These people are beautiful, and restore my faith in the idea that not all human beings are cruel, parasitical, selfish, viruses in clothes.*
Have a look. Heck, join up if you care. I have.
*With thanks and apologies to Bill Hicks.
ALL THE BEST! RECOMMENDS. . .
CAUGHT AT KISSES
I caught my two babies Domino Basset and Lyra Tab kissing on the wicker chair in my living room.
Here is photographic proof.
Actually, the sad thing is that this event is a one-off as they are usually hissing and spitting and scrapping at one another.
GROWING NICELY
This picture of Lyra Tab was taken when I first got her, when she was six weeks old.
This was taken about a week back, now she’s approximately five months.
I’m not sure why one eyes is partly shut on this one. She hasn’t got a sore eye or anything. Still. . .
Can you see the difference? She really HAS grown, hasn’t she? Matured as well, looks older.
To be honest, though, because I see her every day, I hadn’t noticed. It’s only pictures, even rubbishy ones taken on mobile phone cameras, that help me plot her growing path.
AT LAST
From the Prime Minister, to all those who signed the petition to get recognition and an apology for the grossly unfair treatment received by Alan Turing;
Prime Minister: 2009 has been a year of deep reflection a chance for
Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who
came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred
in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British
experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to
honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches
of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which
have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take
up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am
both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists,
historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and
celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of
dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.
Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on
breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that,
without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could
well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can
point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt
of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that
he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross
indecency’ in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he
was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical
castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own
life just two years later.
Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing
and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt
with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his
treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance
to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and
the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted
under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more
lived in fear of conviction.
I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this
government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT
community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most
famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long
overdue.
But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to
humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united,
democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once
the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in
living memory, people could become so consumed by hate, by
anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices
that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European
landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls
which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is
thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism,
people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war
are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.
So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely
thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved
so much better.
Gordon Brown
Hurrah, yes hurrah! As a B of the LGBT community, I understand that there is a sense of justice at last.
Thank you, Mr Brown!
ANNIVERSARY. . .
Forty years ago today, 20th of July 1969, members of the human race in the form of Neil Armstrong and Buzz* Aldrin stepped upon the surface of another planet.
I was five years old that year, so was too young to really catch the excitement, although my Dad’s enthusiasm rubbed off on me somewhat, but not in much detail. I do recall being in our back yard and him picking me up and showing me the moon and telling me that men were up there. I could almost swear it was a full moon, but it’s probably due to layers of imaginative wishful thinking having me mis-remembering. I do remember though being very disappointed because I couldn’t see them, no matter how hard I looked.
Back to today, two of the three astronauts who made that first journey, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, the one who stayed, alone, in the command module orbiting the moon and never actually landed, have suggested that the world of space exploration be reopened, and this time the goal should be a man on Mars.
As a species we’re only just beginning our journey to the other planets, as thrilling, dangerous and challenging as when the first men got into their galleons and headed for the horizon, across uncharted seas, in search of land. We are natural explorers and Aldrin and Collins are just two whose imaginations have been fired with the idea of breaking from earth and discovering other places; it won’t be within my lifetime, but if we work together as a species, and stop this silly tribal infighting, which should have died when fire was discovered as a way of keeping away the bitter winter chills, we can plunge into truly uncharted territory, beyond the solar system and out into the universe.
*Although his born given name was Edwin, Buzz has been Aldrin’s legal name since 1988. It comes from his younger sister’s mispronouncing ‘brother’ as ‘buzzer’, shortened to ‘Buzz’.
THE PEAK OF MOUNT HAPPINESS
The European Champions Football League final result;
Barcelona 2 – 0 Manchester United.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. The almighty Man United have been BEATEN. Lost did you, Sir Alex? Oh dear.
This is possibly the best news I have had in an age.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR SEEGER
Pete Seeger. Spokesman for the ordinary working person, one time Communist, lover of his country but not what it had become, environmental activist, most of all, gentle folk philosopher and singer whose gentle, melodious interpretations and distinctive five-stringed country banjo playing stretch sixty-three years from the Spanish Civil War to the Obama Inauguration. One of the great men of the twentieth century. Ninety years old today. Happy birthday, Mr Seeger, may you have a wonderful birthday, from just one who admires you and all you do.
ON THE DAY
This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot,
This earth,
This realm,
This England
Never mind what they say, this wounded, battered, beloved nation of ours is still the greatest!
And a happy Saint George’s Day to you all.
BECAUSE IT’S IMPORTANT AND NECESSARY
For some reason, the page ‘Who I Am And Why I Do This’ has stopped functioning, so this intro is going to be at the head of my blog, probably for as long as the blog lasts. Newer rubbish will from now on be posted below it.
Now. . .
An update dedicated to ME!!!
I am a middle-aged female deist Mancunian, an oddball loner with misanthropic tendencies.
I live in a terraced house with cats Domino Basset and Lyra Tab in a small town on the East Lancs (Greater Manchester) border of the Manchester conurbation.
THE CATS
DOMINO BASSET
LYRA TAB
This blog is for my entertainment only.
The motto of my blog is ‘There is no god, so don’t worry about it’, which just about says it all, for as soon as we can shake off the idea that some being in the sky is watching us and wants us to live our lives according to his word, whatever it is, and we have only ourselves to rely on, the better it will be. For everyone.
I have no problem with believers believing in their chapels and temples and things, but when they put it out on the street, and try and make or alter laws according to the tenets of whatever fairy tale they follow, then I have a problem.
But then I have a problem with human beings in general.
I has have mentioned already, I am an irredeemable misanthrope, with a low opinion of my fellow humans (this, of course, includes myself.) and an endearing, unusually powerful respect for members of other species. I’ve never had any other reason to be any other way. Because, where human beings have harmed me, other species haven’t.
If you’re still around by this point, that means you are interested enough in my mumbling on to maybe want to send me fan e-mail. In that case, then here’s the place to send it;
jessica9909(AT)hotmail(DOT)co(DOT)uk
MORE RUBBISH BELOW
LESSONS NEVER TO BE LEARNED
Ninety years ago, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the guns went silent across Europe as the Armistice effectively ended the period of conflict already known as the Great War.
It was also labelled the war to end all wars.
Well, we really haven’t lived up to that label, have we? If it had been labelled just the start, it would have been more apposite. Mind you, I don’t think we could expect anything else knowing what human beings are.
Anyhow, cynicism to one side for a moment
Here’s a relevant piece of writing, inscribed on the wall memorial in Kohima to the allied dead of the battle of Burma in another, later, more destructive conflict;
When you go home,
Tell them of us and say,
For your tomorrow,
We gave our today
HEADING FOR A POINT
Earlier on today, an experiment which has been in the making for thirteen years, finally kicked off.
Underground below the borders of France and Spain the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, better known by it’s French-language initials, Cern, saw the Large Hadron Collider switched on.
It will shoot out millions of particles both clockwise and anti clockwise which will spin around a circular shaped tunnel. Later on in the month, they will collide. After many collisions, the results of them will be picked up and sifted through, using powerful detectors, and the results could tell us all we need to know about the Big Bang that started of the Universe as well as whether or not the Higgs boson, media-Christened ‘the god particle’*, whose energy provides the mass that hold everything together, exists. It’s got a title because previous experiments have detected something there, but only now can it be proven.
Exciting, or what?
Stay tuned for more information on the results. . .
*I’m not going to turn this into an anti-god-or-his-followers rant, ie if all goes to plan it will get us to a point where if god exists he will be caught on camera, so to speak, and it will finally put to rest forever the idea that the Universe is only ten thousand years old at the most, and science will make god obsolete.
IT IS IMPORTANT (REALLY)
What do all these people have in common?
Gary Oldman
Robert De Niro
Eminem
Maradona
Ted Bundy
Charlie Chaplin
Marie Curie
Prince William
Angelina Jolie
Brad Pitt
Kenneth Williams
They are (were) all left-handers. Plus, none of them are wastes of space expect Ted Bundy.
And mentioning this is relevant with it being national left-handed week.
Plus, the nights are getting darker sooner. And the rain has been absolutely torrential all day.
