so far so so-so

There are projects afoot to develop biospheres on Mars and the moon.

Good !

This is in readiness for mans eventual settlement elsewhere in the Loonyverse (particularly as Stephen Hawking gives us only a thousand years to irreversibly damage our own smallholding and render it uninhabitable).

Plants will be 'multi-functional units' (as they are), providing converted CO2 and hydrogen into oxygen and water whilst producing food for earth-challenged citizens.

A rose by any other name ....

This will require some tweaks regarding geo- and photo-tropism (gravity and light dictating that roots grow down and grass grows up ),and may necessitate pumping lots of CO2 into controlled environments.

And little rehabilitated robots trundling around with battered watering-cans.

I think that this is fabulous science and am amazed at the inventiveness of our species when put to the task of designing new stable-doors after the horses have bolted and are found lying tits-up on the perma-frosted tundra.

It is a great opportunity for a scientific expedition........

or....

Anyone else thinking penal-colony ?

Glass-houses...stones......

Biometric justice ......Say It With Flowers !

In tune with a list-making culture-

Here we go :

Michelangelo

Franz Marc

Vermeer

Honore Daumier

Matisse

I'm only allowing myself five .... like a calorie counter....

otherwise it could go onandonandon ...forever....

Oh, OK then...a bit of Rothko can't hurt !

(They are not in order, mind ).

All very old school and the only criteria here is that they painted like bastards and have the power to make me ....

......they do.

I could cry/laugh now just thinking about them.

I am empowered ...

Not to buy back the crap that I gave them at school fairs.

Not to eat the cakes that kids baked after they had their fingers up their snotty noses.

Not to volunteer for a coveted post as parent or teacher guv'ner.

Not to buy essential educational lap-tops to be used only on Bebo.

Not to help them with their homework .

Not to take the flak when I don't do any of the above.

Our off-spring are autonomous.....

and our home is not a democratic state.

If it was.......
we'd get eaten alive !.

Empowerment just sucks !!

Do you not think that if the world was full of cheap lighters that actually worked it would be a happier place ?

Well, it doesn't seem like a year does it ?

I wouldn't call myself a Burns fan , being English(ish) and finding the Scottish dialect generally unfathomable.

And Burns was fairly pedestrian - only a bit of a dissolute....only a bit of a romantic... only a bit of all of us.

Died in penury

One out of three.

Not really what is required in a great poet.

Apart from being totally dedicated to what he did best.

If someone can describe a mouse better than as a 'wee sleekit tim'rus cowern' beastie'

......or a man as being ' A Man For Au'That'

......or a broken heart in 'Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonny Doon '

......or communality in 'Auld Lang Syne'

Apart fom that, as I said......

......then bring it on !!

(and bring another bottle of Laphroaig with you)....

We have leftover haggis

and bashed tats

and who needs an excuse for a turnip ?!!

Little-Wing had flown across continents and over oceans.

Overcome by fatigue, he fluttered to earth in a field.

Whilst he was unconscious a bull wandered by and without even knowing it. shat on him.

When Little-Wing woke up he was blanketed, warm, a bit stinky and most of all, afraid.....

he began to cry out to his departing flock...

'help! help! don't leave me !'.

Hearing his panic-sriken call, a cat wandered by....

dug Little-Wing out and ate him.

The moral of the story is :

(Please meditate and pause)

People who get you in the shit are not necessarily your enemy

So many of you want to visit..

Here are the directions if you can't find it on the map.....

It is north of coldest

See that roundabout ?......

.....oh, ?????
.....for God's sake
......turn around !

I made sloe-gin from the blackthorns of Wales in about....
can't remember exactly.....

(Hic)...Autumnly time....

Jus' cracked a bottle...

MY O MY .....

....this is good shit !

Can I book an alarm-call for Saturday ?....

Surely we are not the only parents who went to a medievel castle on 'HEY KIDS LETS MAKE IT REAL' day ?

When they buckle brother and sinister up and give them swords and say ....

'Now safety is.......'

'THWAACKK !!!'

(castle resounds with hot tinny thud ).

Japanese tourists gather on the battlements to video a reconstructed battle .

Sinister lies star-fished on the floor having been twatted right on the chin with a sword which hasn't seen daylight (let alone action ) for 500 years.

'I think I'd prefer the rhubarb-and-ginger to the plum-and-stuck-pig jam' says mother in the souvenir-shop......

'D'you know... this reminds me of the golf driving-range for some reason......

....and two Dr Peppers, thanks !'.

And YES we did buy them plastic swords.

And ...

..before you ask......

YES of course !!!!!

It was all a bit messy....

But the good guys won in the end.

No table manners though....

....they really must stop playing with their food....!!

We have a house full of friends, wine, nuts, football, song and plastic swords.

And we can smoke and piss in the grid and punch each others lights out (should we so choose ).

So......

Mr Brown.......

'when exactly did being a puritanical control-freak go horribly wrong for you ?'

Things I vaguely remember having read in the paper today :

They will have our guts for garters wether we like it or not ....(I'm OK with this regarding my mortal remains , but don't imagine everybody is }

There are many, many tiny purple jellyfish fell out of the sky and they are heading my way.
(They can sting many, many tiny salmon to death).

It is getting harder to exclude kids from schools (Heads must now be jury, Judge and executioner )

The paras are jury,Judge and executioner, (and heads are rolling).

The Russian WAG look is in.

We didn't win the lottery.

What was 19 down ?

Blair is up for 2 million squid (and the presidency of the known universe ).

Anti-whalers say 'no'. {Japanese whalers say '+"**+')

yawwn.....

bed now.....

jus as soon as this pie is baked.....

....and where exactly are they on the jus-rol help-line when you need them ?

So I ppssffted off one of my resolutions and didn't salsa.

Because it was (owch !) raining really quite hard.

But tomorrow/today I have the challenge of woodcarving.

I imagine that this will be MFI flat-plaque and not sculptural, given that it is only 10 weeks (10 hours) of artistic labour.

With chisels.

So, shall it be a mermaid or a celtic-cross, a house-name, a wanker, or a quirky fish ?.......

Mermaid probably

(I have aesthetics you see).

Choices, choices !

So what exactly is the difference between an alligator and a crocodile ?

OOh I know miss, I know !

So do I.

Now.

I didn't know ALL the details til I had to google it mid (worthy and poetic) blog because FB was all hyper about an exploding python.

Which led to a serious dicussion on who would win...a crocodile, an alligator or a python in a big fight.....and who would be ref. and where would they stand, and if the python ate the....and it exploded.. (which it would, because crocs and alligators are pretty indigestible, like my dinner is right now) well, where would the ref. stand then , eh, eh ?

Because wow! there is a picture of it , see right there on google images and the (hurl) is here and the (hurl) is there, and it's all green and black (apart from the buckets of blood).

But they aren't from the same crocodilian family you say?

hmmm....interesting.

And I intended to salsa tonight.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

P. Larkin. The trees.

That is my pennyworth of 'from how to become to how to be '.

Happy New Year !