Friday Double Ballet Blogging

Darcey Bussell in Elite Syncopations



Pas De Quatre



the second part can be seen here

A specially commissioned 1845 piece designed to show the leading ballerinas of the day - Lucille Grahn, Carlotta Grisi, Fanny Cerrito and Marie Taglioni

Pas De Quatre - Lyudmila Kovaleva (Lucille Grahn), Gabriela Komleva (Carlotta Grisi), Lyubov Galinskaya (Fanny Cerrito) & Yelena Yevteyeva (Marie Taglioni)

This is a reconstruction of that very special evening featuring ballerians from The Mariinsky Ballet (formerly known as the Imperial Ballet and The Kirov)

Friday Cat Blogging


George sunbathing


Mademoiselle Heidi


Heidi hanging out in my room at Chez Moonbootica


George and Heidi


George and his kinky tail

Musings on St Georges Day

Every year this sees arguments about what it means to be English and whether we should celebrate St George, who was not even English and had never visited England, so whats so special about him?.

Saint Edmund the Martyr is often consider the first patron saint of England, till he was usurped by The cult of St George brought over to the Kingdom of England by crusaders returning from the Holy Land in the 12th century and was heavily promoted by King Edward III of England.

Often the left are accused of being self loathing and that everything is PC and Multiculturalism and the White English 'feel persecuted'.

Same old same old

It seems to be National days are more important in the psyches of nations formed by settlement (USA, Australia) or nations that were formed as a result of revolution (France), its been a good long while since the English had a defining moment in their history to warrant such a celebration

Whtf?

Latest US solution to Iraq's civil war: a three-mile wall

· Concrete barrier to encircle Sunni district
· Construction under cover of night

The US military is building a three-mile concrete wall in the centre of Baghdad along the most murderous faultline between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

The wall, which recognises the reality of the hardening sectarian divide in Baghdad, is a central part of George Bush's final push to pacify the capital. Work began on April 10 under cover of darkness and is due for completion by the end of the month.

The highly symbolic wall has evoked comparisons to the barriers dividing Protestants and Catholics in Belfast and Israelis and Palestinians along the length of the West Bank.

Captain Scott McLearn, who is based at Camp Victory, the US base on the outskirts of Baghdad, said Shias "are coming in and hitting Sunnis, and Sunnis are retaliating across the street".

You know a great way to solve terrorist problems is to like improve the quality of life. If you make sure they have enough food, water, peace and prosperity, its very simple.

Building this wall won't make one bit of difference, its a crazy idea thought up by crazy people who are running this crazy fucking war.

The wall is a sign of the failure of the Bush Junta to deal with post-invasion Iraq, turning a section of Baghdad into a ghetto.

Insurge-ants

A particularly funny cartoon from the latest issue of Private Eye, so all credit to them

Silly Story of the Day - Giant Flesh Eating Mice

Carniverous mice could threaten island

INFRA-red footage showing a "superbreed" of giant flesh-eating house mice chewing into an albatross chick has been used as a stark warning of what awaits pest-infested Macquarie Island.

Tasmanian Conservation Trust (TCT) spokesman Alistair Graham said the rodents on British-controlled Gough Island off South Africa in the South Atlantic had evolved to become predators, growing to three times their normal size.

“The evidence that normal house mice on Gough Island have evolved to become predators gives us very serious concern the same thing is happening on Macquarie Island,” he said.

Someone should tell the Sci Fi channel about the flesh eating mice of Macquarie Island, sounds like a b-movie heh.

Friday Cat Blogging


Heidi being very silly again


Heidi cooling off after spending too long in the sun


George looking handsome


George watching the garden

Thursday Ballet Blogging

Swan Lake - Margot Fonteyn & Rudolf Nureyev

Mental Health

MP rebellion looms over new mental health curbs

Mental health professionals and opposition parties have joined forces to resist wider powers to detain people with a mental disorder deemed to pose a danger to others.

The Mental Health Alliance, which represents 80 professional bodies and support groups, and the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, will press for safeguards to the legislation.

They will work together to retain amendments added to the Mental Health Bill in a string of defeats inflicted on the Government in the Lords. It means that Labour faces a struggle to avert a Commons rebellion on the issue in Tony Blair’s final weeks in office.

Rather frightening, this law could be used by an unscrupulous government to lock up 'undesirables' or those who dissent.

The reason why there is this problem is due to the shutting down of the mental health hospitals and the 'care in the community' policy that was put in its place, this was then underfunded, which leads to our current impasse, the mentally ill end up in prison because there is no where to look after them, thats a reason why the prisons are overcrowded here.

Yes I know the old mental hospitals were not very nice and led to institutionalism. What I am saying is you could build state of the art facilities to care for those with mental health issues and still have care in the community but have someplace where they can be protected from hurting themseleves and others.

Instead they are abandoned in the community due to a lack of funding, then end up committing a crime and then go to jail.

The system is fucked up at the moment.

NuLab has a history of tearing down things in the rush for 'modernization' and then underfunding its replacement, doing things on the cheap, which then causes more problems.

Police State

Hewitt defends mental health proposals

Controversial revisions to mental health legislation will strike the right balance between improving patient safeguards and protecting the public, the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, said yesterday.

The introduction of supervised community treatment is "essential" to help ensure that discharged patients continue to take medication and treatment to keep them well and help to protect the wider public, she said.

Ms Hewitt was opening a Commons second reading debate on the mental health bill.

The bill, which has suffered a series of defeats in the Lords, would amend existing legislation to ensure patients continue to take medication following discharge and to prevent relapses.

Its provisions will see some psychiatric patients discharged from hospital subject to supervised community treatment. Those undergoing the treatment will be obliged to comply with a specified regime, which campaigners say will place unnecessary restrictions on their civil liberties and may deter people with mental health problems from coming forward for treatment.

This is even more scary than talking CCTV.

If this becomes law and if a far right government got into power, they could lock up anyone who is 'subversive', or who is different from the norm, like Stalin and his gulags.

Just Horrible

Arms and the Man

Another one?

Iraq: Two Virginia Techs Every Day

Virginia massacre gunman is named

Police have named a student who shot dead at least 30 people at a US university as Cho Seung-hui, a 23-year-old from South Korea.

He was studying English and had been living on the university campus. He killed himself after the rampage.

Police said a gun found at the scene was also used at an earlier shooting in which two people were killed.

This is horrible news but made me so glad to be living in Britain, I might be disappointed with my country in so many ways, but at least we don't have a 'gun culture' which seems most common in certain areas of the USA.

British Muslims

UK Muslims 'more loyal than most'

Muslims in the UK are more likely to identify strongly with Britain and have confidence in its institutions than the population as a whole, a poll suggests.

The survey says they are also more likely to take a positive view of living side-by-side with people of different races and religions.

The majority of Muslims do not believe the veil is a barrier to integration - unlike most of the wider population.

Gallup interviewed 500 Muslims and 1,200 members of the wider population.

The full results of the survey - described as the most comprehensive poll on Muslims and non-Muslims to date - will be published later this week.

I am not sure where the 'clash of civilization' types get the idea that somehow the Muslim population in Britain are like a fifth column backed up by the left, feminists, multiculturalism and 'Political Correctness' (which is what racists fall back on when they are unable to say racist words), encroaching on 'White Christian Male Society', because I've not seen much evidence, last time I checked our state church was the CoE, the PM is white and most of those in power are white old men, so I'm going to say it is bullshit, the Melanie Phillips/LGF/ Malkin axis is repugnant, their vile words serve little purpose but to dehumanize their opponents.

Its sickening the way Muslims have been successively dehumanized by the press and by 'respectable pundits' aka reactionary windbags, which makes it easier for the government to impose tougher 'anti terror laws' and for sub-humans to sexually assault a female Algerian asylum seeker and her child, because its for these scary brown people, because that what it comes down to, skin colour, its what our immigration and criminal legislation is focused on, even though the authorities won't admit it.

Music Video Blogging

Dizzie Rascal - Sirens

Friday Cat Blogging


Heidi snoozing


Heidi and George on top of the shelf


George all snuggly


Heidi cuddling up the hippocat


George chilling out

Thursday Ballet

Stravinsky's The Firebird

Bonus Easter Sunday Cat Blogging


George and Heidi


George in his tunnel


Heidi

The British Army

Pawns in a losing game: Britain's policy in tatters

If anything symbolised the degree to which Tony Blair's adventurous foreign policy has embroiled Britain in dangerous, unpredictable conflicts and wholly unintended consequences, it was the juxtaposition of joy and horror last Thursday.

The television news channels ran endless footage of 15 sailors and Royal Marines, freed by Iran after a two-week hostage saga that had taken almost daily twists and turns. But scrolling across the bottom of the screens was the news that four other service personnel, two of them women, and an Iraqi interpreter had been killed by an explosion in southern Iraq, the worst British loss of life in a single incident there for several months. A fifth soldier remains in a critical condition.

The death of those 4 British soldiers raises questions.

Why were two medical personnel on a military patrol in a Warrior tank?

I can only assume there is not enough regular troops to do patrolling, which suggests a recruitment problem and a sign that the British armed forces are overstretched.

I think we will be seeing more and more of these types of news stories from Iraq.

Good Friday Cat Blogging


George looking incredibly handsome


George lounging


George saying "what you looking at?"


Heidi striking a silly pose


Heidi viewing her domain


George and Heidi in harmony

Senator McVain

Lorry bomb kills children in school

A newborn baby was one of at least 14 children and adults killed when a suicide bomber detonated a lorry laden with explosives close to a primary school in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk yesterday.

The latest massacre of Iraqi children came as 21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound and shot dead north of the capital. The victims came from the Baghdad market visited the previous day by John McCain, the US presidential candidate, who said that an American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress.

Words fail me.

McCain is an incredibly vain man and a fool, taking a 'stroll round Baghdad' surrounded by a platoon of soldiers and plenty of air cover just to back up his claims that Iraq is peaceful, hoping it plays well to the domestic audience, really sickening. Not to mention how incredibly insulting it must be for those traders at the market to see this American swan around in a bullet proof vest, being given every protection, while they have to put up daily with car bombs, death squads and a raging civil war.


A man stands at the scene of a car bomb attack in Baghdad April 2, 2007. A car bomb killed two people and wounded nine others in the southern Bayaa district of Baghdad, police said.

REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz