What YouTube is for...

Via Wongablog, there can be little doubt that the prime function of the world's most popular video site, besides providing cheap blogging fodder, should be to disseminate the reinterpretation of the stand-up comedy of Eddie Izzard through the medium of Lego:



More here.

"Try something new each day"

This story is a sad one:

An 82-year-old Argentine woman who attracted media attention last month when she married a 24-year-old man has died as a result of heart problems.

Adelfa Volpes was admitted to hospital soon after she and her new husband, Reinaldo Waveqche, returned from their honeymoon in Brazil.

I hope they had a chance to consummate their relationship. Then again, maybe that's what finished her off.

Anyway, as a tribute, here is a trailer for the greatest love story ever filmed - a tale of illicit love blossoming between a young man and a woman sixty years his senior - which I guess Reinaldo and Adelfa would have loved too: Harold and Maude.



Worth seeking out on DVD, if only for the terrific Cat Stevens soundtrack.

It shouldn't happen to a dog

Despite the name, I usually avoid shaggy dog stories, but even I couldn't pass this up. Mr Eugenides draws our attention to the latest crazy ohmygodthatcantberealcanit event from America. In Las Vegas, of course, people are taking the art of dog grooming to bizarre levels (I say levels because I don't know whether these are heights or depths we're talking about) and are turning their four-legged friends into living, ahem, works of art.

Or the freakiest muts since Teenwolf.

There's a full story with pictures here, but I offer you a taste, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas:

Photo Daniel A. Anderson / Orange County Register

Not dead, just sleeping. Now awake.

Hi all,

It feels like longer than a month since I wrote something. Delay in doing so caused by several reasons, but latterly the lack of internet in my flat here in Portugal (yes, made it back for another year) until yesterday. Now, thanks to the good people at Kanguru, I can communicate with the world again.

I promised in my last post that I would post some stuff about my trip to Northern Ireland. I've been all around the world, but I can honestly say I don't think I've ever had as pleasant a holiday as that one. I walked along the North Antrim coast, which was beautiful and met up with several interesting characters on the way (including a Swedish guy who had been on his country's version of Survivor - the first reality TV contestant I've ever met). The only negative thing was that I left my camera somewhere up there, meaning I don't have some of my snaps (and I need to get a new camera...). Compounding the prob is that my new Kanguru connection is too slow to upload pictures, so I can't even post the pictures I didn't lose.

I am now back in Portugal and enjoying the 26 degree sunshine immensely. Torres Vedras looks a picture in this weather and we even had the honour (I guess, do the likes of Blackpool and Bournemouth feel honoured?) of having the Social Democrat Prty conference here last week. This meant there were several men in suits wandering about the streets carrying orange folders and some shots of the inside of the conference centre on the evening news. The new shopping centre and cinema open tomorrow, so all in all things are looking up.

I'll try to keep you posted on whether they stay that way.