Last week my dear Iranian friend Elahe contacted me to confirm that she had a second placement at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris and that her visa was in place. She arrived earlier today.  So without delay the Eurostar ticket purchased, a room booked at the Hotel Pont Neuf off the Rue de Rivoli near the Louvre (and about 1km from the Cite).  Will be heading over to Paris on the 12th for a few days.

My main objective is another trip to Pere Lachaise where I intend tobe taking a lot more photos!

Scream of the Muse

Sang froid and Armageddon

Sounad an alarm was made in 1962 and depicts the work of the no defunct UK Warning and Monitoring Organisation (UKWMO) during a nuclear attack.

I must admit that I am impressed by the stiff upper lips on display... and the stock footage of old RAF kit like the Lightning and Javelin interceptors, the Vulcan bomber and the Bloodhound missile.

Like sexual intercourse, emotions first appeared in Britain in nineteen sixty-three between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles' first LP.


I have visited an old regional seat of government in Essex a few times. A former boss of mine, who worked in Emergency Planning in the Home Office in the 80s and who had participated in exercises at the bunker. assured me that a hell of a lot of staff  earmarked to staff the bunker during WWIII would have had to be forced down at gunpoint, preferring to take their chances with their families instead...

Attila the Stockbroker - Airstrip One

From 1985. He has less hair and no moustache now (I can empathise!) but he is as acerbic as ever. I first saw him in late 82, early 83 at Southampton University. A great night!

Boris is insolent (Photohunt)

The theme for this week's photo hunt is wrong. I thought I would double up my usual Friday cat photo with Photohunt this week and present a very insolent cat who would not come in for curfew. Boris has an infatuation with a 250lb (100+kg) English Mastiff Izzy. If we don't keep him in after his dinner until midnight he will either follow Izzy on his walk or go over to Izzy's house... which involves crossing a busy road).

In this case Boris was wrong but he was more attracted to a love that dare not bark, or purr, its name!

and a baby sloth yawning!

Feling rough today here's a cat vid

McGonagall on London

DESCRIPTIVE JOTTINGS OF LONDON
by William McGonagall

As I stood upon London Bridge and viewed the mighty throng
Of thousands of people in cabs and 'busses rapidly whirling along,
All furiously driving to and fro,
Up one street and down another as quick as they could go:

Then I was struck with the discordant sound of human voices there,
Which seemed to me like wild geese cackling in the air:
And the river Thames is a most beautiful sight,
To see the steamers sailing upon it by day and by night.

And the Tower of London is most gloomy to behold,
And the crown of England lies there, begemmed with precious stones and gold;
King Henry the Sixth was murdered there by the Duke of Glo'ster,
And when he killed him with his sword he called him an impostor.

St. Paul's Cathedral is the finest building that ever I did see;
There's nothing can surpass it in the city of Dundee,
Because it's most magnificent to behold
With its beautiful dome and spire glittering like gold.

And as for Nelson's Monument that stands in Trafalgar Square,
It is a most stately monument I most solemnly declare,
And towering defiantly very high,
Which arrests strangers' attention while passing by.

Then there's two beautiful water-fountains spouting up very high,
Where the weary travellers can drink when he feels dry;
And at the foot of the monument there's three bronze lions in grand array,
Enough to make the stranger's heart throb with dismay.

Then there's Mr Spurgeon, a great preacher, which no one dare gainsay
I went to hear him preach on the Sabbath-day.
And he made my heart feel light and gay
When I heard him preach and pray.

And the Tabernacle was crowded from ceiling to floor,
And many were standing outside the door;
He is an eloquent preacher, I solemnly declare,
And I was struck with admiration as I on him did stare.

Then there's Petticoat Lane I venture to say,
It's a wonderful place on the Sabbath day;
There wearing apparel can be bought to suit the young or old
For the ready cash-- silver, coppers, or gold.

Oh! mighty city of London! you are wonderful to see,
And thy beauties no doubt fill the tourist's heart with glee;
But during my short stay, and while wandering there,
Mr Spurgeon was the only man I heard speaking proper English I do declare.

Plenty more McG at McGonagall Online

Fuchsias

The BBC reports that a haul of picks, flakes and hand axes discovered in Kenya are the oldest remains of advanced stone tools yet discovered.

Archaeologists unearthed the implements while excavating mudstone banks on the shores of Lake Turkana in the remote north-west of the country.  Researchers dated the sediments where the tools were found to 1.76m years old. Until now, the earliest stone tools of this kind were estimated to be 1.4m years old and came from a haul in Konso, Ethiopia.

The largest of the tools are around 20cm long and have been chipped into shape on two sides, a hallmark of more sophisticated stone toolmaking techniques probably developed by Homo erectus, an ancestor of modern humans.The stone tools, made for crushing, cutting and scraping, gave early humans a means to butcher animal carcasses, strip them of meat and crack open their bones to expose the nutritious marrow.


Older, cruder stone tools have been found. The most ancient evidence of toolmaking by early humans and their relatives dates to 2.6m years ago and includes simple pebble-choppers for hacking and crushing. These Oldowan tools, named after the Olduvai gorge in Tanzania, were wielded by our predecessors for around a million years.

The latest collection of stone tools from Kenya belong to a second, more advanced generation of toolmaking. Known as Acheulian tools after a prominent archaeological site in France, they are larger, heavier and have sharp cutting edges that are chipped from opposite sides into the familiar teardrop shape.Most Acheulian stone tools have been recovered from sites alongside fossilised bones of Homo erectus, leading many archaeologists to believe our ancestors developed the technology as an improvement on the Oldowan toolmaking skills they inherited.


Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London and author of a new book The Origin of Our Species, said the latest haul of Acheulian tools were "very crude by the standards of later examples".

Crude or not they are an amazing discovery... to me at least!