Status-Q

Seen on Twitter - sorry, I forget the source!

Tilly and I were walking in the woods yesterday. We passed an Ent, who turned and watched as we went by.

I've always said that I am politically challenged, and that anybody who expects me to be politically correct is therefore guilty of serious discrimination, at which I am likely to take offence. :-)

The political correctness pendulum has clearly swung too far over the last few years, and is now an appropriate target for ridicule. John Cleese rather nicely explains why.

Technology doesn't only help humans move around in new ways: This project at CMU allows a goldfish to drive its tank around the room.

Now they've done the difficult bit, all they need to do is work out how to explain to the goldfish what exactly is going on. I fear that may still take a few million years...

This bold new installation at Wimpole Hall asks difficult -- some would say provocative -- questions about the role of traditional art forms in a modern world.

Echoing the delayed gratification of the wrapped Christmas gift, the artist seems to imply that the projection of the sculptor's immediate intent onto the viewer's consciousness is, in itself, best understood as an ephemeral dualism.

The exhibition runs throughout the winter, and there is no charge for admission.

This rather pretty sheep was wearing her new Christmas jewellery to breakfast.

For 'Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy' fans...

I noticed that we had an old touch-tone phone sitting on a shelf, and since it's many years since we had a landline, I've been sitting here cleaning it with isopropyl alcohol before giving it away to a charity shop. I'm not doing a very good job.

Then a terrible thought suddenly struck me. For a brief moment, I have become a Telephone Sanitiser.

And probably a second-class one, at that.

Alan Bennett's wonderful sketch 'Take a Pew' may resonate with fewer and fewer people as time goes on, but for those of us brought up on the sermons of the Anglican church, it's still hilarious.

There are many different recordings of it out there, but none of them, I think, is quite as polished as the one I remember on an old comedy compilation album from the 80s. After extensive searching, it appears that this never made it online, and in fact, never made it beyond LPs and cassettes. I would have been happy to purchase a copy, but was unable to do so.

So, after finding a second-hand copy of the cassette from an online retailer, digging my old cassette desk out of the loft and giving it a good vacuum, and connecting it through a USB audio interface to my Macbook, I offer it here for your enjoyment.

(Download)

I love these nihilistic security questions from Soheil Rezayazdi...

Thanks to Rory C-J for the link.

I love this understated phrase from the 'Information for visiting pilots' on the website of Caernarfon Airport:

Runway 02/20 at Caernarfon is now permanently unlicensed due to the installation of two 152' amsl wind turbines approximately half way down the runway.

Conjures up some wonderful mental images.

"Go on Bob, time it just right... Oh, and roll as you go through..."