A blog by a web developer called Rich
It went well, my legs now feel like somebody replaced them with concrete posts.
It turned out the race wasn’t for women – I got the wrong website. Also when I rang them to confirm my registration they were somewhat confused by my gruff voice and male name. Oops.
I have rather stupidly agreed to run 5km tonight for ‘Race for Life’ Although looking at the website: ‘Join us in one of our 150 women-only 5km races across the country and help us cure cancer faster’
Oh dear. Firstly, I’m a bloke, secondly I am a very unfit bloke.
No worries, 80’s steel will get me through (a sax solo and a key change woudn’t go amiss either). And ofcourse the fact it’s for Charidi.
Risin’ up, back on the street
Took my time, took my chances
Went the distance
Now I’m back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive
So many times, it happened too fast
You trade your passion for glory
Don’t lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive
* It’s the eye of the tiger
It’s the thrill of the fight
Risin’ up to the challenge
Of our rival
And the last known survivor
Stalks his prey in the night
And his fortune must always be
Eye of the tiger
Face to face, out in the heat
Hangin’ tough, stayin’ hungry
They stack the odds
Still we take to the street
Fot the kill with the skill to survive
(Repeat *)
Risin’ up straight to the top
Had the guts, got the glory
Went the distance
Now I’m not gonna stop
Just a man and his will to survive
(Repeat *)
The eye of the tiger
(4 times till fade)
The story broke last week about abuse by British soldiers on Iraqi POW’s (are they POW’s if we have the supposed moral high ground?). Yet subsequent comment seems to suggest that these images may be false. This story follows closely on the heals of the issue concerning the Iraqi kids holding a cardboard sign.
So what’s going on here? Are they real or are they false, the fact that nobody can quite say it somewhat distressing. Of course photos have been doctored for years, think of the Cottingley Fairies hoax of 1917 by two Yorkshire girls, or the photo of the Loch Ness monster, shot in 1934 by a London gynaecologist and more recently John Kerry and Jane Fonda. This is not new(s). But the fact that is so bloody easy to do today (Photoshopping) coupled with a rabid media hungry for the next scoop means the creation and distribution network is that much more prevalent (and of course more eager to publish).
“While photographs may not lie, liars may photograph”. American documentary photographer Lewis Hine circa 1900
The above raises the issue that photographs have always had this aura of falsability, indeed before photography, paintings were considered the documentary medium of the day. And look how painting has diversified since the 1880’s. It moved gradually into impressionism, expressionism, simulacrum and even to an extent distruction of itself. Is photography moving in a similar direction (abeit slowly due to the lack of a successor), it was obvious that the painted image could be very easily manipulated however, we had nothing else and the trust was given over to the reputation of the painter in question.
Can photography (coupled with photographic manipulation tools) be trusted? Maybe as with painting we need to look to the author to garner the truth, or indeed the publication in which it is reproduced. Of course this will lead to the authenticity questioned about genuine images, which is a shame.
Once again I seem to have answered a question with several others…damn you Guardian Newspapers and your ‘let’s look at both sides of the story’ – I blame you.
“I’m just a white boy called the Deputy CC / They said I’d never make it as a bitchin’ MC / You got it all wrong, cos now here I am / Giving it for real in the North Wales BPA jam” – North Wales deputy chief constable Clive Wolfendale
Christ and his mates on a bicycle eating polenta.
Mullets, where would we be without you eh? Honestly, apart from people falling on their arse I really don’t find many things funnier. Yes I am easily pleased.
‘It has been widely accepted that the rival interpretations of quantum mechanics, e.g., the Copenhagen Interpretation, the Many-Worlds Interpretation, and my father John Cramer’s Transactional Interpretation, cannot be distinguished or falsified by experiment, because the experimental predictions come from the formalism that all such interpretations describe. However, the Afshar Experiment demonstrates in an interaction-free way that there is a loophole in this logic: if the interpretation is inconsistent with the formalism, then it can be falsified. In particular, the Afshar Experiment falsifies the Copenhagen Interpretation, which requires the absence of interference in a particle-type measurement. It also falsifies the Many-Worlds Interpretation which tells us to expect no interference between “worlds” that are physically distinguishable, e.g., that correspond to the photon’s passage through one pinhole or the other.’ Kathryn Cramer
Those pesky sceintists have done it again. Disproved a fiarly un-provable theory. Next week, why the past doesn’t exist.
“It’s as if we no longer NEED heroes to tear down to feel better about ourselves, we just create people to be torn down as soon as they appear, not waiting for the time when they stumble.” (The only card Solitaire Rose needs is the Ace of Spades! – Barbelith Underground 2004)
The concept of ‘pseudo people’ or simply famous for being famous is an apparent new construct. Think Liz Hurley, Paris Hilton (Is Paris Hilton a Simulacrum?), Jordan, ‘reality tv’ celebrities.
With all of these people there seems a real (sorry) difference between the media side to them and the real ‘them’ (whoever that is)? Further it seems somewhat difficult to get to that reality past the seemingly ubiquitous media facade. So maybe fame is the simulacrum, one which is constructed by the media and the person themselves sometimes knowingly, sometimes not. This simulacrum almost appears as a barrier against the real, allowing no reality through, further questioning what that reality is in the first place.
So in a sense what is real (in the celebrity sense)? I think the line blurs (take Jordan, and the frankly disturbing announcement that Jordan is dead and Katie Price now only exists).
Of course fame is no new concept, nor the idea of fame to the talent less, one dimensional or simply opportunist. But one slight shift seems to be the time-scale – where fame may have been handed (undeservedly) to historic figures via legend, folk-lore and story-telling, fame is now handed out in the now and the here, legends are constructed, cemented and destroyed – sometimes in the space of a week.
Maybe History is dead, maybe our past only exists in the present, constructed at will to whatever purpose we choose. Then again, hasn’t this always been the case, E.H.Carr believed that ‘History is an un-ending conversation between the past and the present’ not something that can be pinned down to an exact ‘reality’.
Sometimes though it does feel as if the fast forward button is stuck.
St George – an Cappadocian who died in Palestine who is now patron saint for England (part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) a country made up from Celts, Scots, Picts, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, Vikings, Normans, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, African, Caribbean, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Russian and many other peoples.
There was once a Prime Minister who wished to forge a special relationship with a President; but then he must be a real President. He traveled all over the world in hope of finding such a President; but there was always something wrong. Presidents he found in plenty; but whether they were a real war loving President it was impossible for him to decide, for now one thing, now another, seemed to him not quite right about the Presidents. At last he returned to his terrace house in Downing Street quite cast down, because he wished so much to have a real President for his partner.
One evening a fearful tempest arose, it thundered and lightened, and the rain poured down from the sky in torrents: besides, it was as dark as pitch. All at once there was heard a violent knocking at the door, and the iron lady, the Prime Minister‘s predecessor, who just would not leave, went out herself to open it.
It was a President who was standing outside the door. What with the rain and the wind, he was in a sad condition; the water trickled down from his hair, and his clothes clung to his body. He said he was a real President.
“Ah! we shall soon see that!” thought the old iron lady; however, she said not a word of what she was going to do; but went quietly into the bedroom, took all the bed-clothes off the bed, and put three little peas on the bedstead. She then laid twenty mattresses one upon another over the three peas, and put twenty feather beds over the mattresses.
Upon this bed the President was to pass the night.
The next morning he was asked how he had slept. “Oh, very badly indeed!” he replied. “I have scarcely closed my eyes the whole night through. I do not know what was in my bed, but I had something hard under me, and am all over black and blue. It has hurt me so much!”
Now it was plain that the man must be a real President, since he had been able to feel the three little peas through the twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds. None but a real President could have had such a delicate sense of feeling.
The Prime Minister accordingly made him his special friend; being now convinced that he had found a real President. The three peas were however put into the cabinet of curiosities, where they are still to be seen, provided they are not lost.
Wasn’t this a President of real delicacy?
Mostly By Hans Christian Andersen.
Con-stitu-tion – ‘the basic law or laws of a nation or a state which sets out how that state will be organized by deciding the powers and authorities of government between different political units, and by stating and the basic principles of society. Constitutions are not necessarily written and may be based on aged customs and conventions, as is the case in England’
Yey or ney – you decide.