white rabbit

Off I hop...

2012-01-25T23:04:00.002Z

The rabbit is not a liberal lesbian for reasons too obvious to labour but found the above funny and does find Mrs Gingrich the Third to be scarily fascinating. It's the hair mostly. Is it actually a plastic helmet or is it riveted on or what?

The circular firing squad that constitutes the Republican primaries is guiltily fascinating - as a car crash is guiltily fascinating. You know that good taste and decorum tells you to look away but you can't help it. With a circular firing squad there are inevitably casualties and the serial killer AKA Perry is the latest to withdraw leaving the repulsive Gingrich slugging it out with empty suit Romney, a man whose business practices are so unattractive as to make his fellow Republicans come over all Michael Moore on him.

As a peaceful man, the rabbit would not suggest that the loathsome Gingrich (it will be gathered that the rabbit is not a fan) be strangled with the guts of - oh - one of the other would be nominees would do nicely - or anything unpleasant like that but those of a less pacific bent may wish to consider this undoubtedly moderate course of action. Otherwise he will just seek to trade in Plastic Hair for a younger and healthier model in due course. Women of America - be afraid, be very afraid - especially if you make the mistake of getting older or seriously ill.

For the avoidance of doubt - as we say in the trade - the rabbit retains his highly qualified regard for Ron Paul but he's not going to win. God help us, Gingrich might.

Otherwise the rabbit has been invited to Northumbria University to hear Shami Chakrabarti speak. The rabbit has no idea why he has been invited but will combine this auspicious event with a weekend away staying with a friend who is singing in a choir in Durham Cathedral on Saturday. The rabbit has a front seat ticket.

In the meantime, the smaller small rabbit needs help with his car insurance. He assures the rabbit it will be the last time.Cue for a song...

Snaresbrook Crown Court and Dennis Potter

2012-01-20T22:49:00.005Z

Above is Snaresbrook Crown Court in East London. There have been strange goings on there of late. Stranger than usual that is. The advocates' lounge has been closed following concerns as regards the food. Of itself this would be little surprise to anyone who has ever eaten there but there is a particular reason. Namely what? I hear you cry.

There have been fears that the food may have been contaminated. With what? I hear you cry. Ermmm ...

Well it is not official but the suggestion is that traces of urine have been found in soups, sandwiches and salads. Complaints were made that the food 'smelled a bit off'. The rabbit was in fact at Snaresbrook on Wednesday afternoon this week but (coincidentally) had eaten lunch before arriving.

But here is the best bit. Police have become involved and are looking for - erm - 'someone with a dislike of lawyers or judges'.

No doubt.

After the Everly Brothers' Love Is Strange clip in the last posting Tony commented referring to the Buddy Holly version. Good point but not today - though the comment did send the rabbit on an excursion around YouTube in hot pursuit of different versions of this song. Above is the original by the relatively obscure Mickey & Sylvia but with a twist. The clip is from playwright and total rabbit hero Dennis Potter's Lipstick on Your Collar. Potter largely wrote for television as the medium he felt would reach the most people and Lipstick on Your Collar was a 6 part television mini series. Mickey in the clip above is the young Ewan McGregor. Potter used popular music to frame magical realist scenes as above. if I am not mistaken the cartoons are by those Biff jokers.

Potter, a heroic chain-smoker, became a playwright as he spent most of his adult life desperately ill with regular hospitalisation from arthritic psoriasis, thus making ordinary employment impossible. You can see from the hand with the cigarette the distorting and paralysing effect of his condition. His plays are (largely) great, he was great. I'd quite forgotten that the only time that he ran for elected office - in his twenties - he became so disenchanted he didn't even vote for himself. 'Nuff said. Except this...

He was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer - probably a by product of the medication he had to take for his arthritic psoriasis. He gave a television interview to Melvyn Bragg in the Channel 4 Without Walls series. I think it is the most moving thing I have ever seen on television. Here's a taster.

He had two months to live at this point, through the interview he is swigging oral morphine, sipping a glass of champagne and smoking away. He was also caring for his wife at the time of the interview - she had terminal breast cancer and died 9 days before him. The full interview is up on YouTube in segments - go check it out or here is an edited transcript. Almost 18 years later I still remember the emotional impact of the interview and thinking' I love this guy'.

For the really time pressed, here are some of his points from the interview...

Resist cynicism, invite criticism.

Remember what's truly important.

Appreciate the now.

Don't be seduced by conformity.

Nurture and cherish talent.

Figures aren't everything.

There are reasons for tradition.

Fight the commodification of public life.

Be true to your idea.

Put wood to good use.

Find your own voice.

Consider what you leave behind.

Always make time for your dad.

As the page these quotes are assembled on says 'cut them out and keep them in your wallet; it will make you a better person'.

Above is his gravestone in St Mary's Parish Church Ross-on-Wye. It connects with that of his wife. The inscription across both stones reads, 'All the way to heaven is heaven ... All of it a kiss'. It is taken from Alice Hoffman's novel Turtle Moon. Respect from the rabbit. Proud to be a fan.

Eve Arnold and Ron Paul

2012-01-06T17:42:00.000Z

American born but long term UK resident photographer Eve Arnold has died aged 99. She spent a lot of time photographing Marilyn Monroe. As - erm - can be seen. I'm sorry, i couldn't help myself.

Perhaps a little surprisingly, she was given extensive access to Malcolm X, the net result of which was a number of images.

Not to mention Andy Warhol, here seen engaging in some bizarre sort of exercise regime.

Not to mention Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. She wrote 'if a photographer cares about the people in front of the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument'. Okay, one more Marilyn.

On a totally different subject, the rabbit is constantly asked who he would vote for if he had a vote in the US Republican primaries. On balance and in the absence of definitive guidance from his friend Christine O'Donnell who is still keeping her own counsel (sort of) the rabbit would seek help.

Let us consider the field. we have Romney (empty suit) Sanatorium - or whatever he calls himself - who is apparently of the belief that the British lost the Empire because of the NHS), Gingrich (utterly loathsome toad), Perry (serial killer and serial dimwit) and the now out of the race Michele Bachman and her definitely not gay husband.

And there is Ron Paul.

Ron is aged approximately 108 and is seen here wearing a prosthetic nose as a bet. He is also - unlike the rest of the field -a genuinely interesting thinker. He is routinely described as the most conservative member of the US Congress but it's a bit more complicated than that. Let's do a little checklist. His deficit reduction proposals are off the wall but that's hardly unique and unlike drooling idiot Perry, he no doubt can actually remember what they are. He is generally against invading other countries and specifically was opposed to the Iraq war (right). He opposes US aid to Israel (right for the wrong reason). He regards the not medically insured failing to be treated as a consequence of freedom (hugely wrong - the non choice between private care you cannot afford and nonexistent free care is the absence of freedom). By way of contrast, the wants to end the US trade embargo of Cuba (right). He opposed Tony B.Liar receiving a Congressional Medal of Honour (guess) and is opposed to the death penalty (guess again - this is pretty rare among US politicians too). I could go on.

Paul is undoubtedly a thorough going extremist and the rabbit does not buy into his free market beliefs (although some propositions flow from them that are actually quite sound). He is however an original thinker and a challenge to received wisdom. As such, he has to be a highly qualified good thing. The rabbit might even vote for him if some bizarre set of circumstances allowed him to do so. Look at the competition for starters.

Have Love Is Strange as something for the weekend for no particular reason that I heard oit on something the other day and thought 'good song'...

GOTCHA!

2012-01-03T15:14:00.001Z

... to borrow a phrase - some justice at last For overseas readers, it is difficult to describe just how notorious this case was - and remains - here.

And a happy Christmas...

2011-12-23T16:04:00.000Z

... to all White Rabbit readers from rabbits large and small. Among the larger rabbit's resolutions will be to blog more next year and get round more regularly to linked blogs. We shall see...

Custody, Knob of the Week 8 and how the rabbit did better out of Europe than Cameron

2011-12-15T13:15:00.002Z

An update as regards the infamous Croydon Tramlink woman is in order. As the matter is now sub judice the rabbit had better avoid the substantive issue for the time being but one aspect of subsequent events calls for comment.

The Tramlink One - as perhaps we are now to call her is named Emma West. She is 34 and comes from New Addington - a place the rabbit has commented on in comments on original post, albeit less unkindly than as per a site called Chavtowns - Britain's Worst Places To Live (torrent of bad words and worse thoughts alert)- one can only conclude that the Chavtowns writer is a Tourettes sufferer and the rabbit is still pondering the information about the horse.

But back to Emma West - it is little surprise to discover that she has appeared Croydon Magistrates' Court charged with what is described as a racially aggravated public order offence - presumably s5 as SW has observed in previous comments. She was remanded to reappear in court on the 3rd January - in custody. She applied for bail but was refused for her own protection. She has now (last Tuesday) been granted bail but the original remand in custody has attracted little comment - cases with an unattractive racial or sexual dimension tend to result in an instant failure of the liberal instincts of the otherwise ostentatiously liberal. I have only had one client (ever) who in the face of an objection to bail 'for their own protection' was not anxious for bail despite the alleged risks and he didn't apply for bail. Online death threats were apparently made in Emma West's case - one may wonder if they were so serious that they over-rid the presumption of bail that follows from the presumption of innocence - a presumption that even applies to unattractive people doing/saying unattractive things! To post something threatening on the internet - presumably under cloak of anonymity - is one thing. Seeking to effect homicide in real life is another. The distinction doesn't take too much working out. I can only doubt that la West should ever have been remanded in custody in the first place.

The moon faced Tory twerp to the right above (as opposed to the moon faced Tory twerp to the left of whom more later) is named Aidan Burley. He is Conservative MP for Cannock Chase and latest winner of the prestigious White Rabbit Knob of the Week award. Burley is not facing criminal prosecution and is not and has not been in custody (okay, I don't say he should be but the contrast with Emma West is irresistible).

Burley attended a stag do with 12 friends in at the restaurant in the ski resort of Val Thorens in France. Bad behaviour - indeed seemingly criminal under the French penal code - ensued. Burley was unwise enough to be present - and indicating no dissent - while another guest, sitting beside the MP at the restaurant, was caught on film making a speech in which he said: ‘Let’s raise a toast to Tom for organising the stag do, and if we’re perfectly honest, to the ideology and thought process of the Third Reich.’

Ooops!

Later, after moving on to a British-themed pub, some of the group, many of whom adopted thick German accents, chanted: ‘Mein Fuhrer! Mein Fuhrer! Mein Fuhrer!’, ‘Himmler! Himmler! Himmler!’ and ‘Eichmann! Eichmann! Eichmann!’ One of the party commented ‘We are trying to intimidate as many people as possible. A lot have been quite offended, especially one guy who was both Jewish and gay.’

Double oooops!

The point is not that Burley actively participated in any of this behaviour or dressed up in SS uniform (as two of his party did - Burley is the one on the right - so to speak - above) ) but that he acquiesced in it - indicating no dissent at all. What happens next - which may include criminal investigation in France - remains to be seen. The rabbit will keep a beady eye but in the meantime a Knob of the Week is the least that can be done in recognition of his role.

As regards the other moon faced Tory twerp - the rabbit won £2.80 (two balls correctly predicted) on the Euromillions lottery last Friday, thus bringing back £2.80 more from Europe than Cameron did. 'Nuff said.

Ska, Knob of the Week 7 and appeal...

2011-12-02T16:53:00.002Z

I mentioned that The Selecter (see posting below) took to the stage at Fairfield Halls to the strains of The Pioneers' Longshot Kick De Bucket through the PA and promised some ska. So the first song selected itself. It was produced by Lee Perry and is the story of a horse race at Cayamanas Park, Jamaica. It is the story of the death of a long lived but wholly unsuccessful horse - the appropriately named Longshot - who died (during his 203rd race).

If this doesn't bring a smile to your face, check your pulse. You are probably dead.

Also played on the PA was The Upsetters' Return of Django - Wikipedia tells me the title is a reference to the spaghetti western Django. Didn't know that.

I've posted Louie Louie before - the oriiginal Kingsmen version - complete with lyrics to debunk the theory that the lyrics are in fact a barrage of filth - which they are not. Here is the Toots and the Maytals version, which wasn't played on the PA at The Selecter concert but did crop up on This Is England on the TV the next night so there is a sort of connection...

So for a complete overlap, played on the PA at the The Selecter concert and figuring in the opening sequences of This Is England here are Toots and The Maytals with 54/46 Was My Number - a reference to his prison number when serving time for possession of two spliffs. Watch the opening sequences anyway - they are a striking collage of clips of early eighties England.

Moving on, the silly season has come early - for overseas readers and the terminally inattentive, above is Jeremy Clarkson who presents a motoring TV programme called Top Gear that the rabbit manages to find hugely resistible. He is also a prize prat. Clarkson has caused an enormous storm by his comments on The One Show (another TV programme the rabbit has managed to resist) including comments that striking public sector workers should be shot. Specifically in front of their families.

Cue the most immense uproar - the BBC has received more than 21,000 complaints, 'Dave' Cameron - a prime minister - has pronounced the comments
'a silly thing to say... I'm sure he didn't mean it'. Labour leader and panda imitator Ed Miliband was in some danger of exploding with indignation. Most absurdly, the trade union Unison initially called for the Top Gear presenter to be sacked by the BBC over what it described as 'appalling' comments and then said it was seeking legal advice over the issue as to whether Clarkson could be referred to the police. Free rabbit legal advice: don't be so silly and get over yourselves...

Can we deal with the matter this way (a) Clarkson's comments were witless posturing but anyone with two brain cells to rub together could work out they were not to be taken literally (b) he is an obvious right wing knob (c) let's move on. He loves the attention so maybe stop giving him so much.

But as a parting shot, another White Rabbit Knob of the Week is in order (number 7 I think) and is awarded jointly to Clarkson and whoever from Unison wanted to take legal advice about dragging the police into this farrago of posturing.

Changing the subject yet again, the rabbit's seasonal appeal - Amnesty International are running a campaign - Write for Rights - to send greetings to prisoners. Not all the selected prisoners are political prisoners in the strict sense but all are cases where there are serious questions as to their imprisonment. This has been going for some years and in a number of instances has apparently made a difference. There is guidance given - for example reference to Christmas can get the prisoner in trouble in some countries - and a choice. Seems worth doing and the rabbit will be sending off a few.

Very finally - and belatedly - the rabbit did a guest post on the Charon QC blog on how he became a barrister. If you're really at a loose end take a look...

charm school dropout

2011-11-30T16:23:00.001Z

The rabbit will blog soon when less time poor but to be going on with here is a clip that has achieved some notoriety on YouTube. The Croydon tramlink is rather a good thing, but not when people like this are travelling on it. The person filming breaks rule 1 - make sure there isn't a thumb or finger in the way - but it soon disappears to reveal charm school dropout in all her charmlessness . ..

rabbit at the hop, an e-mail from Christine and Shelagh Delaney

2011-11-22T16:36:00.006Z

After the threat from Hank to find a way to come over and kick me in the head if I didn't go, it became inevitable that the rabbit would hop off to see The Selecter live at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon last Thursday. It was stonkingly good stuff - I'd quite forgotten what fun live music can be. The rabbit's companion for the evening was another ageing reprobate by the name of Bob - a serious Deadhead who turned up in a starburst tie dyed T-shirt and greeted the rabbit with an offer to buy him a Doom, an offer which was accepted.

The band came on just as the second Doom arrived, entering to the strains of Longshot A Kick De Bucket through the PA. The sheer energy was the first thing to hit home. 'I'm exhausted just watching them' announced Bob, plonking himself down on the merchandising table. Plus - Pauline Black (vocals) is such a little showboater - playing to the audience shamelessly with a twinkle to her eye. Gaps Hendrickson (also vocal) bounces like - well - Tigger.

Then the standards started piling up, Murder, My England (launched by Pauline getting all political 'I hate the EDL, I hate the BNP. This song is called My England but this is our England' - cue much cheering), Three Minute Wonder (launched by Pauline getting all personal 'You are all three minute wonders!' - How does she know? I wondered - assuming it means what I think it means).

There was only going to be one last finale to the main set - here it is compliments of rabbit phone cam services (Hat Tip to Bob for stills) - On My Radio

Equally, there was only going to be one encore. The audience were chanting Too Much Pressure before the band even came back onstage. Then the band came back on and joined in the chant - as can be seen.

And then into Fatty Fatty. But even encores have to come to an end - as also can be seen...

The encore completed, the PA blasted out Toots and the Maytals' 54/46, which the rabbit was reminded while watching TV the next evening, also opens This Is England . Then Pauline Black comes over to the merchandising table to sign books and records - and was this near! (see pic) to a starstruck rabbit.

Oh what fun! On a completely different subject, I'm sure - without false modesty - that regular readers will agree that it was only a matter of time before Christine O'Donnell succumbed to the rabbit's charms. Sure enough, the rabbit was greeted this morning with an e-mail from Christine. The header read 'you're invited to a private meeting'. The little saucepot! The rabbit is already licking his lips and making his travel plans. So that there is no doubt, the message is headed 'Dear Andrew'. A gentleman will disclose no further details save to say that Christine has come up with a somewhat implausible cover story - presumably hoping to throw the media off the scent - that the meeting is to discuss the 2012 elections. Can't see anyone being fooled by that!

More seriously, the rabbit was sad to learn of the death of Shelagh Delaney at the age of 71. She wrote her play A Taste of Honey aged 17 after going to a Rattigan play and deciding she could do better. She was something of a one hit wonder but did produce other work of some - although - lesser note. Above is a pic of her from 1961. Frustratingly I can't find a quartet of photos from 1960 of her smoking a cigarette, She could make smoking a cigarette look the coolest thing ever, A dangerous talent...

Freedom Riders Palestinian style

2011-11-15T12:58:00.001Z

I'm sorry to be serious again - normal silliness really will be resumed again as soon as possible - but this deserves wide dissemination - in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience and with an obvious echo of the US Freedom Riders, Palestinian activists will today attempt to board segregated settler only buses to travel to Jerusalem. There is supposed to be a livestream here but it may be jammed. i've got intermittent sound, stills and text - including from eyewitnesses to the right of screen. Expect violence and hysteria as usual from Israel.

November in England III - the banning season

2011-11-11T18:07:00.002Z

The ineffably useless Home Secretary Theresa May has taken a break from letting anyone who wants to enter the country do so by standing down the Borders Agency to save money (or something) while simultaneously talking tough on immigration to ban the Islamist organisation Muslims Against Crusades. Let there be no doubt that Muslims against Crusades are an odious shower, the mirror image of their fringe christian equivalent Westboro Baptist Church (whose god sure does a lot of hating but I digress). Both target the bereaved via military funerals (WBC) or Remembrance Day events (Muslims against Crusades). Now it is not necessary to support the idiot military adventures in Iraq or Afghanistan (I don't) or to fail to recognise the enormity of the damage done to the hapless population of those countries to intensely dislike gloating, sneering and heckling the bereaved and what ought to be their events. A predecessor organisation of Muslims Against Crusades planned a march through Wooton Bassett - a particularly sensitive location as it was there until very recently the bodies of British soldiers repatriated from Iraq and Afghanistan were flown in. The march - which no doubt would have been hugely provocative and offensive was banned.

These loons want Europe to be a caliphate. Frankly, I have no wish to live in their - or anyone else's - caliphate. What do I think of the ban?

I'm against it

I'm against it for two reasons, one of principle and one practical. Firstly, freedom of speech includes the right of odious people to say odious things. There is a limit to free speech, namely when one person's freedom of speech threatens or injures another person or persons. So where these individuals incite racial (or more accurately religious) hatred then fine, prosecute them. We have laws against racial and religious hatred We also have public order offences by the bucketload. Again, use thesse laws where appropriate. What does banning this shower add to anything?

That is the practical objection. The ban is merely pointless posture politics, its timing being due to the imminence of Remembrance Sunday and the usual Islamist threat to disrupt ceremonies and made by a politican in trouble. One suspects distraction techniques in play. Organisations don't disrupt ceremonies. Individuals and groups do. Such individuals and groups are in no way disabled from disruptions by this banning.

Theresa May announced in banning the group 'I am satisfied Muslims Against Crusades is simply another name for an organisation already proscribed under a number of names including Al Ghurabaa, The Saved Sect, Al-Muhajiroun and Islam4UK'

Oh well spotted! So that's what they do! Who would have known! As soon as one group is banned they set up another. Or more accurately they change the name. The new group cannot be banned immediately as they haven't done anything yet. When they do they are banned and another group pops up. And so on.

And thus the point of this serial banning exercise is? Okay - to answer a rhetorical questions - it does no good at all. Below with Hat Tip to Left Foot Forward is Theresa May banning Islamist groups, sorry playing Whack A Mole.

November in England II - poppies plus other musings

2011-11-09T14:02:00.004Z

It is a matter of no particular consequence in the great scheme of things but the rabbit will not be wearing a poppy this year. Basically as an act of protest at the increasing apparent orthodoxy that it is compulsory to wear one.

For overseas readers another short explanation is in order. In Britain and the Commonwealth Remembrance Day is observed on 11 November. In origin, it recalls the end of World War I on that date in 1918. Hostilities formally ended 'at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month' of 1918 with the German signing of the armistice. Of course it now includes the dead of World War II and subsequent wars and conflicts up to and including Afghanistan. Although two minutes of silence are observed on 11 November itself, the main observance is on the second Sunday of November, Remembrance Sunday. There are church services usually adjourning alfresco to the local war memorial and there is a national event at the Cenotaph at Whitehall.

The remembrance poppy originates with the red Flanders poppies of the battlefieklds of World War I and an American woman, Moina Mitchell who promoted of a poem In Flanders Fields - a mawkish and frankly pretty awful invitation - purportedly from the war dead - to carry on World War I. Red poppies began to be worn as a mark of remembrance.

And so it is today. Red poppies - made of some sort of stiff paper - are worn in the run up to Remembrance Sunday. Donations in exchange for the same go to the Royal British Legion.

Now in principle I have no problem with the way in which Remembrance Sunday is marked and have worn the poppy in the past. Remembrance is right, appropriate and can be healing. There is no glorification of war. It is not a recycling of Wilfred Owen's old lie. Although the Royal British Legion would not be my charity of choice, no doubt it does much good with the money raised by the poppy appeal.

But inevitably three things happen in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday. Firstly, the poppy wearing season gets longer. Traditionally, poppies were worn for the week before Remembrance Sunday. Now they start appearing in October. Secondly, the sense of pressurisation to conform and wear a poppy seems to increase with every passing year. For example, in a micro version of the insolence of office, a head teacher reportedly directed her staff to wear poppies. Thirdly, there is a heated debate about matters 1 and 2. This year it has even extended to the assembled mums of mumsnet. Nowhere is the apparent compulsion more apparent than on BBC television. Is it possible to appear on BBC tv without a poppy in the present season? Do they have some maniac at the doors of Broadcasting House with a bin full of poppies and a staple gun waiting to attack anyone presenting themselves sans poppy? I noticed that Benjamin Zepeniah on Question Time last week wore the white pacifist poppy but would the BBC actually allow you in a studio without any sort of poppy at this time of year? Evidence suggesting that the answer to this question is 'yes' is scant.

Veteran Channel 4 Newscaster Jon Snow does not wear a poppy. He holds to the entirely reasonable position that he chooses to wear a poppy on Remembrance Sunday itself but not otherwise. Of course a huge avalanche of odium is heaped on his head every November, particularly last year after he came out with the perhaps not entirely felicitous phrase poppy fascism. Below is Snow not wearing a poppy (nasty tie, Jon).

At least on the 12th November it won't matter for - well - 11 months. Completely changing the subject, the rabbit hopped off to see The Ides of March at the Greenwich Picture House. it's a good watch - go see. On one level its about politics but on another level it's about treachery, double dealing and bad faith - a cynic might say same thing really. One question struck me though - what chance would an agnostic who was opposed to the death penalty have of being elected President of the United States? Not much, I suspect. On the subject of President of the United States, is Obama feeling left out because he has yet to do anything catastrophic and heroically stupid on the foreign policy front?

How about attacking Iran? - that would be truly, madly and deeply dumb.

Completely changing the subject again, the rabbit saw a documentary about Everly Brothers tribute act Simon and Garfunkel on BBC1 last night. The documentary was actually about the Bmaking of the Bridge Over Troubled Water album. Paul Simon mentioned meeting a Vietnam Veteran who said that the troops in Vietnam listened to Cecilia and in particular to...

'Making love in the afternoon with Cecilia

Up in my bedroom making love
I got up to wash my face
When I come back to bed
Someone's taken my place'

A common problem, I'm sure all would agree. The vet's comment that when they heard that these lines were actually being broadcast, they realised they weer coming back to a very different America.

Some wag on YouTube comments that Garfunkel has one awesome moustache.

November in England I - Guy Fawkes Night

2011-11-08T18:31:00.001Z

Above is Guy Fawkes by Cruikshank, looking distinctly reflective - as well he might. I'm not sure how well the story of Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night (5th November) is known overseas. If it is little known in the USA, I'm not surprised as George Washington not unreasonably told his troops to stop celebrating it on the 'nothing to do with us any more' principle.

Fawkes was what would now be called a terrorist. He and a number of catholic co-conspirators decided that the new king, James I, who had proved a sore disappoinment to them by the enactment of further anti-catholic laws was best blown up together with his Parliament (the gunpowder plot). The main conspirator was named Robert Catesby and readers of twentytwelve will recall that the Gilbert family cat is called Catesby but I digress.

A load of barrels of gunpowder were stored in a cellar underneath the House of lords hidden behind firewood ready to blow away the King and parliament on the occasion of the state opening of the latter. To cut a long story short, the plot was discovered and Fawkes was found leaving the cellar, shortly after midnight, and arrested. He was then tortured (a legal note: torture is and always was contrary to the common law - torture took place under royal perogative) and conducted himself with considerable courage under torture but was broken in the end.

Having signed his confession, Fawkes and seven co-conspirators were duly tried, the outcome never being in issue. they were sentenced to be drawn backwards to his death, by a horse, his head near the ground. They were to be 'put to death halfway between heaven and earth as unworthy of both'. Their genitals would be cut off and burnt before their eyes, and their bowels and hearts removed. They would then be decapitated, and the dismembered parts of their bodies displayed so that they might become 'prey for the fowls of the air'.

Rather a stiff sentence, I'm sure all will agree. The paper above shows Fawkes' usual signature below and the faint and barely decipherable signature (to his confession) above indicating the debilitating effects of torture. He also died at the hanging part, thus spoiling his tormentors' fun.

A suitably pleased parliament, not having been blown up, passed the Observance of 5th November Act 1605 - a piece of legislation not noted for the restraint of its prose. And so it was, every 5th November Guy Fawkes was burned in effigy up and down the country, fireworks were let off and strong drink taken.

'Remember remember the fifth of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot.

I see no reason why gunpowder, treason

Should ever be forgot...'

But recently something odd has happened. The villain has become something of a hero. The starting point is probably the disrepute into which politicians have fallen and the dystopian film V For Vendetta which gave the world a cool Guy Fawkes mask (the rabbit has one - it hangs on a peg in his kitchen).

Suddenly the Guy Fawkes mask was all over everywhere like a rash. The libertarian blogger Old Holborn uses the mask to (largely) preserve his anonymity. And then there is of course the Guido Fawkes blog - the rabbit is not a fan of the latter, consisting as it does of a lot of self-satisfied self pleasuring but it at least provides a harmless outlet to Tourettes sufferers, ie his commenters. Oh and of course the hacktivists Anonymous who recently delighted the rabbit with their double whammy of an attack on a Finnish neo Nazi site and (allegedly) Israeli secret service and army websites. Nice one times two!

Strange days indeed. The journalist John Harris, who the rabbit usually likes to read, had a thoughtful piece in last Friday's Guardian on the moribund mainstream of politics, starting with 'I miss the Liberal Democrats'. The rabbit sort of does too - there is a lot of be said for radical liberals. Whisper it not but they are a great improvement on the Labour left as they are not in the same thrall to top down statist solutions. The problem is the non-radical liberals - the Orange Book knobs and the like - it seems that the Orange Book knobs have the whip hand which is a pity. Harris quotes Italian Marxist and rabbit fave Antonio Gramsci: 'The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear'.

Or as Hunter S. Thompson put it: 'when the going gets weird, the weird go professional'.

Part II of November in England to follow tomorrow. Apologies for being (mostly) serious. Normal silliness will resume soon.

rabbit appeal ...

2011-10-31T14:11:00.001Z

The rabbit was hopping down High Holborn this lunchtime after returning from a visit to the Big House aka Her Majesty's Prison Feltham when he spotted the above young lady with her billboard. Just in case it's not clear to all from the pic it reads:

ARE YOU LOOKING
FOR A MOTIVATED

AMBITIOUS, TALENTED

LEGALLY TRAINED

EMPLOYEE?
APPLY HERE TODAY

It struck me that for a qualified lawyer (her name is Annie and she is an Australian qualified lawyer who spent a number of years in the New South Wales Attorney-General's Office) to be standing in the street with a billboard looking for work is (a) a sign of the times (b) a sign of optimism and (c) shows guts.

Soooooo .... A rabbit appeal is in order. Any lawyer reading this and needing a paralegal should get in touch with Annie at e-mail annie_sobby@live.com.au - she said it was okay for me to put her e-mail addy up here. Or contact the rabbit via e-mail addy on my profile page. I have a cv for her that can be scanned and e-mailed. Like all sensible people she is presently based in Croydon. And no, I have never met her before and do not expect to meet her again. I'll see if the great and good Charon QC can do a link to this appeal as I somehow suspect that he has more lawyer readers than the rabbit.

Some readers may be wondering how the smallest rabbit is getting on. Even if they aren't I confess I can't help it. Well at 13 weeks last Friday, he's getting his sleep as can be seen.

George Formby mostly ...

2011-10-28T18:22:00.001+01:00

After spending ear earlier part of the week running up and down the country, the rabbit was pleased to slump in front of the television last night. On BBC4 he saw comedian Frank Skinner, a rabbit favourite, present a documentary of George Formby.

I suspect George Formby (1904 - 1961) is a mystery to overseas readers, but he is hardwired into the folk memory of British popular culture. He was a comedian in the tradition of Lancashire music hall comedians and a singer songwriter. His unique selling point accompanying himself on his banjo ukelele. It's difficult to get a grip on just how big he was in the 1930s and 1940s but he was mega - with earnings to match. One random fact the rabbit didn't know until researching this piece was that Formby was born blind due to an obstructive caul; his sight was restored during a violent coughing fit or sneeze when he was a few months old.

Hi songs are now real period pieces, little pieces of insight into a bygone world but they are very funny. The song above is the complaint of nerds and geeks the world over: Why Don't Women Like Me? Our man warms to his theme...

Last night I went out walking, my intentions were to click

But the sights I saw while walking out, they nearly made me sick.

I must admit I saw some girls, attractive little dears

Arm in arm with ugly men with cauliflower ears.

Now if women like them like men like those - why don’t women like me?

A mystery I'm sure all will agree. His songs are loaded with innuendos. In fact you end up with innuendo overload and everything becomes an innuendo, rather like Viz magazine's Finbarr Saunders - surreally I note that someone who is really called Finbarr Saunders is running for Knoxville City Council. I must drop him a line and ask if he is related. Here are a couple of frames from the Finbarr Saunders strip. For the record, the word between 'to' and 'it' in the speech bubble in the right hand flame is 'flick'. Tsk!

No, I don't know what he's really talking about either. Now back to George Formby. He and his wife Beryl became unlikely anti apartheid heroes. In 1946 Beryl and George toured South Africa shortly before formal racial apartheid was instigated. They ended up refusing to play racially segregated venues (when they arrived Formby - who was barely literate - didn't know what segregated meant but soon found out and didn't like what he found out). Beryl was presented with a bunch of flowers onstage by a little black girl and - thinking nothing of it - gave her a kiss. The result was uproar and the Formbys being escorted out of the theatre under armed guard.

The leader of the National Party, Daniel Malan - who was shortly to introduce apartheid - came to complain. Beryl slapped him in the face and unburdened herself of the immortal line:

'Why don't you piss off you horrible little man?'

Nice one Beryl.

Let us end with our man's Blackpool Rock - enough innuendos to make Finbarr Saunders (either one) blush...

With my little stick of Blackpool Rock, along the promenade I stroll.

It may be sticky but I never complain, it's nice to have a nibble at it now and again

Erm ... Quite so.

Lord Bonkers - beyond satire

2011-10-26T15:50:00.000+01:00

'The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which' as Orwell had it in Animal Farm. It occurs that the rabbit mentions Orwell quite a lot. This is a sign of approval, but I digress. The line came to mind on viewing - with Hat Tip to Charon QC - the above clip of some naughty Australian satirist taking the - erm - rise out of a person named Lord Monckton, a man so bizarre that it is hard to tell who is the satirist and who is the satirised.

There are a number of things to note about Lord Monckton.

Firstly, yes - he does look like that.Secondly, Lord Monckton is a prominent member of UKIP. For the benefit of overseas readers, UKIP - the United Kingdom Independence Party - is a particular rabbit aversion made up as it is of petty nationalists, xenophobes, saloon bar bores, all manner of obsessives and - how does one put this delicately? - self pleasurers.

Now our man has a number of odd claims to 'fame'. One is that he is the only person in the entire history of everything to have copped a 'cease and desist' type edict from the House of lords telling him to stiop claiming that he is - or ever has been - a member of the House of Lords. Yes, he's a 'Lord' but...

Oh never mind.

Well if you insist... Monckton is a hereditary peer and is of the opinion that 'the House of Lords Act 1999, which purported to exclude hereditary peers from membership of the House of Lords, is defective'.

So that would explain it. He has also been told to stop using the House of Lords logo (left) so our man uses the logos centre and right instead. Isn't there some concept of 'passing off'?

Even weirder, his UKIP profile (he is head of Scottish UKIP and of policy development, which is nice) lists among his achievements '2008 Inventor, cure for Graves’ Disease (100,000 UK sufferers) and other chronic infections'. Graves' Disease is - it transpires - an auto immune disorder that leads to overactivity of the thyroid gland. The catch is - he has not invented a cure for Graves' Disease - only he - and apparently UKIP - believe he has done any such thing. There is no cure for Graves' Disease.

Oh and the rabbit was amused to notice among his lordship's interests as per his UKIP profile was...

'Wife'

Which is nice. What a pleasant relief after all this weirdness to see that Christine O'Donnell has written again. Now what tendresses may pass through cyberspace between the rabbit and Christine is nobody else's business but I'm sure I betray no confidences if I quote selectively..
'Dear Andrew,

While running errands at my local Target Friday night I was unexpectedly contacted by ABC News asking me about my personal political contributions in the 2012 GOP Presidential Primary. This seemed to cause a bit of a stir, so I am writing to you directly to share my thoughts on the upcoming 2012 elections...'

Very thoughtful I'm sure but what exactly is Christine's local Target? Must be an American thing...

'I contributed to Gov. Romney, Herman Cain and I plan to personally contribute to Sen. Santorum and Speaker Gingrich. Let me clarify that these contributions are from me personally, not my campaign or PAC'.

So there we have it. Christine has contributed to the Mormon one and the bloke with the pizzas or burgers or whatever it is. I'm a bit surprised at Christine spreading her largesse so widely as she invariably seems hard up and keeps asking the rabbit for money. I can only conclude that the candidates so favoured by Christine must have a sound line on - erm - UKIP's favourite activity, something that Christine takes a dim view of. Below is Christine taking a dim view of... Oh never mind.

Ending where we began, with Orwell and Animal Farm, it is not as widely known as perhaps it ought to be that in one of his most disgraceful moments, rabbit fave poet T.S.Eliot as director af Faber & faber (publishers) rejected Animal Farm. In a letter from 1944 explaining why he would not be publishing the work, Eliot told Orwell that he was not persuaded by the 'Trotskyite' politics which underpin the narrative. To publish such an anti-Russian novel would jar in the contemporary political climate, explained the poet.

Eliot had been leant on by the men from the ministry. There was a war on and Marshal Stalin was our friend. The fact that he was a yellow eyed mass murdering psychopath was not to be the subject of satire in the public prints. 'We have no conviction ... that this is the right point of view from which to criticise the political situation at the present time. It is certainly the duty of any publishing firm which pretends to other interests and motives other than mere commercial prosperity to publish books which go against the current of the moment' wrote Eliot.

There's a 'but' coming, isn't there?

Eliot then goes on to say that he was not convinced that 'this is the thing that needs saying at the moment'.

Shameful capitulation.

a nip to the air..

2011-10-19T16:06:00.003+01:00

There was, I reflected as I made my way to the train station this morning, a nip to the air. The brief Indian summer is firmly over and the weather is distinctly autumnal. The phrase 'a nip to the air' comes from the Grateful Dead's Scarlet Begonias from Grateful Dead From The Mars Hotel - one of the best album covers ever (see below). This posting became inevitable in a matter of several seconds. Here - thanks to David Dodd's good works - are the annotated lyrics with theories - they are theories rather than explanations - of 'too pat to open and too cool to bluff' and the rabbit favourite 'the sky was yellow and the sun was blue'. The song is Robert Hunter's hommage to England. He's hugely under-recognised as a rock lyricist and up there with the best in the rabbit's opinion. By all accounts, he's a top bloke as well. A story to illustrate...

One problem writers have when they want to quote lyrics is copyright. I wanted to use a fragment of lyric from The Wailers' Duppy Conqueror in twentytwelve (yes that's a blatant plug - go buy!). I eventually tracked down whoever it was who dealt with copyright issues for the estate of Bob Marley. It would take some months to get a permission and there would be a fee I was told. I believe there is some scope for using fragmentary quotes (what's the answer Peter?) but decided life was too short to work out exactly what I might get away with so did a quick rewrite to have the relevant character humming the song instead.

Anyway, someone wanted to use a Robert Hunter lyric in his literary endeavour some time ago. Anxious not to blot his copybook and - well - anxious generally he tracked down Hunter and asked permission to use his lyric. Hunter's response was immediate and to the point - 'use what you like'.

Top man or what?

And with Hat Tip to JoJo, so that's what it's about! I went to an all male English equivalent of High School and I am so not interested...

spooky huh?

2011-10-18T17:55:00.000+01:00

After the rabbit's invention of Tea Partyer Hiram J Whackjob last week, he was startled to see in Steve Bell's If cartoon strip that Hiram appears to have a relative, namely Humbert Whackjob. It will further be noticed that Humbert is an elephant. This is even spookier as the symbol of the Republican Party, of which the Tea Party is the provisional wing, is an elephant. Spooky huh?

It occurs to me that the cartoon may be mystifying to overseas readers, by way of explanation, a very boring man called Liam Fox was Defence Secretary until he had to resign the other day due to his connection with a man called Adam Werrity who described himself as Fox's adviser despite having no official standing. There is an odour of special interests, lobbying and even a whiff of money changing hands although there is no evidence that any landed in Fox's hands. I suppose I had to make that last statement in case he wants to sue me. Actually I don't care if he does. I could do with a laugh.

rabbit as photojournalist...

2011-10-17T17:13:00.001+01:00

The rabbit was hopping around central London on Saturday, mostly for lunch with two of the nearest and dearest at the Wine Wharf where after discussion on Shelley, Byron and Coleridge (pretentious? nous?) one of our number claimed that there were no good writers with right wing politics. The other two, including the rabbit, exclaimed with one voice...

Evelyn Waugh!

Orwell said something to the effect that Waugh wrote about as well as it is possible for a human being to write but had some insupportable opinions (I can't find the exact quote - even with the help of Mr Google). Uh Huh. And before anyone says 'Ayn Rand' I confess ... I dutifully bought Atlas Shrugged. I accept that she has a very good prose style. I put it down after a few chapters. That was several weeks ago. I shall attempt to pick it up again but confess that it was not doing it for me on any level beyond thinking ' nice sentence' from time to time.

Coming out of the Wine Wharf having compared French and New Zealand Pinot Noir to his satisfaction the rabbit encountered a troupe of Morris dancers in Borough Market (see pic). Someone said you should try everything once except incest and morris dancing. Obviously no-one told the characters above.

The rabbit then hopped off across London Bridge in the general direction of his London office (yes - on a Saturday - very sad) and on approaching St Paul's Cathedral what should he enounter? Yes, the Occupy the London Stock Exchange event. Out came the rabbit phonecam. This is the eastern police line with the cathedral in the background.

Inevitably the visual media were in attendance complete with coralled off area.

Here we have the protestors on the steps of the cathedral. They had been prevented from occupying the Stock Exchange (private property etc). The police took their positions on the top of the steps to 'protect' the cathedral and move the protesters on. What happened then is rather funny - and like the rest of events so far - very English. The Dean of St Paul's Giles Fraser (who the rabbit has met and rather liked - he says 'fuck' a lot for a clergyman) thanked the police for their interest in the cathedral's 'protection' but declared the cathedral not in need of the same and asked them politely to get off the steps, which they had no option other than to do. He then told the protesters that he didn't mind at all if they stayed but warned them the bells were very noisy if they were planning anything other than an early morning. And there they remain complete with a field kitchen, portable toilets and a media area streaming the protest to wherever. Oh and a sign telling all and sundry not to litter.So far it is all very English and understated unlike the event in Rome on the same day, which turned into a riot. The rabbit was amused as he left the scene to see a tourist bus gingerly executing a three point turn on finding its route blocked.

Just because you're paranoid...

2011-10-14T14:28:00.005+01:00

After yesterday's message from Mr Damian Omen, the Tea Party disappoints today with a message from their friends from Americans for Prosperity - the message is 'tell Washington to cut spending' not 'get down in your cellars and prepare for armageddon'. Very dull, I have to say. C'mon, shape up Tea Partyers!!!

So the paranoia baton has fortunately been picked up elsewhere as revealed by Tony in his most excellent blog. Here is a list of 'must have' items for the paranoic who likes to keep up with the Joneses - I'm not sure quite which is my favourite - probably The Evacuchut, but if I were a woman I'd love scaring the crap out of every man in a 200 mile radius with the Rapex Rapist Dick Destroyer. Every home should have one...

And today's music? Well it's a no brainer really.

Oh and also following from yesterday's posting here is the New Riders of the Purple Sage's version of Long Black Veil. Johnny Cash and Dylan also recorded it among others but I think this version by their very stonednesses is my fave.

What's more and with Hat Tip to Laci the Dog, here is The Framley Examiner a spoof online version of a local newspaper which induced giggling fits verging on mild hysteria in the rabbit's case (follow the link - don't risk a ruptured eyeball trying to read the sample page below). Okay, if I had to nominate one favourite it would be the small ads page which literally had me in tears of laughter. 40 gallon drum of owls??? Enjoy!

return of the rabbit...

2011-10-13T15:11:00.001+01:00

The long drugs importation case has concluded (let's just say we came second) and normal rabbiting on will now be resumed. But first, I must have a word with my friend Christine O'Donnell. It's always nice to hear from Christine and she writes regularly - which is sweet - though she always seems hard up as she invariably ends up asking for money. Having said this, she naughtily seems to have passed on my e-mail address to her friends in the Tea Party.

Christine's Tea Party friends have been filling the rabbit's inbox of late with the most unutterable balls. Okay, they utter it but it's still balls. They don't seem to understand the word 'unsubscribe' despite implorings from the rabbit using this word. Usually the Tea Party e-mails are along the lines of 'I am Hiram J Whackjob and I'm running in the Republican primary in Nosepick. Idaho against Deirdre M Toadthrottler, the most liberal Republican in the known universe. Blah. Drone'. Nobody in the Tea Party can have any money as they always end up asking for money too.

Anyway, an odd message arrived from the Tea Party the other day. It is headed '37 Things You Should Hoard...' and is from someone the rabbit has not met named Damian Campbell. I assume that he is another member of Christine's startlingly wide social circle.

It starts Dear Fellow Patriot (I assume there is no point in telling them I'm not even American let alone a fellow patriot),

This will be short and to the point (You need to read this message and I want to get you this information as fast as possible).

Very thoughtful I'm sure.

FEMA has ordered 420 million survival meals.

Not being American (see above) I had to google to discover that FEMA stands for Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Why would they need a 7000% increase of survival meals?

Good question, Damian. I wonder if he is related to the Damian in The Omen by the way.

Warming to his theme, Damian continues...

Disasters have been pummeling the world over the past couple of months. Maybe it’s the X-class solar flare that knocked out all of China’s communication back in February (“X” is NASA’s highest solar flare classification).

Or the reality that our fragile food supply chain could be knocked by just the threat of a disaster (even if it was just a false alarm)…

Whatever the reason, it’s about time the Government woke up and started paying attention!

As your fellow American, I’m hoping you won’t put your faith in a system that is bound to fail, but that’s your choice.

Really there are 37 critical items that you can buy from the grocery store that can be the difference between life and death:

So here is the life and death stuff from Damian. I confess I've absolutely no idea what he's blethering on about but am quite sure there's an explanation. Think of the above as a rabbit public service announcement.

I did promise some more cricket rabbit pics and here is one from the first England v West Indies 20/20 floodlit game at the Oval. A rabbit complaint: his ticket cost £60 ($91 - American persons). Okay the ground was pretty much full so the English Cricket Board would no doubt say that the market can bear those prices but they are hardly likely to attract first time spectators at that sort of price. oh and the food and drink was a rip off. The rabbit had a Caribbean burger (sic) at £6 ($9.10) which although not bad was about the size of a button and shared some potato wedges at £3 ($4.70). Not to mention 2 pints of beer at £6.80 ($10.67). What it is to be a captive market...

And finally and just because it came to mind, here is the original Long Black Veil by Lefty Frizzell (great name by the way). A cautionary tale...

And finally finally and with Hat Tip to Charon QC, here is his take on the great global non-functioning Blackberry disaster.

Still stupidly busy...

2011-09-25T19:59:00.002+01:00

The rabbit is still busy and has just finished trying to clear the paperwork backlog at 7.45pm on Sunday evening. Three more sets of papers to go. Still, it hasn't been all work. The rabbit caught more cricket - England v West Indies 20/20 on Friday night - pic and comments to follow and saw Kill List last night. Review to follow but no time now.

It has also caught the rabbit's attention that The Selecter (see above) are performing at Fairfield Halls, Croydon on the 17th November - 15 minutes walk from the present rabbit residence - and the rabbit would like to go. But can't think who would like to go with him. Boo Hoo! First online offer to tag along accepted. How sad is that?

Silence and elk...

2011-09-18T18:00:00.001+01:00

The rabbit would like to apologise for recent blogsilence which is due to his life having been taken over by a huge conspiracy to import cannabis case. The case continues for probably another two weeks but normal rabbiting will be resumed as soon as possible. In the interim, here is a jolly story from Sweden to keep readers going with Hat Tip to Mahal and BBC news.

"A homeowner in southern Sweden got a shock when he found a drunken elk stuck in his neighbour's apple tree.

The animal was apparently on the hunt for fermenting apples when she lost her balance and became trapped in the tree.

Per Johansson, from Saro near Gothenburg, found the elk making a roaring noise in the garden next door.
He called the emergency services, who helped him free the boozed-up beast by sawing off branches. She spent the night recovering in the garden.

The next day she took herself off into the woods with her hangover.

It is not unusual to see elk, or moose as they are known in North America, drunk in Sweden during autumn, when there are plenty of apples about.

Other residents of Saro had seen the elk on the loose in the preceding days.

Mr Johansson said the elk appeared to be sick, drunk, or "half-stupid", the Associated Press reported".

Hic...

Bad taste day, la tomatina, appendage and gift

2011-09-01T09:27:00.006+01:00

With Hat Tip to Peter Harvey, the rabbit's attention has been drawn to an annual event in the Spanish village of Bunoi called 'la tomatina'. The streets run red - not with blood but with - erm - squashed tomatoes as up to 40,000 tomato throwers turn up and throw tomatoes at each other. As you do.

There are strict rules to la tomatina: the tomatoes must be crushed to lessen impact, old clothes are to be warn and tennis shoes are to be worn rather than sandals. One can easily imagine a sandal floating away in a torrent of pureed tomatoes. A common problem, I'm sure all will agree. Goggles are advised. One website announces 'there is no political or religious significance to la tomatina'. Ermmm... Quite so. It was banned for a while under Franco, though. Puts you right off tomatoes - as in eating them - apparently.

It is the rabbit's unpleasant duty to advise his readers that Hurricane Irene did not stop bad behaviour on the part of at least one reprobate as can be seen from this news clip. Such behaviour is of course to be deprecated, particularly in such a difficult time. Hat Tip to Tony who does an exceedingly fine blog. For those of a sensitive disposition well - look away now.

Continuing the bad taste theme, the rabbit mentioned the Velvet Underground's The Gift in all its poor taste in a comment on JoJo's blog . Apparently it originates from a short story Lou Reed wrote in a creative writing class but it's the way John Cale tells it...

Rabbit at the cricket, Libya, East Coker and Jerry Lieber

2011-08-24T19:08:00.002+01:00

The rabbit hopped off to the last day of the last England v India Test Match (that's as in international cricket American persons) and took some pictures on his phone cam. Here are the photos. Yes the game can last 5 days (as this one did) and still not produce a result (makes sense to me) but in fact there was aresult and England won and thus became officially the best team in the world and got a seriously dangerous looking mace as trophy to prove so. The game was at the Oval in south London, a ground the rabbit is very fond of. The above pic is of the Vauxhall end.

Above is a view straight across the ground from the rabbit's seat. I think it's Anderson bowling to Tendulkar but I might be completely mistaken about that. I should say that though I wanted England to win and do a whitewash, I wanted to see Tendulkar get his hundredth international century too. As it turned out, he got out on 91 and remains stranded on 99 international centuries.

For the sake of completeness, here is the view towards the pavilion end. the light was not on my side on this one. The players are on a drinks break hence the huddle of white clad people on the pitch.

By mid afternoon the crowd got skittish and started a Mexican wave. I think this is the Mexican wave heading our way but it isn't very clear. Sorry about that.

And this is the moment that England won. I detest nationalism but confess to being something of a patriot.

This photo is from the awards ceremony at the end. At first on reviewing the pictures I couldn't work out why I took it, then I remembered being amused by the small boy on his father's shoulders waving an oversized blue hand about.

While on the subject of small boys, here is the England cricket lion, purchased for the newest and smallest rabbit on the day.

On a completely different topic, I then spent until far too late on Monday evening watching events in Tripoli on tv. It must be said - although it gives me no pleasure - Sky News had the BBC knocked into a cocked hat as to coverage. While the BBC had endlessly repeated footage from earlier that day and talking heads, Sky had Alex Crawford on one of the Mad Max style rebel vehicles as it drove deeper and deeper into Tripoli. Compulsive viewing and huge credit to Alex Crawford who will surely win some sort of award for pluckiness and drama.

East Coker (above) is a village in Somerset associated with T.S. Eliot and in particular his Four Quartets, the second of which is entitled East Coker - yes folks, the one beginning 'in my beginning is my end'. Now Eliot was a difficult man and some of his racial attitudes in particular cannot be excused but I would give just about any body part (no, not that one, there are limits) to write poetry like he did. Try The Wasteland for size. What can I say apart from pure genuis? Don't attempt to answer that. It's a rhetorical question.

In any event a campaign is afoot. There is a proposal to build 3,700 houses nearby on the fringes of Yeovil on what is presently open arable land.

People need houses and I am against nimbyism (not in my back yard) but no. Not there. There is a proposal to go for world heritage status for East Coker if that is what it takes to stop the development. The rabbit says leave East Coker as it is!

And finally, the rabbit was sad to learn that Jerry Lieber of Lieber and Stoller fame died the other day. They wrote the above - among a lot of other stuff. Enjoy!

Of riots and sentences and even more Christine

2011-08-18T16:20:00.004+01:00

David 'Dave' Cameron, a prime minister, has not by general consensus had a good - I struggle for the phrase - breakdown in social norms period. I mention in passing that the rabbit has received an e-mail nominating Cameron for the hitherto nonexistent Knob of the Year award. You got it! Cameron has appeared peevish, superficial, not quite on top of things - oh and various beastly people keep reminding him of his Bullingdon Club past. Invitations to 'Dave' to give a rendition of the famous chant 'Buller, Buller, Buller! Buller, Buller, Buller! We are the famous Bullingdon Club, and we don't give a fuck!' are unlikely to be greeted with a favourable response.

So 'Dave' has gone for that old standby for politicians in trouble, playing tough. Oh yes, he is tough. Words can hardly describe the toughness that is 'Dave'. In full on showboating mode, 'Dave' pronounced 'what happened on our streets was absolutely appalling behaviour and to send a very clear message that it's wrong and won't be tolerated is what the criminal justice system should be doing'.

Now as a legislator, 'Dave' is entitled to alter the criminal justice system in any way he sees fit - not matter how idiotic - but where 'Dave' can butt out is as regards providing the mood music to a certain approach to sentencing. It's a seperation of powers thing. Inevitably Home Secretary Theresa May has joined in the 'tough' rhetoric. From Labour a deafening silence - Labour decided in the Blair era that it was never again going to risk the 'soft on crime' label and has duly maintained a stony silence subject to coded - even impenetrable - comments by Miliband (E). Grudging respect has to be given to some Lib Dems for actually standing up to this farrago of bully pulpit posturing.

Just a few comments. One subtext is the moral panic as regards Facebook/Twitter as if the riots were all orchestrated by these media. I suspect the proposition is overstated, as is the proposition that gangs were the driving force behind the disorder. Now gangs undoubtedly exist and are undoubtedly in many ways a menace but I do not accept that the events of last Sunday to Tuesday were instigated and manipulated by a collection of 15 year old Napoleons. When the likes of China or Mubarak's Egypt close down or hyper regulate social networking sites then we rightly cry foul. Some overexcited media talk and we are in danger of sleepwalking into regulation ourselves.

The proposals to evict council tenants if an occupier - not necessarily even the tenant(s) - is convicted of a riot related offence. This smacks of collective punishment - outlawed in times of war by the Geneva Convention. Why stop at eviction? How about some West Bank style house demolitions?

Sentencing - yes, some sentences are off the wall kneejerk responses. Also, the climate in which the normal sentencing guidelines appear to no longer apply produces bizarre disparities. For example in one case in Bury St Edmunds a 17 year old escaped custody after posting to his Facebook friends 'I think we should start rioting - it's about time we stopped the authorities pushing us about. It's about time we stood up for ourselves for once so come on riot - get some - LoL'. We are in silly kid territory here. He received a community rehabilitation order and a year's ban from social media. Meanwhile Jordan Blackshaw, 20, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22 - both of previous good character - were sentenced to 4 years imprisonment for inciting a riot that never happened on Facebook. Similarly and equally contentiously, a student with no previous convictions was sentenced to 6 months imprisonment for stealing £3.50 worth of bottled water. Over the top? Even in the context if a riot, the rabbit thinks so.

In a way most troubling of all - because of the presumption of bail which follows from the presumption of innocence - large numbers of people who would undoubtedly be granted bail with little difficulty in another context are being remanded in custody. It has never been suggested here that the particular problem of the riots has simple causes or invite simple solutions but the one thing that must be true is that the powers that be cannot imprison their way out of the problem.

Plus the rabbit is shocked to have to announce that Piers 'Moron' Morgan has so provoked poor Christine with his impertinenvce that she felt herself constrained to walk off set. There is no excuse for bad manners, I am sure all will agree. Hat Tip to Catchy

Apes, Knob Extra and Christine

2011-08-15T18:59:00.001+01:00

As threatened yesterday, the rabbit hopped off with no great expectations - and despite an e-mail from Boston, Mass saying not to waste the rabbit's time on it - to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It's actually okay. Even better than okay. I'd seen the criticism that it doesn't have a plot but in point of fact it does. Quite a clever one too. Good visually too. Go see. Ave Caesar.

Yesterday's posting was somewhat rushed so did not quite give the magnificence that is Michele Bachmann full exposure - but did give her one too many 'l' in her first name. Anyway, Michele has an unusual husband named Marcus who is involved with la Bachmann in a body - I don't actually think it is called Pray Away The Gay - but that is the general idea - which helpfully explains that prayer could rid people of homosexual urges and resulting in eventual be 're-orientation'.

Don't try this one at home kids. Andrew Sullivan, the excellent Sunday Times American correspondent describes Marcus to the effect of him being camper than Graham Norton which would suggest that all may not be well on the re-orientation front chez Bachmann. Mind you they have loads of children, Oh never mind...

More sensibly, our heroine introduced a Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act. No doubt a useful piece of legislation.

Meanwhile Michelle's co-knob Rick Perry has signed execution warrants for some ridiculous number of people including at least one apparently innocent person. Seems a very suitable candidate. Just like Michele.

Even more meanwhile, Christine O'Donnell keeps e-mailing the rabbit. Her latest news is that she has a book coming out. Here is the link to the Publishers Weekly webpage for this august opus. Go on! Post a comment! You know you want to! Most demented comment wins a Golden Rabbit (virtual of course).

Fawkes on state strangulation and Knob of the Week 6....

2011-08-14T16:45:00.001+01:00

Recent events have rather buried the story of Paul Stainey aka Guido Fawkes and his e-petition to restore capital punishment for the murder of children and police officers killed in the line of duty. He has no chance but 100,000 signatures and the petition is debated in Parliament. Suggestions that Stainey is simply on a self-promotion binge are of course to be deprecated.

In the unlikely event that he reads this, a question from the rabbit. If murder is proved against any person for the killing of the three young men in Birmingham who were seeking to protect their neighbourhood - and neighbours - then that would not be capital murder on Planet Stainey. In what sense are the murders of children and police officers killed in the line of duty 'worse' than the Birmingham deaths if proved to be murder and thus by exytension more 'deserving' of the death penalty? I ask as someone opposed to capital punishment in all circumstances.

Or are we in self indulgent bollocks territory here?

Which leads seamlessly to another Knob of the Week Award and the first joint award of this prestigious prize. The rabbit declares the joint winners toibe Republican presidential candidates Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry. Bachmann has recently left her church - a body being of the opinion that the Pope is the antichrist. Now there are many criticisms that can be made of the Pope but the criticism that he is the antichrist suggests not playing with a full deck so Bachmann (a) looks a flake for being a member of such a church in the first place and (b) looks opportunist for having left it as she launches a campaign for the Republican nomination, it presumably not having escaped her attention that there are millions of US Roman Catholic voters out there who might be less than impressed at the thought of an adherent of a church considering their spiritual leader as the antichrist. And as for Perry - well it is hardly coming over all Dawkins to view this as wholly inappropriate for a political leader in his capacity as such. It didn't work by the way.

While on the subject of knobs, follow the link for some innocent fun at the expense of 'Dave', a Prime Minister. Hat Tip to Nathaniel Topley via Charon QC.

I'll say a little more about the riots soon but must dash - with no great expectations - to see Thingy of the Planet of the Apes. Some clown in central Croydon was wandering about 'singing' the following song tunelessly the other day. He wins deputy knob.

After the riots

2011-08-11T17:58:00.001+01:00

A few random thoughts. The header is 'after the riots'. I think that's it. The killing of the three young men in Birmingham has caused such a wave of disgust that there will be no more riots. Until the next time.

The above photo is the most bizarre - as opposed to dramatic or tragic - to emerge from the riots. For overseas readers and the terminally inattentive the man in the middle with the red tie is Ed Miliband, a leader of the opposition and the woman to his left (okay his right, our left) is Harriet 'Hattie' Harman, his deputy. What is the bizarre bit is the unnaturally excited expression on Hattie's face. The man with the headphones is wearing a T shirt. it reads:

IF IN DOUBT PULL IT OUT!

Surely this prospect could not be the cause of Hattie's blissed out expression?

Best riot related quote comes from journalist Aditya Chakrabortty: 'It was almost Proustian. Except the madeleines were looted'. Ermmm. Quite so.

Most bizarre riot related fact: The Iranian government offered to send human rights monitors to Britain. I confess myself somewhat puzzled by the idea of Iranian human rights monitors. What exactly do they do usually?

More seriously, the man who probably stopped the riots is Tariq Jahan ,father of one of the three young men killed in Birmingham on Tuesday night. He was heartbroken and heartbreaking. I do believe it was his words that basically stopped the riots bar the shouting.

And the shouting will now commence, starting at the recalled House of Commons today. Two nonsenses need eliminating in very short order. Firstly, the riots were not about, or caused by 'the cuts' in some mechanical way. Secondly, nor were they simply about human wickedness without context other than the wickedness itself. This is not a nation at ease with itself. Remember that to the extent there are 'feral' youths on the rampage, there are also - as touched on recently - feral elites. Our rulers - politicians, bankers, media players - think the rules don't apply to them either. Then it becomes no surprise that the underclass take over the former Bullingdon Club role as Lords of Misrule as the former members of the latter move on to other things, such as being Prime Minister or Mayor of London.

Okay, and as a parting shot some more relevant Clash stuff.

Afterthought to riot diaries...

2011-08-09T16:38:00.002+01:00

There is a British propensity to carry on through all sorts of lunacy as if nothing is happening. As immortalised by this scene from Carry On Up The Khyber.

the riot diaries...

2011-08-09T15:54:00.006+01:00

Unless you have been hiding under a stone or engaged in trekking in the more remote parts of Papua New Guinea, it will not have escaped your attention that there has been a revival of the occasional British summer recreation of rioting and looting. The supposed cause is the fatal shooting by police of Mark Duggan in Tottenham (that's in North London overseas readers) on Thursday the 4th August. The shooting led to a peaceful protest at Tottenham police station on the following Saturday which lead to rioting in that area on Saturday night which spread to neighbouring areas on Sunday night which went viral yesterday. No, I don't think the rioting is anything to do with the Duggan case - his family have dissociated themselves from it. The motivation is excitement and greed. It is fair comment to say that the rioters - or some of them - are young people who have little or no sense of having a stake in society It is also fair to say that much of the policing of inner city areas is heavy handed if not to say downright oafish and stereotyped - but this is scant consolation (or excuse) if you have just been burnt out of your home or business by the rioters. So it's just plain wrong and to talk as I saw Darcus Howe do on BBC News 24 this morning of 'popular insurrection' is total rubbish. That it ain't.

So.... My day in riot zones. Yesterday I was at Edmonton County Court. At about 3 o'clock the message arrived from police. Rioters heading your way. Evacuate and close the court. Rapidly 'adjourned part heard' as we say in the trade. I walked down to White Hart Lane railway station with a law student and an interpreter who had been on my case. Now this is mid afternoon there was a lot of broken glass about from a series of shattered shop windows but the place was eerily calm. There were people about but nothing unusual. It was just like a normal Monday afternoon - apart from the broken glass. We got on a train to Liverpool Street. Uneventful.

After a couple of hours in the office I went to Earl's Court to meet a friend who is over from Macau. We had dinner and thereupon repaired to his hotel to share a bottle of wine. Both my children ring. Am I all right? Did I know Croydon is ablaze (I moved to Croydon about 2 months ago)? I should say that I had got a text saying that the Croydon branch of my gym had closed for 'security reasons' but otherwise hadn't followed the news other than to gather that there had been street disturbances in the day in Hackney, apparently triggered by a police stop and search. My gym is in Surrey Street, Croydon. The below image is from Surrey Street last night. It is of a woman jumping from her first floor flat. Police at street level are waiting to catch her.

I decided I'd better get back. I travel to Victoria station - again uneventfully. At the back of my mind is the thought that maybe trains to East Croydon (my local station) have been cancelled. No - there is a train stopping at East Croydon leaving in about 5 minutes. I'm on it. It stops at Clapham Junction and then on to East Croydon. Older son is still concerned.

There follow a series of texts. Let the texts take up the story:

White Rabbit: So far so good. Got to Clapham Junction safely.

Older son: Get out of Junction. There are hundreds of kids tearing it apart.

WR: Station was fine. passed through it now.

The railway station was completely peaceful. No sign of the mayhem outside.

OS: Ok cool. Yeah they are completely fucking up Clapham Junction. The riot is a big thing :0

Younger son later told me he was driving through Clapham Junction and kids with stolen televisions were running across his path. He got back safely and kept checking if I was all right. They are good like that.

After a historical digression as regards Brixton (see image below from Brixton last night), there are exchanges about copycat activities in Birmingham.

The train stops at Selhurst. This is not a scheduled stop, I don't like this. Have they closed East Croydon and are planning to turf us out at Selhurst?The idea of walking from Selhurst through a riot zone or trying to find a cab is not attractive.

WR: Train stopped at Selhurst.

WR: Ah - moved again.

OS: LOL

I got to East Croydon. Lots of police on station forecourt. Only one exit still opened. I walk through. A large group of people on the other side of the road. No hostility or anything. They are just standing around. I head briskly back to the flat - a ten minute walk. My ex texts to see if I am all right. I call her, son and friend from earlier that evening. Yes, I'm fine thank you. Meanwhile in another part of central Croydon...

May you live in interesting times. Only one song to end this posting with... For more images follow this link.

Okay, I can't help it...

2011-08-07T14:30:00.002+01:00

Okay, I'd promised myself no babypics on White Rabbit but just one can't hurt can it? Anyway, it's August and no-one's looking. Above is baby's first trip to a restaurant - okay Pizza Express as can be seen from the menu - aged 8 days. He has just been fed and filled a nappy so looks appropriately relaxed. The smallest small rabbit still doesn't have a name but is known to a number of people including his grandfather as 'Clint' - the baby with no name after the man with no name. All will become clear... Oh and the object middle right edge of the photo isnt Thing from The Munsters but his father's (still connected) right hand.

The thought police stopped in their tracks...

2011-08-02T17:12:00.002+01:00

About the first thing taught to the law student is that there is no such thing in English law as thought crime. Or to put it another way, people are tried for what it is said they did and not for what they are.

No-one appears to have told PC Plod aka the City of Westminster police's - erm - counter terrorist focus desk (sic) who have communicated with local businesses and residents to the effect that informing on anarchists to the local old bill - just for being anarchists - is a worthy activity. 'Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local police' they pronounce.

Sex and travel spring to mind as an appropriate response. The City of Westminster police whatever-it-is lumped anarchists together with Islamist terrorists (but not the EDL). It has been pointed out that to be an anarchist is not to be a criminal, that anarchists advocate grassroots organising as opposed to acts of terrorism and that some anarchists are also pacifists. They may not be constitutionalists but - at the risk of labouring the point - we do not have thoughtcrime.

Happily, plod has become embarrassed by the episode. Cue a climbdown by Belgravia's finest. The call for finger pointing - sorry information 'could have been better worded' Scotland Yard admitted. Indeed it could. 'The Metropolitan police service does not seek to stigmatise those people with legitimate political views' we are reassured.

Oh good. Some basic 'how not to make an idiot of yourself' training seems in order. The rabbit confesses to very mild and wishy washy anarchist sympathies - but don't tell the Belgravia police.

Meanwhile, an interesting idea has been floated as a response to what its proposers calls 'feral elites' - political (as in MP's expenses), financial (bankers' bonuses and conduct generally - 'nuff said?) and media (just the word 'Murdoch' will suffice methinks).

Just as Leona Helmsley notoriously said 'only the little people pay taxes' our rulers appear to hold the unshakeable conviction that the rules are only for the little people and not for them. They apparently have some sort of dispensation.

A People's Jury of a thousand citizens has been proposed. It's an interesting idea. Watch this space. The rabbit apologises if some recent postings have been dangerously near to serious. Usual silliness will be resumed as soon as possible. Didn't we do well by the way?

Sex and drugs and Members of Parliament....

2011-07-31T14:54:00.003+01:00

The above named chapess is named Louise Mensch - Louise Bagshawe as was until her recent marriage. She is Conservative MP for Corby, which - let the record show - is a dump. She attracted a certain amount of attention in failing to ask any seriously searching questions to Papa and Baby Doch when they were before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons (a failure she shares with the rest of the Committee with the partial exception of Tom Watson MP).

An 'investigative journalist' has been on our heroine's case. He goes by the name of David Jones but may be just about anybody. Feel free to drop him a virtual line if curious - like so davidjones1232@gmail.com and ask. 'Jones' has failed to state what newspaper or magazine he was proposing to place the 'story' of our Louise's somewhat historic misdemeanours in. 'What misdemeanours?' I hear overseas readers - and no doubt some British ones - cry?

Well...

The Jones 'indictment' reads as follows... 'Whilst working at EMI, in the 1990s, you (Mensch) took drugs with Nigel Kennedy at Ronnie Scott's in Birmingham, including dancing on a dance floor, whilst drunk, with Mr Kennedy, in front of journalists'

Poor sentence construction there but I digress...

La Mensch's response? She said she couldn't remember but the incident 'sounds highly probable' .

Probably too stoned to remember.

Seriously, as responses go that one has class. Warming to her theme, Louise confesses 'since I was in my twenties, I'm sure it was not the only incident of the kind; we all do idiotic things when young. I am not a very good dancer and must apologise to any and all journalists who were forced to watch me dance that night at Ronnie Scott's'.

The rabbit trusts the apology soothes any distress experienced by the assembled reptiles.

Oh and it turned out that la Mensch was fired from EMI. In the rabbit's opinion, anyone who has never been fired by an employer is too much of a goody goody to be allowed out. 'Jones' alleges that she was fired for writing fiction with a sexual content (aka chick lit) in working hours. 'It (the writing) was all done after work hours. It was also not why I was fired by EMI. "Leaving work early"and "missing the odd day at work" along with "inappropriate dress" were the reasons quoted to me'.

The rabbit is not generally a fan of Conservatives but the more he learns of this person, the more he likes her. Tragically, no further details are given of the "inappropriate dress".

Given the investigations into tabloid hacking, a conspiracy theory can be created around these 'investigations'. The rabbit's hunch is that just some random idiot with no judgement is behind the non-story. In any event, one person comes out of the story with credit and his name ain't Jones.

Some Grateful Dead for the weekend...

2011-07-30T19:25:00.000+01:00

Things a bit hectic as may be imagined after recent events but I was playing some Dead on YouTube while trying to catch up with work things and here are a coupleI don't think I've posted this version of Uncle John's Band - from the Radio City Halloween concert 1980 before, But if I have - enjoy again anyway.

I've certainly never posted this clip - New Speedway Boogie - Toronto 1970 as I've never come across it before. The film quality is a bit hazy but these things can't be helped. Note Pigpen on harp. The song is about Altamont yenno.

One more? Oh okay then - Sugar Magnolia Stanford University 9th February 1973. I think it must be sound only with assorted concert clips and stills added. If this doesn't get you moving then check your pulse. You are probably dead.

Knob of the Week 5

2011-07-29T15:56:00.001+01:00

Just to show that grandparenthood has not mellowed the rabbit much, here is the fifth in what is turning into a more than occasional series - White Rabbit Knob of the Week. For snobbery above and beyond the call of duty and indifference to our liberties, this week's winner of the august award is John Beveridge QC (above). Our man is concerned about protests and has called on theresa May, a Home Secretary, to ban 'left-wing' marches in Piccadilly after damage to the Ritz at anti-cuts protests earlier this year.

Adding much to the sum total of human knowledge, he announced that such marches attracted 'ragtag protesters who 'become violent and urinate all over the place'.

Ermmm... Simultaneously?

Warming to his theme, Beveridge adds 'I have written to the Home Secretary, who has responded in the usual pusillanimous and ambiguous way, that these marches should be sent on routes that don’t take them past Fortnum and Mason and Cartier and the Ritz, that pass ordinary shops that won’t so inflame them. There’s no fun for them in attacking Safeway or Costcutter, but they love beating up the Ritz

The Home Secretary should have a bit more political guts and say that this type of march must be diverted elsewhere'

Asked if he was concerned such restrictions might infringe on some democratic rights, he said he 'couldn’t care less'.

The couldn't care less bit is the clincher. Consider yourself awarded Knob of the Week...

As an equal opportunity blogger the rabbit is pleased to award Deputy Knob of the Week to the first female person to reach such distinction, namely U.S. Alternate Representative to the UN Rosemary DiCarlo for opposing Palestine's application to the UN for full membership status on the grounds that it is 'unilateral'. Putting aside the point that with 120 supporting countries, this a somewhat odd example of unilateral....

Ermmm....
Wasn't the American Declaration of Independence just a touch unilateral?

The rabbit is a grandfather

2011-07-29T15:20:00.000+01:00

Baby boy - no name yet - safely arrived at St Thomas' Hospital this morning!

Fat Freddy's Cat, Hawkwind and Deputy Knob

2011-07-25T19:09:00.004+01:00

The rabbit has been asked, 'who is Fat Freddy's Cat'? A reasonable question, I am sure all will agree. There is a context, Namely that the rabbit's Yahoo identity is 'fatfreddyscat'. The answer is that Fat Freddy's Cat was a spinoff cartoon strip from Gilbert Shelton's Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers cartoon strips. Fat Freddy was the obtuse, dope addled Freak Brother (okay they were all dope addled but Freddy was particularly dim). His cat, on the other hand, was brighter than him. Not that this was difficult.

He was in the of habit of showing his contempt for the brothers by various tricks such as using their headphones as an - erm - cat toilet and clawing upon their black vinyl.

Beyond being a put upon subverter of human stupidity, Fat Freddy's Cat was constantly put upon himself by an array of feline nephews and nieces.

So that's about it. Save to say that so far as I know he didn't have a name apart from 'Fat Freddy's Cat' which is plainly nonsense (okay apart from apparently 'Uncle F' which doesn't count) as it is a truth universally acknowledged that all cats have names. Except for the feral ones and Fat Freddy's Cat was not a feral cat.

The rabbit has been greatly entertained by the Friday night rock stuff on BBC4 of late. Friday before last was Kinks night which was huge fun and last Friday there was a documentary about stoned rockers Hawkwind who were really known for two things. Firstly, they had a dancer called Stacia who was 6 foot 2 and had 52 inch breasts. She used to take her clothes off and dance. She also painted herself blue in the manner of an ancient Briton. As you do. Secondly, Lemmy, later of Motörhead, was their bassist for a while - apaprently a difficult relationship (wrong sort of drugs on Lemmy's part).

The rabbit's favourite Hawkwind story is that they once turned off for a concert more than usually over-refreshed on assorted pharmaceuticals, stumbled onstage and came out with the immortal line 'we'd like to get it together but we don't think we can' and stumbled back offstage. They were part of the group who rejected the Isle of Wight festival on the grounds that music should be free and played outside the perimeter. They would reputedly often turn down paying concerts to play free ones. The rabbit was going to put up their only major hit Silver Machine only to find 'embedding disabled by request'. Guys! Guys! What is going on here? Pension fund to top up? Anyway, Hurry On Sundown makes an okay substitute.

Simply Wondered - who the rabbit has previously opined should write more - he does it very well, complains following last week's Knob of the Week to the effect that knobs in high places rather exclude the ordinary knob in the street. I suppose he has a point albeit that one previous winner of this prestigious award, 'Cranmer', is a mere blogger so there is hope for all. But in the interests of fairness, a new award namely Deputy Knob is awarded to the utterly anonymous bloke who spent the entire journey on the 7.58 Thameslink from East Croydon to City Thameslink last Friday snogging an overweight young woman. It's not so much the snogging that wins this prestigious award but the fact that every time he came up for air between snogs he made a snorting noise. Memo to Deputy Knob: this is really not nice. Do not do this in a public place.

Lucian Freud, overdoing it and Knob of the Week 4

2011-07-23T17:49:00.003+01:00

The rabbit was sad to learn of the death of British artist Lucian Freud at the age of 88 last Wednesday. Above is his self-portrait Reflection. Freud's early works owed much to surrealism but started in his 30s to paint portraits, usually nudes to the exclusion of pretty much everything else.

Above is an early Freud portrait - Girl with a white dog from 1951-2. The sitter is in fact his first wife, Kitty. Freud had extraordinary rapport with his sitters - which is just as well as he took up a very large amount of their time - up to a year. 'You are the centre of his world while he paints you. But then he moves on to someone else' said one.

Many of his portaraits are nudes, both male and female. Above is Blonde girl on a bed from 1987. The portraits are intimate and never flattering. Some of the images are positively disturbing. Although not an outright recluse, he painted at home, never gave out his phone number and rarely left London. Among his better known sitters wer Kate Moss and fellow artist David Hockney (mercifully clothed in Hockney's case).

Below is Boy on a sofa from 1944. The boy, who was named Billy Lumley, tried to break into Freud's flat. Freud did a deal with him. If Lumlwey sat for him, Freud would not report him to the police. Unsurprisingly the boy accepted. The portrait was sold in the same year for £14. It recently was sold again - at Sothebys for £1.5 million.

A fascinating man and creative genius, grandson of Sigmund, brother of Clement and father of Bella. Talented lot those Freuds. Very much a man of his time. We will not see his like again.

Two stories caught the rabbit's eye yesterday, both of which seemed examples of the contemporary tendency to overdo it. Firstly, it is hard to keep track of how many Deputy Mayors London has but one is called Richard Barnes, it emerges. He is in charge of equality it transpires. Barnes is in hot water. The topic is rebuilding Euston station. Barnes as follows: 'are they like most Irish builders ... saying it's going to be roughly that' Whereupon our man licked his finger as if checking the wind direction.

Rabbit reaction. Witless Tory boy stuff. Nothing to get too worked up about though. Enter Labour Assembly member Murad Qureshi huffing and puffing for all he is worth.

'I was taken aback by the comment' pronounces our man. 'Given the huge contribution made by the Irish in building London, this is particularly offensive'.

'What is even more shocking, is that he made these comments as the Mayor's lead on equality and diversity policies. He should make an unreserved apology to the Irish in London'.

Burden has apologised. Albeit that the remark was better unsaid we are hardly in hate speech territory here. Perhaps the more highblown flights of condemnatory rhetoric should be reserved for really offensive pronouncements not the merely dumb and stereotyping.

For further overdoing it, step forward the TaxPayers' Alliance. Mervy King (above on bottom right) - of whom the rabbit is no fan - is Governor of the Bank of England. He was at the cricket at Lord's yesterday and thus incurred the ire of the TaxPayers' Alliance. Apparently King was also spotted recently at Wimblebore. 'Taxpayers might reasonably expect that given the very immediate crises in the eurozone, Mr King would spend a little less time watching sport and a little more time in the office' huffed and puffed TaxPayers' alliance campaign director Emma Boon. Give us a break (as it were). 'Man goes to sporting event' is hardly a dreadful dereliction of duty. What is he supposed to be doing? Locking himself in a vault at the Bank of England for purposes of self-flagellation? Maybe again the overblown rhetoric could be saved for something serious to complain about.

While on the subject of cricket (sort of) the rabbit is enough of a cricket anorak to notice that the USA Cricket Association is engaged in a tournament with the lengthy title of the ICC Americas Division 1 T20. He is even such an anorak as to have a look at the USA squad for the tournament. Two facts stuck out. Firstly, none of the USA squad is white. Secondly their countries of birth are as follows: Jamaica 4, Guyana 3, India 3, Pakistan 3, not stated 1. Oh and one player was actually born in the USA - the Bronx to be exact. The rabbit wishes them well in their missionary work.

Above is the winner of the fourth White Rabbit Knob of the Week, Lord Carlisle of Berriew for contributing to gagging a member of his own party - Baroness Tonge - for whom the rabbit has high regard - in the House of Lords. There is a bill going through parliament with the clunking title of the Police Reform and Social Responsibilty Bill. Tucked away in it is a clause (155 as you ask) on any sensible view originating with the arrest warrant issued by an English court against Israeli politician Tzipiu Livni. Sadly, she was never arrested on the warrant but a barrage of toys thereupon flew out of the Israeli pram. Connsequences could follow, they darkly hinted. Why being threatened by the international political equivalent of Billy No Mates is so scary remains obscure but the UK government duly rolled over and wagged its paws in the air. The right of a private individual to apply for an arrest warrant under universal jurisdiction was to go. The odious Livni and her ilk would be able to swan about the UK free of any risk of getting their collars felt for war crimes. Jenny Tonge has been one of the few to stand against this snivelling capitulation.

I copy and paste from Hansard...

Baroness Tonge - 'I will briefly run through once again the current right of a private citizen to initiate a private prosecution by applying to a senior district judge to issue an arrest warrant for such criminals as war criminals. We are
not talking about ordinary crimes, but about very big war crimes committed against international law. This ancient, common right has belonged to the people of England and Wales for many years. It is a valuable safeguard against political interference by the Government. This is why I have objected so strongly to the proposed change in Clause 155, which could delay an arrest, allowing the suspect to escape, and could introduce political interference from the Attorney-General...'

'...When we look at this issue, we begin to think-certainly, the people who lobby me in great numbers think-that the real reason for the change in the law was the incident relating to Tzipi Livni. The Foreign Secretary, for whom I have high regard, argued that in the case of Tzipi Livni, the law had been abused when an arrest warrant was issued against her ... but he did not criticise the evidence against her contained in the arrest warrant which had been obtained by a private citizen'.

Carlile sticks his nose in. Tonge lets him...

Lord Carlile of Berriew: I am grateful to my noble friend for allowing me to interrupt, and I am extremely surprised that we have not heard my noble friend on the Front Bench intervening in the way in which he intervened on my noble friend Lord Palmer of Childs Hill a few minutes ago. What my noble friend is saying is out of order, inappropriate and not related to the amendment. She is having a rant at Mrs Livni.

WR:Well she's expressing herself very moderately but so if she was?

He's trying to get her shut up on procedural grounds. He succeeds.

Baroness Tonge: I am not going to give way again. I must finish. We must contrast this action with what has happened in the past couple of weeks where Raed Salah, a Palestinian-

Lord Lucas: I beg to move that the noble Baroness be no longer heard.

Motion agreed.

At this point Jenny Tonge left.

Lord Carlile of Berriew: My Lords, I have only a few words to add. I am sorry that my noble friend Lady Tonge has chosen to disobey the normal rules of the House and has stormed out in a way which is not appropriate to noble Lords and noble Baronesses in this House. It is something that I, as a member of her party, feel very strongly about, and I hope that none of my noble friends would normally behave in that way. It is quite shocking.

Oh get over it you simpering ninny. Go play with your Knob of the Week award.

The hacker hacked...

2011-07-19T17:06:00.000+01:00

The rabbit is shocked to report that disrespect has reached such a level that the News of the World lives on - but only by virtue of those naughty - well - class warriors at Class War who have produced an online spoof version featuring as agony aunt - the rabbit particularly loves this - Madame Blavatsky - strapline YOU THINK YOU'VE GOT PROBLEMS? I'M DEAD!

A common problem indeed. And it gets worse - talking of being dead - the Sun website got hacked by more naughty people with a spoof claiming that Papa Doch Ruler of the Universe etc himself was - erm - dead! Do people no longer know their place? Namely obeying Murdoch? Mind you, the rabbit may have to accept a little - okay very little - part in the spate of insolence now afflicting Papa Doch in collaboration with Beau Bo D'Or going way back to last election time. I can only blush...

Tree of Life and Murdoch

2011-07-17T19:15:00.000+01:00

The rabbit hadn't intended to see Tree of Life last night. He and companion had hopped off to Greenwich Picture House intending to see Potiche but discovered to our consternation that it was sold out. There were a few tickets left for Tree of Life - a film that had only vaguely registered at the margins of the rabbit's consciousness and as his companion was determined tos ee a film having thus far Tree of Life it was - via a quick Vietnamese meal.

To be fair, there are points to be amde in favour of Tree of Life:

The opening scenes suggestive of creation are visually very striking. Technically it's good - as in very good.
Some of the portrayals of stifling American domestic life in the 1950s are acutely observed with rather good little points of detail.
It's always good to see Sean Penn.

Beyond that? Errr....

It broadly goes like this. The opening quote from the Book of Job raises the stakes high. 'Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation...while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?' Then a strange flame like something appears - and reappears later in the film on more than one occasion. Now a good movie with a spiritual - for want of a better word - theme is, though difficult, presumably entirely theoretically possible. But if you're going to go into such problematic territory, you've got to be good. This is all over the place. In fact I can't think of an example of where Hollywood has really carried off such a theme, principally I suspect because they are too worried about offending anyone by making too clear a statement and the inevitable result is fudge. The ending - I won't give anything away - is pretty much incomprehensible except to say it involves Sean Penn going through a wholly un-necessary door to wander about with assorted relatives in various stages of life and God knows who else (so to speak) wandering about aimlessly opn a sandbank. Okay - that's a giveaway. Get over it.

The story really starts with the mother of the by then fractured family gets a telegram. Her son has dies aged 19. I assumed in Vietnam as it would fit in timescale terms but I'm now not sure. In fact I later learned that writer/director Terrence Malick's brother committed suicide at a similar age and that there is a strong autrobiographical element to the script. At pouint i felt a bit mean at having taken such a dislike to the film. I forgive myself. It's a ponderous, self-absorbed mess. We trudge througb a 1950s upbringing in Texas. The father of the family (Brad Pitt) is a controlling figure with a belief in his capacity to bend events to his will. Of course in the end events take their own course to his disadvantage and he is made redundant. The family move out of their home. What happened next is a potentially interesting sub-plot but not explored. The sub-text that we are not in control of our own destinies therefore be nice is just about a redeeming feature to the cinematic blancmange that flops around the viewer's ankles. Just about.
It may be gathered that a not very impressed rabbit left the cinema. Oh and being able to take a glass of wine from the bar into the cinema is a good thing (a large Rioja - what else* - in the rabbit's case). The prices - even with a member's discount - were not.

*maybe a Malbec but they didn't have any.

Of course I am frequently asked 'lay some truth on us O wise and all-knowing rabbit, what is your take on the Murdoch thing? You have been pretty quiet on the subject so far''.

Okay, I'm asked no such thing.

The short answer is this: I am of course suffering terminal schadenfreude at Murdoch's present difficulties and the more odium - and damage - heaped on his head the better. Essentially this is because he is the worst sort of bully - the sort that acts on the belief that they cannot be thwarted or checked in any way. They can do anything they like and there is no power on earth to stop them - they are above the law and above the constraints that make the rest of us more or less behave despite our own worst instincts. Anyone and anything that opposes them will be crushed - an individual expressing opposition will be browbeaten - usually by character assassination. A business opponent will be taken out by any means required. Political figures will be cowed and reduced to courtiers and supplicants. Public opinion will be bent to suit the Murdoch corporate interest - an interesting example is the rabid Europhobia of the Murdoch titles - a product of the fact that he plainly recognises the EU as too big and too unbiddable to bend to his will. The inevitable result - the endless torrent of abuse of the Murdoch titles.

The public probably views the hacking of celebrities' phones as naughty but not hugely reprehensible. But when the Murdoch press hacks into the mobile phone of a teenage murder victim, deletes messages to make space for more messages and thus gives her relatives false hope that she is still alive by virtue of the activity on her phone then phrases like 'low life' fail to begin to do justice to the repulsiveness of a culture that plainly - until recently wonderfully disabused - believed that it could do anything it liked and there was nothing and no-one to stop it.

Kray Triplets and chewing gum...

2011-07-11T14:59:00.002+01:00

Above is of course the famous photograph of infamous East End gangsters the Kray Twins (I resist using the idiot word 'iconic' which seems to be all over everywhere like a rash - or more exactly substitute for thinking - at the moment). The recent dramas as regards News International has got the rabbit thinking that there is an eerie echo of the Kray twins in 1960s photos of Rupert Murdoch. The same air of menace, the same suit, white shirt and plain dark tie. Were the three seperated at birth and there were in fact Kray Triplets? Rupert's name begins with an 'R' - he wrote labouring the obvious - thus melding perfectly with Ronnie and Reggie. Spooky huh? - as that other great Australian, Dame Edna Everage, would say.

More prosaically, an initial comment on living in Croydon. Earlier today, the rabbit hopped into Sainsburys in the Whitgift centre (big shopping complex in central Croydon for the uninitiated). Now since stopping smoking as exclusively revealed (like anyone else would care) on White Rabbit at the time, the rabbit has developed an addiction to Orbit chewing gum. Being down to 2 or 3 sticks the rabbit starts hunting the presumably obvious places in Sainsburys. No joy. I ask a staff member. 'We stopped stocking them' he explained. 'People steal them'. Huh? Another staff member intervenes and says they do in fact still sell them but you have to ask as they are behind the counter at the checkout. The rabbit eventually negotiated a pack of 3 blue Orbit from behind the checkout.

All very odd. Come to Croydon. Local sport: stealing chewing gum.

Murdoch, The News of the World and News International

2011-07-09T16:16:00.005+01:00

Apart from recording the rabbit's utter glee at seeing the evil empire coming unstuck and his suspicion that unfortunately it will come bouncing back after a little cynical rebranding (why does the thought of a Sun on Sunday seem less than reassuring as regards an improvement in journalistic ethical standards?) what is there left to say?

Only that those naughty Downfall spoofers have been at it again! Oh and that Steve Bell has been on storming form as usual.

On a more pleasant note, below is a short film by a young woman of the rabbit's slight acquaintance from his sojourn in Birmingham named Rebecca Sloan. Quite nostalgic stuff here - at least for me... Filmed in Birmingham in April 2011.

Curiouser and curiouser...

2011-07-07T19:16:00.001+01:00

The saga of Carolyn Bourne and her - erm - ideas as to how to conduct oneself continues. Above is a pic of Mrs Bourne in her kitchen wearing - erm - a somewhat oversized pair of bloomers. No. I don't know why either. Mrs Bourne also appears to be wearing her underwear outside her trousers in the manner of Superman. It seems to have reached the point where any such development in the saga is treated as quite normal. Who is the rabbit to disagree?

In a further - erm - development, six young men have been photographed in Mrs Bourne's kitchen without their trousers. Well okay with their trousers but with said trousers in a lowered state. Mrs Bourne is reported to have been photographed with the young men soon afterwards. This of course is also entirely normal and to be met with a knowing nod.

On a more cheerful note, below is a track by the daughter of a lovely lady of the rabbit's acquaintance.Go buy (no 8). Do it today.

Fourth of July and update on the Carolyn Bourne etiquette show.....

2011-07-04T17:58:00.001+01:00

It is traditional for the rabbit to wish his American readers a happy 4th July and the time to do so is upon us again. Above is of course Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze which equally obviously leads to Brad Neely's Washington and the immortal phrase 'spread, spread Delaware'. the rabbit has posted this - originally pinched from Earl - on at least one previous occasion but here is the link for those unfamiliar with this opus or who can't get enough.

Continuing the saga of Carolyn Bourne and her somewhat contentious opinions on matters pertaining to etiquette, above is a photo of the object of her ire, the splendidly named Heidi Withers. The troops have been rallying to la belle Heidi's cause. The would be groom's natural mother has rallied to her support. ‘Heidi is a charming girl who I have never found rude – not once' pronounces Penelope Godfrey. She is also Freddie’s choice and will always be welcome in my home' she continues, warming to her theme. Adding ‘I don’t think the wedding will be awkward but we shall see.’

Ermmm.... The rabbit would love an invite. And, yes, this is a hint to whoever is drawing up the guest list. Oh and contrary to the rabbit's last posting, the wedding is not in a castle. It's in a church. It's the reception that is in a castle. So that's all right then.

Next in line for introductions is Alan Withers, father of the bride and clearly a man with strong opinions. Our man lives in a five-bedroom home in Aylton, Hereford, complete with its own coat of arms. As you do.

He had a pub lunch with la Bourne and her husband Edward. 'Edward was a jovial chap, but Carolyn was quite snotty' he records. 'She had a look about her which made us think she thought she was better than us... Some people may find my Black Country accent raw, let’s say, but clearly it made an impression on Carolyn. I don’t want to say what she said'.

Spoilsport.

Our man did give further details, though. 'Ever since that meeting we call her "Miss Fancy Pants". I think she has her head stuck so far up her own arse she doesn’t know whether to speak or fart'.

A common dilemma, I am sure all will agree.

The rabbit recalls that it is traditional for the happy couple to lead off the dance. The rabbit can only suggest the following as choice of music..

Carolyn Bourne's world of etiquette

2011-07-01T18:59:00.002+01:00

The above chapess is named Carolyn Bourne and she has unwittingly caused something of an internet sensation by sending an - erm - somewhat testy e-mail to her stepson Freddy's fiancee - the splendidly named Heidi Withers - about to behave if she wanted to get on with the Bourne family (an odd aspiration but never mind). The e-mail goes as follows...

'Here are a few examples of your lack of manners:

'When you are a guest in another's house, you do not declare what you will and will not eat - unless you are positively allergic to something.

You do not remark that you do not have enough food.

You do not start before everyone else.

You do not take additional helpings without being invited to by your host.

When a guest in another's house, you do not lie in bed until late morning in households that rise early - you fall in line with house norms.

You should never ever insult the family you are about to join at any time and most definitely not in public. I gather you passed this off as a joke but the reaction in the pub was one of shock, not laughter.

You regularly draw attention to yourself. Perhaps you should ask yourself why. No one gets married in a castle unless they own it. It is brash, celebrity style behaviour.

I understand your parents are unable to contribute very much towards the cost of your wedding. (There is nothing wrong with that except that convention is such that one might presume they would have saved over the years for their daughters' marriages.)

If this is the case, it would be most ladylike and gracious to lower your sights and have a modest wedding as befits both your incomes'.

Sensible stuff, I am sure all will agree. Especially the last three paragraphs. I'm sure in particular all will agree that getting married in a castle one does not own is indeed the height of vulgarity. Speaking personally, I've never done it and never will. The rest of the family have all weighed in - the natural mother of Freddy (who looks a bit of a muppet), Heidi's dad (who also looks a bit of a muppet) and no doubt many others. The rabbit suspects that this is a family that richly deserve each other.

On a completely different topic, below is a pic from the rabbit I-phone of a memorial on the wall of All Saints' Church Huntingdon - a town the rabbit visited for the first time ever today - it has an outpost of Peterborough Crown Court. It is a memorial to a former bankrupt named Thomas Jetherell who won much acclaim for paying back his creditors after discharge from bankruptcy and thus when under no obligation to do so. The rabbit apologises for the pic being side on but there is nothing he can do about it. Lie on your sides or something...

The rabbit also went to see French thriller Point Blank last night - no time for a rabbit review. Go see - it commands the attention. The word 'relentless' has been used a lot to describe the pace of the action and if you like being biffed in the face with sudden full on violence, this is the film for you. Say what you will about the French but they (a) have the right attitude to aristocrats (b) produce good wine and (c) produce good films. The rabbit also - for the first time in his lfe - went to see a musical this week. Not his idea but he actually quite enjoyed it - Betty Blue Eyes as you ask. And a good weekend to all the rabbit's readers.

Scared sheepdog, Mumford and Sons and Jessica Harper

2011-06-25T15:26:00.005+01:00

The above four legged fellow is named Ci (no, I don't know how his name is pronounced either - Sy?). Anyway, Ci is a sheepdog in the west of England. Except as a sheepdog, he's rubbish.Why so? I hear you cry. Because he's scared of sheep, that's why. Apparently sheep, despite their reputation for being - well - sheepish can be quite aggressive and if they sense that they have the upper hand will gang up. They gang up on Ci, sensing his fear, and he backs off. Like soooooooo...... Notice how the sheep look well in control. Unlike Ci. His owner wouldn't swap him for the world despite the fact that she has to be her own sheepdog. Another heartwarming animal story from rabbit central.

The rabbit has been following Glastonbury from the comfort of his armchair rather rather than in the middle of a pile of mud with Wayne Rooney for company (apparently the egregious scummer and Colleen are doing Glasto this year accommodated in a £100,000 Winnebago). Last night he caught Mumford and Sons (yes I know it's Mumford & Sons but embed can't cope with the ampersand), of whom he was generally aware of Mumford & Sons as a folk rock type band of some recent note but no more. Instant conversion! They are good! They are better than merely good. The rabbit is a total fan. Here are the rabbit's new heroes with Winter Winds

By way of contrast as regards the rabbit's estimation, after mature reflection the rabbit concludes that it is inevitable that Wayne Rooney (below before and after hair transplant) should be awarded the third rabbit Knob Of The Week award in succession to Grant Shapps and 'Cranmer' for (a) turning up at Glastonbury in a Winnebago (b) being a scummer (c) being himself.

Finally a plea to all readers of goodwill. Fellow blogger, actress and all round sweetie Jessica Harper has entered the Next Model Competition 2011. Jessica just wants to come in the top 250 but languishes at the time of writing at 721. Be good sports and vote for her! It only takes a few seconds and voting ends in a couple of days. In a way, it's a kind of experiment. Let's see if the power of the blogosphere can create a flashmob in support of Jessica. There's nothing to say that you have to be UK resident to vote and there are only 2 days left for voting. Go on - vote for Jessica - and tell everyone you know to do so too. Let's move her up the rankings!

Clarence Clemons 1942-2011

2011-06-20T16:57:00.002+01:00

Another light goes out with the death of E Street Band saxophonist (and lots of other things too) Clarence Clemons. I've never thought of the saxophone, tenor or otherwise as particularly rock and roll but Clemons could do things with that instrument that were very special indeed. Okay working with Springsteen would have to give anyone a huge running start (yes I know that there are people in this world - even readers of this blog among them - who don't think Springsteen is a genius but I say he is) but Clemons brought a very special gift to the party. His size (he wasn't commonly known as 'Big Man' for nothing) and startling taste in suit colours made him stand out but mostly the verve and raw honesty of his saxophone playing stood out - raw, moody and eloquent. Try his playing here on Drive All Night - a rabbit Springsteen favourite - something very special...

Two random Clemons related facts (1) He was married five times - which to some may seem like overdoing it, and (2) his middle name was Anicholas. Don't ask me why.

A kiss is just a kiss (or possibly not)

2011-06-18T17:06:00.004+01:00

The rabbit confesses to not having ever heard of the Vancouver Canucks or the Boston Bruins until a day or so ago. They are ice hockey teams and played in the final of something called the Stanley Cup this week. The Bruins won 4-0 whereupon the Canucks fans rioted. This strikes the rabbit as distinctively Un-Canadian behaviour. The rabbit is familar with - and largely in favour of - Canada, and Canadians do not generally riot. All very odd. The rabbit also pronounces himself in favour of the Bruins winning for reasons not to be gone into at this very moment (Hi Carol!).

In any event, a Canadian photojournalist named Richard Lam took the above photo in the middle of the riot. It looks as if a pair of young lovers are engaged in a passionate embrace, oblivious of the mayhem around them. Too good to be true?

'Fraid so...

Here is a second image, showing people gathering round. Are they concerned? Or simply preternaturally nosy? It's the former. The young couple are Scott Jones, a 29-year-old Australian and his girlfriend Alex Thomas, a Canadian. A police line had rushed the crowd and the couple tried to stay together but couldn't react in time and were knocked over my two riot police officers. Alex Thomas was knocked over and landed head first on the pavement with her boyfriend landing partially on top of her. She was in visible pain, crying, but the two officers gave them a parting shove and moved on. Bystanders went to go make sure she was all right.

So that's it. No passionate embrace - just human concern. But the posting title is plainly cue for a song..

It seems that the young couple are both okay. Ice hockey? Yes, I quite like it. Best to keep the violence on the rink, though. And on a completely different topic and in case you have missed it, here is a rather hungry lioness and - erm - intended dinner...

And on a completely different (again) topic, there hasn't been too much music on rabbit central of late. Regular readers will know of the rabbit's partiality to sixties stuff and here is something for the weekend - Northern Soul classic from The Flirtations - Nothing But A Heartache - enjoy!

You want some more sixties soul? oh okay then. If you insist.

A surreal reprise...

2011-06-15T16:15:00.001+01:00

There was a World War II catchphrase - endlessly recycled - 'careless talk costs lives'. Above is an example from the wall of a military bunker underneath Dover Castle. Below is a poster from the same era - I do like the 'Mr Hitler' - he may have been a homicidal maniac we were at war with, but there's no excuse for bad manners as I am sure all will agree.

Bizarrely, the Ministry of Defence has just done a reprise of the 'careless talk costs lives' routine. On YouTube! It is a warning to service personnel and their friends and relatives as regards putting information about their whereabouts and activities on social networking sites. And bizarre stuff it is too. Take a look...

This is video 2 but the more fun one in the rabbit's opinion. Mother has put a load of indiscreet stuff on facebook and then has the nice young terrorist round for tea. As you do. For the sake of completeness, here is video 1 in which two navy personnel go out for the evening with unintended consequences, complete with terrorists strutting their stuff in the disco. .

All very odd. I think I prefer the World War II posters. While on the subject of very odd, there has been a lot of guff in the papers recently about Gully Wells who had a relationship with Martin Amis. And then didn't. Blah. Drone. The thing that puzzled the rabbit was 'why name your child after a (cricket) fielding position?'

At least she wasn't called 'Square Leg' or 'Extra Cover'. It turns out on further researches that her real name is Alexandra and Gully is a nickname. Don't ask me why...

Endearing animal picture time...

2011-06-13T16:16:00.001+01:00

For overseas readers and the one person in the UK who has missed this by virtue of having been under a stone for the past however long it has been, here are the 10 orphaned/abandoned owlets whio have been rescued by the St Tiggywinkle's wildlife hospital. The little chaps and chapesses (don't ask me - I'm not very good at owl sexing) will be released back to the wild when fully grown.

Apparently owls invariably hang about in pairs in the wild so the non-related group of ten is something of an oddity. Big talons, though! The rabbit is still time poor having just moved hutch yet again (he is now a resident of Croydon - which will do for the time being) but still has good intentions as regard to getting down to more blogging and visiting many more blogs).

And here is a warning to the new, more sociable type of owl from old bill with Hat Tip to Old Holborn

Quite so...

Now this is beyond ridiculous...

2011-06-05T14:21:00.001+01:00

The above person - who has hitherto escaped the rabbit's attention - is named Jim Shannon. He has recently achieved fame as having been voted Britain's least sexy MP. Mr Shannon - who it emerges is Member of Parliament for Strangford in Northern Ireland - appears to have taken this all in good part.

'When I married my wife 24 years ago, I did so because I thought she was the sexiest woman in the world, and hopefully she thought I was the sexiest man, and that is all that matters to me' pronounces Mr Shannon.

Bless!

What is going on here? I hear overseas readers and the sensibly hitherto ignorant ask. The short answer is that some jokers have set up a website called sexymp.co.uk which invites the public to rate MPs in terms of their - erm - sexiness. What horrors follow is illustrated below - viewers of a sensitive disposition should look away now.

Above is Ian Paisley Junior, voted Northern Ireland's most attactive MP. Now the rabbit may be no judge of male beauty and Mr Shannon may not pose serious competition but...

BLOODY HELL!!!

Viewers are offered a choice of mixed, male and female MPs to rate for sexiness. The home page has pictures of two MPS and the question...

"Which MP would you rather have sex with?
Choose one"

Generally the only sensible answer is 'no thank you'.

Or in many instances...

YOU MUST BE BLOODY JOKING!!!

All right then... I'll stop the air of superiority as regards this stuff. I can hear you ask. "Okay rabbit. If you really, really had to vote who would it be for?"

Ermmm...

Ummm...

*shuffling of feet*

If really, really forced to vote the rabbit would cast his vote for Charlotte Leslie, the member for Bristol North West. 'Tis pity she's a Conservative as John Ford didn't quite put it.

Rabbit Review: Attack The Block

2011-05-29T17:18:00.000+01:00

The inevitable search for points of reference and the fact that it was produced by the same guys has inevitably resulted in comparisons between Attack The Block and Shaun of the Dead. The comparisons are not helpful. Shaun of the Dead was North London and overwhelmingly white, Attack The Block is South London, seriously multiracial and funnier, scarier and with an underlying moral grounding not to be found in Shaun of the Dead. Don't get me wrong - Shaun etc is a quality film, sharp and sassy but Attack The Block is a different class.

Sub-titled Inner City meets Outer Space. The plot is set around a gang of feral teens from a South London estate and a young nurse who they make the acquaintance of (by robbing her) played by Jodie Whittaker shortly before aliens starting crashing out of the sky to the estate and surrounds. The first alien crashes through the roof of a nearby car just after the robbery and Moses, leader of the gang (played by John Boyega - the star of the show) kills it. Bad move. Given psycho aliens with row after row of dayglo razor sharp teeth it's best not to piss them off.

The script zings. One exchange I liked was...

Q Why of all the places in the world would aliens attack a shitty council estate in South London?

A Maybe they were looking for a fight.

The aliens get a fight from the teen gang as they defend their estate ('the block'). There are verbal and visual gags aplenty plus a lot of street slang. How the slang will play before wider audiences remains to be seen. Some of it, I suspect, would be incomprehensible in North London let alone North America. I can only wonder how information about a collison between a whip and a bully van plays elsewhere. Having lived in South London for longer than I care to remember and having been involved in the criminal justice syatem for almost as long, I was in the loop but wondered about those outside it. The slang is cleverly limited and repeated so context provides assistance and some is altered for comprehensibility. "Low (pronounced to rhyme with cow') it" becomes "allow it" which helps to make sense of the expression but has never previously seen the light of day save in police versions of things said popping up in criminal trials from time to time. The police generally have a tin ear for street slang and make and endlessly reproduce mishearings (notably 'blood clot' for 'blood clat' (long 'a'), a Jamaican obscenity now absorbed into street English English but I digress.

It's even scary. My companion for the evening screamed (rather loudly) at one point! She went in to see the film unenthusiastically expecting to hate it but came out saying it was brilliant.

It even has a moral. You start off understandably seeing the teen gang as your worst nightmare. They rob Sam, the nice young nurse, at knifepoint in the street. But there is a worse nightmare in prospect - the aliens. Gradually and warily (on both sides) they form an alliance and then a bond with Sam. The unfolding drama becomes redemptive for Moses - some critics have suggested this does not work. I thought it did. Go do yourselves a favour - go see it.

On a personal note, I've had a lot to deal with on all sorts of fronts but I'm still standing and my fur barely singed. More blogging will hopefully follow soon. In the meantime here is some informative stuff.

Of odds and ends and bloggers...

2011-05-10T18:57:00.001+01:00

The rabbit was amused and entertained by a couple of gems from the Guardian this morning. The first relates to a tv quiz programme called Million Pound Drop. The general idea is that you start with a million pounds and lose money by giving wrong answers. Yup, we are heading into stupidity territory. Deep into stupidity territory. As in really, really deep.

Here is a question for plucky contestants Andrew and Vanessa...

'In 1954 Roger Bannister was the first man to...

Run a sub 4-minute mile
Go into space
Put the toilet seat down

(There is a pictorial clue as to the right answer for the hard of thinking above)

After much hesitation, Andrew and Vanessa went for.....

Yup... The toilet seat option.

Such stupidity is truly on the heroic scale. They should be given a medal or something.

On the other end of the intelligence scale, there was a piece by Sarah Churchwell touching on the vexed question of British and American spelling issues. Professor Churchwell, an American herself, mounts a spirited defence of American spellings. The rabbit considers himself better informed but less than convinced.

Meanwhile John Hirst aka Jailhouselawyer e-mails the rabbit with cartoon from the Torygraph attached asking what I have been up to. The answer is of course nothing. And even if I had been up to anything I would not be seeking a super-injunction (overseas readers - please google - they are injunctions to protect very important people and are so secret you can't even mention their existence - or something like that), The rabbit has always approached rumours about him on the basis that they should be admitted especially if untrue.

The above woodcut is of Thomas Cranmer, sixteenth century archbishop of Canterbury having a full and frank exchange of views with a Doctor Cole shortly before being carbonised for heresy. The rabbit mentions this as Cranmer has a contemporary imitator who seems a rather thin skinned fellow. For why? The rabbit described the Cranmer impersonator in a (fairly) recent posting as an 'irritating blogger'. Oh dear! Our hero picked up on this description and commented as will be seen here.

Calm down dear (to borrow a phrase). And please also understand that the rabbit writes any old rubbish that comes into his head without even the pretence of fact checking. Get over it. If you like religious blogs Nick Baines - who has the virtue of being a real as opposed to pretend bishop - does a much better one. 'Cranmer' may consider himself awarded the second (in succession to the egregious Grant Shapps) Knob of the Week.

Finally on bloggers and commenters, a comment by Alconcalcia to an over one year old posting 'Did you know an anagram of Gideon Osborne is "Go soon, inbreed'

Ummm, no Al (if I may call you Al). Didn't know that...

Royal Wedding Cut Out And Keep Souvenir

2011-05-03T15:56:00.000+01:00

What exactly is going on above is a matter for some conjecture. Suffice it to say that from the page girl (or whatever she is called)'s reaction, it must be very noisy. Hat Tip to Charles Christian via Charon QC.

'Socialism' George Orwell wrote in The Road to Wigan Pier (1936), draws towards it 'with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist and feminist in England'. Warming to his theme, our man's tirade against such 'cranks' is memorably extended in other passages of the book to include 'vegetarians with wilting beards', the 'outer-suburban creeping Jesus' eager to begin his yoga exercises, and "that dreary tribe of high-minded women and sandal-wearers and bearded fruit-juice drinkers who come flocking towards the smell of 'progress' like bluebottles to a dead cat'.

The quote came to mind in relation to the Royal Wedding. I start by saying that the rabbit had little to no interest in this event and only caught a few minutes of it as it was on a great big screen in front of his exercise bike down at the gym. The only thought the coverage provoked was that the much traduced Rowan Williams would make a splendid Gandalf. And yes, as previously outlined in White Rabbit, the Windsors are an utter shower.

And yet. And yet. Oh and you can knit your own royal wedding if so inclined.

Some of the reaction to the Royal Wedding has been graceless in its splenetic nature - a classic example is the commentaries of charmless lump Tanya Gold (google if you can be bothered). It does strike me that we are rapidly developing a British variant of the 'culture wars' that have paralysed US politics for many years now. The effect is a social and intellectual paralysis as two camps who hold large numbers of their fellow-citizens (the other camp) in a kind of uncomprehending contempt, pass the time glaring at each other and exchanging insults. As the memorable line in Educating Rita has it 'there must be better songs to sing'. Roll on the republic. But nicely.

Then I am brought back to earth by the news of - talking of Orwell - Orwellian 'pre-emptive arrests' by notably the Metropolitan Police. Prominent among these was Chris Knight, a 68-year-old retired anthropology professor, his partner, Camilla Power and 45-year-old friend Patrick Macroidan on the eve of the wedding near their home in Brockley, south-east London on the charge of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance (sic). Knight's group, the Government of the Dead, (doublesic) was planning to behead an effigy of Prince Andrew with a theatrical guillotine in an act of street theatre on Soho Square in London.

As you do.

The clunking mindless authoritarianism of this grates. Even vegetarians with wilting beards have rights. Including the right not to be incarcerated for hours before being released without charge on the grounds that they may do something embarrassing. Probably mostly to themselves.

Keef, Dann, scum and Keira....

2011-04-26T18:03:00.001+01:00

Okay, lets start with a review. The rabbit has just read the less than imaginatively titled Life by Keith Richards - or more accurately by Keith Richards with James Fox, a journalist acquaintance of his. Which is okay. Unsurprisingly it reads like spoken reminiscences, surprisingly for those of a cynical bent, Keef not only remembers but also makes a good raconteur. He actually succeeds in making the reader like him - a kind of guarded, qualified liking but a liking nonethelesss.

Some of the best bits are his early years, before he became famous and in particular being brought up in Dartford. For those fortunate enough to be unacquainted with Dartford, it is just outside London on the Kent side of the Thames estuary and it is a dump.'Everyone in Dartford is a thief'' explains Keef. Uh-huh. The rabbit had the dubious 'pleasure' of going to the Dartford Magistrates Court regularly as a baby barrister and it was full of them but I digress.

One of a number of redeeming features of the ageing bad boy is that he is plainly and genuinely in love with the music. This produces occasional delicious little gems such as the information that the Bo Diddley riff is called 'shave and a haircut - two bits'. Do try this one at home. It works. Verbalised it becomes 'Bo Diddley Bo Diddley, have you heard? My pretty baby said she was a bird'. There is of course a lot of that sort of thing about...

Many years ago the rabbit went to see UB40 live (no, I don't know what came over me either). they were backed by Bo Diddley. He completely stole the show and ripped the place apart. Pure quality but I digress again.

Back to Richards and the early years, one delicious little piece of information that appeals to the surrealist in the rabbit is that the early Rolling Stones would sometimes play Popeye the Sailor Man in concert on the grounds that no-one was listening and they couldn't be heard anyway because of all the screaming. The Stones' groundbreaking record contract with Decca was secured after an audience with the then chairman of Decca, one Sir Edward Lewis, who was drooling through the meeting. Not drooling over them but literally drooling. I suppose he secured a pretty good deal from Decca's point of view, drooling notwithstanding.

Of course the drugs figure prominently in the narrative. Through the seventies he was a heroin addled mess. His then girlfriend Anita Pallenberg didn't help. She was a bigger mess. She indicated her intentions towards him by giving him a blowjob in the back of a car. Some people shake hands... He was lucky not to go to prison and, if he tells it like it was, hasn't touched heroin for about 30 years. This may surprise many people - reputation can proceed before you - but I'm inclined to believe him. He also deals with a number of other urban myths (the Mars Bar - false), the total blood transplant (false), snorting his father's ashes (true - sort of). A lot of the musical stuff is actually fairly technical. i didn't for example know that he dispensed with one string on his guitar and plays with 5. You want an explanation - read the book. It's technical.

The one false note he strikes is in dealing with Altamont. For young people and the otherwise uninitiated, the cliche about Altamont is that if Woodstock was the dream, Altamont was the nightmare. In circumstances that remain controversial and there are a number of (I suspect) self serving narratives, Hells Angels ended up in some sort of security role - for free beer. Drunk and off their faces on acid and amphetamines the Angels were at the core of an increasingly violent atmosphere. Monty Balin of Jefferson Airplane was attacked by an Angel while performing and the Grateful Dead refused to perform because of the violence and left. The Stones did perform. One may wonder why. The defensiveness on this question comes through very clearly on Richards' incomplete narrative of the event. An 18 year old named Meredith Hunter is on film trying to climb on the stage and pulling a revolver. He was then stabbed to death by a Hell's Angel named Alan Passaro who was tried but acquitted on a defence of self-defence. The question remains. Why did the Stones play in this context (they didn't actually know of the killing at the time but did see the violence at close quarters (Jagger was attacked before he even performed). Richards in terms says that not performing would have served no purpose. If Nick Kent (his Apathy For The Devil reviewed by the rabbit whenever) is right, it was about money. The Stones had paid a substantial sum to have their performance filmed. They were going to get their moneysworth. Grubby as that...

The Stones did end up something of a corporately sponsored monstrosity. Let it be remembered that before they were sponsored by Coors etc they were once a very decent rythmn and blues band. As is demonstrated here...

Otherwise permit the rabbit a little digression on matters footballing. The rabbit went to see Leeds lose at Crystal Palace yesterday with the larger of the small rabbits, who, being of an analytical bent commented how Championship players are generally unreliable and lacking in ability compared to the very top players. It is true. Leeds were awful and Palace were worse. It's just that Palace nicked an early goal and then defended like an away team. At several points all 11 Palace players were in their penalty area. The best player on the pitch was the goalscorer - a man previously unknown to the rabbit and named Neil Danns.He scored the only goal, generally ran his socks off and got sent off two minutes before time for a moment of overenthusiasm which earned him a second yellow. He's out of contract in the summer.

Danns is on the right in the red shorts for the footballingly challenged. At least he lasted 8 minutes longer than the character on the row behind the rabbit who spent 80 minutes abusing his own team's players in a highly unoriginal manner. The repeatable word was 'silly'. All other words began with 'f' or 'c'. He then left with 10 minutes to go and his team 0-1 down. The Leeds obsession with matters Manchester manifested itself as usual. Man U supporters - characterised as 'scum' - are merely glory supporting twerps from the leafier parts of Surrey. The real scum are the Millwall supporters who recently produced an array of Turkish flags to mark the anniversary of the fatal stabbing of two Leeds supporters at a game in Turkey ten years ago

Gloating over dead young men - althogh not uniquely wicked in terms of things done by football 'supporters' - well words fail me..

Yesterday was rounded up more sedately by going to the Comedy Theatre to see the distinctly non-comic The Children's Hour starring Keira Knightley and Elizabeth Moss (of Mad Men recent note). Pausing to wonder what either - let alone both - were doing in a not full not very big theatre, I have to say it didn't quite work. A rabbit theory - cinema (being essentially visual) stretches out dialogue, theatre (being essentially verbal) compresses dialogue. This does not work very well when seemingly just about every line is delivered in an angsty shout. Keira Knightly was fascinating, though. Every movement - even the smallest - seemed to have been weighed to an exactitude. Nothing was out of place, seemingly not by a millimetre. At least that was amazing to watch.

Apologies, kleptomaniac, Jackson and burqas...

2011-04-13T15:33:00.004+01:00

The rabbit apologises to his readers for the recent stony silence. I think that though it is partly due to various demands on my time but it is probably also on some level a catching of breath and taking a little rest from blogging. But here are a few things to be going on with. The cheeky chappie on the left above is Václav Klaus. He is President of the Czech Republic and was on an official visit to Chile when the above clip was shot. Mr Klaus likes pens. He plainly likes them a lot . Now watch what he does. One wouldn't want to use ugly words like 'steal' but he is being just a little naughty. Apparently the population of the Czech Republic have taken pity on their pen-challenged President and are sending him gifts of pens in huge numbers. An ironic statement by the population, I can only conclude...

This is old news in the UK (well about ten days old) and a bit like shooting fish in a barrel but for the benefit of overseas readers here we go anyway. The pile of junk above is of course a truly bad taste statue of the late Michael Jackson. It cost £100,000 and has been erected outside Fulham football ground by Mohammed Al-Fayed - owner of Fulham Football Club and big mate of the deceased monkey fancier. The - erm - connection is that Jackson once went to see a Fulham game with Al-Fayed. Unsurprisingly, this object has not been universally well received. If I were a Fulham supporter, I'd be incandescent.

Al-Fayed has grumped back. 'If some stupid fans don't understand and appreciate such a gift this guy gave to the world they can go to hell' he pronounced with typical moderation. 'If they don't understand and don't believe in things I believe in they can go to Chelsea, they can go to anywhere else'.

Hell is one thing, but threatening to send people to Chelsea is a bit uncalled for...

Al-Fayed has previous for putting up statues. Here's one he stuck up in Harrods in 2005 showing Dodi, Diana and feathered friend. It further proves the truism that just because you have money doesn't mean you have taste.

More immediately in time terms - since last Monday to be exact - it has been illegal for people in France to cover their faces with a burqa, a niqab - or indeed a hood or a mask while in a public place. The penalty is a fixed financial penalty and - absurdly and bossily - attendance at a course on French citizenship. The rabbit's position on this? I'm against it. I am neither a woman nor a muslim and cannot understand why anyone would wish to go about thus attired. But I cannot see what business of the state it is to tell people what they may or may not wear in the street. Just as Thomas Jefferson observed 'it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg', it does me no injury if my neighbour wears a burqa, a niqab, leather hot pants or just a few strategically placed feathers.

I can see the argument that in many instances burqa wearing is not genuinely voluntary but the result of social pressure - including severe social pressure but I fail to see what the countervailing severe pressure of a blanket prohibition adds to the situation - except creating a kind of double victimhood. I can't imagine that the French law will survive a challenge to the European Court of Human Rights either. We shall see...

Lookalike...

2011-03-30T12:26:00.001+01:00

The rabbit is still time poor but here is a little goodie from rabbit on the hop to keep the readership going. A house in Swansea (that's in South Wales, overseas readers) has achieved some notoriety as bearing a remarkable resemblance to the Late Adolf Hitler. They could have been seperated at birth, I'm sure all will agree. This one has been doing the rounds on Twitter, much to the bemusement of the 70 year old occupier of Casa Adolf (no, it's not really called that) who doesn't even know what Twitter is.

A neighbour is quoted as saying 'People are joking that the house is the third on the Reich and that we live on the Western Front. You have to see the funny side of life sometimes'.

Indeed you do. To this end, and with Hat Tip to mahal, here is some informative stuff from The Onion. In the meantime the rabbit has found time to start a heated debate in the Guardian letters page concerning whether horses know it is their birthday. Here are links to my original letter -it's the bottom one - also printed in the paper edition I hasten to add - as was this reply published today. I don't know what to say in reply to Mr Spooner. Anyone got any ideas? Oh - and here is Einstein - the horse who sparked this debate - and friends - or do horses have friends?

Here comes trouble.....

2011-03-20T16:03:00.002Z

Gadaffi is undoubtedly a loathsome toad and not playing with a full deck. This is a bad combination. If unrestrained he will undoubtedly butcher as many of that sector of his population as he can - and then lie about doing so. This Gadaffi is of course not to be confused with the reformed chaacter we could do business with and friend of T. Blair.

The Libyan rebels are brave and fighting against an undoubted tyranny. And yet. And yet. Something deep down inside me tells me that no good will come of this - and may even make Gadaffi some sort of grotesque hero.

The rabbit will simply for the moment tender an article by arab journalist Abdel al-Bari Atwan from yesterday's edition of the rabbit's usual dose of liberal rhubarb. We shall see...

He asks an interesting question - why was there no 'no fly zone' over Gaza 2008-9?'

Ermmm...

Ummm...

That would be because...

On a less grave matter and following on from the obituary of Owsley Stanley, we consider the Grateful Dead dancing teddy bear. Owsley, commonlly known as 'Bear' and who used the dancing bear on his - erm - LSD commented...
The bears were actually doing a high-step march-not dancing'.

Discuss.

Owsley Stanley

2011-03-16T18:15:00.004Z

The rabbit is supposed to be having a brief sabbatical but finds himself with a few free moments to record the death of Owsley 'Bear' Stanley (left in pic - well obviously) in a car crash in Australia aged 76. Owsley was mostly noted for manufacturing LSD but also was the Grateful Dead - a popular beat combo's -sound engineer.

Eccentric doesn't do justice to the guy. Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze is a reference to his acid. Owsley's acid was mostly called - erm - Owsley's acid and figures in the rabbit's first (unpublished) novel White Rabbit - sorry had to slip that one in! He started manufacturing LSD when it was legal but carried on after it became illegal. In the end he was inevitably busted and ran the highly amusing (or at least the rabbit is amused) defence that 350,000 tabs of acid were for - erm - personal use. Result: 3 years inside.

Stanley's eccentricities did not end there - he believed that carbohydrates poisoned the body and vegetables interfered with nutrition. In 2005 he contracted throat cancer, attributing his survival to starving the tumour of glucose through diet. Well - erm - apparently it worked. As a sound engineer, the fact that the Dead's archive is hugely with us is down to his diligence but as an obsessive, his sound systems were often less than practical and took forever to put up and take down.

His final eccentric project was - believing that global warming was part of a natural cycle and not man made and anticipating a new ice age as presumably the next stage in the cycle - moving to the Australian outback as the safest place to be in for that sort of event. He had four children including a son called Starfinder and a daughter called Redbird. Let Garcia have the final word: 'there's nothing wrong with Bear that a few billion less brain cells wouldn't cure'.

Oh and he also created this...

intermission...

2011-03-14T18:54:00.003Z

I'm afraid the rabbit is too time poor to blog for the moment but may come up for air again around next weekend. In the meantime please direct anything to the usherette who will be on full-time duty.

Dildo, President, Zion and Christine

2011-03-03T17:09:00.007Z

Ever at the cutting edge of legal blogging, a case in a place called Gurnee - which is apparently in Illinois - has not escaped the rabbit's attention. The above chapess is called Carolee (seriously) Bildsten and, finding herself lonely and hungry on November the 9th last year, she repaired to a local establishment named Joe’s Crab Shack. She ordered a glass of wine, and dinner. And then another glass of wine. At the end of the meal, our heroine reached into her pocket to take out her credit card – only to find much to her surprise - that it wasn’t there.

She told the bartender that she was going to go home for the money, set off (despite a broken foot) and fell over. 'Partly, I was intoxicated, so that had something to do with it' Carolee helpfully explained. A police officer pitched up, told her she would be arrested if she didn't pay Joe's bill and was 'kind enough to take me home' as Carolee later elaborated.

How was the officer's kindness repaid? Not well I fear. Carolee went to her bedroom when the officer entered thus startling her. The police allege that she raised a 'clear, rigid feminine pleasure device' over her head and went at the officer. In other words threatened him with a dildo. She is running self-defence.

Carolee sounds a bit of a sad case, she has a degree, worked for many years as a dietician but is 'currently unemployed' and an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous. 'I’m working on improving my life to avoid any further police encounters' she said.

Very wise too. Let's hope for the best for her.

On a completely different subject, in case anyone has missed it, here is The King's Speech parody, The President's Speech. What can this mean? Hat Tip to Mahal.

Above is the London 2012 Olympic logo and pretty stupid it is too. The Iranians have claimed that the logo spells ZION and are threatening a boycott. Let the rabbit put their minds to rest at once. Of course the logo doesn't spell ZION. What a silly theory. It is of course Lisa Simpson committing a sex act. Trust this clarifies matters.

Imagine the rabbit's surprise when yet another e-mail from Christine O'Donnell pops into his inbox. I wonder if Christine knows that there is legislation against stalking in this country. I expect she would claim it was an act of love. That's the usual explanation given by stalkers. Anyway, Christine explains that she has been asked to participate in Dancing With Stars, which is apparently the American equivalent of Strictly Come Dancing. Sadly Christine has declined the invitation on the ground that she is too busy writing a book. A great shame, I'm sure all will agree. She could have become the American equivalent of that other dancing right wing politician Ann Widdecombe here doing her impersonation of Kate Winslet in Titanic on Strictly Come Dancing. Very convincing too, I'm sure you'll all agree. They must have been seperated at birth.

Say what you will about Ann Widdecombe, and indeed Christine O'Donnell but they have never threatened anyone with a dildo. Well, not very often anyway..

Sort of Rabbit Review - The Royals

2011-02-23T16:22:00.010Z

As regular readers will know, the rabbit is of republican opinion (in the British sense as in being in favour of a republic as opposed to a monarchy). Purely for reasons of research - he has a literary project in mind - the rabbit has just read Kitty Kelley's The Royals. Nothing else would drive him to read a book about the Royal family but it has to be said that Kitty does a good scurrilous read - this is after all her stock in trade. The book - which is now of some age (you get reviews when the rabbit reads them, not when they are published!) but with an update taking the reader to last year - can be irritating to the British reader as despite a claimed four years of research, Kitty hasn't quite got the hang of a number of aspects of British life and the British constitution. She also does a lot of 'translating' for an American readership - for example the utterly superfluous (to British eyes) information that a budgie is a budgerigar parrot (sic). Nonetheless, she seems a reasonably reliable historian - when a rumour is unsubstantiated, she still passes it on but says that it is unsubstantiated..

Here is everything you need to know about the British royal family. Okay, more than you need to know. I start with generalities and will come on to individuals next. I would have said - all things being equal - that republicanism is not personal. It's a matter of principle and not an attack on the personalities of the Royal family. I'm trying to hold on to that thought even if - if a tenth of what is said about them is true - they are the most dreadful shower.

Generally:

Despite their enormous wealth, the Royal family have obsessive financial meanness as a common characteristic.

They hate children and farm them out to hired help to bring up.

They are unintelligent with severely limited cultural horizons. all in all, a very bad advertisement for inbreeding. Have a look at the other stuff on the eILLUMINATI blog where the rabbit found this link by the way. We are in deep planet bonkers territory, but I digress.

An odd theme is how Germanic they are - and not in a good way. I don't know if Kelley overplays this but it is a constant subtext.

Specifically:

George VI - His speech difficulties are now an international obsession after the film The King's Speech. Kelley claims scurrilously but less well knownly (as it were) that the accidental monarch had - erm - certain difficulties in achieving elevation and the the present Queen and Princess Margaret were conceived by then cutting edge artificial insemination technology. I've absolutely no idea about this but it's weird enough to be true.

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother - Known as 'Cookie' due to her fondness for stuffing her face. Had fiftysomething inch waist. Downed copious amounts of gin. Showed her devotion to George VI by having an affair with Surgeon Rear Admiral 'Chippy' White en route to South Africa by ship in the late 1940s. Oh and the title Queen Mother was an invented one to massage her vanity.

Queen Elizabeth II - Recipient of conspicuously successful personality bypass. Next to nothing worth reporting about her. Cold and indifferent mother, financially mean (see general stuff), spiteful when perceives herself to have been crossed. In fairness to her probably has some delusive sense of duty as opposed to the out and out freeloaders. Suits her purpose to be married to...

Prince Philip - Boorish oaf. Likes toilet humour. Got a result by marrying Princess Elizabeth as she then was, he being stoneybroke at the time. Thereafter put it about rather a lot.

Princess Margaret - Dreadful woman and appalling snob. Drunken chainsmoking dwarf and very partial to pornography. Married and divorced...

Anthony Armstrong-Jones aka Earl of Snowdon. Drunken chainsmoking dwarf and very partial to pornography. Despite these obvious compatibilities disillusion set in quickly and the warring couple spent most of their waking hours insulting each other. Some of the insults are very funny.

Prince Charles - Oh dear... Now in sixties and still waiting for the big job - which he only gets when his mother dies. Married Diana for her alleged virginity (which may apparently have been exaggerated) and breeding potential and treated her dreadfully, starting with sleeping with Camilla Parker-Bowles the night before his wedding (his wedding to Diana that is).

Camilla Parker-Bowles - Good ole girl. Looks like a horse.

Diana, Princess of Wales - Not playing with a full deck. Serial vomiter. 'She had bad breath and wanted sex all the time' (the bounder James Hewitt). Always took a vibrator on her travels. As you do. Put it about a lot.

Princess Anne - Looks like a horse. Rude, graceless woman. Obsessed with horses 'If it doesn't eat hay or fart she's not interested' (Prince Philip). Only female competitor in 1976 Olympics not to be subjected to sex test. Hmmm. Married and divorced...

Mark Phillips - Stupefying dim and clueless individual. 'Princess Anne's grinning, speechless husband who if you whistle at him wets himself' (the late, great Auberon Waugh with the best quote in the book).

Prince Andrew, Duke of York - Boorish oaf. Likes toilet humour, was married to...

Sarah (Ferguson) Duchess of York - Boorish oaf. Likes toilet humour. Jaw dropping capacity to spend money. Puts it about a bit. Okay a lot.

Prince Edward, Duke of Wessex - Wet nonentity. Rumoured to be gay - the case against this: an annoying wife.

Enough of this. Roll on the republic.

Apologies and more dreadful album covers...

2011-02-22T15:59:00.008Z

The rabbit has been very busy and has also been sent all over the country and so apologies are due for lack of postings of late and for not visiting your blogs to comment as much as I would wish. By way of compensation, here are some more dreadful album covers. Above is Thank You for the Dove by Mike Adkins. You're very welcome, Mike. Side A Track 3 is called What's Wrong With My Children?

Ermmmm.... Don't know, Mike.

I have no idea who Deerhof are or why the milk man is bleeding from injuries apparently caused by a strawberry (head) and bananas (armpit and per anum as we classicists say).

All very odd but no doubt there is an explanation.

The above gem is The Reverend in Rhythm by Father Robert White. There's something vaguely disturbing about the reverend gentleman. It's probably the way he holds his pipe.

the Handsome Beasts with Beastiality. I was actually going to post this on a previous occasion and decided not to on grounds of good taste and discernment. No such inhibitions this time! So squirm...

How Are Things in Your Town? by Ken Nordine - whoever he is. I'm told the above red thing is an enema bag.

How nasty is that? No, don't answer. It's a rhetorical question. And finally to lift the spirits, the latest in a series of wac-coe's. From Leeds United v QPR 18.12.10. 2-0 as you ask. Best supporters in the universe..

Belated Valentines Day message from the rabbit...

2011-02-15T17:34:00.003Z

...actually that isn't me. I've got far more hair (he typed smugly) Hat Tip to Michael. Oh, and the message inside?

Dildo, dog, Marianne and farting revisited...

2011-02-14T12:10:00.009Z

The chappie whose picture the rabbit has totally failed to upload despite devoting far too much time to trying, the rabbit has to report, is named Jure Skumavc and is an architect from Darwin, Australia. It would be noted if the bloody photo would upload has sustained a minor injury to his forehead. How so? I hear the rabbit's devoted readership cry.

The answer is that he was hit by a flying dildo at a stag night.

Those familiar with Priscilla Queen of the Desert will no doubt be familiar with the scene involving projecting ping pong balls out of - erm - a certain part of the anatomy. Something similar happened here involving an exotic dancer and the offending dildo. Mr Skumavc helpfully explained that the pink projectile flew an impressive 7m across the room and looping about 2m high.

'It wasn't a strong shot (when it hit me in the head)' he explained showing commendable tolerance. 'It probably just landed on an awkward sort of angle'.

Quite so. Mr Skumavc added 'I don't have a massive experience with dildos'.

Quite so again.

Apologies to anyone to whom this is stale news but it is new to the rabbit. A US woman has been charged with felony animal cruelty, saying she hanged her nephew's pit bull from a tree with an electrical cord and burned its body because the dog chewed on her Bible. Animal control officers said 65-year-old Miriam Smith of Spartanburg County, South Carolina told them she killed a female dog named Diamond because it was a 'devil dog' and she worried it could harm neighbourhood children.

Only in America...

It was interesting to note that the posting on historic events in Egypt attracted 4 comments and a piece on - erm - farting attracted 12. One of which from Mahal (who is also to blame for the rubbish above) relates to Sarah Palin - just follow the link.

On a better note, the rabbit was pleased to see the great survivor Marianne Faithfull on breakfast Tv this morning. She has a new album coming out called Horses and High Heels. Go buy. She's a class act and has paid her dues - from stardom to drug addiction, lost years and homelessness and back again. Here she is from the sixties with a rabbit favourite, Come and Stay With Me.

What a pleasant surprise!

2011-02-11T17:20:00.004Z

What a pleasant surprise awaited the rabbit in his Inbox. An e-mail from Christine O'Donnell no less. It is nice to know that she has not forgotten me. 'Guess what the Establishment is up to now...' Christine asks. 'I don't know, dear' the rabbit murmured. 'What are they up to?' It turns out that the establishment is being horrid to Christine and smearing her in some unspecified way and no doubt not a nice one too. But - plucky girl that she is - Christine is not taking it lying down (so to speak). She has set up a PAC or political action committee she tells me. At the risk of seeming to betray a confidence, she tells me as follows...

'You have helped me come this far. You have been a true friend...You are the reason I made a stand for our cause in 2010'

Between you and me, it sounds as if Christine is carrying a bit of a torch for me. I hope this impressionable young woman doesn't get too carried away with these feelings. She does ask me for some dollars but I'm sure will understand when I tell her I have no US dollars. Not a single one...

I'm sure there must be some form of counselling for the lovesick available in Delaware.

Breaking News....

2011-02-11T16:10:00.003Z

He's gone! And the heartiest 'good riddance'. It has been a wonderful thing to watch. It must have been hugely wonderful to take part in.

More cutting edge legal stuff...

2011-02-08T16:31:00.003Z

Other legal blogs - or blawgs are they are sometimes vulgarly known - can eat their hearts out. The rabbit is at the cutting edge of legal blogging yet again with
a topic that has exercised the finest jurisprudential minds way back to - erm - someone or the other, namely is farting legal?

This grave and weighty question is now somewhat controversial in Malawi due to the Local Courts Bill, about to begin its majestic progress through the Malawian parliament and containing the following: 'any person who vitiates the atmosphere in any place so as to make it noxious to the public, to the health of persons in general dwelling or carrying on business in the neighbourhood or passing along a public way shall be guilty of a misdemeanour'.

Um righty.

Malawian Justice Minister George Chaponda who is actually a trained lawyer opines that the new bill would criminalise flatulence to promote 'public decency'. 'Just go to the toilet when you feel like farting' our man has helpfully explained.

Um doublerighty.

This unusual construction of the clause in the bill has been contradicted by Solicitor General Anthony Kamanga, who says the reference to 'fouling the air' means pollution. 'How any reasonable or sensible person can construe the provision to criminalising farting in public is beyond me' he said, adding that the prohibition contained in the new law has been in place since 1929.

Speaking as a reasonable or sensible rabbit, there is no dissent from here. Mr Chaponda is warming to his theme, however. 'Would you be happy to see people farting anyhow?' he enquired on Malawi's Capital radio. Anyone with an answer to this question should drop a line forthwith to the minister at...

Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs
Private Bag 333, Lilongwe 3, MALAWI, Central Africa.
Tel : (+265) 1 788 411
Fax : (+265) 1 788 332/841
Email : justice@malawi.gov.mw

No doubt Mr Chaponda would find any feedback valuable. Best not to mention the clip below to him, though... Hat Tip to Mahal

Day 13...

2011-02-06T17:51:00.006Z

The picture above is of Tahrir Square on day 13 of the protests in Egypt. What is there left to say? These guys (of both genders) are magnificent. End of.

Except it's still not the end of. Mubarak and his cronies are hugely dug in and have tried every trick they can think of to cling on to power. The army is clearly hedging its bets so the regime blocks mobile phone networks, closes down facebook(!) sends its paid goons in to attack protesters - even down to the bizarre camel charge by camel drivers who were apparently told that their licences would not be renewed unless they turned up to give the protester a hard tiome. All to no avail so far - the protesters keep coming back and coming back.But the ruling clique aren't letting go of their ill gotten booty without having their fingers prised from the levers of power. Like any tyranny, they will not give in because they see the moral force of the opposing arguments. They will give in if - and only if - they are made to.

The protesters strength may be their weakness. This is a total bottom up grassroots protest. A certain amount of paranoid rubbish has been doing the rounds in the western press from commentators of the 'Mad Mel' Phillips persuasion to the effect that that the events in Egypt carry the danger of an Islamist regime. The (small minority in Egypt) Muslim Brotherhood bogeyman is wheeled out on cue in support of this proposition. This is plain nonsense. the deminstrations overwhelmingly have a secular and non-sectarian character (see image of Muslim with Koran and Copt with cross being carried through the crowds below). Behind this narrative is the unspoken proposition that though Mubarak may have ruled through a police force which pulled people's fingernails out but he was reliably biddable as regards whatever western interests were perceived to be in the middle east.

The game has moved on from that narrative and is up. But the danger is a fudge imposed on the Egyptians via assorted self-appointed honest brokers. Bottom up grassroots protests are wonderful but somehow an united voice needs to emerge - a voice that won't be pushed around.

The Egyptians have ownership of the movement that has swept that country. No-one else. is entitled to claim or seek to hijack it. Support the Egyptian people and be glad for them

It was pretty inevitable..

2011-02-04T17:07:00.003Z

...after the last posting - and in particular Tony's efforts - that a certain song had to figure. Here it is! As to the circumstances of its recording, I report as follows from a biography of Mr Dylan...

"Late one night Bob asked the Nashville band he was playin with 'what do you guys do here?' and they replied 'beer'. Bob told them he had a new song but the refrain was 'everybody must get stoned' and he refused to record the song with straight people so he sent Ed Gazzar to Ireland's bar and he came back with a huge leprechaun cocktail for everyone in large milk shake cartons. Joints were passed arround and everyone was wiped out. On the original recording McCoy put a call through to Wayne Doc Butler who brought his trumpet down to the studio. The other musicians all swapped instruments which resulted in that raggy marching band sound. Strzelecki gave his bass to Al Kooper and he played the piano but he couldn't work the pedals with his feet so he had to lay beside the piano and push them with his hands. The voice that you can hear braying with laughter is Strzelecki on the piano. After the session in the contol room. Bob was asked 'what's the name of this song?' 'Rainy day women #12 & 35' - this recording had no rehearsals and was released as is".

With apologies to early to mid sixties stuff haters, I heard the phrase 'nose in the air' earlier today and ever since the song below has been going through my head. Can't be helped, I suppose...

So here are the Ivy League from the 1965 NME awards introduced by the best-known old boy of the rabbit's former school - erm - Jimmy Savile with Funny How Love Can Be. It's dubbed but there ya go.

A stone in weight...

2011-02-03T15:30:00.006Z

Comments on the hugely overweight Dutch prisoner in the last posting had the rabbit wondering. What is the origin of stone - as in stone in weight? I really didn't know but Google means you never have to say you don't know and off went the rabbit on a voyage of exploration. References to stones usually cause much puzzlement across the North American continent - okay, you guys have pounds but not stones. A stone as mentioned below is 14 pounds and the weight (it's an Imperial weight technically) perhaps has some merit in dividing up (or something like that) large weights where the division may help get a clearer idea of what the weight represents. For example 'X weighs 13 stone 6 pounds' gives me a clearer idea of the bulk of X than 'X weighs 188 pounds' but maybe it's just a familiarity thing. Below are Imperial standards of length from Trafalgar Square (okay the topic is weight but bear with me).

Imperial Units were fixed in 1824 for use in the British Empire. Previously, English Units, a mixture of Anglo-Saxon and Roman measurements, had been in use. The US Customary system derives from the English Units. Below is a baby bottle with Imperial. Metric and US Customary units marked. The UK officially went metric in 1995 but many Imperial measures survive, for example the pint measures are the only legal ones for beer but that may be about to change.

'This is all very well', I hear you cry 'but what is the origin of stone as a measure?' The answer is that originally localities had a good sized stone (as in literally a stone) which they used to measure commodities against. Of course, the stones were of variable weight from locality to locality so in the end standardisation had to come about and duly did. In the 14th century England’s exporting of raw wool to Florence necessitated a fixed standard. In 1389 a royal statute fixed the stone of wool at 14 pounds and the sack of wool at 26 stones.

So that's the answer.

Oddly some other stone weights still exist such as the glass stone of 5 pounds but effectively a stone is always 14 pounds. By way of utterly contrived link, I was going to end with Van Morrison's And It Stoned Me but every time I tried to embed, Internet Explorer crashed. I suspect foul play! I haven't commented yet on the Egypt thing but I'm totally engaged with it and full of admiration for the courage of the anti-government protesters and contempt for Mubarak's goons. The sooner he's on a plane out of there to spend more time with his no doubt stolen offshore funds the better.

Meanwhile in a Dutch cell...

2011-01-31T18:00:00.005Z

More cutting edge legal blogging natch...

A Dutch prisoner giant has gone to court over the size of his single cell, arguing that it is inhumanely small. The prisoner, 2.07m tall (6ft 9in) and 230kg (36st - multiply by 14 for pounds American readers!), says he cannot properly sleep or use the toilet. Prison officials have tried to relieve his discomfort by adding a a 2.15m plank and an extra mattress to his bed. While the plank and extra mattress supplied by the prison authorities were meant to make him more comfortable, he now has to 'sleep with one eye open in case he falls out of bed' explained his lawyer, one Mr Martens.

It is emphasised by his lawyer that the prisoner is a natural giant and not obese. The rabbit is slightly troubled by this one. Even taking on board (so to speak) that he is 6 ft 9 ins, erm, 36 stones??? He is doing 2 years for fraud as you ask. He is not arguing that he shouldn't finish his sentence, but that he should finish it somewhere else. To take a shower, he must first wedge himself into the cubicle, then crouch down under the head. So tiny and low is his toilet, he complains, that - erm - visits must be kept to the absolute minimum. Mr Martens, who has argued before a court at The Hague that the prisoner - known as - Angelo McD has had his European Convention rights breached (cue Daily Mail type howls of rage) by his conditions of detention. there will be a ruling in February and the rabbit will be playing close attention but is saying nuffin save that overweight Dutchmen put him in mind of the rather wonderful Dutch pancakes - for the unitiated called poffertjes (see below). Yums!

Scambaiting revisited

2011-01-28T15:17:00.009Z

Way, way back in the beginning of time the rabbit did a posting about his brief career as a scambaiter. Nice unicorn I'm sure all will agree. Being still time pressed, I thought I'd let the excellent scamorama website do the work today. A particular favourite scambaiter of the rabbit's is Lonslo Tossov. Follow the link for his latest romantic tryst - this time with the lovely Jane. The link has further links to Lonslo's previous amours. For the unaware, Lonslo's photographs are actually of the doctor and prolific serial killer Harold Shipman. The website 419eater (419 is the article of the Nigerian penal code prohibiting advance fee fraud) has a most splendid trophy room in which photos of would-be scammers holding up ridiculous signs or doing dumb things are displayed, Hat Tip to 419eater for the following.

No doubt he is...

Ditto this fellow. The scammers are either irredeemably stupid or desperate - or both.

Quite so... On a totally different topic, the rabbit is currently reading Kitty Kelley's The Royals. THIS IS PURELY IN THE INTERESTS OF RESEARCH! I have a literary project and some background reading is needed - otherwise I'd never dream of reading such a book. Having said that, it is actually quite a good scurrilous read and has reinforced the rabbit in his republicanism. A review will follow when I've finished it. On another completely different topic, the rabbit was shocked to come across the image below. Letting the side down if you ask me...

And here is the rabbit's latest masterpiece using the Julian Assange coloring (sic) book website (link below)...

Twelve Angry Cats...

2011-01-20T12:00:00.007Z

The above feline is named Sal Esposito and if she is looking distinctly startled, there is a good reason. Ever at the cutting edge of legal blogging, the rabbit can reveal that Sal has been summoned for jury service in Boston, Massachusetts, despite being - erm - a cat. Let Sal's owner, Anna Esposito take up the story: 'Sal is a member of the family so I listed her on the last census form under pets but there has clearly been a mix-up'.

Quite so. The rabbit scratches his head at the idea of a census form that requires details of resident pets in the first place but that's by the way.

A jury summons duly appeared for Sal, much to the bemusement of his - one may suspect intellectually challenged - owners. Anna Esposito filed to have her pet disqualified from the service requirement on the grounds he is 'unable to speak and understand English'. She even included a letter from her vet explaining that Sal is not a human being but a 'domestic short-haired neutered feline'.

Very reasonable points too, I am sure all will agree but the court rejected the request, and as things stand, Sal will have to report for duty to Suffolk Superior Court in Boston on March 23.

The rabbit awaits developments but does recall that his youth (or early adulthood more strictly) he lived in a house with a TV Licence holding cat. The relevant licence was in the name of Ms B. A. Catt - the relevant cat being called Brian despite being female for reasons too convoluted and dull to explain. He also recalls a cat named Florence who was on the electoral roll as Florence A Catt. Unlike Sal, Florence's entry was deliberate and a joke. Also unlike Sal (I assume) Florence actually voted in a general election via a human representative who presented herself at the polling station and gave Florence's name. Florence voted Liberal if you were wondering. Hat Tip to Mahal.