To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong admit it;
Whenever you’re right shut up.


- Ogden Nash

Lead up to a Wedding

A week from now Astrid & I will depart Heathrow airport for New York and my son Andrew's wedding. I'm pleased and excited for Andrew and Joanna and happy the long wait is almost over for them.

I've made lists of what I need to buy here in the UK to bring to the US for friends and family and another list of what I need to buy while in the US to bring home with me. There are surprisingly many items mutually unavailable in one or the other; usually simple common things we're so accustomed to having available that there's a real culture shock when we find ourselves up against a brick shopping wall.

In the US we're talking about simple things like:
Noxzema
Jiffy corn muffin mix
Jello pudding mix
Bisquick
Jalapeno peppers
Hellman's mayonnaise (The Hellman's mayo sold in the UK uses a different recipe and is revolting)
Neosporin cream

In the UK, there's a few things I'll be buying:
Airwaves gum (brilliant for instantly clearing stuffy sinuses)
Olbas oil
Ribena

This weekend I need to buy a dress for the wedding (which I will reuse for formal dinner nights when we sail home on the QM2). Probably buy other bits and pieces for the voyage home since Cunard makes it quite clear they don't favor jeans at any time on the QM2.

The Politics of Burning Sacred Books

All 1st amendment arguments aside, I find the recent ruckus and international outrage over some rabble-rousing Florida pastor's plan to burn Korans on 9/11 utterly hypocritical and revealing. That's because what's not being said about this situation is that he also plans to burn Talmuds. Why is no one denouncing the planned burning of the Talmud? Is it ok to burn Jewish sacred texts but not Islamic? Is it acceptable to insult Jews but not Muslims?


Why didn't Obama speak out and denounce the intention of burning Talmuds along with the Koran? What about the Pope? Why didn't he mention the Talmuds along with the Koran in his statement? The UN, the UK government, and on and on and on.


Why?
Well, I'm pretty sure I know why. I suspect you know why. I know no one is going to say it because, well it's not politically correct to say these things, is it?


Actually, Fidel Castro says it. Fidel has even spoken out and told Iran's leader Ahmadinejad, "Stop Slandering the Jews". No other world leader has even whispered it.


It is Rosh Hashanah today and although I am a secular Jew, I am in a reflective mood.

Nurse Jeffrey - The Bitch Tapes

I've just discovered this hilarious little digital spinoff of the excellent House MD TV series.
It's available on the Fox website for US based viewers I've been told. I found it on YouTube. A quick search will get you the whole 13 episode series.

Basically Nurse Jeffrey was a very minor bit character on a House episode where House fleetingly mocked him with the old canard about male nurses. The totally psycho but lame disproportional response by Nurse Jeffrey is the basic premise of the spinoff series.

Very clever, very amusing, very evil, and very politically incorrect. Dontcha just love that?

Children

 Children

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of
 Children."

 And he said:

 Your children are not your children.

 They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

 They come through you but not from you,

 And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

 You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

 For they have their own thoughts.

 You may house their bodies but not their souls,

 For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

 You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like 

you.

 For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

 You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are 

sent forth.

 The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He 

bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

 Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

 For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also 

the bow that is stable.

-- Kahlil Gibran

Inception

I've tried 3 times to watch this film and see why people keep raving about it. I'm sorry but I just can't see what they see in it. I think it's BORING crap. I guess I'm not all that impressed with CGI and I've read too much good literature and seen too many brilliant films to be fooled by the Emperor's New Clothes any more.


Don't get me wrong, I do have a taste for crumby movies sometimes - but the one thing I do demand of them is a coherent storyline. And Inception simply does not have that. Huge plot holes all over and not in any forgivable way. You think blurring the lines of real and not real in a film to deliberately confuse the viewer makes it deep and meaningful? Nah, in this case it's smoke and mirrors to cover bullshit and lousy values. And finally, you should never, never, never need Cliff Notes for a film.


My idea of a film which does a marvelous job of spinning a compelling story where you don't know what is real and what is not, in a dreamlike way, is "Picnic at Hanging Rock". Compelling is the appropriate word for the film, the story, and the experience.  Sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, aboriginal dream-time - beautiful film-making.


So, I'm sorry but I give up on Inception. It's terribly overrated. 

Wedding Invitation!!

Today the invitation to Joanna and Andrew's wedding finally arrived in the mail! It's been a long and fraught process getting them ordered, assembled, addressed, and sent out and I'm very relieved to to see that task completed.

That said, the invitations are beautiful and elegant.

(Of course the idiots at UK Customs/UK Mail felt required to open our invitation before delivering it, just to make sure there was no terrorist threat inside.)

Bussels

Asti and I drove to Brussels early Tuesday morning to apartment hunt for her prior to her starting a new contract there on the following Monday. She was incredibly lucky to find a charming place in a stylish elevator building in the medieval part of the city. The area is filled with cafes offering inexpensive but good food and drinks daytime and music at night. Also a vast selection of excellent restaurants, artisanal shops, antiques, and museums. Streets are cobblestone and immaculate. You can smoke in bars and cafes and outdoor restaurants so it's all extremely civilized.

Photo of breakfast we had at local boulangere:

Frites stand along the boulevard:

You can see the rest of the photos I took in Brussels here

Blame Canada

June 23, 2010, 2:41 PM
Earthquake Shakes New York:

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

A 5.5-magnitude earthquake struck north of Ottawa on Wednesday afternoon, rattling buildings as far away as Vermont, Albany and even New York City.


CNN

5.5 magnitude quake strikes Canada; no major damage

[Updated at 2:55 p.m.] There has been no major damage reported so far from an earthquake that hit Canada today, the city of Toronto said in a press release.

"In our initial assessment, there has been no major damage to City infrastructure. Further investigations are taking place to confirm," the statement said. "The Toronto Transit Commission and Transportation Services have reported that there has been no damage to their infrastructure or interruptions to service.

"The City’s Emergency Operations Centre is up and running in preparation for the G20 so the City is uniquely prepared to respond to the event. We will continue to monitor the situation and will report as necessary."

Wales

Just returned from a holiday/shake-out trip to North Wales in the new car. The Honda handled it with grace and comfort and really good mileage. I think I want to replace the wiper blades but that's fussiness on my part.


The photos can be seen here:     http://www.flickr.com/photos/37159912@N00/sets/72157624253518622/

Shrek Forever After

I just saw Shrek Forever After and it was a happy ending to the series. They pulled the quality back up and regained the snappy humour of the original. Just a good, funny, clever film. Plus, as far as I'm concerned, the kitty still steals the show!

Advice

Hot Tub Time Machine

Since this film was released, I've thought, what a piece of rubbish that must be. But tonight I was bored, so bored that I started watching it. And it was amusing, and a funny ending that I enjoyed. 


::sigh::


Yeah, I'm easily amused. But this film turned out to be surprisingly good.

Holiday in Praia da Rocha, Portugal

Asti and I just returned from a few sunny days in Praia da Rocha, Portugal in the Algarve. Great vacation - great sun, great food, great wine. Beautiful place with lovely people.

Click on the photo to see the whole photo collection.

Flood of Spam Comments from China

I've resisted setting a word verification (captcha) on my blog for several years despite the increasing amount of spam posted as comments. In the beginning, the spam were comments with links to commercial sites ie porn, meds, get rich quick however, that's all changed now and for the past year or so the comments posted were solely Chinese ideogram spam. I'm tired of it and there's no other way to stop it than to require all comments be verified.

I hate spam and profoundly loathe its senders.

Speak Out for Freedom of Speech

Overheard in New York - on the subway

Angry commuter on cell phone ...

What the hell do you mean my flight has been cancelled?!?!
What kind of dog and pony show are you running with this airline?!?!
Give me one good reason…… did you just say a cloud of volcanic ash is spreading over Europe… seriously?
Okay, that’s good enough for me! Thanks for your time!

I thought Avatar was crap but this review details it so eloquently ;)

I hate Thunderbird

Curses upon Thunderbird and Mozilla! I hate them both. I wish them and all their minions 1000 years burning in hell. I trusted them when they told me I needed to update Thunderbird today, let Thunderbird update itself - and the bastards lost a mail folder's entire set of subfolders - which were where I stored ALL the emails from family and close friends. Arrrghhhhhh!!!!!They completely deleted them, they are gone, disappeared, not there - and yes, I checked in the application date area where Thunderbird stores mail.

Bastards. I hope they fry in hell.

Mothers Day in the UK

Astrid took me to Bath for a Mothers Day outing on Saturday. It's a 2.5 hour drive each way but we'd never been there before, always wanted to, and it combined 2 of my favorite things - an archeological site and a spa.
The archeological site is interesting - a surprising amount of the Roman baths remains including of course, the natural thermal springs. The modern spa built on part of the old site was an interesting experience but more suited to couples. The lavender steam room was really nice and their "lobster pot" style foot baths were amusing - Asti tried that but I don't know that it was a particular sensation. We didn't linger in any of their pools or whirlpools etc as there was too much couple action going on.