A snowy conflict

We stood in small numbers in minus conditions singing advent songs and Christmas Carols. The hoar frost gnawed away at us for an hour until the biting wind and snow forced us to quit. A man enrobed in a downy moaned at us for pinching his patch it was both comical and sad that in our attempt to raise money for AIDS orphans in South Africa we were encroaching on his begging. A moral dilemma, he complained that we were not singing songs he knew just as we started singing Hark the Herald. Later he started mocking our singing by pretending to sing. We have a few more days of this. Luckily we are up to the challenge but the moral conflict grabs my sense of the absurd. There are rumours that the weather it is going to get worse.

Gods Particle

The BBC love this thing...I do hope when they start it up we get sucked into a black hole...I could do with a change of address, a fresh start. This is today's article from the Beeb..."

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could restart as early as this weekend after more than a year of repairs.

Officials have avoided giving an exact date for sending beams of protons around the 27km (17 mile) circular tunnel which houses the collider.

The LHC was first switched on in 2008, but had to be shut down when a faulty electrical connection caused one tonne of helium to leak into the tunnel.

The vast machine is located 100m below the French-Swiss border.

Operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern), the LHC will recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang.

Two beams of protons will be fired around the tunnel. These beams will travel in opposite directions around the main "ring" at close to the speed of light.

At allotted points around the tunnel, the proton beams will cross paths, smashing into one another with enormous energy.

Scientists hope to see new particles in the debris of these collisions, revealing fundamental new insights into the nature of the cosmos.

But the first beams to circulate around the collider will be injected at a low energy of about 450 billion electron volts.

For the restart, engineers are determined to take things one step at a time, and officials are not setting hard and fast deadlines.

Once the collider is circulating two beams in opposite directions, engineers will attempt low-intensity collisions.

This will provide scientists with data they can use for calibration purposes.

After this, the beams' energy will be increased so that the first high-energy collisions can take place.

These will mark the real beginning of the LHC's research programme."

Boooooooooom!!!!!!!!......Enid Blyton would be proud of all those exclamation marks.

Shards of Oz

Circular Quay
Ferries
Gallery M (art sale)
Nurses walk
Crystal Galleries
Museum of Sydney
Bridge street
Edge of the trees
Sculpture
Janet Laurence
Conservatoire of Music
A White castle with battlements (a child's idea of a castle)
Botanic garden
Orchids and carnivorous plants
Sex and death
Noisy bats (flying foxes)
Trains (double decker)
Liverpool to Central
The back of the train seats swing over to change direction of seating.
Auburn
Mosque
Olympic track
Lido
Lidcombe
gamblinghangover.nsw.gov.au
lewisham
stanmore
China town
Darling Harbour
Chinese Garden
Pagoda
Pretend train
Tumbalong Park
Fountain
Ibis
Exhibition centre
Maritime museum
Wildlife World
Aqaurium
King Street Wharf
Newcastle Steam ship company
Sydney Showboat
SYDNEY MARATHON Sunday September 21 2008
WWW.Barangaroo.com
Hickson road
Sydney theatre
Dance company
Philharmonic choir
Roundabout instelation
Large Ford Car crushed by a huge boulder
(Jimmie Durham, still life with stone and car)
Walsh bay
Sculpture walk
Metcalfe Arcade
Satchi Satchi
seargent Major Row
Museum of contemporary art
Circular Quay RS
Sydney Opera House
Stanmore
Man takes his ferret for a walk
Butcher Bird whacked me on the head
Feeding minor birds mince
Mossvale
Brigadoon in Bundanoon
Mittagong
Southern Highlands
Shale Mining
Wine region
I am possessed with possessions
Don Bradman
Bradman foundation
didyabringabearalong
Ned Kelly
Featherdale
Gal Crescent
MacMillan Park
Ernie Smith Reserve
Anzac Creek
Bush regeration
Skate boarding
Lewins bridge
Georges river
Custom house
plastic floor
3d version of Sydney
Platform 2 Circular Quay amazing view of Sydney Bridge and Opera House
Museum station (looks as if it fell out of the London Underground)
Walter Berry Griffith
Frank Loyd Wright
War Memorial
John Simpson Kirkpatrick
Gallipoli
Anzac Cove
Gervais Koffi
Yanick Koffi 9 yrs old
brilliant talent
bass player and keyboard
Aussibum
wonderful people

want to go back for good
xxx

Bonnie Greer

The audience and Bonnie Greer were the best parts of this Question Time. She showed intelligence and was a clear example of why the BNP are so intrinsically wrong, Griffin was a mess. I am sure if he became elected to the House of Commons, which could happen, he would be eaten alive by the real politicians in the house. He seemed incapable of honestly stating his party’s policies or is his party in shock since it now has to stop being a whites only and gay hating party? As the skin of the snake fell off the serpent that was the National Front and became the serpent of the BNP is the BNP being forced into a new metamorphosis? Or is it the end for the BNP? Will there be a schism? Who knows

Granny had a Humanist Funeral says News Quiz

News Quiz cracked me up with this quote; "Roasted and Ground like a Winsiet clad coffee bean at the municipal dump of the dead."

St Alfege

Its good to be off work for even just one day. It is cold, but the sun is beating down. I wandered around Lewisham and ended up in Greenwich. The dwellings of the locals strikingly change from mundane late Victorian terraces into Georgian villas. Their shape and characteristic of classical depth seems more pleasing. Mind you I am not a great lover of Paladian architecture as it turns every building into a Greek temple. Would the Greeks in their ancient periods have dreamt that by their hard labours building so many columned structures to their gods that three millennia later the Brits would be aping their architectural styles not to keep the gods happy but to express the wealth and power of a new secular age? Of course the church aped the styles of this retro building tendency. Hence the style of St Alphage, a neo Greek temple, but thankfully not a Parthenon, it has the feeling of a more harmonious mixture of English style with a few Greek bits thrown on to give it a fashionable twist. I went inside and is often the case I fell upon a free concert. Kyoko Murai an exquisite Japanese soprano was accompanied by Taro Takeuchi a lutenist and baroque guitar player. They were performing music from the 17th century and how beautifully they performed. Purcell, who was born 350 years ago, seemed to sit perfectly within the accoustic of this lovely church. She sang excerpts from The Indian Queen, the History of Dioclesian and parts from the evening music. Her voice is pure and without vibrato which sits so perfectly for this type of music. I was moved by her rendition of I attempt from Love's sickness, which hit the correct balance between contemplative control and emotional integrity. Taro accompanied her with a Theorba which is long necked guitar like instrument, its accompaniment gave a true feeling of authenticity many lesser recitals would have used a piano. Taro played with such a wonderful intuitive accompanying weight. Some accompanists would over shadow their partner but he held the singer up with a delicacy and depth their interactions were well attuned producing a wonderful experience in music. I was so sad when they eventually finished as I could have sat in the church all afternoon experiencing their music making. Taro also performed using a baroque guitar; it is smaller than a modern guitar and has a sweeter tone. He played two pieces Matteis's air for guitar and Corbetta's Ciaconne. Taro has done a few recordings so I know what I will be spending all my ill gotten gains on. When I witness music performed so well it fills me with the eagerness to be a better performer their passion, veracity and humour inspires me. Hail bright Cecilia...

Morphing into what?

It was lovely and sunny today but the autumn has brought a chilling breeze. Brrrrr, I wandered around Lewisham and sauntered into the Pound Shop. It has a magnetic pull and as far as any attempt I make not to go into these sub pound places their pull is stronger than my desire to stay away. Like the Innovation catalogue that falls out of the Sunday paper they are brimmed full of things that I do not want but since they are so cheap I think well it wont hurt if I have it. I end up spending £20 on twenty things I hide in the kitchen cupboard that go in the category, could be useful in the future, but they never are. Time comes when I decide to do a bit of spring cleaning. Suddenly I eventually come across the accumulation of these Pound shop purchases and like Tony Robinson in Time Team I spend far too much time wondering over these bits of sub pound detritus. Its like a Squirrel and its nuts. Talking about nuts while I was browsing the multitude of bits and pieces, a family were acting out lets shout at each other at the top of our voices. Suddenly the mother of this vocal tribe started screaming at what appeared to be her eldest son and began franticly hitting him. She stormed out of the shop. The Pound shop spell had been broken. I looked at the boy and he had gone from naughty mirth to a lost boy crying. Luckily his siblings surrounded him swearing blue murder about their mother. For once I did not buy anything. I was amazed at how many people were wandering around today and were all around the places I wanted to be. This became an annoyance.. I think the older I get I dislike crowds or rather being in crowds. I wonder why? Is it because they walk so slowly or is it because I am morphing into an old git?