Strangely Perfect

Coroner and Law I’m often struck when reading the papers or news, to see the coroner’s verdict on someone’s death as: Ending his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed Well they have to say something, it’s their job, but the phrase is very peculiar. Take this couple, the Milners, who were [...]

All good things come to an end and it’s time to move on from my Fuji FinePix F30 to something else… After seeing my mate Len’s Ricoh compact I was tempted by the new one, the R10.  However, most reviews I read were less than complimentary. So fishing about I hit on the Panasonic Lumix [...]

Following GB cycling’s successes at the recent 2008 olympics and world championships, I was reminded about the accomplishments of Beryl Burton who died early over 10 years ago. It seems that in any sphere of human endeavour there is always one person who is head and shoulders better than anyone else.  We had the domination [...]

Ron Asheton Dies at Home Tempis fugit and all that.  Ironically, the day after I saw Iggy Pop doing an advert on telly for car insurance, Ron dies at home with no suspicious circumstances.  Amazing. The first time I heard “Down on the Street” knocked me over.  I was just stunned. I heard “Search and [...]

Tony Blair to get US Medal of Freedom ..is one of today’s news items. This is given personally by the US President and is supposed to be the highest civilian award in that country.  One would expect it to be for people that work towards freedom as it’s a kind-of in the name sort-of-a-thing… So [...]

Admiral Mark Fitzgerald told the BBC that  Somali pirates ‘hard to defeat’.  So even though NATO want to install missiles all over Europe to counter a mythical threat, and even though they have highly advanced RADAR, monitoring and communication systems, they still can’t manage to do what the Royal Navy did very effectively 200 years ago [...]

People are mad, Not Cyclists People Are Mad, Not Cyclists; Extra Information Following on from these two previous posts where I mentioned the laughable penalties for killing someone who happens to be riding a bike and the weasely excuses, I hate to say that it’s another case of I told you so… £500 fine and [...]

There’s a neat book just been released by a Nobel prize winning author Joseph Stiglitz, and Linda Bilmes of Harvard, that counts the true financial cost of the Bush conspired conflict. This is a BBC article and a similar one on The Guardian written by Aida Edemariam who met him. It’s a truly staggering piece, [...]

What’s all this Buddhism then, like? Intro I practice the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin who was a guy living in 13th century Japan. He is what most people nowadays would call a “good guy” although at the time, because he spoke his mind which then annoyed the ruling classes, he spent most of his life [...]