Thought For The Day No. 17 - With The Rabbi Anders Weiss

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

"Most people we consider evil are simply in a bad mood and cannot control their temper".

L. Tolstoy (again)

(that's some temper, Adolf - ed)

60 Years Of The PMC - Sputnik 1

Originally posted on 5 October 1957

We congratulate the Soviet Union on launching the first ever 'satellite', which is a type of metal body which goes round and round the earth.

The satellite, called the 'sputnik' (which literally translated means a travel companion, although it is travelling alone) was launched from the Baikonur launch site, which is somewhere in the Soviet Union.

It is a great day for humanity. We predict that not only does it presage human spaceflight within the next few years, but developments of such a pace that, by the year 1980 we will all be wearing silver suits, instead of cars we will be using jet packs to propel ourselves around, we will have our holidays on Saturn or Uranus, and we won't need to eat - all our dietary requirements will be provided by cosuming a single pill once per year.

The Ninja

Do You Know Who I Am?

Nice quote on the Park Inn Pribaltiyskaya Hotel in St Petersburg -

"I am Engish and expect at least a modicum of good manners from hotel staff"

Oh well if you're English that's another matter, eh? How about 'I'm Guatamalan and I expect at least a modicum of hasheesh to be made available to me in room service"...

suddenly the history and drama of a city which has always been a bit different from the green and pleasant land and which, as Leningrad,  saw 1.5 million people (more than the population of Estonia) perish in the siege of 1941-44, people reduced to making soup from the glue scraped from cheap furniture and all that, I suppose they ought to have epxected at least a modicum of respect from the Nazis? Fuck off back to Bexhill on Sea or wherever you came from.

Oh well I'm only half English.

60 Years of the PMC - The Suez 'Invaded'

First posted on 29th October 1956

It's going to be bad news for Mr. Nasser I'm afraid. Exactly like Mr. Hitler 20 years ago, he seems to think he can occupy parts of his own country without asking for British permission first. Not on your nelly, Sir.

I predict he'll come to a mess yend as our glorious forces aided by our spunky Israeli allies send him truly on his merry way, thus securing peace in the region for many generations to come. 

Sitting on the afterdeck of the surprisingly comfortable troop ship, HMS Bollockbrain, the warm mediterranean sun beating down on me, and watching the Fleet Air Arm's Sea Venoms roaring over head, I can't help but feel that Mr Churchill was right back in the dark days of 1940 when he referred to the British Empire lasting for 1000 years. Oh, wait a minute, that's a french plane, urghh are they on our side yet again? Suddenly got a bad feeling about this.

The Leopard

60 Years of the PMC - Executions Digest

First posted on Friday 25th January 1952

The next execution is due to take place next Wednesday at Pentonville at 2. a.m., of the reprobate Lonnie Keith of Stratford, East London.

Mr Keith, 12, who may well have fired a gun we've since been unable to locate killing a body which isn't dead yet, will be hung by the neck until he is dead by Mr. Pierrepoint, who hopes to be back pulling pints by lunchtime the next day and as usual is offering one of his 'deep drop' specials to celebrate the occasion.

Mr. Pierrepoint uses 'Whiteknights' Tootpaste, double the dazzle in half the schemazzle, as does Mr. Keith at leat for a few more days.

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