Sunday, August 14, 2016

Future culture: the Starknado phenomenon

Maenads are worse than sharks...


Starknado!

A worldwide smash-hit film series that began with the legendary “Starknado”.

Winkipedia summarises it thus:

“Starknado” is a 2017 made-for-television disaster film about a waterspout that lifts a group of female skinny-dippers out of the ocean and deposits them in Los Angeles. Hormonal and enraged, the women embark on a terrifying rampage through the streets of South Central LA, butchering gangbangers and creeps of every description until, screaming that they literally haven’t got a thing to wear, they storm through a shopping mall and into a series of high-end clothing outlets. They successfully effect their escape because none of the surviving witnesses can remember what their faces look like.

Aside from sequels and spin-offs, the film spawned many imitations, notably the Drawers series, of which the latest is “Drawers 4: The Revenge” (2022). Billions have been made from associated merchandising and computer games.

A noteworthy social response has been the massive increase in men applying to enter monasteries. 

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Reading 2 weeks of the Daily Mail, so you don't have to

Back off a fortnight's hols last weekend, and a pile of newspapers kept for us at the agent's. We keep the crosswords and I thought I'd see which stories still looked worth reading. Here's my digest:

Psychoanalysis that aims to gets results fast: 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3726372/The-3-000-psycho-detox-s-life-track-Sienna-Miller.html ... the Guardian tried it, too - https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/mar/15/why-tried-hoffman-process-psychoanalysis

A pill that might cure asthma:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3726307/Could-end-inhaler-Game-changing-pill-asthma-cut-lung-inflammation-80-cent.html

Can't find the DM link just now, but it's where I found the following item. Labour voters were even more definitely for "Leave" than Conservatives:

https://medium.com/@chrishanretty/most-labour-mps-represent-a-constituency-that-voted-leave-36f13210f5c6#.dhxdy8n3m

Can you know when you're lucky? -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-3721459/Family-scoop-60m-EuroMillions-jackpot-lucky-call-mum-Florida.html - which reminds me of a very old news item about a man who shook a Royal's hand, reckoned it was his lucky day and did the football pools - only one line, though he was entitled to several - writing above it "winning line" - which it was, "big-time". The company was understandably suspicious and investigated, but it was genuine.

Trump, the Mafia and his vengefulness:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3716125/How-Trump-Mob-offer-not-refuse-killing-building-skyscraper-Donald-s-shrewdest-investment-MAFIA.html - having said that, the Clintons have previously been described by "a Beltway insider" as "retributive" and there are some very nasty rumours about what happens if you cross them. Here's one recent one: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3726250/Enemies-Hillary-Bill-say-27-year-old-murder-victim-Seth-Rich-suspected-leaking-DNC-emails-belongs-Clinton-Death-List-people-ties-couple-died-time.html

The 5p "nudge" succeeded hugely in reducing unnecessary plastic bag use:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3715469/YOUR-plastic-bag-victory-Shoppers-home-SIX-BILLION-FEWER-environmentally-damaging-carriers-year-5p-charge-helps-cut-use-85.html

How the introduction of easy credit via cards 50 years ago tempted and stuffed the British consumer:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3715504/The-day-thrift-died-launch-credit-card-50-years-ago-hailed-moment-social-liberation-ushered-wanton-consumerism-instant-gratification-left-millions-saddled-debt.html

And one non-DM story off the internet that I didn't expect - Icelandic horses walk differently (and now we know why):

http://icelandreview.com/news/2016/08/10/origin-smooth-icelandic-gait-discovered - possibly related to the Vikings: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/11/science/horses-gaits-ambling-vikings.html?_r=0

Friday, August 12, 2016

Friday Night Is Music Night: Sol Gabetta

JD:

I gave up watching The Last Night of the Proms many years ago. Too boring and predictable, orchestra and audience just going through the motions in a parody of a sacred ritual.

The first night on the other hand is always worth watching and this year, as usual, it featured something new and interesting.

Sol Gabetta is a young cellist born in Cordoba, Argentina and now living in Basel, Switzerland. I had never heard of her before but after a splendid performance of Elgar's cello concerto and an unusual and excellent encore I went looking for more of her work.

This is part of what I found covering a wide spectrum of music, all of it wonderful -



This was her encore at The Proms. The Beeb version has poor sound quality (unusual for the Beeb) so this is a different recording but still excellent -





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"Reasonable adjustment" for smokers

There are many smokers who strongly and quite understandably resent their exclusion from society by stupid blanket bans. Here is a current post airing some of those feelings: 

https://cfrankdavis.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/three-comments-on-facebook/#comment-131908

I gave up cigarettes nearly 40 years ago, but I don't see why they should be chosen as the one minor vice to be stamped out. This is not Puritan England. If we don't try to accommodate differences, we will be perpetually at one another's throats.

So I comment on the above piece in this way:

Targeted change is what we need.

In schools, there is an expectation that schools will make "reasonable adjustment" for special needs children, to promote inclusion. Special needs children aren't expected to stand outside the school building in the cold and wet.

Yet as you say, in other contexts the approach is draconian.

I would suggest that the way forward is to campaign for "reasonable adjustment". If airport smoking lounges are dingy goldfish bowls, get the airport to improve the furnishings. If pubs can offer a separate and nicely-appointed smoker's room, why not?

Besides, if the government succeeds in its obvious plan to legalise cannabis and find another way to raise tax that soaks the lower orders and makes vast, low-taxed profits for beardy businessmen, there will have to be somewhere for stoners to go, too.

"Reasonable adjustment": the war is won by language.

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Squaring The Love Triangle

Imposing a way of life can have terrible consequences. This story has a universal feel to it, about the dangers of trying to dam natural drives:

I well remember an aboriginal couple who were married "Christian way in church". The woman was not aware that the union was a fixed one - not as in the tribe, where the people can become divorced by mutual consent.

The marriage irked her so much that she decided to break it up and take to herself another man of the tribe. Her method was simple and ingenious.

She became the friend of another native man I knew and, unknown to him, used him as a means of arousing her husband to such a jealous madness that he crept upon the man, who he thought was his wife's lover, and killed him with a spear.

I found it all out too late, and even then I could not stop the self-satisfied smile on the real killer's face, as her husband went to jail whilst she returned to her true lover.

From "Life among the aborigines" by W E Harney, Robert Hale, 1957 (pp. 31-32)

This post appeared first on The Polynesian Times.


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Sunday, August 07, 2016

Sunday Serenade: Betjeman/Hawthorne on The Way We Were

A lovely find from JD:



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There is something going on

Four times now, I have posted a piece on a certain, increasingly notorious, Trump-supporting, gay free-speech campaigner who has recently been banned by Tw*tt*r.

Although successfully published on Broad Oak each time, it seems to have been consistently blocked from the feeds that are connected to the new bloglist for Martin Scriblerius (see right-hand side). Other pieces published both before and after, have appeared on the feed - I shall look with interest to see how soon this one does. If it does.

Could this be covert action by Google?

For the latest version of the putatively "offending" post (published 06:47 this morning and still not appearing on the MS list opposite), please see here:

http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/a-penny-for-milos-thoughts.html

Please let me know if you have seen any other kind of link to it. Otherwise, I shall continue to suspect that this is secret suppression.


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