Bring Back These Production Values

As a comment on this Youtube clip had it, "what happened to TV shows like this"? It's an excellent short little discussion program on Plato and Socrates that was evidently part of a series. The lights going out at the end with Mastermind type reprise on the trumpet, whilst host and guest continue their discussion, I suppose puts it around the early 80s.

Well, they stopped making them, that's what happened to them, although Professor Burnyeat and Mr. Magee, since they are both still breathing (another comment said Burnyeat "hadn't chanfed" [sic]), could always get together for a reunion show - we'd happily host it at the PMC

Thought For The Day No. 35 - With The Rabbi Anders Weiss

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

She saw there ... the one who seduces another’s close-trusted wife.

Description of Náströnd (hell) in Völuspá, from the Old Norse Poetic Edda.

World News Roundup

...just in...


Portugal
The nightclub formerly called 'Scandals' has had a new makeover, and a new name! The club, now called 'Mr. Bigs's' [sic], located on the outskirts of Lisbon, now boasts two bars, three dancefloors and a new cloakroom. "It's like a whole new world" said spokesman and part-owner Juan Conceição. "'Scandals' doesn't exist any more!! Where the toilets used to be immediately on the left as you came in, now they're at the other end of the club!! And the wallpaper is different too."
Revellers are advised to arrive early for the opening night on Friday at eight pm sharp(ish) or better still to buy tickets available at the Lisbon Ticket Shop, on the High Street.
Associated Press.

Iceland
A car boot sale is to be held on the outskirts of Reykjavik on Saturday. Punters can expect some good deals - if our roving reporter's sneak preview of the Ásgrímsson family's boot sale was anything to go by. A veritable Aladdin's cave of booty was to be had, including a 'Now That's What I Call Music 4' double cassette pack, a space gun (broken), his n' hers matching dressing gown set (unopened) , some back issues of 'Murder Case File' including issues on Peter Sutcliffe and Harold Shipman, a Dambusters commemorative plate, and fragments of the original manuscript of the saga of burnt Njall.
Now if that's not something to whet your appetite we don't know what is.
Associated Press. 

Nepal
Prasad Kumar Dahal has joined the Limbo Computing ERP software copmany as its communications manager. The company, based in the outskirts of Kathmandu, recently expanded by acquiring accountancy solutions company Himalayan Software Inc.,.
Dahal, 47, who had previously been press officer at Microsoft Nepal, said "I am - delighted to have the opportunity to join the team. Limbo Computing has seen a strong consolidation in recent years and I am looking forward to contributing to its further growth in the future". Mr. Dahal replaces the former communications manager, Madhav Korali, who was enveloped by something last month.
Reuters.

Namibia
Back to school day, and long faces were much in evidence to day in the capital, Windhoek. Shops are already sold out of protractors and set squares and even those two holed pencil sharpeners with a bigger hole for a pencil of dimensions that noone has actually ever seen.
The local school bus fare has seen an increase too, to 40 Namibian Dollars per term, a move which local housewife and mum of three school aged kids Grenadine Kapere described as 'typical'.
CNN.

Poland
The Warsaw boys' football team beat rivals Krakow 2-0 on Sunday, to reach second place in Polish boys' league. The team, which trains every Saturday morning on the outskirts of Warsaw, recently enforced a 'sensible shoes only' policy at training and other team-related activities.
Team coach Jaroslaw Wolinski paid credit to his team of 8 year olds "the guys gave it all they've got, they didn't even need a talking to at halftime".
Although it's early on in the season, the team already have their sights focused on winning the league title: "but you have to be very good to do that" continued Mr. Wolinski.
Al Jazeera.

Thought For The Day No. 34 - With The Rabbi Anders Weiss

Those who make religion their God will not have God for their religion.

Thomas Erskine of Linlathen

What's Right In Russia?

I haven't read all of it yet, but what I've read has been somewhat illuminating.

I'm referring to the report  "What 10 Years of Putin Have Brought" (available in English)...well, amongst other things, what they have bought is more and more corruption (according to one index their ranking puts them alongside such allumni as Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone), hugely rising gas prices, a population fall of some half a million a year, a lack of activity in the face of the fact that per capita consumption of pure alcohol could be as high as 18 litres per person per year (when the World Health Organisation cites half of that figure being a critical level, over which consumption has an effect on mortality rates)..oh, and that's before we get on to the winter olympics being hosted in the hottest part of the country. Suddenly I'm feeling a lot better about the impending London olympics.

Since the FSB have been seizing copies left right and centre, and the host website has suffered Denial of Service attacks, we can only conclude that there is something in it..

Wackypedia - Laos

The previous ones are here and here.

Laos is a very pale blue liquid, slightly more viscous than water, that appears colourless in dilute solution. It has strong oxidizing properties, and is a powerful bleaching agent. It is used as a disinfectand and weedkiller, and in rocketry, as a propellant. The oxidizing capacity of Laos is so strong that it is considered a highly reactive oxygen species.

Laos was first isolated in 1918 by Jean Louis Schlesser by reacting nitric acid with citric fuckwish. Schlesser's process was used from the end of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century.

For a long time, Laos was believed to be unstable, because attempts to separate the Laotian portion from the water, which is present during synthesis, failed. This instability was however due to traces of impurities (transitional metal salts) that catalyze the decomposition of the Laos.

Er, ok..

Alecto or Alekto

An excellent English language bookshop if you're in Tallinn, if you're not please stop reading now...I think it's called 'Alecto' though a google search didn't yield anything (the second spelling showed a company of the same name but think it's unrelated).

But it's really there, I didn't imagine it. It can be found where Juhkentali peels off to the right from Liivalaia, on the right on the ground floor of an office building.

I was amazed to see multiple hardback copies of a history of the SBS, they must have picked them up cheaply somewhere, and generally a good military section if that's your bag, foreign language courses and dictionaries, fiction, biogs etc. Also a place that stocks a lot of ESL materials (booo!).

Generally nice for browsing and not a lot of folk about getting in the way.

Postscript: the shop is actually called 'Allecto', on Juhkentali 8.

Ground Zero - The New Cordoba

Sorry, sorry, one more Islamic post and then I'm done. This is just a YT clip which I'll let speak for itself re: the Ground Zero Mosque.

Actually I often disagree with the poster, Pat Condell, so in fact I'm just posting in the interest of balance...