Tuesday, July 31, 2007

An Antidote to....


...Pottermania, from the ever acerbic Clive James.

And now for something absolutely delightful. This simply beautiful piece of software: Delicious Library should remind all of those Windows naysayers and drones why 'MacMania' is perfectly justifiable. And, if that isn't convincing enough, try this. Is MacEnvy setting in yet?

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Sunday, July 29, 2007

The Language of Cats

Cat Phrase Meaning

miaow: Feed me.
meeow: Pet me.
mrooww: I love you.
miioo-oo-oo: I am in love and must meet my betrothed outside beneath the hedge. Don't wait up.
mrow: I feel like making noise.
rrrow-mawww: Please, the time is come to tidy the cat box.
rrrow-miawww: I have remedied the cat box untidiness by shoveling the contents as far out of the box as was practical.
miaowmiaow: Play with me.
miaowmioaw: Have you noticed the shortage of available cat toys in this room?
mioawmioaw: Since I can find nothing better to play with, I shall see what happens when I sharpen my claws on this handy piece of furniture.
raowwwww: I think I shall now spend time licking the most private parts of my anatomy.
mrowwwww: I am now recalling, with sorrow, that some of my private parts did not return with me from that visit to the vet.
roww-maww-roww: I am so glad to see that you have returned home with both arms full of groceries. I will now rub myself against your legs and attempt to trip you as you walk towards the kitchen.
mmeww: I believe I have heard a burglar. If you would like to go and beat him senseless, I shall be happy to keep your spot in the bed warm.
gakk-ak-ak: My digestive passages seem to have formed a hairball. Wherever could this have come from? I shall leave it here upon the carpeting.
mow: Snuggling is a good idea.
moww: Shedding is pretty good, too.
mowww!: I was enjoying snuggling and shedding in this warm clean laundry until you removed me so unkindly.
miaow! miaow!: I have discovered that, although one may be able to wedge his body through the gap behind the stove and into that little drawer filled with pots and pans, the reverse path is slightly more difficult to navigate.
mraakk!: Oh, small bird! Please come over here.
ssssroww!: I believe that I have found a woodchuck. I shall now act terribly brave.
mmmmmmm: If I sit in the sunshine for another week or so, I think I shall be satisfied.
mreoaw: Please ask room service to send up another can of tuna fish.
mreeeow: Do you serve catnip with that?
mroow: I have forced my body into a tiny space in order to look cute. How am I doing?
miaooww! mriaow!: Since you are using the can opener, I am certain that you understand the value of a well-fed and pampered cat. Please continue.

From feline to canine: I hope the doggy in this story will be okay.

A father of two? Now, that is depressing!

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Saturday, July 28, 2007

Turn Again Boris

http://www.backboris.com/

So, what do you think? Can he be both delectable and electable?

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Website Of The...

Millennium. Not least because it mentions Little Modest Old Me: http://www.lifecraft.org.uk/

Spin off site: http://www.lifecraft.org.uk/movingart/movart.htm

although I'm not sure I like the implication that the art created by its participants is engendered primarily by their mental health problems. Madness = genius is a tired old Cliché in my oh so very humble opinion. I am also disturbed by the 'psychological ghetto' this mindset almost invariably leads to. No one should be defined solely by their illness and this includes the mentally ill.

By the way PC Copperfield, none of them eat newspapers. Credit where credit is due though in the chapter entitled 'Proper Crackers' he did portray the issue of mental illness in both a compassionate and empathetic way. He wrote the following about a man suffering from a severe mental illness:

'Imagine thinking your family is at terrible risk and no one believing you. Just because they weren't didn't make Bill's agonies and fears any more bearable' (Wasting Police Time, p. 219)

With these words PC Copperfield displays more empathy than many psychiatric nurses manage to conjure up in a lifetime.

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Thursday, July 26, 2007

Oh Dear

Page 171:

'I always know I'm in a council property because:

a) They have a kind of fuggy, overpowering warmth that you only get if you're not paying the heating bill; and
b) there's always a massive plasma TV in the corner of the room with SKY+ always on'

Of course, it's a well known fact that all council tenants are clones of one another and so are their houses, unlike the sophisticated middle Englanders PC Copperfield seems to identify with and respect. A full review of PC Copperfield's (PC? Haven't you made it to sergeant yet?) little effort will grace these pages soon.

Verdict so far: Theodore Dalrymple without the extensive vocabulary.

Software of the Week: Artrage.

Online To Do list of the Week: Remember the Milk

Also check out 37 Signals Tada

Breaking News: BellaCat is unwell. The vet will make a home visiit tomorrow. I dread losing her - she is 17. Old for a cat but too young for me. And still no news about my father only that he is in a hospital bed hooked up to tubes having lost a quarter of his body weight. He is 62. Still young in the eyes of many. Something or someone has unleashed the fury of a tropical storm.

I feel compelled to add that this cast is not listed in order of importance but rather in order of appearance.

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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Summer Flower


Summer Flower, originally uploaded by Bella the Cat.

Très Vrai

http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1596

Scroll down:

But the Jerusalem Post tells us:

Three sisters were found stabbed to death in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, raising suspicion they were killed by relatives because of suspected immoral behavior, a human rights organization said. The three sisters, 16-year-old Nahed Hija and her sisters, 19-year-old Suha and 22-year-old Lina, were found dead from multiple stab wounds, buried in a shallow grave in the central Gaza Strip early Sunday morning, said Hamdi Shakkour of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

But of course that’s not violence because the Israelis weren’t involved.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Warning

If you attempt to dismember me
I will not sit passively
I'll sharpen my tongue
I'll sever the cord
That restrains my song.
You flay then slay the beast
On which we feast
We dine with the priest
From whom festivities flow.
'Til we bite into his heart
And no guest moves
They glance at the clock
Make their excuses and go.

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Publish and Be Damned

Just another point. Ms North, you asserted: 'As to whether she is mentally ill, I just don't know. The court didn't seem to think so.' The Courts? You mean the District Judge. Well, this may astound you but district judges are neither omniscient nor infallible, nor are they mental health professionals. Neither, for that matter, are the prison officers whose job it was to observe Lowde. Many mentally ill women are left to languish in gaol because the system simply is not equipped to deal with them. The 'special hospitals' are designed to deal primarily with male offenders. The fact that the District Judge chose not to take psychiatric reports into account says more about the lack of care available for mentally ill women than it does about the state of Ms Lowde's mental health. See, the personal really *is* political, even more often than *you'd* think.

BTW, if Ms Lowde doesn't suffer from any kind of mental illness does that mean she has been libelled by the many bloggers who asserted that she was? And do you condone or condemn the prejudice they exhibited towards the mentally ill during the course of their 'battle' to bring Ms Lowde to 'justice'. You may detach yourself from such comments but the fact that you failed to condemn them speaks volumes.

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Scully & Moi

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Spin, Spin, Spin

Any coincidence that this blogger and every daily mail reviewer are gushing, simply gushing over the latest Harry Potter? Mutual mirrors - 100% Spin, 0% Substance.

And no, I'm not an old misery who doesn't appreciate magic - as I said The Worst Witch totally rocks. Go Mildred! I'm off to reread The Magic Faraway Tree.

I tend to be able to detach myself from all this mass hysteria. It's like everyone's been swept away by some tsunami and I am left stranded on the shore. Kind of scary. By the way, I didn't really 'get' the 'Diana' thing either. I know - I must have a heart of granite. Even the priest in the confessional expressed astonishment when I told him that. 'B...b..but she's a saint,'* he spluttered. Is there something wrong with me? Or is it the rest of the world?

*Just kidding.

OMGWTF? My neighbour, Doug, bought me a copy of Deathly Hallows. I guess I'll have to read it then.

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Saturday, July 21, 2007

So...

Tracy Chapman

So you make a little money
Off of somebody else's sweat
So some people starve a little
While you get fat
While you get fat
So you grind and grind
And you push and shove
And claim that those most worthy
Will get what they deserve
What they deserve

It can't be true
It can't be true
Because I've seen too many hungry faces
I've seen too many with the likes of you
It can't be true

For you everything has its price
You give nothing away for free
If silence were truly golden
I guess no one could speak
No one could speak

You have money at your fingertips
People at your beck and call
And you're fool enough
To think for a price
You can have the whole wide world

For all our sakes
And all our lives
We must hope the words
That come from your lips
We must hope those words are lies

For all our sakes
And all our lives
We must hope the dreams
Soulless visions that you have
Are never realized

So
You've got a big house
And you drive a fancy car
So what if your pockets are full
If you have an empty heart

You snap your fingers
And all the waters part
So what if the people bow down
If they show you no regard

Your left hand
Always watches your right
So what if you trust in God
If you can't sleep at night

You think you've made it
You think you've got what everyone wants
So what if you're a big fat man
With an empty little heart

Who has made a little money
Off of somebody else's sweat
Who watched the people starve
While you got fat
While you got fat
You got fat
You got fat

J.K. Rowling? Meh, give me Enid Blyton any day!
And nothing, nothing in this universe beats The Worst Witch!

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Friday, July 20, 2007

Impulse Buys

God preserve me from impulse buys on the way home from work while ever so slightly tipsy. I am a true shopoholic as sure as Sophie Kinsella's heroine in her series of books Confessions of a Shopoholic. (and, no, I will never live this down. Me, the literary snob of the century reading sex 'n' shopping novels? I'm going to have to go into hiding for the rest of my life. I'm going to have to leave the country. Possibly even this galaxy I have come to know and love.) The purchases in question were Rachel North's Out of the Tunnel and PC David Copperfield's (not his real name, I'm assuming. Ooh, top of the class for observation.) Wasting Police Time. Anyways, (see the NYU touch there - I lived in NYU for a while and have never escaped from its influence). On the comments section of the publisher's website site it was mentioned that one or two chain stores refused to carry the title (Hmmm....One wouldn't be B*rd*rs, by any chance? I briefly worked there and they did seem particularly hostile to independent booksellers - note, this is an observation , not necessarily a fact - the clue lies in the word 'seem'.)

Anyway, I don't think either book will make happy reading - not something that does a great deal for me anyway - as a friend said 'this is reality and you'd better rub your own nose in it before someone comes along and, without warning, does it for you'. Whatever, they're bound to be superior to Dave Pelzer and all his clones.

Oh, yeah, and if I don't like either book, I say so, None of that 'sycophancy' nonsense for me. I'll just recycle them as Christmas presents for my darling mother. She likes 'autobiographies'. So I've got to avoid snapping the spines of either of them. Or maybe I'll just recycle them. Ding, dong, the bitch is back!

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Thursday, July 19, 2007

Why Does This Bother Me?

Two scenarios present themselves:

Let's assume that Ms Lowde is mad. Stark staring bonkers. This would mean that she was not responsible for her actions. That we are essentially punishing someone for being ill. OTOH let's assume she is bad. `The most evil and cunning woman to have ever walked the earth. That would mean that she was allowed to persecute her victims for nearly a decade until she finally targeted someone who was deemed worthy enough to be granted the protection of the state. The bedrock of democracy is equality before the law yet in this case one victim among many is granted more protection because of factors which should never have influenced the decision to prosecute: her recent misfortunes and, quite possibly, her gender. Ms Lowde's other alleged victims were, by all accounts, men. The establishment, it would seem, cannot extricate itself from the simplistic, polarised view of woman as victim and man as perpetrator but it can just about cope with 'woman on woman' crime.

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'Curiouser and Curiouser,' said the Theology Graduate

Curiouser and curiouser.

Maybe she'll get to share a cell in Holloway with Felicity Whatsherface. Maybe they can anchor their respective mental illnesses to some kind of religion so that everyone, even their victims, will be tying themselves in knots in a fruitless attempt to understand why they did what they did.

Stalking, murder, stalking, murder...which is worse? You decide.

Oh, and it would appear that the rest of the world disagrees with the self-appointed bastions of British Blogdom (bloggery? Buggery?) who fought so hard to bring Ms Lowde to 'justice'.

'There is a very weird witchhunt-y feel to all this stuff about tracking her down

On reading the two blogs, that's my feeling as well. From what I can tell, what we seem to have here are two female bloggers involved in a catfight. One is popular and politically astute. The other is quite smart but clearly has serious psychological problems. Both seem to take great pleasure in publicly needling the other, but the astute one knows what lines she can and can't cross, how to whip up public support, and how to use the system to her advantage, while the unhinged one is obviously isolated and in need of help.

After reading the two blogs, I can't help but think I'd much prefer the more overtly insane one -- even though you know that eventually she'd turn on you over some imagined slight as well.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 5:13 AM on May 28

Damn straight!

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Telling Stories

Tracy Chapman
  There is fiction in the space between
The lines on your page of memories
Write it down but it doesn't mean
You're not just telling stories
There is fiction in the space between
You and me

There is fiction in the space between
You and reality
You will do and say anything
To make your everyday life
Seem less mundane
There is fiction in the space between
You and me

There's a science fiction in the space between
You and me
A fabrication of a grand scheme
where I am the scary monster
I eat the city as I leave the scene
In my spaceship I am laughing
In your remembrance of your bad dream
There's no one but you standing

Leave the pity and the blame
For the ones who do not speak
You write the words to get respect and compassion
And for posterity
You write the words and make believe
There is truth in the space between

There is fiction in the space between
You and everybody
Give us all what we need
Give us one more sad sordid story
But in the fiction of the space between
Sometimes a lie is the best thing
Sometimes a lie is the best thing

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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Cynicism Rising

Okay, this one made me want to say: 'Pass the bucket' but then I berated myself for my cynicism:


You are White Chocolate

You are White Chocolate
You are sweet, caring, and truly very innocent.
Whether your naive ways are a bit of act or not, people like to take care of you.
You are a quiet flirt, and your power is often underestimated!

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Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Chaos

Accompany me on my journey
Over the sea. I am leaving
A country whose soil
Is stained with blood
I am the iconoclast
Cast in the role of villain

This is a kind of primal tribalism
I set myself apart for I am neither
The devil nor the divine
I swim against the tide
I resist the divide
I will not surrender

But they hunt in packs,
The emotional bloodhounds
I stand between them and their prey
I am pushed aside and we watch
As she ascends the scaffold
Old and mad and terrified

They celebrate their conquest
They serve as mutual mirrors
In this land of polarity
There is no dawn, no twilight
There is only day, there is only night
They will never love me
But their love was and always will be
A prize not worth possessing
A desire to belong used to burn inside me
It will not return for I know now
That their missiles do not always
Hit their target

For even they cannot hold back the night
Even they cannot hold back the tide
Even they cannot hold back the chaos
One day it will come rushing in
It will engulf them. Eventually.

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Sunday, July 15, 2007

Tip of the Week

Tip: If a woman wants to really insult another woman she should call her 'fat'.
If a woman wants to alienate other women who may have supported her then she should call another woman 'fat'.
That is what some might call sheer treachery.
If, however, she wants to become 'Tory Pin-Up Girl of the Millennium' she can call her anything she likes. Middle-aged Tory boys don't really care. They rather like it and occasionally they even join in.

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Thursday, July 12, 2007

Seen On a Bumper Sticker

'Richard Dawkins is My God'

and The God Delusion is my bible.

From a Cartoon entitled 'The Tory Party is the Bedrock of Marriage': Edwina Curry to John Major 'Our beds certainly rocked!'

Poor old Norma!

I love the Tories - endless sources of amusement! And they seem to have taken over 'Blogger' - especially the really old sad ones who whine about 'Cyberstalkers'. (Who must, by their very nature, be insane because you'd have to be to want to stalk them.)*

*Except Boris

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Wednesday, July 11, 2007

New Test Leper

Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe)
(R.E.M)


I can't say that I love Jesus
That would be a hollow claim
He did make some observations
And I'm quoting them today
"Judge not lest ye be judged"
What a beautiful refrain
The studio audience disagrees
Have his lambs all gone astray?

(chorus)
Call me a leper
Call me a leper
Call me a leper

"You are lost and disillusioned!"
What an awful thing to say
I know this show doesn't flatter
It means nothing to me
I thought I might help them understand
But what an ugly thing to see
"I am not an animal"
Subtitled under the screen

(repeat chorus)

When I tried to tell my story
They cut me off to take a break
I sat silent 5 commercials
I had nothing left to say
The talk show host was index-carded
All organized and blank
The other guests were scared and hardened
What a sad parade

What a sad parade

(repeat chorus)

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This Is So Fucked Up...

This is the first account I have encountered that even makes an attempt at being objective. This whole sorry episode reveals what people really think of the mentally ill. To call it a 'witchhunt' is an understatement. Another blogger castigated Ms. Lowde for what he called her 'evil deeds'. On his own blog he called her a cyberterrorist. In another post he defends a former IRA RL terrorist. In what kind of moral universe can the former possibly be seen as worse than the latter. These people really terrify me.

http://tinyurl.com/2zbryv

Scroll down for this quote:

'Don't get on the soapbox about the Criminal justice system being soft on murder. Your (sic) soft on cyber stalking. Then again you are a bully.'

Madness. Absolute madness.

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Monday, July 09, 2007

CryBaby_by_bellarie.jpg


CryBaby_by_bellarie.jpg, originally uploaded by Bella the Cat.

Oh, boo hoo, someone on teh interweb made me cry.
Call the police. Write to your MP. Tell the UN. Execute them - anything to satisfy my lust for vengeance. (Yeah, that's right - lust.)

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Guilt

I feel guilty.
Guilty because I couldn't protect someone I love from domestic violence.
Guilty because I let 'someone' do 'something' to me when I could have done something to stop it.
Guilty because I couldn't help friends who took their own lives.
Guilty because I can't sustain anorexia.
Guilty, guilty, guilty.

She once said to me: 'Guilt is pointless and self indulgent.'

And what's so small to you
Is so large to me
If it's the last thing I do
I'll make you see


Rock In This Pocket, Suzanne Vega

Counselling totally sucks.

Friday, July 06, 2007

Observation of the Week

Came from Davina McCall on 'Question Time' when she said 'Saddam Hussein was a bad man.' No shit? Somebody give that woman a Nobel Prize - for stating the freaking obvious.

The woman's clearly a genius.

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Enough Already!

'Maybe it'll be your turn next. I'd love for you to be able to understand the truth about Felicity Jane Lowde. I'm sure many of us would.'

Trust me, 'Madam Min', I've gone through far worse irl than a few nasty comments on the internet. Interesting how you acknowledge this woman needs to be in a secure hospital yet you believe that she is responsible for her actions. In law if you are mentally ill enough to be sent to a 'secure hospital' she is not responsible for her actions. Is she ill or is she a criminal? You can't have it both ways.

What would you have us do with the 'mentally ill'? (very few of whom pose a threat to others). The Nazis had a rather innovative solution - I believe it was called 'Aktion T4'.

And, there you go, anon no more.

And, yes, I do have mental health problems* - PTSD is one of them.

Just another latter day witch hunt. If I'd known I'd have bought them a domain. I wonder if 'www.burnthewitch.com' is taken.

*Along with one in five of the population.

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What the Great British Public...

really think of the mentally ill:



She is madder than a box of snakes, if she is living rough in London area its just a matter of time until pc plod feels her collar.

This particular woman obviously has serious psychiatric problems

please remember that for every one nutter out there, there are thousands of us that wish you all the best in the world. Don't let this mad woman ruin your life!

Amazing how such people can operate with impunity, yet normal, decent law abiding people can be shut down, destroyed and disenfranchised so easily by the authorities.

Fatter and older? It appears that a Greater Power has already started her punishment.*

tay safe and with our help we will get this nutter. There are always loons out there too bad one has latched onto you.

she has been a constant pain to me and others in the area and i think she is complelty sick, for what she has been doing to you.

Well done: staying true to yourself in the face of the nutters.

she may be walkin', but she is a cripple!!

Well done. Let's hope that one day she realises just how unpleasant, mendacious and batshit mental she is.



Charming, huh?

More to come.

*Well, duh, everyone 'gets older'. What should we do about that? Shoot every woman when she reaches the age of forty? Shoot every woman who does not live up to some manufactured image of what a woman 'should be'? Nice to know I live in such a compassionate and enlightened society.

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The Streetsweeper

Caged, enraged,
A life reduced
A lap dancer
In some sleazy club
Then the war started
And the river parted
Incredible, indelible,
Pink flesh glistening
Under hot lights

By day she is
The street sweeper
Barely there
Only half alive
We pass her by
She emerges from s family
Of filthy scrubbers
Derided and despised

But in the dark
At night so bright
With stars. A hidden
Inner self emerges
Magical and ethereal
She is cut and shaped,
From the same cloth
As her foremothers
Embracing duality

An inner twin
Concealed by day
This is the way
She has learnt to survive
A wraith in ragged overalls
Unnoticed by passers by
As she waits for the end
Of these friendless, endless
Days of decay

But in the dark
She is not the same
She dances on the tabletop
Ageing, affluent city bankers
Thrust money at her
Forgetting for a moment
Their wives, their children
The dullness of their lives
Chanelled into something they despise

And for her, this is survival
But, for them, it all remains
Just a game

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Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Unlit Stove

There was no warmth in that room
The stove was never lit
And upstairs her children slept
Milk and cookies beside their cots
Huddled beneath heavy eiderdowns
A towel blocking the vents in the door
While downstairs something rots
It rots, it rots

The nurse came but she was too late
The mother had already embraced her fate
Coal gas descended and her neighbour slept
Enveloped in dreams beneath crisp sheets
Of cream, a freshly baked cake
Coated in icing sugar, breath slowing
Unaware. It was not that he did not care
For he had imbibed that poison too

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Response to

this:

Thank you, Iain Mullen, for your analysis of the case. My concern is that a mentally ill woman has not or will not receive the help she needs. The facilities for mentally ill offenders in this country are woefully inadequate.

A similar situation occurred on Usenet a few years ago. The 'Cyberstalker' in this case was from the US - Madison County, Wisconsin. IIRC the authorities were quick to act and forced him to accept treatment. Again, IIRC, he was suffering from a personality disorder. Ironic that the US criminal justice system, much derided in the UK, seems to be so much more enlightened than our own when dealing with these cases.

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