Then God Created Corkman

Peoples Republic of Cork is the website for satirical debate on all things relating to the Republic's second city. It also has a successful line in t-shirts. This one would definitely amuse a certain octogenarian. .

BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Temple, Neasden

One of the most beautiful buildings in London is some miles out of the city centre. Located between the new Wembley stadium and an Ikea superstore, the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir was opened in 1995. It was the first purpose built temple in Europe and is cited by the Guinness Book of Records as the largest Hindu temple outside of India.


I visited the temple on Friday with a group of work colleagues. I'm glad I went - I've always meant to visit the temple. Sadly, photography was forbidden inside the Mandir itself so no pics of then inside.

Well it amused me...

Ryle Dwyer included this (probably apocryphal) story was included in his column in yesterday’s Irish Examiner .

Charles Haughey was Taoiseach (Prime Minister, pron. Tea Shock) when the Republic of Ireland team made its first appearance at a World Cup finals in 1990. He went to the Irish dressing room to congratulate the dejected players after their quarter final defeat at the hands of Italy.

Some of the players were eligible to to play through Irish ancestry and were not as au fait with certain issues as perhaps they should have been:

“Who the f*ck is he?” Tony Cascarino asked Niall Quinn.

“For God’s sake,” Quinn replied. “That’s the Taoiseach.”

“Who is it, Cas?” asked Andy Townsend.

“I dunno,” Cascarino replied. “Quinny says he owns a tea shop.”

Well I thought it was funny!

Krasni Elvis

Or something like that anyway. My Russian "O Level" is 28 years in the past. Every once in a while the name Dean Read pops up, this time in a Guardian report about a documentary documentary of his life that opened in German cinemas this week.


Dean Reed was pretty well unknown in the US and Western Europe but he had a huge following in Latin America and then behind the Iron Curtain. Born in Colorado in 1938, he was groomed to be a teen idol by Capitol Records in the late 50’s. While he had some modest success with songs like Our Summer Romance and Whirly Twirly his career never really took off in the United States. However Our Summer Romance was a hit across Latin America. He moved to Argentina where he made numerous albums, movies and even had his own tv show. It was while in Argentina that he became politicised and started to protest against oppression, poverty and US foreign policy. He was deported from Argentina in 1966.



At around the same time his popularity behind the iron curtain began to rise. In 1966 he played an concert in Moscow in 1966, providing the audience with a mixture of folk songs, show tunes and rock and roll. For the next six years he commuted between South America, Western (making a few spaghetti westerns in Italy) and Eastern Europe before settling in East Germany.

The East Germans apparently thought they had scored a massive coup when he came to live there. The government gave him a lakeside residence for which he paid a peppercorn rent, and in return Reed visited schools, factories and workers' clubs where he sang his pro-Marxist protest songs. However, by the 80s his star was well and truly on the wane. His declining popularity apparently made Reed disillusioned with the communist system but this did not stop him from defending the building of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in a 60 Minutes interview for CBS in 1986. Following the interview, Reed received large amounts of hate mail from the US branding him a traitor (surprisingly throughout the whole of his residence in East Germany he filed tax returns with the IRS) and a mediocre talent. Six weeks later, he was found dead in a lake near his home near Berlin. Officially his death was ruled to be an accidental drowning. Suicide now appears to be the real cause of death.

Dean Reed’s popularity behind the Iron Curtain is described by Artemy Troitsky, (who is himself described as the Soviet Union's first and best rock critic) thus: "No living western performer of rock'n' roll ever came to the Soviet Union Dean Reed was young. He played guitar. He was American. Rock 'n' roll meant a lot to absolutely every Soviet kid. It made them feel free and different from their parents. It was also like a door into another way of life, into the west. We didn't care about politics, but we did care about what an awful thing is official Soviet pop music. The west was something good. And Dean Reed wore cowboy boots and he came from the land of the free and the home of the brave and Chuck Berry."

In essence Reed brought escapism to a part of the world starved of western music. On the other hand his popularity appears to have reflected changing moods in Eastern Europe. By the 1980s Reed became identified as part of the establishment (in no small part due to his relentless support of the system). His fall from popular grace was underlined in early 1986 when a benefit concert was held in Moscow for the victims of Chernobyl; Reed showed up but no one asked him to play. Victor Grossman, an American who had defected to East Germany in the early 50s and who was a friend of Reed's, said: "People who were becoming disillusioned with the system didn't like somebody who supported it. Fewer people went to his concerts, and it's not so nice being a star playing in an empty theatre. By the mid-1980s, Dean heard the doors shutting one at a time."

Cut to the chase and Dean Reed’s life seems to have been a typical story of success then waning popularity and an early death (albeit a story without much of the apparent excess of the typical rock star). He nailed his colours to the mast of a despicable system and paid the price. He was not a hero, he was not much of a performer but I suppose he was a curiosity.

Much of this post is culled from the Dean Reed Website and this article in particular. Not forgetting Wikipedia of course!

I'm not sure why it itrritates me but it does...

In my view the Monarchy is an outdated institution – the UK would be far better with an elected head of state (although as a priority the abolition of the monarchy is on par with the compulsory eating of asparagus at breakfast). In addition, I parted company with the Catholic Church over 25 years ago. Why then does it annoy me that a minor royal may have to renounce his right of succession if he marries a catholic?

Peter Philips, the son Of Princess Anne and 10^th in line to the throne has announced his engagement to Autumn Kelly, a Canadian Catholic. If Peter Philips wishes to retain his right of succession (prospect of him ever gaining the throne is remote – Princes Charles, William, Harry, Princes Andrew, Edward their kids and his mum would all have to die before that would happen) he would either have to cancel the marriage or she would have to become a member of the Church of England

The problem lies with the Act of Settlement 1701 which was intended to disbar Catholic descendants of James II (our last Catholic monarch) from the throne. Under the Act of Settlement Anyone becoming a Catholic or even marrying one can never ascend to the throne. Former Tory minister John Gummer (a convert to Catholicism himself), said: "It is inhuman in the 21st century for anyone to demand this." Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the primate of Scotland, told The Tablet (a Catholic newspaper) that he had every sympathy for Mr Phillips, "Whether a person is fortieth or second in line to the throne, it is wrong that they be deprived of that right because they have fallen in love and chosen to marry a Roman Catholic," he said.

The Act was made law in a time when the succession was, let’s say, “hotly debated” and at a time when religious allegiance came with a lot of political baggage. However, those days are dead and gone (when did we last see a Jacobite army pouring out of the Highlands to put a Stewart on the throne?) and the prospect of a minor royal (or even a major one) being a “papist” will not exactly rock the foundations of this country. Had Autumn Kelly been a Methodist, Jew, Muslim, Zoroastrian, Satanist, or Pastafarian there would have been no constitutional problem. A short piece of legislation rectifying this anachronism is in order.

Mimi has been a sick cat

This week's entry for the Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats. More cat photos at Plant pron and pussycats.

Also this week's entry for Photo Hunt. (the subject is funky). Why Funky? well Mimi has been a sick little cat - vomiting and severe diarrhoea. Being disabled, she has poor balance and has fallen over, well you can imagine what happened. As a result she has been a bit smelly, hence funky. Luckily she is on the mend.

First word, three syllables: first syllable is...

It would appear that Orang-utans would be hits at parlour games, well charades anyway. A study indicates that their communication resembles that game.

Researchers from St Andrews University have shown that Orang-utans intentionally modify or repeat their signals to get their messages across. The study involved six orang-utans living in two zoos. Richard Byrne, and an author of the study, said: “When we communicate, we routinely use our knowledge of what our audience knows. We wanted to find out whether the great apes do the same thing."

Researchers set up a situation where six captive orang-utans were presented with a keeper who had treats, such as bananas, and blander food, such as leeks or celery. The animals gestured to attract the keeper's attention so the tasty treat would be passed to them. Once the orang-utans had done this, the keepers did one of three things: they either handed them the treat, handed them the bland food or handed them half the treat. The scientists then recorded their reactions.

"When the keeper gave the orangutan the really nice food, that was the end of it," explained Professor Byrne. "But when the keeper pretended to fail to understand the original gesture and gave the wrong food, the orangutans stopped using the gestures they had used before and started using some different gestures. When the keeper half understood and gave the orangutan part of the treat, they started to repeat the same gestures that they had used, but they would repeat them even more enthusiastically."

Given that orangutans are the most distantly related great ape to humans, the scientists believe that all great apes would prove to have this skill. More evidence that we are just shaved apes?

In my case a bit less shaved than others...

Lembit Opik has no wish to be London Mayor non-story

Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik says he has no intention of standing to be the party's candidate for mayor of London. The MP for Montgomeryshire replied that he was "flattered... Me, Boris and Ken would be a splendid contest". But he later told the BBC that he had decided against entering the race. "It's ever so flattering. If I was a London MP I would stand like a shot. The only issue is my constituency is 205 miles away”

Mr Opik is currently the Lib Dem spokesman on business, has had a long-term interest in the risk to Earth from meteorites. But he has filled many tabloid pages over the past year as a result of the ending of his engagement to weather presenter Sian Lloyd and subsequent relationship with Gabriela Irimia from the Cheeky Girls (not one of Romania's finest cultural exports).

To be honest I have a soft spot for Lembit but not soft enough to vote for him if he stood for mayor..It says a lot about the UK’s fixation on C-list celebrities that he is famous for his choice of girlfriend rather than his track record as an MP. Oh to hell with the po-faced stance. This post was merely an excuse for a gratuitous photo of Opik and the Cheeky Girls. Yes. I’m shallow too...

Mission of Burma - That's When I reach for My Revolver

I was one of those who came across Mission of Burma courtesy of the Moby cover of this song. Ah well better late than never!

Wordless Wednesday - Horses

This week's Wordless Wednesday entry features two of the horses that roam the Chase in Hornchurch (or rather between Hornchurch and Dagenham)