Strangely Perfect

Who?  Who Are Megrahi and Calley Megrahi is a Libyan, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering 270 people by blowing up a 747 over Lockerbie in Scotland – but released early after 8 years (but 10 years in prison) and sent to Libya to die of cancer. Calley is an American, convicted and [...]

Introduction to the Problem and .htaccess Usage I’ve had a few weird hits over time from “normal” websites containing “abnormal” content.  Take today, for instance…. According to my Wassup log and the stats that appear on the main screen widget, I got reffered by: http://www.space.com/common/community/profile.php?u=1078916 Click this if you will.  It’s an ad for male [...]

Introduction You may not have noticed the co-incidence yesterday, but an Iranian aircraft crashed and the US Space Shuttle took off.  the co-incidence was in  the strange reporting that envelops such events. Iranian Crash This, as air crashes go, was pretty ordinary – something went wrong, it crashed, everyone died.  You’d expect some reasoned discussion, [...]

Introduction This is a small investigation into mail lists and scammy companies.  Some companies are fine, but I always go by the adage to judge a man by the company he keeps.  This shows how lists spread far beyond their initial purpose when you sign up for something.  It also shows how the privacy policies [...]

Not being a frequent foreign traveller, my recent stop in Eisenstadt, Austria, at a 5 star hotel open my eyes a bit.  A peculiar quirk, for me, was the toilet, with a shelf, in the room’s en-suite bathroom.  I’ve since found that it’s called a “shelf toilet”, a German invention to ease the inspection of [...]

I’ve just been reading this fascinating book, Encountering the Dharma: Daisaku Ikeda, Soka Gakkai, and the Globalization of Buddhist Humanism by a non-Buddhist, Richard Seager, who gives a really good, well-balanced investigation into Buddhism, the Soka Gakkai (SGI) and it’s meteoric rise in popularity under the inspirational personas of Makiguchi, Toda and Ikeda. Well you’d [...]

A better translation of the classic Jaques Brel song, “Dans le Port d’Amsterdam” by Jillian Greenwood

This original post on Jaques Brel has been updated and I’ve stuck the Bowie version up.  I’ve improved the layout as it’s getting quite a few hits.  It may help French students like Rocket Mole.

I saw Roger Edwards from Purple Ear today. Roger was a major influence when I started this Buddhism lark and was one of the original SGI people in Somerset. We had a very pleasant day following an invigorating Kosen Rufu Gongyo in Taunton, today being November 18th and 77 years since the Soka Gakkai was [...]

Jaques Brel sings his song “Amsterdam” live and Davis Bowie’s recording for comparison.
Lyrics (paroles) in French and English