Good Morning Doggerland!

Crazy about this!

When you cross the tram lines in the centre of Krakow, you are in fact crossing the dried out river that in medieval times seperated the town of Krakow from the town of Kazimierz. And as you walk through Kazimierz,the Jewish quarter, you'll stumble across a square with open air antique stalls. I'll try to describe one. Behind the stall sits a middle aged, fairly heavy man in a rather raggy shirt and brown cap. I can't actually tell whether it's leather or not. He is unshaven, and, in the manner of antique dealers everywhere on every level, seemingly disinterested but in fact intensely aware of you as you browse his stall. On the stall I spy: 1) An enameled Mezuah with embossed Menorah. 2) A miniature bust of Stalin in bronze or brass (it's hard to tell the difference with age). 3) Numerous crucifixes of varying size and age. 4) WWII Eagle badge complete with swastika. 5) Old stained, pewter items from an incomplete Havdalah set. 6...

The woman stood in front of the wounded man. In her hands she grasped the newly-fired stengun. Her eyes were like slits, her teeth bared. She was undressed, bruised, dirty, and approached him slowly crouching like an animal. The man in the camo smock lay awkwardly propping himself up at an angle against some fallen, moss-covered branches. He was breathing difficultly. His smock had a large, dark stain on it. Blood. They faced each other in silence. Then she spoke. "Who are you?" The man didn't answer. He looked away, giving the impression that he'd rather she simply shot him. She considered it for a moment; but was curious for answers. She asked again. He snapped a ferocious answer. "Same as you, more or less." She looked puzzled. "Flotsam!", he added. She let the answer sink. "Why?", she asked. "I don't know. Something to do with our brains. We're too intelligent but not enough at the same time. It's a sort of joke....

A soldier's prayer could be many things. A prayer for the lost and a prayer for the living. And perhaps a prayer for forgiveness and for deliverance and for wisdom and for the future of our kind.

"And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock." "But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock.." "The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure." "There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians.." "..there was Beauty.." "..there was wine." "All these and security were within. Without was the Red Death ." "And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before." "..whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock.." "And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls o...

Time for a typically subtle bit of humour from the late great Kenneth Williams:

The uncomprimising Anthony Mangieri; a man who takes pizza seriously. Link to restaurant.

This is a real treat! The electric guitar has been around a bit. Charlie Christian, who played with Benny Goodman's orchestra, is considered to be the very first genuine electric guitarist. He really had no one to copy! Charlie Christian was born in Texas in 1916, and died of pneumonia in New York in 1942. The Charlie Christian website.

Arrrrr! One fine morn' out of Falmouth we sailed, All short at the front and long in the neck, When the weather it went from sunny to hail, And we ups and we threw our nets o'er the side. A fishin' for mullet we go, all aboard an old wreck, all short at the front, and all long in the neck! When we pulled our nets out of the sea, They were a' boilin' with mullets so fat, We thought "What a fine thing, 'tis to be free!", And we all grew our hair all long in the neck.. Etc. This was silly, wasn't it?

If you can chop up chicken breast filets, into sizeable chunks for a fork, If you can wield the knife with equal ease, and strip up some of that pork, If you can boil up water, and add a touch of turmeric spice, And put the boil-in-bag rice bags in, My son, that would be nice! If you can put in a little bowl, about half a jar of Mixed Pickle, If you get those Nans out of their plastic, and bake 'em though they're brickle, If you can twist open a jar of Korma, and pour it over the filets when they're done, And set the table while your at it, You'll have "done us a curry", my son.

Through the WBS system, which consisted of two loudspeakers connected to the pick up of a radiogram, we were able to broadcast from the upstairs to the downstairs rooms. I still have some of the programmes: "The Revd. Percy will play three piano pieces, Buzzards at Dinner, Salute to Admiral Beattie, and Badgers beneath my vest". Dylan Thomas in Encounter (1954). New ground cleared in the field of music. And that's Percy. Bon vivant, they say. Only an hour after landing in New York and he was hard to find, but the sessions went beautifully. New sounds and rhythms; that strange creeping, haunting, Spanish-influenced heavy keyboard work on "Badgers". He smiles, does Percy, calls out for more free form from the session players. "Make it crisp!" Crisp? They know what he means, one presumes, no, senses. Polytonalities fill the room and the recording of "Badgers" heats up like a Spanish caravan beneath the sun. A gradual ri...

National bird of Belize!