Why Does A Just God Allow Such Misery To Exist In The World?

I am being greatly inconvenienced by Blogger's sudden inability to release scheduled posts.

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"The Call of Cthulhu - for beginning readers"

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Jeff Mangum ATP Part 1: Executive Summary

I went to the recent All Tomorrow's Parties in Minehead, curated by Jeff Mangum. For the benefit of busy people I present these very brief accounts (23 words or less) of the artists I saw.

Matana Roberts & Sebastian Rochford: A jazz saxophonist roffler playing with winner of the ATP White Afro Competition 2012. Skronk-tastic and a great opener.

Young Marble Giants: Austere music from the post punk legends coupled with the guitarist's endearingly lame attempts at humour.

The Raincoats: The wrong kind of ramshackle. Songs too formless and tuneless even for the Under Fives Tin Drum Improv Orchestra. 'Lola' the only highpoint.

The Fall: An enjoyable performance, with the band now used to Mark E. Smith and his ways; but what did he say about Joanne Newsom?

Thurston Moore: Thurston solo is a bit Sonic Youth-lite. I wonder what or who that 'Queen Bee' song was about?

A Hawk And A Hacksaw: Faux folkies accompany a strange Soviet-era film about funny Ukrainians in a darkened room with invisible subtitles. Spectral.

Boredoms: Ten drummers and twenty guitarists, but are they really all that?

The Apples In Stereo: They play songs that sound like other people's songs.

Feathers: Art project all woman synth band fronted by Anastasia Dimou. Fascinating and worth further investigation.

Joanna Newsom: Impressive technique from the elfin sensation who is clearly not the idiot savant some might see her as. A slow burn.

Low: More sublime miserabilism from the Carter Family of our times. The only band to mention Syria. They invited everyone for a morning run.

Blanck Mass: I am not certain that I actually saw this band.

Mount Eerie: Quirky singer songwriter fellow with odd songs that sounded almost like works in progress and which ended very abruptly, whereupon he would curtsey.

Scratch Acid: The hardest rocking band to ever play ATP but not as interesting as that sounds.

Demdike Stare: Vaguely hauntological electronic music from Finders Keepers associates, combined with fascinating Apollo Rising type visuals.

American Contemporary Music Ensemble: By playing classical music at midday on Sunday they transported me back to the Hugh Lane Gallery. 'Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet'.

Boredoms: OK so maybe they are all that but still have not surrendered to them in the way my friends have.

Roscoe Mitchell: Old jazzer still has it.

Sun Ra Arkestra: More old (and some young) jazzers, this time space jazzers, who still have it.


Rafael Toral: Possibly analogue electronic post-free jazz improvisation or something unwisely scheduled at same time as the Arkestra. Interesting.

Tall Firs: Two rofflers who play guitars and sing songs. And whose fanzine talks about how Thucydides is freaking awesome.

Group Doueh: Desert guitars. Less trippy than on record, but Mr Doueh still awesome. Nice to see modestly dressed not thin women strutting their stuff.

All Star Jam: Various bands of the festival appear on stage together and serve up some crazy Arkestra-style space jazz. The right kind of ramshackle.

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Magnetic Hamster Sticks To Cage

The Meech family of Bugbrooke, Northamptonshire, were astonished when they came home do find Smurf, their pet hamster, stuck to the bars of his cage. The tiny rodent was trapped by the cage's metal bars by some mysterious kind of magnetic force.

The furry pet's secret identity as a robo-hamster had not been revealed. Rather it turned out that the curious and greedy animal had eaten a magnet that formed part of a Spiderman toy that a foolish child had left in Smurf's cage. A vet was able to extract the magnet and now Smurf is as right as rain and no longer sticking to the bars of her cage.

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Workplace Dogs Reduce Stress

Scientists have discovered that having dogs in a workplace reduces employee stress. This is the case both for employees who bring their own dogs into work and for other employees who do not have their own dogs. The presence of dogs generally improved morale and led to more interaction between workers as people came over to pet the dogs or offer to take them for walks. The dogs also liked coming into work rather than being left home alone all day.

It is however possible that the presence of dogs may lead to increased stress levels in bad people who do not like dogs.

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See also:

Hearing dogs are changing deaf children's lives

Dogs help families with autism, RSM conference told

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Do you have a blog?

In the long years in which I did not have working home internet access, I neglected your blogs. It turns out that many of you have done the same. So now I have deleted links here to blogs that have not been updated this year. I have added them to Google Reader, so if they spring back into life I will notice and re-link to them.

Are you writing a blog that I could link to? Maybe you could link to me and we could be blog friends.

Or maybe it is all over with blogs. If you know of any blogs that are worth reading, post the URL in a comment.

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The Return of Poldi

Near the German village of Aying an emaciated ginger cat was recently found sitting on a log in the woods. The bedraggled cat was taken to an animal sanctuary, whose staff noticed that his ear bore a faded tattoo of identification. When this was matched against a cat database, they discovered that the ginger tom's name was Poldi and that he had gone missing in 1996 – 15 years ago.

Poldi has been reunited with his old owner, who had understandably given up all hope of seeing him again. It is believed that Poldi originally left his home because he did not get on with the owner's other cat. It is not reported as to whether Poldi has outlived the other cat or whether he will once more have to confront his Kattenfeund.

Poldi's 15 year absence is nearly four times that of the Devon cat Willow, who went missing in 2007 but was recently found and identified from her microchip. Willow was also a bit bedraggled when she was recovered. On her return home she was very nervous and had to sleep on the tummy of her owner, Mrs Cristel Worth.

More Poldi

More Willow

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The World's Smallest Puppy

A very small little puppy was born recently to a female dachshund in California. The miniscule puppy, so small she can sit on an iPhone (or a similar device owned by less brand obsessed smartphone users), was the runt of her litter and was born without a heartbeat, but vets gave her heart compressions and then mouth to mouth resuscitation to get her going on her own. The brave little puppy has then gone from strength to strength, despite initially being so small that she could not suckle on her attentive mother. In honour of her status as a survivor the tiny canine has been christened Beyoncé.

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Even more (with film footage)

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When Cats Fall

Great interest was excited by Sugar, the Boston cat who survived a 19 storey fall from her home. The BBC has looked into the question of how she managed to survive this great fall and whether cats generally are resilient to drops from great heights. This appears to be a matter to which scientists have applied some attention. Unfortunately, moral squeamishness and possible public relations issues have prevented this important matter from being investigated by throwing a series of cats from ever higher windows. Instead they have had to rely on statistical evidence from emergency vet surgeries in cities with high windows from which cats can fall.

What is striking is how high it is possible for cats to fall without suffering fatal injury. Sugar seems not to be the record holder in this regard – while she fell 19 storeys onto grass and mulch, another cat fell a staggering 32 storeys onto concrete but survived with only a chipped tooth and a collapsed lung. The statistics from the vets revealed that 90% of falling cats survived, with only 37% needing emergency treatment to save their lives.

The reason for the cats' survival is simple enough. The animals evolved to live in trees, where the occasional fall is going to be a fact of life. Their bodies are designed to slow their rate of descent and then to cushion them on impact with the ground. So a fall that would definitely kill you or me leaves them with a good chance of survival.

But before you start sending your own cat out on a skyscraper ledge, perhaps to start hanging onto the hands of a clock or suchlike, beware. Scientists report that cats like Sugar are very lucky to survive such a fall and that many suffer terrible injuries from their unplanned descents. Even those statistics of a 90% survival rate are not as good as they look – they do not include the cats who were immediately killed on impact, and they may not include those cats who were injured so badly that they were taken to a vet to be euthanased. And the figure for "survival" may mask cats who lived on after their fall but who suffered horrendous life-changing injuries. As Dr Jake Socha is quoted as saying at the end of the article: "The lessons learned: screens, please, on the windows".

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The Murder Castle

Rick Geary
The Beast of Chicago (2003)

This is not a record, it is a book. And it is a book with pictures in it – a comic book, from a series entitled A Treasury of Victorian Murder. And it is about H. H. Holmes, an American mass murderer who may have killed as many as 200 people in one year. Maybe I should stop talking about it now so that people do not think I am the kind of weirdo who goes on about serial killers.

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