You were the latest In Daddy’s Ivanka lookalike contest With your long corkscrewy blonde hair And terrifying grin “Corporate Attorney” my ass Natalie Harp will be extra grateful tonight

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/16/katie-zacharia-fired-press-secretary

Remembering the Television gig I mentioned in the Dead Beatles thread brought on an unignorable desire to hear the first album again. I just had to cue it up. Do any albums suddenly hook you in this way, or are you a ruminant album-chooser, displaying your plumber’s crack to your wife as you run a thumb over their spines?

To celebrate my 73rd voyage around the sun, oh wow, I’ve decided to award a Bumper Grand Prize to the first A’worder to answer this question:

– Who gave a sound thrashing to famed WW2 amputee war hero Douglas Bader?

Here’s a clue: it might have been one of the following: Squadron Leader Archie McKellar, Sir Alfred Knox (Conservative MP), Clive Dunn, Jane Minty (Lady Isobel Barnett’s mother), Laurence Olivier, Ted Heath (the bandleader), Noel Coward, or racing cyclist Beryl Burton. Thinking caps on!

The lucky winner, on presenting his credentials at my house today, will receive: Ten pounds (or thereabouts) in Burmese kyat. Complimentary boiled sweet. Tour of garden.

The Mahalulu Orchestra (“Shout” in 13/8 – Colin H.)

Carlo Cipolla , a “prolific intellectual”, according to the New Republic, wrote The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity in 1976. It’s alarmingly relevant today. Stupidity drove Brexit, elected Trump, and is responsible for the global shit shower. What’s the answer, when those in power and those that put them there, don’t understand the question?

From the article: “When stupid people gain power, exponentially increasing the danger to us all [they] will have at their disposal means of destruction created by the intelligent.”

Good article, makes yer think, innit.

https://newrepublic.com/article/215721/trump-basic-laws-human-stupidity-carlo-cipolla

Shift The Meaning Meditation is generally thought of, and employed as, a verb. I’m meditating, doing meditation. “I’m learning how to meditate. So far, so good” – Steely Dan. That raises the question, how shall I meditate? What do I have to do to meditate? And this is where the various techniques come in, so we can do meditation. This is not that, and everything that follows requires defining meditation differently.

Think of meditation as something that happens, if you let it. An event rather than an activity. You don’t do it; if you let it, it will do you. This piece is about giving it its best chance, getting out of its way. Shutting the fuck up.

Distraction What prevents it (whatever we want to call it) from happening is distraction, physical and mental. We’re constantly being distracted by this or that, this and that, buffeted in a continuous state of interruption we accept as normal. We seek out new distractions, getting bored with the old ones. Swipe the screen, click the link.

Dealing with distraction is simple, which is not to say it’s easy. Base requirement (non-negotiable) is somewhere quiet to sit on your own for half an » Continue Reading.

You probably know about this, but I only just found it. A terrific collection of reviews. But “Forgotten Music” ? What the actual? I can’t remember why I came into the room, but I remember this music, by crikey.

“That’s Right, Another Bunch Of Neo-Fascist Heavies”, Max Bell’s history of the Blue Oyster Cult (NME, 1975, great googly moogly) shows just why the rag was so loved at that time:

Blue Öyster Cult: That’s Right, Another Bunch Of Neo-Fascist Heavies (1975)

https://classicrockreview.wordpress.com/

Most (Western) people’s idea of meditation is defined by sitting cross-legged, if you can’t manage full lotus. People in the East sit cross-legged because they have always done so, and it’s very comfortable for them. You will often see them sitting this way on chairs. There is absolutely no spiritual context or connotation; it’s just sitting, and there is, perhaps disappointingly, no spiritual advantage for Westerners to adopt the position, or hold the hands in certain attitudes, as satisfying as that may be. That’s part of yogic discipline, very beneficial in itself, but nothing to do with what we’re trying to get at here. Buddha did not start a wellness centre, a yoga class, or a meditation retreat, and if peace of mind was his USP his brand would be unknown today. . The goals of meditation, as the word is widely understood, are; peace of mind, cessation of thinking, and ultimately enlightenment. . Temporary peace of mind is absolutely do-able. It may even build up a bank account of inner peacefulness that one can draw from when not sitting cross-legged. But Mike Love, the biggest advocate of Transcendental Meditation in the Beach Boys, was also the biggest asshole. TM » Continue Reading.

El Niño? Pfft. Resurgence of Fascism? Meh. AI robots taking over the earth? *eyeroll* I truly have a greater problem to deal with right now. I’ve bought yet another pair of headphones that will, unless I avert this creeping catastrophe, join the others slung into a corner of the boxroom. After a while, the graphene-thin covering of “pleather” rots and crumbles and splits chiz. And any plastic surface with a silicone/gel/whatever finish – you know, that matt grippy stuff that only product designers love – turns repulsively sticky.

If you have any cure to the earcup covering disease other than doing the obvious stuff I tried already, please let me in on the secret.

Thanking you in advance ectect

“My uncle was a merchant seaman, used to bring all these great 78s home. I grew up listenin’ to Big Bill Broonzy, Lead Belly, and a bit later Elvis 45s on Sun. Our house was full of this fantastic music, my real heroes.” “My dad was a jazz musician, and I grew up listening to Monk, Miles, music you never heard on the radio.” Well, yes, no. My musical DNA wasn’t exactly a catalogue of hipness. Apart from the usual radio hits (Little Boy Sitting On A Wooden Pier, English Country Garden ectect) the music that engraved itself most deeply on my psyche in those formative years was advertising jingles. Any idiot can sing Three Little Boys all the way through, but who amongst us knows the tune to 1001, which could clean a big, big carpet for less than half a crown? The unfortunate lyrics to Cadbury’s Finger Of Fudge? What was the Milky Bar Kid, again? ‘Fess up, and share your most shameful early musical memories.

Forest monks are the real deal. Dressed in dark brown, barefoot, their homes on their backs, from another age or dimension. You may be lucky enough to see a silent procession of them on the road, and it’s a humbling experience. They have an expressionless intensity about them quite different to the “carrots” (as city monks are sometimes known) with their iPhones and footwear and attractive saffron robes. Most Thai men pass through this stage, as quickly as possible, and it’s a status thing for middle and upper class families for their sons to be ordained into a good temple for a while. Not all carrots are cosplay careerists (or worse, crooks) but the number of them who are genuinely into it for the Buddha buzz, and not an easy life with free meals, might not be as great as you’d suppose.

There’s something of a crisis in the monkhood in Thailand. The celebrity Top Abbots selling amulets and caught with their hand in the till, or up the skirts of some blessed follower, the mountains of cash and treasure hidden in temple back rooms and unaccounted-for bank accounts, the idle buggers smoking cigarettes or surfing the internet for content » Continue Reading.

Garn my son!

https://www.thejuicemedia.com/