedical Ethics Code the situation is not simple. "It's not black and white.We are facing a variety of situations and very hard. We have served all who pass through the door without putting ourselves in the position of demanding proof of status", he says. The expert explained that the Code of Ethics, Article 6, states that "the doctor will never abandon a patient in need of care", and also speaks of the doctor to stop treating a patient, ensure the continuity in attendance. "These are points that are not designed for this, but that could be applied," he says. Doctors who do take the path of disobedience: ask to be excused from a legal obligation and not be punished.

To Altisent, that last track is an interesting path to explore. "This should be done to alleviate dramatic situations," he says. And at this point criticizes the government places health professionals in a very uncomfortable situation. "Perhaps the national health system itself will have to arbitrate for intermediate situations, not their doctors who are in a very delicate situation deontologically" he says. So much so that the Medical College will address the issue in assembly. "They are not scenarios for us, and they must be analyzed," says its president Juan Jose Rodriguez Sendin.

The nurse Angel Navarro, a spokesman for the coordinator to promote insubordination, says that his is a "call to the whole system." "We have only launched the idea. We cannot  develop a legal system", he says. For Navarro, which proposes to deny care to patients they have known and yreated for years is "inhumane, unjust, it is against our conscience and our code of ethics."

The  problem  is  to  ensure  continuity  of  treatment

Miguel, a family doctor in Madrid who gives a false name, is sympathetic to the idea of ​​the objection. "In 25 years I have seen enough immigrant population, and I have had very painful cases. People who have fled armed conflict, their family have been killed." "Many, after all, are  in highly sensitive situations of mental health. How will I treat someone with schizophrenia, depression? If it is difficult for anyone who takes pills for them in this situation will be even more, "he says. So Michael's proposal seems "reasonable." "It's in our code of ethics." "What we are being asked to do is repugnant to morality." "I work for the patient, and I will maximize flexibility in the criteria of what is an emergency. Or are we going to become police for the immigration control system? ".

The doctor suggests difficulty at a practical level. "One thing is early diagnosis and other treatment," he says, with the idea that once served, there are issues, like getting the drug, yes they can get very difficult. But he believes that, ultimately, the Government's proposal will be like "holding back the tide." "The system already has holes. At primary level there are emergencies, and they either put a policeman at the door, or admit anyone who comes saying he has something urgent to be addressed. "The bad thing for him is that in the end, care will be worse. "It will be desperate to know that a person needs treatment and it cannot be provided."

read all about it ! .... professor mary beard ... wise, lively, dry witted, sweet natured

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2012/apr/29/observer-profile-mary-beard

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/21/professor-mary-beard-saturday-interview?INTCMP=SRCH

3BT

A lady who is very much in the bloom of health whatever her age, and as colourful as the central figure in  Renoir’s Harem, and as dynamic as  one of those giantesses who run ecstatically along the beach in Picasso’s backdrop for Diaghilev's Ballet Russes, stands in the sunlit atrium at our local shopping mall rolling her eyes heavenwards like a Mexican saint whilst absent-mindedly polishing her intelligent mobile phone on her chest, as if she were a sorceress and was expecting to conjure up some happy mischief from it in an imminent twitter from the gods.

The afternoon sunlight warms the soggy bluebells after the recent storms and deluges and they put out clouds of scent, so much perfume that several varieties of happy bumble bees can be seen at a glance, some with pollen sacs already brimming.

After an exhausting day, a generous colleague offers me a chilled fizzy drink in a can and I pop it in to my “man bag” before starting the homeward journey.  After a bus ride & a train ride & a supermarket trudge & and another bus ride, I pause on a comfy wooden bench to drink from it in the sun and I see across the street a ruddy face-drinker who has ventured outside the Green Man for a desperate drag on a cigarette, and so I congratulate myself rarther too smugly because my refreshment is clearly so much cheaper than his.

75 years ago ...

prosaic .... illustrating my want of imagination

for many years i was troubled by the following uncertainty ... whenever i heard tom jones singing delilah on the radio i was stuck with this notion ... that no woman from pontypridd would have a name as exotic as delilah, and therefore it seemed more probable that delilah would have been living in newport or cardiff

http://thesaurus.com/browse/prosaic

if you love maps ... integrated flight maps ... this week's eye-popping air chart of the USA

http://vfrmap.com/

an integrated chart overlaid on a high quality topographical map enables you to navigate US air space

you can flip to high level or low level

sometimes a bit clunky but hardly surprising as the data structure must be enormous

yet another symptom of accelerated regression ...

just after i was changing up in to top gear i realized i was ...

a) sucking my thumb

b) wiggling my toes

one hundred and twenty four years ago ...

http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let596/letter.html

doctor william price ... i was led back to him via lucy's blog, "being of sound mind"

from the doorstep of 4 raymond terrace in treforest, a certain small boy could look across the coal black river taff to the green hills above pontypridd and wonder about the man named doctor price who had once lived behind or within those turreted houses, near the top as it seemed then, though not so very high up i realize now, and probably less conspicuous nowadays since the trees have grown

a digression ... i had learned to whistle very loudly and when there was a moment of quiet and not too much wind, it was possible to hear five echoes on my grandparents' doorstep ... but there were complaints of course

it had been explained to me that doctor price had been an advocate of cremation as an alternative to burial, but no one mentioned druidism to me, or chartism, or the rebecca riots

he was also the surgeon for the chain works lower down the hillside, which was still there during my childhood

i wish i'd known all this then

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Price_(physician)

http://www.campaignseries.co.uk/homes/homes_for_sale/in/Pontypridd,%20Wales/from/100000/to/300000/low-to-high/All/with/0/bedrooms/list/1410296/

don't try this one at home ...

myself slumped motionless over the computer with headphones whilst following the soccer all afternoon

herself noisily engaging with eternal backlog of necessary domestic chores

now raise your voice, but don't turn your head, and repeat after me ...

"i know you're only making work noises so i'll think you're busy !"

grudging congratulations to real madrid ... but i have imposed an editorial ban on pictures of them

i wonder if my grandson will inherit my ears ?

and did those feet in ancient times ... ?

lots of decent human beings exercised their right to vote .... for this feller !

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/apr/20/richard-benyons-inclosure-quarry

http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/about/who/ministers/benyon/

statement for the defence

Gentlemen of the Jury.  M’Lud.  My client, Miss Crabbe, the former Triumph International model, has instructed me to declare that she strenuously denies the charges of robbery with menaces, and she certainly never would set foot inside that rat-infested flea-bitten manager’s office at her local branch of the Caja de Extramadura. 

Despite her having lived virtually next door to it for the last twenty years, she suggests this was simply a case of mistaken identity because she is rarely drunk before mid-day and she only ever uses that kind of bad language, or wears fishnet stockings, during serious pub crawls on public holidays, unlike some other women she could mention.

The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, that on the day in question she was auditioning for a job with a travelling circus that had camped on the edge the pueblo, and whose colourful poster showing a handsome weight-lifter had intrigued her artistic sensibilities. 

She is indeed a very sensitive and caring person at the best of times but is often tired out and made light-headed by all the scrubbing and starching and ironing that Spanish housewives of her moral stature and giving nature are forced to endure by their cruel and cold-hearted and incredibly narcissistic husbands.

In these days of political and economic and social turmoil, I’m sure all of you will understand that even a girl with an iron will and a heart of gold must sometimes need a little relief and even the most saintly are sometimes susceptible to flattery.

Thus it was that she boldly accepted the angry challenge of the ringmaster’s wife, ( after being found with him in the haystack behind that fully-bearded lady’s side show, when he should have been mucking out the elephants’ cage ), and so Miss Crabbe, or Lulu as she is affectionately known by the local shepherds and goatherds, fearlessly strode forth into the centre of the lion tamer’s cage where she performed her well known party trick ( famous throughout the milking parlours of La Vera and the pig farms of the Dehesa ) and juggled seven flaming tortillas with only two frying pans whilst wearing her old school uniform and smoking a cigar, as she often does when the family gather for recriminations.




( Addendum ... 
a foresworn affidavit from Senor Francisco Xavier Heironymus Bosh, Circus Master, states that he was only helping her find a lost jewel-encrusted Lalique safety pin which she needs to hold up her red flannel petticoats )

And it is there that my client asks me to rest her case, only pausing to add that the photographs which will inevitably prove her cast-iron alibi haven’t been developed yet but here are the frying pans, still scorched from the act.

one of you may know ... how far through you does the orange colour go on this baked bean diet ?

the americans are having a spot of weather

http://www.weather.gov/sat_loop.php?image=ir&hours=24

http://hint.fm/wind/

swotting up

grand national day

3BT 14th April 2012

Two furiously discordant throstles dispute an invisible territorial boundary in the middle of Clapham Common.  For Heaven’s sake, lads, it’s a COMMON !

Two goldfinches, their bonces allegedly tinged with the blood of Christ, chirrup sweetly together whilst they search for nest-building material, and remind me of this solemn kidnapped prince.


http://nicepaintings.org/works/84678

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Sforza_(il_Duchetto)

Dev, born in Bengal in 1932 and literate in Bengali, English, and Sanskrit, a keep-fit die-hard on the Common despite having to take eight prescribed medicines each with their own side-effects, and having five grown up children each with their own set of troubling grumbles, reels off the names of half a dozen of his other films without hesitating when I mention Satyajit Ray’s exquisite film Pather Panchali, and then, after a moment of solemn contemplation, he turns to look at me and whispers one word, gasping as if in reverence of the name and of the beauty it evokes ... "Apu !".


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apu_Trilogy

at school during the cold war, our understanding of history's fabric didn't include the continuous thread of humour ... here's professor peter hennessy ... a sweet voice of reason

a thirty seven minute talk with two grimly funny stories at the conclusion

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/CatchUpHistory.mp3