MP3 Player Top 15

Since I did this last week, thought I'd do it again

1. "Yummy Yummy Yummy" ~ Julie London (no move)
2. "I Feel Alright" ~ Electronic (up from 9)

3. Total Trash ~ Sonic Youth   (new in)

4. "Blow Wind Blow" ~ Tom Waits (up from 8)
5. "Boys Keep Swinging" ~ The Associates (down from 3)
6. "Straight to the Top (Rhumba)"~ Tom Waits (down from 5)
7. "Flying North" ~ Thomas Dolby (down from 4)
8. "Wild Honey Pie" ~ The Beatles (down from 6)
9. "Would I...Bounce Back" ~ The Associates (up from 10)
10. (A) ~ The Associates (new in)

11. "Amused As Always" ~ The Associates   (down from 7)
12. "Deeply Concerned" ~ The Associates   (up from 13)
13. "Funnel of Love" ~ The Fall (new in)

14. "Innocent When you Dream" ~ Tom Waits   (new in)

15. "Please Wake Me Up" ~ Tom Waits  (new in)

Pleased to see The Fall and Sonic Youth in there at last!

Occupy LSX - Fake Story Exposed / Idiot Mensch

Austerity Cook Book 2: tripe curry

 1. buy cheap tripe - i got this lot for 59p
2. boil it for about an hour

Boiled Tripe: fruits of capitalsim for the very poor

3. fry onions

onions frying. In a pan. 

 4.add spices and fry

Cumin, Coriander & Turmeric

5. this was the icky bit - making up the tamarind paste - next time i'm just going to buy it ready made.

Knackered tamarind

6. Mix it all together and fry, with a little tomato puree

masala

7. add water from the saucepan you cooked the tripe in

soggy masala

 8. add special secret ingredient

cheat

9. add garlic, ginger and tripe

an enormous garlic bulb; smaller garlics are available

 10. cook for a bit

looking shite

finished - now who's hungry? No-one? 

11. fucking eat!!!

The Most Popular items on my MP3 Player

1. "Yummy Yummy Yummy" ~ Julie London
2. "Bleak House" (unabridge) ~ Charles Dickens
3. "Boys Keep Swinging" ~ The Associates
4. "Flying North" ~ Thomas Dolby
5. "Straight to the Top (Rhumba)"~ Tom Waits
6. "Wild Honey Pie" ~ The Beatles
7. "Amused As Always" ~ The Associates
8. "Blow Wind Blow" ~ Tom Waits
9. "I Feel Alright" ~ Electronic
10. "Would I...Bounce Back" ~ The Associates
11. "Logan Time" ~ The Associates
12. "Declaration" ~ Felt
13. "Deeply Concerned" ~ The Associates
14. "Hang On St. Christopher" ~ Tom Waits
15. "I Ran (so Far Away)" ~ A Flock Of Seagulls

Well that's my credibility shot, if i ever had any. The Associates album has been on there a long long time, which explains why it features so heavily. Surprised at Thomas Dolby being so high. Obviously "Bleak House" is an audio book so maybe it shouldn't be there.

I expect to see Waits tunes gradually taking over the top slots. Julie London has been at number one since I first bought the MP3 player as it was the first track I put on there, and I've never removed it! It makes me absurdly happy.

Also surprised to see no Fall in there - but I suspect as i have about 6 albums of their's on there i haven't played any single track enough to rank. Sonic Youth are just under at number 16.

Indymedia London | Articles | Show | Virtual Anarchist Bookfair 2010: Videos & Audios

On the day of the 2011 London Anarchist Book Fair, here's a set of recordings from the 2010 Anarchist Book Fair - there's links to previous ones as well. Enjoy!

'via Blog this'

The killing of Awlaki’s 16-year-old son - Salon.com

Another Glenn Greenwald article, this time about nobel peace prize winner Obama's secret policy of murdering civilians that US have a problem with.

"This is all part and parcel of the Obama administration’s extreme — at times unprecedented — fixation on secrecy. Even with Senators in the President’s own party warning that the administration’s secret interpretation of its domestic surveillance powers under the Patriot Act is so warped and radical that it would shock the public if they knew, Obama officials simply refuse even to release its legal memos setting forth how it is interpreting those powers. As EFF’s Trevor Timm told The Daily Beast today: “The government classified a staggering 77 million documents last year, a 40 percent increase on the year before.” And as I wrote about many times, the Obama administration even tried — and failed — to force The New York Times‘ James Risen to reveal his source for his story about an inept, disastrous CIA effort to infiltrate Iran’s nuclear program, but as Politico‘s Josh Gerstein reports today, the Obama DOJ is now appealing the decision in Risen’s favor. "

'via Blog this'

John's Woolly Moustache

is this part of the knit London project? If so i admire it's subtlety. John, the First Lord Lawrence, however, seems to have a sculpted moustache underneath his knitted one. Maybe it's not a moustache, but a top lip cosy!

The Lazy Sunbathers

The Lazy Sunbathers

Dream Diary - Please Ignore

I need to write my dreams down. If I don't I stop remembering them, almost as if my subconscious get's pissed off that I'm not paying it enough attention. I also like to identify  trends in my dreams. One thing I used to get a lot, and I know this is hardly unusual, is the dream about unprepared. It took several forms. One form was the exam dream, with no revision, and while taking the exam I suddenly realise I'm actually not sitting at a desk, but laying down in a bed with no clothes on. The next form which has been more prevelant of late is the turning up at college at the age I am now. Sometimes I hadn't finished my course the first time round, other times I was back to study something different. But the essential thing is always the same. I find myself in a complex building not knowing exactly where i should be, or even what I'm studying sometimes. As I seek out a copy of the timetable I find it just slightly out of my grasp all the way through the dream. And an even more evolved version involves me being at work in one of the various jobs I've had snce leaving Higher Education, and I'm unable to do the job. completely and utterly useless. I wake up pretty much sweating form those dreams, becasue that is how I fel most of the time when I am at work. Which begs the question, why do they keep me on and keep giving me pay rises. Beats me.

My dream today was a different type that I've come to know and love in the past decade or so. It is a dream that involves the supernatural. I've had these since I was very little, I can still remember one very traumatising dream I had as a young child where everyone around me, except one other child, appeared to have died from a plague. My parents left in fear, and left me behind in the house. I sought them out throughout the dreams, just walking the streets, being aware of some streets that had the plague, that I cold not cross. finally I met a boy my age and we talked, standing by the park, on the pavement. this bit seemed to go on for ever, and I told the other boy that I was just dreaming, which I think was a surprise even to me when I said it.

Occasionally I still dream I can fly. It used to be every dream, now it's just an occasional thing.

The supernatural dreams can come in various forms: zombies, vampires, ghosts. When I dream of ghosts I usually dream of haunted houses. When I lived in chislehurst I began mixing my recurring deams about ghosts in that house, with reality. I could wake up in the dea of night convinced that there was something in the room with me. These dreams can be absolutly terrifying. So it was with some relief that when I let the house out to my tenants three years ago, the dreams stopped. But since then, they have gradually been creeping back. this morning I dreamt I owned a cottage which I let a large number of people stay in. It felt weird walking about in it. It was cleealy haunted and it had that feeling which I simply cannot describe, which I feel in all my dreams, which tells me I should not be in that house. What has changed is that previously my haunted house dreams involved a house that could not be lived in, and usually involved me excaping it at some point, sometimes even demolishing it. Now I find I can live with my ghosts. In this dream all the ghosts did was push the taps around on the kitchen sink. I remember having a conversation with one of the people staying in my cottage, and telling him i used to be so much worse.

The other common element to the houses I dream of is that state of utter disrepair they are in. Sometimes I carry out renovation work in my dreams, other times, like today, I just imagine how I could renovate the property. this cottage let in all water. Whenever it rained all the water came in and ran down the insides of the walls. I was concernd about where I could store my books to keep them safe.

I've obviously got house and ghost related issues to work out in life, and yes I think dreams are more often than not, as literal as that. I deam about houses because I am worried about my house, and my homes, and my wife's home. I am also worried about my wife, and about my own future and all these can be represented by houses too. The ghosts? The fact that I allow things to get to me. I am slow to resolve problems and they can often come back to me or grow and grow until they are monsters. the ghosts are the problems have avoided, or dealt with in a half arsed way, and they tend to stick around to haunt me.

For me right now - money issues, tax payment and self assessment are due. I face bills on my property which I may not be able to meet. Also there's a few things at work I'm not dealing with properly. But t will pass. I will get my tax sorted out. I always do, once the message from the dreams, my subconscious, starts being understood.

Twitter Stats Latest

Greenwich Foot Tunnel

Lack of a tunnel across the river in the past year or so has been a real nuisance - good news is that it appears that will be re-opening in 2012,though exactly when is not stated, presumably before the Olympics start, which we knew anyway. This was the Tweet from Greenwich Council

@greenwichcouncl : Greenwich Council now anticipates both Foot Tunnels will fully reopen in the New Year - Gwich currently open 6am-9pm weekdays

Since my knee is now buggered and the prospect of actually being able to ride a bike for most or any of 2012 is looking vanishingly small, how much of a shit do you think I give?

Noam Chomsky Speaks

The Very Scary Iranian Terror Plot

http://politics.salon.com/2011/10/12/the_very_scary_iranian_terror_plot/singleton/

This article by Glenn Greenwald is a must read for anyone tempted to believe the unbelievable shit constantly pumped out by the US-UK propaganda machine  with the intent to a) scare us and b) justify whatever violence they wish to unleash on innocent, ordinary, harmless human beings.

Here's an excerpt - click on the link to read the whole thing.

"To begin with, this episode continues the FBI’s record-setting undefeated streak of heroically saving us from the plots they enable. From all appearances, this is, at best, yet another spectacular “plot” hatched by some hapless loser with delusions of grandeur but without any means to put it into action except with the able assistance of the FBI, which yet again provided it through its own (paid, criminal) sources posing as Terrorist enablers. The Terrorist Mastermind at the center of the plot is afailed used car salesman in Texas with a history of pedestrian money problems. Dive under your bed. “For the entire operation, the government’s confidential sources were monitored and guided by federal law enforcement agents,” explained U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, and “no explosives were actually ever placed anywhere and no one was actually ever in any danger.’”"


I've added the blog to my side bar under "proper political blogs" -->

7th Birthday Shake-Up

I've been doing this Blog for 7 years now, and I decided it was time for a shake-up.

Firstly, a change in name to reflect my successful Twitter account @LaughingNoam - "Just Say Noam!".

Secondly, a change in the website name to match the blog name.

Thirdly, a new look for the blog itself. Not sure about this yet, might be too stark, though stark is good in my book. Feel free to let me know what you think!

Finally, an upgrade to the links in the sidebar. With the new template it's pretty easy to add things and move things around, I had got quite seriously bogged down in all the coding for the previous blog; frequent mistakes in the code changes had me pulling my hair out.

So the cat, and the Porgy name has been ditched. Sorry Porgy (my tabby cat), you can have your name back now!

Some of the links are dead, some are just no longer relevant to how I use this blog. If you can bear with me there will be a gradual improvement, I have hundreds of great blogs and websites bookmarked & I'll be sharing them with you as soon as I can.

A Suburban Stabbing

A deeply shocking event here; deep in quiet suburbia, though if it had been a middle aged woman cyclist killed by lorry everyone would have queued up to blame the victim, I'm sure.

What is shocking I think is firstly the location, it is unsual. I lived in Camberwell up until 3 years ago and stabbings/ shootings were almost a weekly event for a short time. There was a recent stabbing of a young man in what had been my back garden! At that time I remember very little concern or sympathy even though a young man had been killed over the theft of a watch, apparently. He was just trying to get his watch back when someone killed him. The boy was not in a gang and nor was he acting in a criminal manner, as if that is any sort of justification for writing off a young life. It's not! But I digress. Victim blaming is becoming increasingly the norm in our society and so here's a killing where I think even the biggest c*nt posting on the internet would be unlikely to blame a suburban middle aged woman for her own random stabbing by another, younger, woman.

Also - it was a woman who did the stabbing, with a stolen knife. and it was - apparently - random.

All deeply disturbing I feel. But one wonders at the blood shed if we'd given in to the gun lobby in this country, Would this have been a US style shooting incident? No - I know, it's not right for me to be posting up conjecture; and I'm not, just trying to explain my initial feelings about the case. No doubt the young woman's state of mind will be examined in almost infinite detail over the next few weeks, and titalating details will be drip fed to tabloid readers as the whole family are dragged through the sh*t. But I won't be going back to it.

Attitudes to Autism

Another facet of yesterday's madness was a long term follow / followee of mine who has twice this week told me I have to have empathy despite freely admitting that she had known I was autistic for some months.

Is this not like telling a legless man he needs to walk, or saying to a blind man - "for fucks sake man - look, use your eyes, its not that fucking hard is it?"

Telling an autistic person to have empathy is just like that - so why do people do it? I think it's down to simple pig ignorance. autistic people look ok, seem to be perfectly normal, "so get a fucking grip man!! Be normal FFS!"

Though apparently it may be possible to learn empathy. I think I have a much reduced sense of empathy of truth be told. I can do it on a simplified level, and very strongly when it comes to animals. In fact I seem to be ultra sensitive when it comes to the sufferings of animals.

Also think I read others' pain quite well and respond quite strongly when someone has clearly hurt themselves. I wouldn't quite say I feel their pain, but nearly.

But I'm crap at reading emotions, often reading emotions that are completely the opposite of those the person is experiencing, once they vocalise their emotions, feelings, I realise I was way off!

so don't expect much empathy when 1. I have a reduced sense of my own emotion and 2. I have no idea what you are even feeling!!

If you really do want me to undertsand, you could try actually talking to me. Would that be so difficult? Like letting a blind man touch your face, or mouthing clearly for a deaf person, you could make that little extra effort for us empathy impaired types.

Twitter Madness, Anarchism & The NHS

Yesterday on Twitter I let myself go a little bit mad.

Somehow some evil little worm got into my head shortly after waking up, while was still drinking my first coffee of the day. I saw a Tweeter who'd tried to distance the Block the Bridge protest from the Labour Party, who are likely to turn up, make speeches and try to score political points, despite their own appalling record while in office. And then another Tweeter had responded to say that if the Labour Party did turn up on the day to score political points then that would be OK because we were all on the same side. Her definition of the "same side" was that they had turned up to protest. Somewhat tautological I'm sure you'll agree.

So it was probably justified for me to jump in as I did. I suported the original Tweeter (who failed to support me at any point, surprisingly) and ended up in a row with the second Tweeter. I mentioned Blair and Clegg as examples of leaders on the left who had petended to be leftwing, made slightly promising noises, and then turned out to be fully fledged Tories in disguise. I got unfollowed for my trouble.

Then a 3rd Tweeter who I rather admired for her Tweets jumped in and scolded me (doncha love these patronising middle class 'liberals' eh?). I made a friendly reply, not wanting to argue with her, then discovered that she too had unfollowed me. I Tweeted to say that I would not be childishly responding in kind by unfollowing her; and I didn't.

 Later in the day I went off on one about the NHS, stating that as an Anarchist I cannot support a huge state bureaucracy  I know this is controversial, but if an Anarchist society is to work at all then we need to start debating how we fill the gap left when the NHS disappears - or do you believe that the NHS could survive in any form without support from the state? As a huge mega-organisation it does not give value for money and it does not offer a wholly positive contribution to society. Think of all the people not being treated just because they live in the wrong postcode (I was one a few years ago until I moved), the ones that die from malpractice, neglect, and super-bugs circlating around the system, sick from inappropriate treatments, people being treated for fictitious ailments, people being over prescribed, given bad advice, etc. 

As well as that - I pointed out that as a society we should have moved away from the health crisis that existed in the UK up until the 1940s; Illnesses caused by work, poor housing, malnutrition, etc etc. These days we seem to be going backwards. Blair's big promise on health care was the same as in education and crime, he was going to attack the causes of ill health. There was about a year of lip-service to that effect, but it was not long before big pharma were back in, and we were throwing billions at private companies who contributed f*ck all to the health of the nation. And remember all New Labour's grandees who sat on this committee or that committee and probably made themselves very wealthy in the process, a directorship here or there, maybe even a seat in the House of Lords, who contributed f*ck all to the health of the nation.

I believe it is time to shut down this huge mega bureacracy which eats up wealth and lives. NOT privatise it, or turn it into a cashcow for Big Pharma, but to move us on to the next level of evolution. a post NHS Britain, where we all have the knowledge, the resources and rights to look after our own health. Some sort of successor for the NHS could be developed on a local basis, to catch the ones that get ill despite the improved environment, and to catch those who suffer from the illnesses we cannot eradicate such as cancer. With far fewer getting sick we could focus on these people without needing to spend over a £100bn a year on - what? What exactly? Huge improvements could be made in preventative care to reduce or eliminate diseases such as heart disease, diseases caused by diet, pollution, stress. Improvements in conditions at work could reduce vocational diseases; bringing all homes up to a minimum standard, starting with council and housing association homes, and a drive to bring private landlords up to speed could have improved conditions still further. Send people back home to  sick housing and the get sick again. What a waste of resources. what a waste of people's lives!

The fact that this society is so sedentary. People drive to the park so they can have a short walk. People drive to the gym. But most people just drive to the supermarket to buy more over-processed crap that makes them ill so they don't want to walk so they spiral down into an unhealthy old age. If we could reduce dependency on the car and get people active again, teacht hem and give them incentives to look after themselves, stop pedalling lies about nutrition and pollution - then we really will become a healthier nation. but there has never been a serious attempt to do this? In fact what has happened is that children are kept in more, sports grounds are sold off, and cycling is seriously discouraged.

And finally - why did we not take the chance to fully understand the causes of mental illnesses - not the ones people are born with, but the ones that are created from stressful, miserable lives that the many poverty stricken people in the UK have to deal with daily, and bring up families, and feed them, all the time fending off bailliffs and gangs and fecking do gooders from the state, or Local Authority who may well do more harm than good, and can never deal with the true causes of people's misery - poverty. No let's just throw more money at the problem and make everyone drug dependent. Why bother to understand why someone is ill when we can give them drugs and tick a box instead?

So the NHS is only needed in a sick unbalanced society; a healthy society and we could almost certainly devise something much less Kafka-esqe, and something that does not struggle to fight the symptoms but gives people complete control and supports them so they can keep themselves healthy.

Piss Taking coffee

i bought this coffee from the little shop in Welling station while waiting for a train. I don't often buy coffee out, but I really needed one on this particular morning at half past seven!

Then as I was about to bin the cup I read it. I don't know if it's politically astute awareness-raising or just fucking arrogant. I mean it's true isn't it? So I'm guessing arrogant.

stinkpipes and kitchen renovations

I got back on the bike yesterday just to see if I could. But no, the knee still hurts. It's OK for a while and then it starts to hurt as if someone's sticking something sharp into the bits where my leg bones join up.

 

Have been concentrating on stinkpiping this week, desperately trying to take advntage of the literally hundreds of extra hits I've been getting thanks to my BBC 6Music appearance on Saturday, which by the way, I have downloaded, but sll not listened to.

 

Incidentally - have recently discovered a tape of a previous radio appearance of mine, the time I was interviewed for Radio One Newsbeat after organising the south London morning Critical Mass protest - where four bike rides headed from the four compass points of London, and met up to form one mighty cycling gathering in the centre somewhere. I have it on a tape and will at some point digitise it and stick it on my Youtube channel, and here, of course.

 

Anyway knee is not going to get better by itself so its time to see the doctor, which i hate. I feel serious twinges now just sitting down, though, curiously, walkin's fine.

 

I had to go to chislehurst yesterday where I own a property which I let out (yes I am an accidental landlord, anyone want to buy a house above a shop?). The tenants there are planning to stay for quite a while yet so I feel its worth investing in them, and making their life there as happy as is reasonable. To that end I have this year, fitted a new boiler (the old one was unlikely to make the next winter, and was beginning to break down a lot), renovated the bathroom (bath was literally falling apart and I don't blame them for getting sick of the purple coloured bathroom suite that was in there from when I bought the property), and now, have renovated the kitchen too. Hopefully, it's all done by now and I get to see it at the weekend. We have also forced the leaseholder (housing association) to re-pave the balcony, and the tenants themselves have substantially redecorated, with me footing the bll for paint and that.

 

They were on the edge of leaving at the start of the year, so my investment should pay back many many times over next 5 years. And if they move out in the meantime, well I've got a rather nice house to move back into when I am able to.

 

I'm taking the bike out on Sunday to go out to chislehurst again to see the kitchen, but on the way I'm going to amble about in SE London finding stinkpipes, locating them on the Stinkpipe map, and also attemtping to chart the course of our rivers, such as the quaggy, to see if there is any relationship between stinkpipes and the rivers. I suspect we'll see a dense cluster of stinkpipes around all our rivers. But we shall see.

 

If the knee doesn't make it then I'll have the railway and walking to fall back on, and still be able to ride the bike on the downhill bits!

 

 

In answer to my Critics...

tumblr_lgc3et0db81qa55edo1_400.jpg (399×477):

'via Blog this'

The Five S's

This is a thing from Japan designed to promote more efficient and safer working practices. In the west here we appear to pay lip service to it but one really wonders how well it transfers to an office environment, as opposed to the factory environment where it was originally developed.

The S's are all Japanese words:

Seiri   Eliminate all unnecessary tools, parts, and instructions.

Seiton   There should be a place for everything and everything should be in its place.

Seiso   Clean the workspace and all equipment, and keep it clean, tidy and organized.
Seiketsu   Work practices should be consistent and standardized.
Shitsuke   Maintain and review standards.
What concerns me is this. The Japanese don't have the letter S - so what we've done is taken the 5 original rules which are entitled with Ssss words and wedged in 5 English words that also begin with Sssss.

How good a fit can this be?

The English version is:

1 Sorting (Seiri)
2 Straightening or setting in order / stabilize (Seiton)
3 Sweeping or shining or cleanliness / systematic cleaning (Seiso)
4 Standardizing (Seiketsu)
5 Sustaining the discipline or self-discipline (Shitsuke)

then we invented 2 more to make the 7 Ss that should have already been achieved if you'd done the first 5 correctly.

6 Safety
7 Security

And most bizarrely of all - a command to sit back and feel smug. They could have just called it 'smug' as smug begins with an S, however the tedious spineless bureaucratic bastards decided to call it Satisfaction, as in (I Can't Get No).

8 Satisfaction

This comes because we've been asked to apply the 5 S's to our workstations in my office. I thought, as I usually do, that this can't possibly apply to me; "Special people please ignore" being the first in my 5 Ss

today I got into the office to find a note. "Gents, this is not 5 S's. Please sort! The boss."

So - to apply the 5 S's I put all my stuff, in-tray and all, in my desk cupboard where I can be about half as efficient as I was before.

The next 4 rules in my 5S's is if you can't deflest it using rule 1. then:
2. Stick it all in the cupboard, in-tray and all
3. Show off about how clear my desk is
4. Sit back and wait for the boss to congratulate me
5. Slowly, surely start pulling my hair out as I can't find shit!

you could also add

6. Stupid
7. Self-defeating

and if you really want

8. Shit - there's no more room in my cupboard, what do I do now?

some pictures speak for themselves

Good point, well made

thanks to @VerilyBerrily

Some Good Tweeters to Follow

@OccupyWallStNYC

@RichardDawkins

@avinunu

@analiensaturn

@BPoilpocalypse

That's all for now - I'll try to do this regularly. I feel slightly bad for all the excellent Tweeters that I haven't mentioned, but I'm hoping I'll get round to everyone over time. The analiensaturn link didn;t work, but go to twitter and search for him, or use Google. I'll fix it when I get chance. (ie, never).

A lot of Tweeterers like to send out recommendation under the hashtag (a word/ label with a #hashtag in front of it) of #FF - follow friday. I don't do this, I really have no idea how they find the time. What I do is put out a blanket recommendation for people to follow the Tweeters I RT on a regular basis. If I'm RTing someone week in and week out, then it must be because they're good /  interesting / groovey / funny - or something I like at least.

As usual, I'm neglecting this blog. Partly it's due to being completely besotted with Twitter, even now.

One thing I like about Twitter is it's immediacy. If I decide to go off on one about a particular subject then I can, with no need to wait until I have time to work up a complete article, instead dashing off a series of text message length missives, as few or as many as I feel appropriate.

I tend to look outside of myself for inspiration, but once I'm off, I'm right off. on one. In the old days i used to rant at the telly. So now instead of shouting at the optical illusions that appear on the screen in front of me, I comment via Twitter. Programmes seemingly designed to provoke me being Newsnight, Question Time, the Culture Show, and Jools Holland's Later.

Latest Twitter Stats

People seem to like it judging by the inexorable rise of the Laughing Noam.