Vacances/Vacation/Escape

Our trip to Correzes, pres de Lubersac, nears. I have a serious case of Gaol fever. Went to see the Grimble and Dawn before tootling off - Alex too busy with GF - my daughter is absolutely stunningly gorgeous; I am going to have to get a shotgun. Found a good website on Boofies today. Check this out if you love Burmese..

Bloggage

Why is it that some blogs get loads of comments and some, like mine, get very few? Could it be that the ones that get few are just RUBBISH. Errr.... no. Because this don't get a lot of comments, but it is consistently lucid and one of my top five. Go visit people, you could do a lot worse.

Scripture

A weasel word if ever there was one. Literally 'writing', this greek derived term is used to suggest that some document or other is the word of 'god'. The problem is, peeps, that there are many scriptures and they are often downright contradictory. The Torah suggests that the Jews are the chosen people, the Quran somewhat excludes Jews and Christians, written accounts of native American oral traditions give a fig, or should that be a blueberry?, for neither and the Norse sagas would have us giving due regard to Odin, Loki, Thor and co. What evidence is there, other than frail human assertion, that any of these is other than the work of men? If my neighbour posts a note through my letterbox saying that John Prescott is God's chosen, should I rush out to make offerings at the nearest school for the dyslexic?

Existentialism

To paraphrase Barbara Dixon, 'It's 3 o'clock in the morning, and I guess it's going to be another sleepless night'. I have posted before about the detestable habit of emoting on one's blog. suffice it to say that I am socially confused. Maybe it is my own personal hell, but I wonder if you have been here? Too tired to sleep. Too annoyed to love. Too drunk to be sensible. Too sensible to be drunk. Too libidinous to be celibate. Too celibate to be free. There must be a poem in that?

Because They Deserve It

My first reaction on seeing this http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1550482,00.html
was ' about time too!'. Then came the second thought.. why should we pretend that most, or even some, advertising is not deliberately misleading or frivolous? Because that is the implication of choosing to prohibit certain cherry picked examples. If an advert for anti-cellulite cream X is prohibited because the product doesn't really work, does that mean that those which are advertised do work? Of course not. It means that the claims in the other adverts are sufficiently nebulous or oblique to have escaped censure. There is a sense in which banning some but not all of this twaddle actually encourages credulity. The whole point of advertising is to get people to buy things, and trivial issues like the comparative or absolute efficacy of the products would merely serve to inhibit the consumer urge. People should learn to be less gullible and more discriminating, otherwise they will get precisely what they deserve.

Burmese Boofyness

A good day out at Chester and North Wales Cat Club Show. We left Ptolemy at home to look after Dani, and took Topaz to be assessed for boofyness. She achieved her second championship certificate at her second adult show, won best of breed and also got a first and a second in some well contested side classes. We are now convinced that she is 'well boofy'. For anybody who doesn't know, Topaz is a female blue burmese cat and she will be one year old later this month. We have arranged a blind date for her later on in the year with a chap known to his human, Janet Wilshaw, as Tuffy. We had the pleasure of meeting Janet and some of her beautiful cats today.

Wittgenstein, Lewis Carroll and Humpty Dumpty

First, a quotation from Charles Dodgeson..

`I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'

`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.

`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. `They've a temper, some of them -- particularly verbs: they're the proudest -- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs -- however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'

The BBC have just reported upon a poll largely concerning the notion of multiculturalism. David Davis (probable Tory leader quite soon and shadow home secretary) and Robert Kilroy-Silk agree (schlock horreur) upon the result - the respondents do not understand what the word 'multicultural' means. Sadly, I think they are correct. What passes for dialogue between governors and governed is often just a confused fog of conflicting definitions. Read Crooked Timber or Butterflies and Wheels, both with a generally erudite readership, and watch enlightened liberals get their knickers in a twist over dodgy definitions. What hope can there be for Texan Baptists and Bradford Buddhists?

I am coming more and more to see how wise was Wittgenstein in his analysis of the project of philosophy, it is therapy for society, antibiotics for the intellect.

Oh my morality..

From http://www.christianity.co.nz/moralit3.htm

"Morality begins with the character of God. There is no other foundation for it. And the sort of morality that really matters depends on the sort of God that really exists. The God I will be talking about here is not any old god such as humans have dreamed up over the centuries. It is the God who created this universe, who has made himself known through his dealings with chosen people through history and supremely through coming himself into our human existence in the person of Jesus Christ. If you don't believe in this sort of God then we will have to deal with that issue before we can have any meaningful discussion about morality."

Hands up anybody who has heard of utilitarianism? If you haven't, get off your fat lazy arse and google it. If you have, well I'm preaching to the choir.

Fair Weather and Friends

An excellent weekend celebrating H's birthday. I think some of the allusions in my eulogy, The Story of H, went begging. Camped in June and Alwen's garden after Saturday's excellent barbecue. Uncle Philth woke us with coffee and bacon and egg butties. The man has a constitution of iron. Sunday I collected Pipyoolike and we hied ourselves chez P & H to recover. Gregs turned up briefly in between supplementary naps.
Some recovery! Salad, Pizza, Olives, strawberries, seven bottles of wine and much Guinness later everyone was well and truly squiffy. The Pipyoolike went home with the most monumental hiccoughs. Max and I had a great time. Life is great thanks to our friends.

Irrational Hatred

OK, I know it's only TV, and I don't really know this person at all, but I just can't help myself.
THE MOST LOATHSOME personality in the world's media is....
Davina McCall.
Lets just put up a few choice adjectives -
CONDESCENDING
SUPERCILIOUS
SUPERFICIAL
SUPERFICIAL
SUPERFICIAL
SUPERFICIAL
Do you get my drift.. excuse me whilst I rush to the bathroom to upchuck. That woman, always assuming it is a woman, is surely the most odious creature ever to disgrace a TV screen.

Boris and the Beasts

I've just had the hair tearing agony of hearing the epistemological retard Peter Hitchens debate with the uncommonly reasonable Boris Johnson on Eddie Mayer's PM programme. The subject? Dominic Grieve's assertion that he found the London suicide bombings explicable in terms of the deep anger of Muslims. Peter Hitchens had conflated this point about explication with some sort of apologia and launched an entirely unwarranted attack on Grieve and the Tory party in general. Boris tried to point out that to explain a thing is not to condone or excuse it. Hitchens chimed in with some deist pap about moral explanation... Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Kill Boris. What annoyed me even more was that Mayer let Hitchens get away with his straw man routine.

Sadness

Wail! The curviceps babies are no more. Maybe the loricarids got them, or maybe the parents were just too stressed out. More reason for sadness... I've just paid my first visit to the discovery institute and found this bilge.. http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=131&program=CSC&isEvent=true I shall not be going back.