Ephemeral Isle
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Thursday
1 December 2005
The Light is On, But Nobody's Home
Mahmud Ahmadinejad: Radioactive head of state
Just
when I thought they'd reached the maximum on the goofy meter there comes
this story out of Iran that slams the needle hard against the peg:
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad says that when he delivered his speech at the UN General Assembly in September, he felt there was a light around him and that the attention of the world leaders in the audience was unblinkingly focused upon him.
If any light was emanating from President Ahmadinejad it was probably the price of hanging about the nuclear weapons labs too much. If world leaders were looking at him without blinking for full on to half an hour it is certainly because they noticed that the little oik didn't even have the courtesy to wear a tie for the occasion.
Given the fact this man is also awaiting the imminent return of the "12th imam", who disappeared in 941 AD, to lead Islam to world conquest; is charged with being one of the "students" who stormed the American embassy in 1979; sends bombs to Iraq; goes around saying that Israel should be "wiped off the map"; and is running a nuclear weapons programme that is about as secret as a number nine bus crashing through a plate glass window, why is anyone surprised that he thinks he's a walking fluorescent bulb?
The unbelievable thing is not any of the above, but that there are still people in the world who imagine that they can do business with this madman and that if they give him and the mullahs enough concessions they'll just go quietly away rather slamming a fist on the red button with a cry of "Allah akhbar!" before the paint is even dry on the first ICBM.
Mr. Chamberlain, you service is calling.
Friday
2 December 2005
Islamofascist Potpourri
Developments on the Jihad front look very grim in Europe. Consider these depressing little items.
Christian Doctor Forced to Resign
An
eye-specialist in Lincolnshire was forced to resign his position at
Pilgrim Hospital, Boston when Muslim "colleagues" discovered that he was a
Christian.
Outrage by the press and government at this arrogant display of religious intolerance: Zero.
Belgian Woman Turns Muslim Suicide Bomber
A
sickening development in Baghdad where a Belgian woman who converted to
Islam after marrying a Moroccan carried out a suicide bomb attack in which
she was the only victim. Her
husband is reported to have been killed in a separate failed attack.
Marvellous. Not only do we have to worry about fifth columnists hiding among the Muslim immigrant population, but now we have to watch out for European Quislings as well.
Al Qaeda Recruiting "White" Agents
Perhaps the Belgian
Bomberess is part of a
new strategy that Al Qaeda is adopting in the
Balkans:
In particular, Islamic radicals are looking to create cells of so-called white al Qaeda, non-Arab members who can evade racial profiling used by police forces to watch for potential terrorists. "They want to look European to carry out operations in Europe," said a Western intelligence agent in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Montenegro, adjacent to Bosnia. "It's yet another evolution in the tools used by terrorists."
That's why I keep pointing out that this is war, because our enemies certainly regard it as one.
Euphemism Alert!
Not
that the French have learned anything. In purest
Orwellian fashion the
French Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin says that the four weeks of
Muslim riots were, in reality, two weeks of "social unrest" and a "special
movement."
And the Nazi invasion of 1940 was just an unusually heavy influx of German tourists.
A Modest Proposal
On
the plus side, there is
this video of Royal Marines getting drunk, stripping naked, and
proceeding to beat the living crap out one another for fun. Needless
to say the British Press and political class has been in a high old dudgeon
and have tried to make it into some sort of a hazing scandal, but the
blogosphere has come to rescue by pointing out the obvious, which is
that these are Royal Marines, the world's fiercest warriors that
we're talking about. This is the sort of thing you expect them to do
for a laugh.
Far from condemning the Marines, I would recommend beaming the video all over the Muslim world with a large red caption saying, "If you mess with us, these are the men you'll be facing."
Monday
5 December 2005
Laptop Deathwatch
I have a dead laptop. Not exactly dead, if I'm being honest, but it's not at all well. Ever since I downloaded a failed upgrade a month ago the Zen 5000, as I fondly call my laptop, has been slowly sickening like a consumptive with a flair for the dramatic. My wireless connection kept failing, performance slowed down, and every time I managed to fix a problem something even worse would suddenly crop up. By yesterday the 5000 couldn't run Java scripts, I couldn't initiate a virus scan, the task manager was gone, my restore point was US, and I couldn't even run uninstalls on sick programmes. This definitely a computer on the verge of cashing in its chips.
So, I had to swallow my pride and call technical support. That meant a lot of phone number hunting, menu surfing, ferreting for serial numbers, being on hold, and at last being told that I had a corrupted operating system. Great. One step above a massive hard drive failure. So, it was more being on hold, rummaging through drawers for forgotten install disks, shutting down and restarting, and then having the phone connection failing just as I'm told that not only is Windows up the spout, but that the BIOS is damaged as well. At this point I decided that I'd wait until Monday to tackle that particular little nightmare.
Fortunately, this is one of those times when being an anal-retentive paranoid paid off. As soon as my wireless started crashing as regular as Eddie the Eagle I started backing up everything to the portable disk drive and I spent most of yesterday and today bringing the Zen 3000 (desktop and network admin computer) up to speed to take over as the primary. That meant more hunting for install disks, shifting backup files, clearing space on the hard drive, rummaging around the C drive trying to figure out where the Outlook files are hiding, and making sure that all the anti-virus protection was up to scratch.
Long story short, this is the first Ephemeral Isle I've uploaded from the 3000 since April of 2004, which is kind of fun, because the old keyboard and mouse take some getting used to. It's also a way of apologising to everyone who is wondering why I haven't answered their e-mail. Fact is, Outlook is one of the programmes that got slammed and I couldn't get to my inbox for the past few days and therefore couldn't back up the inbox. And since the odds are that I'll be losing all the messages in the inbox when I do the reinstall, I would like to make this column my blanket reply to you all and thank you for writing.
Marvellous thing, technology. Twenty years ago the potential lose of this much data would have required a major house fire or a small army of amazingly cack-handed movers. Now I can manage the same thing just by hitting the Yes button on the wrong download.
Progress!
Tuesday
6 December 2005
Kaiju PC
After yesterday's
total destruction of London and the Home Counties by a 500 ft tall rampaging
mutant reptile spouting radioactive fire, the Chief of Alternative Defence
Staff,
General Martin Wyngarden insisted that the real problem was the lack of
giant atomic monsters in the armed forces and promised to begin more active
recruitment to correct this injustice. "During the war we didn't have any
Germans in the ranks on the absurd excuse that some of them might be working
for the Nazis and we couldn't take chances. The result was that we
stigmatised an entire minority over the actions of a few just because we
didn't want civilisation plunged into a new dark age. Today we are a
more enlightened, multi-cultural, multi-specied society and we won't make
that mistake again."
During Prime Minister's Question Time at the Temporary House of Commons (Formerly the Bide-a-Wee Tea Rooms in Kendal) Mr. Blair said that he agrees entirely with General Wyngarden and added that he could not emphasise enough that he would under no circumstances deploy the army against the mutant lizards. "This is not a war. Giant atomic monsters laying waste to the countryside is a police matter and I will not endanger our ancient liberties by going on a temporary war footing when it is fairer and more modern to simply impose a permanent police state on the entire population. Besides, the army is far too busy destroying the poultry industry with chicken bonfires as a measure against the avian flu before we have an actual outbreak."
Meanwhile, Sir Maurice Steamwagon, spokesman for the Giant Atomic Monsters Advocacy Group (GAMAG), could not be reached, as he'd been burnt to a crisp when Cheltenham was incinerated, but Mr. Percy Lackspine, director of GAMAG has issued an apology to the monsters for any provocation that Sir Maurice may have caused. "We are all guilty!"* Mr. Lackspine explained in a high-pitch scream.
*© Dr. Heinz Kiosk
Romany Days
Meanwhile, Paris has been hit once again by riots that
have left the streets filled with burning rubble and the French police have
again demonstrated that their favourite way of maintaining order is to not
interfere with the thugs in any way. And the miscreants this time are
Muslims? No.
Gypsies, who
have leaned that in France the way to get what you want is to set fire to
the city.
Hey, it gets quicker results than the ballot box.
Wednesday
7 December 2005
Feline Revelation
There reached a point where Mr. & Mrs. Jenkins began to suspect that Tiddles was not a tabby kitten after all.
Thursday
8 December 2005
If Life Hands You Jellyfish...
Just a big jellyfish or the vanguard of this?
Jellyfish
are interesting creatures-- Too energetic to be quite plants, too brainless
to be quite animals, they are the Reality Television contestants of the sea.
Jellyfish are the silent types that operate according to their own logic. They don't seem to have any rhyme or reason to their undulating lives and for something that swims as if seawater was treacle I've always been surprised at how fast they can appear and disappear. I remember making ocean passages and ending up becalmed in a flat sea that looked as lifeless as a sheet of glass only to come on deck in the morning and find the water thick with moon jellies as far as I could see. If they appeared at night it was even stranger, as some species would give off an eerie bluish glow as if the sea had suddenly turned radioactive. But the strangest experience was wandering into a school of these animated plastic bags while scuba diving. Once surrounded by jellyfish bunched close together and swimming every which way without making any progress I'm always struck by two thoughts: a) that this is like being dropped on to the canvas of some charming fantasy painting and b) that with all those singers about I am immensely glad to be clad head to toe in a neoprene wetsuit.
With this sort of background it may not surprise you that I have "jellyfish" as a keyword on my Google news alerts. Actually, it should surprise you, because that is a total lie. My life may be dull, but it isn't so pathetic yet that I keep a weather eye out for medusan news updates. However, that did not prevent me from coming across this item out of Japan about an invasion of giant jellyfish off the southern coasts.
The beasties in question are echizen kurage or Nomura's jellyfish, which are a tad bigger than your average moon jelly; growing to six feet wide and weighing in at four hundred and fifty pounds in their stocking feet. The Nomura's jellyfish is a common sight in the waters off Japan and the Korean peninsula, but this year they are spreading out of the Yellow Sea into the Pacific and in such numbers that they're giving the local fishermen one hell of a time. Snagging a net full of Nomura's jellyfish is like trying to lift a cheap plastic bag full of wet laundry and with similar results as nets rip wide open. Worse, any fish that are brought up with the jellies are so slimed, crushed, and poisoned that you couldn't even sell them in the American Midwest.
Why this is happening is still a mystery. Personally, I think it's one of those population booms that occur from time to time in the wild due to natural cycles, but that hasn't stopped the environmentalists from having a field day. Some claim that it's due to development in southern China carrying more silt into the sea. Others that it is due to over fishing so that the eggs (That's what the reports say. I think they mean larvae) aren't being eaten. And, of course, the big favourite is today's universal explanation for everything from heat waves to cold snaps to the Fantastic Four (all together now!): global warming.
Forty years ago it would have been blamed on atomic testing.
If this had happened in the West the result would have been panicky government ministers, parliamentary subcommittees, EU directives, banning of British fishing boats from the sea just because, and sweeping treaties that wouldn't do a thing about the jellies, but would be certain to destroy the national economy. But since this infestation happened in Japan the solution is a more practical and culinary one: Eat the blighters.
Yes, the Japanese plan is to make sushi out of the giant jellyfish. If nothing else this is economical, as at almost a quarter of a ton per jelly you could go through a lot of sticky rice and seaweed wrap before you run out. Not to mention you can have jellyfish dried, salted, and even made into smoothies for all I know.
But just because the people of
Nippon are now tucking into peanut butter and jellyfish sandwiches, that
doesn't mean that the crisis is over. Remember that Japan is the
country that gave us the word "kaiju" and whenever unusually large animals
show up off the coast of Japan it's only a matter of a couple of reels
before one of them becomes electrically charged, grows to two hundred
feet high, and starts wading into Tokyo harbour with less than peaceful
intentions-- and not just giant jellyfish either. As night follows
day, these things always end up in tag team matches with other monsters. I am of the firm
opinion that unless we all start scarfing down jellyfish like there's no
tomorrow we're going to be having Godzilla paying us an surprise visit in
short order for a spot of kaiju GBH.
And
I am not just worried about having our cities and badly-made model tanks crushed and
incinerated in an orgy of stock footage as Godzilla and King Jellyfish
battle for supremacy. Where there are giant monsters
there are bands of poorly-dubbed obnoxious Japanese schoolboys in tight
shorts running around the Ministry of Defence giving orders without any
explained authority.
Do any of us want to live through that again? I should think not.
I'll have the curried jellyfish and chips, please.
Friday
9 December 2005
Christmas Already?
I am not what you would call a Christmas person. I suppose it comes having married late in life after a bachelor existence that had me bouncing all over the world. Christmas doesn't mean that much when it's a pre-decorated tree that comes out of a box on Christmas Eve and goes back in after Boxing Day. It certainly isn't much when you volunteer to watch over an archaeological site to prevent it being vandalised and you spend Christmas in vacant farmhouse with a goat-- especially when he didn't like his paper hat out of the Christmas cracker and ate his motto. No, for me many years for me Christmas was the Day the Post Does Not Come.
Even having been married for four and a half years and with a child I still have trouble getting into Christmas-- or rather, noticing that it's around. Christmas gets started so early these days that the only way to keep one's sanity is to develop a sort of mental block. Otherwise, how would it be possible to walk through the super store while they instantly replace the Halloween candies with fibreglass Santas without balling my fists in my eyes and muttering "How long? How Long?". I much prefer to simply ignore the whole thing until around December fourteenth, which is why I'm always surprised when my wife asks me to fetch the plastic tree and decorations out of storage. Maybe this is because I'd just packed the barbeque grill away the day before. Couldn't we put up the tree after I've finished buying the presents? Say, 11: 30 PM on Christmas Eve? Does that make me Ebenezer Scrooge? No more than my habit of striking orphans with my walking stick, I'd say.
Understand that I don't mean that I dislike the Christmas, though it does tend cut into that glorious time of winter hibernation when people stop asking me to Do Things. I rather like the notion that there is at least when day a year when you're expected to be civil to your fellow man. I enjoy the carols-- especially when they're backed up by a somber brass brand of the sort that I remember from the north of England. I like Salvation Army bell ringers and I always make it a point to have Emma drop a coin in their buckets and shout "Merry Christmas" loud enough to make an ACLU member call for the smelling salts. I especially like Christmas hampers and tuck in general, but that might be sheer gluttony talking.
I'll even admit that I enjoy the whole gift giving thing. True, I do put it off, but once I get my first shopping bag in hand there's no stopping me and it's very likely that my plans for a modest gift list will spontaneously expand and that the Christmas stockings will suddenly be groaning with goodies-- such as the year when my wife declared on Christmas Day that she was going on a diet only to discover that her stocking was crammed with enough chocolate hobnobs to pave the Isle of Man.
Mind you, putting together the presents after you've bought them in the dead of night on Christmas Eve so that Santa can take all the credit can be a bother, but if there's enough hot buttered rum going to ease the pain I'm willing to wield my screwdriver and hex wrench with a smile.
I suppose that it isn't that I have anything against Christmas. It's just that I it to the madness of the fifty day festival Xmas with all its Rush, as C.S. Lewis called it in his essay Xmas and Christmas. I hate being required to be festive or being obligated to be jolly. Give me time I'd I'll muster up all the goodwill toward men required. Force it and I'll start kicking puppies. I loathe giving gifts to people out of a sense of requirement and I'm not a great card sender because the more I try not to leave anyone out the less personal it becomes until the whole enterprise has all the warmth of hitting the Reply All button on the e-mail, and I have no desire to be accused of postal Noël spam.
Come to think of it, I suppose I actually am something of a Christmas person. I just want it at my own pace so I can appreciate the labours of the more energetic adherents of the season, such as this chap who must be stark raving mad, but I hope no one ever cures him of it.
Monday
12 December 2005
Weekend Down the Random Access Memory Hole
I finally got around to reinstalling Windows on the Zen 5000, as I dubbed my laptop, this weekend. What a marvelous little sentence it is. It's like saying "I invaded Normandy." Three little words that take an instant to say and several weeks to actually get out off the beach.
It was a particularly messy affair, as whatever it was that had bollocksed up the 5000 had not only corrupted the operating system, but also the BIOS as well, so the reinstall disks wouldn't run during the boot up like they're supposed to. That meant that instead of just putting in the disk and watching all of my data go bye bye as hard drive reformats I has to spend a cheery hour with Gateway technical support trying to get the disk prompts to come up manually with loads of restarts along the way just in case things started to get interesting.
Did you know that it takes Window XP almost an hour to install? I didn't. Got a lot a lot of reading done while riding shotgun on that. The Zombie Survival Guide. Right up my alley, as I believe in being prepared. Yes, The Omega Man had a profound impact on my adolescence and since then I've never really understood why people aren't more concerned about the threat of zombie attacks. Whether supernatural manifestation, biowarfare outbreak, or technophobic vampires, forewarned is forearmed, I always say.
Quick hint: Blow up the staircases.
Anyway, by shortly after one PM perseverance and threats of physical violence carried the day and the 5000 was like unto a little child with all of its diminutive hard disk erased and awaiting new wisdom to be imparted. Or in this case, a lot of load wisdom that it would need before it could do anything other than sit there and coo to itself. So, it was another two hours of adding drivers followed by another two hours installing the most basic of software, importing bookmarks, setting up anti-virus protections, and setting the clock.
And that was just yesterday. Today I've had more joy as I got the backups loaded into Outlook, imported my e-mail files, sorted out my Instant Messenger, and restored the network connection to the backup drive so I wouldn't have to route all the file uploads through the Zen 3000. But the good news is that after that I could just it back spend the afternoon hunting down address books, arranging bookmarks, rewriting message rules, shifting primary files from the backup to the 5000 drive, and trying to get the printer to stop ignoring me when I asked it to do the least little thing.
How's that for an exciting weekend filled with verve and excitement!
Tuesday
13 December 2005
Laptop Repairs: Day Three
Whoever said that computers would lighten man's burdens probably never owned a laptop. He certainly didn't run a web site or he'd have been aware from the second he opened his mouth what a load of rot he was spouting.
If you've been following my cyber travails you will know that last week Zen 5000, as I call my laptop, was at death's door with a fatally compromised operating system and that I'd spent most of the weekend clearing out the hard drive and reinstalling Windows XP so I could start afresh. You will also know that this was the most boring and frustrating of tasks as not only does Windows take the length of a smallish glacial epoch to load, but that one then has to follow up by loading in all sorts of drivers, applications, and files before one is rewarded for one's hard labours by spending even more of one's allotted time on Earth fiddling with all sorts of settings, re-establishing network connections, and figuring out why the blazes Instant Messenger keeps fighting with Outlook.
But all things come to an end and by Sunday evening I had prevailed. The laptop was up and ready to do battle with the world-- for all of two hours, that is and then the wireless connection went down and I had to go hunting for a Ethernet cable. I was then able to continue working. but then the wireless suddenly fix itself and started to battle the Ethernet cable for circuit supremacy. This would probably be amusing as a sport, but as a spectator I found that it left much to be desired.
The real fun came when I finished Monday's column and tried to upload it only to discover that the backup files I'd reloaded to the laptop didn't have the ftp address included. No problem. Just press Publish and type it in when asked. Unfortunately, I didn't include the proper folder when I did so and instead of uploading the column I ended up hosing the entire site into the wrong place on the server until I completely filled my memory allotment and brought my entire account, including e-mail, grinding to a halt. And so it was that I spent most of today deleting the redundant files and then reloading all of the formatting when I discovered that all these shenanigans had altered the data. It goes without saying, of course, that this was on a day when my hosting service was having technical concerns of their own and the server kept overloading every fifteen minutes and breaking my connection.
Yes, nothing spells a rainy Monday like a seven-hour upload.
And did I mention that my three-year old was hanging around the office during much of this? Probably not, because the one silver lining to this whole episode was that last week I'd got my hands on the latest animated Superman DVD collection and that in Emma's world the one thing that runs a close second to Barbie is the Man of Steel, so when Daddy needed a bit of time to concentrate on laptop matters all I had to do was slip a disk into the player. That kept her happy for a while and gave Daddy something interesting to stare at while the connection hung up for the fiftieth time.
Mind you, I did have to pay for this later on with an hour of playing Super Emma Vs Gorilla Daddy, but what else would you expect?
Wednesday
14 December 2005
All the Foresight of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March
I'm a great fan of the move to privatise manned space flight, but sometimes I think the lads should get some fresh air. For example. on Tuesday Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, which plans to offer suborbital tourist jaunts by 2010, announced that it would be building its $225 million spaceport in New Mexico next to the White Sands Missile Range (!?!).
Spaceport, Missile range (!?!); what could possibly go wrong?
Thursday
15 December 2005
Repeat After Me: It’s Only a Race Riot
Riots tend not to grab
my attention as a rule. Some people take a great interest in them while
others never give them a second’s thought. As for me, I can take them or
leave them as the fancy strikes me. It all depends on whether or not
there’s anything of significance about the case.
I’m not really sure what to make of the Sydney riots. Indeed, I’m not even sure if I’m interested in making anything of them. On the surface it looks like a larger than usual beach punch up involving whites and Lebanese immigrants combined with some fairly incompetent police work, which puts it on a par with the Brighton Beach battles between the Mods and the Rockers. Not much of interest at first glance, but then there is the matter of the object of the rioters’ violence being, in the euphemism of the press, “men of Middle Eastern origin” and in the post-9/11 world that grabs my attention. So, I scan my usual news sites, check the blogs, and fire up Google to see what I can find. After a couple of hours I came to the conclusion that what we have here is something similar to what happened in Birmingham a couple of months ago—except in the earlier case to the BBC it was just a “riot” because it was between Jamaican and Asian immigrants, but in the latter it was a “race riot” because whites were on one side. Even though a church was set fire to and Lebanese Muslims fired shots at Lebanese Christians at a carol service during the riots, there didn’t seem to be any overt Jihadist aspects to the troubles; there isn’t the feeling of organisation or the loud demands of the French riots. It seems like a straightforward flare up of ethnic tensions.
“Seems,” however, is the operative word, because "seems" is as close to certainty as I could get from reading the news reports. Most of them had in common a distinct lack of curiosity about the whole matter. The mainstream media in Britain and the United States took very little notice of the riots and what coverage there was tried to play down the ethnicity of the “men of Middle Eastern origin.” Some early reports of cars being smashed up by rioters were so vague that they implied that the perpetrators were white rather than “men of Middle Eastern origin,” which was actually the case. Meanwhile, the Australian press seemed perfectly happy to chalk the whole thing up to white racism and fire the starting pistol to see who could say "We’re all guilty!" first. But what very few of our intrepid journalists seemed to notice was that little matter of the “men of Middle Eastern origin.”
For most of the fourth estate, the ethnicity of half the rioter was irrelevant or important only in that they were victims of not just racism, but paranoid racism. And as to the religion of these “men of Middle Eastern origin?” For all the press told us they might have all been lapsed Presbyterians. Could some of them perhaps have been Muslim? For anything like their lack of interest in that question you have to go back to Walter Duranty travelling to the Soviet Union and failing to ask about all the genocide going on.
For my own part I think that this was an ethnic punch up without any Jihadist element to speak of, though I don’t subscribe to the narrative of it being racist whites attacking innocent immigrants minding their own business. It sounds like a load of bigoted white yobs getting fed up with a load of bigoted Lebanese thugs who’d been terrorising the beach and it ended in a fight that both sides had been aching for. But these riots did not happen in a vacuum. Australia has been a prime target of the Islamofascists ever since the Bali bombings. In July London was hit by four bomb attacks and narrowly escaped another four—all carried out by second-generation British immigrant Muslims. Less than a month ago France was set ablaze by Muslim rioters whom the government dismissed as “youths,” the press refused to photograph, and whose Jihadist element was admitted only to stoutly deny it even as hooded men shouted “Allah Akhbar” as they torched more cars. With all of this going on, one would think that an episode of civil unrest involving "men of Middle Eastern origin" might raise a few questions such as, Are they Muslim? Are they being urged on by radical imams? Are Jihadist groups involved? Are there Islamist demands being made? Could this unrest be used as a cover for terrorist activity? The answer to some or all of these might be "no," but they deserve to be asked.
And what do Australia and the mainstream media ldo? They leap into action by stopping up their ears and closing their eyes in a perfect de Villepin impersonation and not asking the hard questions because they might not like the answers-- especially one's that suggest that multiculturalism is slow poison or that a welfare state generates violent underclasses regardless of the race receiving largesse.
As I said at the beginning, this seems to be just an ethnic punch up. Unfortunately, those whose job it is to keep us informed have agreed that multiculturalism is more important than the truth, so all we’re left with is “seems.”
Update:
Since I wrote this there have been developments. Four churches have been attacked in short order and Christian and Muslim Arabs are calling for a curfew on all Lebanese youths. Most significant is this quote:
Arab Christians have suggested the attacks on churches may have been meant as a violent attempt to "shame" the city's Lebanese Christian community into supporting Lebanese Muslims in the race-hate war, which began as a battle against young white males over use of suburban beaches.
Not a good sign-- especially if the attackers think they can firebomb Christians into supporting them.
Friday
16 December 2005
Iraqis 3, Terrorists Nil
Looks
like the Iraqis have pulled off a hat trick with their third successful
election that will bring in their first proper parliament.
Voter turnout
is estimated at 67 percent, a marked improvement over the 58 percent in
January, but no where near as impressive as the 100 percent turnout under
Saddam-- but then, no one is holding a gun to their heads this time 'round.
Speaking of guns, once again the biggest no show at the polling booths was the terrorists despite a threat by that Son of Fun, Al Zarqawi "to ruin the 'democratic' wedding of heresy and immorality." According to (of all sources!) the New York Times there were only scattered attacks including the standard 7 AM mortar round in the Green Zone timed so that the mainstream media would be sure to meet their deadlines. Part of the reason for this is the intense security set up by Coalition and Iraqi forces and part is another sign of a refreshing split in the terrorist ranks as Sunni factions not only urged their followers to vote, but even said that they'd protect the polling stations.
Meanwhile, a recent poll of Iraqi opinion shows that 71 percent said that their lives were Very Good or Quite Good and that a distinct majority have no desire to see the coalition leave until the Iraqi security services are ready to carry the can.
Do not, however, expect this sort of good news to make banner headlines today. The mainstream media is still getting their collective head around the idea that Iraqi democracy is not as dead as they'd believed, nor that the campaign against the terrorists is an endless replay of Platoon. Having no intention of getting caught accidentally covering a positive story about Iraq, the American cable services have quietly dumped their "imminent civil war" line about the elections in favour of shrugging them off as routine business.
Still, some light is beginning to seep in. Embedded reporter Marlin Kluvers has admitted to being surprised at what she found in Iraq and acknowledges that the Americans are not a load of mindless kilbots hell bent on torture and plunder after all.
And in proof that even the stars can leave their orbits, the BBC is forced to admit victory (or defeat in their case) with the headline "This is stability, at last." In case you don't believe me, here is the screenshot.
Sydney Update
The fallout from the
Sydney riots continue with two remarkable commentary pieces. The first
is by
Tim Priest, a
retired Sydney detective who blasts his former colleagues for surrendering
the streets to Lebanese gangsters in the name of Political Correctness, and
the second is
Keith Windschuttle's
argument that the real culprit behind the riots is the government's
disastrous policy of multiculturalism that has turned immigrants into
mutually hostile tribes while unjustly tarring every white Australian as a
crypto-racist.
I Feel So Much Safer
Finally,
there is the ongoing repeat of the road to Munich as Iran's lunatic
Islamofascist President
Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad goes on record as denying that the Holocaust ever happened
and says that the Jews should all be relocated to Europe or Alaska. He
doesn't care much which, seeing as he has his own nuclear option under
construction.
In response to this maniac's Hitlerian ravings the EU has once again leaped to the defence of civilisation and issued Ahmadinejad a stern finger wagging by the German Foreign Minster, Frank-Walter Steinmeier,
I say again: the government in Tehran must understand that the patience of the international community is not endless.
And no doubt Herr Steinmeier will keep on saying it until Israel does the EU's dirty work and starts bombing Ahmadinejad's reactors to rubble, in which case he will loudly condemn the Israelis while thanking them under his breath.
Monday
19 December 2005
King Kong
One of the nice things about a major movie release is that it energises the greedy little hearts of the studios, making them rush every related film out on DVD in an effort to cash in. This was the real reason I was so excited about Peter Jackson’s remake of King Kong. As far as I was concerned it could both suck and blow because I knew that the month before it was released Universal was sure to offer up the long-awaited DVD of the 1933 classic and that was all I wanted. Needless to say, I was more than delighted when the original was bundled with Son of Kong and Mighty Joe Young and that I was over the Moon when they also released King Kong versus Godzilla and King Kong Escapes in their own double pack. I even bought the 1975 remake for comparison purposes, though even I’m not so depraved as to fork out seven dollars plus tax for King Kong Lives, so my collection is likely to remain incomplete.
Anyway, after sitting through umpteen hours of Kongania I felt that I had found my inner giant ape and could see the Peter Jackson version with confidence.
Over all, I thought Jackson did a very good job. When I first heard that the running time was going to be over three ours I had the terrible fear that the end product would be unrecognisable or move at a snail’s pace, yet Jackson remained faithful to original screenplay with just enough changes to keep it fresh and surprise audiences familiar with the original. The three-hour running time meant that Jackson could insert more action scenes, expand the story, introduce new characters, and generally flesh thing out. This gave a greater richness to the story, however the original had a much tighter plot with its 100 minute running time. This is certainly where the original had it over the remake, as it took Jackson several scenes to explain what Merriam Cooper did with a line of dialogue. Still, the pacing was good with only a couple of slow spots. Unfortunately, these occurred in the third act when things should have been booking along. Instead Jackson took time out for some “moments’ between Kong and Anne Darrow (Naomi Watts) that, however beautiful, brought the plot grinding to a halt and gave the audience time to think, which is fatal in a fantasy film.
On the other hand, it is a marvellous film to watch. Kong is a masterpiece of CGI, which has finally matured into a tool that no longer draws attention to itself. New York of 1933 is realised with remarkable detail and Jackson’s Skull Island, while not as lush and exotic as Coopers, has a sharp, perverted quality to it. It is strangely beautiful, yet never safe or even comfortable even if no immediate danger is on offer. Its inhabitants aren’t primitive Micronesians as in the original, but the degenerate remains of some lost civilisation whose ruins are spread across the entire island. This is definitely not a vaction spot.
Watts’s Anne Darrow was very well acted, but not as well written as the original. The longer running time allowed scenes to be added that make Anne more active and assertive, which modern prejudices demand, but she remains believably feminine and does not come off as some sort of Buffy the Giant Ape Slayer. However, Anne becomes too comfortable with Kong by the middle of the second act and entirely lacks the very healthy fear that Fay Wray’s Anne kept until the end. Kong is, after all, a wild animal, however sympathetic he is. and we must have this danger constantly in our minds or the dramatic tension is lost.
As a side note, It is interesting that some of the scenes meant make Anne seem the modern ideal of the post-feminist Action Woman, such as being hurled about by carnivorous dinosaurs, pummelled into the ground, and having giant centipedes crawl all over her, would never have made it into the original 1933 film, as they’d have been regarded as too brutal and sadistic whereas today such portrayals of women are acceptable if not laudable. I sometimes wonder which era has the more enlightened view.
A refreshing change is that the Jack Driscoll (Adrien
Brody) is now a writer. This is fun and is probably easier for the audience
to identify with than Driscoll as a scowling seaman, but I found it annoying
since every time he sat down at his typewriter it reminded me that I should
be home writing and not watching movies.
Like I don’t have enough guilt in my life.
As I expected, Jack Black’s Carl Denham is spot on. He really did have me believe that he would sell anyone down the river if it would get his movie made. One of the best moments in the film was when Denham gave a stirring speech about completing the film in the name of a just deceased colleague, forgetting that he’d made exactly the same speech the last time someone was killed.
Of course, this is a remake, so it’s natural that Jackson threw in nods to the original such as reusing shots, music, and even costumes from the 1933 version in fresh and unexpected ways. Unfortunately, he also made references to the 1975 version when one would think it was better left forgotten.
The only real flaw with this King Kong is that it lacked the one scene I’d been longing for. I’d always thought that what was really needed was a shot of people watching Kong battle the aeroplanes atop the Empire State Building. Suddenly, one of the spectators shouts “Oh, my God!” and everyone ducks as a mound of something brown and nasty comes crashing down and destroys a late-model Packard.
Poo flinging-- you can’t beat it.
Tuesday
20 December 2005
Stop the Presses
The
BBC's
Caroline Hawley
is leaving Baghdad to take over the Beeb's Middle
Eastern Bureau and her farewell piece is a beautiful distillation of the
defeatism, anti-Americanism, self-righteousness, and conceit that we've all
come to know and
loathe.
The people of post-election Iraq have been so loud in saying good bye to Ms.
Hawley and showing concern that the door doesn't hit her on the way out that
the departure of another journalist legend has been overlooked. BNN's top
reporter Matt Sitzfleish is ending his remarkable career in Iraq to start
work on a special series of reports from the Walter Burns Center for Ethics
in Journalism and Alcoholics Rehabilitation Ward and has agreed to give
Ephemeral Isle this exclusive reflection on what made his oeuvre such a
cornerstone of Iraq war news reporting.
Critics of the mainstream media have been repeating the claim that Western reporters in Iraq are a load of agenda-driven, unreflective, left wing, anti-American hacks who are so lazy or cowardly that they won't even venture outside their hotel bar in the Green Zone in Baghdad. I feel that now is the time to put my mother and the rest of them right.
I leave Iraq with many fond memories, such as the outstanding daiquiris served in the Gecko Lounge at the Palestine Hotel and the quality of the bar snacks served during their Happy Hour (well drinks ½ price)-- voted in the Top Ten by western journalists in the Baghdad Green Zone. Of course, I can’t leave out the excellent karaoke nights at the Palestine’s other great watering spot, the Sunset Bar, where one can find the cream of CNN and the New York Times crooning away into the wee hours of the morning-- not like those damn embeds who go native the moment they run across an American soldier who seems half human.
It was at places like these that I made some my most valuable contacts: Achmed the barman, Fatima the cocktail waitress, Mahomet the busboy, and Yasmine the hatcheck girl. But my greatest asset has been the unswerving diligence of my plucky translator Tariq who has not left my side since he was appointed my official minder by Saddam’s secret police when I arrived in Baghdad five years ago. It is through him that I have made my most productive liaisons with various stringers who are so Johnny on the spot with news of insurgent attacks and video footage of car bombings as they happen that one would think that they were Al Qaeda members themselves. And so many of them! Tariq says that there are at least two dozen at any time. Mind you, such high quality cost BNN a pretty penny to run, but it’s all worth it if it helps to uncover the truth about the war against the Iraqi people by the so-called American lead “Coalition.” Tariq says that it was worth it, too. Such a selfless man, though I still can’t figure out how he can afford a Lamborghini on a translator’s salary.
Many people ask me how it is possible to cover the news in Iraq given the awfulness of the situation caused by the pointless, unprovoked American invasion. I always tell them that the trick is co-operation. This is what I learned before the illegal Bush war for oil when I found that I could get access to whatever I wanted to under the Saddam regime so long as I was careful about what I printed and remembered to run my copy by Tariq, whom I paid for his help, so that nothing unfortunate slipped through. That sort of co-operation continues today. For a very reasonable price I’ve been allowed to meet with insurgent leaders to pass on their press releases to the Western media provided I did nothing to hinder their plans, help the authorities to capture them, or reveal the location of hostages slated for beheadings. In return the insurgents were always careful to stage their car bombings and mortar attacks within camera shot of my hotel and before 7 AM so I’d meet my deadline and not miss my first martini of the morning.
The other thing I learned is never to complicate a story with irrelevant material. If you already have a lead about four American soldiers killed by an IED there is no point in cluttering the narrative by telling the reader that the soldiers were killed in a major offence that wiped out 1500 insurgents, neutralised three tons of high explosives, and captured Al Qaeda’s current number two man in the country. You’ve got the important event; stick with it. Don’t let a little thing like a military victory interfere with your primary mission of pointedly tolling every casualty in a battle zone as if men had never died in war. This was a particular problem with the so-called “elections.” The first one caught us so badly off guard that I almost choked on a cocktail onion. There we were ready to cover a day of violence and bloodshed that would speak truth to power and what happens? A load of peasants unfit for democracy show up and start waving their purple fingers around showing us that they’d voted. Big deal. I voted and where did that get me? Howard Dean still isn’t president. Anyway, by the third election we’d learned our lesson and stayed as far down the other end of the bar as we could while asking Achmed to turn down the TV in case Fox came on with a bulletin. Hopefully, no one heard anything about the voting at all unless there is some sort of globe-spanning electronic computer network that anyone can have access to that I’m not aware of.
Furthermore, you have to pitch things right. Choose your interview subjects carefully. If Tariq couldn’t line up one of his cousins, I’d usually go for the doorman at the Palestine or the guy in the lobby who keeps notes of when military convoys pass by. They’d usually give me a pithy statement about how everyone hates the Americans before trying to sell me a Rolex cheap. And always use the word “many” whenever possible. I could say anything I wanted without any facts to support it so long as I said that "many" people agreed with me and that sure cut down on the work load when we were doing shooters.
Of course, I never went to those U.S. military briefings. They’re run by sneaky bastards who do clever things like releasing information about charges being brought against soldiers for abusing prisoners before the guy who just bought me a bourbon and water gave me a hot tip about it three months later. How can I accuse them of a cover up when they keep doing things like that? Worse, they’re always going on about building schools, fixing the sewage works, securing villages, training Iraqi forces, and killing insurgents. Blah, blah, blah. And if you ignore them they just go out and tell people themselves (often out of their own pocket) without the filter of our keen, unbiased journalistic insights to filter out their racist, homophobic propaganda. Who has time for that when they just got a new shipment of Heineken back at the hotel?
But all that is scotch over the gums. As I stagger out of the Gecko Lounge for the last time I see a future of a defeated America and an Iraq in turmoil and I remind myself that I did what I could.
Wednesday
21 December 2005
Softly, Softly, Losee Waree
I
see by the news that the government has given up on its proposal to require
foreign imams to pass a
"Britshness"
test.* This comes only five days after they
also abandoned the plan to
close down extremist mosques after protests from Muslim "leaders" and
our newly politicised police force, that can't seem to recall whose side
they're supposed to be on, cried "Foul".
I didn't have too much hope for the "Britishness" nonsense, seeing as it included such insightful questions as " Where are the Geordie, Cockney, and Scouse dialects spoken?" (Answer: On the BBC, but only by if the speaker's accent is so thick as to be incomprehensible, because we can't have any of that RP rubbish if we're going to stick it to the toffs whenever we can, right?).
This was supposed to be part of Tony Blair's "get tough" policy with terrorists, but when "get tough" sounds more like "meekly question" it isn't exactly going to stop the presses when the whole thing collapses like a wet paper bag. Let's face it, Blair is an exceptional politician in that he sincerely wishes to do good and for all his modernist fetishes he at least understands that Islamofascism is a real threat. The only problem is that he has a knob of ivory where his head should be and he has no understanding about how to fight a war on his own doorstep, as he so glaringly demonstrates time and again by responding to every IRA atrocity and "take our word for it" decommissioning by granting more concessions to the blackguards. If Blair can't handle a load of murdering thugs who've spent the last generation going from would-be liberators to protection racket gangsters, how could he hope to handle suicidal Jihadis bent on world conquest?
The trouble with Blair is that he wants to do the right thing, but he wants to it done on his terms. In that respect he's rather like Cromwell, who was forever appointing governments and then dissolving them when they didn't run the country as he would have done. Hence Blair's efforts to bypass the House of Commons, abolish the House of Lords, and his general antipathy towards anything that smacks of tradition or even anything dating to before 1997. That would be fine if he actually had the balls of a Cromwell or even of a Thatcher, but he doesn't. He's very good at getting his way when he has the polls solidly behind him, or when he can avoid the opposition, and he does equally well when the polls are against him, yet his only opponents are an apathetic middle class and a Tory party in the middle of a perpetual identity crisis. But let him face some aggrieved pressure group such as Muslims, gay rights activists, or an anti-hunting lobby that is willing to push back hard and he baulks at the first hurdle.
This isn't much of a liability in peacetime-- especially for someone like Mr. Blair who is happy to get part of what he wants in expectation that he'll get the rest later. But when you are at war the consequences of surrender isn't abolishing centuries old traditions, destroying cherished institutions, undermining the family, or handing over sovereignty to the EU; it is fatal. Literally, if you happen to travel on the Underground.
Blair wants to confront the Islamofascists, but he doesn't want to do so on the home front because that would mean admitting that we really are at war. If he did that he'd have to admit that politics as usual no longer apply and he'd have to make temporary peace with his political enemies and face down the special interest groups who oppose the war effort. That would mean real hard, dirty fighting with real political costs. There's no chance of his doing so, therefore Blair opts for the greater of two evils and trying pass fatuous "Britishness" tests to handle raving homicidal maniacs, but failing in the attempt.
It's interesting to contrast Tony Blair and George Bush when it comes to the home front war. Bush is forever being accused by the left of being hell bent on destroying civil liberties, but on closer examination it turns out that everything that Bush does is what one would expect an American president to do in time of war; use his executive powers to target the enemy. He locks up enemy combatants in accordance with the Geneva conventions, he reserves the right to use military tribunals against them, he has them interrogated with a severity in compliance with the law yet with the benefit of the doubt going to protecting American lives, he has the intelligence services carry out the surveillance they have been empowered to do, and he imprisons the worst terrorists abroad. Bush's critics may scream and howl and try to make a scandal out of his every decision, but at the end of the day it turns out that the only civil liberties his critics are championing are those of the enemy.
Mr. Blair, on the other hand, continues to pretend that there is no real war on, so when he tries to have rabble-rousing imams deported or those entering the country (why let them in at all?) required to pass a "Britishness" test he's accused of discrimination and then he backs down because his critics are right. In peace time, such measures are horribly discriminatory, but in war they are perfectly reasonable. But according to Blair, there is no war, therefore what he does is placate his critics while at the same time he draws up legislation that does not discriminate, but which does reduce the liberty of all Britons. That's why he's so keen to pass his Religious Hatred Bill. If he can't shut the Jihadi imams up, he can pass a law that will shut everyone up and keep the Muslim groups happy because he's handed them a veto they can use against anyone who dares questions them.
Mr. Blair has visited a very strange war on Britain. It is the first in history where the prime minister has made it so that the British will have to look over their shoulders before they speak, yet where those who seek to destroy them can scream for blood at the top of their lungs.
*Tip o' the hat to Dhimmiwarch.
Thursday
22 December 2005
Christmas Tale
The
Archbishop of Canterbury came to the defence of Christmas with a
blistering statement in which he lambasted "the banning of Christian images
and words by silly bureaucrats."
Personally, I find Dr. William's remarks refreshing. Trouble is, however much I agree with the Archbishop I take cold comfort in his words. When the likes of Rowan Williams comes out to bat for our side it's like watching a dog walking on its hind legs. You aren't impressed by his doing it well, but by his doing it at all. Anglican clergymen spend so much of their time acting like trendy lefty social workers rather than men of the cloth that I'm sick to the back teeth with having to praise them on the rare occasions when they actually do their jobs and stand up for the faith instead of helping to tear it down.
The Question that Dares Not Speak Its Name
Meanwhile,
the BBC is doing its part to make sure that no unwanted fact is uncovered in
this
piece about a Lancashire "teenager" arrested for running a bomb factory.
If you read carefully you'll notice that there is no attempt to reveal the
boy's ethnicity or religion.
Gee, you would think that after 7/7 that would be a teensy bit relevant.
Clouds over Chechnya
Then there is this
disturbing bit of news out of Chechnya where forty students have taken ill
with what may be nerve gas poisoning. If this is so and the
Islamofascists are behind this, then we are that much closer to the
nightmare scenario.
Tip o' the hat to Little Green Footballs.
All I Want For Christmas
Finally,
here are
two
things I REALLY want Santa to bring me.
Tip o' the hat to Lileks.com.
Friday
23 December 2005
Happy Christmas
I'm off for a Christmas weekend of family fun and ham. Back on Tuesday.
A very happy Christmas from Ephemeral Isle,
Tuesday
27 December 2005
Nip & Tuck
According to
this report, Osama Bin Laden's niece, Wafah Dufour has posed for a
pictorial layout in GQ magazine. Interesting, but I suspect that there
is more to this than meets the eye. After all, Bin Laden hasn't made
an appearance in a very long time and I never recall Bin Laden and Ms.
Dafour being seen together, so is this just a bit of cheesecake or the most
cunning plan to avoid capture in history?
Headline of the Day
Glitter police 'drop rape charge'
No doubt operating out of the "fabulous" precinct.
Cuisine d'Espace Extra-Atmosphérique
Martian bread with tomato jam
In a burst of typical EU
logic, the European Space Agency has engaged a "leading French chef" to
prepare menus for ESA astronauts. It may seem odd to be worried about
the galley fare for the crews
of a European space fleet that doesn't exist, but you have to admire an
organisation that intends for the science payload to be outweighed by the
saucepans and ramekins in the galley.
The purpose of this exercise is not only to come up with dishes that can be made from ingredients grown aboard ship, but also to raise morale on long space voyages. Given that the menus include soy pudding and Martian bread with tomato jam, I suspect that anyone who brings a hoard of beef jerky on the trip will have to defend it with his life.
Poetic Justice
I
pointed out last year that the first reaction to the ban on fox hunting was
for the anti-hunting lot switching from acting like anti-establishment
martyrs to the worst sort of pro-establishment Thought Police overnight.
Hence the delightful justice of
this.
Tip o' the hat to Stephan Pollard.
Wednesday
28 December 2005
In Space, No One Can Hear You Belch
Spirulina Gnocchis. God have mercy on our souls.
From the log of Captain Escoffier of the EUSS Provençale
Day 1
A successful launch! We are on our way to Mars at last. Today Europe takes its rightful place at the forefront of space exploration by showing those cowboy Americans that space food is not all Tang and freeze-dried shrimp cocktail. We go to the stars with the creme de la creme of French cuisine. Lift off was flawless with only a two cracked ramekins and a broken bottle of balsamic vinegar to report. Mission Control was concerned about this, but decided not to abort the mission.
Such sang froid!
Day 2
I am immensely proud of my
command. The
EUSS Provençale is a marvel of engineering
with the largest crew of any spacecraft in history: twenty-five men!
True, sixteen of them consist of the Chef, Sous-Chef,
Chef de Partie, Poissonier, Rotisseur, Saucier, Grillardin, Potager,
Entremetier, Friturier, Garde-Manger, the Butcher Commis, Tournant,
Patissier, Confiseur, and Boulanger, but if one is going to have proper
French cuisine on the way to the Red Planet, then one must not skimp.
Actually, I made an error. It isn't twenty-five men, but twenty. I forgot that the British pulled out at the last minute because Chef Giscard said that he would rather die than prepare steak and kidney pudding or something called "toad in the hole." This leaves us without our engineering and navigation officers, but no matter. Better to end up getting to Mars a few weeks late rather than put up with the Englishmen's constant whinging about there not being any HP sauce aboard.
Day 3
Trans Mars Orbit Insertion Burn was on schedule. Unfortunately, we had to jettison A module with the science lab because Chef Giscard had underestimated the weight of the wine cellar. I meant to have a word with him about this, but he had enough on his hands due to the fact that the engine firing caused his Soufflé au Fromage to collapse disastrously.
Day 20
Chef Giscard had a triumph with his Lapin rôti au four. He was less successful with his Nymphes a la Aurore, as the frogs turned out to be more difficult than expected to handle in zero gravity and escaped into the service ducts.
Day 25
A superb Salade d'Endives, Noix et Roquefort today. Chef Giscard continues to excel.
We are still trying to locate the frogs.
Day 37
We are experiencing phenomena never seen by man before. Today we entered a belt of cosmic radiation that has totally destroyed our navigational array. Worse, the radiation was completely curdled the Sauce Bernaise. On the plus side, it has also crusted the Creme Brulè to perfection.
Frogs still unaccounted for.
Day 56
The long voyage is taking its toll. The truffles have gone off. This means that we must substitute Beurre de Cavaire for Sunday luncheon.
There is discontent among the men as the pastry chef complains of the difficulty of handling butter at absolute zero
Day 82
Chef Giscard tells me that the ship's laundry is failing to keep the table linens as crisp as they should be. This is grim.
Second Mate Ville reports croaking heard in starboard loading bay.
Day 112
We have entered the orbit of Mars. Thank God we have arrived at last! We are down to our last bottle of Chateau le Tour.
Day 114
I have ordered the landing module prepared for descent. Will the operations interfere with tonight's Perdeau aux Choux?
Day 115
The frogs! Nom de chein! The frogs have developed human intelligence due to living in the landing module without radiation shielding and have stolen our only landing craft with a view toward claiming Mars as their own. But the true disaster is that they have stolen half the saucepans and our entire store of dried herbs to start their new civlisation!
Day 120
Chef Giscard discovered that the frogs made off with his favourite knife. In a fit of rage, he stormed out of the kitchen. Unfortunately, he left through a docking port and caused the whole of D section to undergo explosive decompression, detaching the galley and sending the hydroponics module and all food supplies blazing into the Martian atmosphere.
Day 130
I have plotted an emergency return course to Earth. How we will make the three-month voyage on only a small hamper of Pate de Fois Gras and stale baguettes, I do not know.
Day 137
The cruel irony of fate! We shall not starve on our way home, but will it be worth it? Second Mate Ville, while searching C section for possible stray pots of Sauce Mayonnaise Broýee, discovered a secret refrigerated food cache smuggled aboard by the British crew before they abandoned the mission. We will live to see Paris, but at what cost? What terrible cost? In order to survive we must subsist on pork pies, black puddings, pickled onions, Mars bars, baked beans , tinned rice pudding, treacle cakes, Marmite, chips, spotted dick, pot noodles, prawn-flavoured crisps, fish paste, digestive biscuits, and on and on washed down with brown ale, Guinness, and tea made with tinned milk.
Bangers! Mon Dieu! We must eat bangers!
Thursday
29 December 2005
This Day in History
1994: Hannibal Lecter's monkey is taken into custody.
Friday
30 December 2005
Goodbye, 2005. Hello, 2006!
Happy New Year from Ephemeral Isle!