The first Iris in bloom in the garden. More photos at Plant porn and pussycats
03 May 2007
Photinia blossom
The previous owner planted the Photinia. It is currently in blossom with thousands of tiny flowers
Music fans have been given the opportunity to choose the line of a song that they find the most grating. The worst pop lyric will be announced tomorrow by Marc Riley on his BBC 6 music radio show which begins at 7pm.
Apparently there is no place for Shakira and her unforgettable words: “Lucky that my breasts are small and humble, So you don’t confuse them with mountains.” Snap’s “I’m as serious as cancer when I say Rhythm is a Dancer” apparently is in the running.
I give thanks at this sort of time that Robyn Hitchcock is not famous. I’m not sure how lyrics such as “Even Marilyn Monroe was a man but this tends to get overlooked by our mother-fixated, overweight, sexist media” would go down ....
02 May 2007
April , the warmest on record
The highest individual temperature recorded was 26.5C (79.7F) at Herstmonceux in East Sussex on April 15. Much of April was dry and a few places recorded no rain at all. Forecaster Paul Knightley said the unseasonal heat meant 2007 was likely to eclipse 2006 as the warmest year on record.
Tallinn and Khimki
Removal of a soviet war memorial in Tallinn
The Bronze Soldier , the Tallinn statue commemorating Soviet soldiers killed during the second world has now been re-erected in a military cemetery. Its removal from a square in central Tallinn precipitated unrest from ethnic Russians. Three days of rioting resulted in one death, more than 150 injuries and over 1,000 arrests. The Estonian government justified the move by saying its location near a busy intersection was not a proper place for a war grave. Critics viewed the move as a government pandering to nationalists.
The removal was greeted with outrage by the Russian government . Both houses of Russian parliament urged Vladimir Putin to break off relation with Estonia; MPs accused the Estonian government of fascism and calling the statue's removal "blasphemous and barbarous".
The Russian protests continue: Yesterday ITAR-TASS carried a report of a visit to Tallinn of a delegation of Russian parliamentarians: First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky accused the Estonian authorities of brutality towards protesters.
Meanwhile, Yury Luzhkov , the Mayor of Moscow has proposed a boycott of Estonia. ““The administration of Moscow and the Moscow City Duma are proposing a boycott of everything connected with Estonia for the actions it has taken in relation to our Soldier and the graves of our fighters,” he stated, adding that the Estonian government “has shown its most negative face, even Fascist, it can be said.”
So we have a situation where the Estonian government relocated a soviet war memorial, the bodies of soviet servicemen buried at the monument will be re-interred with care, Russians are up in arms.
Interestingly...........
Removal of a soviet war memorial in Moscow (and Stavropol too?)
On 19 April The remains of World War II pilots were exhumed from a monument at along a highway at Khimki to widen the road and prevent prostitutes from desecrating the site. The six bodies, however, seem to have vanished .The Khimki administration, which authorised the reburial, said it did not know where the remains were, but thought they might be at the morgue in Skhodnya, a nearby town. Vyacheslav Nyrkov, director of Ritual, the Khimki agency that exhumed the remains, refused to comment on their whereabouts.
Dozens of Communist supporters held a protest over the reburial at the site on Sunday.“These ashes belong to heroes who defended our motherland. They shouldn’t have been dug up just because someone doesn’t like the monument at this place,” said one of the protesters, Pavel Tarasov. Friday.Tarasov, an aide to Communist State Duma Deputy Valery Rashkin, accused authorities of double standards, citing the current uproar over Estonia’s decision to remove a Soviet war memorial and exhume soldiers there. “At least in Estonia this is largely covered by the media so people can come out and voice their protest, but in Russia all is done sneakily,” said Olga Ivanova, another participant in the Sunday protest.
Also, on 18 April Duma vice speaker Vladimir Katrenko asked a parliamentary question to RF Procurator General Yuriy Chaika concerning the decision of the Stavropol' authorities to tear down a monument to Cossacks who fought in World War II. Katrenko told journalists that such actions by Russian officials were especially troubling given their criticism of Estonia. (The above link cites a news source in Russian which is beyond the capabilities of someone who got an O level in Russian nearly 28 years ago!)
The Bronze Soldier , the Tallinn statue commemorating Soviet soldiers killed during the second world has now been re-erected in a military cemetery. Its removal from a square in central Tallinn precipitated unrest from ethnic Russians. Three days of rioting resulted in one death, more than 150 injuries and over 1,000 arrests. The Estonian government justified the move by saying its location near a busy intersection was not a proper place for a war grave. Critics viewed the move as a government pandering to nationalists.The removal was greeted with outrage by the Russian government . Both houses of Russian parliament urged Vladimir Putin to break off relation with Estonia; MPs accused the Estonian government of fascism and calling the statue's removal "blasphemous and barbarous".
The Russian protests continue: Yesterday ITAR-TASS carried a report of a visit to Tallinn of a delegation of Russian parliamentarians: First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky accused the Estonian authorities of brutality towards protesters.
Meanwhile, Yury Luzhkov , the Mayor of Moscow has proposed a boycott of Estonia. ““The administration of Moscow and the Moscow City Duma are proposing a boycott of everything connected with Estonia for the actions it has taken in relation to our Soldier and the graves of our fighters,” he stated, adding that the Estonian government “has shown its most negative face, even Fascist, it can be said.”
So we have a situation where the Estonian government relocated a soviet war memorial, the bodies of soviet servicemen buried at the monument will be re-interred with care, Russians are up in arms.
Interestingly...........
Removal of a soviet war memorial in Moscow (and Stavropol too?)
On 19 April The remains of World War II pilots were exhumed from a monument at along a highway at Khimki to widen the road and prevent prostitutes from desecrating the site. The six bodies, however, seem to have vanished .The Khimki administration, which authorised the reburial, said it did not know where the remains were, but thought they might be at the morgue in Skhodnya, a nearby town. Vyacheslav Nyrkov, director of Ritual, the Khimki agency that exhumed the remains, refused to comment on their whereabouts.
Dozens of Communist supporters held a protest over the reburial at the site on Sunday.“These ashes belong to heroes who defended our motherland. They shouldn’t have been dug up just because someone doesn’t like the monument at this place,” said one of the protesters, Pavel Tarasov. Friday.Tarasov, an aide to Communist State Duma Deputy Valery Rashkin, accused authorities of double standards, citing the current uproar over Estonia’s decision to remove a Soviet war memorial and exhume soldiers there. “At least in Estonia this is largely covered by the media so people can come out and voice their protest, but in Russia all is done sneakily,” said Olga Ivanova, another participant in the Sunday protest.
Also, on 18 April Duma vice speaker Vladimir Katrenko asked a parliamentary question to RF Procurator General Yuriy Chaika concerning the decision of the Stavropol' authorities to tear down a monument to Cossacks who fought in World War II. Katrenko told journalists that such actions by Russian officials were especially troubling given their criticism of Estonia. (The above link cites a news source in Russian which is beyond the capabilities of someone who got an O level in Russian nearly 28 years ago!)
Wordless Wednesday - a tomb in a Cranham churchyard
This week's wordless Wednesday. The parish church of All Saints Cranham will be of interest to Georgians. It is where James Ogletorpe, the founder of the original colony, is buried. This is not his tomb though
01 May 2007
A scientific basis for calling Dubya "Chimp"?
Bonobo ChimpThe hand gesturing of politicians can be traced back to the manual signals first used by our ape ancestors, according to a study by Amy Pollick and Frans de Waal, of Yerkes National Primate Research Centre at Emory University, in Atlanta, Georgia.
Apes and humans can both communicate with their limbs as well as vocally. Hand and other limb gestures almost certainly evolved long before the development of language. It could explain why politicians like to emphasise a point with a clenched fist, explain a failed policy with an upturned palm or bat away an unpleasant question with a raised hand.
Insert politician to be derided here
The study looked at gestures among chimpanzees and bonobos, a closely related species of pygmy chimp, and found they both used movements of arms and legs to communicate. "The natural communication of apes may hold clues about language origins, especially because apes frequently gesture with limbs and hands, a mode of communication thought to have been the starting point of human language evolution," the scientists say in their study in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers found that vocal calls such as a scream were closely tied to a particular emotion whereas hand or limb gestures were used in a looser manner. "A chimpanzee may stretch out an open hand to another as a signal for support, whereas the same gesture toward a possessor of food signals a desire to share," said Dr Pollick.
That's teh hand gestures explained, the screaming explains why the Commons sometimes has all the grace and style of an old chimp's tea party.
Evil May Day
Today is the 490th anniversary of the (appropriately named) xenophobic Evil May Day riot (also Ill May Day) that took place in the City of London in 1517. If nothing else it is yet another reminder of what happens when people listen to demagogues (as if history isn’t full of examples...).
Two weeks before the riot an inflammatory speech was made at St Paul’s Cross (a preaching cross outside the cathedral). The speaker Dr Bell called on all "Englishmen to cherish and defend themselves, and to hurt and grieve aliens for the common weal".
Over the next two weeks there were sporadic attacks on foreigners but things came to a head late on 1 May. Although a 9pm curfew was announced for the night of 30 April/1 May a mob of apprentices (who in those times seemed to form the backbone of any riot!) formed which over the next few hours attacked foreigners, looted their houses and freed prisoners jailed for previous attacks on foreigners
The under-sheriff of London, Thomas More (later canonised of course but never cannonised as he was in the Simpsons!), unsuccessfully tried to disperse the mob. The riot subsided after a few hours. Nobody was killed during the riot but several hundred rioters were arrested of which 13 were tried for treason and executed on 4 May.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)