There is a lovely story on the BBC website about the new shortest guy in the world. Although he likes the attention he gets Edward Nino Hernandez, who is 24 and weighs only 10kg (22lbs), said that there were some drawbacks:
“It bothers me that people are always touching me and picking me up.”
Here is a little collage I knocked up over the weekend. I love old movie posters almost as much as I like Propaganda Art, and I thought the colours worked really well.
I heard this new (to me at least) singer songwriter from Hackney, London, by way of Harare, Zimbabwe. Tinashe is a superior pop singer with a voice that one of his Facebook friends aptly calls “bubblegummydoolaadie”.
Though there’s reputed to be a mbira (Zimbabwean thumb piano) somewhere in the upbeat mix of guitars and synths, there’s not much Africa in his debut album, Saved. The Afrobeat rhythm on Zambezi, a fictional “memory” of Zimbabwe’s liberation from Rhodesia, is a one-off; elsewhere, the clean lines of western urban pop predominate. His funky voice reminds me a bit of the earliest Macy Gray stuff and his effortless way with melody renders nearly every song absolutely addictive, with the exception of Every Single Day, a corporate-sounding attempt at smoochiness.
Lyrically, he’s a social realist, writing of being:
“19 and looking at a goddam quarter-life crisis
Two GCSEs and a studio flat in Ruislip”
and of how, even in a mundane office job, people still stare:
“at the colour of my skin, the styling of my hair”.
An intriguing introduction.
By the new tunes here Saved – US link
Sir Terry has a new one out and given his health issues we can only hope that there are many more to come. The new one is called I Shall Wear Midnight – US link
I haven’t read it yet so most of this is from the publisher’s puff pieces but I have yet to be disappointed by Sir Terry’s work – with the exception of ”Nation” which was pants! This new story is about a man with no eyes. No eyes at all. Two tunnels in his head …It’s not easy being a witch, and it’s certainly not all whizzing about on broomsticks, but Tiffany Aching – teen witch – is doing her best. Until something evil wakes up, something that stirs up all the old stories about nasty old witches, so that just wearing a pointy hat suddenly seems a very bad idea. Worse still, this evil ghost from the past is hunting down one witch in particular. He’s hunting for Tiffany.
And he’s found her…
I Shall Wear Midnight – US link
Yesterday we walked up to Leith Hill, situated to the south west of Dorking in Surrey. The hill reaches 294 meters (965 ft) above sea level and is the highest point. The books say that it was on the summit of Leith Hill in 851, that Æthelwulf of Wessex, father of Alfred the Great, defeated the Danes who were heading for Winchester, having sacked Canterbury and London. It seems a bit unlikely that two big armies would choose a pointy little hill to fight on but what do I know?
On the summit of Leith Hill is an 18th century Gothic tower, with panoramic views northwards to London and the English Channel to the south. Richard Hull of nearby Leith Hill Place (once home to the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams) built “Prospect House” in 1766, later to become known as Leith Hill Tower, with the intention of raising the hill above 1,000 ft (305 m) above sea level.
The tower is 19.5 meters (64 ft) high and consisted of two rooms “neatly furnished”, with a Latin inscription above the door announcing that it had been built for not only his own pleasure, but also for the enjoyment of others. Hull provided visitors with prospect glasses, similar to a small telescope, through which to survey the extensive views towards London and the English Channel, each some 25 miles away, and thirteen counties on a very clear day.
When he died in 1772, at his request he was buried under the tower, however, following his death, the building was stripped of its contents, doors and windows, and fell into ruin. As a result the tower was filled with rubble and concrete, and the entrance bricked up. In 1864, Mr Evelyn of nearby Wotton House decided to reopen it, but the concrete made this difficult, and so the additional turreted side-tower was added to allow access to the top of the tower.
The tower was fully restored by the National Trust in 1984. This restoration included the removal of rubble and concrete, fitting safety features such as a handrail along the narrow staircase and converting the lower portion of the tower into a national trust shop. Leith Hill Tower is open to the public, with a comprehensive display explaining the history of the tower and giving opinions and memories of local people. Unfortunately it closes at 1700 and we were too late so we didn’t manage to ascend the 180 odd steps and instead went to a charming pub in Ockham at the bottom of the hill.
And here is the beautiful Marta at the Tower with a rather nervous looking Stanley.
We walked up to Leith Hill Tower today – the highest part of South East England. We took loads of pictures including this one of Stanley peeping through some public art:
Best interactive ad I have ever seen. But also the only interactive ad I have ever seen. Try and f**k the bear or even eat the bear!
There is an awesome Johnson City Press article about two Washington County Sheriff’s deputies caught drinking and having sex at a U.S. Forest campground. They are now off the county’s payroll. The event that led to the firings happened on a Friday night when the deputies were off duty. The U.S. Forest Service office and a Carter County deputy, working off-duty with the forest service at the time, came upon the two deputies together with a third person at a local campground. According to the federal citations charging the three:
The forest ranger saw the three at a camp site drinking alcohol in the open and then engaging in sex.
No one has been able to say how long the U.S. Forest Service Officers stood watching the trio, but in one officer’s report he wrote:
He saw Dennison and Adkins engage in three sex acts and then Adkins and Walsh began to fondle Dennison.
The three were charged with possessing alcohol in a prohibited area, public nudity and public intoxication. One of the three had an additional charge of child endangerment because his 2-year-old son was asleep in a tent at the campsite… Classy!
This was his first ever time lying on grass. As you can see it is all very interesting for him. But, then again, it is very posh grass being so close to the Queen’s house.
Also, despite what I look like below, I was not either drunk or high!
Stuart Austin 