I know the message toward the end of this two-minute video to be a fact; but the presentation here shows how something painted as one thing can well be quite the opposite in reality.
This is from the always-excellent artist Mark Crilley, whose work (and videos) I have been following for a little while now...
Wednesday, 3 July 2013
Tuesday, 2 July 2013
Alice in Musicland
Now here's one I've been saving for a while. You might recall the opening track of this musical version of Alice in Wonderland as the intro to one of the (several) live Vocaloid concerts I have featured here in recent months.
This is the extended version, by no less than OSTER Project, telling much of the original story in music, presented in a kind of pantomime stage format with the Crypton Vocaloids personified by a simulation of animated cardboard cut-out figures. We have the White Rabbit in a hurry, the Mad Hatter's tea party, and the Queen of Hearts, and a few other parts of the Lewis Carroll story as well. There are English subtitles throughout, so it's easy to follow.
It really does have the flavour of the Wonderland story, and is a mini masterpiece, well worth twelve minutes of anyone's time to watch and enjoy. It's infectious...
This is the extended version, by no less than OSTER Project, telling much of the original story in music, presented in a kind of pantomime stage format with the Crypton Vocaloids personified by a simulation of animated cardboard cut-out figures. We have the White Rabbit in a hurry, the Mad Hatter's tea party, and the Queen of Hearts, and a few other parts of the Lewis Carroll story as well. There are English subtitles throughout, so it's easy to follow.
It really does have the flavour of the Wonderland story, and is a mini masterpiece, well worth twelve minutes of anyone's time to watch and enjoy. It's infectious...
What's Wrong With Hempstead?
I have gone for walkabouts in Hempstead several times now, as well as my carrying of the Medway Millennium Torch through some of that area some years previously. I have never taken any photographs there or reported in any detail on my treks around the place. Why is this?
The truth is that I don't really like Hempstead very much: there's something about it that jars with me. It took me a while to work it out, including my most recent jaunt there last month; and it turns out that it is too hidden.
I first noticed this on an accidental diversion through there by a new driver of the Chatham Salvation Army minibus (we ended up arriving late as a consequence, that evening!) and have checked it out, on the ground, fairly extensively since then.
I have noticed that very little of the place is ever visible from any of the significant roads or places. It gives the impression that it is somewhat secretive – not in a hostile way, but more a matter of being very private. The design and construction of all the parts I have ever visited has borne this out, with no exception. Contrast this with, say, Princes Park, which is so much more open and visible, and there really is no contest.
Hempstead might well be 'posh' and almost certainly the safest Conservative area in Medway, but ir really isn't my kind of place. That said, it obviously appeals to many others who have chosen to live there; so this is not a poor reflection on Hempstead itself, merely my own tastes and feelings.
Within that context, I hope that readers here will thus understand the reasons why I have not felt inclined to report in detail after any of those walkabouts: it could well have been perceived, with some legitimacy, as an unfair commentary.
Note that this is hugely different from my findings at Twydall, which were valid and needed to be reported at the time of my visit, which I did. One day I might go back there, by the way, though not just yet...
The truth is that I don't really like Hempstead very much: there's something about it that jars with me. It took me a while to work it out, including my most recent jaunt there last month; and it turns out that it is too hidden.
I first noticed this on an accidental diversion through there by a new driver of the Chatham Salvation Army minibus (we ended up arriving late as a consequence, that evening!) and have checked it out, on the ground, fairly extensively since then.
I have noticed that very little of the place is ever visible from any of the significant roads or places. It gives the impression that it is somewhat secretive – not in a hostile way, but more a matter of being very private. The design and construction of all the parts I have ever visited has borne this out, with no exception. Contrast this with, say, Princes Park, which is so much more open and visible, and there really is no contest.
Hempstead might well be 'posh' and almost certainly the safest Conservative area in Medway, but ir really isn't my kind of place. That said, it obviously appeals to many others who have chosen to live there; so this is not a poor reflection on Hempstead itself, merely my own tastes and feelings.
Within that context, I hope that readers here will thus understand the reasons why I have not felt inclined to report in detail after any of those walkabouts: it could well have been perceived, with some legitimacy, as an unfair commentary.
Note that this is hugely different from my findings at Twydall, which were valid and needed to be reported at the time of my visit, which I did. One day I might go back there, by the way, though not just yet...
Monday, 1 July 2013
Medway Monday – 1 July 2013
How many times have we all seen this confusion of the abbreviation for 'it is' for the possessive pronoun, especially (but by no means exclusively) in Medway? It's particularly embarrassing considering its subject matter.
Avid readers of my 'blog will have found that (as far as I am aware) I have never made this or any other grammatical error in all my thousands of posts, so it can be done...
Avid readers of my 'blog will have found that (as far as I am aware) I have never made this or any other grammatical error in all my thousands of posts, so it can be done...
One Word
People have been asking me if the political side of my blogging might return one day. It's possible; but for now I am generally limiting myself to the weekly digest. What I needed to do was to cease political blogging first, to then provide space for signs pointing me toward the next phase of my life. I have had such occurrences before.
If so such sign is forthcoming within a reasonable time, I shall no doubt have a re-think then, probably a few weeks hence. It wasn't that strong a feeling at the time that something was about to happen, anyway.
In the meantime, I have had a request from one of those enquirers to sum up what I did during those five years or so in a single word. This initially proved difficult, as there were so many words that could have described at least an aspect or two of my efforts.
In the end, the word I settled on was forensic. It was that analytical, detailed and thorough approach I so often took that left no room for doubt or for my target (typically, though not only or always, Labour) to find a way to wriggle out of. Indeed, despite early attempts to do so, local Labour specifically – and known Labour trolls from further afield – found they had to give up as they were simply digging a deeper hole for themselves by persisting.
When such comments here dried up, they preferred to use their own platforms to try to combat what was in a few instances of my forensic blogging, but I'd often find that and comment there, keeping a copy of my comment in case it wasn't published so I could show (a) what I had written there and (b) that they had censored it out of existence, at least at its intended destination.
They found, after several such attempts, that this approach wasn't working to their benefit either, as I was able to counter just about anything and everything they tried on, so in more recent times they did the only thing they still could in order to avoid (or at least minimise) their self-harm: they ignored me, at least publicly.
Had I suddenly lost my relevance? No: behind the scenes they were following my writings even more avidly than ever. Even those local Labour folk I had never previously met gave the game away when I did meet them through give-away clues that either slipped out naturally or that I was able to eke out of them through carefully-worded conversation.
I have mentioned in the past how local Labour, especially on Medway Council, had for years been most afraid of me and a couple of other Conservatives then on the Council, so much so that they set their leading attack dog (technically an attack bitch, but that term is often misused nowadays) specifically onto me, to heckle, barrack and make snide comments about me in the council chamber.
It was the same individual and her live-in partner (then: they have since married) who tried bringing spurious complaints about me to the Standards Board for England and other out-of-the-chamber activities, and I have reason to believe that either they or someone else in local Labour also tried another nasty attack on me only this year – so they still feared and hated me even then.
My writings over the past half-decade hopefully helped people think things through more accurately for themselves, and in theory they should now be capable of doing so without assistance from me. Once you learn how to do something, and why, it stays with you, so I don't really need to keep banging the drum. Despite this, there have been a number of local (and national) issues that I could, I think, have made useful contributions to via this 'blog, and they have had to pass me by during these past several weeks.
I think the best way to look at the possibility of resuming a more active and regular political blogging régime than the weekly digests is to see what happens in my life during this month (i.e. July) and re-evaluate the situation toward the end of that period.
"Forensic John" might (or might not) then return in some form...
If so such sign is forthcoming within a reasonable time, I shall no doubt have a re-think then, probably a few weeks hence. It wasn't that strong a feeling at the time that something was about to happen, anyway.
In the meantime, I have had a request from one of those enquirers to sum up what I did during those five years or so in a single word. This initially proved difficult, as there were so many words that could have described at least an aspect or two of my efforts.
In the end, the word I settled on was forensic. It was that analytical, detailed and thorough approach I so often took that left no room for doubt or for my target (typically, though not only or always, Labour) to find a way to wriggle out of. Indeed, despite early attempts to do so, local Labour specifically – and known Labour trolls from further afield – found they had to give up as they were simply digging a deeper hole for themselves by persisting.
When such comments here dried up, they preferred to use their own platforms to try to combat what was in a few instances of my forensic blogging, but I'd often find that and comment there, keeping a copy of my comment in case it wasn't published so I could show (a) what I had written there and (b) that they had censored it out of existence, at least at its intended destination.
They found, after several such attempts, that this approach wasn't working to their benefit either, as I was able to counter just about anything and everything they tried on, so in more recent times they did the only thing they still could in order to avoid (or at least minimise) their self-harm: they ignored me, at least publicly.
Had I suddenly lost my relevance? No: behind the scenes they were following my writings even more avidly than ever. Even those local Labour folk I had never previously met gave the game away when I did meet them through give-away clues that either slipped out naturally or that I was able to eke out of them through carefully-worded conversation.
I have mentioned in the past how local Labour, especially on Medway Council, had for years been most afraid of me and a couple of other Conservatives then on the Council, so much so that they set their leading attack dog (technically an attack bitch, but that term is often misused nowadays) specifically onto me, to heckle, barrack and make snide comments about me in the council chamber.
It was the same individual and her live-in partner (then: they have since married) who tried bringing spurious complaints about me to the Standards Board for England and other out-of-the-chamber activities, and I have reason to believe that either they or someone else in local Labour also tried another nasty attack on me only this year – so they still feared and hated me even then.
My writings over the past half-decade hopefully helped people think things through more accurately for themselves, and in theory they should now be capable of doing so without assistance from me. Once you learn how to do something, and why, it stays with you, so I don't really need to keep banging the drum. Despite this, there have been a number of local (and national) issues that I could, I think, have made useful contributions to via this 'blog, and they have had to pass me by during these past several weeks.
I think the best way to look at the possibility of resuming a more active and regular political blogging régime than the weekly digests is to see what happens in my life during this month (i.e. July) and re-evaluate the situation toward the end of that period.
"Forensic John" might (or might not) then return in some form...
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