31 January 2010


Καλό μήνα!

kalo mina graphicIt's that time again to wish each other a good month ahead.

As you know, I never cite or simper over others' blogs - anoraks all! - but when it's lights out and Matron's done her rounds, I do sneak the occasional peek at the excellent Corfu Blog - but no telling, yeah? I'll never live it down.

All I'm saying, right, is that yon CoBlo don't look too bad in the dusk with the light behind it. Like I'm not going soft or nuffink.

Glad we cleared that up.

Καλό μήνα

Καλό μήνα σε όλους και καλή βδομάδα!

Mη φοβάσαι το χειμώνα και τις βροχές και τις συνεφιές. Να φοβάσαι μόνο τους 'ανήλιαγους' ανθρώπους.

Speaking of the blog I read on the sly, check out some of its useful links, such as the one that'll take you to Your Eyes Fourteen! and speed up your ambition to gloat over tourist riff-raff and help pretty girls find the Marmite in AB (not telling).

They're never 100% right, these books, I find. Like that column that used to appear on the back page of Athens News - cool phrases that were ever so slightly out of date so if you DID use them your mates would look at each other and then fall about laffing.

Then it'd be them asking YOU if you were getting enough - Marmite, I mean.

Goodness, what could  you have thought I was talking about? (Cue Joan Grenfell voice): And do wipe that smirk off your face, Farnsworth minor.

Loipon, the blurb for 14 Eyes reads encouragingly:

"Thanks to John Carr and Paul Anastasi’s Your Eyes Fourteen: The Mad Greek Dictionary, the time-consuming task of mastering colloquial Greek is no longer an arduous trip to “the devil’s mother that will get the olive oil out of you”.[Tee hee, can't wait to use that one]

The authors discuss each saying’s origins in terms of national history and psychology. Familiarise yourself “knife to the bone” with hundreds of the most frequent and colourful expressions Greeks use in everyday conversation - and show that you too can “catch a flea in midflight”

.

how 2 spin a pencil



29 January 2010

CIRQUE DU SOLEIL

I saw the Circus every time it came to Seattle but I never really knew what went behind the astonishing stunts.

Look at this cutie. In some of her bends, it's as if her lower body were a different creature.

28 January 2010

iPad

It used to be I'd wait 'til I read clever Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury before I knew what to think about anything.

  • Then I spent 8 cubicled years in the Dilbertian wilderness, so that was two masters ...
  • Now of course it's Hitler as he barks the Meaning of Life, and what more natural and inevitable than, mere hours after Apple's unveiling of its iPad solution, Adolf delivers the final verdict (not good, I'm afraid).

  • I mean, no camera??

    NO. FRIGGING. CAMERA?

    Duuude ...

  • Well, take your own gander.
  • I'm also waiting to hear the *next* informed opinions which will come from my former galley mates on the Good Ship Bezosia - brilliant brilliant techie geeks every one and not a few stunners among them.

    In those wild west days when the world of online commerce lay at our feet, so did quite a few hotties as they pulled all-niters writing genius tools that'd be ready for use by the reps next day, often actually saving that day as management huffed and puffed and covered their asses by taking forever to sign off on stuff we went ahead and used anyway.

    The form in those pioneering days was to sleep under your desk. Often, heading my weary way home to the connubial couch, I'd be stepping gingerly over an ever-changing permutation of protruding feet, trying furtively to identify them so as not to make too big a boo-boo a few days hence when a new pair had taken their place.

  • That is such a huge digression I can't work out why I wrote a single word of that last point, but I'll leave it in in case it reminds me.
  • Perhaps I wanted to segue into my own ungeekliness but got distracted remembering all the great sex around in those days - yours truly a notable exception.
  • So I need to read chaps like Aaron Vronko to know what The Pros think of it.

    Again, not much, it seems: CEO of Rapid Repair, an iPod and iPhone repair shop, Ivan gets even more detailed and zaps the four big iPad "whiffs".

  • Unlike the Führer, however, I will not object to anyone 'gifting' it to me and reassure everyone it'll be perfectly OK to backdate this bijou cadeau to Feb 4 (hint, hint)
  • The feckless faffing Stephen Fry has to get in his techless Twit' twattering
  • 26 January 2010

    SOME COOL PHOTOS SENT ME





     

     

    24 January 2010

    HOOKER. SANTANA

    The link sez it all.

    Don't need no stonkin' text or caption or no-what ~ just stand by the track with your hat in your hand.

    Nice video, too.

    I mean f-u-u-ck  ... noodlin' around on Youtube and up comes this ?

    Suddenly it looks like being a very kool Κυριακή.

    Plus, Momma too frail to go to church today, so it's me, the dawg and the pick-up truck - rifle in the rack - heading on down to Clarksdale, get our hambones boiled. Them Kondokali Kuties ~ let my hambone spoil.

    Yo! Fret yo' stuff, boys.

    Psst ~ don't no one write in to tell me what brand of axe The Man is wielding there, or I will counter by sending you under see-thru cellophane wrapper for all to see, John Lee Hooker for Dummies.

    Lord have merceh! If that isn't a candidate for unlikeliest title of the week, I'm setting right down here in momma's melon patch and hammerin' out that Jimmy-Joe Potts review. Lawdy lawdy, whazza world a-comin' to?

    Freight train to be my friend (oh lawd)

    23 January 2010

    BULGER

    This terrible Edlington torture tale.

    Are the red-top reptiles being slow? There should be 1,000 reminders out by now of the James Bulger murder.

  • I still say those venable/thomp chaps should have been trawled yonks ago
  • Snopes
  • Reminder
  • Where the fark are they?
  • If theyre in Oz ~ g'day, Blues, tear yerselves away from the barbie and look around you ... sheesh, shouldn't be *that* difficult, even for Australians.
  • I'm sorry, here it is - wasting your time - the Grauniad is on the case: Bulger killers prove child criminals can be rehabilitated. The paper's own headline.

    And here be that paper's own words:

    "In 2001, after a six-month review, the parole board ruled that Venables and Thompson were no longer a threat to public safety and could be released on a life licence as their minimum tariff of eight years had expired that February.

    The decision was approved by David Blunkett, as the home secretary, and the two were given new identities and moved to secret locations under a witness protection-style programme.

    Their rehabilitation was regarded as a success for the criminal justice system."



  • 22 January 2010

    CALLIRHOE RAOUZEOU

    ~ Σειρήν ~

    If I needed to smuggle anything - drugs, precious stones, under-age white slaves - past a rigorous customs post - fierce guards, brutal commandant, man-munching sniffer dogs - I wouldn't bother with the usual fake panels on the fried-out combie.

  • I'd go straight for the killer solution.
  • I'd hire a plush car so's to assure her of a comfy ride
  • Stock the jalopy with the usual luxuries - Gentlemen's Relish, caviar, Vegemite sarnies (natch), galaktoboureko from the patisserie on the road to Castagná.
  • Loipon! Then I'd invite Ms Callirhoe Raouzeou to accompany me on an innocent jaunt.

    As we neared Checkpoint Charlie I'd casually murmur,

    "Alors, Callirhoe cherie ... that marvelous  line at 01:49 in 'Emails to Emily' - 'Then fit our vision to the dark' - do remind me how it goes"

    Which of course she will, hitting those notes that match her voice and timbre so sublimely

    F# - F# - G - A - G - F# - G - A.

    I will of course have timed it perfectly: La Raouzeou will be in full songbird siren-issima croon as the Customs Commandante steps out. He is the terror of all smugglers * No one has evaded him * Even when they have, their expensive vehicles lie stripped and vandalised.

    What have we here? A costly limo, a fop in finery ... a beautiful woman.

    Doxa to Theo! My day is made.

    Yes, indeed, punk - I feel most lucky.

    But what are these heavenly notes that meet his ears? That voice ... he is swooning.

    He raises his hand and the car comes to a halt.

    "No, not you, madame, don't you  halt ... please, keep singing ...."

    I joke but not entirely. Miss Callirhoe Raouzeou (the spelling of whose name seems to be in random dispute, depending if you believe her albums, 'Emails to Emily' and 'Neuromantics' or her own MySpace profile page)

    Even there confusion reigns ~ the lady really doesn't want to be pinned down ~ in the the URL, 'kaliroe'; on the page itself, 'Callirhoe'.

    So-o Greek. I love it.

    Loipon, the customs officer is too hypnotised to move. I slide the 'Neuromantics' album into the car stereo and flick it to track 6, the haunting 'Mme Marchadier', at which even the minions start to lose interest in searching every nook and cranny.

    "Back to work, you dogs!" bellows the capitaine, "Whatever it is, it's got to be somewhere. Tear the car apart!"

    'Wait!' I cry. 'I see I have met my match - here, in full view on the back seat, CDs of Mademoiselle Raouzeou nestling in a bed of used notes.

    I had hoped to smuggle them through but you're too good for me, it's a fair cop.'

    The officer snatches them up with a triumphant gleam: "These are singings by madame? How wise of you to confess. It is a capital offence to smuggle beautiful songs ... but you have confessed so you may go free - but the CDs stay here.

    One last formality - I need a signature for the confiscation ... perhaps madame would oblige ... acknowledgement of this most grave offence ... thank you madame ... and a final touch .... here above the signature, if you'd be so kind? 'To Capitaine Ronaldo, love and affection to my most devoted fan.'

    Perfect."

    It's around now that Jimmy-Joe Potts' Byronic Phrase book slips from his disbelieving fingers:

    "WTF?

    Yo! What about my  review? Ya know ...??

    Dude! Talk about talking a good game. Every time we meet, Holmes is all 'Ooh, yes, naughty me, I simply must get on with reviewing your blues.'

    It's not even as if I don't give him the get-out - I tell him, you won't like them - but he's all yes yes I will, soon as I get home, three barrés full, Jim, and then he kicks off with all this promising stuff - and now this. Don't get me wrong - lovely lady that Kaliroe, couldn't happen to a nicer songstress."

    Jimmy-Joe is right. I had every intention of wrapping up 'Memphis' and 'Death Valley' and was even putting in deep research by listening round the subject to 'Neuromantics - Explorations of Love' for which Jim wrote the lyrics.

    Big mistake. One note from those golden Callirhoned vocal folds and I was lost.

    Seriously - and I am never so serious when writing about music as when I'm horsing around - this is a woman with an astonishing voice and a matching feel for a lyric.

    • Emails to Emily consists of Kaliroe Raouzeou, Ulrike Niehl, and Louise Nylen - all three wonderful voices and interpreters - singing lyrics taken from Emily Dickinson poems to the music of Raul Scacchi who seems incapable of writing anything but beautiful melody lines, perfectly matched to the words.
    • And what words they are - crazy!
    • I don't know if you know 'Accustomed to the Dark' but I wouldn't have given it a hope in hell of translating well into song, and yet there're those impossible rhythms and rhymes caressed by CR onto vinyl as if from the ABBA or Bacharach stable.
    • Incidentally, there ought to be a law against listening to 'Neuromantics' while driving. It is unsafe - or it is for *me* and my 18-yr-old daughter threatened not to drive with me if I was going to keep slowing down at the 01:33 mark of track 2, 'Eurydice', just to swoon along to that "A-ll night long" line
    • Lord have mercy, I can hardly type those words for remembering that heavenly sound.
    • For such a wonderful singer, I can't believe how badly Callirhoe is served by way of info' for her doubtless devoted fans - and what, by the way, is the fond diminutive of Calli'? I'm getting RSI just bashing out that C-a-l-l-i-r-h-o-e. But I digress.
    • Her myspace space is almost illegible with that ochre background canceling out the text ~ Almost as if she's in sympathy with that equally mis-matched jacket of ED poems
    • Impossible  to find ones way around her myspace page - illegible colours and fonts notwithstanding.

      Here, let me save you 12 minutes finding her photo album. It's here but you'd never have found it.

      Everything is against this talented woman getting the recognition and listenership she deserves, and no, it's not just 'Greek', it's plain incompetence.

  • No albums yet - say whutt ?? Of course it's not Callirhoe's fault but - FFS, you record labelistas out there - wakee wakee! Don't you want to make new and grateful customers? Too passé and uncool to have the coffers swell with loadsa dosh?Weren't like that in my day
  • Blowing in the Wind: If you click on video you'll get a blurred video and by no means representative recording of this marvelous voice.

    When I bumped into Jim Potts in town - going over in my mind my purple praising prose for his review - he told me that Calli' had been over for the launch of Neuromantics and had been better live than on the disc. Hard to believe.

  • Gimme gimme ~ everyone who visits when I happen to have either album on immediately says "Ooh that's nice. Who is it?"

    Since most people who visit are of no earthly interest to me and of dubious tastes, I refuse to let slip the sacred name of Raouzeou (which they wouldn't get their tongue around anyway, let alone the Calliwag moniker)

  • I suggest they try Ms Carey or that Taylor Swift cutie-pie

  • pallyriaBut I am worried about loss or theft so I'm buying 4 more (avec libretto) from Raul at tomorrow's Palirria concert at Triklino Vineyard.

    Libretto will be good: Especially for Eurydice at the 01:01 mark when I currently sing the misheard lines, 'Look a breeze makes me down'. I can't wait to find out what the real lyrics are.

    OK, wanna know what La C is actually singing there? "You look at me, it makes me die". Hmm, how did I get 'down' there, but I still like 'look a breeze' and will continue to do so until glared at by some Salonikan tottie.

    I coulda asked Jimmy Joe but he'd've retorted snorted 'Ain't telling ya til you done that thar review'

  • Speaking of Raul - according to the notes he is the composer of the music for both Dickinson and Neuro'.

    In which case, from that man's fingers alone ripple melodies of such beauty I can only urge you to do yourselves a favour and get hold of these albums.

    I'm not talking pretty frou-frou tunes such as that Mr McCartney from Liverpool has trotted out over the years; I mean serious melodiosity where even the hooks have hooks.

  • So you can imagine the damage when Calli meets Scalli ....

    Phwoar! No wonder the Fruiterine of my Loins feareth to passenger with me when Mme Marchadier plays:

  • 01:02 ~ in come the drums
  • 01:16 ~ that lovely line about "Someone to feel my needs, and make my life a fairy tale come true."

    My kinda lyrics, my kinda woman's voice delivering them.

    Et voilà, I knew I'd get my Potts review in somewhere.

    • Neuro' Plug ~ I'm not the only bloggin' fan. The launch was also recorded here. Scroll down, way down, further than that ... it's there somewhere.

    • Intriguing Azart poster

    • Swanking: This review isn't my first shout out to La Calli: I alerted readers many moons ago
  • 21 January 2010

    Shorting the CCP

    Lovely line:

    "One short position, one big short, that does intrigue me in China.

    I am not sure who makes a market in this area, but here goes:

    If China forces out Google, I’d like to short the Chinese Communist Party."

    Witty Thom Friedman.

    Have of course sent it to all my Honkers pung-yau 

    BUFF

    Suddenly it's everyone's birthday:

  • Hers

  • Mine

  • My girls'

  • What's up?

  • Or do I mean what's hanging increasingly down ?

  • Groan.

  • So I've put together a hefty aide-memoire  to which I can refer, not because I'm a fitness buff but because I hate the thought of Y'ALL getting ab'd and pec'd up with the advice below

    Sheer paranoid jealousy will drive me to the mat and away with the hooch and Havanas.

    • 10 best fitness sites

    • Avoid that spread ~ Your body in optimum shape at every age, including gruesome charting of what's happening to yer bod at 20, 30, 40, 50 and ... sob ~ 60

    • 20 foods you're not eating ~ actually it turns out I *am* noshing better than I thought.

    • Six-pack Abs: I never realised it was "Bostonian rough-houser Mark Wahlberg" that's to blame.

      Damn and blast his chiseled frame.

      Always confused him with Heath Ledger anyway.

    • Five habits by Tara Stiles - No idea what the habits are.

      I just like slipping in the ludicrously sexy Ms Stiles.

    • When I'm 64 ~ hey Jude, take it!

    • Sex Addiction - Speaking of the alluring Ms Stiles, whadabout that whole 'sex addiction' thang, yo?

      This here page is about health and fitness and beating all them addictive addictions like smoking and drinking so why can't we sneak sex in there?

      Loipon - Sex Addiction - real medical condition or just a really reelly great excuse?