Where It All Started...

The first ever post on the Puumaja Crew blogspot, 14th May 1950!...

What the deuces was that chap talking about on the light programme last night? Resume the Gold Standard? Never! What a cad. If we go back on the Gold Standard we risk losing the kind of currency control which, when placed in the hands of an expert such as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, ensures a fair deal for all Britons and the perpetuation of what remains of the empire

I predict great things for the British economy, indeed I feel that by the year 1975 industrial output will be world class, unemployment next to zero and the trade balance to turn continentals green with envy,  but this can only happen if we stay off encumbering mechanisms such as guaranteeing pieces of green paper with lumps of rarely-found precious metals.

The Leopard

60 Years Of The Puumaja Crew...

Today, 14th May 2010, marks the 60th anniversary of the launch of the PMC. Yes, it's hard to believe, but true.

To mark this auspicious occasion the PMC will be taking a retrospective of some of the outstanding posts of the past six decades. From Cold War to Coldplay and from Ban the Bomb to Ban the Burka, every decade will be represented, and includes highlights from some of the most talked about of contributors...Bertrand Russell, Hunter S. Thompson, Roman Polanski, Roald Dahl and Limahl from Kajagoogoo,  to name but a few - none of them contributed to the PMC's pages (oh, hold on a second, Limahl had a regular section in the early 80s)-

So, watch this space and over the  next few days, or until it gets really boring, whichever is first, we'll be presenting a post from deep in the inner recesses of the archives...

Tim Flowers Is Back..

Tim Flowers is an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher based in the capital city of one of the baltic states. He is 42 years old. His previous job was working for the Post Office (main sorting office - as a superintendent) and this excellent and relevant background has given him a good grasp of the fundamentals of the English language, and the art of teaching it to others. He hails, as he likes to say, from Northamptonshire in England, a very glamorous part of the world indeed, and so is not at all out of place mingling with the glitterati of the Old Town where he hangs out on a Friday or Saturday night. He likes beer.

Hi all, sorry I haven't posted here in a while, the fact is I've been really busy, much more so than any of you.

I was mumbling to the white board through a hangover to a group of bemused students who just weren't getting it, misquoting all or any of Hunter S. Thompson, Blake, and Sid Vicious as I did so, that intelligence isn't so much a function of lateral cognitive ability nor even anterior conditioning as it is an expression of one's readiness to broaden the mind, through  taking a lot of drugs and reading in three months almost halfway through a 200 page book with a lurid pink cover, then spouting off about it down the pub

I could definitely have gone to Oxford or Cambridge, since I'm a genius, but I screwed up my A levels and went to Nuneaton Tutorial College instead.  Anyway I wouldn't have fitted in with those unenlightened people who called themselves an elite when I was busy opening all of the doors and windows of perception. This was 'cos I was doing loads and loads of drugs: gear, charlie, unabombers, vitamin K, you name it; there's nothing I haven't done since I'm so cool and I've seen so much more of the world than those hick billy government officials, company directors and airline pilots that I teach, no that they realize that.

The Guardian told me the other day to think that Chomsky is the latter day hero of the library-bound anarchist and I think this is true, certainly I was good enough to announce it in a crowded pub whilst having an argument with a spoilt brat who's never done a hard day's graft in their life, not like my upbringing in urban Towcester.

You know, I'm really pleased that I've got such a good mind, I was able to read the introduction to a biography  of Chomsky just last year, and applied that to a lesson once (by mentioning his name. Afterwards, when most of the people had gone).

Well, gotta go and observe a lesson and provide a pithy and incisive critique afterwards, and help some twenty year old who hasn't seen anything of the world

Most Effective Way Of Rolling Around On The Floor

Here's the old paper, stone, scissors in martial arts:

Brazillian Jiu Jitsu beats Wing Chun beats Karate beats BJJ.... except it doesn't, I don't know what does in fact, at least according to BJJ practitioners..

The PMC's Two Favourite Pieces of Russian Orthodox Music

..for what it's worth. A hell of a set of lungs here and here...

The One Person I'd Gladly Trade Places With

I believe this is real, not just an Indian David Blaine.

Apparently we all have it in us to override the 'lizard brain' and forgo natural desires that the vast majority of us gorge ourselves on on a daily basis

Bobby Sands and those burning monks in Vietnam spring to mind, although they all died of course  - this is the next level up, actual survivual for decades without essentials.

The whole area is perhaps much misunderstood in the 'west', although there are practitioners of these things I doubt that many of them are doing it for the right reasons

I just find it frustrating that we apparently all use the tiniest proportion of our brains in comparison with what could be.

Not advocating this as a way of life, just as food for thought when I'm next thinking about going to the pub, stuffing my face at the kebab kiosk or some other earth-crashingly original exploit like that.

Forced Inspiration Doesn't Work

As good an indictment of the coroporate brainstrorming meeting as I've heard and everything I ever wanted to say when I was "working" in the corporate world; Seth should be working at Skype.
Quote: "Uninvite (is that a word?) the devil's advocate, since the devil doesn't need one, he's doing fine". Ha!

Thought For the Day No. 16 - With the Rabbi Anders Weiss

..religious leader, psychologist, spiritual guru and arbiter of good taste.. .

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?"
 Rabbi Hillel

..but then he slurps his soup.