Feeling pretty rough this week, so no energy for posts. Instead here’s a song by the Legendary Stardust Cowboy…
And here’s David Bowie’s amazing cover version of it…
And here’s a Pulp song that sounds kinda like Bowie’s version…
Enjoy!
Round the Cape to the Far Antipodes
I took delivery today of some Lego I’ve ordered to put together a model of Inquisitor Golesh Constantine Pheppos Heldane to go with my other Gaunt’s Ghosts minifigs. Nothing unusual about this you might think, except that I placed the order back on May 19th.
Now, I can accept that prior to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, 113 days might be an acceptable delivery time between the UK and Perth, but I really would have thought that the Royal Mail would have moved on from clipper ships by now. Or perhaps the Ordo Chronos of the Emperor’s Holy Inquisition got wind of my plans, disapproved, and caused the parcel to get lost in the Warp? The Lego seems normal with no obvious signs of chaotic taint, but one can never really tell, so I won’t let the resulting model get too far away from Saint Sabbat, just in case.
In any case, Firestar Toys can be absolved of any blame as they clearly did post the parcel a few days after my order. Whatever problems occurred did so after my order left their remit, so I will happily continue to recommend them to all aspiring minifig builders.
Keep your eyes peeled for Inquisitor Heldane!
Spooky
On the way out the door on Thursday morning I randomly grabbed something to read on my commute. The book my hand landed on happened to be Erik Larson’s Isaac’s Storm – a highly readable, if traumatic, account of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 – the greatest natural disaster in American history.
It was only when finishing it on the train this morning that I realised that today is the 114th anniversary of the storm. Almost one hundred and fourteen years to the minute before I closed the back cover of the book the people of Galveston were going to bed, unaware that before the next day was out somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000 of them would be dead or dying, and their city lying in ruins.
Spooky stuff.
Good Things this Week
New daylight fluro tubes over my workstation.
7% pay rise.
The Notorious P.I.G burger at the Varsity Bar.
Why Crispin Glover is the Greatest Human Being in History
1: He was in Back to the Future
2: He wasn’t in Back to to the Future Part II, and changed the rules of Hollywood as a result
3: He recorded the greatest song in human history
It’s cold outside, There’s no kind of atmosphere…
Wikipedia really does teach you something new every day. I had no idea that Jawaharlal Nehru (first Prime Minister of India and architect of the modern Indian state) was a mechanoid!
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Well, I never claimed to be Shakespeare
Pop Sonnets is great! Try figuring out each song before you read the tagline.
And while I can’t claim the same skill with letters as the bards behind the original, I couldn’t help but turn my hand to a bit of conversion from the modern…
Cruel seconds chase their course around the dial,
Sly minutes follow surely in their way,
Fast fading hours in darkness bring no smile,
And man may run no faster than the day,
Time’s arrow slips the clutch of all our care,
No method or design to stay its flight,
Small time remains, one night our love to share,
No morning shall come forth from out this night,
If dream this be I truly cannot bear,
A cynic’s coat I always having worn,
My hopes arise in contrast to despair,
God grant my plea to never see the dawn,
– Fain I would have the timepiece handless be,
One score and four hours left to spend with thee,
Now, who’s that by?
Stadtkrones Ahoy!
For all my fine words about taking a break from the Peter Grant series I bought volume 4 – Broken Homes – on Wednesday evening and finished it on the way to work this morning. Another great read with some fascinating information on German architectural theory (the idea of a Stadtkrone intrigues me). But that ending! How could you do that to us Mr Aaronovitch?! How?!
The Mythbusters were great! Apparently we were the biggest crowd they’ve ever performed to. And Adam was greatly amused by the idea that people from Perth should be called Perthlings. I was sitting right at the very back but still managed a few decent photographs, which I’ll put up once I get the chance.
No Accounting for Crows
It’s weird when you stop and think about it. How could the band that produced a masterpiece like this…
…go on to commit an act of heinous musical vandalism like this?
Hmmm.
I’m off to see the Mythbusters tonight. Maybe they’ll be able to explain it…
Not Cool YouTube
So you’re working away on your computer at the office and decide that you need some music to make your life feel like it’s worth living. So you go over to YouTube and line up something soothing and melodic, a piece by the Shins for instance. Then you switch windows and continue work.
But then without any warning, without any kind of alert or alarm to advise you that some kind of vile, brain killing, hazardous toxin that should not be played to children or other living things without arrest and trial in the Hague is incoming, you are subjected to an unskippable, ten second auditory assault by Nicki Minaj.
Not cool YouTube! Not cool!
