busker

My bureaucrat mole in local government sends me extracts from actual letters sent to the Leicester Council & Housing Association:

• I want some repairs done to my cooker as it has backfired and burnt my knob off.
• I wish to complain that my father hurt his ankle very badly when he put his foot in the hole in his back passage.
• And their 18-year-old son is continually banging his balls against my fence.
• I wish to report that the tiles are missing from the outside toilet roof. I think it was that bad wind the other night that blew them off.
• I am writing on behalf of my sink, which is coming away from the wall.
• Will you please send someone to mend the garden path, my wife tripped and fell on it yesterday and now she is pregnant?
• I request permission to remove my drawers in the kitchen. 50% of the walls are damp, 50%! have crumbling plaster and the rest are plain filthy.
• The toilet is blocked and we cannot bath the children until it is cleared.
• Will you please send a man to look at my water? It is a funny colour and not fit to drink.
• Our lavatory seat is broken in half and is now in three pieces.
• I want to complain about the farmer across the road, every morning at 6:00am his cock wakes me up and its now getting too much for me.
• The man next door has a large erection in the garden, which is unsightly and dangerous.
• Our kitchen floor is damp. We have two small children and would like a third so please send someone round to do something about it.
• I am a single woman living in a downstairs flat and would you please do something about the noise made by the man I have on top of me every night.
• Please send a man with the right tool to finish the job and satisfy my wife.

World's best blog?

Not my headline.

It comes from Linkfilter regular, 'Psychomike' - one of its shrewdest contributors - who shares his discovery of The Huge Entity with a challenging,

"Until I'm shown otherwise, I'm saying this is the most interesting, at times controversial (for just about everyone) and brilliant blog I've come across.

Enjoy!"

Provocative.

No Direction Home

I have rented the 2-disc Scorsese DVD on Dylan, which is riveting and has me pausing and fumbling for my own guitar before immediately resuming viewing.

The footage is remarkable and I gaze fascinated at the big names they've tracked down, from Dave von Ronk and Maria Muldaur to a rheumy eyed Ginsberg and some wonderful early Joan Baez.

My first album was Freewheelin' followed by his fresh-faced, crisply engineered album of the Guthrie song, 'Man of Constant Sorrow' and 'House of the Rising Sun'.

I hadn't even acquired a capo d'astro at that time, but did so. Years hence, it was pointed out to me that the 1st to 3rd frets were the original rose-wood dark, and all those above were scratched and nailed.

I vaguely knew that Dylan had taken von Ronk's genius chording on "Sun" but had not realised that DvR had had his own plans for the song and asked Dylan *not* to use it on the album. He did, ever after which it was impossible for Dave to play his own version without accusations of having stolen it from Bob.

Wonderful rotting-toothed cackle as Ronk recounted how Dylan later found it equally difficult to play it without being told he'd plagiarized from the Burdon/Animals rendering.

And what a great sound The Band gave him.

And what arse-holes those pathetic north-of-England "fans" come across with their nasal whinings of complaint over Dylan's 'selling out'.

Honestly, the English accent is positively the *least* attractive and convincing in which to grizzle.

I'm saved the need to further comment by knowing there's a real danger of Richard "Curry-'n'-Rice" Wells reading my burblings.

Richard is a walking encyclopedia on Zimmerman, but in a mature, sharing unboring way.

The morning after I'd seen that movie - oh, what *is* its name? - I tentatively mentioned it to Richard and his first comment was exactly what had struck me:

That utterly bizarre scene (again up north) when Dylan is virtually summoned from his room down to meet the Lady Mayor and her trembling son.

Five foot nothing, jutting jaw, her cut-glass accent would have done a member of royalty proud, but what strikes one is Dylan's extreme gentleness and courtesy to this pushy crone's intrusion on his private moments: just standing there and deferring, when her would have been perfectly justified in extracting the mickey in the most churlish way.

Possibly a propos of this, my brother told me a tale of the Beatles' visit to the Philippines that I wish had been recorded for posterity.

Also relaxing, the Mopheads were suddenly summoned to a dinner with First Lady Imelda Marcos.

Back went the message to stuff it, at which the vicious harpie straightway took herself and all Manila's media to the children's ward of the local hospital where she was filmed surrounded by pathetic specimens, asking teary-eyed to camera how could anyone be so heartless and who did they think they were, etc.

Come their planned departure next day, it was clear that the lads were going to face some opposition reaching the airport in one piece.

My brother was Food & Bev manager of the hotel and had got to know them well enough during his efforts to make their stay comfortable. The appeal went out for help.

I've never enquired too closely into Busker frère's colleagues but you get to reach and keep that sort of job in a corruption-riddled town without mussing a few coiffures and acquiring a rolodex of muscle.

No sane cab company would take the band, so Pete called in a favor from some relaxing hard case soldiers of mercenary, explaining what was needed, assuring them of carte blanche  in *how* they got there, and no doubt offering copious hospitality in return.

These were guys whose lives had depended on driving murky heads of state safely and whose vehicular skills made those professional drivers in adverts look like my Aunt Vic on her daily jaunt in the Morris Minor to the local library.

As Pete later told it, the over-weight thugs commissioned by Imelda to run interference were left baffled by the level of skill and sheer malevolence they came up against in what they'd been thinking would be some easy fun: instead of running the Liverpudlian off the road, it was *they* who found themselves rammed and butted by alarmingly weighted military-style vehicles, not to mention the support convoy that seemed to block their every efforts to even get close.

"I'm not sure," said Pete, "because they never found the tyre - if you know what I mean - but I think they had a shooter in one of jeeps, firing through the boot (shades of the Washington DC sniper) that sent one of them off the bridge. After which, they kept their distance, all the while waving and threatening out the window for the chopper news crew whose footage would of course be seen by Madame who would judge the vigor of their efforts and "reward" them accordingly.

Speaking of safe distances, when Pete worked in the kitchen, he got to know Imelda's tasters.

"What do you think the First Lady is eating tonight?"

"I reckon a burger, coke and all those french fries."

As the real dish went out: "Don't you want to taste it?"

"You crazy? It could be poisoned."

I have  heard the Sullivan name before - from sources I'm usually quicker off the mark to heed, so my loss - but this is my first close reading, on the Libby case, and the man not only makes sense but is one of the *tidiest* thinkers and writers I've come across. In addition to which, he exudes courtesy and professionalism. I must follow him more closely.

I'd been trying to gather coherent thoughts on this whole bizarre Libby case and along comes Mr Sullivan and quotes and encapsulates what I was fumbling towards.

He's spot-on over THE CHENEY QUESTION, in which he gives his,

... first take on the five counts of obstruction of justice, perjury and lying against Scooter Libby, before the press conference.

The common thread appears to be Libby's alleged determination to obfuscate where and how he found out that Valerie Plame was an undercover agent. I cannot understand why someone as smart as Libby would have taken such risks under oath, would have been so stupid, unless he felt the risks were necessary to protect someone or something. It's hard to believe, in other words, that Cheney is not somehow involved. And it's hard to believe that the indictment of Libby, and the continuance of the investigation into Rove, does not potentially lead to the highest potential source of this mess: the vice-president. Libby is now going to be pressured by the prosecutor to name others, as part of a plea agreement.

(Who's "Official A"?)

The judge assigned to his case is known for hefty sentences, putting more pressure on Libby. The biggest aspen so far may be about to turn. Which other trees may fall? I'll add one more thing: I don't believe that five counts of obstruction of justice, perjury and lying by a major administration official are a "mouse," or even a large rabbit. Not if you care about the integrity of government officials and the rule of law."

Masterly stuff.

Spring forward ... Fall back

Trivia, facts and common sense about Daylight Saving Time.

"Daylight Saving Time is a change in the standard time of each time zone. Time zones were first used by the railroads in 1883 to standardize their schedules.

According to the The Canadian Encyclopedia Plus by McClelland & Stewart Inc., Canada's "Sir Sandford Fleming also played a key role in the development of a worldwide system of keeping time. Trains had made obsolete the old system where major cities and regions set clocks according to local astronomical conditions. Fleming advocated the adoption of a standard or mean time and hourly variations from that according to established time zones. He was instrumental in convening an International Prime Meridian Conference in Washington in 1884 at which the system of international standard time -- still in use today -- was adopted."

In 1918, the U.S. Congress made the U.S. rail zones official under federal law and gave the responsibility to make any changes to the Interstate Commerce Commission, the only federal transportation regulatory agency at the time. When Congress created the Department of Transportation in 1966, it transferred the responsibility for the time laws to the new department.

The American law by which we turn our clock forward in the spring and back in the fall is known as the Uniform Time Act of 1966. The law does not require that anyone observe Daylight Saving Time; all the law says is that if we are going to observe Daylight Saving Time, it must be done uniformly.

Daylight Saving Time has been around for most of this century and even earlier.

Benjamin Franklin, while a minister to France, first suggested the idea in an essay titled "An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light."

The essay was first published in the Journal de Paris in April 1784, but it wasn't for more than a century later that an Englishman, William Willett, suggested it again in 1907."

Murder UK

A literally lurid web site catches my eye.

It is posing as an "educational resource ... documenting the crimes of Murder & Manslaughter in the UK", but the design is too appalling and complete lack of color sense mark it as the brainchild of some adolescent mind.

There is a section on child killers which I check for anything remotely new or sensible on the Bulger case.

It's a hobby of mine to post on the subject and I'm always on the look-out for new sites to bookmark.

There is indeed a section devoted to Venables and Thompson but the incompetent ninny mispells him Venebals.

I suppose it could be a ploy to flush Venables out of hiding: get his name so idiotically wrong that the murderer is enraged into blowing his cover with some indignant correctionm but something tells me not.

Nothing so cunning. Just out and out sloppiness, ignorance and inadequacy for the job.

French News Feeds

In my latest offering from the gifted and gifting ResearchBuzz, a newsy gauloise link that might be of interest to some  one:

"Mon-Actu.com, a directory of French news feeds plus a bookmark manager.

Feeds are divided into categories and are also searchable by keyword. (Though I was not able to search by keyword in Opera -- I think the page is being rendered incorrectly. It worked fine in Firefox.)

A keyword search for commerce found two results. Results include the name of the site, a link to a detail page that includes what looks to me the latest entries from the feed -- and is that page rank?

Blogosphere: "spouting lynch mob."

Forbes' cover story settles for the "Attack of the Blogs" angle.

According to 'blogma', we're meant to be "the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective."

Just the sort of provocation to get us tripping and spewing.

Curry-n-Rice Girl

The laughter in the rafters has woken the children and they have come down to enjoy the dawn rumpus.

Hilarity everywhere as we conga through the rooms to the hit tune of the season - Curry-N-Rice Girl.

No, not the two Tims; nor Mick and Keith's cavortings, for which the clans have gathered.

It is the glorious viral video sent me by that Dapper Dhoti'd Dan, my ear-piece on the Sub, the pre-eminent Richard Wells.

Miranda managed the New Jersey/Seatac leg, but confused Bainbridge with Bremerton and almost treated herself to an extra ferry trip.

Louisa and Philip win the coveted "Shidoobee of the Year" Award, jetting in from Norwich avec kids, which we all acknowledge as terribly grand and adds to our entertainment as we watch the princelings lord it over their American cousins with the latest fashionable Anglo prissiness.

Phil's cell phone has not left his ear - even as he wheezes and waddles to an approximation of the Curry beat:

He appears to be on the phone to Hong Kong and Perth and *also* seems to be recouping the price of all their tickets in one slick deal. Louisa affects exasperation but clearly enjoys our sour-grape jealous snarls at her Alpha Male provider mate.

Louisa owns up to once having had an Indian boyfriend, which of course pricks our curiosity over his Sutric wizardry but we are silenced by her frown and curt nod in the direction of the children who are of course equally agog.

We launch into a variation about wanting a "curry and rice boy" which to all our satisfaction sends a shadow of petulance across Philip's urbane and pampered features.

Untrammel'd by even passable human good looks, and lacking any agility on the dance floor, 'Bunter' Phil escaped the fate dealt to you and me, passing his Oxbridge and office junior years free of the distractions of sex and cloying attention of acquiescent young ladies.

Instead, he invested his lonely evenings in becoming very numerate and pompous and unjustifiably rich.

L., while fitting every mother's ideal of a dutiful virginal daughter-in-law, has a "past", over which veils seem to be drawn, although rumour has it that a return visit to a certain Cambridge college and *all* Oxford May Balls are out.

But to The Concert: Press reports make clear that the lads are on form, which is more than I will be come 7:30 Sunday if this level of merriment keeps up.

Write-ups

Georgia Browne

Further to my trippin' and strummin' piece on Miss Ten Percent, I'm not having the BI Revue get away with dissing our belovèd Georgia by squandering space on the mobile hobo Williams.

Besides, as with the Nezam/Kordonwy utterances, there are some equally juicy quotes that I intend to make my own and spout at the right time and place.

I read that the Dylan-y tasteful EW had his 15 mins of fame on LA Radio.

Well, Mr Williams has a superb CD out - "Someday" (eminently worth tracing) - thanks to which he is enjoying *more* than a mere quart d'heure over in the UK's Brighton by the sea.

A local DJ visited me a while back and could not stop playing 'Whiskey Angel', so I gave it to her to take back to educate the Brits and she apparently uses it as a bridge in between dashing off to the loo.

Each time she does, her listeners go into paroxysms of desire to own it for themselves.

I of course pose as Mr Ten Percent, collecting the royalty cheque(s) and assuring Madam DJ that I play the honourable agent and bank it in my client's account.

In truth, I can see why interviewer Rhona Schwartz gave Eddie such space.

He talks a good game.

"Most of the songs I've written that folks really like - the pretty ones - I can't imagine ever writing. [Wait for it] "My cynicism has poisoned the broth"

"I'm just another guy with a guitar ..."

Altho' Williams and Browne have shared a stage before, they are no duet act.

"I don't want us to lose our identities ... We're not double-dipping."

"When she sings with me, the appeal of my stuff goes up 10 percent"

Just kidding - he said *100* percent.

I include that shot up there of the handsome couple because I so like the fond look Georgia is giving her chap, but Busker can play tabloid with the best.

Just as those grubby rags in the supermarket run these shots of show biz couples where they are *not* billing and cooing, I too have a contribution in the form of that snap on the right, a clearly bored EW, wishing he was back on the road again, tripping and single-dipping that cynical broth.

As for the perfectly proportioned Browne, she is giving a clear come-on to the man behind the lens. Which suits me fine.

• First Friday 'live'
• November 4, 7:30pm
• Miller Road's Island Center Hall, tel 842 2306 xt 25
• Tickets: $8 and $5.00
• Sponsors: the stalwart Bainbridge Island Park and Recreation District (emphasis, while we're in tripping bloggy mood, on the Recreation)

Tripping & Blogging

A suitably sharp rap over the knuckles from my commenting Mistress Anon, accurate as ever in her scolding.

Indeed, the aptness of her observation on mushrooming bloggers is reinforced daily across the expansive Web.

Bravo. Suitably chastened.

I don't know why, but even as I read her comment I was reminded of that Infinite Monkeys theory ...

Oh, I know why - because of that decisive coup de grâce wherein some wag declared *that* particular chestnut well and truly refuted since the arrival of blogging.

I have to confess that the champignonsense that caught Anon's eye was to have been even loonier.

I was saluting the Oct 26 Review for being a bumper bundle of fun, not just for the mayoral stuff and sonorous names in the Letters pages, but had intended to wax further tedious and adoring over page 12's coverage (complete with that superb snap by Julie Busch) of the divine Georgia Browne and her November's First Friday set.

The title may say that "She's 100 percent songwriter" but the piece itself is around 15% Georgia and the rest devoted to some strummer and blower called Eddie Williams, the last person I want to read about.

Actually, as I type, if you click on the Review link and keyword in "Georgia Browne" you'll see that the mischievous Eddie has arranged for the online version to dub her down to *Ten* percent. That boy is so-o-o asking for it.

That's what happens when one sends an interviewer with an eye for a hunk - one leer from designer-stubbled gravel-vox, a casual scrape of horny thumb across strings, and Ms Browne is out of the picture and it's all about The Man.

I would NOT have liked to have been in Williams' shoes when GB opened her paper over the breakfast kedgeree and saw how roundly she'd been scooped.

Yes, indeedy - the spare couch and no jam butties for *that* lost Angeleno.

November 4th Friday Night Live

Georgia and Eddie

Kick-off: 7:30

Island Center Hall, Miller Road

Tkts avail at door: $8 adults, $5 les petits 6-18.

Info' - 842-2306 xt 25

Sponsors: Bainbridge Island Park & Recreation District.

Bumper Review

The elusive ed of our Bainbridge Review is steering a dangerous course towards one of those journo awards that can screw a scribbler's career and leave him preening 'neath laurels.

Stunning Oct 26 edition:

Front page fotos of mayoral jousters Kordonwy and Tooloee in such gleaming smileage I can only assume they booked the lensman who snapped Mr. DeLay for his toothy confident mug-shot.

Q&A: Some great lines that I'm stealing from both to further my own weasely way up the corporate ladder.

Darlene Kordonwy

• Continuing the momentum
• Jumpstart the implementation
• "Meet and greet" corps
• No "Seattle suburb in the sound" - nice ring to it ... alliterative shades of Norm Greenbaum's classic, Spirit in the Sky ... "Ferry me across to that suburb in the sound".
• Those 'Island Clogging'/'Harbor Hash' developer johnnies should pool their silver and issue that as their theme tune.

Nezam Tooloee

With a killer name like that, for me, he's a slam dunk to start with, never mind that confident stance and gamma-ray smile.

Plus, I am a total black-belt 6-stigmatized, ISO sucker for everything these business leaders bring ...

Just the name: same rhythm as Dylan's 'John Wesley Hardin' ... "was a friend to the poor, traveled with a gun in every hand ..."

NeeZAM Tooloee , biz man to the hilt,
Forged a cool consensus with broad base ... etc

Hypnotic buzz words in TN's Q&A:

• "Want": the dude 'wants' to see results, 'wants' to see things happens. I like it.
• Bullet points. Clever Nezam makes his arguments easy on the eye.
• Laying out a timeline: Ouch! I hate time-lines. They make me deliver; make me accountable. Exactly what I want in a mayor, dammit
• "Core" services - why the "quotes"? Perfectly serviceable word. My late father used to say that words in "quotes" signaled, 'There's a right word, but I can't be bothered to find it.'
• Makes himself available - ^5
• Ask hard questions - good line, sir
• "Service to citizens that's sustainable ..." - this powerful stuff
• "Proactive in shaping future growth" - ditto

Whoever wins or loses, I'm much more concerned with the immediate problem of answering my Hong Kong recording label who need a name for my "group" who recorded back in the 1960's such immortal local hits as "Time can toe the line", "KGV Blues", "Shek O Babe" and "Shau Kei Wan Shuffle"

Truth to tell, was me en tout: strummed drummed chorused n dummy doo-wahh'd the whole thang.

Knowing how every name under the sun has been nabbed, I've instructed Moutries Records to re-issue them as being performed by Vancil Renna, (featuring Knobloch Doerschuk on lute for "No Moss on the Singing Tree")

Smoking con banned: "shambolic"

Délicieux bit of dictionary whipping by the normally staid Daily Telegraph.

And what about that accompanying graphic?

Dear old pictures ed probably dismissed that smidgeon of poudre as Johnson's^® Baby Talc spilled from m'lady's handbag.

Likeliest caption is:

"Soddez çela pour une alouette - I'm jolly well stubbing this cig out right here on the laquered table.

Bloody fags, wrecking my line of coke."

Language galore:

• Wrangling rifts
• That lovely word, Shambolic
• Flunked
• Struggled to salvage
• Confused
• Time for Blair to tell Reid [Hewitt's predecessor as Health Secretary ] to "butt out"
• "Outrageous that one rogue Cabinet Minister [Reid] can stray way beyond his brief and stomp around Whitehall trying to wreck the most important public health reform for 30 years."

Smoking Ban: "In disarray"

Perhaps my belovèd Angleterre hath balls after all.

"In disarray."

Music to my ears: Those meddlesome farts routed.

A large tincture called for. On second thoughts, leave the bottle on the table.

Johnny Cash

From my favourite Renaissance man, Richard Wells, this superb memorial to the Man in Black, God rest and nurture his immortal soul.

Damn, that's got to be some barnstorming strumming going down up there ....

Quite apart from his quietly good blog, Richard was one of the few people I worked with at my last employ whom I never tired of bumping into - kitchen, elevator, passing in the corridor - and to watch him in action conducting a global conference call was to watch professionalism and humour in action.

Some people seem to need to splatter their autobiog details around before they think they can get known - guilty, I fear - but Richard I knew no more about when I exited château d'éspair, 10:17 that sunny mid-July morning than when we'd met five years earlier.

Typical of the man, he sent me a succinct message of good wishes following my departure, along the dour lines of assuming it was messy and appalling. Cheered me up no end, more than my lovely lady friends' flattering wailing and renting of garments or the equally faithful heavy mob who asked only for names, addresses and precise body parts to which I fancied the Black & Decker be applied.

And yet, as the dust settled and I treated myself to thinking back, he was one of the good guys I wished I'd got to know better.

He's there in my list of fave clicks: Wells Singh.

New Brit speke: "Fanboys" n "Overdogs"

New lingo.

Seems there's a bunch of new words coming out of England we've yet to encounter here.

I'm just praying they're none of them pronounced with that hideous 'Estuary' accent that was such popular affectation a year or so back.

That would be THE end.

Homer of the Decade list

Accolade, d'ohh!

Homer Simpson considered one of the top 10 men of the decade.

"He has taught a whole generation how to take on the challenge of modern fatherhood and win - although not always with honour."

Top 10 Men of the Decade:

Smokes ban: "in chaos"

Talk about an all-purpose dream headline. Good old Guardian.

Insert the noun of your choice for 'Smoking' and you can apply it to any  interfering Nanny state legislation.

Nor is it one of those teasers that look glorious from afar but end up being the same old dreary rubbish about The Man sticking it to us once again.

No, indeed.

With lipsmacking satisfaction, we learn how,

"The [British] government's anti-smoking legislation was in chaos last night after Patricia Hewitt [UK Health Secretary] found herself the victim of a cabinet committee revolt, leaving the government bereft of a policy two days before it is due to publish its legislation."

In chaos ... bereft ... two days short of the busybodies cracking open the champagne. One's cup runneth over.

Music downloads and The 'Zon

Clever Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com fame (and wealth) talked to the UK Guardian "during a recent visit to the company's fulfilment centre in Gourock, near Glasgow."

Quoth the gnomic visionary:

"Digital media in general, including music downloading, is something that will be an important part of Amazon's future. It is still very early and the sales are still very small, but there will be multiple generations of digital media products."

Hey, hey - Get off-a my cloud

Or get off *of* my cloud, as the unfortunate younger girl is accustoming to.

Just as I ready the zimmer for the Oct 30 Key Arena Rolling Stones gig, an horrific article in the NYT about some geriatric Stones fanatics, the Shidoobees.

Makes one question not only one's own taste but the whole Keef/Sir Mick scene.

I'd ordered some cool T-shirts via my London trader that I could wear on the night and generally establish my impeccable street cred with my fellow paunchy Seattle ravers.

HowEVAH - m'lady hostess in possession of the actual tickets has screwed that pitch by pointing out that we'd look a bit odd, me 60-yr-old mutton garbed as 1960s lamb, she sashaying in at half my age, archetypal Nat Henstridge-lookalike ice maiden - dressed in her usual prim Swiss nanny gear.

Just the thought was grisly, so I sold the t-shirts for the price of one ticket and am now thinking of suggesting to Herself that we might as well just E-bay the actual seats and splurge on a decent nosh at Madoka followed by mild rocking sounds from the loudspeakers.

It's not as if Joss Stone was the intro act.

Meanwhile, a new TV show I've asked my Londoner contact to record:

Girls and Boys: Sex and British Pop

Sun 23 Oct, 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm 60mins

Love Me Do

New series telling the story of the pop music revolution of the past 40 years and how it has been driven by our very British fascination with sex and gender.

The 60s brought short skirts, long haired men in kaftans, the pill, and legalised gay sex. This is the story of gay managers like Brian Epstein; the rise of the beat groups like The Beatles and the Stones, and the new pop girls like Cilla, Marianne and Sandi, plus a more assertive generation of screaming fans. It was the start of our fascination with camp - step forward Brian Jones and Mick Jagger. With brilliant period archive footage.

Madoka

To Madoka yester-eve for a pre-theatre bite, that new place at 241 Winslow Way previously occupied by the PB Bistro.

Be not deceived by its sombre box-like exterior: the welcome is warm, service utterly professional, and Messrs Binuya and Gonzales have cleverly hired the best staff around.

I hadn't booked and even at 6pm the car park was full.

"Own a movie for less than a movie ticket."

The motto of the enticingly named Scilla Andreen, interviewed with business partner, Gian-Carlo Scandiuzzion, on their clever idea for IndieFlix.

Read all abaht it, page 27, Arts&LEISURE section of the NY Times, or online via your free-registered access to John Anderson's piece about how, "Once It Was Direct to Video, Now It's Direct to the Web".

The business sounds a bit like our own Bainbridge Island cloggery on the building front: what with cheaper technology and "a seemingly inexhaustible hipness quotient", more filmmakers and films are crowding the scene resulting in costlier distribution cautiouser outlets, returns on investment more dubious.

So what about more general fare? I hear you cry - them with no stars, budgets or hope?

Enter IndieFlix:

• Directors submit their films, which are then posted on the I-Flix site.
• Users log on and click to buy the films that capture their interest.
• IndieFlix burns them onto a DVD and ships 'em out.

  Price for a feature-length film: a footling $9.95.

Clever.

Blogs as storefronts

Credit where it's due.

Kicking off the morning with my usual skim of Findory, I see that Real Lawyers gets yet *another* mention. Good going!

This one's for spotting Intuitive Life Biz's take on blogging and fronting.

By coincidence, the work webistas have recruited me into some think-tank expected to come up with snappy hors-de-boîte ideas on this very topic.

I thought for a moment a smidgeon of elbow grease might be required, but I see now how to plagiarize, disguise and burble informèdly before my boss, not to mention earn the sulky admiration of those urbane and coiffed media consultants.

Rara Aviana

I was actually only aiming for alarmism, talking of the 'flu winging it over to civilised parts.

I didn't mean for the pythonesque Brits to wheel out the old dead parrot sketch ...

Nor is it reassuring when the usually sober Financial Times comes up with a headline about human 'flu preparation looking like costing billions.

So ... the "global community will need to spend at least 'several hundred million dollars' to prepare for a human flu pandemic in the months ahead", eh?

All eyes, I guess, on that Nov 7 Genève meeting of

Useful free tools on the 'Net

The sort of stuff I get asked for by distant cousines and geek-aspirante daughters: kleeners, tweakers, erasers, et ilk.

Bread-and-Butter Letters

My Christmas starts in late October. Not just because I need the time to think up clever (i.e. cheap) prezzies for my far-flung family and loved ones, but because I prefer the long and happy build-up over the crushed feeling at seven minutes past nine on Christmas morn, when the wrapping paper lies strewn, the forced gasps of orgasmic gratitude delivered, and the contents of all those thrilling shapes under the tree anti-climatically revealed.

I have my gift list ready, my card list Visio'd and Excel'd, and I have my Non  Gift List equally prepared.

Ten months of the year, I am an inveterate gifter, spotting bijou items that I fire off to the perfect recipient.

"So you're the flower toady? What's the game, then? You some sort of fairy, what? Eh? Hrrmph?"

The No Asshole Rule

I am a sucker for business books.

I pounce on each new one, put every bit of back-stabbing, self-serving advice to ruthless best use - and am universally loathed among the cubicles.

Rob Sutton's delivery of The No Asshole Rule sounds a 'must' for my 2007 bookshelf.

Sexist French bashes women creativas

I'm talking about the great Neil  French, copywriter supreme and galactic creative honcho (or is he now ex- ?) of the WPP Group.

He has riled folks with comments about the failings of women in advertising, and Nancy Volk, herself no slouch in this field, has snapped back.

I used to glimpse NF in Hong Kong and environs, and attended all his seminars and made sure to sip VSOP at all his favoured bars from Sydney to Shaukeiwan, Baguio to Barker Road.

He was nothing but provocative and, out East, it's like breathing in and breathing out to appear sexist.

Wonderful description of Neil as, "a man from an era and geographies that reinforced that the role of women should be reserved for pleasing the men, marrying them, bearing and caring for their offspring."

Oh dear, precisely my roots and everyone else's I grew up with in the far east, privileged sons of robber barons, scions of some great hong , or simply off-spring of dedicated civil servants ....

No wonder when we brought our colonial savvy back to set up our own fragrant harbouring homes, we knew *exactly* where gweilos  like Neil were coming from.

Darcus and Joan

What the listeners heard

One of those Wish-You'd-Been-There moments:

Skeletal harridan Joan Rivers and burly broadcaster Darcus Howe going at it hammer 'n' tongs - right there on the Beeb.

Darcus Howe had said that he would talk of *Caribbean* children, "... since black offends Joan."

Joan Rivers "Wait. Just stop right now. Black does not offend me. How dare you. How dare you say that. Black offends me? You know nothing about me. How dare you."

Howe: "The use of the term black offends you."

Rivers " The use of the term black offends me? Where the hell are you coming from? You have got such a chip on your shoulder. I don't give a damn if you're black or white. I couldn't care less. It's what the person is. Don't you dare call me a racist. I don't know you. I want an apology."

Libby Purves "I don't think it was personal, Joan."

Rivers "Oh, I think it was, when someone says the term black offends Joan. I will not sit here and be told that. How dare you say that."

Howe "I think this is a language problem."

And so forth.

Excellent - everyone's jumping on the race wagon. I may keep a tally:

Kilburn Sunset

Pal snaps the last light of day from her kitchen and waves of nostalgia and homesickness wash over me.

Would I not know those rooftops anywhere?

What they say, the sky is always purpler ....

Arbiters of Cool

Splendid hackle-raising headline and article in ever-cool FastCompany.

Cool Runnings

BLOG: PSFK
WHO WRITES IT: Brand consultant Piers Fawkes, creative director Simon King, and their trend-watching entourage
WHY YOU SHOULD READ IT: While it rarely identifies original trends on its own, PSFK does a good job of rounding up global cool news and cool businesses, spotlighting trends such as photo-flirting (teens swapping mobile-phone photos) and hair graffiti (shaved and dyed hair designs). Check out its Cool Hunt group on Flickr, which asks readers to photograph their versions of cool.

BLOG: Cool Hunting
WHO WRITES IT: Josh Rubin, a former user-interface designer for Motorola, and his band of 10 contributors
WHY YOU SHOULD READ IT: Because drinking Pabst with hipsters at after-hours Brooklyn bars is exhausting. Instead, tap into the cool-kid consciousness by reading Rubin and his cohorts--classic cool hunters obsessed with gadgets, T-shirts, and of course, Puma and Nike. Although perhaps best suited for those in the fashion biz, Rubin's blog helps anyone tap into maven culture.

BLOG: Ypulse
WHO WRITES IT: Anastasia Goodstein, manager of viewer-created content at the new cable channel Current, of which Al Gore is the chairman
WHY YOU SHOULD READ IT: Goodstein, who has been involved with youth content at Oxygen and AOL (she hasn't always worked for the guy who created the Internet), uses her youth-oriented eye to round up news on what's cool with teens. She does have some help: Julia and Katie, two Silicon Valley teenagers, chime in with their finds.

Blogger Scoble

It's an unusual enough name to stick in the recess of a memory.

I seem to recall a Scoble or Scobie being mentioned in despatches awhile back.

I know. Nail-biting stuff.

Peddy Posters - Version II

Cunning billboards, set up to seem  transparent.

Just the thing to cover the island in for his next  foray into politics by Inspector-General William K. Peddy, BA.

Will be interesting to see who's the *more* transparent - posters or the pol.

Pumpkin Dude Rides Again

No sooner do I lament the squishing and squashing of Pumpkin Dude than lo! he riseth to spook again.

Someone behind that red door is being totally hard-core Halloweenist and refusing to let passing vandals get the upper claw.

Imagine my sorrow the following morning, shuffling past with rheumy orbs averted from what I feared would be a grisly sight of strewn pumpkinnery across the sward ... mais non!

I almost sprang from my Guccis at the sight ...

Was this not an even ghoulisher  création ... spooky arms waving ... and just look  at that sinister stance - Frederick Krueger never leaned more menacingly ...

Expect monitorings and regular reports on this intriguing spectacle 'twixt now and the 31st ....

A Signal of Readiness

Extracts from a Times piece that caught my eye from the new book by Lynne Truss - she of the punctuation guide.

Talk to the Hand is LT's take on courtesy:

"We are not invisible to one another. The problem is that people are increasingly unwilling to admit when they are out in public, that they are not nevertheless — through sheer force of will — actually in private ...

When they are on trains, or in the street, or in a queue for taxis, they can’t say the courtesy words because to do so would explode their idea of the entire experience, which is that they are alone and that nobody else exists ...

Politeness is a signal of readiness to meet someone halfway; the question of whether politeness makes society cohere, or keeps other people safely at arm’s length, is a false opposition. Politeness does both, and that is why it’s so frightening to contemplate losing it. Suddenly, the world seems alien and threatening — and all because someone’s mother never taught him to say “excuse me” or “please” ...

And I lump the internet into this subject because it is the supreme example of an impersonal and inflexible system which will provide information if you do all the hard work of searching for it, but crucially:

a) doesn’t promise anything as a reward for all the effort;

(b) will never engage in dialogue;

(c) is much, much bigger than you are; and

(d) exists only in a virtual kind of way, so never has to apologise.

It seems to me that most big businesses and customer service systems are either modelling themselves on the internet or have learnt far too much from a deep reading of Franz Kafka. Either way, they certainly benefit because our brains have been pre-softened by our exposure to cyberspace. Our spirits are already half-broken. We have even started to believe that clicking “OK” is an act of free will, while “Quit” and “Retry” represent true philosophical alternatives ...

Are some of us extending our personal space an unreasonable distance — basically, for as far as the eye can see or the ear can hear? Why don’t we accept that being out of doors means being with other people who do things we can’t control? Yet our hamster balls just keep clashing with other people’s hamster balls, and it isn’t comfortable. Academic friends say their students answer calls during lectures. Lovers lolling on the public grass on a sunny day glare at you if you look at them ... People chat in the cinema during a film. It’s as if we now believe, in some spooky virtual way, that wherever we are, it’s home."

Clever idea of the Guardian to dip back in the archives to reproduce a review from October 1843 of The Tempest.

Spendid period phrasing such as,

"Indeed, it has rarely been our fortune to hear Shakespeare so mangled by any actor as it was on this occasion."

and, in an amusingly snobbish misunderstanding of the rôle of Trinculo, where the critic

" ... must caution this actor against his coarse tricks, which savour more of a sawdust arena than of the boards of a theatre-royal."

Blog design mistakes

Leafing thru Findory, am impressed to see mention of the 'Real Lawyers have blogs' blog.

RLHB has spotted pointers on blog design goofs, which apparently include

All-time 100 Best

Controversy time.

Time mag's 100 best:

• English-lang novels from 1923 au présent.
• Movies
• Lots of hidden bijoux links, like Best Soundtracks.

Oct 23 follow-up: Speaking of bijou, the Time piece has proved its worth by providing a vehicle for the tireless Matthew "Yeti" Baldwin to compile his "best of the worst … about the best: excerpts from actual one-star Amazon.com reviews of books from Time’s list of the 100 best novels from 1923 to the present."

Very clever, expertly sifted, extremely funny.

Science Fiction Covers

Oodles of the blighters.

A true sci-fi buff's dream.

Plus, how it was made.

Bill Maher

Must be a thread going round.

People keep mailing me his closing lines from last Friday's show, Oct 14.

"Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.

Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man?

Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don't. I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.

On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it cou! ld be if you were on the other side.

So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: 'Take a hint.' "

Iraq envoy's tell-all memoir blocked

Good old British Foreign Office, blocking publication of The Costs of War memoir by senior diplomat, Jeremy Greenstock.

I guess the chaps don't like the way Sir J calls the conflict 'politically illegitimate'.

Comments Sir J - Britain's UN ambassador during the build-up to war in Iraq:

"My personal view is that it might be worth saying what I want to say rather than being censored to blandness."

Mensa Invitational

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational asks readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

This year's 2005 winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
11. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
12. Karmageddon: Its like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
13. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
14. Glibido: All talk and no action.
15. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
16. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
17. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
18. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

Pumpkin Dude

Walking down Ericksen, I spot this impressively sprawling gentleman adorning the porch of a house I'd previously only noticed for its dilapidated appearance rivaling even that of Château Busker.

But someone has done a fine job here, arranging m'sieur into a life-like slouch and even surrounding him with authentic Halloweenery down to a spooky gossamer web arrangement.

The house looks almost as lifeless as the straw figure, but I do not approach to snap a close-up.

When I return an hour or so later, the Pumpkin Dude is crumpled flat out on the lawn, his head missing except for a squish of orangerie across the bare lawn.

Not even the humblest work of craftsmanship these days escapes the ravages of wanton vandalism.

H5N1

Now there's  a juicy moniker for a nation that loves putting numbers to everything.

Like, "9/11", without which most Brits would still be unaware that we date the wrong way round on this side of the Atlantic.

And now H5N1.

Sounds particularly good in a southern accent, and it won't be long, I fear, before it's sounding alarums in *any* sort of accent.

At present, it's largely met with bovine - make that avian - bewilderment or outright dismissal.

• Never mind, that'll change soon enough ... and where the hell is Romania anyway?
• Michael Leavitt knows where, and he's sort of trying to signal something about high risk.
• Over where my lot are, they're talking when, not whether for a pandemic. Gloomy coves.
• Me, I'm hard-pressed to find people who even know what the blessèd word means.
• Not a problem they have over in Corfu: From 'pandemos' - "pertaining to all people": pan meaning "all" and demos meaning "people."
• Think epidemic. Even better, think *global* pandemic.
  • Well, not right now, of course. Finish your latte first.
• But *then* have a think about how hairy things might be getting, around about the time when the Year of the Bird Dog lopes into view.

• Or just think pandemic overeaction.

• For wilder imaginations, think cosy spur and catalyst for pols everywhere to "indulge in unfettered cooperation." Yeh, right.
• Let's see how co-operative everyone is when they're stuck with a 'Jabs Shortage'

Post scriptum: The always pertinent 'Chele comments with two effective links:

Loot

Can one be made to give $$ back?

I have transferred it to my Greek bank account where even *I* can't reach cash easily, tho' it seems that mom's gardener and butler and kyrios Tom Cobleigh and all can adjust their wages at whim.

• Mid July 2004, I commit Cardinal Sin IV in the Coercia.com rule book, am grilled by manager with HR youth attendance, and walked to desk for instant clearance and escort to Exit.
• It is explained that I have 90 days to vest my 7 years' worth of Coercia stock.
• I get home, get on the blower to the brokers and instruct them to sell NOW and wire cash to my bank.
• Next day, Coercia chairman announces certain customer-caressing initiatives that will cost the company in the short term but earn it devoted customers in the long run. Stock price dips by $8.00. Next day, by another $2.00. Tumbles.
• Thirty days later, a note from brokers showing $5,000.00. I call and ask how come and to sell.
• Ten business days later, a voice mail asking what I want to do with the $855.12 cents in my account.

  I call and say if there's *any* remaining funds, to cash it in and send it thru.

• One week before the 90 days are up, I call: "Can you see *any* cash I'm entitled to, because after October 15, that's it." Nothing showing.

  Oct 4, 2005, after nigh on a year of no mail from the broker, I get a Client Statement showing $14,018.75.

  I phone - in very cautious mode - and talk to a very helpful chap who, yes, can take my instructions over the phone to sell and transfer.

• Naturally, I won't get the *full* 14 grand because the purchase of the stocks will come out of my lump sum.

  Naturally.

  We're talking original grant at $6.00, now trading at just under 10 times that price. $3.00 over the exercise price from a year back.

  I make scrooge-like grunts and tell him to proceed. I receive confirmatory email of the trade. I check my account online and the money is there. I instruct transfer to my Greek bank account. I receive email confirmation from sending and receiving banques.

  I estimate how much Uncle Sam will be asking come tax time 2006 and move that amount plus a further $500 to be safe from checking to savings account.

• Ponder the vagaries of the money business and whether it would not have made sense to be fired *sooner* and just lived off the proceeds.

  Pour slug of Lagavulin and order online the new
  Liz Phair.

Animal Practices

Bulger batterers Thompson and Venables are really  in hot water now.

That bastion of decorum and taste, The Sun, has discovered that Rob Thompson “practised” on animals.

If master Venables got a duffing up, that'll be nothing compared to what animal-rightist Brits will wreak on junkie T.

Pinter wins Nobel

Home Improvement for Dummies

Handyman tips for 4-thumbed dullards like me.

Mayhap for you, tho' I doubt anyone's as cack-handed as moi.

Sink declog, par exemple.

Yet another goody from the incomparably Good Experience.

Physics of guitar design

Fascinating article for us strummers and even more so for local luthiers ...

"A guitar is like a woman ... but it is also, to a physicist, like a bunch of pendulums connected by springs: It is a system of coupled oscillators. The first oscillator is the string, but a plucked string doesn't move enough air to emit much of a sound. So the bottom end of a guitar string is attached to a hardwood bridge, which transmits the vibration to the top plate, which transmits it to the rest of the guitar, which transmits it to the air in and around the instrument. Together these oscillators augment the string's feeble output and make it audible."

No sooner do I find this article than into the Friday Bageleria lopes guitar craftsman Mike Gaffney with his bizarre rectangular 'Bo Diddley' création.

I find the frets oddly spaced and cannot play anything on it, although it has a nice action and the square body sits well on the lap.

Then island newcomer Jim G takes it up and ripples effortlessly through a sprightly rag, no prob with the frets whatsoever, damn the fellow.

But I digress from the article's chat about oscillators and feeble output. It appears that,

"Their coupled motion patterns are very complex, and each note on the guitar corresponds to a particular pattern. But each vibration pattern is made up of a sum of simpler vibrations, called modes.

Play an F sharp on the bass E string, for instance (or a G, or G sharp; it depends on the guitar), and the whole instrument will swell and contract like a balloon, albeit indiscernibly, with the top and back plates moving a few microns closer and then apart, roughly a hundred times a second. About an octave higher--at the fourth, fifth, or sixth fret of the D string--the top and back plates move roughly twice as fast, at 215 hertz or so, but now they move in parallel, forward and back at the same time. Another octave or so higher and the bottom end of the soundboard inflates, while the neighboring area next to the sound hole deflates, and vice versa."

Now you know ... and there's more like that.

Roll over Segovia, indeed ...

Booker Banville Buffoonery

Best epithet for this year's wrangling?

"Controversial"? "Safe"? "Eccentric"? "Grotesque"?

I wasn't going to post on this but the argy-bargy is worth sharing.

• 14th time lucky for Banville, as the Guardian reports.
• In the late 1970s, I hired some help to assist with filing and basic database entry.
  • It took a month before it emerged that hired-help Guilland was in fact Mrs John Sutherland, wife of *the* literary lion on the London pampas.
• Assuming they are still married, in 2005 she is Mrs JS, wife of the judge of judges on this year's Booker panel.
• And this is hubby John's tale.

FROGARAMA

Grotesque, clever Photoshop grenouill-èse.

If the production values weren't so excellent, these would be the stuff of nightmares.

Carlos Cabana

I make sure to read Chip's Binary Circ because his antenna ranges wide and ever-surprising.

His posting on dollish Carlos is a classic.

I forwarded the link to gay Nikos in straightish Corfu and he of course replied sans delay, protesting at the name:

"Kristos! Please tell, Is no way 'Carlos'. Is Ahmed. And that body way he stand - no way he gay. Just beef pastry doesn't know posturise.

I met your mother in town, who looks well.

Have one Cabana for me."

Dear Nik. I met him while bartending in Corfu during the building of my parents' house when there wasn't room for elder son, so I roomed at the Bogdanos Hotel for bartending n guitar plucking rent.

Up glides sculpted N n asks for a drink for him n his buds - and one for me.

λoλ.

Literature Nobel announcement due Thursday

Woot! Those Scandiwegians' antics get better and better.

No sooner does Making Trouble mention Stephen King in the same breath as the Nobel literature gong, than it starts sounding as if the 'Bard of Maine' really *is* involved:

• Just before they announce this year's victor scriptorum, one of *last* year's judges "takes umbrage" over the 2004 winner, describing it as "a mass of text shovelled together without artistic structure."
• Gosh - someone does  know their Stephen King!
• Yes, indeed, having kept shtoom all year, stripling Knut Ahnlund (82) is suppressing his disgust no longer.