Celestial Orb.

Routing through a friends long time packed box of possessions I discovered one of her childhood toys. I had never seen this toy before and was immediately smitten with it. I loved it’s malleability. I loved it’s fluidity. I loved its constant shifting and morphing. In fact there wasn’t anything that I actually disliked about it, apart from being quite pissed off no-one had thought to give it to me when I was a child. I went looking for my own personal one, on line and eventually found it via amazon.com (not available in the UK – maybe it is now, I don’t know) I wanted the larger size (8” – oo-er missus) and due to unavailability was forced to buy the 4” one, so really pushed that boat out and bought 2! I showed it to several people who all did exactly the same as me with it – it’s that kind of object, marketed now-a-days as ‘A kaleidoscope for the hands’, it is just asking to be moulded in to continous ever moving and different shapes. I found it incredibly difficult to put down, and although disappointed with not having the larger version found I could put this smaller one on my wrist and lower arm like a piece of filigreed armour. I loved the angles and the patterns each movement threw at me, round and round, distorting it in one place and seeing the entire object react like dominoes falling.

I was discussing my fascination of the Orb (that’s it’s official name) with a friend of mine who happens to be a highly skilled animator, I did not know this at the time and so when I was explaining that I wanted to watch it instead of holding and watching it, he offered to ‘have a go’ at animating it. Several thousand hours later he showed me what he had done. This is (sadly) a reduced version of his work. The full blown high resolution version has so much more detail and is also highly addictive. He took several images of his work and had them printed on to high quality paper, got them framed and they are currently on display at the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull. His name is Steve. This is my official ‘Thank you’…

Temabina

Bin Rat

I always manage to miss putting the bin out at the correct time on the day of a collection, so I put mine out late last night and feeling very pleased with myself I toddled off to bed. I got a text at “indecent o’clock” this morning, which threw me all out of kilter and found myself making a brew at 8.30. Struggling to cope with the bright sun shining through my ‘lovely’ net curtains, and the sound of the kettle coming up to boil, I could hear a strange muttering sound. Mmm, a man was outside my house, or to be precise, a strange man was in my bin. I cannot believe how upset this made me. I couldn’t decide whether to go and take my bin back (where would I put it? - In my front room for safe keeping until the heroic bin man came a calling?) or go out-side and tell him to piss off, it’s my rubbish – leave it alone! I watched him, I went to my door, I returned to watch him, went back to the door, in the end I went to the back of the house and just stood in my bedroom, utterly confused, upset and annoyed. My rubbish, my property, who the fuck did he think he was? I went back to my window and stood routed to the spot, utterly fascinated with this scavenger. I saw my old tobacco tin, all 3D, blue and shiny, a long time friend, laid to rest only the day before… did I really need it? Nope, it had made it to the bin ffs and I’ve had two more since that one, why was I so upset? After all it would be being re-cycled, surely this is a good thing? It didn’t feel like a ‘good thing’ though, then he removed the top boxes and picked up my kitchen rubbish…. Oh nooooooooo, wisely he put that down and moved on to another bag, out came my unwanted and un-needed USB mug of tea warmer… “what the fuck is he going to do with that?” I asked myself, I went to the back of the house again, decided to get my camera and take a photo or two of him, I mean, I get it, he is just doing what people the world over do, it is just that down a regular street in England I was totally unprepared for it, what shocked me the most was how violated I felt. Puts being robbed or being attacked into a dark perspective, I mean, it was only my bin, how on earth do people with truly distressing situations cope?

Cox Brothers. Life is full of surprises.

On Saturday night I went to a pub I had never been too before. I met a whole bunch of people whom I was not expecting to meet and I had a blast.

Since the smoking ban I have been totally put off going to pubs, however, these days the Breweries and Landlords work especially hard to cater for the ‘dreaded smokers’ by placing them under huge square brollies – if you’re lucky there is also a heater, if you hit the jack-pot, then you may even get two. Last night was a jack-pot, it is just such a shame that it is still fucking freezing, even under one of them, it’s like being in a bathroom with a wall heater, if you are not directly underneath it then you remain cold, if someone else is standing in front of it, you will remain cold, you have to stand up and hog it for your-self, you may as well be standing in a cold room and smoking – oh, you are, except the cold room is in fact out-side. That said, you still find the more interesting people out-side, and those people would rather remain out-side and able to smoke than in-side, wanting too, knowing they are not allowed. Madness.

There was a band on, this I was also not expecting, sadly they were in-side and playing to a room full of ‘no-one’ for much of the time that I was there. It would have been a great atmosphere if the smokers had been in-side, we got sloppy seconds, sitting like criminals pawing at the door to be let in, the music barely getting through to us, every now and then I would be able to tune in, I would have loved to have had the best of both worlds, smoking, beer and them. That or give up smoking *thinks about it* nope, not going to happen. The unfortunately named Cox Brothers – in this day and age, surely a better name could be found? – were surprisingly good, sadly, I only remembered I had my camera with me as the third song I had enjoyed finished, so I missed the golden opportunity to record them, here is Easier To Lie, which was the only full song I actually managed to record, and the ending of Hard Times. For a little pub it was a great night. Tis a CAMRA real ale pub too :)

Tom McRae. Rescue Rooms, Nottingham.

(FYI - 'Bezzie' is Yorkshire for Best Friend)

Bezzie and I started our journey, to see the Fantastic Mr McRae at the Rescue Rooms in Nottingham, on a sunny Monday afternoon. We decided to go on the train, allowing for a stress free and easy glide in to the City Centre, one smooth cab fare away from the cheap and nearly cheerful hotel we’d booked. This gig was meant to happen sometime last year, however with the music industry still calling Tom and Tom deciding to listen, he re-scheduled. We were gutted, yet took this disappointment on our chin(s), buckled down and prepared ourselves to wait.
Is it Billy Connolly :s Jasper Carrot? :s, that talks about always sitting next to the nutter on the train? Well, whoever it was, Bezzie got him this time. We had a table and strange yon chappie was opposite us, wedged in between the chair and the table, he spent most of his time looking out of the window, and it took me quite a while to realise the odious smell was not coming from a few seats back right were the toilets were…..



You just know it’s gonna be a great 24 hours, don’t cha?

We stopped somewhere with a big fancy shiny wall of a fountain, Sheffield, and yes, that car park building did grab my attention – again! Managed a quick fix of nicotine and then off towards Nottingham, convoluted? You bet.



We located a bottle of wine shop (Tesco’s) and were off in the cab before we’d even got off the train, all was so efficient and easy, scarily smooth. Seeing the orbital ‘eye’ construction threw me a bit, thought we’d somehow time warped to London or something… it was a good reference point though lol



The hotel did exactly what it said on the can, and even if it hadn’t, the bottle of wine we started, softened the basic room, Bezzie booted up the heating and in it’s warmth, we chilled, deciding where to go a hunting for food….



What was really great was that we found an Italian restaurant that was friendly, inviting and with excellent staff, Anna, our waitress is ‘tea mad’.



She is also off to Uni in London for a further five years of study, interested in cancer (or as she said, ‘Oncolgy’ ~ my new word for the day.) I wasn’t expecting that reply when I commented on her tat’s, yes, tats’ and then asked if I could take photies. I love tea too, infact I take my pyramids with me when off to visit other climates, (Lancashire, France, Tibet….) I also love weaving, I would just never get a tat’ of a loom to show my passion, ahhh, I know what it is, I’m getting old.



We had a scrummy delish bottle of ‘dark and aromatic‘ mm mm mmm, why pay for 2 glasses when you can get a bottle for much better value….? And Bezzie wasn’t driving, so let’s take full, full advantage of it….
It was with a warm, alcohol fuelled glow that we wandered through the city centre looking for the Rescue Rooms, and what a treat it was when we found them ( We had to walk past the huge square NotTombrella’s, all heated and ready for The Smokers - what joy!)



The bar staff were friendly, served us our beer and we went next door and into the belly of the whale.
Brian Wright was already part way through one of his songs, I don’t know how many we missed, and after seeing and hearing him for the first time at Brudenell, I was sad to know I had missed even a short part of it. I really like this guy. I bought the cd bargain of the year when I got all three of them. I haven’t got a fave yet, however I know I love Accordion. I ended up standing next to someone who was also impressed with him, nice to see the support network of gigging working first hand, I hope Brian’s sales have been impressive…. I know the Tom Tea Towells have all gone, and I am annoyed with myself for falling in to the hype of now wondering if I should have bought one when the opportunity was there (Brudenell), why were they so damned popular? Will he be getting more? Did I miss something special? Why am I even saying this to myself? And the dreaded one…. Will it be on ebay for ‘big money’ one day? I threw away my ‘Wimsies’, it hurt to see them sell for more money that is decent lololol Got Regrets (But I'm hopeful yet )….
What I truly truly love about Tom Gigs is the respectful crowd. You can hear a pin drop, it was, I hope, lovely for Brian to also experience.
I am absolutley crap with naming most of Tom’s songs, even though I know them, it must drive Bezzie mad sometimes, so I refer to the play list someone kindly put up,

Alphabet Of Hurricanes
Me and Stetson
Karaoke Soul
Summer Of John Wayne
End Of The World News (Dose Me Up)
American Spirit
A & B Song
Please
One Mississippi
Walking To Hawaii
Still Love You
Silent Boulevard
Encore
My Vampire Heart
For The Restless
Boy With The Bubblegun

I was standing next to a couple of guys who were both seeing Tom for the first time, they were excited and it was lovely to see the kind of draw that Tom has on his fans, I knew what they were going to hear for the first time, I knew just how Tom’s voice can tingle the base of your neck, swamp you with emotions, jab you with the quality, mesmerise you, and standing next to them anticipating for them was a thrill all of it’s own. I hope they enjoyed the gig as much as Bezzie and I did. Karaoke Soul was one of my highlights, Bezzie says we haven’t heard it live since 2005 (she has an incredible memory for this kind of information) I just swayed to the sound, aware of people’s reactions on hearing the opening bars. Summer of John Wayne has a sound to it that reminds me of one of my fave Tom songs, The Only Thing I know, I go somewhere else inside myself listening to them, his lyrics truly reach me, mean something to me, and that is when I hear or feel, know, his melancholy, for all his irony and bitterness, it is melancholy for me that makes this man one of our great unknown talents. James who? Eat your heart out.

Silent Boulevard was just superb.
They were all brilliant.

It was also interesting to see that the merch stall were asking the kinds of questions that Tom / cafe, should be asking. What he could expect from his fans. What his fans expect of him. Would we prefer bigger venues, how much would we would be prepared to pay to see this man / cafe tour perform? Personally, I’d pay a little bit more, that’s because I am selfish and want to keep him, like I would a beautiful secret, one that you can share, it’s just the child inside doesn’t want too, like having three wishes and knowing you should share at least one of them yet are unwilling to actually commit. Or is that just me? lol
At the Leadmill, if you’re reading this Tom, we’d love ‘Won't Lie’ if at all possible, that and The Only Thing I know, please.

Child Rapists Protected. More information.

www.davidicke.com/articles/child-abuse-mainmenu-74/31148-paedophilia-and-satanism-the-fabric-of-the-web

Child Rapists Protected By The State

In the October 2009 print edition of the UK Column, we reported in our article “BBC Hides Truth of Girl’s Sexual Abuse Ordeal” the shocking ordeal of Downs Syndrome girl, Hollie Greig, who was horribly abused by an Aberdeen paedophile ring, over a period of ten years. After investigating and planning a documentary, the BBC abruptly dropped the case, despite admitting that Hollie was a reliable and accurate witness. It is important to stress that both the police and qualified medical experts have described Hollie as a competent and entirely honest witness.
From the age of just six, Hollie was repeatedly sexually abused by her father, Denis Charles Mackie. Later, Mackie began sharing his daughter with a gang of paedophile “swingers” that has been operating in Aberdeen for many years.
The identities of a further seven child victims are already known. There is no question that the gang are well-connected, efficiently organised and totally ruthless. Our frightening story is that they are protected by individuals of “high standing” within the Scottish establishment.
In 2000, after 14 years of terrified silence, Hollie eventually told her mother, Anne, about the abuses. Formal statements were made to Grampian Police, providing all the horrifying details and the names of the abusers. They included a senior Scottish Sheriff, a policeman, social workers, a nurse, a solicitor, an accountant, a fire officer, married couples and others. Some of the rapes were carried out at the homes of these individuals, including that of the Sheriff’s sister. Other children were sometimes involved, including children of the paedophiles themselves.
The latest chapters in this astonishing and horrifying story about Hollie, and the seven other abused children, have taken place over the past few weeks. The key issues are a continued refusal by Grampian police to fully investigate the overwhelming evidence for the paedophile rapes, and a wall of silence by the Scottish establishment.
Whilst there has been some general Scottish media coverage, notably in The Firm and the Aberdeen Press and Journal, the media has been largely silent on what must be one of Scotlands worst top level paedophile scandles. A key figure in the press silence is the Lord Advocate, in her former role as Procurator Fiscal in Aberdeen, when in 2000 she is alleged to have effectively buried the case.
Was this to prevent her associate and most influential member of the paedophile ring, Sheriff X, from being investigated, along with the other named members of the fifteen-strong rape gang?
Elish Angiolini, the Scottish Lord Advocate, is in charge of all criminal prosecutions. She is alleged to have reacted immediately to public calls for a full police investigation, by pressurising against publication. Subsequently, and under considerable duress, The Firm published an apology. Shortly afterwards the Press and Journal ran a story accurately describing the case, mentioning a sheriff and police officer without identifying them. Angiolini was not discussed in the article.
Mrs Angiolini`s role in the case recently aroused further suspicion, when it was claimed that she had used a private law firm, Levy and McRae, to issue warnings against all major Scottish editors, threatening them with legal action if any mention was made of her involvement in the case. Suspicious and angry, many individuals directly working to obtain justice for Hollie, as well as a growing number of the general public, now consider that key establishment figures, many with direct responsibility for criminal investigations and justice, have made a concerted and continuous effort to conceal the facts from the people of Scotland. Despite the pressure, investigators and campaigners for Hollie continue to stress that they hold documentary proof of the Lord Advocate’s actions, as well as proof that she has repeatedly failed to tell the whole truth about her connections with the Hollie abuse case for whatever reason.
The senior partner in the Law Firm, Peter Watson, who is also head of litigation, is understood to have refused to comment as to whether the firm’s fees have been billed to Mrs Angiolini personally, or if they are being paid by the Scottish taxpayer.
Mrs Angiolini’s office decided in December 2009 that they would not pursue the case due to “insufficient evidence.” Corroborating evidence by private investigators and researchers indicates that other than Hollie, not one of the twenty-four named abusers and victims has even been questioned by Grampian Police.
This follows the pattern of 2000, when the crimes and perpetrators were first reported. At that time, the police later admitted that only one of the gang, Hollie`s father, had even been interviewed.
The UK Column is aware that investigators have just received from the Crown Office, after years of rebuttals, the Post Mortem report of Robert David Greig, brother of Hollie`s mother Anne. Robert died mysteriously in an alleged car fire in 1997. Despite extreme inconsistencies in witness statements and circumstances, no inquest took place and the cause of death was officially due to smoke inhalation.
The Post Mortem stated that Robert has suffered considerable damage to his skull, two broken ribs and a broken sternum. Informal professional medical opinion so far is of the view that Robert had been severely beaten, had alcohol forced down his throat and then thrown into the burning vehicle.
Although this was not known at the time, Hollie, in 2001, told her mother that just prior to his unexplained death, Robert had caught Hollie`s father sexually abusing her.
The campaign for justice for Hollie, and other vulnerable victims of paedophiles in England and South Wales, not only goes on, but has intensified as outraged members of the public have flooded Aberdeen with leaflets naming all current members of the gang, including the head of a special school. All Aberdeen Councillors and MPs have also been alerted, but with little effect.
There appears to be a conspiracy of establishment silence where the abuse of Hollie is concerned. Many people in Aberdeen are asking just who possesses the courage and decency to stand up against these staggering and shocking crimes against most vulnerable members of society? Certainly not their elected national and local representatives.
UK Column volunteers continue to be shocked by the quantity and quality of evidence reaching them on the subject of paedophile and sexual abuse against young and vulnerable children in care and otherwise. The common theme is that victims and their supporters are unable to get any real support from Members of Parliament, Local Councillors, the Judiciary, Police and other ‘officials’.
Many describe the creation of a wall of silence, often accompanied by targetted intimidation against the victims.
Recently a policeman personally told the UK Column that police had themselves experienced their own paedopile investigations suddenly being dropped by senior police officers. He added “If you want to really get to the paedophiles you should look at Westminster”. The implications of this statement are frightening – a paedophile ring amongst our political leaders – the political elite which has control of education and Social Services? The general public needs to open its eyes and confront this evil – and fast.
UK Column

Please contact Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish Parliament, and demand that action is taken in this case ... email: firstminister@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
Link to the post:
http://www.wholetruthcoalition.org/2010/02/11/child-rapists-protected-by-the-state/Link
to Whole Truth Coalition: http://www.wholetruthcoalition.org

Audi.

I like this :)

The Girl Called Polly Nomial

Here’s a sad story of a girl called Polly Nomial
Once upon a time (1/t) pretty little Polly Nomial was strolling across a field of vectors when she came to the boundary of a singularly large matrix. Now Polly was convergent, and her mother had made it an absolute condition that she must never enter such an array without her brackets on. Polly, however, who had changed her variables that morning and was feeling particularly badly behaved, ignored this condition on the basis that it was insufficient and made her way in amongst the complex elements. Rows and columns closed in on her from all sides. Tangents approached her surface. She became tensor and tensor.
Quite suddendly two branches of a hyperbola touched her at a single point. She oscillated violently, lost all sense of directrix, and went completely divergent. As she tripped over a square root that was protruding from the erf and plunged headlong down a steep gradient. When she rounded off once more, she found herself inverted, apparently alone, in a non-Euclidean space.
She was being watched, however. That smooth operator, Curly Pi, was lurking inner product. As his eyes devoured her curvilinear coordinates, a singular expression crossed his face. He wondered, “Was she still convergent?” He decided to integrate properly at once. Hearing a common fraction behind her, Polly rotated and saw Curly Pi approaching with his power series extrapolated. She could see at once by his degenerate conic and dissipative that he was bent on no good.
“Arcsinh,” she gasped.
“Ho, ho,” he said, “What a symmetric little asymptote you have I can see you angles have lots of secs.”
“Oh sir,” she protested, “keep away from me I haven’t got my brackets on.”
“Calm yourself, my dear,” said our suave operator, “your fears are purely imaginary.”
“I, I,” she thought, “perhaps he’s not normal but homologous.”
“What order are you?” the brute demanded.
“Seventeen,” replied Polly.
Curly leered “I suppose you’ve never been operated on.”
“Of course not,” Polly replied quite properly, “I’m absolutely convergent.”
“Come, come,” said Curly, “let’s off to a decimal place I know and I’ll take you to the limit.”
“Never,” gasped Polly.
“Abscissa,” he swore, using the vilest oath he knew.
His patience was gone. Coshing her over the coefficient with a log until she was powerless, Curly removed her discontinuities. He stared at her significant places, and began smoothing out her points of inflection. Poor Polly. The algorithmic method was now her only hope. She felt his digits tending to her asymptotic limit. Her convergence would soon be gone forever.
There was no mercy, for Curly was a heavyside operator. Curly’s radius squared itself; Polly’s loci quivered. He integrated by parts. He integrated by partial fractions. After he cofactored, he performed runge - kutta on her. The complex beast even went all the way around and did a contour integration. What an indignity - to be multiply connected on her first integration. Curly went on operating until he completely satisfied her hypothesis, then he exponentiated and became completely orthogonal.
When Polly got home that night, her mother noticed that she was no longer piecewise continuous, but had been truncated in several places But it was too late to differentiate now. As the months went by, Polly’s denominator increased monotonically. Finally she went to L’Hopital and generated a small but pathological function which left surds all over the place and drove Polly to deviation.
The moral of our sad story is this: “If you want to keep your expressions convergent, never allow them a singledegree of freedom.”

Strictly Come Dancing 2009.Tesses dresses.

Me and my Bezzie (best friend) have been dedicated followers of (not fashion – as you will see) Strictly Come Dancing 2009. I persuaded her to watch it in 2008 and so it was with great ease she wished to continue with the 2009 series. We both thoroughly enjoyed the entire series however, we have spent far more time this year criticising and generally slagging off the costumes. Especially the hideous outfits poor, poor old Tess has been made to wear. You have to have sympathy for the woman, married to Vern, (Brucies long lost great, great grandson?) left with some of the most inane and boring lines in BBC history, and for one horrendously long week forced to work along side Ronnie (yes he is still with us) Corbett. Tis enough to make you exhausted just reading about it.
I supported Zoe until she left, I then swapped to Ali, until finally I had no choice but to support ‘Team Cola’, at no point did I ever want to support Ricky – who seemed to find it difficult to show humility or his struggle, yes I admired his dancing, sadly rather like I admire a great painting, you can see the skill but it is empty, soulless, cold, uninspiring. Maybe someone foolishly told him showing us, the viewing public that these things show weakness? For me, he did himself no favours. At least Team Cola showed improvement, and for me, their Charleston (that wonderful ‘swimming’ move…)
well, it made it for me, oh and the Argentine Tango (s). Here they are… Sex in a box, oh no, sex on the box, I mean. Ab-so-lute-ly fab-u-lous dahling as Craig Revel Horwood would say.

Ali.

Ricky.

Team Cola.


Vincent and Flavia show us how it's really done!

Best part of every series for me. I am sad Ali didn’t win, leaving 'glad' for Team Cola, by default.


No, no, no...




bunting...



yes








Merkin?