15.45 April 3rd 2008 real time and decide to write in celebration for having achieved two wins at Hearts during the day so far and back to a winning percentage of 17%. With the sound switched on there is music to accompany the rising hearts which then burst and the effect is most pleasing. I have also achieved my longest winning run to-date of twenty games at level two chess in the present series, I believe I achieve longer previously but is seems a long time ago, before Christmas, when this occurred but I cannot be bothered to investigate if and when this was so. The sound of making chess moves is harsh and that of checking and mating in this game is not a pleasant one although I do it to irritate myself from time to time, switching on the sound I mean.
11.30I prepare to watch Prime Minister’s Question time because with the Prime Minister away at a meeting to try and gain greater military and air support for the task in Afghanistan, answering questions fell to the Leader of the House, the first ever woman to do this on behalf of a Labour Party and only the second in British History of Parliament. Harriet Harman who won the deputy Labour Leadership, but instead of being appointed Deputy Prime Minister was appointed Leader of the House of Commons which means she is responsible for organising the business of the House of Commons on behalf of the Government and for answering questions about the planned business of the House in the week ahead. This gives the opportunity for anyone to raise any issues about what should be considered so she has to cover all subjects and is a most suitable job for the task of P.M.Qs. If Ms Harman proves herself in the task today she could do her chances of replacing Mr Brown as Leader at the appropriate time, no end of good. She was to day joined at the despatch boxes by not the female opposition shadow leader but by the former Prime Minister and present Shadow Foreign Secretary. William Hague. He appeared to be charming ion welcoming Ms Harman and drawing attention to the gap between the Conservatives having elected a woman to lead the party and Ms Harman’s appearance as a stand in Leader today. She retaliated why her opposite number was not in his place and chided the lady who was sitting next to him, for not exerting her rights and this brought great cheers from her side. William the great debating and after dinner speaker that he is could not resist drawing attention that on a recent visit to the streets of her constituency with the police, she wore police combat flack jackets which they all appear top wear these days as protection from knife attack. Flushed with success she retaliated, explaining she always worse the gear of those she was visiting such as safety helmets when on a building site and reminded when he had worn a baseball cap to appear with it. Of course it was downhill after that with the honour going to William for his series of questions drawing attention the impact of tax rises, price increases and wage restraint on ordinary folk and that while the behaviour of capitalism had been at its worst recently in the USA and Europe threatening mass unemployment and mortgage foreclosures because of the greed to make even greater individual and company profits. The politicians talk as if the latest development was not within anyone’s control or responsibility and was something akin to a force of nature. Stop trying to kid us William and David that your party if in power would have done anything substantially different in its impact upon the majority of us folk who do not belong to the moneyed and power class. My tip to Harriet is the need to take more lessons in deepening her voice, as Thatcher was said to have done, otherwise in the heat of debate her voice can sound screechy.
17.00 I need to go out and do some shopping and need to prepare myself for this. I need to do further work in getting the month’s project work off the ground and I need to get down on the ground and clean the floor. I only had soup and two slices of bread for my first meal of the day. And begin to need more sustenance, However I fought the urge and instead made a good job of sweeping the two laminated floors of the day room and kitchen and got on my paws and washed them having placed a change of clothes in the car so the last washed section was by the door and I changed and was able to set off shopping and for a paper bank statement. The latter is being environmentally inconsistent as I am also registered on line but it is one of my contradictions not easily changed. Alas not one of the 7 packs of transparent pockets was left which punishes me for not going for some yesterday. The feeling of laziness continued as I decided to take the car to the nearest car park to the bank knowing that parking charges ended there at six. I passed the comparatively new Italian restaurant which opened if not last year then the year before but after my move. It boasted evenings meals from 5.45 but was firmly closed with blinds behind the glass doors. It was still closed when I returned with the bank statement.
18.45 I am back and decided to enjoy a glass of Les Reserve des Trois Seigneurs 2006 from the merlot grape which comes from near the beautiful walled city of Carcassonne where I camped once in a small tent from a small fiat, having just decided to go off and find the sun without any pre booking. Ah those were days. There was great difficulty in securing the tent in rock hard earth after which a cold shower was appreciated and then an Inn was found in the ancient city where a Minstrel played, This evening’s meal will seem an anti climax but it is what I fancied. Two meatless bean burgers and a can of baked beans. Later some grapes and later yet to be made some coffee.
19.30 Feeling guilty about my comment on the Will Smith portrayal of Christ Gardner I decided to view two the extra films on the DVD. The first was revealing and enlightening as the producers decided on Will Smith who in turn decided that he wanted an Italian Director who spoke only a few words of English to make a film which from the outset was about the American Dream. In the second film Chris Gardner makes the point that he wanted the film to be more about the struggle to care for his son, paternal rights and more importantly the relationship between father and son, something which was denied him in relation to his won father. However Gardner did become involved with the project, insisting that they show something of the man who for decades led the church shelter which offered him care and provided three meals a day for the poor, He is also seen crossing the street passing by Will Smith and his actor son at the end of the film. The film also showed real life Gardner meeting with Mandela and agreeing to help create work and reduce poverty in that country. This underlines my point that the power men and corporations of America turn their attention to good works overseas, necessary as they are, because they understand that their power depends on a system which must have what should be unacceptable poverty and living condition in their own land. In the UK we took action to prevent children sleeping on the streets, in subways, in public toilets or having to queue daily for a place at the shelter forty years ago. America be ashamed.
22.30 In between the meal, playing Hearts, and a little sleep I watched one of those programmes which can make you want to pack you bags and go and see the sights being shown, This happened when in 2005 I Dan Cruickshank, the architectural historian and presenter of programmes about Architecture, take us globe trotting to 80 Treasures of the World. I have the urge to go off deep within me, from taking Ferries from the Glasgow down the banks of the Clyde to the Holy Loch and surrounding stops and then camping at the waters edge in the grounds of the Youth Hostel, to taking the train thorough Europe to Stockholm and Forsa, to my odyssey over the Grossglockner to Venice and then through Italy to Sorrento, to taking that first ferry through the Islands of Greece, to carefully planned Motoring through France into Northern Spain, or suddenly taking off on a visit to Andorra finding accommodation on arrival, or as mentioned earlier taking off in a small Fiat in search of the sun, seeing what here is to see in the world has had strong appeal, but my work and other considerations, especially my inability to learn the basic of other languages inhibited going the full Monty, travelling to the remote places, on going in search of contemporary buildings and ancient monuments I satisfied myself with Time Life Books on the cities of the world, promising myself that I would take a trip one day, even if only a mini trip, and gradually come to accept that for me the wild places, the desserts and ice lands, and the great rivers, would have to remain picture books and documentary films. This time although I waited in anticipation for the programme to begin I was disappointed in the sense that I had no wish to go and see any of the for buildings he presented. The first of eight programmes was incongruously titled Beauty although three of the constructions were not beautiful and the fourth was the creature of women with too much power and money. The programme did begin with a building as such, but the construction of an igloo somewhere near one of the magnetic Poles. Truly its construction, apparently by one of the few individuals with the skill and strength to undertake the craft these days was impressive and as it appeared to take several hours and not to be something you would chose to do in emergency. The reality of the environment was brought home to everyone as a licensed hunter made his way home with the bloody remains of the Polar Bear he had shot. The second destination was to the Giant Buddha of LeShan, located at the confluence of several rivers in the Southern part of the Sichuan province of China. It is 233 feet in height, some 71 metres, created from 713 AD and is the largest such statue in the world, alas now damaged by the pollution from local factories, power plants and tourists. The selection of this as the first object would therefore appear to have been political. The suggestion that the statue embedded out of a rocky cliff is in any way beautiful is nonsense. The second building is an obscenity to the vanity, unfettered power and wealth of several Empresses of Russia who squandered unbelievable fortunes depriving their countrymen and women to create a giant of a building and decorate lavishly with real gold. It as limited historical and or architectural significance in the sense that the building has been demolished and developed several times to suit an individual occupant until they died or became bored and moved elsewhere. The building was intentionally destroyed by the retreating German forces after the siege of Leningrad and for some extraordinary reason it is being restored as a tourist attraction by holding elite pop concerts with the likes of Elton John, Tina Turner Whitney Houston and Sting. It looks good but what a price. The next visit was to the grotesque Sun Temple of Konark in India which is full of pornographic statues which today titillate visitors but which Victoria British Colonials considered raising to the ground such is the offensive nature of the images. The Temple is dedicated to the Sun God where specially trained maidens performed dances to entertain the priests in the once giant Dancing Hall. The final visit was to the Cathedral at Albi a hideous looking build created after a Catholic Pope ordered the murder, rape and pillaging a group of Catholics who decided to move away from the ostentation and high living of the Catholic Church of the day in the thirteenth century. The Papal Legate is known to have said Kill them all, God will know his own. He did indeed as two Popes who assisted in the construction of the church (which was designed to create fear on the population so they would never resist the will of Rome again), are among eight of the worst in Papal History. Pope Urban Vi is known to have complained that the screams from the Cardinals he tortured were not loud enough, Pope Boniface VIII imprisoned his predecessor on gaining power and then set about a policy of making every human being on earth the subject of his will (The Bad Popes, E R Chamberlin). I know a jaundiced viewpoint and the buildings are buildings which have unique qualities and characteristics and qualify as human made wonders of the planet. But and it is a big but they are not beautiful and one cannot ignore the purpose of their creation, the cost of the creation, they way they have been created and the use which they have had, and continue to have.
00.20 I should be concentrating on work before bedtime but in my examination of what was on the telly this evening I found there is another showing of Bright Young Things, the satirical Evelyn Waugh novel called Vile Bodies brilliantly script written by Stephen Fry, about the behaviour and attitudes of decadent London society. The book is set before and then during World War I, but the film is brought forward to the second World War. This was the last film in which Sir John Mills appeared, as " Man sitting on sofa taking Cocaine at party," and among the others well known actors were Peter O’Toole as Colonel Blount, Richard E Grant as Father Rothschild, Dan Aykroyd as Lord Monomark, Jim Broadbent. as Drunk Major and Michael Sheen, James McAvoy, Stockyard Channing, Simon Callow, and Imelda Staunton. One early episode is when the gay young things decided on a fancy dress party at Number Ten without the knowledge of the Prime Ministerial parents, and where a member of staff wonders if the talcum powder found on the Cabinet room table could be explosive. However as Wartime approaches the realities of life penetrate into the young lives. The anonymous writer who everyone knows is a young Lord about town is sacked by his media mogul who wants scandal for his front, middle and back pages, but within he libel laws, commits suicide. The young gay has to flee to France after his lover who is in conflict with his inclinations, leaves incriminating letters. The flightiest of the Dom Perignon swigging young things has a breakdown and is admitted to a psychiatric ward. The hero of the tale needs money to marry the love of his life and settle down become tired of the endless round of parties and dances, but knows he is unable to keep her in he life to which she is accustomed and is driven to sell her share in her to a good friend and her already fiancé for £76 and some shillings and pence, the amount he owes for staying at a no question asked private hotel/club. As the war progressed and after her marriage he learns she has borne him a son and because of good fortune he is able to but her back offering over thirty thousand pounds! Years before he had wagered with her fiancé ( the subsequent husband), and won £1000 which he had promptly given to an unknown major at the hotel/club who knew of an outsider who would win the November handicap. The horse wins but after several misadventures the Drunken Major, now a General reminding of his role in the Moulin Rouge, gives him a cheque on the battlefield, just before he is blown up by a shell. Thus the film has a romantic happy ending. The ending in book is rather different and Waugh later explained that his negativity arose because of the break up of his first marriage as he was writing. Only Oscar Wilde could have written a better script. The part of fiancé and husband is played by Dr Who which coincidentally I watched again the Runaway Bride edition in which he starred with I aint bovvered Catherine Tate, and with whom they begin a new series shortly. It was a good way to spend a couple of hours before bedtime.
11.30I prepare to watch Prime Minister’s Question time because with the Prime Minister away at a meeting to try and gain greater military and air support for the task in Afghanistan, answering questions fell to the Leader of the House, the first ever woman to do this on behalf of a Labour Party and only the second in British History of Parliament. Harriet Harman who won the deputy Labour Leadership, but instead of being appointed Deputy Prime Minister was appointed Leader of the House of Commons which means she is responsible for organising the business of the House of Commons on behalf of the Government and for answering questions about the planned business of the House in the week ahead. This gives the opportunity for anyone to raise any issues about what should be considered so she has to cover all subjects and is a most suitable job for the task of P.M.Qs. If Ms Harman proves herself in the task today she could do her chances of replacing Mr Brown as Leader at the appropriate time, no end of good. She was to day joined at the despatch boxes by not the female opposition shadow leader but by the former Prime Minister and present Shadow Foreign Secretary. William Hague. He appeared to be charming ion welcoming Ms Harman and drawing attention to the gap between the Conservatives having elected a woman to lead the party and Ms Harman’s appearance as a stand in Leader today. She retaliated why her opposite number was not in his place and chided the lady who was sitting next to him, for not exerting her rights and this brought great cheers from her side. William the great debating and after dinner speaker that he is could not resist drawing attention that on a recent visit to the streets of her constituency with the police, she wore police combat flack jackets which they all appear top wear these days as protection from knife attack. Flushed with success she retaliated, explaining she always worse the gear of those she was visiting such as safety helmets when on a building site and reminded when he had worn a baseball cap to appear with it. Of course it was downhill after that with the honour going to William for his series of questions drawing attention the impact of tax rises, price increases and wage restraint on ordinary folk and that while the behaviour of capitalism had been at its worst recently in the USA and Europe threatening mass unemployment and mortgage foreclosures because of the greed to make even greater individual and company profits. The politicians talk as if the latest development was not within anyone’s control or responsibility and was something akin to a force of nature. Stop trying to kid us William and David that your party if in power would have done anything substantially different in its impact upon the majority of us folk who do not belong to the moneyed and power class. My tip to Harriet is the need to take more lessons in deepening her voice, as Thatcher was said to have done, otherwise in the heat of debate her voice can sound screechy.
17.00 I need to go out and do some shopping and need to prepare myself for this. I need to do further work in getting the month’s project work off the ground and I need to get down on the ground and clean the floor. I only had soup and two slices of bread for my first meal of the day. And begin to need more sustenance, However I fought the urge and instead made a good job of sweeping the two laminated floors of the day room and kitchen and got on my paws and washed them having placed a change of clothes in the car so the last washed section was by the door and I changed and was able to set off shopping and for a paper bank statement. The latter is being environmentally inconsistent as I am also registered on line but it is one of my contradictions not easily changed. Alas not one of the 7 packs of transparent pockets was left which punishes me for not going for some yesterday. The feeling of laziness continued as I decided to take the car to the nearest car park to the bank knowing that parking charges ended there at six. I passed the comparatively new Italian restaurant which opened if not last year then the year before but after my move. It boasted evenings meals from 5.45 but was firmly closed with blinds behind the glass doors. It was still closed when I returned with the bank statement.
18.45 I am back and decided to enjoy a glass of Les Reserve des Trois Seigneurs 2006 from the merlot grape which comes from near the beautiful walled city of Carcassonne where I camped once in a small tent from a small fiat, having just decided to go off and find the sun without any pre booking. Ah those were days. There was great difficulty in securing the tent in rock hard earth after which a cold shower was appreciated and then an Inn was found in the ancient city where a Minstrel played, This evening’s meal will seem an anti climax but it is what I fancied. Two meatless bean burgers and a can of baked beans. Later some grapes and later yet to be made some coffee.
19.30 Feeling guilty about my comment on the Will Smith portrayal of Christ Gardner I decided to view two the extra films on the DVD. The first was revealing and enlightening as the producers decided on Will Smith who in turn decided that he wanted an Italian Director who spoke only a few words of English to make a film which from the outset was about the American Dream. In the second film Chris Gardner makes the point that he wanted the film to be more about the struggle to care for his son, paternal rights and more importantly the relationship between father and son, something which was denied him in relation to his won father. However Gardner did become involved with the project, insisting that they show something of the man who for decades led the church shelter which offered him care and provided three meals a day for the poor, He is also seen crossing the street passing by Will Smith and his actor son at the end of the film. The film also showed real life Gardner meeting with Mandela and agreeing to help create work and reduce poverty in that country. This underlines my point that the power men and corporations of America turn their attention to good works overseas, necessary as they are, because they understand that their power depends on a system which must have what should be unacceptable poverty and living condition in their own land. In the UK we took action to prevent children sleeping on the streets, in subways, in public toilets or having to queue daily for a place at the shelter forty years ago. America be ashamed.
22.30 In between the meal, playing Hearts, and a little sleep I watched one of those programmes which can make you want to pack you bags and go and see the sights being shown, This happened when in 2005 I Dan Cruickshank, the architectural historian and presenter of programmes about Architecture, take us globe trotting to 80 Treasures of the World. I have the urge to go off deep within me, from taking Ferries from the Glasgow down the banks of the Clyde to the Holy Loch and surrounding stops and then camping at the waters edge in the grounds of the Youth Hostel, to taking the train thorough Europe to Stockholm and Forsa, to my odyssey over the Grossglockner to Venice and then through Italy to Sorrento, to taking that first ferry through the Islands of Greece, to carefully planned Motoring through France into Northern Spain, or suddenly taking off on a visit to Andorra finding accommodation on arrival, or as mentioned earlier taking off in a small Fiat in search of the sun, seeing what here is to see in the world has had strong appeal, but my work and other considerations, especially my inability to learn the basic of other languages inhibited going the full Monty, travelling to the remote places, on going in search of contemporary buildings and ancient monuments I satisfied myself with Time Life Books on the cities of the world, promising myself that I would take a trip one day, even if only a mini trip, and gradually come to accept that for me the wild places, the desserts and ice lands, and the great rivers, would have to remain picture books and documentary films. This time although I waited in anticipation for the programme to begin I was disappointed in the sense that I had no wish to go and see any of the for buildings he presented. The first of eight programmes was incongruously titled Beauty although three of the constructions were not beautiful and the fourth was the creature of women with too much power and money. The programme did begin with a building as such, but the construction of an igloo somewhere near one of the magnetic Poles. Truly its construction, apparently by one of the few individuals with the skill and strength to undertake the craft these days was impressive and as it appeared to take several hours and not to be something you would chose to do in emergency. The reality of the environment was brought home to everyone as a licensed hunter made his way home with the bloody remains of the Polar Bear he had shot. The second destination was to the Giant Buddha of LeShan, located at the confluence of several rivers in the Southern part of the Sichuan province of China. It is 233 feet in height, some 71 metres, created from 713 AD and is the largest such statue in the world, alas now damaged by the pollution from local factories, power plants and tourists. The selection of this as the first object would therefore appear to have been political. The suggestion that the statue embedded out of a rocky cliff is in any way beautiful is nonsense. The second building is an obscenity to the vanity, unfettered power and wealth of several Empresses of Russia who squandered unbelievable fortunes depriving their countrymen and women to create a giant of a building and decorate lavishly with real gold. It as limited historical and or architectural significance in the sense that the building has been demolished and developed several times to suit an individual occupant until they died or became bored and moved elsewhere. The building was intentionally destroyed by the retreating German forces after the siege of Leningrad and for some extraordinary reason it is being restored as a tourist attraction by holding elite pop concerts with the likes of Elton John, Tina Turner Whitney Houston and Sting. It looks good but what a price. The next visit was to the grotesque Sun Temple of Konark in India which is full of pornographic statues which today titillate visitors but which Victoria British Colonials considered raising to the ground such is the offensive nature of the images. The Temple is dedicated to the Sun God where specially trained maidens performed dances to entertain the priests in the once giant Dancing Hall. The final visit was to the Cathedral at Albi a hideous looking build created after a Catholic Pope ordered the murder, rape and pillaging a group of Catholics who decided to move away from the ostentation and high living of the Catholic Church of the day in the thirteenth century. The Papal Legate is known to have said Kill them all, God will know his own. He did indeed as two Popes who assisted in the construction of the church (which was designed to create fear on the population so they would never resist the will of Rome again), are among eight of the worst in Papal History. Pope Urban Vi is known to have complained that the screams from the Cardinals he tortured were not loud enough, Pope Boniface VIII imprisoned his predecessor on gaining power and then set about a policy of making every human being on earth the subject of his will (The Bad Popes, E R Chamberlin). I know a jaundiced viewpoint and the buildings are buildings which have unique qualities and characteristics and qualify as human made wonders of the planet. But and it is a big but they are not beautiful and one cannot ignore the purpose of their creation, the cost of the creation, they way they have been created and the use which they have had, and continue to have.
00.20 I should be concentrating on work before bedtime but in my examination of what was on the telly this evening I found there is another showing of Bright Young Things, the satirical Evelyn Waugh novel called Vile Bodies brilliantly script written by Stephen Fry, about the behaviour and attitudes of decadent London society. The book is set before and then during World War I, but the film is brought forward to the second World War. This was the last film in which Sir John Mills appeared, as " Man sitting on sofa taking Cocaine at party," and among the others well known actors were Peter O’Toole as Colonel Blount, Richard E Grant as Father Rothschild, Dan Aykroyd as Lord Monomark, Jim Broadbent. as Drunk Major and Michael Sheen, James McAvoy, Stockyard Channing, Simon Callow, and Imelda Staunton. One early episode is when the gay young things decided on a fancy dress party at Number Ten without the knowledge of the Prime Ministerial parents, and where a member of staff wonders if the talcum powder found on the Cabinet room table could be explosive. However as Wartime approaches the realities of life penetrate into the young lives. The anonymous writer who everyone knows is a young Lord about town is sacked by his media mogul who wants scandal for his front, middle and back pages, but within he libel laws, commits suicide. The young gay has to flee to France after his lover who is in conflict with his inclinations, leaves incriminating letters. The flightiest of the Dom Perignon swigging young things has a breakdown and is admitted to a psychiatric ward. The hero of the tale needs money to marry the love of his life and settle down become tired of the endless round of parties and dances, but knows he is unable to keep her in he life to which she is accustomed and is driven to sell her share in her to a good friend and her already fiancé for £76 and some shillings and pence, the amount he owes for staying at a no question asked private hotel/club. As the war progressed and after her marriage he learns she has borne him a son and because of good fortune he is able to but her back offering over thirty thousand pounds! Years before he had wagered with her fiancé ( the subsequent husband), and won £1000 which he had promptly given to an unknown major at the hotel/club who knew of an outsider who would win the November handicap. The horse wins but after several misadventures the Drunken Major, now a General reminding of his role in the Moulin Rouge, gives him a cheque on the battlefield, just before he is blown up by a shell. Thus the film has a romantic happy ending. The ending in book is rather different and Waugh later explained that his negativity arose because of the break up of his first marriage as he was writing. Only Oscar Wilde could have written a better script. The part of fiancé and husband is played by Dr Who which coincidentally I watched again the Runaway Bride edition in which he starred with I aint bovvered Catherine Tate, and with whom they begin a new series shortly. It was a good way to spend a couple of hours before bedtime.
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