What We Did on Our Holidays. Part 1: Rocking Out

I'm still breathless after my summer's non-stop running around but as promised I'm going to dedicate a series of posts to my frolics of the past few months. My first trip was to the UK at the end of July. It was only for six days and included some business, a family reunion and party, a night out in London's West End and a rock concert. Even casual readers of this blog have probably realised that I've been a lifelong fan of Jethro Tull. So I took myself off to one of their gigs in Doncaster (yes, I know...!). JT were one of the acts in a stellar line up of dinosaurs that included The Strawbs, Steeleye Span, and Curved Air. Back in my youth, these were some of my favourite bands and it felt like 1972 all over again. Almost. Well it was quite a good concert. The music was excellent although the frailty of the flesh was very evident in some of the aging musicians and to say they had lost the bloom of youth was an understatement at the very least. Jethro Tull, however excelled. They had some temporary new blood in the form of the lead guitarist and drummer who seemed to invigorate the band. I seem to be collecting performances of their old warhorse, Bourée, so here's the latest for your enjoyment:


Jethro Tull at the Doncaster Dome, July 25th, 2009

Postcards fromThe Road. 3.

Sign spotted just off Interstate-5 between Tacoma and Seattle.

I'm still a bit backed up in other areas to complete a full post today, so here's a snapshot to make you smile. Have a wonderful weekend, everybody!

Rehydration

I'm so far behind on posting material it's ridiculous. Now autumn has arrived and I have a summer's worth of adventures to write about. I'll get to them all in due course. First, I'm pleased to say that my renal function has now normalised. Nothing to be alarmed out, it's just that on a recent trip to The Orient (you'll have to wait a day or so for the details) a combination of the temperature, humidity and salty food caused my body to modify the way aqueous fluids were excreted. Despite all my efforts, renal function slowed right down and I was grateful for having a good deodorant! Now I'm back in Seattle, my kidneys have started to do their job again. They were stimulated by a few bottles of this I bought at Narita airport:

Japanese sports/electrolyte drink that, despite its unappealing name, is infinitely better than Gatorade

And then of course a few units of my favourite beer helped things along:

Now why would I like something with a name like this...?

Problem sorted!

Postcards from the Road. 2.

Spotted on the way to a wedding (the bridegroom's name was "Love")

We wish the happy couple a peaceful and stable life together...!

About Time

Alan M. Turing, National Portrait Gallery, London.

I returned from another trip yesterday and to my amazement I found this email in my scarily overloaded inbox:

Thank you for signing this petition. The Prime Minister has written a response. Please read below.

Prime Minister: 2009 has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches
of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of
dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt
of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison - was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and
the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.

But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices – that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.

So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.

Gordon Brown

Way to go, Gordon! I'd signed the Turing petition several weeks ago and forgotten about it. And news of the UK Government's contrition hadn't reached me while I was in foreign parts. While some would have liked the apology to go further, it's a start at least. Furthermore I'm astonished that the official response included writing to the individual petitioners who must have numbered in the tens if not hundreds of thousands. Nice work.

Still Crazy After All These Years

By some some combination of circumstances I can only attribute to such things as chaos theory, psychokinesis and Divine Intervention, MD&E is still posting after half a decade and is celebrating its 5th birthday. Yay!

Postcards from The Road. 1.

Seen on a car in Washington state (photo Olivia Morrow)

Now why do I doubt the veracity of the above statement (and I can assure the ladies the driver was not Brad Pitt)...?

Woodstock Again

To continue today's leitmotif, here are a few clips from Michael Wadleigh's Woodstock. Enjoy them before they are taken down from YouTube (or alternatively buy or download the movie).

Woodstock: Four Decades On

Forty years ago this weekend nearly half a million people of my generation assembled in the fields of Max Yasgur’s farm, Bethel, upstate NY, for an “Aquarian Exposition” of peace, love and music. The rest, as they say, is history. I wasn’t there. I was however running around the home counties of the British Isles in my pre-undergraduate year absorbing as much popular music culture as possible. News of “Woodstock”, the Mother of all Festivals, travelled quickly across the Atlantic and when the eponymous film by Michael Wadleigh was released a few months later (actually I think it was 1970 in the UK) I rushed up to see it at one of the large screen cinemas in Leicester Square. To this day I still have some reservations about the musical choices made by the director but there is no question about the pioneering and cineamatographic techniques which are still stunning and also that film accurately captures the zeitgeist of that time.

Now, when I watch Woodstock I must confess to feeling quite emotional. The music defined an era and it's wonderful that many of the performers are still going strong viz Paul Kantner and various Jefferson iterations, Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens, Alvin Lee, Carlos Santana, Townsend-Daltery et al. While our lustrous locks and youthful looks are long gone, I hope that some of the values of my generation -societal awareness, peace, social justice and the belief that the status quo can be changed, still exist and that we have passed successfully the baton of idealism to our children.

The image above is from the end credits of the film (the Director’s cut) -it’s great advice and I feel a strong sense of obligation to heed it closely.

We may be greying but there’s plenty of life in us yet. Hell, yeah!

Peace!

World Events

Mad Dog reunited with Cool Cat after 10 year hiatus

Wow it’s been a funny old month in the Silly Season. More blog material around than ever and no time to write a thing. In the last 30 days or so I’ve attended a concert, been reunited with a very cool cat (see above), participated in a rally (the automotive kind -report pending), wielded a sword almost every day and dropped 15lbs. And all this gainst a backdrop of unbelievable 106°F heat (sorry, I’m still stuck in Imperial measure out here in the Colonies) and all sorts of notable world events including swine ‘flu fever fever (100,000 cases in one week of July in the UK), the death of Grasshopper, the lunacy of the lunar landing’s 40^th anniversary, the realization that even with space age technology we still can’t build a reliable toilet. And this weekend it’s the 40^th anniversary of Woodstock (more on that tomorrow). Oh my, where did the time go?

Peace!

Catatonic

Minim prepares to drive companion human crazy by relentless luxurious purring until he receives tuna flakes!

The BBC, quoting on an article published in Current Biology, notes that cats manipulate their human companions by purring. This seminal finding is the work of Dr Karen McComb and colleagues from the Centre for Mammal Vocal Communication Research, University of Sussex, UK. Now really! I've no wish to denigrate the work of Dr McComb who, judging by her publication record, is a highly respectable scientist, but the axiomatic nature of this paper is staggering. What's next, I wonder? Parents give in to demands from perpetually whining children for a bit of peace, perhaps? I need to know where she gets her grants...!

The Cat Came Back

Mad Dog's new wheels, c1992: since then some TLC has been involved as well as a bit of a sleep

Much has happened on the world stage in my minor blogging hiatus and it's hard to know where to begin. So I'm going to follow the maxim (mine) that when all else fails post about something automotive. Well it's too early for the Monte Carlo but I am getting ready to do some rallying next month. Hopefully nothing too demanding, just a nice Time-Speed-Distance event around Oregon for a couple of days with my very enthusiastic daughter. No Mini this time as I have a new rally weapon. Well not exactly new; I've owned it since 1992 but it's been in hibernation for nearly a decade and undergoing a major refit for the past year. I'll post the story of how this cheerless cat was brought back to life over the next day or so.

I've Been Busy

Woo -it's been ages since I posted anything. Well, I haven't been asleep I can assure you. Hopefully some of you are still checking the site. I'll be writing about all sorts of stuff very soon so please stick around...

24 Hours at Le Mans

Like many other petrolheads, I've always been fascinated by the Le Mans 24 hour race. As a schoolboy I was spellbound by the epic duels between Ferraris, Ford GT40s and Gulf Porsches. Some of the mystique and atmosphere was captured in the eponymous Steve McQueen film (which must have the best race start sequence of all time). More recently a new and very compelling documentary, Truth in 24, has been made which chronicles the fabulously successful Audi Sport team. The photography is stunning and the narration by Jason Statham is surprisingly good. Best of all this 98 minute long film is downloadable free of charge from the iTunes store.

Hat tip to Chuck Goolsbee for this one.

Holier than Thou

A recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has found that the more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists.

Why am I not surprised by this...?

One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest

"Candleing" eggs on which influenza virus is grown for vaccine preparations (photo from CDC image library).

A couple of weeks ago I jokingly remarked that I thought I had bird flu. Then after the emergence of the H1N1 variant about 10 days ago I speculated (again with tongue in cheek) that the infection was swine flu. Now I think it was more likely Mad Pig Disease. The 24 hour news cycle seems to have created more journalistic craziness and hysteria than I would have believed possible. Over the past week I've seen more column-inches and heard enough hours of broadcast media devoted to the topic to last me a lifetime. If-it-bleeds-it-leads journalists, dull-as-ditchwater talking heads (often not very knowledgeable), hysterical citizens and even a nasty little cabal of right wing wingers who attribute the outbreak to a combination of illegal immigrants and a ploy by President Obama to push a national health care agenda have been driving me to distraction.

No question, flu is nasty, indeed I believe the 1918 "Spanish Flu" pandemic (also an HINI variant) which may have killed up to 50 million people holds the dubious distinction of being the most deadly infectious disease in human history. However we are not in the post WW1 era and current indications seem to suggest that this current iteration of swine flu is not particularly virulent. While there is a need for vigilance, I just hope this trend continues. In the meantime, maintain droplet precautions, keep washing your hands and taking that vitamin C...

RIP Pontiac

MD with Pontiac Firebird on California Big Sur coast road, November, 1982

The woes of General Motors seem interminable. Today they announced the phasing out of their Pontiac "excitement" division with the loss of 21,000 jobs worldwide. The loss of great automotive names always seems sad especially when one has a personal connection. The first car I bought when I arrived on the shores of California back in 1982 was a Pontiac Firebird. Truthfully it wasn't a great car but it had a nice V8 motor and transported me around San Francisco as well as the California coast and mountain roads for 7 or 8 years. It survived a head on collision with a stolen VW Beetle (suffering a mere scratch to its bumper -the VW was destroyed) and an on another occasion after having had a door dented in an accident (again not my fault) the insurance cheque helped pay for my first Apple Macintosh. I never did get the door fixed and the car acquired a wonderfully battered Mad Max look. The transmission failed the night my daughter was born and having lost reverse gear I remember physically heaving the thing backwards in order to get it our of its street parking slot so that I could make my way to the hospital. Eventaully it was sold in San Diego to make way for an outrageous Trans Am (remember them?) but that, as they say, is another story...

Postcard from Alaska

Over the Easter weekend I had occasion to visit Alaska. My itinerary included a couple of nights in Anchorage and a brief road trip down the Kenai peninsula. What an amazing place -quite possibly the USA's final frontier. Despite the spectacular scenery, I don't think I have the fortitude to ever live there. Anyway here are some photos:


Glacier run off from the Chugach Mountains.


Blatting down the Seward Highway. Traffic is sparse to say the least.


Hungry teenage Moose didn't object to me taking his photo. By the end of the year this animal will have grown a full rack of antlers.

The Long Good Friday

I'm still feeling pretty groggy but at least I'm up and about -there was a time at the beginning of the week when I thought I might be found in few weeks with the cat eating my carcass. What a nasty little bug that was. Anyway until my creative juices start flowing again I'm going to leave you with a clip from The Long Good Friday, a classic British gangster flick which apart from being 30 years old features a menacing Bob Hoskins in just about the only character he's ever played, a young Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan's in his debut role, some great photography of London's Docklands before it became yuppified, a terrific soundtrack by Francis Monkman and source material for just about all of Guy Ritchie's films. A true classic.

Best wishes to all for a happy Good Friday.

P.S. Inexplicably, the above clip credits Debra Winger for appearance in TLGF. As far as I know the closest she got was a 1978 offering entitled "Thank God It's Friday" which was about disco! 

Psittacine Cain

African Grey Parrot (image from Wikipedia and used under a creative commons license: original photo by Tournon)

Dear Readers,

I'm sick as a parrot and feel like hell! Everything hurts including my hair. I think I might have bird flu. Doubtless it's some filthy bug I picked up on my travels in the UK last week. Normal blogging will be resumed when the drugs begin to work...

MD