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| My friend Mandy has been making fairy houses. Seriously. They absolutely rock!!! Take a look at this.... ( Read more... ) | |
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| The BBC Iplayer may be my downfall. First a few eps of torchwood, then Dr Who, then Horizons, then that nice Mr Fry comes on with a lovely documentary about the invention of printed text... http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b009wynj.shtmlIt will be daytime TV before we know it, and may [insert imaginary friend] have mercy on my [insert fanstastical life-essence]... | |
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| The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the wind, In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land Full of the same wind That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
-- Wallace Stevens
Sonnet 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
-- William Shakespeare - Mood:cold

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| "There is really no reason to suppose that animals have a clue about why they do what they instinctually do, and human beings are no exception; the deeper purposes of our "instincts" are seldom transparent to us. The difference between us and other species is that we are the only species that cares about this ignorance!"
"Breaking the spell, Religion as a natural phenomenon", Daniel Dennett
I'm enjoying this book. Its eye-opening, in spite of some annoyance over patronising and over-stated "reasonableness" in the opening chapters. Dennett is a wordy fucker, and rather over-full with his own self-importance, but hes razor-sharp, too. His analysis of the origins of folk-religion as a potential evolutionary precursor for our main religious faiths is superb. I've been gripped by this.
And, again, I'm simultaneously fascinated and horrified by the irrationality of humankind. self included.... | |
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| There is a short Sci-fi story, by Ray Bradbury I think, I read as a child. I remember it made a big emotional impact on me.
Its about a planet where it rains. All the time. And the humans there have to live in artificial "sun-domes" because otherwise they go crazy, and wander around with their mouths open and their heads tilted back until their mouths fill with water and they drown... | |
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| We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. - John W. Gardner
I like that! :) | |
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| Just gotta pimp this...  "On June 9th 2007, several cities across the world including London will experience the joy of the world's largest naked protest against oil dependency and car culture." 3pm, Hyde Park Corner Yay!! :) http://www.worldnakedbikeride.org/uk/ | |
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| Watched this last night. What a fantastic film. Highly recommended. Kevin Spacey has some wonderful rants in it...
And here are the lyrics of the track that ends the movie (Everybody's Free - To wear sunscreen): ( Read more... ) | |
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| Its that time of year again... The Summer BurnBurn a couple of CDs, send them to two random strangers, and get a couple of random CDs back. Its heaps of fun. Ive done it for the last couple of years. | |
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| :) YAY!!! Just heard the news from Phil... unanimous verdict of "not guilty". Wicked :D ( Read more... ) | |
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|  Is where I'm gonna be :) | |
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| Just clocked this article in New Scientist, about the costs of stabilising climate change. Its interesting.. but when will economists get their head round the fact that the environment is not a disposable offshoot of "the economy", and that compared to maintaining a viable life-support system on the planet, maintaining a "healthy growth" to our current global capitalist financial system is at best an utter irrelevance... FFS. How much will people whine about a reduction in the growth-rate of GDP when London & New York are UNDER WATER and billions of people are starving to death or dying in tsunamis or resource-wars?? *facepalm*OK. Ok. Deep breath. Just stop thinking about it. OK? STOP IT!!!! | |
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| ...when a thoroughly evil piss-midget like Bushite-neocon Paul Wolfowitz, who has been busily strangling the planet's poor after his appointment to the World Bank, comes a tremendous cropper as a result of his own stupidity, corruption and hypocrisy......well... you just gotta laugh, eh? :) | |
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