It’s an age thing

Over on what has become ‘the dark snide’, the omnipresent anti-Islamic element continue to propagate their tedium. I have to support their right to do so and am not obliged to read any of it. However, there is an occasional post that raises some ‘real issues’ and, in this case, some amusing responses. In all honesty I have to say that I find it necessary to curtail my emotional reactions, which are engaged by such posts, before I can engage in a rational reaction. The post in question is 67% of Britons want the burqa banned by riteway. Continue reading “It’s an age thing”

On this Day 66 Years Ago.

July 16th 1945.

At 5:29:45 am at a place in Central New Mexico already known as “Jornado de Muerto” (Journey of Death) Richard Feynman, barely 27 years old, removed his protective glasses because he doubted anything would happen, he saw nothing of the event but a purple blotch on the floor of the armored vehicle he was in.

I. I. Rabi said later “It blasted, it pounced it bored its way into you”

There was a crack like a rifle shot which startled a New York Times reporter, “What was that!” he shouted. “That’s THE THING!” replied Feynman.

Nearby, Enrico Fermi tore pages from his notebook into quarters and dropped them slowly from his hand, mentally calculating the strength of the pressure wave from the fluttering leaves.

Feynman at last could see, and what he saw were clouds “What have we done to make clouds in the desert?” was his first thought.

Robert Oppenheimer quoted the Bhagavid- Gita
“Now I am become death, the destroyer of Worlds”
He was closest to the truth.

The experiment was code named TRINITY and was the defining event of the 20th Century.

Within three weeks the two other bombs then in existence were exploded and the childhood of mankind was over.

Dinant

The little town of Dinant in the Belgian Ardennes on the river Meuse just south of  Namur is a delightful  place.  It is well protected by high cliffs and has an old fortress  on top, rather like the one in Namur.  Dinant has had a rather chequered history, suffering particularly during the war between France and the Spanish Netherlands.   During the First World War the Germans massacred several hundred of its inhabitants, but surprisingly,  given its proximity to  towns such as Bastogne and Malmedy, it emerged relatively unscathed from the Battle of the Bulge.  There are still old buildings to be seen in the Grande Rue as well as the church and old stone bridge.

Now Dinant is a holiday centre with cruises on the Meuse as well as boat hire.  The town has made the most of its riverside setting with cafes and restaurants along  one bank.  The railway runs to along the other bank with regular services to Namur and Brussels.  A very pleasant place to visit.

The inventor of the saxophone,  a Monsieur Sax, was born here – another famous Belgian to add to the collection!

Flash mob – Port Elizabeth

Ja well, this is credited to the NMMU (Nelson Mandela Metro University, most here call it the No More Money University, but when I knew it it was simply U.P.E.  University of Port Elizabeth)

This flash mob video is so cool because I go to this centre once a week, and the African harmonies at the beginning are typical of what I hear regularly.

I enjoyed it and thought that I’d share

Tall Poppies

Opium poppies pop up in my garden, unbidden. There are not many… well not enough for anyone to make a crop of the seeds anyway, nor to extract anything else from them….but they are rather beautiful in their papery fragility and they come up in serendipitous positions, along with the unexpected self seeded fennel, Aquilegia and foxgloves. There are of course other less welcome self seeded plants… but judicious weeding could sort them out – one day.

Now I’m off to trim the hedge. I may be gone sometime.

Phone hacking and bugging

Some years ago I went to a talk given by Wolf Bierman, the former East German dissident poet whose citizenship was rescinded while he was on tour abroad.  Bierman actually chose to move to East Germany, aka the German Democratic Republic, from the West in the belief that he would be living the true Communist life in that people’s paradise. Needless to say he quickly became disillusioned and his work started to reflect his true feelings about life in East Germany.  This of course brought him to the attention of the Stasi and he was spied upon and his flat was bugged.  After the fall of the Wall he requested access to the Stasi files on him and he read out various bits to the audience.   It was so mind-bogglingly detailed. Someone was sitting transcribing the tape of what was happening in Bierman’s flat. It was like this:

“Door opens. WB enters with female companion.  He asks if she would like a drink.  She asks for coffee. WB makes coffee.  Both move to bedroom. They indulge in sexual intercourse. (At this point Bierman giggled and assured us it was true!)   WB asks his companion if she would like another drink.  She refuses.  They decide to go out to eat. Door closes.”

Of course the sad thing is that some people  Bierman considered as friends were also passing information on him to the Stasi.  But it was the utterly trivial details that were so painstakingly recorded that amazed us.

I have always hoped that if anyone hacked into my phone calls or e-mails I would hear the crash as the hacker hit the floor, dead of boredom!  The scumbag would deserve it.