Doh!!!

Nice to see a DIY return for the stocks. Hat Tip to His Holiness at Ron Knee

Zimbabwe - a modest proposal...

Why not pretend Mugabe has weapons of mass destruction and invade? Cartoon by Martin Rowson

More random stuff..

Before footage disappears from YouTube completely, here is a clip of Kevin Petersen's switch hitting routine. Explanation: he converts himself from a right handed to a left handed batsman as the bowler runs in. Then he belts two sixes (like home runs Americanpersons). This caused some consternation. Was it legal? The MCC who are in charge of the laws of the game decided that it was. Though I agree, I suspect that this decision was as much for commercial as cricketing reasons. Furthermore, it's a high risk strategy on the part of the batsman and I further suspect that only someone as outrageously talented as Pietersen could get away with it too often.

The disappearance of this footage from YouTube (presumably at the insistence of Sky TV) raises an interesting topic. Some performers, notably Van Morrison, have demanded that all clips of them performing be taken down. Strictly, they are of course entitled to take this stance but it does seem like a piece of miserabilism. What serious commercial harm do the YouTube clips do to them? I did think of doing a posting on Irish music a while ago, a project rapidly abandoned when I discovered every single Van Morrison/Chieftans clip had been taken down from YouTube. Miserable gits! Credit to the Dead who have never given a stuff about unofficial merchandising/bootleg taping/putting any old clip of them up.

A completely different topic: last night I watched a TV documentary on Unity Mitford. This set in motion a thought: as a child, I was told that Hitler's real name was Schicklgruber. Was this true? Cue online researches. The short answer is 'no'. Explanation: his father (name Alois) was born out of wedlock to Maria Anna Schicklgruber. The father of Alois (surname Heidler/Hitler - same thing apparently) married her later and Alois was eventually legitimised and took the surname Hitler. Twelve years later Adolf Hitler was born. So where did the rumours come from? Well apparently the answer is that British intelligence dug up this story and - Schicklgruber being a silly sounding name, at least to British ears - decided to milk it for all it was worth for propaganda purposes. So now you know (apologies to those who did already)...

As a parting shot, some good news. Local authorities have been told by the Local Government Association to cut out 100 words of incomprehensible bureaucratic gibberish. Out goes, among others, 'coterminosity', 'place shaping', 'predictors of beaconicity' and 'stakeholder engagement'. This kind of drivel defeat the purpose of language, namely communication. It excludes instead. If the public sector excludes then the private sector infantilises. One of many reasons I avoid fast food outlets is that they make you speak their idiot language when ordering. Should you find yourself in a fast food outlet, just listen to yourself reciting the puerile guff you have to spout...

Blimey!!! :-O

Very reassuring to know, I'm sure you'll all agree...

Hat Tip to Tory Troll http://torytroll.blogspot.com/

News Digest

The Rabbit has been silent so far this week - a combination of working out of town and editing the crime novel (coming along nicely as you ask!). So here are a few snippets from the week's events that might have been blogged on at greater length.

Next week sees the start of Wimblebore, the most tiresome event in the sporting calendar. The Rabbit does his level best to ignore it completely but it does manage to intrude despite best efforts. It also makes 5 Live, one of my radio stations of choice, un-listenable-to for a fortnight. I always laugh when it rains on it while simultaneously fearing that the rain may extend it and/or cause Cliff Richard to sing. Then there is the annual farce of the gallant British loser - the mantle has passed from Tim Henman to Thingy Murray (pictured below). YAWN...

On a more sombre note, state terrorism in Zimbabwe is beyond belief. One African politician asked why they are bothering to have an 'election' at all. The only explanation I can think of is that the state terrorists see it as an opportunity to murder, brutalise and generaly terrify the population into submission.

A bizarre story from British Columbia. Feet keep appearing on beaches there, minus the rest of the former owner. So far five feet have appeared, four right and one left if you were wondering. No-one knows why. The latest is that some hoaxer has left an animal paw in a trainer on a beach. The local coroner pronounces this as 'reprehensible'. I don't suppose he would say 'that was a good giggle'.

For an apparently mild-mannered man, the Rev Martin Dudley has caused quite a stink. The reason? He presided over a service inevitably described as 'gay marriage' for two clergy. Cue inevitable huffing and puffing. Some thin lipped woman appeared on the TV news the other day pronouncing 'if I had my way, I'd have them all unfrocked'. Isn't winding up people like that fun? The reverend gentleman's full title is Rev Dr Martin Dudley BD MSc PhD FSA FRHistS AKC so his main crime is being overqualified in a public place. It puts in mind the average electrician or complementary practitioner who always seem to have a string of incomprehensible initials after their name.

Euro 2008 potters along nicely enough without English participation and the Rabbit has given it intermittent attention. It's actually a decent competition and in many ways better than the World Cup. The British media attempt to drum up interest, they having a load of coverage on their hands, was amusing with the 'who do you support?' gig. The great British public's answer appears to be either 'Holland' or 'couldn't care less'. I am apparently among 1.4% of the British population in wanting Germany to win.

Oh dear -- I have been tagged for two memes. I have decided I don't do memes. Sorry! As a peace offering to Daisy in particular, above is the Dead's Sugar Magnolia from The Grateful Dead Movie -only recently posted on YouTube. Look for the huge guy with the beard and the hat dancing at the beginning of the clip. Who is he? They should have given him an Oscar!!! Annoyingly the clips ends before Sugar Magnolia segues into Sunshine Daydream but you can't have everything...

Thingy Murray

Yer Rock & Roll 13

Guilty pleasures? Two Lyndrd Skynrd songs: I would be interested in American feedback on this posting because in Europe we may be missing a lot of the way in which that band, and Sweet Home Alabama in particular resonates over there. Although I knew of the song before it’s mostly known over here from the soundtrack (and wasn’t it a good one?) from Forrest Gump. That film managed to render the song anodyne – the capacity of mainstream media to render difficult material bland is a topic in itself. But it isn’t. This much I know: Neil Young recorded a song called Southern Man. I don’t actually think it’s a particularly good song but it was – to say the least – not universally well received:

Southern man better keep your head

Dont forget what your good book said

Southern change gonna come at last

Now your crosses are burning fast

Southern man

I saw cotton and I saw black

Tall white mansions and little shacks.

Southern man when will you pay them back?

I heard screamin and bullwhips cracking

How long? how long?

Sweet Home Alabama was the response. You will see on the clip a Confederate flag being wagged enthusiastically (yuck!).

Big wheels keep on turning

Carry me home to my kin

Singing songs about the Southland

I miss Alabamy once again

And I think its a sin, yes

Well I heard Mr Young sing about her

Well, I heard ole Neil put her down

Well, I hope Neil Young will remember

Southern man don't need him around anyhow

The southern US states have a history of vicious racism. The last lynching was as recently as the late 1960s (now they do that sort of thing legally with lethal injections after due process which apparently constitutes progress). So were the band simply a bunch of racists? I think the answer is more complex than that. We tend to think of rock and roll as radical, as challenging to the existing order but such a view underestimates the power of conservatism. You can grow your hair long and play in the band but not abandon the comfortable certainties of upbringing and belief system of a conservative (and perhaps the word conservative is a euphemism) society. Some identities are problematic – for example Southern US white, Ulster Protestant, Israeli – but they are nonetheless held. What tends to characterise them is a deep defensiveness – for obvious reasons – namely that they are perceived as relatively privileged (rightly, but again it’s not as simple as that) as against the group with whom they are in close up and often violent conflict– the southern US black, Ulster Catholic, Palestinian. I know what a Marxist would say – namely that they suffer from false consciousness and need to recognise that for example that the poor white has more in common with the poor black than, for example, the rich white who has just foreclosed on their mis-sold mortgage - and have considerable sympathy with that view but again (this is getting repetitious) it’s not as simple as that.

For products of a strand underpinned by the religious right, two quotes may be apt (1) St Paul – ‘I am what I am’ – Sweet Home Alabama seems essentially a collective assertion of this proposition. Okay, you are but how to move on? (2) John Wesley – ‘why should the devil have all the good tunes?’ In this case the devil does – I have to admit that Sweet Home Alabama is a brilliant piece of rock and roll. As is Simple Man (the second clip). Again, in Simple Man the underlying sentiments are deeply and self-consciously conservative. You can smell the defensiveness.

Don’t ask me. I’m just a European with libertarian/left sympathies. I’ve never even been. Probably close up contact with the southern US white Republican would send me psychotic in very short order. I really would be interested in feedback on this one…

As they may well still say on the exam papers for all I know ‘discuss’.

Oh and as a parting shot, here’s a clip from Top Gear, a BBC petrolhead TV programme and usually to me mind-numbingly tedious but in this programme they went to Alabama with stuff written on their vehicles that they thought might not go down too well with the locals. It was their finest hour. Observe the consequences…

That thing with fists...

The interesting thing about the Obama campaign is the amount of utterly demented bile that is being poured on his head by right wing 'commentators'. The latest bilefest comes from those sweet people at Fox 'News'. The picture shows the Obamas doing something we are all familiar with but nobody quite seems to know what to call. You know - the bit where people clench their fists and touch knuckles back of hand up. Someone called E.D. Hill, a Fox presenter is in a spot of bother for referring to the Obamas as being engaged in a 'terrorist fist jab' Huh??? Some moron on something called HumanEvents.com http://www.humanevents.com/ - referrred to "Hezbollah-style fist-jabbing". Yeah right, Hezbollah do little else..

The unpleasantness from Fox doesn't end there. The old charmers posted a graphic during a discussion on Michelle Obama: "Outraged Liberals: Stop Picking on Obama's Baby Mama!" Top that for offensive. Okay, they will in due course...

Of course the smearing is not confined to Fox or the mainstream media. There is a cottage industry of bloggers cranking up the smears. Prominent among the UK practitioners of this 'art' is Mad Mel aka Melanie Phillips in her Spectator blog. take a look - it's fascinating in the same sense that a car crash is fascinating http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/.

This sort of stuff is going to run and run so to save time and effort here is a brief synopsis: 'Obama is a Muslim and an Al-Qaeda agent whose real name is Osama. He has a scary invisible giant beard, hates freedom, hates whitey, is surrounded by anti-semites and would like to murder you all in your beds'. Okay - I exaggerate but not much.

What it is that so agitates the spittle flecked loons is a matter for debate. My difficulty with Obama is somewhat different. He is plainly vigorously tacking to the right to get elected. A few examples: he is pro death penalty despite recognising (it could hardly be denied) that the death penalty impacts disproportionately on the black population. He had shown some understanding of the plight of the Palestinians but has ended up trying to outbid the field in drooling and drivelling over the odious AIPAC. He criticised Clinton (H) for joining the board of Wal-Mart but then appoints someone called Jason Furman, a prominent defender of Wal-Mart to head his economics team. On the subject of names and economic advisers, another is called Austan Goolsbee - now that's up there with Tangerine LeBeau in the list of improbable names.

I have no great expectations of Obama if he is elected. He does bring some strange creatures out from under their stones, though.

Random stuff from YouTube...

I am formulating a serious blog in my mind about the 'obesity crisis' and the misconceived official response to it. But in the meantime some not serious stuff from YouTube...

The first clip sort of follows from the posting on the 1 June about cold calling (if you haven't listened to the clip on that posting you should you know!). By way of contrast this one is a set up but a cracker - not helped by the exaggerated guffawing of whoever is presenting it and his mate.

The second clip is - erm - a dancing skeleton. Hat (or hut) tip to taj for this.

Not Yer Rock & Roll 5

A bit of Handel's Water Music to soothe the furrowed brow. The picture is "Segelschiff in stürmischer" by some dude called Ivan Aivazovsky by the way...

Totally nicked from Ron Knee cos it's class...

As it says. Now, move along, nothing to look at here! (link)

Picture from Kent Police archives, if you were wondering...

poetry corner

Lovers' Infiniteness by John Donne

IF yet I have not all thy love,

Dear, I shall never have it all ;

I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move,

Nor can intreat one other tear to fall ;

And all my treasure, which should purchase thee,

Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters I have spent ;

Yet no more can be due to me,

Than at the bargain made was meant.

If then thy gift of love were partial,

That some to me, some should to others fall,

Dear, I shall never have thee all.

Or if then thou gavest me all,

All was but all, which thou hadst then ;

But if in thy heart since there be or shall

New love created be by other men,

Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears,

In sighs, in oaths, and letters, outbid me,

This new love may beget new fears,

For this love was not vow'd by thee.

And yet it was, thy gift being general ;

The ground, thy heart, is mine ;

what ever shall Grow there, dear,

I should have it all.

Yet I would not have all yet.

He that hath all can have no more ;

And since my love doth every day admit

New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store ;

Thou canst not every day give me thy heart,

If thou canst give it, then thou never gavest it ;

Love's riddles are, that though thy heart depart,

It stays at home, and thou with losing savest it ;

But we will have a way more liberal,

Than changing hearts, to join them ;

so we shall Be one, and one another's all.

rave on John Donne, rave on thou holy fool...

Yer Rock & Roll 12 - Bo Diddley

Bo Diddley died today. I mentioned before that I once saw him live backing UB40. He completely stole the show.

TV Comedy

I was thinking earlier that there are no decent new comedies on the TV these days, just endless repeats of the Vicar of Dribbly (there is something about the mere sight of Dawn French that makes me want to kick the TV screen in - then she opens her mouth). Then my mind went back to the recent past and the League of Gentlemen. Pure class...

On a completely different topic, I was reading an article about Hillary's reprise of Custer's last stand, where a vox pop person was quoted saying something or the other. The person's name? Tangerine LeBeau. You wouldn't dare give a character in a novel a name like that. Okay, I confess to having created two fictional characters called Incitatus Promnitz and Lorelei Fender so I suppose Tangerine LeBeau would be okay really - bit far fetched though...

Cold calling...

I rang someone I know the other day to discover that he has a cold calling filter on his phoneline. You have to say who you are. I did and fortunately he picked up! Pretty neat idea, I thought. Cold calling, as well as spam e-mail and the constant avalanche of junk through the letterbox, is one of the banes of modern life.

GO AWAY AND STOP BOTHERING ME!!!!

Rather like getting internet money laundering fraudsmen to send you money, getting cold callers to slam the phone on you is a holy grail in itself. I have managed this. A few years ago I was cold called by a lending institution. I had borrowed money from them before to plug a financial gap (story of my life!). It was a bum deal. You didn't so much borrow money from them as rent it. I paid them off in due course. They obviously thought I might like a second helping - not bloody likely!

The woman started her pitch. I said...

'I'm not interested'.

Undeterred, she ploughed on. I kept saying...

'I'm not interested'.

The woman lacked nothing in persistence. In the end I said...

'What part of "I'm not interested" aren't we following?' She said...

'There's no need to be rude!' I said...

'Did I ask you to call me?'

SLAM!!!!!

Result! Another good one is to ask them for their home phone number and when they will be back from work so you can ring them and continue the discussion. This invariably throws them. You then say ' so now you know how it feels this end'...

last night of the beercans...

Tonight is the last night you can drink alcohol on the London Underground (or indeed buses). The ban comes into force tomorrow compliments of new mayor Boris 'Bozzer' Johnson. The pic is Bozzer and some pals planning the ban.

There is resistance. Tonight there will be

drinks parties staged on the London Underground. The plan is some serious flash mobbing. The group "One final tube booze party" claims 3,500 members, enough to take over three trains. Inevitably there will be an extra police presence despite the partygoers' organisers requesting consideration for fellow passengers. The rail unions, who were not consulted as regards the ban, are not happy bunnies, fearing problems for staff attempting to enforce it. The present sanction to to ask anyone with an open bottle or can to leave (!). New criminal offences are on the way - inevitably enough.

Good for the partygoers. I hope they enjoy :D

Yay!!!

Blogsilence of late but there is a reason. I've just finished crime novel a few minutes ago and am awash with English ale and Barbadian rum. Yay!!! Done it!!! It's a wonderful moment. No feeling like it. Now comes the tricky bit. It has to be edited. The writing is in the re-writing. Then I have to try and find an agent. Then it has to be sold. All hard slog but right now, I don't care. I've written the %$£&ing thing !!! I also have to write a synopsis. All writers hate this but I'll post it here when written. Now time for another glass of rum...

Yer Rock & Roll 11 and musings...

Before the music stuff a few thoughts. There has been a strand in my postings recently the erosion of freedom of expression from the sinister (attempts to smother the Olympic torch protests) through the sinister and absurd (the boy with the placard describing Scientology as a 'cult' and his threatened prosecution) to the just plain absurd (the thing in Sunderland - whatever that was about). In my novel twentytwelve I imagined a free fall into barbarism. Dystopian fiction is about warning rather than prediction and I don't think it will work that way. At least if I did, I would have better things to do than blogging. The criminalisation of everything and the controlling state will eventually mean that we wake up one morning to discover that everything is either prohibited or compulsory.

Those fortified by the election of Boris Johnson as London myor may care to note that his first act was - why am I not surprised - to ban something. The particular something was drinking alcohol on the London Underground. Now I have seen people drinking beer cans on the London Underground and I have seen annoying and occasionally intimidating drunks. So far as I can recall, none of the annoying or intimidating drunks had beercans in tow. There is a complete or almost complete disconnect between the problem and the 'solution'. But it is imagined that this plays well with the punters so a ban it is....

Now music - the theme is young peoples' stuff. As regards popular music, you should know - and act - your age. But some contemporary stuff has permeated my middle-aged consciousness. The first clip is White Stripes with Icky Thump. Actually, this is a bit of a cheat - the White Stripes transcend generational differences - because they are so damn good. Anyways, Jack and Meg are a good deal younger than me (no sniggering at the back) so they qualify. Icky Thump, by the way, is a corruption of the Northern English 'ecky thump', an expression of surprise now only used ironically.

Number two is Rihanna's Pon De Replay. I was in Toronto a couple of summers ago and the local hip hop station played this endlessly. It's a real earworm - to borrow a nice expression from Daisy's blog. Bores its way into your skull and stays there.

Finally Slipknot because they crack me up. I did think of posting their version of La Bamba, thus making it the first song to feature twice in this series but settled on another cover - American Idiot. The clip is from some US TV show. Isn't the presenter a muppet? I occasionally wonder how you get a presenter's job on US TV. I could do that....

Is there a dentist in the house?

Introducing New Zealand batsman Daniel Flynn. The spitting may be excused as he has just been hit on the head by England paceman James Anderson. Despite wearing a helmet, he was abruptly seperated from one of his front teeth (which was apparently retrieved by the New Zealand physio - what happened to the tooth next remains obscure). Ouch! Remember the ball is very hard and will be making acquaintance with his face at 85-90mph. Rough old game, cricket. Former England captain Mike Gatting left a part of the bridge of his nose embedded in the ball after being hit by West Indies legend Malcolm Marshall in the mid 1980s. Evidently Marshall picked up the ball, looked at it and, feeling distinctly queasy , threw the ball as far away as he could. The worst that ever happened to me playing cricket was copping a ball travelling at some speed right on the ball of my ankle. That hurt like hell.

On a happier note, the boy threatened with prosecution for holding a placard describing Scientology as a 'cult' (blog 21 May) is not to be prosecuted after all. Quite right too but why was it ever an issue in the first place? Marina Hyde in todays Guardian summarises the core beliefs of Scientology...

'Seventy-five billion years ago, the intergalactic alien tyrant Xenu exiled manifold individuals to Earth in special craft - which looked exactly like DC-8s. Hubbard provides sketches. These beings were then imprisoned in mountains, before being blown up with hydrogen bombs and brainwashed with a huge 3D film. Their traumatised spirits - "Body Thetans" - then clustered around human bodies and continue to do so to this very day, and can only be removed using advanced Scientology. Xenu? Currently held captive in a mountain by a forcefield'.

Ermm...

Righty.

That clears that one up then.

Complete Arse Corner...

This bizarre story comes from the BBC via Jailhouse Lawyer - blogworld's daily news digest. A former gay bar in Sunderland has gone straight. It has put up a banner.

"Retox under new management! Now Straight! Top totty dancers on match days!"

Now this is no doubt to many people a little tacky. The sensible response is a brief eyeball roll and moving on - literally and metaphorically. But no. Some complete arse has complained to the police.

Did the police tell the complete arse to go away? Nope. A police investigation has ensued. Into what is not clear save that the complainer was - guess what - offended. A community group has been involved in helping 'resolving' the matter.

This is another excursion around Planet Bonkers! Why is anyone complaining of being 'offended' - like apparently those loveable Scientologists yesterday - taken seriously? I'll say it one more time - not being offended is not a human right. It's not as if the banner was an incitement to hate crime or somesuch. It's just a Sid the Sexist and his mates being sad facility. Get over it!!!

Here are Sid and his mates - caution: very bad taste :-O - doublecaution: Americanpersons may need interpreter.

Free Speech part 98...

Mark Steel (that's the bloke over there on the right) is, for the benefit of overseas readers, a commentator and stand up comedian.

He also writes a column for the Independent newspaper (a generally good thing). Except they wouldn't print his latest one after the lawyers threw a wobbly. Less than heroic stuff. So, in the interests of free speech here is his article through the wonder of copy and paste:

'There's a trial currently taking place in Belfast, that seems to explain plainly how nothing makes any sense. It revolves around a factory owned by the arms company Raytheon, which was set up in Derry soon after the IRA ceasefire. John Hume, who'd just won the Nobel Peace Prize was among those who announced the opening of the plant, welcoming it as a result of the 'peace dividend'

So at last, now the men of violence had agreed to give up their weapons, the area could attract a peaceful company with a turnover of seventeen billion dollars from making weapons. Clearly, all the while the IRA were decommissioning their arms, most of us misunderstood this process. Because the government reports must have gone "They possess 100 rifles, 10 RPG 7 rockets and a shed full of semtex. If they want to be taken seriously this isn't NEARLY enough; they need Tornado bombers and a car park full of tanks - we can't deal with these amateurs."

For example, when Raytheon won a contract to develop a new missile system for the Israelis in 2006, a spokesman boasted they would "Provide all-weather hit-to-kill performance at a tactical missile price." Next they might have adverts, that go "Hurry hurry hurry to the Raytheon springtime sale for lasers, tasers and civilian-erasers that will make flesh sizzle through snow, sleet or drizzle WITHOUT making a casualty of your wallet."Despite this, the government in Northern Ireland welcomed the new plant, claiming they'd been assured it wouldn't be making weapons. To which a reasonable response would be 'Right - they're a weapons manufacturer - they supplied weapons to, amongst others, the Indonesian military junta - this might, if you were cynical, suggest they make weapons. Or what do you THINK they're going to be making - FAIRTRADE FUCKING CUSTARD!'

Eventually it was admitted they were making guidance systems for missiles, and so for a while there was a pretence these were being employed for peaceful reasons. Perhaps the systems were being attached to wasps so that a central controlling network could guide them away from picnics.

But then it became clear they were being used by the Israelis in Lebanon, and there was outrage in Derry when in 2006 one such system guided a missile into a block of flats in Qana, killing 28 people, mostly children. A few days later the local anti-war group, including the journalist and civil rights activist Eamonn McCann, decided to occupy the Raytheon building as a protest. A group of nine got into the plant, and as a gesture they threw a computer out of the window. Eventually around 40 police arrived and, as Eamonn describes "They smashed through the doors wearing riot gear, many holding perspex shields, some pointing plastic-bullet guns. They inched forward while the officer in command shouted 'surrender'. We continued playing cards."

And as I know Eamonn I can imagine him later that night in the police cell muttering "Tonight did not go as planned at all - I was SURE no one would beat my pair of queens."

Then came the official outrage - they'd wilfully broken the law, destroyed property etc. etc. So maybe whether an act of destruction is considered illegal or not comes down to the value of the objects destroyed. And computers are worth a fair packet, whereas a house in Qana can probably be picked up for next to nothing, especially with the current housing slump!

Perhaps the activists went about their protest in the wrong way. The more official approach might have been to leave Raytheon alone, but announce the local Co-op was making weapons. Then they could have produced a dossier to prove it, containing snippets from the internet about how the manager had been buying uranium from North Korea and smuggling it into the fridges in packets of fish fingers. Then they could have flattened the place, and when it turned out there never were any weapons they could have said it doesn't really make any difference.

Last year the group travelled to Qana to meet the families of the victims of that missile, and they described the trip, not surprisingly, as the most moving experience of their lives. But while it's all very well feeling compassion for dead civilians, someone has to consider the feelings of that poor computer, so this week their trial began, in a no-jury court in Belfast. Because opposing the bombing of civilians with missiles made as a result of a peace process can land you in jail, whereas organising international support for bombing those civilians gets you a job as peace envoy to the place that was bombed. It's obvious when you think about it.

I only hope that as the computer hit the ground, in its last moment it flickered 'You have performed an illegal operation'

So there - link to Mark Steel blog - http://www.marksteelinfo.com/