Thursday, October 06, 2005
Last night I went to a small, low-key bachelor party for a friend of mine who's getting married tomorrow. And all manner of hilarity ensued. Here are just a few of the things that happened.*
... The bride and her friends dressed up like prostitutes in order to spy on the groom, but accidentally found themselves in a room full of Japanese businessmen, with predictable consequences.
... A donkey died from a drug overdose. What's funnier than that?
... A naked man fell out of a hotel window and fell through the roof of a car, right between a couple who were just about to kiss. Whoops!
... Someone with a gun was trying to shoot the guests.
... The groom ended up fighting with the bride's ex in a movie theater. But as the film was being shown in 3d, the audience thought it was just part of the show.
... A nerd fell in love with a transvestite; much hilarity ensued when he discovered the secret.
*When I say "happened", I mean "happened in the 1984 film "Bachelor Party" (starring Tom Hanks, Tawny Kitaen and, errr, Adrian Zmed)", and not in last night's bachelor party which would surely not make a rollicking, good-time movie that stands the test of time. It is a travesty that "Amadeus" received the 1984 Best Picture Oscar, and that "Bachelor Party" was not even nominated. Did "Killing Fields" have any donkey overdoses? Did "A Passage to India" have any fights in movie theaters?! Did "A Soldier's Story" have any characters named "Nick the Dick"? And don't even get me started about "Places in the Heart" and its lack of comedy scenes involving prostitution.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
As a blogger who hasn't been at it for so long (110 entries and not quite 9 months), eventually I must come to the time when I express amusement and befuddlement about the search terms that bring visitors to my site (perhaps in part as a not-so-subtle announcement that the blog is being read by more than just my parents, siblings, spouse and relatives-in-law [insert obligatory in-law joke here]). Now is that time; sorry about that. I've already mentioned the frequent visits by referral spammers (here) but now I'd prefer to discuss real visits by real people. Most of my regular visitors seem to come from bookmarks or (one of a few) blogrolls, and occasional visitors follow links from other blogs (thanks for linking me!). And then there are those who reach me by web searches. Especially Google's fairly recently-launched blog search. As it turns out, here are the top 5 search terms in the past month or so:
1. Inzest: (German translation of "incest". Who would have thought my post about the Inzest-Baby would be so popular. Yes, I do come from Indiana. Yes, my parents do live in Kentucky. That doesn't mean anything in this day and age! Anyway, I suspect (hope?) most of these visitors are leaving entirely unsatisfied.
2. Zigni House: (Eritrean restaurant in north London). My review was a good one and there are not so many other reviews of this place online (undeservedly few!). I'm going there again soon, I promise.
3. Confederacy of Dunce: I'm pretty sure these are all misplaced references to the excellent novel A Confederacy of Dunces which is of course the inspiration for the name of my blog. I share perhaps a few too many characteristics with a particular character in that novel.
4. Boswelox: I was irritated at the pseudo-scientific tone of advertising (boswelox is frankincense + manganese), and I'm not the only one curious about this mysterious, amazing substance which (allegedly) helps reduce the appearance of lines caused by facial micro-contractions. Bah!
5. Sawney Beane: Lots of people are curious about this legendary cannibal about whom I wrote back in the very early days of my blog (only my seventh entry!). He's also known as "Sawney Bean", and apparently Sawney is a nickname for Alexander. No official word yet on whether he really existed, though. Here is the original post (in which I take a fairly a-sawney-ic position).
I can't leave this topic without mentioning my favorite searches of the month (none of which are actually relevant to anything I've written). Special credit is due for the MSN search: do girls fart. Although I have not written on this subject before I will officially reply with a solid "Yes". Second favorite is transporting a motorbike in an inflatable boat. Although I haven't written anything about this before either, I think I'll step forward with an equally solid "No". Finally there was gorge warshington. I'm not quite sure how this found me, but nonetheless it did (But not any more. If you google gorge warshington dunce, you get only one page [not mine]). I like this alternate spelling and may adopt it myself.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Yesterday one of my colleagues circulated an email about a future
event, specifying the time as "just before the lab meeting next
Thursday". It set off a whole bundle of confusion (does she mean "The
next Thursday we will experience", or "Thursday of next week"?) and got
me thinking about this kind of reference to time.
There are quite a few ways to express a future day of the week: my own
variant of English makes a strong distinction between "This Thursday"
and "Next Thursday". The former refers to the next Thursday that will
be experienced, while "Next Thursday" is the Thursday that follows
"This Thursday". This is in addition to the simple "Thursday" which is
essentially synonymous with "This Thursday". "This" and "Next" when
used with days don't seem to work the same as "This" and "Next" in
other contexts (I would use "This bus" only if it can be seen,
otherwise "The next bus" to refer to the bus-equivalent of "This
Thursday"), and there are additional constraints. For example, if today
is Wednesday (which it is not), it doesn't sound correct to say "This
Thursday" when "Tomorrow" is a possibility (unless I have lost track of
which day it is [sadly this is a fairly common occurrence]). So in this
circumstance "This Thursday" has been replaced by "Tomorrow" while
"Next Thursday" remains "Thursday of next week". And it also gets
awkward once Thursday of a particular week has passed; if today is
Friday, "this Thursday" used in a future tense then means "Thursday of
next week" ("this Thursday" may also be used in the past tense in order
to mean "The previous Thursday"; fortunately English verbs allow this
ambiguity to be avoided), but "next Thursday" is much more ambiguous
(it could mean "Thursday of next week", although I still typically use
it to mean "the second Thursday in the future". But the use of "next"
for a day 13 days in the future may be a bit much). My distinction
between "This" and "Next" does not depend on the boundary between
weeks; I would still use "This Monday" to refer to the upcoming Monday
even if today is Thursday (which it is not), and "Next Monday" to refer
to the following one.
However, other English speakers do not typically use "This Thursday" as
I do (I also occasionally use "This coming Thursday" or "This past
Thursday", but this kind of disambiguation is not really necessary).
Hence the confusion arising from my cow-orker's email (She meant "Next
Thursday" in the sense in which I use it, but other colleagues
misinterpreted it as meaning "This Thursday"). This may be because
British English uses "next" differently, thanks to the "week"
expression. UK "Thursday week" apparently has the same meaning as my
"Next Thursday", and UK "Next Thursday" has the same meaning as my
"This Thursday" (one of OED's definitions of "week" is "Seven days
after the day specified"). Here's
an instance of someone who ran into the next/week problem (The
blogger's user info suggests that this is also a US/UK translation
difference); and here
is a discussion related to learning English as a second language. It's
unclear to me whether such expressions also apply for a day that has
just passed (if today is Wednesday [which it is not], is "Tuesday week"
six or 13 days in the future?). Or expressions like "Next Tuesday week"
which just make my head spin.
"I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today" (Image no longer hotlinked, sorry about that!)
Monday, October 03, 2005
The Dunce household received a couple of letters concerning the fate of our local, the Oakdale Arms, which is under threat of closure and demolition:
Location: Oakdale Arms 283 Hermitage Road N4 1NP
Proposal: Demolition of existing building and erection of a three storey building comprising 4 x 1 bed, 2 x 2 bed, 2 x 3 bed and 1 x 4 bed self contained flats and parking at basement level.
Having expressed a view to the Planning and Environmental Control Service on this matter, you may be interested to know that on 10/10/2005 the planning application on this site will be considered by the Planning Applications Sub-Committee.
The meeting starts at 7:00 p.m. and is held at the Civic Centre, High Road, Wood Green, London N22.
The meeting is open to the public to attend and you, or a representative on your behalf, may speak to the Committee with the Chair's prior approval. If there are a number of people wishing to speak regarding a particular application it is normal practice for one representative from the group of people to address the meeting.
If your wish to address the meeting I would suggest that you arrive about thirty minutes before the meeting and complete a form, which is available immediately outside the Council Chamber, indicating your desire to speak.
The committee report may be viewed on the Council's website - haringey.gov.uk
So that's a plan for next Monday, then. It's a little unclear to me how the representation by one person works, related to the question "How is 'group' defined?". If it is defined as "all individuals sharing a common broad view about whether permission should be granted or not", then the representative should surely be someone more closely associated with the pub than mere occasional locals. On the other hand, members of the Dunce household are part of a very small clique nearly entirely separate from other users of the pub; our standoffish nature may then qualify us as a group worthy of representation before the Committee. But if so, one of us (whoever "us" may be) should prepare to be heard by the Committee. I have never spoken before a public body like this but I envision a terrible scene: one side of the Committee chamber packed to the rafters with hordes of well-dressed, well-heeled sorts supporting the Property Developers in their efforts to bring "NICE HOUSES" to an area soiled by its industrial past (and more recently, 50 Cent and company), the other side with a few degenerates, idlers and bad eggs who have nothing better to do than support all the social ills that a neighborhood public house can bring. The blustering Committee Representative motions for me to speak, then upon hearing my coarse American accent shouts "SILENCE!!" as I am dragged from the hall, beheaded and dismembered, and my head and limbs placed on posts around Haringey as a reminder to Colonials who try and impose their puritanic views upon English neighborhood culture. The pub is demolished and the flats are put on the market, to be sold only to individuals who work in The Media. So maybe I should just go to the meeting and not plan on speaking.
Friday, September 30, 2005
I'm busy as can be today, preparing to lead a discussion on the latest salvos in the big Hauser/Chomsky/Fitch vs. Pinker/Jackendoff debate on the difficult question of what aspects of language are unique to humans (and how to go about answering that question). But I thought I should briefly mention another interesting music link (thanks to largeheartedboy who is one of my favorite sources of music-related information out there): National Public Radio's music show All Songs Considered is available online and at the moment features a show by M Ward, one of those artists I can't hear enough of (also featured at the moment are the White Stripes and the Shins. Both of whom I like, but not like I like M Ward).
Thursday, September 29, 2005
I work in a delightfully nasty building,
institutional and decrepit in just about every way I can think of.
Bare, pitted concrete, peeling paint, asbestos warnings everywhere,
bare wires hanging from broken lighting fixtures, scarred walls which
show markings of at least three generations of shelves since they were
last painted, lifts (elevators) that go out of service on a weekly
basis (at least), windows that won't open more than a few inches at the
bottom (to stop us from jumping, I think), yet still won't shut out the
sounds of a fairly busy London street. All that and offices slightly
larger than veal pens. But today was notable even by the minimal
standards I've come to expect here. As only one lift seemed to be
working (and went past the ground floor, ignoring the call button) I
walked up the stairs to the fourth floor where my office is (US
equivalent = fifth floor). The doors to one of the lifts stood open,
yet the lift was not there (it was on the fifth floor, stalled or
something). So an open door to an elevator shaft, straight down to the
basement, with nothing between me and the chasm but air. It was like
there was a black hole in that elevator shaft sucking me towards it,
but somehow I managed to avoid falling in. Don't worry, dear readers;
at about noon someone put a garbage can in front of the open doors, and
a little while later some strands of tape appeared across the opening.
But it gets even better. I decided to spend some quality time in one of
the toilet cubicles (a vaguely-interesting journal article in hand).
But sadly I was beaten to the punch by someone else, who zoomed into
the "desirable" stall (there are two, one of which has a seat). About
the same time all the lights went out (fortunately a window lets
natural light in). It was therefore my good fortune that I didn't win
the race into the stall, however, as a volley of expletives issued from
the stall, followed very shortly by its occupant. Whose hair and
shoulders didn't look as clean as they were when he went in. Yes, there
was something wrong with the toilets one floor up, and a shower of rank
water was pouring down into the just-vacated stall (and presumably,
from there to the third floor, and on), and onto anyone who happened to
be there. The stench was truly vile; it reminded me of the "swimming
pool" that was installed in the basement of our home many years back
when the sewers backed up after a flood (Yes, I played in it). Now all
of the mens' toilets are out of service (the top one is broken, and the
others are all under it). Fortunately if an emergency situation arises
I have a couple of plants, a few coffee cups, and a window that opens a
few inches, above a busy street.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Since I'm on a roll writing about crimes and criminals, I may as well keep it going, this time to talk about our recent home invasions. I would have thought the rear of our house was fairly secure, being surrounded on all sides by neighbors' back gardens, all of which are separated by (approx.) 5-foot wooden fences (and plenty of windows). But how wrong I was. We have an intruder who comes into the house for the purpose of petty thievery on a daily basis: several times a day in fact.
Fortunately this intruder is not human, but a feline friend of Zosi who lives next door. We've been introduced to him before (at least, we think he's a "him") but his name didn't stick, so we call him Orangey (unimaginatively referring to his color). He's an older cat, fixed and perhaps for that reason quite mellow in his behavior. He gets along quite well with Zosi (not THAT well, thanks to the fixing). But we leave the cat flap open during the day so Zosi can come and go (especially "go": the litter box is barely used these days. Sorry neighbors. I hope you keep the lid on the sandbox.). But this results in access for Orangey as well. Poor Orangey has no cat flap, so he has to stay out once he's been let into the great outdoors. When he gets hungry, well, I guess there aren't many vermin around, because he loves to sneak into our kitchen and snack on Zosi's food. He's quite aware of our routine (letting Zosi out when we first wake up [possibly because she has waken us up]), since he usually has had a snack before we come down for breakfast. He knows he's not supposed to be there (if he sees us, he runs quick-like out the flap and sits on the stairs awaiting his chance to come back in), so it's a serious dash and grab sort of situation. You can tell he's been at the food because he eats like a bulldozer, scattering food everywhere in his rush to eat before he's caught (Fortunately we are a dry-food only household). Sometimes he eats so quickly that he gets a little sick (a cat after my own heart). It's sort of like we have a second cat, but one we don't really have to take care of. Except for the stealing, that is (a scoop or two of food per day, and perhaps a catnip-filled mouse that is nowhere to be seen). I'll try and catch a picture of him in the act, but he's a sneaky little devil.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
As if yesterday's entry about the alleged comings and goings of alleged felon 50 Cent wasn't enough, my bike ride home gave me another cause for concern. I was riding home near north London's Clissold Park, when up a block or so ahead I saw a guy pop out from between some parked cars and knock another cyclist off his bike with a big stick. At first I thought I must be seeing things because it's a fairly busy street, and it was nowhere near dark. Then I thought it might be some sort of domestic dispute, but ruled this out fairly quickly as the attacker (and two others) then ignored the victim and went for his bike, trying to unfasten his briefcase from his bike rack. I'm not sure what I would have done had I been the only witness (perhaps shouted "HEY" in as deep and burly a voice as I could muster, which has been successful at dispersing groups of youths a couple of times in the past), but fortunately there were a couple of other cyclists who saw the same thing. We all stopped and ran them off empty-handed (thinking about it afterwards, I'm quite glad we didn't catch any of them), then sort of milled around waiting for the police to arrive (quite quick, thanks to active curtain-twitchers in the area) and the adrenaline to dissipate.
Fortunately the victim was not injured (other than some bruising) and the attackers didn't manage to get anything of value. But this is not at all a pleasant turn of events. I'm aware of other areas in north London where cyclists have been targeted in the past (Somers Town in particular), but these cases tend to be situations where gangs of youths are involved, rather than adults. These guys were all about 18 with buzzcuts and ill-fitting tracksuits. I'm pretty sure they're Polish, not just from their appearance (and the recent increase in the Polish population in the area), but also (and this is a surprise, coming from me) their linguistic characteristics. They were exchanging a few words as we approached, containing quite a variety of fricatives/affricates that are not at all commonly heard in English1 (which can be briefly and informally described as "lots of sounds like 'zh'"). The Wikipedia entry on the Polish language gives a more-detailed breakdown: consonants like voiced alveolo-palatal fricatives (as in "would you"), voiceless alveolo-palatal affricates (as in "what's your"), voiced alveolar affricates (as in "woods"), and many others. Anyway, my cursory knowledge of phonology (along with a few other factors) led me to conclude rather conclusively that there are some bad Polish apples within a mile or so of home.
1In case you're wondering, English fricatives are f, v, th as in "thin", th as in "there", s, z, sh as in "she", the sound of "s" in "measure" (this one is closest to the "Polish sound" at least to my ear), and "h" as in "ham".
Monday, September 26, 2005
The Dunce household has been taken rather off
guard by recent sightings of a real live World Famous Celebrity in our
neighborhood. According to the rumor mill, Famous Rap Superstar 50 Cent has been filming a new video just a mile or so away on north London's rapidly-gentrifying Green Lanes. But not just Green Lanes, as it turns out, but just a few minutes' walk from our house, at our local, in fact. One of the guys in charge has a blog on which he reported the news (taking a break from renovating another pub; hope that's going well):
"Apparently someone called "50 cent" was recording a video promo
outside the hairdressers next door to the Oakdale tonight. There were
lots of lighting people, cameramen, people with fluffy microphones on
sticks, and hangers-on....
Not really what you expect in a quiet back street in north London on a
Wednesday night... as far as I can tell, the main part of the shoot
took place earlier on in the warehouses up the street, which are
occupied by a video production company. They are responsible for the
largest ever tab at the pub: about £300 on their manager's credit card,
about 4' long when printed as a till receipt."
No mention of what they drank, but 50 Cent's lyrics give a good idea of his preferences which are not exactly the typical Oakdale order:
"You mix a lil' Cris with a little Dom Perignon.
And a lil' Hennessy, you know we 'finna carry on."
On one hand I'm quite excited about having celebrities in the neighborhood, but on the other hand Mr. Cent has himself quite a reputation.
But I'm not sure his reputation suits the area, which seems like a
rather odd place to be shooting a video. The hairdressers' shop is not
especially notable; it looks neither gritty nor hip (at least to my eye
which admittedly is not well-tuned for either), and I wouldn't have it
in my video, that's for sure. The pub, well, I certainly enjoy stopping
by for a pint or two (and perhaps a hand of Koi-koi [no I am not affiliated with the yakuza]). Some of his other lyrics (warning:
plenty of questionable comment if you are sensitive to that) don't
offer any real insight (and I didn't see any new bullet holes in the
Oakdale), so it remains a mystery. Unfortunately this means that I'll
have to start watching 50 Cent's videos in order to spot nearby
landmarks. If I manage to find it, I'm afraid I will be unable to stop
myself from re-enacting scenes from the video.
By the way, readers who are curious about the term "finna" (quoted above from 50 Cent's song "Disco Inferno") will be pleased to know that the Language Log contains a brief discussion of this term and its use (here): a contraction of "fixing to" akin to "gonna" for "going to".
Friday, September 23, 2005
It's time for another photo post, this time a few images loosely connected by the east London theme. In a previous entry
I mentioned an impressive Hindu temple in the middle of a very ordinary
neighborhood. As promised, here is a picture of the top of the London
Sri Murugan temple (whose website is now working!), which has been built from granite and marble (carved in India, then brought to East Ham):
The lower part of the building is still covered in scaffolding, so it's
still not quite complete. This picture was taken from just across the
street, so it's not quite as gigantically impressive as the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir. But seeing it unexpectedly in the middle of such an ordinary neighborhood was a very pleasant surprise.
The rest of the photos come from a bike ride a few weeks back, in which
I wandered around the River Lea valley (future site of the 2012
Olympics, and thus due for some serious regeneration work). Here is a
view of the path, looking north. Although cycling is permitted, the
conditions are not ideal as the path is quite narrow, popular with
cyclists and walkers, and the edge of the path is the bank of the river
(I am paranoid about falling or being knocked into the water). On the
right you can see some of the many narrowboats that occupy this section
of the river (as a hoarder, I can't imagine living in such a small
space).
In the next picture I'm standing on a high(ish) footbridge across the
river looking south. To my left is the Springfield Marina, and to the
right is Springfield Park (I've never stopped there, but maybe I should ["built
on the grounds of three 19th century houses (one of which still stands
and has a rather nice café). The old glasshouses belonging to the
buildings have since been turned into a tropical conservatory and are
home to a pond and ornamental carp. All in all, a good place to visit
on a sunny morning"]).The path alongside the river is just as narrow as before.
The east side of the Lea Valley at this point is full of water
treatment facilities which lie just beyond the railroad crossing
pictured here. The underpass is exactly five feet high (at the highest
point), and just wide enough for two crouching cyclists to pass each
other without contact if neither of them are wobbling. The pavement is
also in rather poor condition here; just after I took this photo
(before I got back on the bike) I was crashed into from behind by a
tumbling jogger who tripped over a hole in the pavement and fell down.
After the underpass you can continue straight (past the water treatment
plant, reservoirs and so on) and back into built-up areas
(Walthamstow), or turn right and enter the marshland paths. As usual I
did the latter, following the power lines through an otherwise natural
landscape, at least if you select your location carefully and keep your
eyes straight ahead, as in the picture here:
Eventually I reached the entrance to the Eastway Cycle Centre, a small
island in the middle of a mess of industrial/road/rail landscape. A
good impression of the area comes from this frustrated comment on the
website of the British Human Power Club: "Access
is actually from Quarter Mile Lane, which can be found on the southern
side of Ruckholt Road, the A106. Fairly close to the New Spitalfield
Market, if that's any help. More detailed directions are a bit
pointless due to the perpetual construction of the M11 Link Road; the
situation on the ground doesn't look much like any map, and changes
quite frequently.". It currently includes a 1-mile road racing
circuit as well as a serious mountain bike/cyclocross circuit. The site
will apparently be redeveloped for the Olympics, to include a velodrome
but to the possible expense of the off-road circuit (Eastway mountain biking still at risk from Olympic plans; a full set of considerations for a successful cycling facility, compiled by the Eastway Users Group can be found here).
The picture below (looking south) shows one entry to the off-road
circuit; the parking lot is to the left (it was full of serious roadies
warming up for some sort of race event). I'm standing on an overpass
which seems to serve only the cycle circuit, and the towers of the City
of London can be seen in the distance:
My ride back took a less-pleasant turn down a highly-industrialized
road (albeit with a segregated bike lane), past the construction site
for a new ASDA
(part of the Wal-Mart family) and many other construction sites. I
breathed lots of dust and didn't feel like stopping for any pictures.
Until part of the cycle path branched off towards another footbridge.
It's a highly overgrown and rather secluded area, with a lot of ripe
blackberries (at least when I went there). Here's a picture looking
back south at the path, from the top of the footbridge. Somewhere in
the underbrush to my left is my lens cap (Whoops! At least it was a
cheapo replacement for the one I previously lost). Just across the
bridge is a "pitch & putt" golf course; the bike path goes right
through the middle of it, semi-protected by giant fences. But I got out
of there fast, all I could think of was "target practice".
Thursday, September 22, 2005
As a music obsessive I spend an
awful lot of time listening to music at work (pretty much continuously,
except when I'm discussing things with other people, or dealing with
non-musical audio files). My preferences tend to change from week to
week, but have usually included a mix of internet radio (often from the
"Americana", "Alt-country" or bluegrass
genres) and legally-recorded and legally-downloaded live performances
by artists I am particularly fond of. Lately I've been taking advantage
of a large-scale repository of free, legally-downloadable music,
courtesy of archive.org.
I found my way to archive.org through its connections with etree,
a group formed with the aim of sharing high-quality concert recordings
of artists who permit the free distribution of their live music. From
their "About" page,
"Etree.org owns nothing. It is not a corporation and there certainly
are no corporate offices. All work is volunteer, and all servers are
independently owned and operated. The common thread is a belief among
its members that music which bands permit to be traded, should be
freely traded.
Not all music is available through etree.org. This biggest difference
between etree.org and other online music sites is that Etree.org deals
exclusively with legally tradeable music. We only deal with live
recordings by artists that allow taping and/or free trading of their
performances. The list of TradeFriendly bands grows daily."
The etree community at that time consisted of a lot of individuals,
independently running their own public FTP servers and posting
"contents" announcements on a mailing list (I ran one myself for quite
some time, and it's still around although no longer open 24/7). Things
are somewhat different now that archive.org exists, as it provides a
central repository ("digital library", if you like) of numerous artists
who allow this sort of taping and trading of their music. This solves
the two main problems of the independent server operator: storage space
and bandwidth usage, as both are provided for this specific purpose
(rather than "liberated" as was quite often the case, for example the
classic Undernet (RIP, 1999-2002) whose "death announcement" (now sadly
unavailable online, it seems) was an excellent tale of cat and mouse
before its eventual shutdown).
The etree collection can be found here,
and features a number of my currently favorite artists (most of whom
are also available in MP3 format for easy online streaming), such as
the Drive-By Truckers (138 live shows), Danny Barnes (30 shows, plus Bad Livers which adds 14 more), and who can forget the Grateful Dead
for whom an astounding 2937 different recordings are available (by
careful splicing, you could probably create a version of Drums >
Space > Drums that would last a whole lifetime!!). I've been
listening to a lot of artists I'm not especially familiar with
(although some quality control is necessary; even though a band allows
their live material to be recorded and shared, it may not deserve such
treatment).
And it's not just the Etree collection that's available on archive.org. There's a nice collection of digitized 78rpm records (I'm currently listening to a Benny Bell
collection [all "double-entendre party records" like "Noses Run In My
Family", mostly from the 1940s]), and open source audio as well, here
(open to the community for the contribution of any type of audio).
There are some really interesting old-timey recordings from the 20s and
30s under the "Country" and "Blues" classifications; I haven't explored
this collection much further.
This last comment doesn't have anything to do with music, but I see that my local bike shop has Banana Guards
on clearance. Although I've never worried before about the possibility
of crushed bananas, now all I can do is worry. Fortunately I am taking
the bike in for service tomorrow morning, perhaps I'll come back with a
collection of banana protectors.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Once-popular British music star Cliff Richard may be unknown in the US, but has been a huge star in the UK since the beginning of his career in the 1950s. According to the Wikipedia entry, he ...
Has sold more singles in the UK than any other artist (2nd place: the Beatles; 3rd place: Elvis);
Has had 14 #1 singles in the UK; only Elvis and the Beatles had more;
Is the only artist to have a #1 UK single in every decade since the inception of the UK singles charts (1952), with the exception of the 2000s which is not over;
Has been knighted.
But he's had enough, as this Guardian article explains (based on an interview Sir Cliff gave to the Daily Mail). His records aren't being played on the radio any more, and he blames an unofficial boycott:
"I just don't have the time to waste making a record that no one will play," he told the Daily Mail. "As a musician you make a record for the radio so that the public can hear it, but my songs don't get played. It's not that DJs don't like them, it's that the stations have a policy that says, 'We don't play him'." By way of a concession, he added: "I will be playing concerts until the day I die because I love the atmosphere - but I'll never make another record."
At first I scoffed at the notion of an unofficial boycott which sounds a lot like "sour grapes" to me. A situation like "The radio stations aren't playing my records any more, so I'll stop making them." seems entirely logical; why keep at it if they are no longer in demand? As it turns out, reading the rest of the article, it sounds like there have been "boycotts" in the past:
Sir Cliff's status as a radio star began to wane in 1998 when Chris Evans - then the breakfast show host on Virgin Radio - vowed he would never again play one of his records. Other stations took up the cause to such an extent that the DJ Tony Blackburn was suspended from his job on Classic Gold for breaking the ban.
Now, seven years later, instead of an official boycott, it's become unofficial? Perhaps this is driven by slipping popularity. This scarily-complete site documenting Cliff Richard's chart performance shows his sad performance on the charts since 2000:
"Over The Rainbow/Wonderful World" reached #11 in December 2001; "Let Me Be The One" only made it to #29 in spring 2002; another shot at Christmas #1, "Santa's List" got to #5 in December 2003. In 2004 he charted twice, with "Somethin' Is Goin' On" (#9 in October) and yet another Christmas #1 attempt "I Cannot Give You My Love" (#13). Most recently "What Car" got to #12 in May, but disappeared quickly thereafter. The site commentary tries to put a positive spin on it, but it sounds a little forced:
Cliff's single of Over the rainbow is the 'biggest' hit version of the song in the British chart. Other versions and chart positions: Matchbox (No.15), Sam Harris (No.67) and Eva Cassidy (No.42)...
...Santa's List was Cliff's 125th hit single, his 65th Top 10 hit single and is his biggest hit in the 2000's to date. It has the distinction of being the ONLY Cliff single to peak at No.5 in the official U.K. singles chart!
At least die-hard fans can count on continuing to see him at concerts, and Cliff completists will finally be able to take a break.
Monday, September 19, 2005
This weekend we took in a couple of sights on the annual Open House London.
Mrs. Dunce has special interest in medieval churches, so what better
opportunity to visit a St. Mary or two? Both in East Ham which is an
area neither of us had visited before. We started at St. Mary the Virgin in Little Ilford, a small 12th century chapel (pictured here, 1984 archaeological report here).
Most interesting to me was the Lethieullier chapel (sometime between
1724 and 1737), built above the family's vault and (it seemed) nearly
half the size of the church itself. The Lethieulliers were wealthy Huguenots who owned the nearby manor of Aldersbrook
and the chapel has a number of family memorials (one Mrs. Lethieullier
met her end in a tragic coach crash, landing on her head). But not for
their faithful servant who is buried in the churchyard (you wouldn't
want the HELP buried in the FAMILY CRYPT!!). Someone has taken the time
to document the headstone inscriptions in the churchyard, and in case you wonder what kind of plants can be found in the churchyard, here you are.
Just in the area of St. Mary the Virgin is an impressive Hindu temple,
in the process of being built (or renovated). Further investigation has
revealed it to be the London Shri (Sri?) Murugan temple which just opened
at the end of May. When I remember to bring my photos with me I'll post
a picture as it was quite impressive and unexpected (and a cursory Web
search or three didn't find anything either).
We then caught a bus, heading south toward the Beckton Alp Dry Ski Slope [EDIT: apparently it is no longer dry], "a totem signifying the pervasive regulatory influence of Panopticism in contemporary urban culture" (as Iain Sinclair put it, not entirely to everyone's satisfaction). Or as Billy Bragg puts it, "where
the upwardly mobile residents of East Ham can practice their skiing on
the artificial ski slopes. When I was a child this commanding height
was the blackened slag heap of what was once the biggest gasworks in
the world. Now grassed over and with a ski lift on top it has become
the Cockney Klosters.". In any event, we didn't quite reach the
Alp, stopping just the other side of the A13 at St. Mary Magdalene, the
oldest Norman church in London that is still in regular use (according
to their Web site,
anyway). Mrs. Dunce has special interest in seeing bits of medieval
paint on church walls, and there were some nice restored bits of
decorative paint with a flower motif, painted by Cistercian monks
before they headed oop north to do some similar painting in Durham.
There are some very interesting bits, like an anchorite's cell and the Neville family monument ("Unfortunately the smallest child has been stolen"). The church's web site offers a "virtual tour" that reminds me a lot of text adventures of the early 1980s: "Now
you are in the grounds you can look around the outside, go into the
church, or explore the nature reserve. If you come on a Sunday morning
or Wednesday evening you could attend a service. You would be very
welcome".
:ATTEND SERVICE
...COME BACK ON A SUNDAY MORNING OR WEDNESDAY EVENING.
...
:WAIT
...TIME PASSES
...
:ATTEND SERVICE
...COME BACK ON A SUNDAY MORNING OR WEDNESDAY EVENING.
:WAIT
...TIME PASSES
...
:ATTEND SERVICE
...COME BACK ON A SUNDAY MORNING OR WEDNESDAY EVENING.
...
:INVENTORY
...YOU HAVE
...A LIGHT BULB
...A SCRAP OF PAPER
...A CORKSCREW
...A FIVE-POUND NOTE
...
:EXAMINE SCRAP
...?SYNTAX ERROR?
...
:LOOK SCRAP
...THE SCRAP OF PAPER READS,
..."STAY INDOORS AT NIGHT".
...
:LOOK
...NOW YOU ARE IN THE GROUNDS YOU CAN LOOK AROUND THE OUTSIDE, GO INTO
THE CHURCH, OR EXPLORE THE NATURE RESERVE. IF YOU COME ON A SUNDAY
MORNING OR WEDNESDAY EVENING YOU COULD ATTEND A SERVICE. YOU WOULD BE
VERY WELCOME.
...
:EXPLORE NATURE RESERVE
...YOU WALK INTO A TANGLED THICKET OF TREES.
...YOU ARE IN FELLOWS' WOOD.
...YOU CAN GO NORTHEAST (THE SHORT CUT), EAST (WOODCHIP PATH), WEST (CHURCH CLEARING).
...IT IS GETTING DARK.
...
:GO EAST
...YOU FOLLOW THE WOODCHIP PATH AND COME TO A SMALL CLEARING.
...THERE IS A TREE HERE.
...THE PATH CONTINUES TO THE NORTHEAST, OR TO THE WEST.
...IT IS GETTING DARKER.
...
:GO NORTHEAST
...YOU FOLLOW THE WOODCHIP PATH AND COME TO THE CORNER OF THE NATURE RESERVE.
...THERE IS A SMALL BUILDING HERE.
...A GATE MARKED "EMERGENCY VEHICLE ACCESS" IS TO THE NORTH.
...A PATH GOES TO THE WEST, ANOTHER PATH TO THE SOUTH, A WOODCHIP PATH LEADS SOUTHWEST.
...IT IS COMPLETELY DARK NOW.
...
:OPEN GATE
...THE GATE IS LOCKED.
...IT IS COMPLETELY DARK NOW.
...YOU HEAR THE APPROACH OF FERAL TEEN-AGERS.
...
:ENTER BUILDING.
...THE DOOR IS LOCKED.
...IT IS COMPLETELY DARK NOW.
...THE FERAL TEEN-AGERS ARE VERY NEAR.
...
:GO WEST
...YOUR PATH IS BLOCKED BY SNEERING YOBS.
...ONE OF THEM FLICKS A CIGARETTE INTO THE UNDERBRUSH AS THEY APPROACH YOU.
...BEFORE YOUR FLESH IS TORN FROM YOUR BODY, YOUR LAST THOUGHT IS...
...I SHOULD HAVE GONE INDOORS.
PLAY AGAIN (Y/N)?
:QUIT
PLAY AGAIN (Y/N)?
:N
Friday, September 16, 2005
A curious thing has been happening in the world
of spam and its intersection with my blog. I've gone through the
standard blog growing pains of dealing with comment spam a while ago
(also trackback spam, but this has been only a very minor problem
thanks to the dasblog upgrade). For those few who don't know, comment
spam is when someone places an advertising comment on a blog (intending
to have it displayed to other readers who read the comments and
possibly follow their links, also possibly trying to gain better
listings from search engines). I suddenly started getting a lot of
comment spam, which was easily stopped by requiring commenters to
recognize and type in distorted letters (captcha)
in order to make a comment. Only one spammer has made it through to
leave comment spam since then (related to construction services in
Philadelphia, and entered [by hand I assume] on this comment which I suppose is loosely related).
The real problem (and it's only a problem behind the scenes) is
referral spam. As is the case for most blogs, mine keeps details of who
is visiting my site (what links they clicked to get here, what sort of
browser they are using, when comments were added, etc.). Referral spam
abuses this system, making it look like visitors have come to a blog
from a commercial site (at least for my site, almost entirely related
to poker and/or diet pills, the names of which I have intentionally
included in this post without munging them in order to see whether this post attracts undue attention). Some blogs (like this one
for example [it hasn't been updated in a while, and has various other
problems to boot]) display an automatically-generated list of the top
referrers, which is probably why this sort of referral spam has caught
on (I doubt Mr. Max [former contestant on the UK version of the reality
TV program "The Apprentice" {Alan Sugar instead of Donald Trump?!?}] is
actually getting loads of referrals related to phentermine, norwegion
cruises [sic], ringtone, cheap calls, cialis, jackpots, virtual slots,
etc.). But on my blog, referrals are not displayed anywhere but to me
(when I look at the logs). In fact, the updated version of dasBlog goes
some ways to prevent referral spam. But my logs remain full of blocked
referrals (something like 30 today so far, nearly all blocked because
of texas-holdem, free-online-poker and the like, although once in a
while a referral spam will make it past the block. But it doesn't
matter because I don't display referrers anywhere). Like buses they
come all at once: a single spam site "refers" to one of my entries,
then quick as a wink they troll through various other entries with
their false referrals (I really appreciate real referrals, by the way,
like this one). But it seems like almost always the same entry is the one they start with: Cowes to Lymington and back again.
How and why they started with this entry, I have no idea. Other entries
of mine are far more popular in gaining visitors who get here through
search engines. This is my only entry about sailing (unless I mentioned
the 1980 Olympics in one of my Tallinn posts), perhaps spammers are
looking for sailors? Perhaps I'll write an entry about boxers and see
whether spammers are following the lead of Nina Hamnett.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
I haven't made any progress on yesterday's etymology questions but instead have come across some interesting letters which have been scanned and posted online. From 1914, one of the letters begins with a very familiar tone to those of us who have been reading massive heaps of scam letters rather than simply discarding them unread (as any sensible person would do).
Dear Sir,
Although I know you only from good references of your honesty, my sad situation compels me to reveal to you an important affair in which you can procure a modest fortune, saving at the same time that of my darling daughter.
Before being imprisoned here, I was established as a Banker in Russia as you will see by the enclosed article about me of many English newspapers which have published my arrest in London. I beseech you to help me to obtain a sum of 480.000 dollars I have in America and to come here to raise the seizure of my baggage, paying to the Registrar of the Court the expenses of my trial, and recover my portmanteau containing a secret pocket where I have hidden the document indispensable to recover the said sum. As a reward, I will give up to you the third part, viz. 160.000 dollars. I cannot receive your answer in the prison, but you must send a cablegram to a person of my confidence who will deliver it to me.
Awaiting your cable, to instruct you in all my secret. I am Sir, ....
Here is a scan of the original letter, and just like modern scam emails which are recycled and reused, here is a variant of the same letter. More details are presented at samizdat.com (including scans of faked newspaper articles, reports from others who have found similar letters, analysis of the writing) and makes quite a good read. Lots of the same techniques are being used in the so-called 419 scam, some perpetrators of which are apparently reverting to targeting their victims by postal mail once again. If you get a scam letter in the post (rather than by fax or email), I'd love to see a copy!