Generosity

This is the story of generosity for today. Beslan, whose school was besieged last year, has donated thousands of dollars to the relief effort for the south-east Asian tsunami. A widow's mite if ever there were.

So 2004

Since everyone else seems to have had a retrospective moment, allow me to indulge. While 2004 was undoubtedly the year of Dubya and the chav -- could they by any chance be related? -- it was also the year of the blog; and not just this one. Thousands of blogs were created and consumed through RSS feeds and aggregators and other nonsense.
Since I am always at the forefront of fashion -- particularly technological -- this leaves me in something of a quandary. Blogging, with all its linking to singular sites, uninformed political comment and Phil Space anecdote is like so last year. What should 2005 hold for an erstwhile martial arts doppelganger?

Blockbuster

Some people have way too much time on their hands. Nevertheless, I think you should check out this version of Michael Jackson's Thriller, done in Lego. Who said he was looking less black?

Freedom my arse

Big Brother is watching you, and it's destroying the evidence.
Firstly, the Cabinet Office is actively engaged in destroying emails that would have implicated David Blunkett -- and possibly Alistair Campbell's not-so-dodgy dossier -- before the Freedom of Information Act kicks in in January.
Secondly, the government is refusing to release advice on the legality of identity cards, having nevertheless allowed a House of Commons debate to try and make them law.
For all its pontificating about Open Government, Freedom of Information and Data Protection, this government and our recently deposed Home Secretary have implemented some of the most Orwellian legislation, amid a torrent of doublespeak. And if you complain, you're a wooly liberal or have something to hide, according to Charles Clarke.
Actually, it's the government that has plenty to hide, not least doing favours for friends at our expense or sending people to die in a foreign country under a false pretext. Let's all sit idly by while they do it.

Age shall not wither

The youngest children are all observation and no analysis, while our elderly tend to be all analysis and no observation. Don't we have room for both?
Infants only acquire their reasoning ability slowly: if I push my fingers in the plug socket I'll get a shock, if I do it again I'll get a shock, let me see what happens if I push my fingers in the plug socket...
As the senses dull, the elderly abandon their capacity to examine anything but move straight on to passing judgement. Things and people are good or (more usually) bad, irrespective of any facts we might be bothered to observe.
This might lead us to believe that the period in between offers a healthy balance between looking and learning. But our adolescence is so overcome by peer pressure and hormones that we think Busted are the saviours of rock. And just as adulthood offers us the chance to escape these shackles and breathe the air of independent thought we indulge in media and dodgy blogs that show us what we know already and tell us what to think about it.

Stop Press!

There's a pillow fight tonight just after 6pm outside the National Gallery: http://www.mobile-clubbing.com/pillow.html

Virtually a white Christmas

Here's a festive link: make your own virtual snowflakes.
Yes, I have been very busy.

The Union of the Beast

If you are worried about the end of the world and the part the European Union is going to play in it, you are probably Ian Paisley. The right reverend honorary doctor tells us that the 1999 Parliament of Europe is fulfilling Revelations, by showing a harlot riding a beast on its currency and promoting the Tower of Babel. But most strikingly, the seat bearing the number of the beast has been left unoccupied: "The Antichrist's seat will be occupied. The world awaits his full and final development. The Lord will destroy him by the spirit of His mouth (the Word of God) and by the brightness of His coming (2 Thes. 2:8). The coming of the Lord draweth nigh." I couldn't have put it better myself.

Pyrrhic victories

A certain Pyrrhus, king of Epirus in the third century B.C., attacked the burgeoning Roman Empire on the Italian mainland in order to defend his fellow Greeks. Though he won a couple of battles, he sustained such heavy casualties that he lost the war. This coined the term Pyrrhic victory, one that I am becoming familiar with in practice rather than as a matter of historical interest.
Having emailed our boss with collective concerns about changes to contracts -- see my Contract Tennis entry of December 6th -- the company has backed down and is now offering us benefits without any of the drawbacks. However, as mouthpiece for my disgruntled colleagues, I am perceived as the ringleader. Plutarch called Pyrrhus the fool of hope: any ideas that I had that our tribunes would engage with their minions constructively have been dashed; I'm now looking for an exit strategy.

Old fruity

This may be close on fifty years old, but it was still news to me. Did you know that the original lyrics to Tutti Frutti went:

Tutti Frutti, good booty
If it don’t fit, don’t force it
You can grease it, make it easy.

Little Richard was an old fruit playing to the New Orleans gay scene and had to rely on a producer to rewrite one of the seminal songs in Rock and Roll...