Acts of Contrition

I've gone back to A-Z mode, though my list doesn't include later series, so be prepared for some episodes to be missing for now.

I know this picture is ever popular.

Melati, Judge Judy and stuff I don't get.

JaeJae was too busy at the zoo on Friday trying to imagine how he could magic a giant tortoise into his mouth. Melati spent most of the day hiding, but towards the she was checking out the world in public view.






I am a recent follower of Judge Judy, mostly because I cannot believe - not just the things people sue one another over - but the differences in law and responsibility between our two nations, especially where things to do with cars are concerned.

There don't seem to be any rules about the condition a car ought to be in to be legally allowed on the road. People are suing over vehicles that would have been off the road decades ago. They are disputing insurance liability. And here I get really confused.

In a case broadcast today the statement was made that "the insurance follows the car". So you can lend your car to anyone (presumably with a licence) and your insurance covers the car as driven by them. They can write it off and not owe you a penny.

Well, folks, see if you prefer the UK version.

It's the driver who is insured. They can be insured for more than one car, and they can insure a car for more than one driver. This allows new young drivers to be insured on their parents' policies instead of paying more than the price of a car just to drive one. The pricier and faster the car, the more the insurance costs.

I can buy insurance that allows only me to drive just my car; I can allow another (named) person, or anyone I choose later, to drive my car. I can apply my insurance to any car I am qualified to drive. I can insure my car third party only, third party fire and theft, or fully comprehensive. The cost on these various options will vary. And I can phone my insurance broker at any time to vary my cover.

But I cannot decide on the spur of the moment to let someone else drive my car unless that is the kind of insurance I have taken out. I would expect them to be insured to drive it, and wouldn't let them anywhere near it if they couldn't prove that to me.

If the bright sparks on Judge Judy are anything to go by, a lot of folks in the US have NO idea what their insurance is and what it can and can't do.

Add to that our MOT test (stand for Ministry of Transport) which every car legally on the road must pass annually once it reaches the grand old age of 3 years. No bangers on our roads! I hope...

I'm glad I'm over here.

More Valentino

One of my earliest video efforts, using Eliza's pictures. The music just seemed so appropriate.

Still can't believe Ray Davies played it at Buckingham Palace for the Queen's Silver Jubilee.

The Velocity of Gary

A change from the usual film still - a video of the D'Elicious Mr D'Onofrio, alias Valentino, snogging everyone that moves.

Only 68,000+ views on YouTube...

A Cop Programme in Search of a Hero

Taggart is the strangest cop show in the history of the genre. Set in Glasgow, and first broadcast in 1983 with Mark McManus as the dour detective, the last episode of Taggart was broadcast less than 3 years ago - even though McManus died in 1994!

I was a great fan throughout its lengthy run, with two other senior detectives taking over the team, but under their "own" names. Taggart himself was as dead as McManus.

From quite early on there was a regular female character, but despite the promotion of male cops around her, she never made it above Detective Sergeant. In 20 bloody years!

It's gone now. Why it was called Taggart probably puzzled younger viewers. TV producers, eh?

The Whole Wide World

Beautiful, troubled Bob.

Let's suck something

Can't think what. Nothing as small as that button nose...

Reality Check Needed

Every other crime show has a devilish bank robbery as its major crime, often with hostage situations in there with the robbery.

Is there really that much bank robbery going on in the US? 'Cos I can't remember that last time there was one in the UK.

Have we made it so difficult the crooks no longer even try? And if we have, maybe our friends across the Pond should have a look at what we're doing right for once!

Thumbsucking some more

Oh yes.

Savagery in the name of religion

A soldier, Drummer Lee Rigby, hacked to death in a London street. The murderers, purporting to be Muslims, talking to anyone who would film them on their mobile phones. The blood of the victim still on their hands and weapons.

The vicious killers waiting around for the police to arrive (some say 20 minutes later, even though the police station is just around the corner; even the police say 14 minutes) so that they could advance on them and get shot. Women passers-by approaching the victim hoping they could help or protect him, but he was already dead, almost beheaded.

Really, who wants to live in a world like this?

I am even more certain that religion is only ever, ultimately, a force for evil. Let's leave the caves and acknowledge that we no longer need this mythology to make sense of the world. Because on days like this, it clearly only makes nonsense of the world.

Thumbsucker

Nice, normal Mike.

I haz a blankie!

JaeJae has a new comfort blanket. It looks to me like the fleece from the recently shorn llamas.

He loves it.

I'd really like to snuggle up next to him. Even if it cost an arm and a leg...

The Winner

Phillip's such a loser.

Vincent is a giant playing a little weed. Brilliant acting. But that hair...

Is it time to rest yet?

Another b****** of a week.

Monday was a wash-out because of the weather. Up at sparrow fart in case of a last-minute job, of which there was none, so spent the day faffing around and dozing.

On Tuesday I got the call to go to the Sixth Form site of an autistic school I often teach at. Edgy but nice. They are only two weeks into their new building and are still settling down. Maybe tomorrow it will be sunny and I can go to a zoo or something.

But no. In the late afternoon a call from an agency set me up for a day's work on Wednesday, at a Pupil Referral Unit in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. (A PRU is for the kids expelled from mainstream schools for chronic behaviour problems.) Spent hours agonising on which of about five routes would be best.

On the day, almost every route was clogged with traffic jams, so I kept ignoring the Satnav and eventually arrived in good time...to find the promised street parking was residents only. Sent to a nearby road and all was well. Spent two big chunks of the day sitting with a reasonably well-behaved boy while he took an exam. Finished just after 2.30, which was lucky, as I just had time to do a supermarket shop on the way home, before taking myself off to a local meeting, followed by a farewell drink for our co-ordinator, who has lost his job due to cuts.

Thursday had already been booked for the school where I do my regular Fridays. A couple of the kids were hyper, and the day ended I headaches for all staff. Wanted to go straight home for a relaxing rest, but pet supply shopping came first.

Friday was a bit less fraught than Thursday, but the evening was not very relaxing as I kept remembering my Saturday afternoon concert.

The theme was Spring (wishful thinking)  and the accompanist had found a copy of the song I wanted to sing (Tulips From Amsterdam) but had forgotten to bring it with him. Then I discovered that my alternative (Here Comes The Sun) was down as an "also", so I ended up singing both.

More shopping on the way home, collapsed in front of the TV to find...nothing much worth watching, as I'd already missed the LOCI Season 10 reruns.

Hey Ho.

The Taking of Pelham 123

The mean, moody and magnificent Mr Blue. Why do we all like bad boys?

The Player

Poor David Kahane. Killed by mistake. Typical Vincent role!

This film always gets good write-ups when it's on TV, but I'm not a fan.

The New Tenants

Jan. Shortest ever role. Poor guy.

The Narrows

At last, a film in which he makes it to the end in one piece - and rather jubilant.

Vinny Manadoro is a great character.

Kill The Irishman

Horror of horrors! I don't have the pictures from this film on Photobucket!

We'll have to be satisfied with this production photo of John Nardi.

The Investigator

Ephraim McDougall. Not a name to conjure with. But what a sweet character.

The Cell

Poor, scared Carl. I can't believe I sympathise with a serial killer!

Education US and UK Style

Time after time I watch aghast as TV shows show US university life. Women students demeaning themselves on "spring break", or even getting murdered. "Campus police" dealing with serious crimes without reference to the real police. Hazing rituals to gain entry to sororities and fraternities.

What planet is this? I can't speak for Oxford and Cambridge with their strange clubs (like the Bullingdon Club that our glorious leaders Cameron and Osborne graced with their illustrious presence and recruit those who will continue to "lead" us in future) but British universities otherwise don't have these weird anachronisms.

Anyone who's ever watched Morse knows that the real police handle crimes even in Oxford colleges. There is no such thing as spring break. Instead we have the Easter vacation, when we either go home for a month to study or relax, or work to earn much-needed funds.

As for sororities and fraternities, there is no such thing. Some universities are collegiate, and these colleges create alliances and loyalties. But this "pledging" - unless, as I say, some Oxbridge colleges have such ancient, occult and arcane practices that the outside pleb does not get to hear about - is thankfully absent from our places of higher education.

Now Freshers week...that's another matter. How to introduce new students to life away from home and drown their homesickness in pools of alcohol and vomit. You can sign up for clubs - sports, political, theatrical, apathy (no one bothers to turn up for meetings). There are outings to places where you can get blotto, often with benefit of free beer tickets.

The drinking games help - Bunnies and Fizzbuzz have always been popular. For those unfamiliar, in Bunnies, the Bunny Master waggled fingers either side of the head like bunny ears, and the person either side waggles the hand nearest the Master, who then points across the circle where the person they point at and their neighbours repeat the performance. Any mistake is subject to forfeit, usually a substantial swig of booze. Hence, the longer the game goes on, the drinker the players get, the more mistakes they make and the more hilarity is caused.

Fizzbuzz is an altogether more intellectual game. The players go round the circle counting, replacing every number with 5 in, or multiple of 5, with Fizz, and ditto 7 with Buzz. Numbers containing or being multiples of both are replaced with Fizzbuzz. The Master can reverse the order, just to make matters more complicated. Any mistake is also punished with alcoholic intake.

When I was a second year helping the Freshers to relax, we were in the Lake District at a posh hotel (one of many places we were never allowed back to...) and followed up with rowing boat trips out on to Windermere, the largest of the lakes. The people on my boat spent the next hour trying to strand one another on the many islands we landed on.

Happy days.

The Break Up

Sorry for the squished up head. Another of those cases where I got the capture ratio wrong...

Still, Dennis Grobowski is a sweet character.

That Championship Season

Phil Romano. The only member of this midget cast capable of being mistaken for a basketball player.

That Was The Week That Was

No, not the 1960s satirical show that launched David Frost's career. Just my week so far. Stick with it, it's worth it.

Monday was a write-off. I had a 2.10pm appointment for a lumbar x-ray to support my boob reduction case.

I got up at sparrow-fart on Tuesday in case I got a call to work, but hoping I could spend a sunny day at the zoo. I got a call to work. On the way home I spent the day's pay (which I don't receive till next week) on vet supplies.

I got up just as early on Wednesday in case I got a call to work, but hoping I could spend a sunny day at the zoo. I got a call to work.

This is casual as-and-when work, for an ASD school I've worked for a lot, but it moved over Easter into a brand spanking new building.

I don't know if US schools still have these in their classrooms (no, not Bobby's hand, the blackboard) but in Britain they are long gone.



We've had interactive whiteboards pretty well everywhere for about 15 years, and before that most places had drywipe whiteboards rather than messy chalk. Well, this school has super-deluxe models where the computer, DVD player, USB ports, electric controls for the windows and anything else you can think of are built in.



The teacher controls it with a remote keyboard which is about a third of the size of a laptop keyboard.



It is the most frustrating instrument I have ever had the misfortune to work with.

The buttons top left are the left and right mouse clicks. The ball at top right is the cursor mover, the rest of the ouse function, I guess. It is the most inexact, difficult to control piece of shit any man could have dreamed up (don't tell me it might have been a woman, we all know it couldn't be so).

There are lots of great sensory things in the playground, but sandpits? The younger kids spend all their breaktime putting it down their own and their friends' necks. Only a matter of time till it goes in some eyes...

Then there are the flower beds. The plants, which haven't rooted yet, never will, as they are a convenient handful to pull out and throw around.

Well, as there is a lot of walking to be done in this new building, and I was standing around cooking for a lot of the time, I was pretty exhausted by the end of Wednesday. But luckily Thursday dawned warm and sunny, and there was no call to work, so off I went to the zoo.

It was worth waiting for.

Firstly, the new male gorilla, Kumbuka, was with young Mjukuu for about the first time. They showed a professional level of acting indifferent. He looks at her, she looks away. He looks away, she looks at him. She circles round him. He pretends not to notice. He sits around nonchalantly, she gathers sacks and carries them up to the highest perch she can find.

I don't think he quite gets alpha male dominance yet.





Jae Jae was being particularly fetching. His back was to the window, then he rolled over towards the glass and treated us to these views of his beauteousness.





Jae Jae's enrichment included a piece of meat on top of his climbing frame, with a trail of blood leading to it. I stitched three pieces of video together and shut off the volume, but couldn't convert it into anything usable, so here are three pieces of rough footage for which you might want to turn down the keeper's commentary which is interspersed with crowd noise.

He follows the trail.



He makes his "kill".



He chomps his prize.

Stuart Saves His Family

The very BIG Mr Smalley. Donnie's not Vincent's best look.

Can't disguise those curls though...

Strange Days

Burton Steckler. Woof. Yummy bad cop.

Steal This Movie

Abby. Aaaaah!

Leftovers

There was this wonderful comedy programme years ago called The Young Ones, which had some completely disparate student types sharing a house.

The long-haired hippie Neil, played by Nigel Planer, was supposed to be preparing the meal one day. He emptied the kitchen bin on the table, and when one of the others asked him what it was, he said, "Leftovers".

Well, the genius that is Richard Benyon MP, a Tory politician who likes us all to be "in it together" (as long as they and their rich friends are excused) has been giving advice to those in food poverty. Obviously as a rich twat he must be an expert on this subject.

He said the poor waste too much food. They should eat their leftovers. And cheese lasts a lot longer if you wrap it properly before putting it back in the fridge.

Well, thank you for that. I assume that those on benefits will now be receiving clingfilm with their benefits, as they could not afford to buy that and the cheese to wrap in it. Actually, don't bother, they probably can't afford the cheese either.

As for leftovers, the poor would probably be better off if Mr Benyon and his rich friends donated their leftovers (preferably without putting them in the bin first then retrieving them).

I tweeted Mr Benyon this morning asking him for his potato peelings, carrot scrapings, onion skin and gristle stir fry recipe, but so far he hasn't replied.

This surprises me, because I ran out of characters in my tweet after getting as far as "patronising c"

No prizes for guesing what the "c" was for.

Meanwhile I'm off to get my leftovers out of the bin. I suppose I have to wash them before eating them. I don't think the cat litter they share the bag with has much goodness in it.

Staten Island

Parmy's a favourite. He loved his mother!

Spanish Judges

Max. A time when Vincent could do baldness better.

Flehmen Unkind

Kitty cats large and small have a special organ in the roof of their mouths that increases their ability to smell, which is why you will often see them smelling stuff - or more often the air - with their mouths open. It's called the Jacobson's Organ, and the action is called "flehmen".

Well when you house some anoa (a species of small Indonesian buffalo) next door to the new tiger enclosure in a zoo, two things seem likely to happen: the anoa will be reluctant to come outside; and the tiger will lose all interest in mating with his new love and pace around dreaming of hunting his own dinner - even if he has been bred in captivity and has never hunted more than a stray pigeon.

That's what's happening to JaeJae at London Zoo.

He started the day enticingly close to the glass, enabling parents to get their vile offspring in the same photographic frame as the big boy. He stayed that way during "enrichment", when a keeper tried to lure him to the fence with offerings of meat.





Later, though, he woke up to the smell of fresh anoa and paced around trying to catch a glimpse, and perhaps a morsel, of his potential prey:

He stood on top of a convenient rock demonstrating the flehmen reaction:




In the old tiger enclosure it was too cold for the pygmy hippos to venture outside, so one dozed inside by the window doing an imitation of a leather sofa:



One of the colobus monkeys has a new baby. She's just three weeks old:







I knew I should have made a note of the names of these two types of snakes, but I didn't and I've forgotten. The first is a tangle of two or three, the green beauty just drapes itself over a branch in coils like a complicated piece of washing on the line:





On the subject of snakes, here are my new glasses - the ones that set me back over £450. Could have bought a real snake and a vivarium for that.

Signs of Life

Delicious Daryl. So young, it feels like paedophilia to say it.

Sweet Sound

Of helicopters. London Marathon day and the start is only a mile or two away. Though the elite runners went 50 minutes ago, so it's quiet ended down a bit. The ordinary folks don't count so much...

Salute of the Jugger

Damaged but alive - and still alive at the end! Gar. The name is the same as the sound I would make if we did the dirty dance together, methinks.

A Question...

...for the US Senators who think their loyalty should be to the gun lobby rather than their constituents.

As a mere UK citizen, I watch a lot of US cop shows, and when a school is featured, there always seem to be security guards employed there.

We don't have that over here. So tell me, please, how do you work it out that YOU are the guardians of freedom in this world, when even your kids need protecting from the guns you love by such a huge curtailment of their freedom in what should be the safest place for them?

We had a school gun massacre once, nearly as bad as Newtown. Just once. We immediately restricted gun ownership even further, and made sure all target weapons were locked up in gun clubs. There were few complaints, and none of our elected representatives was against the changes. No one lost a freedom that was truly valued.

You people are the dregs of the world. Protect ALL your citizens, not just those who make guns or those who love to shoot. You aren't living in the wild west any more. Reject the bribery of the gun manufacturers and be men (I guess most of you are male) by standing up for what's right.

A Tale of Two PMs

One Prime Minister built up post-war Britain as a home for heroes. The other dismantled as much as she could so as to enrich the rich still further.

Which one deserved a ceremonial funeral? Not the one who got it.

Clement Attlee oversaw the creation of the welfare state and nationalisation of public utilities and some industries.

Thanks to him, Britain prospered. We had publicly owned companies to give us water, electricity and gas, to provide our bus and rail services, to produce steel and build ships, and to dig up coal.

Margaret Thatcher took his legacy apart, giving the profits from OUR services and giving them to shareholders rather than ploughing them back into those services. Now her acolyte Cameron is trying to finish the job that she started by destroying our greatest treasure, the National Health Service.

Attlee wold not have come across well in the TV age. He was not a great orator. He was not a larger-than-life character like Churchill, with whom he served as Deputy Prime Minister during the wartime coalition government. There was a contemporary joke that an empty cab pulled up and Mr Attlee got out.

He was later created an Earl, and his title continues, just, though his grandson, at 57, is still childless. The title will therefore die - just as well, because this treacherous man is a Conservative in the House of Lords.

I would be so proud to have such a distinguished ancestor. John Attlee, hang your head in shame. Think of the good you could have done if you'd followed your in illustious grandfather's footsteps.

The Salton Sea

The completely unprepossessing Pooh Bear.

Yet somehow cute, and all because of his portrayer.

Looking for Love

This is Mjukuu.



She is the female gorilla who was deprived of her baby by David Field, a London Zoo hotshot, husband of a bigwig for an endangered species organisation and so not liable to sanction. He decided to send a new male, not the baby's father, in with the mother and baby just as littl'un was getting independent. The baby was killed. The breeding age females in the group would not get another opportunity to breed as the male was known to be infertile.

Finally, after months of delays, the infertile male having been removed last year, a new male has finally joined the group. His name is Kumbuku. He arrived at the zoo on Thursday and is not yet mixing with the girls.

But Mjukuu and Effie were deperately trying to get into the inside enclosure with him. They tried everything just to get a glimpse. Old Zaire was not interested.

Here's the boy they can't wait to get flirtatious with:





Blurred but obviously very handsome. He wowed the humans with some really butch displays. Then he set about dismantling the climbing wall.

Clever boy.

Nunzio's Second Cousin

Hot sexy Sgt Tony Randozza.

How much???!!

The loathsome author of the privatisation of all our publicly owned utilities; she who sold off all our assets, such as North Sea oil and gas and gave away our heritage and inheritance so that private individuals could profit from the ordinary people; she who destroyed British manufacturing industry and gave power to the finance industry (we all know where that led); she who has a rich family, including a gun-running son who has somehow obtained a knighthood, and ultra-wealthy friends; in these days of austerity where many have to resort to food banks and support for the disabled is being slashed; her funeral is to cost £10,000,000.

Her family may chip in. But why those she impoverished should have to pay for her obsequies, while those she enriched just get to go along and enjoy what the plebs pay for, I fail to understand.

All in this together, Mr Cameron? Yes, all bearing the expense of the witch's last rites. But the rich continue to bear nothing at all except the agonies of having to watch the protests of the anti-Thatcherites being squashed by a police force that, being itself hacked to pieces by the government, should be facilitating these protests, not putting them down.

Meanwhile, a campaign to get this number to the top of the charts has been successful, but "out of respect" for the person who never earned any respect in her lifetime, and deserves none in death, the radio chart programmes have been urged not to play it.