Good name for a show.

My friend Eleanor was talking to another artist friend of her's.
This artist was planning to have an exhibition of fabric-based sculptures. The idea was that you would be allowed to interact with the work, and it would be aimed at blind and visually impaired people who could "feel" the art.
Eleanor said, "That's a good idea. You should call it 'Touching Cloth'".

Everyone understands each other.

In Star Wars, everyone understands each other. Like Chewie (how well do you have to know Chewbacca before you can start calling him Chewie?) goes, "Whaaaa orrr whaaa ahhha!" and Han Solo says, "Yeah Chewie, I know exactly what you mean."
Or R2 D2 goes "Poop de wheet! Poop de wheet!" and Luke Skywalker says, " I totally agree with you R2, I didn't rate that play at all. The plot was woolly and the characterisation just didn't work for me."
Does everyone in Star Wars naturally speak a thousand languages, including ones that consist of burps and beeps?
And Boba Fett. Boba Fett, right. He's at a party at Jabba's, and he's standing there in his full armour. I mean it's supposed to be a party. At least take your helmet off and have a beer for goodness sake!
And when Jabba catches Princess Leia, did he just happen to have that metal bikini in her size about the place? Because if not, where did he get it? He lives in the middle of a big desert. It's going to be pretty difficult to order up a metal bikini in that situation.
I hate to pick holes in the Star Wars storyline, but you do have to think about these things.

War

I have been thinking about war a bit recently.
I don't like war, and if my country, if I have a country, which I don't believe I do, because I am a nation of one, as we all are, apart from married people, who are a nation of two, told me to go and fight, I would say no.
Because I don't want to. I shouldn't have to. There don't seem to be any wars going on at the moment that I would consider worth fighting for.
Maybe why I am thinking about this is because I have seen a lot of my Granda recently. He fought in a war.
I would like to think if I had been his age at that time, I would have gone too and not used my objection to war in general as an excuse to disguise cowardice.
The nazis had to be stopped. He, and millions of people like him, stopped them. And I'm really glad he did, because if he hadn't, I would be living in a world that wouldn't allow me to be a nation of one.
My nation doesn't have a Tourist Board by the way, but it is a very welcoming nation. It is very small but has nice views of the Cave Hill and a sofa you can crash on. It's not exactly a democracy. More a benign dictatorship, in that I benignly dictate when the cat gets fed and her litter tray changed.
You will always get a warm welcome in Michaelland, so come and visit anytime. I have to go now, into Photoshop, and design a flag for my nation.

Blue smells you and then walks away.

This strange experience just came into my mind.
I was about twelve years old, and I was walking up to the leisure centre to have a swim.
This guy, who had hassled me before on a couple of occassions in Rathcoole suddenly jumps out and confronts me.
"You're a Fenian."
"What?"
"You're a Fenian. You're a dirty Fenian."
He was about a year older than me and he had a big mongrel labradorish dog with him.
"I'm not a Fenian. I'm Church of Ireland."
"You're a Fenian!"
The scabby dog walks up and sniffs me tentatively.
"You see? You're a Fenian! Blue smells you and then walks away."
Right. Alarm bells start ringing straight away.
He has a dog called "Blue".
How hillbilly is that?
"Come on now Blue, I gots me my shot gun here, let's go out and shoot us a few niggers. Gnhuuuk gnhuuk gnhuuk!"
As you can imagine, I was pretty scared. But you would be wrong about that. My natural instinct told me to launch into this idiot, which I did. I battered the face off him, and then he ran away crying like a baby.
I never saw him or Blue again.

Confucius he say...

Nothing's free, unless you steal it.

Chess update!

So I was playing chess on the internet last night. I thought it would be a nice leisurely way to kill a bit of time before a decent film came on tv. But I was playing this really aggressive American. He had me pinned down all over the place and my Queen was in a hopelessly hemmed-in position.
This was a fifteen minute game. He had about five minutes left. I had less than one. As his rooks tightened the noose and his Queen loomed ominous, I moved a humble pawn, simultaneously blocking an imminent check-mate, and opening up a channel or two for my own Queen. He moved up a pawn of his own, obviously confident that the game was his. Then I saw a killer move. Knight to c3. Total check-mate out of nowhere.
My time on the clock?
0.07.0
Well I just had to get my butler to pour me a vodka martini after that. Shaken not stirred.

Can't believe we never thought of this

As Mark was slogging towards the finish line on Sunday, instead of just shouting, "Come on Mark!", we should have built a massive film set that made the finishing line look like a Vietnam movie, complete with palm trees and hordes of Viet Cong chasing him, bullets spitting up the dirt around his feet, and Barber's Adagio for Strings crescendoing in the background, and we're all leaning out of the helicopter going, " Come on, man, you can make it. We ain't leavin' you behind!"
Then someone shoots him in the leg and he falls. Then Willem Dafoe jumps over the barrier, slings Mark over his shoulder, and under inexplicably innacurate gunfire, says, "I got you, buddy." He runs over the line, throws Mark into the "chopper" and it wheels upwards while I bladder away on the door-mounted M60 at the hapless people below, shouting, " Get some! Get some!"
Now that's how to finish a marathon with style.

Well done, Julie and Mark.
Starting a marathon in that heat was insanity. Finishing it at all, in any time, was a brilliant achievement.

Congratulations, you nutters.

A nice picture of Syd Barrett.

There. That's all you're getting for today.

A cat playing a banjo

 

Okay. A cat playing a banjo.

Are you satisfied now?

Fish on a bicycle

OK. Here's a fish on a bicycle.

Are you happy now?

ACK DUCK

Helibunkters and ACK DUCK.
What more do you want? What?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f1cwycSWq0

Maths with Flybe.

A man books a flight to Edinburgh from Belfast at a price of £5.99 and a return flight from Edinburgh to Belfast at £19.99. How much does the man pay?
No. You're wrong!
According to Flybe, the man pays £120.
According to this particular man, Flybe can stick their plane up their arse and I'll be taking the ferry.

Speaking of the graphicness of that image.

I can't remember where I found it, but what possessed someone to take a photo of that and then think, "That's a good one. I'll put that on the internet."?
To be fair, it may have been a medical site, and the purpose of the photo was somehow educational.
Like back in the Dark Ages they analysed your poo to see what was wrong with you.
Maybe that's where we get the word "analysed" from. Anal meaning bum, ysed meaning looked at.

Oh, yes. I am fluent in Latin.

As the Americans would say.

I was going to do arse and elbow. But when I typed "arse" into Google image search, some of the results made me faint like a Victorian woman. The internet is filthy!

I am going now, to wash my eyes with carbolic soap.

Sorry about the graphicness of the first image.

Election sleep deprivation delerium

I have noticed some politicians and most journalists being either tetchy and irritable or downright delerious over the last few days. There was a show on Radio Four on Friday, and I swear, it was like listening to some people coming down off acid. Get to bed and have a good night's sleep!
I dread to think what they smell like.

A sandwich.

A sandwich walks into a bar and orders a pint of beer.
The barman says, "Sorry, we don't serve sandwiches."

A man walks into a bar.

I would like to collect a lot of "a man walks into a bar" jokes. My personal favourite is Tommy Cooper's , "A man walks into a bar. He says, 'Ouch!' It was an iron bar."
Feel free to contribute.

Regards,

Michael.

Just a bit more pink snow

Another pink snow

I like this one.

Lucy's not that fussed.

As long as she gets fed and gets eighteen hours sleep a day, she's happy.

Pink snow

People playing in the pink snow.

There's the pink snow.

There it is, now. Look at the pink snow.

Don't you wish you lived here?

It's so beautiful! 

Especially outside my house. I've been taking photos all around Merville, and outside my house is definitely the best bit.

Today's weather

Mostly sunny, but with occassional pink snow showers in Merville.

Tom Waits

I don't listen to music much any more. But I do like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrkThaBWa5c&NR=1

Booking a wedding band.

When booking a band for a wedding, I would advise that you listen to their songs the whole way through.
If you only listen to three quarters of the song before saying, "Yeah, those guys sound pretty lively. We'll book them." you might end up in an embarrassing situation like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkuOAY-S6OY
Imagine the scene. Elderly relatives jigging about to the modern beats. You sitting there smugly with a bit of wedding cake in your mouth, thinking, this band was a pretty good choice, I think. And then it all goes horribly, horribly wrong.
You might want to put your children to bed in a sound-proof room before listening to that link in its entirety.

Vote for that guy!

Ah, the election. The erection of election posters on our lamp posts show a serious lack of imagination on the part of participants. A good design, I think, would be to wait until your competitors put up their posters and then put one below it with an arrow pointing up and the classic 1970's t-shirt slogan "I'm with this Idiot."
Or "I voted for this guy and all I got was this lousy poster."
A sense of humour might inspire voters to walk a couple of hundred yards and draw an X on a bit of paper.

Living alone

I was thinking about what a friend had said, and I realised that living alone has certain advantages.

Fight!

Living alone vs. living with a woman.

Well the contestants are stepping into the ring here. Living with a woman certainly looks better dressed, well groomed, and more well fed than Living alone.
And here we go. Round One. Living alone has switched on the TV and he says, "Oh! Football. Great."
Living with a woman is trying to compete but unfortunately the football clashes with Coronation Street and he's forced onto the ropes.
But oh! There's been a development.
Living alone's parents have called round unexpectly and it looks like he's in trouble here.
It  certainly does Harry. He hasn't hoovered the place in a week and the sink is full of unwashed washing up.
"Look at the state of this place! Do you live like this?"
"No. I was just about to do it. I've been sort of busy, you know?"
Living with a woman sees his chance and moves in by opening his fridge to reveal a well stocked larder of healthy nutritional food.
Living  alone can only respond with a weak week old carton of milk and a piece of Parmesan cheese that's been in there since God knows when.
It's a knockout victory. Living alone is rubbish. While Living with a woman is world champion.

Hmm. This sounds like I'm trying to be deep, but I never meant it to be that way when I started writing it. It's not like I'm a desperately lonely person or anything, but I do think you become very "set in your ways" when you live alone.And I don't know if that's a good thing. Humans are social animals.
So if you don't already have another  person to share your life with, grab one as soon as possible, and hold on to them and never let go.
Now, don't just go out into the street and literally do that. You might get arrested for that.

Murals are important

I am painting a community mural at the moment.
A lot of people may say that that is a waste of money, and it would be better spent on schools and roads and hospitals and so on.
But I think art is important.
A small amount of money has been allocated for this project, but it will significantly improve peoples' experience of visiting the park, I think.
Instead of walking through a dark and intimidating space as they enter the park, I hope they will see a bright , uplifting image of Newtownabbey, that not only celebrates the history and diversity of our borough, but which also reflects the natuaral beuaty which can be observed by having a walk in the park.
I think that is important.
So if I catch anyone writing on it with a marker pen.... Well, I oughta!

Soap operas (by request)

Well, I have been asked to do this, so today, after watching a rather fine episode of Columbo, I sat down to watch Eastenders.
Here's a strange thing.
After Columbo, the acting in Eastenders is very naturalistic, and actually pretty good.
But the storylines.
I didn't catch the start of it, but I don't think that matters, because the start of it was actually 25 or so years ago and the end of it, if there ever is an end to it, looks like it is a long way off.
When I first tuned in there was a very sterio-typical asian family (overbearing father, hysterical mother in a bit of a sari sort of affair, lots of over-protective brothers) having a big row because their son-in-law to be had just confessed to being gay shortly before the wedding.
So just a slice of everyday life, then. The kind of thing that happens to us all on a daily basis.
Then there was a scene with Pat and Peggy having a nostalgiac conversation about when they were young. I think they were in the launderette at the time. It was quite touching, and very well acted, I thought.
But here are a couple of things about Eastenders that don't ring true with me.
The racial sterio-typing is ,it seems, as bad as ever. Years ago I watched an episode where they went to Ireland. They weren't off the boat to Dun Laoghaire five minutes and they had already met a drunk, two priests, and a donkey. This was back in the days of the Celtic Tiger, so realisticly they would have been more likely to meet a load of yuppies throwing money at each other in overpriced cappucino bars.
Another time they went to Italy for some reason. They were barely off the plane to the industrial heartland of northern Italy when they had encountered a procession of choirboys led by two priests (yes, more priests) corrupt police officers, and... a donkey.
The other thing is the launderette. When is the last time you went to a launderette? The last time I went to one was when I was a student. When I was a student I did studenty things, but when college was over, I put away studenty things and I got my own bloody washing machine.
But in Albert Square there are people who can afford to drive a top of the range BMW, but presumably can't afford a washing machine, because they are always in the launderette.
Anyway, next there was a scene with Phil Mitchell being a very reasonable parent, giving advice to his son and sorting out a disagreement between his son and daughter. All very sweet, except the actor who plays Phil Mitchell hasn't got a great range where acting is concerned. He always comes across as vaguely threatening, like a man who might glass somebody in the face at any minute.
Then Dot Cotton came on. Like some sort of rat that you try to poison to death, she just eats it all up and asks for more. The only way she will ever leave Eastenders is if Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones dies, and they want a look-alike to replace him.
I might need to go for a lie down in a darkened room for a while before tackling Coronation Street.