Should be ashamed of myself

but I only need another 6ft for a thoroughly evil score...

at kittencannon. I found this game via swfblag. Not seen this before though I remember similar things!

Nice conjunction

Not sure that I'd noticed this before:

if you get too many S&M supplies your waters may well be green...with a possible need to attend a clinic.

Brunswick Hill

And from slightly further back on the way down to the station:

we have the more scenic view. It's a lot easier down than going back home!

Tithe maps

And via Lindsay Marshall (no relation), here are some Cheshire tithe maps. This link should enable you to zoom in on a map of the area of my last posting at the end of the 19th century.

Transport

Following on from something I read last night, I'm going to try to record my journey to work in a variety of moods. So we'll start with the most scenic bit -

but maybe I have my back turned to the prettiest part! Cobbled steps, cobbled road, the bypass (which goes though the middle of the town), the London Manchester railway line and a pedestrian walkway. This is the far end of Brunswick St. Macclesfield.

À la recherche du temps perdu

It must be nostalgia day...

It will only encourage them not to eat them

Cool veggies, via Blogspate, I think the sheep are wonderful!

A cat's map of the bed

here, via Plep

Just for a contrast

You’re St. Melito of Sardis! You have a great love of history and liturgy. You’re attached to the traditions of the ancients, yet you recognize that the old world — great as it was — is passing away. You are loyal to the customs of your family, though you do not hesitate to call family members to account for their sins. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

Via Inferno XV, if - like me - you're not sure who St Melito was then a trip to Wikipedia may help! I see that his feast day is April 1st - hmmmmm

Looking though the logs

Examining the machine logs is usually a pretty boring job, I now have an ssh-block process which kills probers on the ssh port but I did spot this failed login:

Invalid user blowjob from 85.185.250.18

people login with usernames like that??!! If you are the owner of machine 85.185.250.18 I suspect someone else has control of your machine - or you're in trouble especially in view of your country...

The real Vietnam comparison

Says it all really. Via Paul Ilechko on r.m.c.r

A musical interlude...

we shall have to model this...

Google earth

The google earth coverage of Macclesfield seems to have considerably improved. Here was a corner of the town back in 2005 and below is a (far more zoomed in) picture of the same area now (or at least when the picture was taken!).

I was also amused by this picture of a ferry across the Seine

The ferry is quite clearly visible, however there's a ghost image of the same ferry on the other side of the river, not sure why it is so much fainter, when they stiched together tha patchwork!

Not this decade!

Don't think I'm going to be able to make the Trinity Hall college reunion this time around. Maybe in 10 years time! Posted in the remote chance that one of my contemporaries reads this and might decide to go not to go due to my absence!

My dog has two noses

No doubt everyone has seen this already? Gareth comments

Things that might have been better phrased..

from today's Guardian weekend section:

There was the same icky expectation of seeing a former child actor in a sex scene, but Radcliffe pulled it off, as does Bell in Hallam Foe

well I hope they re-attached it afterwards!
And there's a WTF from this week that I greatly enjoyed - I put a TODO on a form in our application only yesterday - need to make sure it goes before release!

Glug!

(another from the recent holiday) We enjoyed - well the drinkers amongst us enjoyed - a visit to the Taittinger cellars in the cellars of an old church that was demolished in the Revolution. I found it a spectacular eerie visit and it made up for my deciding to miss a similar trip back in Spring 1968 (yes that Spring!) when I had an exchange visit with the Emmanuel Raoul and family at Choisy-au-Bac

Back in Honfleur

..and a selection of those holiday photos for some particular comments!
Here's everyone else outside the same shop in Honfleur as last year!
And here is Beth consulting the menu at La Tortue - under new owners far lighter inside after being decorated, we've eaten there on 2 previous occasions - we didn't eat there this time!

And here's a link to the full sized album photo in case you want to examine the prices (if your eyesight and my photo is good enough!)
But here we are waiting for a restaurant in La Bouille to open, where we did eat!

well it was the day of our Silver wedding....

Holiday photos

.. for those that are interested, the photo album from this years holiday is on the home webserver.
It didn't rain this much!

Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder

As promised pictures from the 'sur les pas de Rimbaud' walk:


The walk was based around his Voyelles sonnet:

A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu : voyelles,
Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes :
A, noir corset velu des mouches éclatantes
Qui bombinent autour des puanteurs cruelles,

Golfes d'ombre ; E, candeur des vapeurs et des tentes,
Lances des glaciers fiers, rois blancs, frissons d'ombelles ;
I, pourpres, sang craché, rire des lèvres belles
Dans la colère ou les ivresses pénitentes ;

U, cycles, vibrements divins des mers virides,
Paix des pâtis semés d'animaux, paix des rides
Que l'alchimie imprime aux grands fronts studieux ;

O, suprême Clairon plein des strideurs étranges,
Silence traversés des Mondes et des Anges :
- O l'Oméga, rayon violet de Ses Yeux ! -

have I lost my photo of 'a' or was there none or did I just note take one? A translation is here. There were also sculptures of which this was one:

I'll put the full album up on my home webserver when I get time (and announce it here!).

Losses

Last week we had a TV in the gite - well we had one in both but the reception was considerably better for week 2! - and on the news on France2 on Monday they covered the deaths of Michel Serrault and Bergman. These were items 1 and 2, in each case they had a biographical sketch, film clips and then an interview with (the same) film critic live in the studio. By the time they'd done this we were 20 minutes in to a 40 minute bulletin - I just couldn't imagine the BBC doing a fraction of this in the main bulletin with anyone involved in the arts! The next night one channel showed La Cage aux Folles I & 2 (and another of Serrault's films on another channel) and there's been at least one of his films every night since. Bergman also collected a couple of schedule changes to include his films.
I didn't know that Serrault had spent time studying in a seminary makes the relentless camping up in La Cage Aux Folles a little uncomfortable but maybe it was so far over the top one could put the doubts about agendas to one side.
Serrault's funeral service was in the wooden church in Honfleur I photographed last year and which we'd seen a few days before.

Translations

I hope they didn't pay anyone for this!
- you probably need to click on the image to get the full effect. crudités = crudenesses - 'nice of pig forest' is also attractive etc.. It doesn't appear to be Babelfish's responsibility. but I'd guess that this can be pinned on a computer! Unfortunately we didn't get around to eating there, but we did try! Though we skipped the pizza restaurant in the same town that was offering pizza aux escargots (or something)
I should now hurry and make sure there are no English to French translations of mine visible on the Internet!
In a similar vein, a couple of faux amis (for which I am wholly responsible) that I enjoyed were 'flamin Gothic' and 'formation holes' - both on road signs.

Hell's own launderette

The instructions for gite #2 said - turn right at the launderette (laverie) - this seemed a little strange as elsewhere it said the nearest shops were 4 miles away, so anyway we drove there and there was a total absence of commercial premises! Retracing our steps though Roche (the hamlet) we saw a sign for 'Lavoir de Roche' and the penny dropped and wheels began to turn in my brain from when I'd read Rimbaud at the age of 18 (probably the best age for such things!). The gite was more or less on the site of the farm where Rimbaud completed Une Saison en Enfer and the walls of the gite were dotted with framed poems! Roche was full of literary walks - a pleasing and unexpected bonus for a week in a very quiet piece of France.
.. 'could have inspired'.... hmmmmmm
I'd agree with the second link mentioning the terrible drawings!
Pictures of the gite and walks to follow!

Hibou

I'm sure there's a Messiaen Catalogue d'Oiseaux with a text about walking in the Ardennes at harvest but at the moment Google is not cooperating with my thought patterns - or am I getting my French regions confused?

Rustle..

it seems to have been a bit quiet here - before I restart properly let me mention that a few days ago I had a dream where I was taking a Cambridge Maths Exam on a lecture course entitled 'Group Theory and Dr Who and... "insert title of adventure here"' - unfortunately I'd forgotten the title when I woke up but the adventure involved groups(!) of feline brightly coloured aliens (the Ecclestone End of the World? doesn't mean that was the actual one of course there may have been extra internal garbling!)
As I hadn't attended the lectures for the course - for some reason - I didn't have much success - thought the exam paper was very pretty! Only actor I remember from the dream was Troughton.
Please don't send round the men in white coats!