Out into the new space of a New Year

And here's a photograph from lorissa shepstone to go with that thought!
Happy and a safe New Year!

Seeking a team vicar

Graham writes:

We are looking for an outgoing and adventurous person to come and join us in our close knit staff team. You should enjoy working with others and not be afraid of change.

The job spec is available from here. Applications welcome :-) but not to me...

And back again..

12-26-2007_046.JPG
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

In Belgium/Luxembourg on the return journey of the 1975 European trip. Photos of the complete trip are now in a set on flickr, though I might add a few more!
The van became unwell when we got to Calais and had to be pushed on and off the hovercraft!

Cobweb

Cobweb - a cat we had for around 6 months - he disappeared shortly after we had him done.. perched on a tiny monitor which Beth is using to play a game on a ZX Spectrum when you used to have to load games from a cassette drive..
Photo taken from another slide scan.

Be afraid!

12-28-2007_004.JPG
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

At least those of you who recognise this photo, there are more to come!

Kittens!

Say ahhhhh!
Been given a slide scanner for Christmas and an initial play gives this picture taken back in 1983 of our then cats Perdita and Thisbe (they were found under a wall). I need to make sure the slides are a little cleaner!
I'm also having problems getting the Veho scanner to work with various flavours of Linux so this was done using XP (grrr)

Happy Christmas (again)

I'll leave you with this rendition of Holy Night. (Wicked grin!) Do listen to the end - I have heard it before but hadn't seen it linked before tonight, I believe it is a joke and the singer is capable of better.

Cat in the Manger

Didn't know this poem of U A Fanthorpe

Projecting outwards..

Happy Christmas - the above title was prompted by an interesting talk at last night's carol service - what we project outwards (and what we see - and object to in others) is all too often a function of what's inside. May you project peace and joy this Christmas. The talk is now available on Graham's site as an mp3/wav download.

That conversion

(well reception actually), thanks to Mad Priest, this is the latest news

Among the Gypsies

Via plep come these photos from Stacia Spragg, of life among the gypsies in Bulgaria.

As in Blagoevgrad, most Gypsies nationwide live in ghettos on the outskirts of the city, comprised of poorly constructed houses lacking running water. Residents often do not have access to sanitation or other public services. Gypsy children are mostly placed in schools for Bulgarians with learning disabilities, where the emphasis is on learning low-skill trades, dooming them to perpetuate the poverty cycle.

Click at the top of the essay for the photos - here's one

Christmas letter

Most of this is already on here by searching back though the year, but here is the annual round robin letter - at least I hope it's there - the new router prevents me from checking that url as the file is on my home network and I've not yet found how to work my way around it!
Note to self - use ps2pdf rather than openoffice.org's pdf conversion tool - it bloats the output something horrid. Looks like there's an on line version of ps2pdf here - if you're not sure how to get a ps(postScript file) then 'print as file' will usually get you there!

More bad taste

But not Christmas presents this time. Via r.m.c.r and Alex Ross comes this set of LP covers. Unfortunately I remember seeing most of these - I don't think I bought any though!

Two links

one tecchie (and very funny and sad tooo) from the Daily WTF and - a day late - I got around to reading this account of a funeral - make sure you pick up your tissues on the way over.
And, by the way, firefox 3 beta2 is now out and looking even more splendid, though it does give CSS issues with the latest version of work's new website (in development).
(at this rate I'm going to have more posts in December than there are days in the month..)

Eclectic?

or schizoid or something!? I thought my current lastfm top artists ought to be preserved!

Double reeds are offensive

From today's Guardian

The BBC was forced into a very public U-turn yesterday over a decision to censor the perennial Christmas hit Fairytale of New York. Radio 1 had bleeped out the word "faggott" from the duet between Pogues frontman, Shane MacGowan, and the late singer Kirsty MacColl, saying the term could be offensive to listeners.

Bassoons are far too rude for Radio 1 listeners...and as for tenor-oons.

Railway Reading

Just completed Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods - I thought it was great fun and definitely on form, though it bears somewhat of a debt (IMHO) to Douglas Adams - there's an interesting conjunction. The Asylum has some interesting comments. I also was stuck by this bit

She stood like a lighthouse, like a pulsar, and I was a radio telescope that caught the signal. There she is, a star the size of a city, pulsing through the universe with burned-out energy. I know you’re there, I know where you are, I can track you because we are the same stuff.

I see there's someone from Jodrell Bank referenced in the acknowledgments - must contact my source there.

Heading towards Christmas

.. an early morning picture as we get towards the shortest day. It should also keep the folk who end up here when searching for Arighi Bianchi happy!

More Christmas kitch

At It came upon a midnight weird - found thanks to a commenter at the Cartoon Church

Classic!

:-) - nailed it!