How cool is...

this? I've bought a mini ipod, I know, I know, it may seem like I'm a slave to fashion but it is pretty smooth and groovy and the sound quality, well! I've also got a copy of Salif Keita's latest album M'Bemba and this afternoon was driving through deepest East Manchester (the ipod is to cheer myself up because my posh Ford cd player is buggered and Ford have told me to throw it away cos they no longer make them even though it's only three years old and was a pretty mean machine, yada yada yada)... anyway, there I was driving on a busy main road traffic to the left and right of me and heading east when from behind the setting sun lit the whole area. The music of Mali giving it what for in my head and everything suffused in a deep golden hue was mind bogglingly stunning. A quarter mile in front traffic crossed at a junction, white vans, red cars, silver vehicles, a large truck and trailer, an orange double decker bus whose windows flashed like they were on fire, all were picked out by the late afternoon sun. It was as if a beautiful necklace of huge stones passed in front of me and then was gone.

Such a lovely higlight in an otherwise crap day.

All the students...

are returning to college. I was in Bangor, North Wales over the weekend and a tad under the influence. As I walked Bangor's mean streets with my mate a little worse for the wear I was struck by the number of adults with teenage offspring in tow. At first I thought it odd so many teenagers out with their mum and dad until it dawned that last week was freshers week at the university. Awww. Anxious parents trailing their offspring wondering where the previous eighteen years has gone, worrying about Tarquin or Jemima but more likely Baz and Mopsy after all this is Bangor. Many of the parents looked grey due no doubt to an overactive imagination seared with images of drug fueled orgies all night clubbing and vomit. You can tell the newies because, a) their clothes are clean; b) they look anxious; c) they laugh inappropriately, like in shops and stuff; d) their clothes are clean. My view is that freshers always look like freshers until they're not, such as when they return a battle scarred second years. Experience is a grubby business which is why the innocent are always clean and this rule applies especially to students. Despite this I still find something positive about freshers, maybe they remind me of the Spring and renewal I really don't know. Maybe I like the fact that they're about to embark on a FUCKING TOP TIME that will last three whole years. Am I jealous? Nah, been there done that moved on. Nevertheless it was good. Bless em.

I may return to student shennanigans in a later blog.

Can I be the only one...

to notice Benedict the Umpteenth has become sponsored? The embroidered badges and sown on logos were a bit of a giveaway but it didn't really click until I looked at today's list of newly ensainted saints. When I was young the minimum criteria for saintdom (and I mean minimum) were: be dead at least a thousand years plus your death had to have been particularly unpleasant. You know the sort of thing, hot poker up the bum, tongs in the gizzard, something involving a wrench. In my catholic youth Saints were tough cookies, they were no nonsense don't fuck with me sorts. Adorning the various churches I frequented as a child were statues, representations in stone of these heroes, and everyone with a scar, a five o'clock shadow, reddened knuckles, even the women saints looked like bag men for the Mob. These were the type who laughed in the face of torture, spat in the eye of fear, wiped snot on the cuff of destiny, they died for what they believed. So it comes as a bit of a shock to learn it's now possible to sponsor a Saint. Of the five ensainted today three are supported by drugs companies, one by nuclear power and one by an unnamed cartel from Bogota. Never one to miss a trick the companies want some return for their investment so, as they say, everything really is in the name. Apparently Saint Exlaxica will become known as an efficacious treatment for all things relating to innards (her award winning logo "And Nothing Shall Linger" is seen by the industry as a marvel of brevity) Saint Viag of Ara speaks for itself and dying him blue was a nice touch and it seems cobalt does come off with vigorous scrubbing; Saint Beelzibub of the Black Lung I think demonstrates a tobacco industry still out of touch with public opinion. I did like Saint Radiumumhum represented as a small glowing child able to manage the average family's heating, lighting and contraceptive needs. Finally Benny the U should do something about the talc on his upper lip, it is not becoming especially when declaring Saint Charles of Medelin as the only one who didn't like either dogs or people with obvious colds.

So that was it today for Catholicism and sponsorship. Looking at some of the early rushes for the morning's press I see that George Bush has floated the idea of sponsoring hurricanes. No more Wilma and Katrina, nope if the Republicans get their way hurricanes are to be branded like everything else. Imagine it, Coca Cola did this? Wow! Or in an attempt at the teenage vote, 'Pepsi? Damage teeth? Psshht! You should see what it can do to your neighbourhood." Anything under category three is to be reclassified as Lite.

A recent photograph showing a...

gorilla fording a stream seems to have caused a stir. Zoologists, anthropologists, astrologists, arthopods, neuropods and sennapods worldwide were in such a flap because the creature is seen testing the water's depth with a stick. Not one expert mentioned the ipod or for that matter the Blackberry in the creature's left hand. Indeed a video of the event shows him clearly speaking with his broker in London.

Gorilla, "Charles love, I want you to move ten thousand out of teak, hmm hmm, yes teak. And yes darling I am standing in a river, it's sweet I know, I've got a stick you see so shan't fall in. Mm mm, what into love? Hang on, wait a moment." Calls out to other gorilla resting on shooting stick at water's edge flicking through the Racing Times. "Freddy, I say Freddy, out of teak into what?"
Gorilla on stick looks up. "Is that Charles? Tell him no dollars, not whilst that buffoon Bush remains in the White House. Say we'll take anything out of Shanghai. And ask him who's going to win the 3.30 at Kowloon."
First Gorilla still casually poking water, "Charles dear did you hear that? We'll take anything out of Shanghai. Can you organise it in Euro's? Such a lovely currency, lots of stars. You can? You're such a love. Oh and by the way, Freddy wants to know if you've a tip for the 3.30 at Kowloon? What? Mucky Meg, and it's a cert you say. Jolly good. Got to go old chap one of the zoologists has started to wet himself so I'd better do a bit more of the stick thing. Yes, they are so easy to impress I know. Love to Jocasta. Mwah, mwah."

Hmmm.

God has been talking to George Bush...

or so GB tells us. In this country that kind of talk can get a person admitted to hospital. I simply don't believe Bush because I suspect a real holy message would be more like this... "Hello, hello, er, zzzpppprffff, is this on? zzzprfffffffffffffnnnnnnnnnn. Hello, hello. There's no one there. I SAID THERE'S NO ONE THERE! Ooops sorry a bit loud that. Bollocks. Who is this fucker anyway? Peter, PETER! You sure this one's on, it's so dark in there I'm not so sure. And he looks like a chimp, yeah, a real branch hanger, he's certainly got a chimp's intellect. Little ping pong brain, no wonder there's so much room. Hello? Sod it, I'm off."

Dateline Harrisburg Pennsylvania...

where some loony right wing Christians are once again trying to overturn Darwin's theory of Evolution this time by arguing that through scientific method they can prove God exists and evolution is wrong. The Sunday broadsheets here in the UK have articles on the story. Now, we all agree that the universe is huge, and we're talking stupendously huge here, however the loons state that it is so huge and complex only God could have designed it. Ipso facto he did, therefore he exists and evolution is wrong. A question I wish to ask is, if God designed the universe why did he make it so big? I deeply suspect it's a means of keeping some distance from the weirdos who are currently arguing about his wondrous ways in court.

This size thing is interesting though because if God is everywhere at all times and the universe is expanding does this mean he's getting thinner? I think we should be told. Be wrong not to tell us because if at the moment of the big bang God was pretty concentrated, like you get with washing up liquid say, 14 billion years later he must be quite dilute. We may have been sold a pup on this God deal because he's not the God we've been promised. I don't claim to be an expert on the bible but I'm almost certain there's no warning label sown anywhere within it's pages that states of God 'Danger: Prone to Dilution' or 'May fade in direct sunlight.' And in this universe of ours there's a lot of sunlight. So now we find God subject to two pressures, he's diluting and fading. No wonder he's not letting on, I bet he's knackered. Managing an expanding universe? It's important to keep your anonymity and avoid accusations of favouritism what with so many galaxies and planets around. And at the very moment when the exhaltedc one declares it safe some right wing nutters on the tiny blue ball go and prove he exists. I bet it's enough to make your average Deity weep.

These people just don't know what they're doing.