Filed under: Rants, life, photography, politics | Tags: , education, history, History sylabbus, jewish extermination, the holocaust
I was sent an email today that claimed lessons about the Holocaust have been removed from the UK’s school history syllabus in case it offends Muslims who are in denial about its existence.
First of all I find it incredible that an entire religious body could deny a plain historical fact. Can this really be so?
And secondly, why on earth would the British Government endorse this sick and disgusting show of weakness to a minority pressure group. If that is what you’d call the entire Muslim community.
It certainly resonates with the current trend to avoid confronting or challenging minority opinion in case it offends people. But to go this far, to run away from the truth, if indeed we are makes me very sad indeed.
In fact, if it is true then I am appalled.
Perhaps these photos were staged?
Filed under: Arts, Scotland | Tags: artists, Royal Scottish Academy, RSA, school art, School artist, SQA, Young artists
The SQA is to be congratulated for mounting an exhibition, in the RSA no less, of A grade artworks by Scottish Schoolchildren sitting Standard, Int 2 and higher grade art.
I saw it on wednesday and it is brilliant and must be seen.
Here’s a taster by Steven Mcarthur of Williamwood High School.
Filed under: Arts, photography, videos, work | Tags: animation, jim poole award, josef feltus, solo duets
My friend Terry and I went to an exhibition celebrating ten decades of Edinburgh Art College at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh on Wednesday. The show features works from some of the colleges best known alumni including Bellany, Byrne, Inness, Blackadder and Peploe to name but a few.
But it this piece of haunting animation by a young American?italian, Josef Feltus and his brother that stole the show for me.
The Simpsons it aint but stick with it. It is beautiful and won the Jim Poole award, amongst many others, last year.
]
Filed under: humour, life, stories | Tags: ancient spelling, Shropshire, Spelling Wood as Woodd when we all know it's wrong real, Woodd
In a previous post I ribbed the Woodds for not spelling their names as ‘the Woods’.
Sorry! No really. I am sorry, it wasn’t a Wooddist thing.
I did, I have to admit, think it was an affectation but apparently it is an old 12th century Shropshire name and I should have known that.
Or researched it.
So, I did. I googled Woodd and this came up…
Funnily enough… that’s what I thought.
However, it does lead one to the conclusion that the Woodds were either very posh or very bad spellers in 12th century Shropshire.
Doh!
I Woodd say that, Wooddn’t I!
Filed under: Scotland, humour, independence, life, videos | Tags: absolutely, mcglashen
My Brother in law enjoyed the diatribe by McGlashen about the unfairness of world cup draws.
but he has nominated this gem of Xenophobia as his favourite.
Don’t blame me. I’m the medium. Not the message.
]
Seen at Waverley Station this morning.
So what do you do for a living?
I dress up as a snotter-free nose.
Nice
Filed under: Uncategorized
It’s not nice.
Why do I do this?
Standing on a golf tee in front of my friends as a Danny La Rue substitute.
It was a friend of mine that took this photo!
I wouldn’t be that bothered, but my kids insist on calling me Farquar Gaylord.
And the worst of it is… I know why.
This is what. Read all the comments here and follow the links.
Right up his street.
Good old James!
It’s basically the classic “Someone taking a photo of someone taking a photo routine” which my dad loved so much.
Sent me this.
He seems to think I might empathise with it in some way.
]
Filed under: Scotland, family, golf, sports, stories | Tags: Gleneagles, The Queens Course gleneagles
44 out.
34 back.
Tom was crushed, but happy for me.
Home run was 4 4 3 4 4 4 3 4 4.
6 pars, 2 bogies and a birdie.
Back of the net.
A net 60 to the course par of 68.
I was happy.
A new system is arriving on Saturday.
That’s the 12th.
Jeana screaming down the phone “I’d like to speak to someone who understands what I am saying” over and over again was priceless.
That’s our twelfth box in under a year. (And another free month. Our fourth I think.)
Does anyone have Norris McWhirter’s phone number?
Originally uploaded by jimbodownie.
Jim Downie at his greatest. Is this not a peerless and perfect photograph?
Filed under: Scotland, family, golf, humour, life, sports, stories | Tags: Colin Montgomery, Dougie Donnelly, Golf world cup, Mark warren, Monty
Go on yersel’ Monty. (And Marky boy, of course.)
Scottish golf has had such a bad year that it would be fair to say that my personal emergence from the woods to become a credible 18 handicapper has been one of the Scottish Golf Union’s highlights.
So today’s golf world cup win (as predicted by Monty) was not universally expected.
What was even less credible was that I spotted Dougie Donnelly at Gleneagles this afternoon and whispered the fact across the table to Jeana.
She was astonished.
“Colin Montgomery?” she whispered in a tone below the one that dogs can hear.
“Yes.”
(“The guy you snogged in 1988?” I must have subconsciously thought, seeing as I really thought she had said “Dougie Donnelly?)
“It doesn’t look like him”, she replied
Naturally it didn’t because a) it wasn’t and b) it was Dougie Donnelly and c) Dougie Donnelly doesn’t look like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle.
Judge for yourselves…
Monty?
Or Dougie?
Spitting images?
OK, they’re both gingers, like the Mrs, but how could Monty be relaxed at Gleneagles at the same time as he’s lifting the cup in China?
For the record, Jeana was at a corporate do in 1988 and Dougie was the compere. In a moment of weakness Jeana shreiked across the dance floor “Dougie, gie us a kiss.”
And you know what?
He did.
Filed under: Arts, movies | Tags: oscars, oscars 2007, pt anderson, there will be blood
PT Anderson is currently the world’s most gifted film-maker.
Fact!
Boogie Nights, Magnolaia and Punch Drunk Love are each brilliant in different ways. His new movie “There will be blood” breaks in the US at Christmas and in the UK on Feb 8th. (I will be there on opening night.)
It is garnering feverish reviews as this punter blog on IMDB shows.
PT Anderson delivers perhaps his best work with “There Will Be Blood”. Unlike “Magnolia”, the film’s daunting runtime is not very daunting whilst watching it. All acting in the film was solid, even the work of the child actors. Daniel Day-Lewis in particular delivered a truly phenomenal performance, capturing the power of greed, fear, insanity, and comedy simultaneously, at many points throughout the film. At no point does the time period distract from the power of the film. Sometimes period pieces cannot be appreciated because they delve too deep into historical details — turning the experience into more of a documentary than a narrative set in the past. This is not the case for “There Will Be Blood”, as human interactions are the focus of the film. Johnny Greenwood’s chilling score is very strong, benefiting from the elegant minimalism that he show’s in the band Radiohead. Will this picture go on to win Best Picture? It absolutely has every right to, however I feel that this movie is a bit ahead of current trends in modern cinema, and will sadly go unnoticed for that particular Oscar. I’m certain that this film will garner many accolades in the independent and film festival scenes. All in all, this is truly a perfectly crafted film.
Apparently Daniel Day Lewis is, once again, peerless and fully method-acted throughout. (Although, to be honest I thought his portrayal of Billy Blood; the butcher in Gangs of New York was over the top.)
If you haven’t seen any of his previous films see them on DVD now.
They are ALL masterpieces.
Filed under: football, life | Tags: england, England FA, england v croatia
He was not a great manager. But being treated like the antichrist is totally out of order though and I think this is a very intelligent blog post to that end.
http://almax.wordpress.com/2007/11/21/england-2-3-croatia-revisited/
Doug Cook tells me that Santas in Australia’s largest city have been told not to use Father Christmas’s traditional “ho ho ho” greeting because it may be offensive to women.
Sydney’s Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say “ha ha ha” instead.
One disgruntled Santa said a recruitment firm warned him not to use “ho ho ho” because it could frighten children and was too close to “ho”, a US slang term for prostitute.
Jeez, what next? Soon the won’t be able to tell kids they had a nice shag the night before because campaigners will claim it encourages kids to partake in rubbish American dances.
Filed under: Scotland, football, humour | Tags: Compensation for Steve Mclaren, Did anybody point out that england were not only out of, Steve Mclaren
The English Football Association Headquarters are quite appropriately named right now. (Read out the acronym phonetically!)
Filed under: Rants, Scotland, football, life, sports, videos | Tags: , absolutely, england always get easy groups but still fail to qualif, world cup draw
I am indebted to James McLaughlin for bringing this wee gem to my attention. Too true.
]
Scotland dies Laughing.
Most would have been dead within minutes.
TRIBUTES are being paid to Scotland
this morning after the entire
country laughed itself to death.
The alarm was first raised at around
10pm last night as thousands of
phone calls and text messages went
unanswered. 
Small groups of volunteers from
Berwick-Upon-Tweed and Carlisle
ventured north just after midnight
only to find houses full of dead
people gathered around still blaring
television sets. By dawn, as RAF helicopters flew
over deserted city streets, it was
clear that the whole country had
suffered a catastrophic abdominal
rupture.
Wayne Hayes, a special constable
from Northumberland, said: "We went
into one house in Dunbar and found
three men sitting on the sofa with
huge smiles on their faces, still
holding cans of 70 shilling. They
seemed to be at peace."
He added: "In a house near Edinburgh
we found a man face down on the
living room floor with his trousers
and pants round his knees.
"It seems he may have been showing
his bare buttocks to the television
when he keeled over."
Roy Hobbs, a civil engineer from
Northampton, said: "I got a call
from my friend Ian in Stirling at
about 9.50pm. "He was already laughing when I
answered the phone, but after about 25 minutes of the most vigorous and uncontrollable hilarity, everything
suddenly went very quiet."
Moving tributes are already being
placed along the Scotland-England
border with many mourners opting to
leave a simple bag of chips or a
deep fried bunch of flowers.
Aye they’re having a laugh right enough.
What part of Sky Plus is the + bit?
Is it the increased number of technical call-outs I wonder?
As I write this our 12th box (that’s twelfth) has gone up the spout and we’ve only had it for 11 months. That’s 12 call outs, 24 phone calls and 12 different contractors; all of whom have had a different story to tell, but all of whom agree that the Sky plus Digi box is a piece of technical dog poo.
Oh, and contrary to what they say, whether Amstrad, Thomson, Pace or bloody Playschool make them they don’t work.
Bet nobody can beat that.
Filed under: Arts, family | Tags: , burlesque, new york, pontani sisters, usa
Jane and Nik are off to New York this week and are meeing up with The Pontani sisters; The US’ number one burlesque act.
I bet Nik’s really hackeed off about it!
Filed under: football, life, sports | Tags: england, england v croatia, Eufa 2008
As you may know we’ve been away for a few days so I haven’t had a chance to catch up on the England score.
Obviously they’ll have won because they always beat little countries, especially at home when the opposition have nothing to play for .
Anyway, having missed out on the score can anyone confirm how many England won by?
Filed under: humour, politics | Tags: george bush, world's biggest terrorist
]
Filed under: humour, jokes, life, music, videos | Tags: cross dressing, sex change operation
This is filthy but hilarious. If you do not like songs graphically describing the pros and cons of sex changes do NOT click here. For the rest of you foul mouthed, dirty minded so and so’s, it’s great.
]
For the next week, Jeana and I will be staying at our “seasonal ownership” house at Gleneagles.
It’s actually a timeshare.
If you happen to be a burglar reading this, the rest of the family will be slumming it at home; so back off you thief.
Hmmm, shame about the weather forecast.
