Liza23 and Big Bruvver

My elder daughter plays bass in a band... and they have just won the Bavarian Music Lion Newcomer 2009 award!!

Here they are:

Liza23

A Neutron as proud as a very proud thing.

So we went to Berlin to take part in the awards. Great evening... red carpets, TV cameras everywhere, good food, good drink (FREE!!!) and good music.

Then next day we did some sightseeing in Berlin.

It's a marvellous city Berlin but they still have this left over from the DDR days...it gave me the creeps the first time I was in Berlin in 1978 and it seems it still gives me the creeps now. There's something insecty, soviety about it - I had the feeling that there was someone behind every facet watching you with binoculars...

BUT...

then you can get some of this...


and the world is new!

My (well, Dawkins' actually) Latest Book

I just have to find time to read it now...

It's Only 36 Pages...

... but it's still my book!




I couldn't resist getting a test copy from lulu.

Unbeerable

For those of you waiting with that good old bated breath to find out what that frozen beer tasted like...

I'm sorry to confess that it took quite a while to get round to trying it. I didn't want to try it without being sure of having a few other beers in just in case but then when I had a few beers in, I simply ignored the unfrozen half-opened experimental bottle.

Anyway I tried it on Tuesday and it was f****** HORRIBLE!

HORR-EEE-BULL!!

So if you have forgotten your beer in the freezer and you think, "hmm, maybe blah blah..."

DON'T BOTHER.

40 Years Ago...

..I was watching every news programme, science update, etc, I could about the Apollo 11 mission which was well under way at this point.

Take-off was yesterday 40 years ago...and the landing would be this Monday, 20th...although we were sat watching it at 3.00a.m. on the 21st in Liverpool.

NASA has released pictures today from the LRO of 5 of the 6 landing sites here. It won't convince any of the misguided Apollo hoax doughnuts - but what would?
(By the way, Apollo hoaxers, you do realise there were 6 landings don't you? Did NASA fake them all? Did they fake the other 3 lunar circumnavigations, Apollo 8, Apollo 10 and Apollo 13? What about the other Apollo missions...7 and 9? Faked? And the fire..etc etc? Ho hum.)

There is also a great website where you can follow the mission in "real" time - sort of forty-years-ago-real-time:

We Choose the Moon

I would have loved that when I was a kid!

Tight-Fisted Auld Git..

...is what you might call me, but I don't care!

I was looking in the fridge for something to have for lunch...opened the freezer and found...this!!

Yes, a bottle of Augustiner...frozen solid. Amazingly it hadn't cracked - but this is still a potential disaster. At the moment it is thawing in the kitchen and later I will simply have to try and drink it.

This happened to me once before, many many years ago, and the bottle had actually cracked but the beer was still frozen. It took me many hours of creative thinking before I finally was forced to admit that I would have to sling it because the danger of swallowing glass splinters was too great even if I poured the thawed out beer through a fine sieve...

It still rankles that I had to throw it away.

Body Clock Alarm

It's 9.55 and according to a programme I saw the other day about the body clock, I have about 2 more hours to go before I am out of the heart attack danger zone.

It seems that in the morning hours from waking till midday, first of all your blood vessels are less flexible than at other times, secondly you have more likelihood of fatty deposits building up inside them and, thirdly, as if that were not enough, your blood is actually thicker than later on in the day...presumably after it has been watered down by intakes of alcohol following a lunchtime pint...

As if waking up isn't bad enough!

On the tele they underlined my newly postulated vulnerability by showing endoscopic views of blood vessels sort of contracting and heart valve-looking things sort of labouring away at pumping thick viscous blood on its ponderous journey.

I HATE those kind of pictures! Just looking at them makes my heart start straining and complaining as if it's suddenly realised what a hard job it has to do and I get into that mentality of "listening" to it, listening to it beating away...almost taking conscious control of it - like I used to with my breathing as a kid...an awful situation where you end up desperately trying to stop thinking about doing it ...breathe in, now breathe out, in again....out - hey, heart! ...keep beating! Breathe...in er.. out ...BEAT!!

90 more minutes ...

Odysseus Becalmed

It has been rumoured, not without just cause, that, like Odysseus on his way home from Troy, I have been becalmed. And indeed, 'tis true!

I have been drifting aimlessly in the bloggy doldrums, the sea gurgling idly around my soggy timbers and slapping gently against my bows, here in the midst of the Sea of Apathy.

But now I sense the faint stirring of a breeze somewhere off over the horizon, the slightest ripple of the sails...could it be that my journey recommences at last...?

Baaaaaaah, Humbug...

Off the Ale

One of the clever functions of new religions is taking over the festivals and traditions of previous religions, adapting and adopting them and fitting them into the new system. The Romans did it with the Greek gods and goddesses and then took over the various divinities of the tribes they conquered and renamed the deities with Latin names. And then there's the intermingling of traditions and fables which link lots of religions - just take the Osiris story and its biblical parallels as an example.

Anyhow, one more example of this is Lent, of which we are in the middle just now. 40 days of fasting and stuff to prepare for Easter. The word Lent comes from the Saxon word lencten which simply means spring and the tradition itself of giving up eating or in some way "purifying" yourself goes way back into the darkest depths of our ancient common past.

In deepest Bavaria this time is called Fastenzeit where the emphasis is on fasting - this was the inspiration for the monks to create their Starkbier (strong beer - with about 7% alcohol content upwards) which I have referred to in reverent terms in other previous posts!

When I lived in Greece back in the last century (ARGH!!) they took this period fairly seriously (seriously in Greek terms at least, i.e. more like "seriously") and if you went into a restaurant during that period the waiter would ask if you were fasting, in which case you would be given a separate Lent menu with unleavened bread and all sorts of other special Lent-conforming meals most of which tasted brilliant!

Well, coincidentally to Lent, I decided to give up alcohol for a while ...this did not come as a consequence of any religious epiphany but after a particularly boozy weekend on the Guinness Tour with my Irish band which left me feeling decidedly wasted. I am now coming up to 4 weeks during which time barely a drop of alcoholic beverage has crossed my lips.

It got me thinking whether it might not be a bad idea, in these days of luxury and excess, to give up for a while something which we believe we cannot do without ...say, TV or the mobile phone, or driving, etc., etc. When I was living alone in the early 90s I didn't have a TV. As a result I experienced a huge sense of liberation and suddenly discovered that I had a whole lot of time on my hands which I could use for different, more productive/enjoyable things ...

Hmm, I am even thinking of suggesting this to my kids ...

On the other hand maybe lack of alcohol has completely addled my mind...?