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A Biblical Dream Last night I had a dream about a flood. I had to save my family from being swept away by a wall of water that came in from the coast, and burst across the landscape. It was really distressing - I woke up in the middle of night practically crying. It was probably brought on by my trip across the flat expanse between Davis and Sacramento, the 'most flood-threatened city in America'. Nevertheless, it was really vivid, and I can't stop thinking about it. Funnily enough, my wife is the same. She is concerned about our 'disaster survival kit', a store of goodies that will help us if something happens. It's been on her mind all week, she tells me. By the way, Sacramento? Scary place. Many overheard conversations about making people bleed on platforms on the light railway. Not nice. 'Scary-mental'. |
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1.12.05 08:49 |
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pain in the english Interesting debates about language going on over at pain in the english, people asking questions, "what is right?" "what is wrong?", looking for a correct grammar. Now while there are norms people adhere to (that is why I try to spell things the way everybody else does) we have to accept that language does change, and norms change, and what was once unacceptable becomes acceptable, and vice-versa. Go and take a look.
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3.12.05 08:16 |
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full time One of the things I hate about living in America (and I will not give a list right now) is that right now, at 4.50, it should be Full Time, but it isn't. One of the things I love about living in America, however, is that when I wake up on a Saturday morning, my mate rings me up with the football results. Which is great, especially since Spurs won and Arsenal lost. It's the little things in life, you know? |
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4.12.05 00:57 |
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going solo There's a new track out on mister solo's site, 'home sick home'. The Force is strong with this one. Give it a listen.
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5.12.05 07:49 |
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hybrid hound Watching the news here is severely irritating, but can be hilarious. Tonight, 'news' of hybrid dogs - not 'mongrels', but 'hybrids'. Such as the 'puggle', a cross between a pug and a beagle, which by the way is also completely incapable of magic. They are the new fashion item, we are told. another one is the 'labradoodle', a half-labrador, half-poodle, which (if I'm not mistaken) you can draw pictures on, and then make them vanish. Are these hybrids like hybrid cars, I wonder? 50% less emissions, such as dogpoo and farting, they eat a fraction of the amount of dogfood that the average Sports Utility Dog eats. Believe me, there are depths far lower that I could sink to, joke-wise, on this subject. The utterly dreadful Fox News website (forgive for that link, please forgive me) reports that if a Great Dane is crossed with a Mastiff, you will get, well, oh it's too corny to mention. Even for me. |
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6.12.05 08:02 |
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Week Ten: Do They Know It's Christmas? We bought our Christmas Tree at the weekend, just a little one, very inoffensive - or so I thought. Apparently, some people are offended by the term 'Christmas' Tree, preferring to use the general term 'Holiday' Tree. It sounds trifling, I know, but this debate is gripping the nation. On one side, the anti-religious lobby and political correctionists argue that 'Christmas' offends those who aren't Christian, despite the utter lack of Christian imagery anywhere in Christmas paraphernalia (were there candy canes and reindeer in Bethlehem? I doubt it). On the other, there are the reactionists, who have decided they will boycott stores who fail to use the term 'Christmas'. Backlash and counter-backlash, as if Santa hasn't got enough to deal with just working out who's been naughty and nice. I bet they are laughing at this in other countries. For one thing, to call it the 'Holiday' season is kind of a misnomer - they don't even get Boxing Day off here. Most people have to go back to work while still under the influence of turkey, unlike at Thanksgiving. Secondly, if 'Holiday' is such a safe alternative, how come nobody has realised that its etymology is 'holy day'? Isn't that, you know, religious? While we are on the subject why don't we change the names of the days of the week? I mean, 'Thursday', I don't want to offend people who don't worship Thor. The whole 'separation of church and state' thing here has become so divisive that it has lost all perspective. I don't know anybody that would seriously be 'offended' if I wished them a 'Merry Christmas', and not a 'Happy Holiday'. If I wanted to offend, I could do a lot worse. We could just call it 'Yule'. They still do in Scandinavia (cf. Danish 'jul'). The French seem happy with 'Noël', and the Germans are content with 'Weihnacht' ('holy night'). They, from whom we adopted the tradition, call their trees 'Tannenbaums'. I find it incredible that in American English the word 'Christ' should suddenly cause so much offense at this time of year. But I am not American. I understand that this country does have issues where religion is concerned. Which leaves us with the whole problem of Jesus' birthday. Those who advocate 'Christmas' over Holidays for reasons of the nativity will argue tooth and nail that as Christ's birthday, it should be named as such. Now I know that the day was chosen by the Church many years ago because it coincided with the holy day of Mithras, celebrated by the Romans. But I never understood why Christians hold so fast to the belief that Jesus was actually born on the 25th of December, when surely (if all years begin from his birth) it should have been January 1st? I tell you, after all this tiring debate, everyone needs a Holiday. |
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6.12.05 22:58 |
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au revoir et bonjour, routemaster So it's goodnight to all the old Routemaster buses, is it? Another symbol of my native city being expelled to the wasteland of history? No more conductors, no more jumping on and off down Oxford Street (the only place they made sense); they will be missed. But not by disabled people - they were hardly accessible to wheelchairs. And for that reason, they must surely retire. So where can you ride the Routemaster? Why, here in Davis, of course! The only problem is, if you hop off (a la Oxford St), you will be in the middle of the road. They drive on the other side here, you know. I wonder if they thought that through when they bought them? |
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9.12.05 08:19 |
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Ku Clucks Klan
"I have noticed that all eggs in America are white. Is that not a little bit racialist? Their white cones do bear a passing resemblence to a certain racist sect popular in the South. Perhaps this shows all racists are chickens at heart." Eggs, fridge, camera. Burning cross excluded. Coming soon...a portrayal of the National Trifle Association |
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9.12.05 09:00 |
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lion, witch, wardrobe It's my favourite story, and I always wanted to make the film. Well, the film's been made, and released, and on Friday night we went to watch it. And it was good, very good indeed. I was so afraid from the trailers that it would be "Return of the King plus Braveheart etc" - the epic battle scene is de rigeur in any movie these days, not only fantasy movies (I hear the latest Pride and Prejudice even has thousands of CG warriors facing off at an epic battlefield dancefloor). Despite Peter's ham-tingling (is that the right word?) cry of "For Narnia!", it was actually a very good battle. I was worried about the White Witch. Tilda Swinton plays her ice cold, with pale blond matted dreadlocks. I always envisaged the Queen of Narnia as absolutely stark raving bonkers, screaming orders at all and sundry, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, gloating maliciously at the death of Aslan. That was how I asked the actress who played her, Priscille, in the stage version I put on when I was in France. Still, Swinton's version actually worked quite well. And Lucy was great! So was Edmund - the kid who played him, Skandar Keynes, is just how I imagine Edmund. All in all the film was great, and gets my thumbs up. |
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12.12.05 20:57 |
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Week Eleven: Revenge of the State As I write, news is coming out that Stanley Tookie Williams has just been executed at San Quentin prison in ffice:smarttags" /> Out of the death-penalty states, What’s more, it seems to be the Christian right-wing that is the strongest supporter of capital punishment, quoting ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’. Surely as Christians they should be focusing more on the New Testament than the Old, on forgiveness rather than vengeance? Murder never solves murder, even for the families of the victims. Sure, the temptation to give in to base hatred is enormous when you have lost loved ones, but as a society aren’t we striving to rise above hate? Besides, if a man were to go out and kill in order to exact revenge, the State would class him as a murderer. Why then is the State not seen as a murderer when it carries out executions? Because, as the |
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13.12.05 10:01 |
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