Ubuntu: An African Tale

On the advice of my attorney, The London Prodigal, my long, largely cryptic and possibly defamatory post on Google vs. Gates has been shelved in favour of some coverage of the unsung heroes of the software world. The Africans.

Together, they collaborate to create Ubuntu. An operating system whispered from the reeds of the Okavango. A “software ecosystem” if you will, in fact just by using it another child lives.

Unfortunately Africans have neither demonstrated the skills nor possess the infrastructure to actually do this. So the concept of African software innovation can be used solely for marketing copy by Mark Shuttleworth. The great African patriot.

Rowan Williams in Sharia Law Outrage!

Buggers for the Bottle: Part VII, in which Aristotle is shown to possess little capacity for reason

Yesterday afternoon I laboured until close of day to translate the final instalment of my Wendish seafaring discourses from the Anglo-Saxon. I donned my best gloves and made for the Muted Slughorn. Seeing, as I crossed the heath, that January 26 was not long for this world and that night was surely in the offing, I resolved to make it a brief visit. When I arrived the front room was deserted, but from the furthest recesses of the building I could hear distant shrill voices, the tinkling of martini glasses and animated conversation. Not wishing to disturb the barman, snatches of whose velvet baritone rose, unmistakable, above the fervent offerings of the live Jazz band, I went behind the bar and poured myself a few gentle measures of spiced rum and ginger wine. I shuffled over to a table, and had barely raised mug to lip when the door flew open and Hamilton tore in, making a beeline for the bar. Clearing the counter in a single leap, he proceeded to mix and drink all manner of frantic concoctions, not stopping to consider whether the bottles he was grasping – albeit with commendable suction – were spirits, culinary lubricants, bathing unguents or domestic cleaners. Knowing from experience that intervention was futile, I returned to my drink without a word. After a short time he relented and joined me at the table with a small wooden breadboard of single malts. Knowing that it would very soon fall to me to make some sort of enquiry in respect of his behaviour, and though he was still livid and flushed from the ordeal, he pre-empted the overwhelming interrogative and, fixing me with a look of combined alacrity and rage which only the most hardened insomniac could have mustered, articulated with superlative cogency, given his weakened state, that for all the damned good it did, one might very well dismiss the entire corpus of literary critical theory! Not wishing to seem timid in the teeth of such an astonishing claim, I laughed a careless, ‘might-one-indeed?’ sort of laugh; but really I was paralysed with terror. I straight returned and reeled into bed. I slept badly and woke with a headache. Two Anadins later I was feeling better, though still quite weak. I took up a book of Aristotelian political conjectures and read:

“Those who live in a cold climate and in Europe are full of spirit, but wanting in intelligence and skill; and therefore they retain comparative freedom, but have no political organisation, and are incapable of ruling others. Whereas the natives of Asia are intelligent and inventive, but they are wanting in spirit, and therefore they are always in a state of subjection and slavery. But the Hellenic race, which is situated between them, is likewise intermediate in character, being high-spirited and also intelligent.”

The simplicity of the author’s argument, and the gleeful, contrafactual abandon with which he presented it, soothed my troubled mental state and fortified me sufficiently that I was able to take a little breakfast.

A phenomenon which I have often observed

An Encounter With Ferpection

I was awakened early this morning by the ringing of the doorbell. Pausing only to drape my form in a Russian infantry officer's topcoat which I keep near to the bed for that purpose, I stumbled to the door. Outside was a man of Arabic appearance, holding a large bag in one hand and a trowel in the other. 'I've come to do your tiles' he said. Remembrance hit me like a well-aimed potato. Last night, in a drunken and self-important mood, I had made wild and extraordinary claims about the quality of my bathroom tiles to some of the Muted Slughorn's most august patrons, including a well known airline pilot and the wife of a local Tory councillor. Later, in a panic at the thought of my lies being discovered, I had begged the barman for the number of his own decorator, who enriched the lavatories of the Slughorn with fantastical and intriguing tessellations. The barman had smiled in a manner which I am coming to recognise, and told me that it would be arranged.
I showed the artisan to my bathroom, and helped him spread some old sheets over the floor. In no time at all he had my old avocado tiles pulled of the wall, and began to apply his own. As I watched him build up complex and wonderful patterns out of tiny tiles which he pulled casually from his open holdall, skilfully wielding his trowel with the confidence of a true master, I began to suspect his true identity. 'Are you, by any chance, a master tiler from medieval Morocco?' I asked him. He mutely nodded that this was true. Shaking my head at the vagrancies of fortune, I left the room, retiring to my study with a sheaf of periodicals and bottle of sherry.
I was still engrossed in the study of these papers a few hours later when I heard a cry of horror. Rushing to my bathroom, my topcoat flapping around my naked knees, I saw my decorator crouched outside the door in fear. I pushed to door open to see, to my surprise, the bathroom was decorated from floor to ceiling in tile work of the most extraordinary complexity and grace. 'Bravo!' I cried. 'You've done it! My bathroom will be famous from Swansea to Crewe.' He glared at me in anger. 'Foolish boaster' he hissed, 'do you not see? This bathroom is tiled so perfectly, so flawlessly, that it is an affront to God himself. Only he may create perfection.' As he spoke he pulled a tiny brass hammer from his overalls, and approached the polychromatic mosaic work around the base of my bath. He deftly tapped upon a tiny blue tile, as perfect as a jewel, and by bending over and peering at it I could see that he had mazed it with hairline cracks, invisible to all but the closest observer. This action calmed him somewhat, and we knelt to pray together on the dusty sheets. He left very soon after, and would take no money for his work.

Lux be lux

Help! If you make any attempt to reduce your energy consumption you will end up stubbing your toe in the dark, before succumbing to poisoning. Who will save us from energy efficient lighting? I hope this isn't the 'scaremongering' that spiked professes to despise so.

Confused young man: 'But it's useful...'

Tom Hodgkinson's critique of Facebook was replete with all the accoutrements of the worst kind of Guardian journalism: paranoia, misguided poetry, neanderthal anti-capitalism and total ignorance of subject matter. Calling it an 'ideologically motivated virtual totalitarian regime' as well as a 'takeover bid for the world', Hodgkinson champions in its stead 'real-world concepts such as art, beauty, love, pleasure and truth'.

'If I want to connect with the people around me, I will revert to an old piece of technology,' crows the Idler sarcastically. 'It's free, it's easy and it delivers a uniquely individual experience in sharing information: it's called talking.'

Further to that: The Idler, the blog of the magazine, edited by Hodgkinson, looks like a reasonably worthwhile state of affairs. Wallpapered with snails and containing some humorous anecdotes about pigs, it's definitely worth a visit. Unfortunately, the bolshy, stuffy PCness-gone-mad rubbish sours the sanguine charm of his writing. See, for example, the long complaint about not being allowed to slaughter his own pigs. It desperately wants to be a glorious panegyric to personal liberty, but it wanders into confusion after only a few sentences. A level attack against abattoirs would have been palatable. Not, however, feigned incredulity that the law chooses to intervene in the slaughtering of animals, which is clearly consistent with the existing laws against animal cruelty. Many people, perhaps not Hodgkinson, would botch the execution and cause the pig needless suffering.

Evidently, the man is an able raconteur and possesses a pointy wit. But in light of his total unwillingness to engage with his environment, choosing instead to scoff, Boris Johnson-style, at the unfamiliar and the innovative, I can only assume he comes from the 17th century, and has got lost.

Interregnum interschmegnum

John Fitzpatrick thinks democracy came to life between 1648 and 1660. No doubt that explains all the elections held during the period, and Cromwell's respect for elected MPs. Cromwell may have been more charismatic than Charles I, but it is still hard for me to feel much love for a group of xenophobic aristocrats waging war against such outmoded traditions as taxing the rich.

Hanumania

The Indian cricket team have protested against allegations of racist sledging after Australian Andrew Symonds complained that he had received 'monkey' taunts from Indian bowler Harbhajan Singh. The President of the Sydney-based United Indian Association had this to say: "Considering that the Monkey God is one of the revered idols of Hindu mythology and worshipped by millions, it's surprising it was considered a racist term."

Take a minute to allow the stupidity of that statement to sink in. I might as well claim that a devout Christian would shrink from using 'ass' pejoratively.

But no-one could be that stupid. It was more likely feigned naivety - the choking rhetoric of a society spokesman doing his best to defend the indefensible. Whatever it was, it wasn't convincing.

Grobert Raves

I was bedridden over the festive period, thanks to an injury I picked up in the opening of a new Primark last September, and I elected to soothe my fevered brow at least partially with Robert Graves' endearingly insane non-essay The White Goddess. Apparently Graves had read The Golden Bough, he just managed to miss the point. I think an illustrated edition of this work is long overdue. Just think what a talented woodcutter or engraver to do with these sample excerpts -
"Since there were always twelve stones in the gilgal, or stone circle, used for sacrificial purposes, the next jaunt is to chase the white roebuck speculatively round the twelve houses of the Zodiac."
"Her nests, when one comes across them in dreams, lodged in rock-clefts or the branches of enormous hollow yews, are built of carefully chosen twigs, lined with horsehair and the plumage of prophetic birds, and littered with the jaw bones and entrails of poets."
"An English or American woman in a nervous breakdown of sexual origin will often instinctively reproduce in faithful and disgusting detail much of the ancient Dionysiac ritual. I have witnessed it myself in helpless terror."

There's no other way!

Ah, me! Damon Albarn's latent hardline-Socialism has finally taken flight! His was never a difficult portfolio of politics to fathom: fierce condemnation of American interventionism coupled with an apparent contempt for people 'educated the expensive way', seasoned, perhaps, with a few mm3 of art student self-loathing... All in all, the sum total of his worldly wisdom looks to have been informed by beards, berets and coffee - though probably not TV, which, he tells the world and anyone else who's listening, should certainly be 'dismantled', followed by a necessary sea-change in 'our value system', and the almost total obliteration of the media. "There's just so many things I would alter," foaming, maniacal Albarn tells press. If that isn't the language of a Marxist revolutionary, I'll eat a whole bay of pigs.

Bad Sex Awards 2007

I first became aware of this illustrious title while thumbing through Schott's Almanac 2005 however the award dates back to 1993- people say nothing good came from the nineties!

Apparently there is a correlation between good fiction and bad sex with some authors having won both the Bad Sex award and the Booker prize- nobody has won both for the same book.

Below is my favourite:

Why am I embarrassed about taking off my clothes in front of a robot? I pull the dress over my head like a schoolgirl, untie my hair, and sit down. She is smiling, just a little bit, as though she knows her effect.

To calm myself down and appear in control I reverse the problem. ‘Spike, you’re a robot, but why are you such a drop-dead gorgeous robot? I mean, is it necessary to be the most sophisticated machine ever built and to look like a movie star?’

She answers simply: ‘They thought I would be good for the boys on the mission.’

…

‘So you had sex with spacemen for three years?’

‘Yes. I used up three silicon-lined vaginas.’

How can a lesbian sex scene between man and machine be artless?

Update, 01:24: I tracked down my copy of Schotts and found some more quotes

A flock of crows, six or eight, raucously rasping at one another, thrashed into the top of an oak on the edge of the square of sky

The context is not important here.

Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns - oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest - no, the hand was cupping her entire right - Now! She must say 'No, Hoyt' and talk to him like a dog...

Beautiful alliteration

She reached the staircase and climbed the first step but the cold was numbing her mind. She fainted, upright and motionless with seawater up to her belly. Lobster swam to her purple feet. Cut off the bloodless hand with his pincers, and climbed up the inside of the leg as far as the clenched knees. He was amazed at the pleasure he felt from being held in this way. His pincers slipped between the thighs, prising them gently apart.

Lobster by Guillaume Lecasble

Stop All The Clocks

NFU website poll: "Do you think the clocks should stay forward during the winter, and move an hour forward in summer, to bring us into line with the rest of Europe?" 65% think yes.

Well it would be great except that if you only moved forward an hour in the summer every year, the day would begin an hour later every year, so in twelve years time, a day that would have begun at 9 am would begin at the equivalent of 9p.m.. No wonder the Europeans have such difficulty keeping deadlines, driving and working a sensible number of hours in a week.

Also Porter was angry to be ejected from a nightclub when the clocks went back. The only reason he went was for the extra-hour free.

Somebody I was chatting to asked me whether I thought that people who worked over the hour when the clocks went back got payed for the hour lost. That's like asking if a long-haul flight attendant gets payed for two hours work on a trip to the States.

Badgerlosis

The Guardian quotes today from a report discussing the effect of culling consumptive badgers on the spread of bovine TB. The report employs the phrase,

Bereaved badgers will traverse the country...

I wonder if this isn't taking poetic licence a bit too far.

Priceless Ming Shattered

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Scots "bulldog lawyer" turned politician, lies at the bottom of the political sea not far beneath the wreck of his own party. The postNewt calls for a new leader of the LibDems who can rid the party of its new found sleezefree, chivalrous and sensible air and get the party back to basics. Alcoholism, drug abuse, rent-boys, and cheeky girls need to be high on the agenda if Britain's waning third party can salvage its bad name.

Rumblings from my lung.

Silver Dollar Jim, as some of you may know, enjoys his cigarettes. There is something beautiful about inhaling the smoke of fine virginian tobacco rolled on the thighs of illegal Mexican immigrants. There seems to be almost no event where a cigarette would not add to the occasion positively in some way. If any of you have enjoyed a smoke whilst on the crapper it is an interesting experience, if not a little unsettling. There is always the post-supper pre-crap cigarette, often goes well with an americano- it makes the final defecation all the more satisfying. Then there is the obligatory cigarette after sexual intercourse whether hand relief or not. It turns one's hand relief into an occasion! Lest we forget, perhaps the most sublime experience of life is a gorgeous double fag after a long haul flight. Of course these are some of the most common smoking occasions. I have never smoked during sex, in a hospital or while playing squash but I have my entire smoker's life ahead of me. 15 more years of bliss.

I have laid the facts down on the table for all to read. Yet for reasons that defy economic, social, metaphysical and evolutionary logic, HM Government has banned it in enclosed public places. This forces the poor, defenceless smoker into the night to be savaged by some gang-member looking to 'score some rock'.

Silver Dollar Jim hopes that the current public sentiment against enjoying tobacco is just a fad, like prohibition in his own country or the current obsession in the pornographic industry with tattoos.

Peripatetic Paninaros push pallid product

I was walking through my local high street at around lunchtime when I was offered a promotional panini (sic) by a woman in a tabard. The jostling throng hurried me along before I could properly say thank you, which gave me some passing discomfort, but nothing compared to that conferred by the 'panini' proper, which was composed of heavy glutinous ciabatta, sweaty cubes of cheese and a square piece of ham, the entire sandwich innocent of butter and seasoning. Some questions were raised.
1 - Assuming the sandwich was supposed to be eaten as it was, why would Ugo's (that, as far as I remember was the company name) go to the expense of handing out free samples when palatability is clearly not the bankable suit of the product?
2 - Assuming that the sandwich was supposed to be grilled before consumption (grilled seems to be the default setting of the expatriate panino) which would explain the underbaked ciabatta and the cubic cheese, why would they give out this product at midday in the high street, when most people would be unable to get to a grill or toastie maker for at least five hours?
3 - Does it make sense to preserve the Italianate plural (panino/panini) in a loan word? Also to be considered: Should people who call toasted bread with tomato and basil 'brushetta' be mocked or hailed as patriots? Should we call a female barista a bariste?
4 - Is it fair or even tasteful of me to be rude about a free sandwich that I was handed in the street?

Flying High in Mumbai

For those of you who share Hamilton's ever-diversifying penchant for prescription medicines, I am now in a position both to recommend and to caution you against Parvon-spas, an opioid analgesic with antispasmodic properties prescribed me by a cheerful consultant in Jaipur. This drug was, as far as I can tell, in my case, completely unnecessary. I made it clear that the abdomenal muscle pains incidental to my gastric shenanigans were very minor. Nevertheless the doctor decided that a three-day course of strong painkillers was the way forward. I have experienced vagueness of mental faculties, fatigue, spontaneous anger and mild euphoria. I would liken the good periods to that sense of pleasant detachment effected by gentle dope-smoking; but the bad parts are comparable to the worst, most soul-destroying hangovers. Parvon-spas is a charmless appellation. I feel that Dogtooth's Gambit is apposite and has real prospects as a calling-card when this giddy formula hits the backstreets of London.

Michael Winner seems to have lost a lot of weight lately, which means that he now reminds me harshly of my own mortality.

I have long enjoyed Anjana Ahuja's Science Notebook column in the Times, but does it not seem strange that a major newspaper should allow the bulk of its science reporting to be done by a postgraduate who specialised in space physics (probably the branch of science with the least bearing on our everyday lives). As scientific issues such as cloning and genetic modification, the status of DNA evidence in trials, animal testing and the threat posed by climate change increase there currency in political debetate it is worrying how few MPs, government officials or journalists have a grounding in the physical sciences.