I’ve been reading extracts from Bill Clinton’s new memoir, My Life.
I’ve always liked Clinton and remember the great sense of change in 1992 when he won the Presidency. He’s an interesting man with obvious talents and flaws.
I’ve never met him but I remember seeing his presidential helicopter buzzing over Birmingham at the ’98 G7 summit.
What struck me about the book is just how much of an instinctive politician he is. From his very early days, he was dining with senators and campaigning. Politics is in his blood.
Clinton is famously titled, the great communicator. Apparently, no one could work a room with the skill or style of Clinton.
His book adopts a folksy, conversational style, but doesn’t really contain any new revelations. Worth a read though.
I’ve been getting some weblog comments spam recently and it really pisses me off. Comments get posted on my weblog by nasty little spam bots with links to viagra and other total crap.
The good news is that there are a few easy things you can do to block the blog-spidering bots and eliminate the problem.
What a lovely warm sunny day ! Sitting in the office fielding calls and working my inbox is not the best place to be….
Hmmm, could I clutch my heart, make a few gargling noises and excuse myself for the rest of the day…. ? So overtaken by some mysterious and sudden illness that I have to retire to the park to sun myself back to health !
Instead, I am faced with a little note on my desk which simply says, “You must do your timesheets TODAY”.
I love it when you walk into an old pub knowing that people have been drinking there for centuries.
A few years ago I was quite a regular at a pub that was 500 odd years old. Local people had been propping up the bar and getting drunk in there for half a millennia.
If only you could travel through time……
Well in a way you can !
Here are a couple of accounts of Britain’s long tradition of hard drinking !
Oh, we were a drunken lot !
Still are…. !
John Ireland’s Description of Hogarth’s Beer Street
This admirable delineation is a picture of John Bull in his most happy moments. . . . The neighbourhood is St Martin’s Lane. In the left corner, a butcher and a blacksmith are each of them grasping a foaming tankard of porter. By the King’s Speech and the Daily Advertiser on the table before them, they appear to have been studying politics, and settling the state of the nation. The blacksmith, having just purchased a shoulder of mutton, is triumphantly waving it in the air. Next to him, a drayman is whispering soft sentences of love to a servant-maid, round whose neck is one of his arms; in the other hand a pot of porter. Two fishermen, furnished with a flagon of the same liquor, are chanting a song of Mr Lockman’s on the British Herring Fishery. A porter, having put a load of waste paper on the ground is eagerly quaffing this best of barley wine. On the front of a house in ruins is inscribed, ‘Pinch, Pawnbroker’; and through a hole in the door a boy delivers a full half-pint. In the background are two children. They have joined for three-pennyworth to recruit their spirits and repair the fatigue they have undergone in trotting between two poles, with a ponderous load of female frailty. Two paviors are washing away their cares with a heart-cheering cup. In a garret window, a trio of sailors are employed in the same way; and on a house-top are four bricklayers, equally joyous. Each of these groups seem hale, happy, and well-clothed; but the artist, who is painting a glass bottle from an original which hangs before him, is in a truly deplorable plight; at the same time that he carries in his countenance a perfect consciousness of his talents in this creative art.
John Ireland’s Description of Hogarth’s Gin Lane, 1751
From contemplating the health, happiness, and mirth flowing from a moderate use of a wholesome and natural beverage, we turn to this nauseous contrast, which displays human nature in its most degraded and disgusting state.
Upon the steps sits a retailer of gin and ballads, with a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other. Having bartered away his waistcoat, shirt, and stockings, and drank until he is in a state of total insensibility, he is a perfect skeleton. A few steps higher a thoroughly intoxicated woman is taking snuff, and so negligent of the infant at her breast that it falls over the rail into an area, and dies. Another of the fair sex (far left) has drank herself to sleep; as an emblem of her slothful disposition a snail is crawling from the wall to her arm. Close to her we discover one of the lords of creation gnawing a bare bone, which an equally ravenous bull-dog endeavours to snatch from his mouth.
A working carpenter is depositing his coat and saw with a pawnbroker, and a tattered female offers at the same shrine her culinary utensils, among them a tea-kettle – pawned to procure money to purchase gin. An old woman, having drank until she is unable to walk, is put into a wheelbarrow, and in that situation is solaced with another glass. With the same poisonous and destructive compound, a mother in the corner (right) drenches her child. Near her are two Charity-girls of St Giles’s, pledging each other in the same corroding compound. The scene is completed by a quarrel between two drunken cripples; while one of them uses his crutch as a quarter-staff, the other aims a stool at the head of his adversary.
This, with a crowd waiting for their drams at a distiller’s door, completes the catalogue of the quick living. Of the dead, there are two, besides an unfortunte child whom a drunken madman has impaled on a spit. One, a barber, who having probably drank gin until he has lost his reason, has suspended himself by a rope in his own ruinous garret; the other, a beautiful woman, whom, by the direction of the parish beadle, two men are depositing in a coffin. From her wasted and emaciated appearance, we may fairly infer, she also fell a martyr to this destructive and poisonous liquid. On the side of her coffin is a child lamenting the loss of its parent.
The large pewter measure hung over a cellar (bottom left), on which is engraved ‘Gin Royal’, was once a common sign. The inscription on this cave of despair, ‘Drunk for a penny – dead drunk for twopence clean straw for nothing’ is worthy of observation; it exhibits the state of our metropolis at that period.
The scene of this horrible devastation is laid in a place which was properly enough called the Ruins of St Giles’s. Except the pawnbroker’s, the distiller’s, and the undertaker’s, the houses are literally ruins; but these doorkeepers to Famine, Disease, and Death, living by the calamities of others, are in a flourishing state
But what about our country cousins ?
Did they drink as much as us city folk ?
You bet they did !
Mighty Drinkers of the Cider Country
Farm labourers [in the Vale of Gloucester] are sufficiently numerous; they are noticeable as being simple, inoffensive, unintelligent, and apparently slow. Their wages are very low, in money. being only 1s a day. But in drink shamefully exorbitant. Six quarts a day, the common allowance; frequently two gallons; sometimes nine or ten quarts; or an unlimited quantity.
In a cider year, the extravagance of this absurd custom (which prevails throughout the cider counties) is not perceived. But now (1788) after a succession of bad fruit years, it is no wonder the farmers complain of being beggared by malt and hops! They are not, however, entitled to pity. The fault – the crime – is their own. The origin of the evil, I fear, rests with themselves.
In a fruit year, cider is of little value. It is no uncommon circumstance to send out a general invitation into the highways and hedges, in order to empty the casks which were filled last year, that they may be refilled this. A habit of drinking is not easily corrected. Nor is an art learnt in youth readily forgotten. Men and masters are equally adept in the art of drinking. The tales which are told of them are incredible. Some two or three I recollect. But, although I have no reason to doubt the authorities I had them from, I wish not to believe them. I hope they are not true.
Drinking a gallon-bottle-full, at a draught, is said to be no uncommon feat: a mere boyish trick, which will not bear to be bragged of. But to drain a two-gallon-bottle, without taking it from the lips, as a labourer of the vale is said to have done, by way of being even with master, who had paid him short in money – is spoken of as an exploit, which carried the art of draining a wooden bottle to its full pitch.
Two gallons of cider, however, are not a stomach-full. Another man of the vale undertook, for a trifling wager, to drink twenty pints, one immediately after another. He got down nineteen (as the story is gravely told), but these filling the cask to the bung, the twentieth could not of course get admittance.
But the quantity drank, in this extempore way, by the men, is trifling compared with that which their masters will swallow at a sitting. Four well-seasoned yeomen (some of them well known in this vale), having raised their courage with the juice of the apple, resolved to have a fresh hogshead (50 gallons) tapped; and, setting foot to foot, emptied it at one sitting.
– W. MARSHALL, Rural Economy of Gloucestershire (1796)
BBC Four are showing Patrick McGoohan’s 1960s cult classic, The Prisoner.
I love this show. It’s just brilliant.
Truly original and thought-provoking.
McGoohan plays ‘Number 6’ a secret agent who mysteriously resigns and is kidnapped.
He wakes up a prisoner in a weird psychedelic community called ‘The Village’.
Everyone is referred to as a number and there is no escape.
The Village is run by a series of administrators, known as ‘Number 2’.
Each tries to break down ‘Number 6’ to get at his secrets.
All are met by McGoohan’s defiant character who replies, “I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, de-briefed or numbered! I am not a number, I am a free man”.
30 years after it was made debates still go on about what it’s about.
McGoohan himself doesn’t seem to know.
It’s basic theme is individual freedom and the right to free thought.
This satellite image of a coccolithophore bloom off the coasts of Cornwall and Brittany was taken on Wednesday. Coccolithophores are single-celled organisms which multiply rapidly near the surface, shedding tiny calcium-rich scales. They turn the surrounding water a bright, milky aquamarine.
One of my favourite animations is Cordell Barker’s 1988 classic, The Cat Came Back.
I’ve seen it quite a few times and just love it. If you haven’t seen it here’s a cool flash rendition of the story.
It’s based on Harry S. Miller’s 1893 song, The Cat Came Back…
Old Mister Johnson had troubles of his own
He had a yellow cat which wouldn’t leave its home;
He tried and he tried to give the cat away,
He gave it to a man goin’ far, far away.
But the cat came back the very next day,
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner
But the cat came back; it just couldn’t stay away.
The cat it had some company one night out in the yard,
Someone threw a boot-jack, and they threw it mighty hard;
It caught the cat behind the ear, she thought it rather slight,
When along came a brick-bat and knocked the cat out of sight
But the cat came back the very next day,
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner
But the cat came back; it just couldn’t stay away.
The man around the corner swore he’d kill the cat on sight,
He loaded up his shotgun with nails and dynamite;
He waited and he waited for the cat to come around,
Ninety seven pieces of the man is all they found.
But the cat came back the very next day,
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner
But the cat came back; it just couldn’t stay away.
He gave it to a little boy with a dollar note,
Told him for to take it up the river in a boat;
They tied a rope around its neck, it must have weighed a pound
Now they drag the river for a little boy that’s drowned.
But the cat came back the very next day,
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner
But the cat came back; it just couldn’t stay away.
He gave it to a man going up in a balloon,
He told him for to take it to the man in the moon;
The balloon came down about ninety miles away,
Where he is now, well I dare not say.
But the cat came back the very next day,
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner
But the cat came back; it just couldn’t stay away.
He gave it to a man going way out West,
Told him for to take it to the one he loved the best;
First the train hit the curve, then it jumped the rail,
Not a soul was left behind to tell the gruesome tale.
But the cat came back the very next day,
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner
But the cat came back; it just couldn’t stay away.
Away across the ocean they did send the cat at last,
Vessel only out a day and making water fast;
People all began to pray, the boat began to toss,
A great big gust of wind came by and every soul was lost.
But the cat came back the very next day,
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner
But the cat came back; it just couldn’t stay away.
On a telegraph wire, sparrows sitting in a bunch,
The cat was feeling hungry, thought she’d like ’em for a lunch;
Climbing softly up the pole, and when she reached the top,
Put her foot upon the electric wire, which tied her in a knot.
But the cat came back the very next day,
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner
But the cat came back; it just couldn’t stay away.
The cat was a possessor of a family of its own,
With seven little kittens till there came a cyclone;
Blew the houses all apart and tossed the cat around,
The air was full of kittens, and not a one was ever found.
But the cat came back the very next day,
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner
But the cat came back; it just couldn’t stay away.
While the cat lay and sleeping And resting one day
around came an organ grinder and he began to play
the cat looked around awhile, and kinda raised her head
When he played “Ta-rah-rah-boom-dee-ay” the cat just fell dead.
But it’s ghost came back the very next day,
Yes, it’s ghost came back, maybe you will doubt it,
But it’s ghost came back; it just couldn’t stay away.
Fired up the weblog on Sunday night and was faced with this impenetrable message:
Got an error: “ebcdic2ascii” is not exported by the CGI::Util module “ascii2ebcdic” is not exported by the CGI::Util module Can’t continue after import errors at /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.4/CGI.pm line 27 BEGIN failed–compilation aborted at /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.4/CGI.pm line 27.Compilation failed in require at lib/MT/App.pm line 92.
Nothing would work. Couldn’t even login. Thought I was up against some grim perl issue that I’d never work out.
But, thanks to some wonderful support people at 34sp.com an explanation was found.
One of my favourite animations is Cordell Barker’s 1988 classic, The Cat Came Back.
So yeah... 