A bit of Souad Massi

On the mend

The deep scratches on my fingers are healing well but the bits on the wrist are still looking angry. Hopefully I will be back to normal in a couple of days. In the meantime enjoy the musical interlude

and Satan cat again

a mad mental bastard ready to do the malkie on you

Hand still hurts like hell

He may be BEELZE-BOB but I didn't think a cat could do so much damage yo my damn hand! normal service will be resumed when I can use my right hand

Bloody Satan Cat

No posts of visiting for a day or two. I had a run in with Satan cat while tryng to extricate Boris from a fight. As I shooed Satan Cat away, he locked on my wrist and hand and proceeded to rake and bite. I had to lever the little bugger off by the scruff! And then he just stood his ground spoiling for a fight!

One trip to the polyclinic later, I have a bandaged hand and a course of pills that liik like they re more suited to a rhino!

Spudship Enterprise?

Meanwhile the http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1308820/Monster-veg-grower-shows-world-record-breaking-potato-shaped-like-Starship-Enterprise.html Mail has an item about a humungous potato which weighs in at over 8lb (About 3.3kg).A veritable monster but the headline and the copy gives the impression that this fine tuber somehow looks like the Starship Enterprise

Err I think not even if it had taken a huge kicking off the Klingons (pre-Khitomer), Romulans, Cardassians and the Dominion!


On the other hand perhaps they were referring to the Enterprise D after saucer separation...




God I need to watch less telly...

While I wouldn’t give its political stance the steam off one of my micturations the Telegraph is a great source of strange and curious news items. Sadly, like any other paper, it can create a news item from nothing.

In today’s paper there is an iteml about a dread inspiring plant appearing in a Yorkshire garden. While not quite a triffid the plant was called a Devil’s Trumpet and described as deadly poisonous.

Basically the plant in question is a Datura. It may be an unusual species of the plant and the genus may be a rarity in North Yorkshire but Daturas are hardly a rarity in this country/ We have grown the plant several times from seeds purchased from the excellent and utterly reputable firm Chiltern Seeds…

It is deadly poisonous though!

Well there you have it: a non-story about a non-story. I do waste my own and both my readers’ time!

Basket Case - Warren Zevon, not Green Day

I've always meant to find out what Basket Case sounded like ever since reading Carl Hiaasen's novel of the same name. The song is a Zevon/Hiaasen collaboration. Was it worth it? well I quite like like it... it does feature a late, great singer songwriter and the chronicler of Florida's seamier side (even if steroid- addled, corrupt ex cops are not buggered to death by dolphins every day... but that is Native Tongue and not Basket Case!)

An underground society

Trapped underground for a month a group of Chilean miners may have found a way to survive while waiting for a rescue that may be months away. The miners trapped underground I the San Jose mine in the Atacama Desert have each taken on specific naming a "priest", a "doctor", a "poet" a "TV presenter" and a "foreman" within the group.

"They are completely organised," said Dr Jaime Mañalich, Chile's health minister. "They have a full hierarchy. It is a matter of life and death for them… The worst scenario would be one of the men suffered severe psychosis for being trapped so long and attempted to claw their way out of the mine. As long as they are kept busy with defining roles we hope to avoid it."

The oldest member of the group Mario Gomez, 62, has taken on the role of spiritual leader and urges the men to pray daily in the makeshift chapel he has created in a corner of the subterranean chamber.
His job has been aided by 33 mini bibles and rosary beads for each of the men sent from the Vatican this week with a blessing from Pope Benedict XVI and lowered into the mine with the daily supplies of food and medicine.

Another of the miners, Yonny Barrios Rojas, 50, is using knowledge gained on a nursing course he attended in the mid-1990s to administer medicines to the group including vaccinations against tetanus, pneumonia and flu and performing daily health checks.

Victor Zamora has penned a poem describing the first 17 days they were trapped down the mine without contact with the outside world. "It's a moving piece of work especially from someone who until now had no inclination to write," explained Alberto Iturra, a psychologist at the site. "Each is finding their own role and their own way to express themselves and we think that is very healthy," he said.


While engineers above ground continue the rescue operation to bore a 2,297 feet escape shaft to raise the men, the miners themselves have been told they will play a critical role in rescue. The miners must prepare themselves to ensure they are fit to work as the drill gets closer. They men will need to move an estimated 4,000 tons of rock and earth that will fall into their chamber as the rescue shaft is cleared.

Luis Urzua, the 54-year-old leader of the shift, has mapped out the chamber in preparation for the mammoth job required in the final stages of the rescue, which could take as long as three to four months. He will also organise the men and oversee the work when the time comes.

I hope for the sake of these men that their society holds together. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be where they are. I do not know if I would have their strength of endurance. Here’s hoping that their rescue is as quick as possible

Peter Pan creator NOT implicated in child deaths

NOT Guilty!

Yesterday’s Telegraph carried a news item that at allowed those of us who loved the tales of Peter Pan to breathe a huge sigh of relief! The LAPD has cleared Peter Pan creator J M Barrie of any link to the mysterious deaths of two babies in the 1930s. Police had discovered their mummified remains in a locked trunk belonging to a JM Barrie.

The bodies were discovered last month when two women were clearing out the abandoned basement of an apartment building.
The corpses were wrapped in sheets and hidden in two doctor's bags among crumpled copies of 1930s newspapers and other belongings from that decade.

The only clue to the babies' identity was the name J M Barrie on the steamer trunk's lid. Investigators announced last week that, after reading correspondence from relatives left in the trunk, they had identified the trunk's owner as Janet M Barrie, a Scottish-born nurse who had worked in Los Angeles after her family emigrated to Canada (and not Kirriemuir’s most famous son James M Barrie… or second most famous son if you rate AC/DC over Peter Pan.. Bon Scott having been from said town too!)

Coroners have been unable to determine how the babies died but said there was no signs of trauma or that they were aborted. One had apparently reached full term while the other was much smaller and could have been a foetus or born prematurely.

Among the theories being examined by police is that Miss Barrie had children but that they did not survive or were aborted. Another possibility, said officers, is that they were babies she helped deliver in the apartment building who later died.

Whatever the reason it is heartening to know that the more famous J M Barrie was not involved. This is not the first time that such a misunderstanding has taken place. Last year partly consumed human remains were found in a Galloway cave which bore the graffiti “S..n Bean woz ere”. It was only after extensive interviews and forensic analysis that police concluded that the Bean in question was Sawney and not Sean!