you are at my shoulder

grim watcher, oldest of the old

unfashionable in that long coat and hat

the right clothes for our bad English weather

no sandals and robes for you, old one,

no deserts, no caves.

our weather does not change, nor do you,

from the old times when you were known.

you will never leave this land

the trees remember you

the language speaks you

my blood calls you

old one, older than the trees.

It looks like Obama will probably be the next World’s Most Powerful Man. Not bad, for someone who’s half-black, in the land of the KKK. If he doesn’t have a ‘Dallas moment’, he may well go on to unite America, as he is genetically suited to do, being half-black and half-white. Here’s my proposition:

The black half of Obama angrily accuses the white half of enslaving him, making him pick cotton, and keeping all the good stuff for himself.

The white half apologises (on his knees) and promises to release the black half from his chains, get the Mexicans to pick cotton instead, and stop making watermelon jokes.

The black half is placated and, moved by a rare spirit of generosity, apologises for 50 Cent, Oprah Winfrey, and all crimes committed by black people. He adds that ‘whitey’ can keep making watermelon jokes since he’s got used to them by now and it’s not like he’s neurotic and hypersensitive or anything.

Thus will black and white America be united in peace - in the person of Obama. i propose he divide his personality in half on camera and perform the above routine as part of his inauguration.

As an Anglo-Indian i shall follow suit here.

My Indian half (Raj) hereby accuses my English half (Roger) of enslaving India and stealing all our rubies.

Roger apologies but would like to point out that we did teach you cricket, after all.

Raj concedes the point and muses that it’s a pity the English are so crap at cricket, as they are at everything, so it’s just as well they taught it to those as can play it properly.

Roger shrugs with a defeated English shrug and suggests they go out for a curry.

A capital idea, Raj agrees, and is moved to apologise for driving fish and chip shops out of existence, and also volunteers a certain distaste at Bollywood and its excesses.

Thus are the crimes of the British Empire and the bad taste of Bollywood finally laid to rest.

i was rather taken aback to find i had 845 visits yesterday, largely courtesy of Harry Hutton, but also thanks to Anon, since quite a few people come here looking for information about Jesuits. i don’t know if these 845 visits were actually just one person clicking Refresh 845 times but never mind, i am taking over your internet and using it for sexual purposes.

i’m about to eat a huge pie, and then i’m going to do some runing and crooning, or runin’ and croonin’ as they’re also known. Runers prefer to keep a low profile, living the quiet life in huts made of human skulls, but famous crooners include Tony Bennett, Leonard Cohen, Stuart Staples of the Tindersticks, and Frank Sinatra. Tindersticks below.

An example of the difference between the UK and America. In America, i imagine, if a chap were to even attempt to touch the President he would be tasered and then probably shot in the head. This is what happens in Britain when a man tries to superglue himself to the Prime Minister:

Dan Glass, a member of Plane Stupid, was about to receive an award from the prime minister when he stuck out his superglued hand and touched his sleeve.

Plane Stupid says Mr Glass, from north London, then “glued his hand” to Mr Brown’s jacket as he shook his hand.

[...]

Downing Street confirmed an exchange had taken place but denied that Mr Glass had glued himself to the prime minister.

“There may have been something sticky on his hands but it was only for a few seconds that he touched the prime minister,” a spokesman said. “There was no stickiness of any significance.”

[...]

Speaking afterwards, Mr Glass said: “My left hand was covered in superglue and I stuck it to his sleeve.

“I just glued myself to him and after 20 seconds he tore my hand off - it really hurt. He had to give it a couple of tugs before it came away.

“He was just grinning about it. He didn’t seem to take me seriously.”

After the incident Mr Glass was allowed to stay in Downing Street for 40 minutes.

When he left the building he tried to glue himself to the gates of Downing Street but had his hand detached by a police officer.

“I didn’t have much glue left by that point,” he said.

It seems i have to do a KSF. i don’t know what KSF stands for but i believe it’s some kind of pointless review to make sure i don’t hate my job or something equally stupid. An email from my manager instructs me to bring:

A copy of your job description and post outline 

Your personal portfolio (evidence gathered to show you meet the dimensions of your post outline)

-

i realise i don’t know know what my job is, officially. i know what to do to avoid being fired but i don’t know what my boss thinks my job is. Hmm. As for the personal portfolio, how exactly should i provide documentary evidence to prove i can do whatever my job is supposed to be? i am suddenly afflicted by doubt: perhaps my job is officially Waste Manager or Cockroach Supervisor or Egalitarianism Officer, or something equally beyond my limited talents. Just sticking to what i actually do - typing up reports & letters - how should i produce documentary evidence to prove i do this? Should i print out copies of everything i’ve typed in the last year? Would that prove anything?

i may do as Stalin’s interrogators were said to do, when their turn inevitably came to be tortured. They would forego the usual “but I am innocent! I am a good Party member!” stuff and simply call for a pen to sign the confession.

Manager: What confession?

Elberry [smiles knowingly]: Let’s not play games.

Manager: Can I see your portfolio?

Elberry: i’m sure you have all my documents.

Manager: What documents?

Elberry: i beat confessions out of others, now it is my turn, i understand. i confess. i have been a Capitalist spy, etc., etc. We know the story. One day it will be your turn to sit at this table.

i can’t even tell if this is a spoof or not, that’s how insane Bollywood is. If i watched this with my father (born in India in the 30s) he wouldn’t understand why i keep giggling and covering my eyes. He would sit watching it with a big grin, slap his knees occasionally, and then say, “egh, well, egh, that was NICE thing, egh?”

Damn it all but i’m proud to be half-Indian.

Wizards are usually perfectionists.

A grimly accurate account of British schools from Peter Hitchens:

Just imagine this. You are a bright 12-year-old who wants to learn. But your school is a seething chaos, where bullies and thieves rule the corridors.

You have to keep quiet about the fact that you are good at your work.

If the louts find out, you will be taunted and your books will be ripped up and dumped on the floor, or have insults scrawled on them.

Exceptional intelligence is actively hated and mistrusted, as it would once have been in a stone-age tribe.

Each day you turn up in the hope of getting the qualifications and knowledge you need to get out of this pit of despair.

But your teachers change with baffling speed, know little of the subjects they teach and often don’t arrive at all.

When they do, they often cannot control a class where ferals of both sexes sit splay-legged, with their feet on the desks, texting filth to each other, swearing and sniggering. For a startling number of people, this is what the word ‘school’ now means.

If you think anyone is going to do anything about it, forget it.

The people who run our state education system are on the side of the bad.

You doubt it? Then take note of Mr Peter Buckroyd, a chief examiner with the biggest exam board in England.

He thinks marks should be given to a GCSE English candidate who writes ‘**** off’ on his paper.

I suspect Mr Buckroyd thinks this is a bit of a giggle. By the way, he also claims to believe that
exam standards are rising.

What about the Government’s alleged exam regulator, Ofqual? Its response to this revelation is utter complacency.

You shouldn’t – by now – be shocked by this. It is intentional.

The destruction of adult authority, knowledge, morality and order has been the aim of the radical Left for ages, and after four decades of burrowing into our establishment these Marxoid maggots are close to final success.

by Talking Drum. LIke something from an Alan Furst novel.