'Life is like a sewer - what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.' It's always seemed to me that this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need today in these trying times of crisis and universal brouhaha.

Introduction to "We Will All Go Together When We Go" - Tom Lehrer

What wise words, particularly when we look at our own brouhaha times.  George W being accused of being a socialist? The UK media positively encouraging the country to pick an Old Etonian PR man and his wallpaper magnate sidekick to run the country? Well, now, at last, the UK has something widely available and as good as The Onion in which we can seek solace from the lunacy.  The Daily Mash is an online piss-take newspaper. Neither left nor right, just smart and fun. It makes me feel I'm not so alone in the Stepford World that the Mail would have me see around me. Today's fave piece for me can be found here, under the heading "MORE CHOICE FOR COUPLES TO PRETEND THEY BELIEVE IN GOD".

Satirical genius Tom Lehrer said that satire became obsolete when they awarded Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize (he also came out with an absolute beauty of encapsulated thought which I'm going to paste at the end of this posting, so as not to get distracted by it). In the UK, satire and lampooning looked as though they had been sucked up the Daily Mail's noxious backside in the last few years. The alternative (i.e. leftie) comedians lay on their backs and died, claiming, "it's so hard to mock New Labour". - I'm sorry?

What kind of lazy, complacent, non-boat-rocking rubbish was that? What, did they think that if they poked fun, the whole house of cards would fall down? True enough, the mandate was never as solid as some of those in the yore-days of Thatcherdom (all the more reason to introduce proportional representation, you'd have thought; aw, shucks, John-boy: there goes another missed opportunity at not-very-radicalism).

But as any fule know, having the mickey taken out of you is a healthy thing: it makes you aware of how you appear to others; how you behave; the impact of your actions; see your flaws. And let's face it - any politician could do with more of that. And if Brown has a great flaw -  which is more Thomas Hardy-esque (think Michael Henchard, the Mayor of Casterbridge) than Shakespearian - it is that in the early days, he surrounded himself with people too young or inexperienced or ambitious to have the guts to stand up to him. Now that he is older and wiser, he has created GOATS (Government of All the Talents), a government with people who do dare speak out, who do offer genuinely constructive criticism. But they do not stay for long.

It seems, from the outside, that Brown still cannot abide (I use the word deliberately) contradiction. For all that he is a son of the Manse (non-Brits, this is the Scottish equivalent of being the son of the vicarage), the genuine humility so oft preached by the Bible is missing. Brown is more Old Testament than New: for I am a jealous God, and all that.

Brown needs lampooning - all the New Labour Cabinet does. They need to listen, to act, to have some salt rubbed in their wounds. The Tories are finally learning the lessons taught so long and so hard by their own satire, and they will (like some fast-evolving toxic micro-organism) learn faster this time. Unless Labour genuinely shows humility, humanity and a sense of humour, they will be responsible for handing the country to the sorts of people who think that our state-run schools and hospitals should be a last resort; that the state must be 20% smaller (lower taxes, far fewer public facilities: libraries, after-school clubs; council-run play schemes); who believe that families come first (i.e. not single parents) and ideally best when the women stay at home, that being gay is - to a greater or lesser degree - wrong; that the country shouldn't let in any more immigrants... You can see where I'm coming from. I know Labour is pissing off a lot of people: but they've not (apart from on detention without charge and possibly permitting so-called "rendition flights" and umpteen other civil liberties issues, but that is for another day) been out-and-out Bad.

So come on, you established and aspiring comics, writers, performers. Start lampooning. Feel free to use the comments box!

Back to that peace-inspiring and remarkable Lehrer line I wouldn't let you see earlier. Here it is:

I find enough mystery in mathematics to satisfy my spiritual needs. I think, for example, that pi is mysterious enough (don't get me started!) without having to worry about God. Or if pi isn't enough, how about fractals? or quantum mechanics?

- Tom Lehrer

Tom Lehrer performing Smut.  

My boyfriend sent me this today.  I've simply been dying of laughter ever since.

Liz Carroll @ Whitewater Tavern.  Photo by Shayne Michael Gray

NAME: Liz Carroll

BAND(S) YOU ARE IN: Hector Faceplant, The Shelley Longs and The Winston Family Orchestra

PLAY ANY INSTRUMENTS? DO TELL: An ivory-tickling, bass picking, vocalizing, wallet strummer with a background in french horning and other brassticle instruments.

DESCRIBE YOUR MUSICAL STYLE: like carousels that stop and start unexpectedly but aren't broken.

HOW'D YOU GET STARTED PLAYING MUSIC? parents met in a church choir then I met sulac in a bar

FAVORITE LOCAL MUSICIAN BESIDES YOURSELF (AND WHY): sulac: he has a liz magnet in his pocket, i think it's unfair really.  Brian Herrill: guitar, jeez those are some pretty rock songs. Marcus Lowe: talent and he just loves music, LOVES it. And i'll always show up to see what Jeremy Brasher, Andrew Morgan and Damien Thompson are doing, it's always a good time.

WHAT'S IN YOUR POCKET RIGHT NOW? haha! i'm in a swimsuit at the beach! great question! (normally, keys, wallet and lighter)

YOUR FAVORITE VENUE IN LITTLE ROCK (AND WHY)? The sound is amazing at Downtown Music and The Whitewater Tavern, WWT wins b/c i don't really like big stages. I want to be on the same level as everyone else.

TELL ME ABOUT THE FIRST "REAL" CONCERT YOU EVER ATTENDED. Blues Traveler, at The Blue Note in Little Rock. They had this huge under the club area where people could drink cause it was all ages upstairs. I thought, when i get older i'm gonna drink and drink and drink...

HOW ABOUT THE FIRST SHOW YOU EVER DID YOURSELF? Vino's with Pomo Christi, we were so excited to be an "all grrl" band.

BEST SOURCE FOR MUSICAL INFO? (MAG, WEBSITE, ETC) my ears. if you think i'll like something play it for me.

WHAT DOES THIS TOWN NEED? a high speed train so we can all go play in Austin on the weekends, a real record store, and a radio show that played a diverse selection of great music that was on during the day.

YOUR THREE FAVORITE ALBUMS, ALL-TIME: this is like asking which body part you like the best (i dig my hands the most). Today it is... Dengue Fever: Escape from Dragon House, Raymond Scott: Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights and Tom Lehrer: Songs by Tom Lehrer

RE YOUR MUSIC: DOES YOUR MOM LIKE IT OR NOT? my mom LOVES it, although she's busy and can't be at all my shows.

FUNNIEST THING THAT'S EVER HAPPENED AT ONE OF YOUR SHOWS: while on tour with Hector Faceplant in Odessa, Texas, 2 professional wrestlers came in to the club (an empty cinder-block building, byob) and Jason Thompson asks one of them, "Hey! Can you pick me up like you are gonna pile drive me but don't so I can get a picture?" Ask him for the photo, it's pretty good!

AS A KID, WHAT'D YOU WANT TO GROW UP TO BE? independent

MUSICAL/LIFE ADVICE YOU'D GIVE TO MY 13 YEAR OLD GUITAR FIEND SON? you can make money playing music, but money won't make you happy, music will.

Men man skal ikke regne med at USA- og NATO-loyale medier i Danmark skriver om den slags småting: At vi af og til er tæt på situationer, der kunne udløse atomkrig.

Af artiklen fremgår det bl.a. at mennesker, der er centralt placerede i atomvåbnenes kontrol-centre, falder i søvn eller holder sig vågne med lidt sex. Du kan også se at U.S. Air Force fløj atomvåben tværs over USA; besætningen vidste ikke hvad de fløj med. Nå, det var bare lidt forvirring og uklar ordregivning. Og så er der nogen, der tager koder og dokumenter om atomvåben med sig hjem eller lyver om hvorvidt de har destrueret komponenter. So what, shit happens! Vi er trods alt mennesker, og mennesker begår fejl. Ikke noget at skrive om, vel?

Og så skal vi jo ikke skræmme befolkningerne i Europa; de kunne jo finde på at protestere mod atomvåben i almindelighed og f.eks. missil"skjoldet" i særdeleshed. Og det skalplaceres i Polen og andre steder under skørterne på Rusland så vi er helt sikre på at få en vred re-aktion og en ny Kold Krig eller - hvem ved? - atomkrig.

"We'll all go together when we go.
Every Hottentot and every Eskimo..."

- som Tom Lehrer sang for snart 50 år siden. Alt er ved det gamle. Måske er det kun et spørgsmål om tid inden vi alle kan synge med på sidste vers...

JO # 1220

Der Liedermacher Tom Lehrer hat ein Lied mit dem Namen Lobatschewskys verfasst, in dem es um Wissenschaftsplagiate geht, allerdings gibt es wohl keinen Bezug auf die historische Person. Tom Lehrer selbst sagt, er habe diesen Namen aus lautmalerischen Gründen verwendet.

Tom_Lehrer--

(via WP)

Matching our intuitions about music, researchers have found that music is an important influence on our memories. We associate songs with emotions, people, and places we've experienced in the past.... But it's not easy to parse out exactly how music evokes memories.

I certainly can agree with that sentiment...I remember sneaking down at night to play a Tom Lehrer album of my dad's.  Be Prepared was my fave, presaging my career as an evil Eagle Scout.  When I hear Bohemian Rhapsody I'm back in a van heading to play a high school basketball game, hearing Stuck in the Middle with You makes me reach for my ear, and so on.

The study -- at least as conveyed by this summary -- doesn't oversell the results. 

[I]t seems to come down to personal preference: songs you like are more likely to be associated with memories. But do the preferred songs evoke the memories, or do we like the songs because we associate them with memories? Since this is only a correlation, this study can't tell us.

(The musical satirist Tom Lehrer, when Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State who masterminded the illegal invasion of Cambodia, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973. Lehrer decided he could no longer perform.)

Thursday Dinner time- Jamie’s Ministry of Food – All Saints Square

I happened to be passing enemy HQ yesterday- and I was shocked.

I saw something so brazen, so ridiculous- it’s almost too much to take in.

A woman involved in the cooking lesson (I believe it was centre manager Lisa Taylor) was wearing an orange T-shirt. On closer inspection- I could see this was a Sainsbury’s T-shirt. On the back- was a slogan which proudly trumpeted that Sainsbury’s support Jamie’s Ministry of Food.

Are you fucking kidding me?

In the original press release for Ministry of Food- the key quote is:

“We spend over £2 billion a year on ready meals”.

The whole thing is sold on the need to get away from processed food and back to basics. Yet this enterprise is backed by one of the biggest pushers of ready meals in the country.

The early phase of the campaign also championed local produce. Paul Tingle appeared on the Radio Sheffield show and announced that he would be providing produce supplied by local farmers to use in the Ministry of Food. Now Sainsbury’s are in some way involved. Supermarkets are notorious for their profit first, everything else nowhere logistics operations. If you get a locally picked strawberry- it’s probably been dispatched via Aberdeen. Many small farmers claim that the dictatorial policies of the supermarket buyers squeeze them to near extinction. These days- the Man from Del Monte doesn’t say YES. The Man from Sainsbury, Tesco, ASDA says- do this, this and this- and if you don’t like making a penny a ton- eat your fucking strawberries.

All the local shops have been crushed- so don’t think you can go anywhere else. Which is another point. Jamie has said- it’s all about community. In the old days- there were communities round Rotherham. Places with local grocers; where your parents and grandparents could walk to with their shopping bags and buy fresh fruit and veg. How many quality local grocers are there now? How many sell decent produce? How many can compete with the monolithic supermarkets?

It’s all about community- sponsored by the people who helped to kill your community.

Jamie had to leave the BBC because he was blurring the line between his TV shows and Sainsbury’s ad’s. It looks like he may be up to his old tricks again.

I can’t believe that OFCOM will allow Sainsbury’s to be the lead sponsors of Ministry of Food, but that doesn’t matter. The power of suggestion is a mighty weapon. Subtle hints, complimentary adverts and the odd “accidental” T-shirt will do the trick.

Of course- some of you believe that the multi millionaire chef Jamie Oliver is trying to educate the people of Rotherham for altruistic reasons. It won’t be too much of a stretch for you to believe that J Sainsbury PLC, a public limited company with a duty to increase the wealth of shareholders, exists to promote healthy eating and help build communities. You must also believe that McDonalds sponsor football because their raison d’etre is the promotion of fitness through a healthy lifestyle.

One thing is for certain- if Sainsbury’s are enthusiastically on board – Ministry of Food is nothing more than a cheap entertainment show. To make any real difference would mean Jamie would have to bite the hand that feeds him. When he mildly criticised his paymasters in fowl dinners- he immediately issued a grovelling retraction.

This time, despite being the embodiment of everything he claims to oppose, Sainsbury’s are with him all the way. Proof that there is no substance to Jamie’s Ministry of Food.

Supermarket’s support Ministry of Food.

Is satire dead?
No Blackmail

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sainsbury’s in Rotherham

Superstores 0

Their presence is limited to the understocked local stores they got when they took over the Jackson’s chain

Sainsbury’s Local Knowledge

Opening offer when opening refurbished Brecks store (Bearing in mind Rotherham has a large Muslim population)

Free bacon for all customers.

Tom Lehrer, he sang, "we will all go together when we go!" To quote the little speech he gives before he actually begins singing:

"I am reminded at this point of a fellow I used to know who's name was Henry, only to give you an idea of what an individualist he was he spelt it HEN3RY. The 3 was silent, you see. Henry was financially independent having inherited his father's tar-and-feather business and was therefore able to devote his full time to such intellectual pursuits as writing. I particularly remember a heart-warming novel of his about a young necropheliac who finally achieved his boy-hood ambition by becoming coroner.

The rest of you can look it up when you get home. In addition to writing he indulged in a good deal of philosophizing. Like so many contemporary philosophers he especially enjoyed giving helpful advice to people who were happier than he was. One particular bit of advice which I recall, which is the reason I bring up this whole, dreary story is something he said once before they took him away to the Massachussetts state home for the bewilderd. He said: "Life is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it." It's always seems to me that this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need in these trying times of crisis and universal broo-ha-ha, and so with this in mind I have here a modern positive dynamic uplifting song in the tradition of the great old revival hymns. This one might more accurately be termed a survival hymn."

My favorite lines in the song, are an interesting fusion of cuisine with satire.

Oh we will all fry together when we fry.
We'll be french fried potatoes by and by.
There will be no more misery
When the world is our rotisserie,
Yes, we will all fry together when we fry.

Down by the old maelstrom,
There'll be a storm before the calm.

And we will all bake together when we bake.
There'll be nobody present at the wake.
With complete participation
In that grand incineration,
Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak.

I never forgot what rotisseries are after this song.

And yet another favorite song I found on the radioe was "A hole in the bucket", which I now discover is a children's song. Apparently, even Harry Belafonte covered this song. Sweet!

I wish some of the channels in loreland did something about the quality of music being played on the waves nowadays.

Tom Lehrer - Masochism tango

words and music by Tom Lehrer

About a maid I'll sing this song sing rickety tickety tin
... who did not have her family long
Not only did she do them wrong.
She did everyone of them in.
Them in. She did every one of them in

One morning in a fit of pique sing rickety tickety tin
... she drowned her father in the creek
The water tasted bad for a week
And we had to make do with gin
With gin. We had to make do with gin

Her mother she could never stand sing rickety tickety tin
... stand and so a cyanide soup she planned
The mother died with a spoon in her hand
And her face in a hideous grin
A grin. Her face in a hideous grin

She set her sisters hair on fire sing rickety tickety tin
... and as the smoke and flame grew higher
Danced around the funeral pyre
Playing a violin
O-lin. Playing a violin

She tied her brother down with stones sing rickety tickety tin
... and sent him off to Davy Jones
All they ever found were the bones
And occassional pieces of skin
Of skin. Occassional pieces of skin

One day she had nothing to do sing rickety tickety tin
... she cut her baby brother in two
Served him up in an Irish stew
And invited the neighbors in
-Bors in. Invited the neighbors in.

When at last the police came by sing rickety tickety tin
... these terrible deeds she did not deny
To do so she would have to lie
And lying she knew was a sin
A sin. Lying she knew was a sin

ADDITIONAL VERSE
[Just one last thing before I go sing rickety tickery tin
... there is something I think you ought to know
They had no proof so they let her go
And they say she was tall and thin
And thin. They say she was tall and thin.]

My tragic
tale I won't prolong sing rickety tickety tin
... and if you did not enjoy this song
You've yourself to blame for letting me go on
You should never have let me begin
Begin. You should never have let me begin!

As a good scout, I suppose, you do not wander aimlessly. You do not take it from the cuff. You do not será será. I am not a good scout: I cannot read maps, and even if I could, I often forget to pack or even buy them. I prefer to find a hotel when needed, rather like a certain famous family, and if, like them, I do not get the suite of my choice: well, at least I have my freedom (if in a rather draughty dirty room). 

Given this, not much has been planned for my imminent biking holiday. I know where I am to end up (home) and have approximated a daily distance that should get me there in time for a shower befor work. But as for equipment, training, and such - there has not been an excess.

Then, this morning, I looked in the mirror. And saw that what had formerly been two rather remarkable cream puffs, my backside, had been nibbled by circumstance to a mere unipuff, an eclaire if you will; not without its filling, but ceratinly less...bouffant than of yore.

While parts of me celebrated this de-puffing, other parts realised that it put the bike-trip in a slightly new light. Your personal pastries should always be treated with respect, and while there are many diverting things to be done with an eclair, ramming it sans shield onto a hard bike seat for eight days straight is not one of them. The solution seemed simple, though: it was time to get some padded pants. Oh, sweet innocence...

You know how it is once you get into town. You may start off needing simply padded pants, but in the sudden melé of consumerism, you realise that to also buy a great many other things is essential to your happieness. In a daze of burning plastic, I wandered from shop to shop, ladening myself and feeling exponentially more reckless.

The sports shop, a great big one, stocked no padded pants but ten shades of taupe Crocs and a variety of ugly pink tank-tops. Thank god I got out of there unequipped. Then, as a shop called Pro-Life or some such displayed no less than eight different brands of power-bars, I had to catch 'em all, plus some sesame crackers, possibly baked by Vishnu, if the packet is any clue. As for hideous wraparound sunglasses: they do not come any more hideous than those currently on my nose, courtesey of the Simrishamn hardware store.

Also, since am boycotting the village shop (it has been taken over by someone holistic - I prefer my tradespeople to keep less of an eye on the moon and the Feng-Shui positioning of things in wicker baskets, and more of an eye on the quality of produce and the expiration date of milk) I decided to do my grocery shopping, to pick up some mosquito stick, and toothpaste.

At the end of the one hour spree, I arrived at the bike-repair shop, where the pink-and-taupe people had said there might be some padded pants. They had none, but as I explained about my trip, they started looking sceptically at my bike; the scraggly heap of steel I plan to propel myself northward on.

With much sucking of pipes, scratching of heads, and idiomatical biker-jargon, they convinced me to leave it, for a repositioning of the saddle and a heightening of the handlebars, a quick look at the chain and a securing of a new light. Leading it off, like one of the nastier and more divisionist mothers under Salomon, they said to come back Friday to pick it up. Wich left me with many bought goods and scant apparatus for getting home. There was nothing for it but to walk.

Now, a 5 k walk is nothing. It is slightly less of a nothing if you have missed lunch, and increasingly something of a something if you are carrying gear for a weeklong bike-trip and some youghurt to boot. As I got out of the city proper, the sun glaring and the flies humming, I cursed my flip-flops, I cursed the short-cut through the blackberryinfested field, I cursed the cows and I may even have cursed the (still non-existent) padded pants. Then, since slipping is what I seem to do these days, I slipped on a slippery rock and sat promtly down, wet through, in a march.

Muddied, ranting, I carried (literally on), only to happen upon a gorgeuous young man. Like a bronzed marble god, he stood, shoveling something, gleaming, in the sun. I was momentarily cheered, but less so, as he proved himself to have true marble for brains, for he threw the content of his shovel to the breeze, and I, being slightly down-wind, was covered in a fine layer of fertilizer.

If you ever want to submerge a layer of swamp in a layer of dried chicken-poop: please do. I recommend it, since every previous experience (including the bumble-bee in my eye) will feel like eating fudge in a cream bath in comparison...

Anyhow: Baden-Powell did get last say on this occasion. Stinking to high heaven, arms heavy from lugging, sandals flopping like the flaps of skin on my thorny gashed and bleeding feet, I realised the true meaning of the scouting spirit: when the torrential rain came and drenched me for good measure, I really was prepared.

The following is a French translation of Tom Lehrer's "The Elements", to be sung to the tune of "Je ne suis pas bien portant" by Gaston Ouvrard. Sorry, no recording yet, I can neither sing nor pronounce French well enough. You're welcome to try.

Y'a nickel, bismuth, tantale, gallium,
osmium, carbone, aluminium,
azote, terbium, platine et hafnium,
et les états d'américium.
N'oubliez pas praséodyme,
c'est juste avant le néodyme.

Y'a phosphore
sodium, bore,
plutonium
nobélium
béryllium
samarium
dysprosium
europium
puis calcium
et rhénium,
or, lanthane
et titane
et radon
sur Krypton
molybdène
oxygène.

Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas
très bon en la matière.
Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas !
Chimie c'est la galère.

Manganèse, antimoine, silicium
rutherfordium, gadolinium
astate, thulium, césium, ruthénium
m'a dit Dmitri Mendélévium.
Seaborgium, dubnium protactinium
cobalt, arsenic, californium.

Y'a scandium
polonium
rubidium
ytterbium
baryum, brome
et le chrome.
Fer, tellure
zinc, mercure
et radium
potassium
argent, plomb
et argon.
Soufre chlore
et fluor
puis néon
et xénon
hydrogène
et tungstène.

Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas
très bon en la matière.
Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas !
C'est la croix, la bannière.

Il y a hassium bohrium curium
iode, thorium, étain, actinium
et cuivre, indium, holmium, fermium
et meitnérium et magnésium
et aussi thallium et francium
les gaz à effet de cérium.

Y'a strontium
einsteinium
lawrencium
technétium
puis niobium
et rhodium
berkélium
et yttrium
germanium
et erbium
vanadium
uranium
et lithium
et cadmium
sélénium
zirconium
prométhium
trop d'hélium
neptunium
iridium

Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas
très bon en la matière.
Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas !
Chimie c'est la misère.

This is a translation of Tom Lehrer's song 'The Elements', at least in the sense that it's a fast, rhyming song featuring all the chemical elements up to nobelium (I also added everything up to meitnerium.) While Lehrer's song is sung to the tune of 'Major-General's Song' by Gilbert & Sullivan, this French version is to be sung to the tune of 'Je ne suis pas bien portant' by Gaston Ouvrard, another fast-paced, rhyming song which should be just about as recognisable to French speakers as 'Major-General's Song' is to Anglophones. When I re-read the lyrics in preparation for this, I discovered that the original version of the song (unlike the Patrick Topaloff version I had listened to) has references to the military, which makes it somehow an even better analogue to the Major-General's Song.

I came up with the idea for this when I recognised the tune of 'Je ne suis pas bien portant' in the second parody I'd heard of it, and realised that if anybody wrote a translation of 'The Elements', this should be its tune. This was a few weeks before starting my Thing A Week project, but I decided to wait for the letter L, since 'elements' sounds similar to 'LMN'. Being a programmer, I decided to write some software to help me to arrange the elements into lines. I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see how well a computer could write a song with a given word list, meter and rhyme scheme, when the order of the words was not important to the meaning.

I figured I had plenty of time to write the software which would write this song.  Then, this Friday, I realised with horror that it was already L week. I could either do it this weekend, or wait half a year for the next L to come around. I was not at all sure I could do it in time... I had barely done any Mac programming since the Worldwide Developers' Conference in 2004, and had not used any of the new features introduced then. However, thanks to CoreData, before I even wrote a single line of code, I had a working application and interface with which I could create a document with the words and tune data, and verify that there were roughly similar numbers of syllables and rhymes in the tune and element list.

On Sunday morning I started writing the actual code, to automatically arrange elements into lines.

By around 9:30p.m. on Sunday, I had my first complete computer-written draft, with some missing syllables to fill in with conjunctions. I then removed some lines from the tune in the software so that I could write a refrain with real words that actually make sense (I hope.) I figured that out at around 11:30, filled in some gaps in the latest computer-generated song, shuffled a few elements around, added some new ones, and just managed to paste it into my blog in time for midnight. Just like old times.

The card of the week doesn't have much to do with elements, but it does show yodellers, which has something to do with songs. I didn't have time to write two separate Things, so that will have to do.

I'm ashamed to admit that I edited it a bit on Monday evening, not just to fix punctuation (which is allowed, because I'm usually too hurried to get that right the first time), but also to add a missing syllable and swap a few lines.

I did not, however, sneak in my idea for a changed line. To add variety, I'm thinking of replacing:

Chimie c'est la galère

with:

C'est quoi cette galère ?

(with the final 'e' in 'cette' pronounced.) Any opinions?

Merci à Bicus pour « la croix et la bannière » et à pim pour les conseils experts de prononciation.

As I've always said, anyone who gets all their news from the Financial Times is not human.  If all you care about is emerging markets and investment opportunities, you are seriously lacking the emotional abilities needed to be human.

Thanks to my family, my faith and my love of music, I'll never be like that!

Thank God for good ol' trusty Mike Oldfield. His latest album, Music of the Spheres has been on my iRiver since its release two months ago and I've played it on average once a week since. It's one of those select few albums that sends tingles down my spine whenever I listen to it - it doesn't just make it a good album, it makes it somewhat significant.

Managed to get through half of Tom Waits' Rain Dogs before abandoning it in favour of some Tom Lehrer. I really needed the larf at that point, and there's something in his dry, educated delivery that makes his songs so funny.

Picked up a copy of Raw Power by Iggy and the Stooges - the remastered version is known as the loudest CD ever produced (an RMS of -4dbFS), making the ReplayGain tag show a whopping 17dbFS reduction to get it to that standard. It's full of distortion, unavoidable at such loudness, but apparently - it's intentional. I have this thing about loudness-based mastering, but the verdict is still out on albums that are mastered this way deliberately (because the music demands it, not the artist/label). At a mere 34 minutes, at least it's not a prolongued exposure to such loudness!!

Played in car: "Queen" by Queen (tracks 1-4 as I didn't play anything in the morning due to urgent need of petrol)
On the way to work: "But Seriously Folks" by Joe Walsh
On my walk: "Rain Dogs" by Tom Waits (tracks 1-9), "An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer" (tracks 1-7)
On the way back: "Music of the Spheres" by Mike OIdfield

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Good Morning Little Schoolgirl - Rod Stewart
Show Me Your Ruler - Cobra Killer
Charlie Brown - The Coasters
Matura - Czerwone Gitary
Ring My Bell - Anita Ward
Mandy Goes To Med School - Dresden Dolls
Boy from School - Hot Chip
Grange Hill (Back To School) Alan Hawkshaw
Ginseng High School March - Jason Trachtenberg
The Elements - Tom Lehrer
Art and Design - Darren Hayman
Double Dutch - Malcolm McLaren
Love's Unkind - Donna Summer
Schule Der Gewalt - Fettes Brot
Weird at My School - The Pixies
Off My Rocker at the Art School Bop - Luke Haynes
L'ecole Est Fini - Sheila
Free Education in Nigeria - Prince Nico Mbarga and Rocafil Jazz

Here is Tilly on how to do social science work, recommended.

and quotes Borges on Veblen:

I am reminded of Borges on Veblen: "When, many years ago, I happened to read this book, I thought it was a satire. I later learned it was the first work of an illustrious sociologist."

While we are on the topic, here is my favourite link on sociology (YouTube); here are the lyrics.

Last week I discussed water and posted this You Tube video. Looking at some of the videos on the Tom Lehrer wisdom channel was entertaining (and educational -- it is the Tom Lehrer wisdom channel after all) and I go to thinking (often dangerous).

I am neither a geek or a physicist (this is good, as I'm a much better "taker aparter" than a "putter togetherer" which is one of the reasons Crem is my best friend), but I've heard tell of the Large Hadron Collider over there in Europe. It's supposed to be perfectly safe (just check out what they say on the website) but there are those that have expressed doubts

OKAY -- perhaps a UserFriendly cartoon isn't much to get worked up over. But really, there's not a heck of a lot I can do about it either way except say C'est la vie (see how I worked that French term in there). It does give me an excuse to post this YouTube video for my first music Monday.



Just as a friendly reminder that if the earth does get eaten up by a ginormous (and ginormous is an actual word as of 2007) black hole, well then at least my shoulder will stop hurting. Or, in the immortal words of Governor Arnie

Hasta la vista baby

Enjoy it today -- it's still relevant.

Tom Lehrer - Pollution

Thank you Tom Lehrer! That's exactly how I feel about math
But the good news is that I only got two wrong on my GED practice math test. Yes! Second highest test score. All my studying has payed off. *grin*