This Week....

I promised myself that I would write about both the pending England vs. South Africa rugby world cup final and the raw deal Native Americans seem to get when trying to combat casual racism this week. Two disparate subjects to cover, it is almost Wednesday, and I have a rather busy remainder of the week. Who knows, you might yet be spared. In the interim, here's proof that while your Porsches and your Jags might claim to be girl magnets, real men drive their wives' Subarus:

What looks like Frankenstein attacking an infant is actually me changing my daughter's nappy/diaper.

Excuses are Like....

Wow. Deciding to follow effeminate Anglo-Lebanese pop sensation Mika has really eaten up my free time! What with elbowing my way to the front of the hall during "Big Girls" after spending too much time dithering over which butterfly deely-boppers I should buy at the official deely-bopper stall, it's a wonder I have time to memorize the words to "Grace Kelly"!

Actually the truth is more prosaic: young family, summer, extracurricular demands, visitors, the autumn sports crossover overload and a more elevated role at work have all combined to eat into my blogging time of late. As soon as it starts to get colder and other things calm down I imagine I'll be back with a vengeance.

In the interim here's a lovely performance by the super Boney M. Good things seem to happen when I link to Boney M videos (Scout was born after I linked to "Rasputin") so perhaps by offering this up I'll win the lottery:

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A busy week- we have been hosting one set of grandparents who are visiting from England- and so I have had to hit snooze on the blog and other writing assignments. The compensations of being able to spend a week gallivanting around Maine in the perfect early autumn weather more than make up for the lack of keyboard time, however. Normal service will be resumed at some point after Monday, but until then there are a few highlight pics up over at the newbie blog if you want to see what we have been up to.

Scout hanging with les Grandparents Anglais #1 and les Grandparents Mainers

Around The Houses

I keep meaning to write something about the awesome horror that is NESN's "Sox Appeal" Fenway Park dating show before it is put out of its misery, but everytime I start my hands begin to tremble uncontrollably. Therefore I will content myself by refering all and sundry to three newish-to-me blogs I rather enjoy:

Knut Albert's Beer Blog
The adventures of a Norwegian beer fanatic who writes about the suds with such glee it makes me want to trundle to the nearest pub and slump in an easy chair with brew in hand. Maniac Muser and retired spousal unit: pick your poison next time you are up...

Growning Up In Maine
Ed moved away, but he's still a Mainer in his soul and has the childhood spruce-inflicted bruises to prove it.

From Here to Paternity
Scout's chum Hazel's dad: a much more eloquent take on Rock-around-the-clock-land based fatherhood than I have so far been able to muster.

Around the Houses Time

Its time once again for a quick wrap up of all the fun things happening in our little corner of the web, chums:

*Cuzzen Jim (my actual real-life, proper cousin) writes to say that:

"I'm on a mission. The lads in my pub quiz team have got me obsessed with this the last week. There really is no higher purpose than seeking to convert the entire OED into limerick form...."

It is a mighty task, but Cuzzen Jim is not alone. And if you want to partake in translating the Oxford English Dictionary into limericks, the info is there at the link.

*Public Radio International's "The World" ran a great story on Tuesday about remarkably successful Soviet efforts to map Britain in 1/250,000 scale so that the Ivan tank drivers would know where to go in the event they invaded. The interview is archived here. I wonder if Karl Marx's tomb in Highbury cemetery is marked, with cyrillic warnings to drive the T-72 around, not over, it?

*Dave over at Backword reports on the conservative version of Wikipedia, designed to combat "anti-christian and anti-American" biases in the orginal collective encyclopedia here. Dave quotes part of the entry on quantum mechanics:

"Quantum mechanics forms the basis for all computers and electronic devices today. Unfortunately, the idea of non-determinstic physics runs contrary to the Biblical worldview of an omnipotent diety. Thus, quantum mechanics remains a flawed, ultimately incorrect theory."

Love it.

*Listmaker has his 2006 Movie List up.

*Flying Rodent gets to grips with The European Disease (no, not gingivitus, intolerance).

*And finally, I'd like to welcome a new-to-me Maine blogger to the sidebar, as well as applaud the return of an old friend.

Housekeeping

It has long been a feature here at Wisdom Weasel that every few months or so your ertswhile host (that would be me, for the thickies) pauses from his head-long rant and his lame attempts at botty-bum jokes to collect his thoughts and tentatively reveal some of the half-formed ideas for upcoming posts. This would be one of those times.

About a year ago I embarked on a project to write short posts about my ten favorite paintings over a 12 month period. Like most major projects attempted by the British in the past 20 years, it is off schedule, and I have only covered six pictures (the last being Marc Quinn's Sir John Sulston: A Genomic Portrait back on April 27, 2006). I have to say I still find writing about art a little daunting although I have been buoyed by peoples' reactions to the pieces (I was encouraged to expand my short bit on Andrew Wyeth into a 3,000 word essay by Maine author and publisher Jim Baumer, which was very nice). Anyhoo, I want to note that I'm going to unleash the next painting in the series shortly: I want to take a look at Edward Hopper's Nighthawks at the Diner and some of its spinoffs and parodies. Look for it shortly.

Also on the quasi-serious side, I wanted to tackle two vexsome issues of identity and stereotyping. One will look at the old British canard that America is a land without history where the inhabitants don't speak English properly. The other will tackle the concept of being from "away" in Maine and about the conflicting influence of regional tradition and rootedness in a country with the most mobile population the world has ever seen. I will give plenty of warning before posting these so those of you who find that my more serious writing gives them a headache will be able to steer clear for a while.

Third, my friend Bio-Chris has sent me a link concerning a web cam where one can watch a block of farmhouse cheddar mature in real time. You know I'm going to have to post something on that.

As for the rest of the stuff I use to clog the arterties of the internet, watch this space as I am sure a myriad of peculiarities will cross my path as time marches on. For instance you are all very lucky David Beckham signed for the LA Galaxy before I was able to get it together for long enough to post an impassioned plea that he return to my club of Norwich City, where he had academy trials as an eleven year old. Consider yourselves spared by my inability to find or doctor a picture of him in Norwich kit before the news broke.

Around the Houses

I'm frantically trying to get ready for Country Mouse and my trip to Blighty for the hols and yet seemingly everywhere I turn I get bombarded with more work and self-inflicted side projects. Oh wah, what a bummer: to be considered competent enough that people ask you to do things- get over your whiny self, Weasel.

Anyway, the point is that with all that has been going on I have been remiss in my duties as a host and haven't been sharing some of the interesting things going on in the land o' links. So please accept this as my reparation:

The learned Rikki, Esq has a comprehensive and readable look at the US Supreme Court's consideration of global warming over at Arguably So;

Listmaker's Baseball Diaries are cranking back to life, with his usual retrospective of a season's worth of dollar beers, access to organ lofts, cheap restaurants serving American fare two exits past the ballpark, and some occasional baseball;

Margaret Evans Porter has suddenly found herself elected to the NH State House (on the side of the good guys) and yet is still finding some time to enjoy the approach of New England winter;

Flying Rodent continues to frighten small children and old ladies;

J. Edward Keyes' photo-romance recaps of Gilmore Girls means I never have to waste time watching the show;

And of course the Weasel and Country Mouse combo blog has sprung back to life. Play along at home.

Max Kelly: Diamond Geezer

From Max's "CabanaHavana" project
I was recently chatting to my pal Max Kelly when he mention he wanted to link to this blog from a page of illustrations he had done back in the day for a magazine column I used to write that also went by the name "Wisdom Weasel". Like the moron I am I completely forgot about the conversation until about 3 minutes ago. So I'm making amends.

Max- and Max's work- blows me away. He's one talented bastard, and he makes me want to write more off line stuff just so that I can get the benefit of his brilliant cartoons that so captured the mood of the story. I want to work with him again, so I had better get scribbling. Here's his home page.

They Don't Do Anything To Dispel The Stereotypes, Do They?

In football/soccer news, Germany beat San Marino 13-0 in European Championship qualifying earlier today.

Frankly, scoring more than 9 is a bit rude. Once you go past that mark you might as well rub dog poo in the opposing goalkeeper's hair, or shag the striker's wife on the sideline. England was much more polite, beating Macedonia 1-0 after the stringy noblet Peter Crouch fell over in front of the goal and the ball bounced off his odd head. Incredibly, it was Crouch's 10th goal in 14 games for England, which means we are stuck with the albino Manute Bol up front for the forseeable future. Meanwhile the French wrought revanche on Italy, beating them 3-1 and nary a reference to defiling the flower of French womanhood was heard from the Azzuri.

The World Cup is dead, long live the 2008 European Championships!

Housekeeping

First things first: in order to make better use of the Newly Wed blog jointly authored by Country Mouse and myself I'm going to post our weekend jaunts and photo essays over there from now on. The latest post is an account of our past weekend at Susan and Andy's wedding in Bootbay Harbor. This also means that this blog can draw down to its original focus of whatever garbage is running through my head at any given time.

Second, Infinite Thought has some interesting points about the recent terrorism raids in London and the quietly shrinking magnitude of the alleged threat. Much of the detail included in the New York Times story she cites is unavailable in the UK for legal reasons (the sub judice convention prevents the publication of material potentially prejudicial to a defendant's pending or ongoing case) and from many US outlets due to the gnat-like attention spans of the mainstream news organizations and the fact that it doesn't fit the overarching "holy-shit-they-want-to-kill-us-all" narrative so beloved of said organizations. It's worth a read.

A New-To-Me-Blog I Love

Christian musicians: all the ass but none of the premature death of secular rockers
Do you have conversations about matters scientific where your interlocutor is obviously a complete moron, making points grounded in a place NPR journalist and author of The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America Ray Suarez recently called "the secure bunker of ignorance"? Do you wish you were more able to formulate your devastating reply in understandable yet authoritative scientific language, but like me you are nothing more than a gadfly generalist? Fear not, for there is Bad Science.

Written by Dr. Ben Goldacre, Bad Science is a handy digest of inane stories and theories with varying degrees of popular currency put to the test of the scientific method. While Goldacre acts as a solo aggregator, he doesn't claim omnipotence or infalibility. And for those of you eager to argue that Goldacre represents just one strain of opinion in a multifaceted world of ideas, I'd like to point out that so did Gallileo, Da Vinci, Newton, Faraday, Jenner, Pasteur, Curie, Rutherford, that troublesome Darwin, and so on. Not that Ben is in that group by any means, but when pooh-poohing science remember that without the methodology and peer review built up over the centuries we'd still believe that humans were made by God from clay after he had created the earth in 6 days about 6,000 years ago. Oh that's right, some of you do. After all, evidence is for Satanists.

My favorite story on Bad Science in recent weeks comes from the "Fictional Epidemiology" archives. Goldacre reports on a group of Christians who set out to prove Proverbs 10:27 ("The fear of the Lord prolongeth days, but the years of the wicked shall be shortened") by analyzing the age of rock stars at their death as compared to the general population. As Goldacre says in his post:

"I particularly enjoy the way they take the average age at death of the normal population, and compare that against the average age at death of… some rock stars who died young. Rock stars who die young do indeed, on average, die young."

Fantastic stuff. And speaking of context free science, apparently my grandparents, Tony Benn, and myself will live forever. Cor, I love my tea, I really do.

I Got Answers!

She runs the tilt-a-whirl
Firstly, for some reason people are still posting handy piss-removal tips to the Urine Begone post even though that was a year ago. There appears to be a misunderstanding. I don't have urine stain issues, I really don't. I swear.

On a more edifying note, Country Mouse came through big time for me yesterday. Last week while writing about the Union Fair I pondered the lot of carnies:

"Going to the fair always gets me thinking about carnies. Last night I found myself thinking about how the whole thing works: do they lease the booths and rides and buy the prizes, darts, etc at a discounted rate from the fair-company like a gang of fried-dough sharecroppers? And where do all the Kid Rock-alikes stay when on the road? I imagine the more established carnies and carny management have their own RVs and campers (you see them scattered around the perimeter) but do junior carnies have to provide their own digs or does the midway operator own campers that serve as mobile dorms or bunkhouses? And what sort of vision of hell-on-earth would the interior of a single men's carnie dorm camper be?..."

CM happens to know an ex-carnie who gave her the skinny.

There are two types of carnies, "Rideys" and "Gameys". Rideys run the rides and Gameys run the midway booths. Rideys are bottom of the totem pole; back when CM's contact was in the game they made about $200 a week. They are responsible for assembling the rides and they have been known to consume a 30 pack of beer per head before doing so, so it is often a good idea to stay off the more rickety looking apparatus. Gameys either own or rent their midway games. Regardless, they pay the carnival operator rent per foot of frontage for each event. They buy their own prizes, balloons, etc. Gameys tend to make more money that Rideys. The work day for both groups is usually 8am to at least midnight.

As for domestic conditions, at the more wealthy carnival companies there are indeed bunkhouses: 18 wheeler trailers converted into single men's (mostly Rideys) dorms. Carnies used to wash at public showers (state park campgrounds, etc) but many municipalities have banned them as they have a tendency to cause trouble. The better carnival companies now have shower trucks. Gameys and management at these better companies usually sleep in RVs or their truck cabs. At the less salubrious carnival companies, Rideys will sleep under their rides and go without bathing for weeks.

I think I should rename this blog the Encyclopedia Weaseltannia, or at the very least Weaselpaedia.

This is not a world traveler blog

Anthony Bourdain (center, in hat): chef, author, and world traveler looking refreshed at the start of a trip.

Listmaker: teacher, baseball fan, and world traveler, looking shagged out after eating crickets and dodging the persistent boom-boom girls.
If you haven't been following Listmaker's rather brilliant Asian tour, I suggest you start now. if you are of a more foodie bent, Listmaker's consort Youthlarge has chronicled her leg of the trip here. Pack a bag and dig in.

Back from Vacation; not quite ready for politics

The wandering weasel has returned from his two weeks in the land of the long grey cloud. It was rather splendid to be back in England; madly partisan olympic coverage (more on the phenomenon of Amir Khan later), good old fashioned soccer star sex scandals ("the PVC clad grandmother was known to the other prostitutes as 'Auld Slapper'" and so on), dismal weather, lovely relatives and friends, and far too many cars.

I shall return to politics, diplomacy, and more weighty matters worthy of satire and pillory later, but I'm not quite ready to let go of my vacation mind set and my fond memories of my hols in Blighty. Thankfully, my good chum Al has finally sent me the link to the US supporters club for my beloved Norwich City FC. Al writes an enjoyable column for the site, I urge all with even a passing interest in either soccer or the bizarre antics of ex-pats to check it out. Too bad about the Yankees' logo on the ball though; that has to be sorted out before the site alienates 99% of humanity.

A Brief Hiatus

Hello All

Just a quick note to say that the Wisdom Weasel is off on vacation until September 1: mark you calendars...