kerco.org.uk

Dreamscape

kerco — Wed, 25 May 2011 07:17:07 +0000

I had a dream that I am at work, and there is this bad electrical machine that my boss asks me to neutralise, while she turns off the electricity. I work quickly to detach all the wires and then my boss turns the electricity back on. the machine is no longer a danger but i am holding a bunch of live wires and don’t know what to do. My brother on the other hand, who is the other part of an informal dream trading scheme, dreams that he is out photographing birds; he is on a clifftop with his camera and binoculars, looking at some birds across the water…and he has two cartoon birds beside him helping!
It seems that his dreams are directed by Spielberg/Disney, while mine are directed by Jan Svankmajer

wolverhampton deserted

kerco — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:01:19 +0000

After the cinema, waiting for the bus in freezing cold, deserted Wolverhampton City Centre – at least the church looks pretty.

Another Year

kerco — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 16:58:51 +0000

I am at the Lighthouse waiting to go and see Mike Leigh’s Another Year, its hard to believe (and somewhat ironic) that I haven’t been here in a year, – my last outing was to Haneke’s White Ribbon.
Someone asked me if “the Mike Leigh film” is an action film. I think the most action involved was traversing the snow and ice to get here; I expect a lot of interior action though.

oops!

kerco — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 19:49:35 +0000

Oops. My office is the next building but one; I have my fingers crossed …

History of the world in one hundred brilliant fragments

kerco — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 09:11:17 +0000

BBC Radio 4′s A History of the World in a 100 objects has come to a close – and through the many episodes I felt enlightened and uplifted, dewy-eyed on a number of occasions, and more consciously part of a wider, older world – what a magnificent piece of programming – it was worth my license fee.

And the really great thing is that you can download any or all of the episodes to revisit them at your leisure, here>>

Thank you BBC, and thank you Neil MacGregor

If I was French….(encore)

kerco — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 18:12:11 +0000

We did a straw poll at work today, and 4 out of 4 of us were ashamed that we are not French! They know how to give a proper response to attacks by the wealthy (23 millionaires in the cabinet) on the rest of us.

lace

kerco — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 22:03:56 +0000

For a while I knew how to make lace. Where did I learn that? Was it at school, from a French person, (une Dentellière, which naturally sounds like they use old teeth for pegs) or from one of the eccentric old ladies of Buckfastleigh who were always adopting me?

I don’t know whether there are still old ladies of Buckfasleigh who teach girls the dark arts of lacemaking, ointment making, and 100 things to do with a brown paper bags, but I hope there are.

When I feel homesick for my childhood, I just watch an episode of Jam and Jerusalem – its like Buckfastleigh live feed.

The cognitive dissonance of the Big Society

kerco — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 09:00:18 +0000

I’m finding Government policy very confusing – the Big Society – it could be drivel, or it could be an idea we all really get behind.
Who but the most confirmed misanthrope doesn’t want to be part of something bigger where we all pull together and help eachother?

The part where cognitive dissonance comes in is that we are expected to hold this view and a set of entirely opposing views in our heads at the same time: that disabled people on benefits are robbing us, unemployed single mothers on housing benefits are robbing us, single mothers on medium to high salaries are robbing us, unemployed people are robbing us, students are robbing us, public sector workers with their fat pensions are robbing us.

In fact the only ones who dont seem to be robbing us are the fat-cat bankers, and tax evaders, neither of whom are being punished if all the leaks regarding the spending review are to be believed.

So is the Big Society just a big con that is really only a Big society for the big boys, while the rest of us are excluded and painted as the financially draining enemy?

I want to believe in the Big Society, but the Government is making that really difficult.

The wildlife evasion triathalon

kerco — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 07:29:07 +0000

Having listened to the Today Programme report on the (largely dreary) Commonwealth Games, I have become convinced that it would be much more interesting to turn the cameras on the (blood) sport of life in the Commonwealth Athlete village.

So far, athletes have been pitted against stomach bugs, attack monkeys (no really), and poisonous snakes breaking into the village as if they were trying out a new watering hole.

Its as if the natural world is having its own athletic challenge, and the prize is an all you can eat human buffet.

Stream it live!

stormy lighthouse

kerco — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 17:42:52 +0000

Same Lighthouse (Smeaton’s Tower) , different weather (stormy autumn), no pirates (well, only agents of photoshop)!