Tender Loving Care?

All humans suffer sexual frustration at times, particularly the young, fever-fretted by high hormones and low self-esteem. What must it feel like when the path to fulfilment is blocked, perhaps permanently, by one’s own severe physical or mental deficiency?
  This is the problem which the TLC trust seeks to address by connecting disabled people to sex workers (i.e. prostitutes). For all that, I find myself out of sympathy with the project. Why?
Firstly, because Joe Public pays it for; so that those who would consider it immoral to patronise tarts themselves are compelled to pay for others to do so. Mainly, though, it is because it offers no ultimate satisfaction. I suspect that most of its clients want love and companionship, but are being fobbed off with mere sex. On their website, the Trust say:

Two stigmatized groups provide each other with triumph: sexually-deprived disabled people get laid, and sex workers gain a renewed pride in their work.

No mention of cash changing hands.

Personally, I don’t believe that prostitution brings anything but a sense of degradation to both the parties concerned. And here is a question to ponder; if the social workers that arrange these grim trysts are so concerned about their clients’ sexual rights, why don’t they ‘cut out the middle man’ and have sex with them themselves?

Can I Be Arrested for this Poster?

Answer: possibly. I've just been skimming through the Olympic Games Act 2006, and it seems to empower the government to do just about everything short of nukeing parliament while the Games are in progress. In particular, Article 19 allows for the authorities to seize advertising (which seems, in their definition, to cover just about anything). So, here goes: put the cuffs on!

More Rubbish from the Papers

What? Is this public spirited lady being victimised for dumping litter in the bin? No, it was actually a CAT which she dropped in the litter bin. Another cock-up from The Mail.

The study warns nothing of the sort. It deals with the effect of forest fires on trees. When a tree is burned down, it ceases to absorb carbon dioxide. Naturally. The article also confuses CO2 with carbon monoxide. From the Independent.

Should be 'off' not 'of'. The Mail again.

Piranha 3D

To the cinema to see Piranha 3D, a new cinematic gross-out. This is the sort of film of which they used to say 'they don't make films like that any more'. Well, now they do. Rarely have I  seen so much nudity and gore packed into 89 minutes. It is, obviously, in 3D - the cheap kind which is added after the film has been shot in 2D, and which betrays itself by the occasional appearance of the 2D 'ghost' of one characters seemingly appearing behind the 3D version. Most of the time, though, it is quite OK for purpose, and scores  a 3D first as one of the female characters vomits messily into the camera. The plot, insofar as there is one, concerns an earthquake which releases prehistoric piranha from a hidden cavern into a lake full of vacationing youngsters. From that point on all we have to do is sit back as the cast are converted systematically into groundbait. An unexpected bonus is an nude underwater  ballet by Kelly Brook and Riley Steele to the flower song from Delibes' Lakmé; it is erotic and at the same time beautiful.
  I almost forgot another cinema first; the titles contain a credit for The Association of Amputee Surfers.
 

Today's spelling mistake

One more item for  my 'spelling mistakes where there shouldn't be any' collection. It comes from The Mail's website, and has been there since yesterday. And by the way, Amazon is still advertising the PAL DVD of Modesty Blaise with 'Dork' Bogarde.

Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved - Not!

"How Brilliant Computer Scientists Solved the Bermuda Triangle Mystery"
The headline is all over the web. The story behind it is that two scientists - using computer modelling - have cracked the problem of why ships and aircraft have vansihed in the so-called 'Bermuda Triangle'.
Turns out that it's all about methane. Certain seabed areas have huge deposits of frozen methane. From time to time the gas escapes in massive bubbles. If  a ship is above the bubble, it immediately sinks. If it is on the edge of such a bubble, everyone on board is suffocated - giving rise to incidents where ships have been found drifting with everyone on board dead. If the methane burp is sufficiently large, even aircraft can be knocked out of the sky.  There is only one problem with the explanation - it is pure, 24 carat hogwash. Had our two scientists done their homework, they would be aware that there has never been a reported instance of a ship found with everyone on board dead. Had they done even more research they would have discovered that there has never been a 'Bermuda Triangle' mystery. It was thoroughly debunked more that thirty years ago by a writer called Lawrence Kusche, in the book shown above. Kusche sieved through through every claimed disappearance in the region. None of them held water. Some ships had never disappeared at all. Some had disappeared in the Pacific, some had disappeared during hurricanes, which the writers had, oddly failed to mention  - and so on.
Yet, through the miracle medium of computer modeling, the impossible has been 'proved'. This will be of no surprise to those of us who regular follow the intriguing results of 'climate modeling'. Oh, and the paper this tripe was published in wasn't some fringe nut outlet, but the American Journal of Physics.

Beloit College Mindset List 2014

Every year Beloit College, in Wisconsin, produces a 'mindset list' which serves to remind tutors of the gap between their experiences and those of their oncoming batch of 18-year-olds.  The 18ers, for example, don't wear watches - they get the time from their phones. This year's newbies were born in 1992. A number of new sources have printed selections from the 2014 version, but I thought it worthwhile to track down the complete list, although some entries will be baffling for UK readers. It's fascinating- but doesn't it make you feel old!

1. Few in the class know how to write in cursive.
2. Email is just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail.
3. “Go West, Young College Grad” has always implied “and don’t stop until you get to Asia…and learn Chinese along the way.”
4. Al Gore has always been animated.
5. Los Angelenos have always been trying to get along.
6. Buffy has always been meeting her obligations to hunt down Lothos and the other blood-suckers at Hemery High.
7. “Caramel macchiato” and “venti half-caf vanilla latte” have always been street corner lingo.
8. With increasing numbers of ramps, Braille signs, and handicapped parking spaces, the world has always been trying harder to accommodate people with disabilities.
9. Had it remained operational, the villainous computer HAL could be their college classmate this fall, but they have a better chance of running into Miley Cyrus’s folks on Parents’ Weekend.
10. A quarter of the class has at least one immigrant parent, and the immigration debate is not a big priority…unless it involves “real” aliens from another planet.
11. John McEnroe has never played professional tennis.
12. Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry.
13. Parents and teachers feared that Beavis and Butt-head might be the voice of a lost generation.
14. Doctor Kevorkian has never been licensed to practice medicine.
15. Colorful lapel ribbons have always been worn to indicate support for a cause.
16. Korean cars have always been a staple on American highways.
17. Trading Chocolate the Moose for Patti the Platypus helped build their Beanie Baby collection.
18. Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess.
19. They never twisted the coiled handset wire aimlessly around their wrists while chatting on the phone.
20. DNA fingerprinting and maps of the human genome have always existed.
21. Woody Allen, whose heart has wanted what it wanted, has always been with Soon-Yi Previn.
22. Cross-burning has always been deemed protected speech.
23. Leasing has always allowed the folks to upgrade their tastes in cars.
24. “Cop Killer” by rapper Ice-T has never been available on a recording.
25. Leno and Letterman have always been trading insults on opposing networks.
26. Unless they found one in their grandparents’ closet, they have never seen a carousel of Kodachrome slides.
27. Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.
28. They’ve never recognized that pointing to their wrists was a request for the time of day.
29. Reggie Jackson has always been enshrined in Cooperstown.
30. “Viewer Discretion” has always been an available warning on TV shows.
31. The first computer they probably touched was an Apple II; it is now in a museum.
32. Czechoslovakia has never existed.
33. Second-hand smoke has always been an official carcinogen.
34. “Assisted Living” has always been replacing nursing homes, while Hospice has always been an alternative to hospitals.
35. Once they got through security, going to the airport has always resembled going to the mall.
36. Adhesive strips have always been available in varying skin tones.
37. Whatever their parents may have thought about the year they were born, Queen Elizabeth declared it an “Annus Horribilis.”
38. Bud Selig has always been the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.
39. Pizza jockeys from Domino’s have never killed themselves to get your pizza there in under 30 minutes.
40. There have always been HIV positive athletes in the Olympics.
41. American companies have always done business in Vietnam.
42. Potato has always ended in an “e” in New Jersey per vice presidential edict.
43. Russians and Americans have always been living together in space.
44. The dominance of television news by the three networks passed while they were still in their cribs.
45. They have always had a chance to do community service with local and federal programs to earn money for college.
46. Nirvana is on the classic oldies station.
47. Children have always been trying to divorce their parents.
48. Someone has always gotten married in space.
49. While they were babbling in strollers, there was already a female Poet Laureate of the United States.
50. Toothpaste tubes have always stood up on their caps.
51.  Food has always been irradiated.
52. There have always been women priests in the Anglican Church.
53. J.R. Ewing has always been dead and gone. Hasn’t he? 
54. The historic bridge at Mostar in Bosnia has always been a copy.
55. Rock bands have always played at presidential inaugural parties.
56. They may have assumed that parents’ complaints about Black Monday had to do with punk rockers from L.A., not Wall Street.
57. A purple dinosaur has always supplanted Barney Google and Barney Fife. 
58. Beethoven has always been a dog.
59. By the time their folks might have noticed Coca Cola’s new Tab Clear, it was gone.
60. Walmart has never sold handguns over the counter in the lower 48.
61. Presidential appointees have always been required to be more precise about paying their nannies’ withholding tax, or else.
62. Having hundreds of cable channels but nothing to watch has always been routine. 
63. Their parents’ favorite TV sitcoms have always been showing up as movies.
64. The U.S, Canada, and Mexico have always agreed to trade freely.
65. They first met Michelangelo when he was just a computer virus.
66. Galileo is forgiven and welcome back into the Roman Catholic Church.
67. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has always sat on the Supreme Court.
68. They have never worried about a Russian missile strike on the U.S.
69. The Post Office has always been going broke.
70. The artist formerly known as Snoop Doggy Dogg has always been rapping.
71. The nation has never approved of the job Congress is doing.
72. One way or another, “It’s the economy, stupid” and always has been.
73. Silicone-gel breast implants have always been regulated.
74. They’ve always been able to blast off with the Sci-Fi Channel.
75. Honda has always been a major competitor on Memorial Day at Indianapolis.
                                                                                                         

20WV/39513A/10 - concluded

Above is an extract from  a letter which I have just received from the Police. Seems like there is little chance of them catching the gang who stole my cash card (and £200 of my cash) back in May. I suppose it was a bit optimistic of me to suppose that they would be able to locate three dirty needles out of the mighty haystack of human souls that is Britain today. Still, thanks to my prompt reporting of the crime I have all my cash back and a new card, so all's well that ends well. I  hope that if I'm dumb enough to be caught out again,  it will by the ladies in the clipping below:

Achtung! Der Spelling Mistake.

You might have thought that a designer whose work is to be displayed on a movie poster would be anxious to ensure that it was correctly spelled. Not a bit of it:

The Road to Prohibition

Mr Cameron is whining about drinkers again, amd this time his targets are the supermarkets. The naughty people are selling drinks at prices people can afford ( or as he says, underpriced drinks).

The result being that the degenerate Brits are getting tanked up at home on the Tesco grog, and going out to the pub later to finish off. Cue violence and vomiting in the streets. Leaving aside the fact that it is a little odd to hear a supposed Conservative attacking supply-driven economics, why doesn't he ask himself why all these rapscallions are doing their drinking at home? I can supply an answer, courtesy of Commons Research paper 99/111, 'A Century of Change: Trends in UK statistics since 1900'.

The graph shows that since the 1970s, the price of beer, in real terms, has doubled. According to the prohibition lobby, raising the price of alcohol reduces drunkenness. Shouldn't we all be teetotalers by now, then?

BETAKE MEANS

I cannot resist sharing the following with you.  They are the less-than helpful instructions attached to the packaging of a chinese water-pump.

Toilet Training Required

Above is a sign mounted on a toilet wall in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It is clearly a guide to proper use of the toilet. The meanings of the top four are obvious; the last two less so. I suppose the bottom right hand image is their to remind us that a bidet is not to be used as lavatory; the left hand image, which appears to show a very optimistic angler, is baffling. The East is not called 'inscrutable' for nothing.
The one I wish to draw attention to is the one at top right, which shows a man urinating into a toilet pedestal. It is a graphic which could profitably be displayed in British public toilets, as the practice of weeing in toilet cubicles - often without raising the seat - is rapidly becoming universal. I cannot say what caused this flight from the urinals; whatever the reason, it is a slovenly, unhygienic habit which, apart from anything else, makes the cubicles unavailable for their proper use. God knows what foreign visitors make of it.

Cherry Picking Chills 2

Here are more items illustrating the ravages of cold, and underlining the fact that it is planetary cooling that we should fear, not warming. The first clip is from boliviabella.com.

1 Million Fish Dead in Bolivian Ecological Disaster

(3 Aug. 2010 - Update: The number of dead fish and other water-dependent wildlife has increased to about 6 million.)

----------

Over 1 million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles, dolphins and other river wildlife are floating dead in numerous Bolivian rivers in the three eastern/southern departments of Santa Cruz, Beni and Tarija. The extreme cold front that hit Bolivia in mid-July caused water temperatures to dip below the minimum temperatures river life can tolerate. As a consequence, rivers, lakes, lagoons and fisheries are brimming with decomposing fish and other creatures.

Unprecedented: Nothing like this has ever been seen in this magnitude in Bolivia. Inhabitants of riverside communities report the smell is nauseating and can be detected as far as a kilometer away from river banks. River communities, whose livelihoods depend on fishing, fear they'll run out of food and will have nothing to sell. Authorities are concerned there will be a shortage of fish in markets and are more concerned by possible threats to public health, especially in communities that also use river water for bathing and drinking, but also fear contaminated or decaying fish may end up in market stalls. They've begun a campaign to ensure market vendors and the public know how to tell the difference between fresh and unhealthy fish.


And Peru is also suffering:

Peru declares emergency over cold weather

By Dan Collyns BBC News, Lima The Peruvian government has declared a state of emergency in more than half the country due to cold weather.
Most of the areas affected are in the south, where temperatures regularly drop below zero centigrade at this time of year.
However, this time temperatures have dropped to as low as -24C.
The state of emergency means regional authorities can dip into emergency funds to provide medicine, blankets and shelter to those most affected.
Seasonal deaths The state of emergency was declared in 16 of Peru's 24 regions.
This week Peru's capital, Lima, recorded its lowest temperatures in 46 years at 8C, and the emergency measures apply to several of its outlying districts.
In Peru's hot and humid Amazon region, temperatures dropped as low as 9C. The jungle region has recorded five cold spells this year.
Hundreds of people - nearly half of them very young children - have died of cold-related diseases, such as pneumonia, in Peru's mountainous south where temperatures can plummet at night to -20C.
Poor rural populations living at more than 3,000m above sea level are the most affected.
Doctors say malnutrition, extreme poverty and poor living conditions are major contributing factors to the seasonal deaths.

 

 

Ars Gratia Artis

Here is  a question: is a man, who relies upon the state for every penny he earns, truly independent?
Most of us, I think, would answer no. In the world of the Arts, however, the converse is true. At least that is the conclusion to be drawn from various aggrieved comments which have been elicited from Arty folk after the coalition announced swingeing cuts to the cultural sector. Some have bemoaned their 'lost independence' - independence, presumably, from public taste: a serious matter when much of this 'art' is considered irrelevant tosh by 99.99% of the public. The following quote, from a champion of modern dance, sums it up:

Old Chinese proverb: it is better to keep one's mouth shut, and be thought an idiot, than to open one's mouth, and prove it.

Ah! les belles bacchantes...

The image above was screengrabbed from a short french film called Ah, les belles bacchantes, dating from 1954. It depicts what we would now describe as a burlesque show, though without the dirty comedians. The lady is one of a succession of lightly dressed girls whose costumes represent such themes as the elements, the heavenly bodies and the animal kingdom. Not that it matters, but I have been using this film, downloaded from the internet, to test an application which converts .flv format to mp4 format (it works, but it takes forever). What puzzles me is how this dated form of titillation can have mutated - in modern Britain - into  a dreary form of entertainment in which gay men and fat ladies (like the one below) are encouraged to make utter plonkers of themselves?