Here's one for fans of East European animation.
I was looking for a story with Vtak Gabo, a traditional Czechoslovak bird who can drive trains and operate cameras (and which was broadcast at halftime during the World Cup in Slovakia last year), when I came across another character: The Mole.
Here he is, providing the coal to keep the woodland bourgoisie warm during the winter:
I like this mole, and will probably put up a few more of his stories over the next few weeks.
Sorry for the lack of posting over the weekend. I was on a trip to the city of Coimbra, about halfway between Lisbon and Porto, which is the home of the the country's oldest university. We (my sidekick, R, and I) trekked up on Saturday for a series of training sessions, before having Sunday to explore and enjoy the place.
Just a word on the training sessions: I had feared the worst before I left, and indeed felt somewhat morose after the first seminar (involving reading a lot of pieces of paper blu-tacked to the wall) and lunch (it took over an hour for my spaghetti to turn up, and it was disgusting when it arrived), but a couple of the afernoon sessions were actually quite interesting. Of course there were moments where we had to get out of our chairs and read more pieces of paper blu-tacked to the wall, but overall the thing could have been a lot worse. And R and I were able to escape sharply afterwards and find a decent place to stay.
I'll let the pictures do most of the talking about Coimbra. Suffice to say it's a pleasant city to spend a day (although I doubt you'd need more time than that) with narrow winding streets in the old city around the cathedral and university, and some attractive buildings and views of the countryside.
This is the main square of the old university. If you see one thing in Coimbra, you should see the old university. We got there early and that's the best time to visit: by about 11.30, there were loads of coach parties milling around. 
The highlight of the university is the ancient library. The decoration is magnificent, although they don't have any Catherine Cookson. Apparently a colony of bats lives inside to eat the insects that might damage the books, but we couldn't spot them.
Coimbra has a reputation as a party hearty student town, and we spotted some evidence. The rags you can see hanging from the branches and strewn about the ground are in fact trousers and shirts, and although we didn't see any young people running about in the altogether, there was a stench of beer around those trees.
I find something about Portuguese cathedrals a little disappointing. They don't have the great gothic fronts that adorn so many in England or other countries. Coimbra's is typically solid, but somewhat uninspiring.
Here's a view of the centre from across the river. The university precinct is right on top of the hill. You'll spot that the weather got a bit gloomy in the afternoon, as did my mood when I discovered the "miniature Portugal" theme park was closed for annual repairs. Still, if you search hard enough, you can find plenty of places to enjoy a cup of tea or a sugar-laden pastry.
So that's that. I'll stick more pics of other cities up as I visit them.
What've you got for me, Jonny?
I think you'll like this one, Frank. It's from Rhode Island.
Ok, big man, let's hear it.
Right y'are then. It seems an elementary school there has instituted a dramatic policy for the dinner hall.
What's that? No pushing in the queue? No throwing of bread rolls? If you put a penny in someone's chocolate milk, they've got to down it?
Even more dramatic than that:
A Roman Catholic elementary school adopted new lunchroom rules this week requiring students to remain silent while eating. The move comes after three recent choking incidents in the cafeteria.
No one was hurt, but the principal of St. Rose of Lima School explained in a letter to parents that if the lunchroom is loud, staff members cannot hear a child choking.
The principal's letter also spelled out other new lunch rules, including requiring students to stay in their seats and limiting them to one trip to the trash can. Any child who breaks the rules will serve detention the next day.
Worrying that they're silent "all day", isn't it?Christine Lamoureux, whose 12-year-old is a sixth-grader at the school, said she respects the safety issue but thinks it is a bad idea.
"They are silent all day," she said. "They have to get some type of release." She suggested quiet conversation be allowed during lunch.
He's on good form in the Times today.
Starts with an amusing Ryanair anecdote and finishes with some interesting analysis of the Catholic church in light of the gay adoption debate. Fortunately it seems the homophobic forces of the Church and Ruth Kelly will not get their way this time (surely you've persecuted gays enough over the years, Fathers?).
Here's Parris:
If a moral sentiment becomes very widely shared, a society will find its truth “obvious” — and lose patience with those whose morality offends that sentiment. Though such people remain free to believe what they like, theirs becomes a rogue belief; and their freedom to behave according to it, treading on others’ toes, is curtailed.Delicious indeed.So the question is this: is the acceptance of homosexuality now so widely shared that the Catholic doctrine has become a rogue morality? It’s a practical, observational question, not a philosophical one. On balance I think it is now a rogue opinion.
The paradox, which I do find beautiful, is that liberal, secular, moral relativists are acting (in this row) as though morality were objective rather than relative. And Catholics, who are supposed to believe their own ethical doctrines objectively true, are left pleading for moral relativism. Delicious.
...why a supermarket would be checking whether people are over 21 to buy alcohol in the UK?
Has the law changed since I've been away? Can 18, 19 and 20 year-olds no longer spend their student loans on gin and Aftershocks, as I used to do?
Ok, I'll give a special prize to anyone who can guess why some if my students have nicknamed me "Will.i.am", after the rapper with the Black-Eyed Peas.
First clue: it has something to do with one of their hit songs.
Answer next week. Good luck!
UPDATE: The answer's in the comments. Not sure what the special prize will be though!
Has technology moved on in the last 100 years? Not according to Simon Jenkins:
I rise each morning, shave with soap and razor, don clothes of cotton and wool, read a paper, drink a coffee heated by gas or electricity and go to work with the aid of petrol and an internal combustion engine. At a centrally heated office I type on a Qwerty keyboard; I might later visit a pub or theatre. Most people I know do likewise.
Not one of these activities has altered qualitatively over the past century
No, research and development do not equate with economic progress.
No, the computer is not a stunning technological advance, just an extension of electronic communication as known for over a century. No, the internet has not transformed most people's lives, just helped them do faster what they did before.
No, weapons technology has not transformed warfare, merely wasted stupefying sums of money while soldiers win or lose by firing rifles.
Middle-class women probably do more manual labour than in the 19th century, assisted by such old technology as the washing machine and vacuum cleaner. Small wonder they still consume those ancient standbys, alcohol, nicotine, cannabis and opium.
Across the pond, the world's favourite sadist, Simon Cowell, has been in controversial form. Some commentators were up in arms last week at his description of one contestant as a "bush baby".
Here's the Seattle Times:
So maybe Seattle has zero singing talent, but was it necessary for "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell to compare one contestant to a bush baby?America, is that what you want from your number-one show?
...
On Wednesday, two friends appeared on the Seattle episode. The first one drew the "bush baby" remark. The second, [Jonathan] Jayne, was asked by Cowell if he had stolen (fat) judge Randy Jackson's trousers. Jayne, who, yes, is very overweight, then proceeded to sing "God Bless America."
...moments after watching 20-year-old Jonathan Jayne, with his soft features, high-waisted pants, and alarmingly orange Hawaiian shirt, wheeze his way through ''God Bless America,'' I got a call from my friend Rosie in Alabama. ''Did American Idol just stoop to making fun of a mentally challenged person for laughs?'' she asked. ''Y'know what,'' I replied, ''I was just thinking the same thing.''
"While polite isn't a word one would normally associate with Cowell and company, a viewing of the episode in question shows that the judges were in fact gracious and very encouraging to [Jonathan] Jayne during his rendition of 'God Bless America,' "Now, Cowell has done several bad things in his time, presiding over the careers of Westlife and Robson & Jerome, but I don't think turning down Briggs and Jayne can really be included in that category.
Apparently today is designated as "Blue Monday", the most depressing day of the year. According to a psychologist at Cardiff University, the combination of the long nights, poor weather and post-Christmas debt catching up with us means that we all feel worse in late January than at any other time. And we all feel more depressed on Mondays than any other day of the week.
Now, I've been accused of being a miserable bastard in my time, but I feel positively chirpy (even chirpily positive) today. Why? Well, first of all there's the weather: here in Portugal it's much nicer than the rest of Europe. No storms, no snow, no sub-zero temperatures. It's not hot (I think about 11C today) but the sky is blue and the sun bright. I went to the beach on Saturday and watched the sun set over the Atlantic for the first time. Very agreeable.
Secondly, there's the football. How can anyone be depressed after a weekend when both Chelsea and Manchester United lost? Schadenfreude is never so good as when Jose Mourinho and Alex Ferguson are on the receiving end. Ok, so Liverpool and Arsenal might not quite come back to win the league, but at least it gives a semblance of competitiveness.
Thirdly, I don't work on Mondays (!). Consequently, I never have Sunday night anxiety or the Monday morning blues. I'd advise anyone to give this routine a try. I work Saturday mornings instead, but that way I avoid the queues in the supermarket and get to watch Andy Murray fight valiantly against Rafael Nadal. He lost today, but it was a great match and one that shows the wee Scot will be a top 10 player sooner rather than later.
In fact, dear reader, if every Monday were like this one, I'd be quite content.
A bickering New York couple have had a dividing wall constructed inside their home as part of an acrimonious divorce.
...
Despite owning another home - just two doors away - the unhappily married couple have decided to carry on living under the same roof.
...
The wall divides the ground floor of the house, and keeps husband and wife penned into separate sections on different floors. One door linking the rival sections of the house is barricaded shut to prevent any accidental contact between the pair.
It seems many people have forgotten the first commandment. That is a pity.
Sky News was reporting this morning that Jade is likely to get voted out of the "Celebrity" Big Brother house with a record level of votes (something above the 91.6% that "Caesar" got last summer).
If so, wouldn't this prove that, although we're all a bit racist inside (and even if you say you aren't, you are, just a little bit), generally British people have a very low tolerance of racism these days? Coupled with the number of complaints about the programme, I think that should be a source of pride, rather than shame. I doubt it will be the last we hear of it, though.
Incidentally, this (Mr Blair's plan to stay in office until June) might be the proper news story that no-one has covered this week.
In the Guardian today, Peter Bradshaw, inspired by the new Rocky movie (and yes, when I went to Philadelphia, I jogged up those steps, humming that theme), lists 10 great film music moments. Bradshaw includes obvious classics such as the Jaws and James Bond themes, but I thought I'd try to come up with another 10 myself (avec YouTube links where poss).
So, in no particular order:
1. Psycho, Bernard Herrman
No list of great film composers could be complete without mention of Bernard Herrman. As well as scoring Taxi Driver, he collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on many films, the most famous of which is probably Psycho. The score is absolutely outstanding, with the main theme, that plays as Marion Crane drives to the Bates Motel one of the best-known in the history of cinema. It's scary, edgy, different, and although the film might not have advanced the understanding of mental health around the world, you'll never forget the music, or trust a shower curtain again.
2. High Noon, Dmitri Tiomkin
This is Tony Benn's favourite film. Notwithstanding that, it is an outstanding piece of work - groundbreaking in terms of its real-time plotting (all the action takes place over 90 minutes) and the anti-McCarthyist undertones (who will stand with Will Kane against the bad guys?) as well as its music. It was the first Western to use a theme song, Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, which was probably never bettered.
3. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Ennio Morricone
Another western, another of the all-time great composers and scores. The howl of the coyote, the crack of the whip, the stamp of the boot. Suspense heaped upon suspense. What more can I say?
4. Manhunter
In this eighties classic by Michael Mann, the Thomas Harris novel, Red Dragon, gets its first cinema treatment. I reckon this film is at least as good as the Silence of the Lambs and this is partly due to the music. The final scene, where the killer and William Peterson's cop have their showdown to Iron Butterfly's In-a-gadda-da-vida, is memorably brutal.
5. Some Like It Hot
Ok, something a bit more lighthearted: I watched Some Like it Hot for the first time this Christmas (yeah, I know, where have I been?). I hadn't realised quite how beautiful Marilyn Monroe was when she sang "I Wanna Be Loved By You". There's nowt more sexy than that.
6. Rushmore
One of my favourite films, this, and from a director (Wes Anderson) who has a great ear for a soundtrack. I could choose almost any scene, but here's a great one featuring the Who's "You Are Forgiven". Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzmann are a businessman and a schoolboy competing for the same woman.
7. Footloose
More fluff, but who doesn't like this scene? Kevin Bacon and the late Chris Penn practise their dance steps to Deniece Williams' "Let's hear it for the boy". Go to any small town in the States and you'll find city boys teaching their country cousins how to strut their funky stuff on the basketball court or in the bleachers.
8. Halloween, John Carpenter
One of the best horror films of all time, John Carpenter directed and wrote the music for Halloween. The soundtrack also features "Don't Fear the Reaper", but I think the main theme is as chilling as any around. Jamie Lee Curtis, in the wardrobe, stalked by Michael Myers. She shoots him, he falls out of the window, she looks, he's gone!
9. Fargo, Carter Burwell
Another dark film, another moody score, another shower curtain: this time from Carter Burwell and the Coen Brothers. Evidence that a lot of the best classical music these days arrives as film scores, rather than your concert hall Harrison Birtwhistle stuff.
10. Lawrence of Arabia, Maurice Jarre
Although not as famous as his son, Jean-Michel, Maurice Jarre wrote the most parodied film score ever - wonderful music to match David Lean's astonishing visuals. I can't cross a desert, or even walk past a sandpit, without humming the theme to myself.
No sooner had the dust settled on England's 3 wicket victory over New Zealand last night, than the tapes and scorecards of the match were handed over to the ICC's match-fixing unit.
An ICC spokesman said:
Although we have received no direct accusations of match-fixing, the unusual nature of the result has set off a few alarm bells and we feel duty-bound to investigate further.
There are a number of irregularities the ICC would like to investigate, but the main one we will be looking at is the outcome of the match. We hope to conclude this process as soon as possible, and will release our report as soon as it is available.
| Your Inner European is French! |
 Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so. |
Johann Hari in the Indy asks: When the Government acts, why do we always assume there is something to fear?
He's talking about the Prime Minister's proposed new super-database, which will unite all the Government Departments and "provide better public services".
Hari thinks that there are several "people who will ritually jerk their knees today by declaring that Tony Blair's proposals for a simple centralised Whitehall database are "a step towards tyranny"".
Hmm, maybe he's right, although I'm not sure caring about the information the Government carries on each of us is a ritual knee-jerk, rather a rational reaction to a shift in the State-Individual relationship (they're supposed to serve us, remember, not the other way round).
The real concern about this is on a practical level. The Government has shown it is not particularly good at managing its databases and using the information held therein. I think the words "Home Office" speak for themselves on this and I don't assume that any other Department operates at a much greater level of efficiency (the Government's own example cites a person who made 44 calls over 6 months to get some information about a road death: this shows the people we already have are not doing their jobs - or are not trained to do their jobs - properly). Goodness only knows how much wastage there is in the Departments of Work and Pensions, Health, Education and the rest, but we might want to start by cleaning things up there before bringing in an expensive, new, unproven system.
My question is this: given that the different Departments aren't running their own whelk stalls particularly well, why should we let the same people loose on a whelk supermarket, especially one that will cost billions (yes, billions) to the humble taxpayer?
This finally debunks the myth that the Germans have no sense of humour (something I'd never really bought anyway).
It's a safety video for a forklift truck and is simultaneously the funniest and most gruesome 9 minutes I've ever seen:
via Bog-Roll Beverage
It's a sure sign that your journalistic career is in decline when you resort to tirades against "modern life" and moan about how things ain't what they used to be. Popular topics for this sort of article include political correctness (invariably "in a process of mental decline") or technology ("I don't know why people need computers, I managed perfectly well scratching on vellum when I was at school") ruining our lives.
The third soft target for the lazy columnist is the pernicious spread of neologisms and "meaningless" jargon throughout our society. Robert Fisk, longtime friend of the blogger and inspiration for a verb himself, stumbles pitifully in front of an empty net in the Independent today.
He rails against the excessive management-speak of "excellence" and "mission statements", which is hardly going to win him another award:
There is something repulsive about this vocabulary, an aggressive language of superiority in which "key players" can "interact" with each other, can "impact" society, "outsource" their business - or "downsize" the number of their employees. They need "feedback" and "input". They think "outside the box" or "push the envelope". They have a "work space", not a desk. They need "personal space" - they need to be left alone - and sometimes they need "time and space", a commodity much in demand when marriages are failing.
To me a workshop means what it says. When I was at school, the workshop was a carpentry shop wherein generations of teachers vainly tried to teach Fisk how to make a wooden chair or table that did not collapse the moment it was completed. But today, a "workshop" - though we mustn't say so - is a group of tiresome academics yakking in the secret language of anthropology or talking about "cultural sensitivity" or "core issues" or "tropes".
In northern Iraq in 1991, I was once ordered by a humanitarian worker from the "International Rescue Committee" to leave the only room I could find in the wrecked town of Zakho because it had been booked for her fellow workers - who were very "stressed". Pour souls, I thought. They were stressed, "stressed out", trying - no doubt - to "come to terms" with their predicament, attempting to "cope".
Tortured artist? What, like Van Gogh?
Well, he hasn't cut his ear off yet, but Stephen Murmer, of Virginia, has become a martyr of sorts.
Oh yeah?
Yep, he's been sacked from his day job as a schoolteacher because of the "disruption" his art causes in the classroom.
What disruption could there be?
It's a slightly tender area, butt, I mean but, he paints in a rather unusual way. He, er, uses a specific part of his anatomy instead of a brush.
Specifically?
His posterior. His derriere. His trouser baps. His ar-
Yes, we get the picture. Does he do this in class?
No, but he moonlights, so to speak. And there's a video of him "at work" on YouTube that his students have seen.
YouTube? I presume...
Yes, at the bottom of this post.
Wasn't it a bit harsh to sack him?
His lawyer thinks so. A "bad day for the first amendment", he described it. Though I'm not sure the first amendment actually mentions the use of the gluteus maximus as a paintbrush (just checked, it doesn't). He also gave the following quote (my italics):
"Chesterfield lost a tremendous asset today"
Here's a rare one for all you numismatists out there.
The US Department of Defense is warning its contractors about possible tracking devices contained in Canadian coins. Apparently, some have been discovered with tiny radio transmitters inside:
[The report] said the mysterious coins were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.
who might be tracking American defense contractors or why, how the Pentagon discovered the ruse, how the transmitters might function or even which Canadian currency contained them.
Apparently Mancunian miserablist, Morrissey, wants to sing for the UK at this year's Eurovision.
I mean, what?
It's been bad enough the past few years when our pop tat has come way down the table, but for one of our top cultural icons to get nul points would be too tough to bear, surely.
Please, Mr Smith, don't do it. Unless you cover this song:
