Weather presenter training*

"And showers in the east, and sun in the west, and bits and pieces of rain, and again..."

Zoz

* I nominate this for a Golden Willy in the Worst Cartoon category. Ed

The height of New Labour ambition

Letters

All that Blears, Hain, Harman and the rest of the non-entities can aspire to is to be deputy, a nothing job with a big fat country house at Dorneywood. Their ambition for their country and their party rises no higher than a sinecure for themselves with little or no responsibility. At least give Michael Meacher and John MacDonald credit for applying for the real job.

A. Ridgeley, Harpenden

Don't forget the victory parade

Tony Blair takes the salute from happy returning troops led by a guest party of executioners from Iraq in balaclavas and leather jackets, waving, followed by floats with tableau depicting scenes from the campaign, including the cruciform electrified person on a box, covered with a black sheet, and the famous Iwo Jima-style pile of naked men, rampant snarling dogs and a lookalike female soldier pointing at naked prisoners, another two floats with a replica of the "mission accomplished" scene on board a US battleship and a giant statue of Saddam with an American flag over its face. Next come the limbless and blind, orphans and veterans with their white canes and wheelchairs, entertained by a baton-twirling troupe of cheerleaders for an upbeat finish. Lastly, at a discreet distance, as the reviewing stand empties, road-sweeping motors return the city streets to normal. Sound like a plan?

Ossian Carey

A Hand of Solo

Lips and tongue
wrestle the delicious
        life out of you.

This is the start of the first poem in Thomas Kinsella's new collection "A Dublin Documentary". The rest of the poem and a brief commentary are here. "Indian apple" is a great name for pomegranate. They should eat them in Indianapolis.

Ossian

Winter leaving?

 


Nelton Schwanstucker

An evening with Louise Jefferson

We fixed you up with Stella Duffy f.o.c, and now we give you another exotic companion for one night, gratis. Plus, we make sure nobody smashes your windows exxetera, as long as you keep clicking on dis site.

P O'Toole

Orwell or not well

Such were the joys

"Jacintha Buddicom and George Orwell were childhood soul mates who lost touch until he was dying. A new postscript to her genteel memoir sheds a disturbing light on their friendship, finds Kathryn Hughes" (Guardian)

Fascinating insights into what made Orwell

Ossian

Check out Ossian's home page

MySpace

He used to work here, you know. He's famous now. What he doesn't know about newspapering is not worth knowing.

Feargal Mooney

World exclusive: Free books*

Willesden Green Writers

Follow the link to get a free (cost of postage only) copy of the Arts Council award-winning anthology The Monkey's Typewriter from Willesden Green writers group; or if you're a writer, join the group any Thursday night in the Willesden Library Centre, NW10.

P. O'Toole, Marketing Dept.

* While stocks last

Sign up for Creative Writing at Manchester university

Martin Amis turns professor

"...there comes a point when, my father [author Kingsley Amis] put it very well, he said: 'There comes a point where you think, it's not like that any more. A social change in the collective consciousness has happened and you feel you are not seeing it.' "

There are some interesting views about British society and politics in the article.

Ossian

Newsagent's window

If you're after a "Double room to let" or a "Slim leggy black girl" or "Man + van" this is where to look.

Poetry diSpenser

Valentine's poetry quiz

"This year, say it with words: a carefully chosen poem can spark tender feelings in your chosen valentine. But who to go for - Sappho or Marvell, Yeats or Shakespeare?" (Guardian Online)

Just punch in your prejudices and out comes a suitable ditty for the hapless swain.

Bloody Branson

My NTL account has just changed to "Virgin Media". Insufferable. I never would have signed up to that. Am I the only one who hates Richard Branson and his company for appropriating the word "virgin" and for putting their logo everywhere, which looks like it has been written by a finger in a pool of blood? The word "virgin" is very important and sacred and should not be franchised to that jumped-up huxter.

Zoz

Tanzanian lovebirds

Video

"Lovebirds are actually a type of parrot named for their seemingly passionate behavior with their lifelong partners." (National Geographic)

Bill Oddity

Literary links

Monty Python's Oscar Wilde

Monty Python's Agatha Christie

Pitch & Putt with Joyce & Beckett

(They need a course at the Argument Clinic.)

International Philosophy: Greece v. Germany

Approved by The Ministry of Silly Walks

Dear Mona: When counsellors need help

	I have a bit of a problem...
	with Mona Bone-Jakon

Dear Mona, I have a rather unexpected and distressing problem. Like yourself, I am a counsellor, and like yourself I have done everything to perfection—instant solutions to complicated problems, again just like yourself—had a brilliant career with a list of credits as long as your arm, but nobody writes to me anymore! Could it be that I have been too successful and worked myself out of a job, and what can I do about it?

Gloria, Dollis Hill

Mona replies:

Dear Gloria, it's not that you've worked yourself out of a job, you are a real pro—I can tell—it's just that the world is full of losers, who would rather wallow around in their misery than accept the advice of us pros about how to turn on their happiness receptors. I do appreciate you writing to me about this, I know that it wasn't easy, and I hope you will see that what I am about to advise you is in fact the solution to all your difficulties, and that is: screw them! They don't deserve you. Also when the next enquiries come—as they surely will—hold back a little, don't give them the full instant solution. Why not setup a course, a program of treatments and take them for every last penny they've got. Always remember, they are nonentities, we are the pros.

Lovingly, ever, Mona

Due to the volume of mail received, Mona regrets that she cannot enter into any personal correspondence. Send details of your own original misery to Dear Mona.

Three great new serials: coming soon

The Acts of Saint Floncus (Eachtraí Naoimh Fhloncaigh) transl. Ossian Carey

Tongues of Fire, Life as a Neglected Daughter by The Holy Ghost (with a foreword by Matt Talbot)

Not Me Again - Stuff your Penny Apples by Eddie "Red" Woodward (with Feargal Mooney)

Presbytery Publishing Ltd.

Severe weather warning

Don't go out if you have short legs.

Offbeats and Brutalists

Literature for the MySpace generation

They don't know they're born. They should go here and see what they're missing. Brutalists are just nancy boys and fainting floozies.

Ossian

Heat ray shock: Blair quits

Bugs Levy nabbed

Just prepare this story, Feargal. Don't post it yet. The Willie will be first with this scoop, even if we have to make it up. It seems that the Met have got hold of that Yankee heat ray thing and are firing it at Blair. He's decided to make a run for it. Suggest headline: "If I go down, you go down" Levy to Blair? (Don't forget the question mark.) Delete this email. Repeat: don't post this!

Red

Classical music on MySpace

Chopin: The Raindrop Prelude, plus Fantasie Impromtu (you may recognise the tune of "I'm always chasing rainbows" part way through), The Revolutionary Etude (a very familiar piece) and Nocturne in E minor. Unfortunately we're not told the artist, though no doubt the cognoscienti will recognise. Excellent, whoever.

Jascha Heifetz: Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D, plus Bach Chaconne, Paganini Caprice 24 (the basis for Julian Lloyd Webber's theme for the South Bank Show) and Le Ronde Des Lutins.

Mahler: Adagietto (from the 5th Symphony?). A crackly recording. You may remember this from Visconti's magnificent film of Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice".

Schubert: Impromptu No. 3, Orchestral version of Serenade, Death and the Maiden. Search for "Franz Schubert" to find many more links.

Enrico Caruso: L'Elisir d'Amore (mis-labelled as the next one and vice-versa), Una Furtiva Lagrima, O Figli, O Figli Miei. Vesti la Giubba ("Cloco's Theme", according to Grandad, who is looking over my shoulder—I don't know if he's winding me up) and 3 others. Libiamo, Libiamo plus Torna a Sorrento and two more.

Beniamino Gigli: Toselli Serenade and others. (Grandad looking over my shoulder says to say "the gohlden voice of Beniamino Gigli", in just that way; apparently it makes scratchy old recordings sound better when you say that, and some voices are silver and others gold and others brass. Who knew?)

If you search for Schumann, there is some lieder there. (No, no, don't say "Take me to your lieder".) Of course all of this is deplorable. No credits, no royalties. But it's there for a short while anyway and, as sins go, listening to it is perhaps one of the lesser venial ones. Check back for updates.

Jacintha Pucka

An evening with author Stella Duffy

Free!

Willesden Green Library Centre
Thursday 15^th February, 7.30 - 9.00 p.m.

"Stella Duffy has written ten novels, five of them are literary novels including State of Happiness which was long-listed listed for the Orange prize in 2004. Her other five books are the Saz Martin crime series. Stella's latest novel The Room of Lost Things will be published by Virago in 2008. She has also written over thirty short stories and eight plays. Join Stella for an evening talking about and reading from her works, there will be a chance to ask questions and she will be signing copies of her book at the end of the evening."

It's not often you get an offer like this, an evening with a brilliant woman and all the refreshments you can guzzle, gratis. Need I say more?

Feargal Mooney

Some more music links on MySpace and YouTube

Billie Holiday: The Very Thought of You, I'll Be Seeing You, Strange Fruit, God Bless the Child. (Strange Fruit is one of the most solemn and unforgettable songs, could be a theme tune for Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin. The other tracks here are also outstanding like all of Billie's recordings.)

Bessie Smith: Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out plus Give Me a Pigfoot (one of her last recordings, when "rediscovered" by Benny Goodman etc), Backwater Blues

Charles & Eddie: Would I Lie to You? (can't get this brilliant one-hit-wonder on iTunes, but it's here on MySpace)

Francoise Hardy: J'Ai Jete Mon Coeur (just a very sweet old record found on somebody's profile, a great way to hear excellent and unusual music, singled out by each MySpace user. I'm a sucker for this sound and mood, even "All Over the World" - no link for that yet.)

Jacques Brel: Ne Me Quitte Pas, La Fanette, Les Desesperes. (I wish I could find Au Suivant and a couple of others.)

Leonard Cohen: Hey That's No Way to Say Goodbye, One of Us Cannot Be Wrong, Suzanne

I was going to post a link to The Stranger Song, but it's been removed (a hazard of this kind of bootleg access). There are several more Leonard Cohen tracks on there. Click Music, enter Leonard Cohen and click Search. You can find all sorts of things this way.

Christy Moore: Ride On (notable for the most sublime bit of slide guitar ever at the end), Don't Forget Your Shovel, Biko Drum, Delirium Tremens.

By the way, here's Christy singing Viva la Quinta Brigada on YouTube, with some interesting newsreel and fleeting pictures of some of the Irish volunteers for the International Brigade etc. "The bishops blessed the blueshirts at Dunleary".

That's Donal Lunny on the bouzouki and Declan Sinnott on the other guitar. Donal Lunny and Christy Moore were in Planxty almost at the start of the Irish folk revival. Here's Donal Lunny duelling bouzouki vs. mandolin with Andy Irvine in a great old clip of Planxty on the Late Late Show, with Liam O'Flynn on uileann pipes. (Andy forgets the words and almost doesn't restart, till Donal gives him a prompt: still brilliant/live/exciting.)

Jacintha Pucka

Series of Dreams

Bob Dylan on Music Box

Forget YouTube, if you have broadband, get yourself a sherbet, click that link and put your feet up. It's real proper video. Some beautiful pictures, especially on "When the Deal Goes Down". I've been listening to Modern Times for a while, and though he sounds very old, it makes good listening. It's a pity they haven't got Rolling and Tumbling, The Levees Gonna Break, Nettie Moore, etc.

Quotes I like: "More frailer than the flowers / These precious hours" (When the Deal Goes Down, sounding wonderfully like some old comedian singer / George Burns / Ken Dodd / music hall act), "I've already confessed, don't need to confess again" (Thunder on the Mountain), "I'd already gone the distance, just thinking of a series of dreams" (Series of Dreams).

Jacintha Pucka

Message to the blogosphere: we know you're up there

George W. Bush's "State of the Union" address and the Democratic response

Willesden International Affairs