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Dear France - remember you invented the guillotine
You know, I can understand the reasoning behind a bullied teen that snaps. I would certainly never support what happens next, especially in the terms of a school shooting, but the process that led to such events can often be a logical one based upon years of exclusion and demeaning behaviour.
Likewise, I can understand an abused wife who snaps and kills her husband. I can even understand why such events are often shockingly brutal - namely, women tend to be smaller and weaker so she'll want to be damn certain he isn't going to get up and slam her face through the wall.
These are events that shouldn't happen, but sadly do. But what underpins them is a whole succession of smaller events leading up to the one that caused the person to break and attack their attackers.
However, earlier today a Syrian refugee who was granted asylum in Sweden attacked a number of random people with a knife. Including toddlers. The police are currently saying it isn't terrorist related, but I think we can take it as a given that this might have been triggered by France refusing his asylum application (I think on the basis that it doesn't apply as he has asylum in Sweden...).
However, and this is a pretty big show-stopping BUT... toddlers?
Okay, granted, a person should not go on a stabbing frenzy and be sticking knives into anybody, and this does rather raise the question of exactly what sorts of people are trying to claim asylum in Europe... BUT toddlers?
I'm sorry, but there's a moral horizon, you know? A line by which one shouldn't even bother with a custodial sentence. The sort of person who stabs two and three year olds (in the plural) is beyond redemption. Take him out back, pop a burlap sack over his head, a bullet between the eyes, and dump his body in an unmarked grave.
He's no hero, he's no martyr, he's just a sick sad piece of shit who deserves no place in our society or mercy from it.
Toddlers.
Coat stand
Well, that was not how I planned to begin today. So let's move on to the coat stand.
It arrived, from Spain (Sabadell, Barcelona), a day early. I had it sent to a nearby supermarket as it was going to be too large to fit into the letterbox. The shed door that has been half open for the past twenty one years...is now padlocked.
This is what I got.
 A smaller box than I was expecting.
Opening it up, all the bits.
 A box of bits.
It was pretty easy to assemble. The legs attach to the bottom bar (using bolts, an allen key is provided), and then the big double hooks attach to the top bar, followed by the smaller single hooks. Finally the top bar fits onto the bottom bar and is bolted in place.
What I appreciated was the inclusion of extras. Every bolt was overcounted by one, and those little plastic spacers also. So if you suffer a fat fingered moment and a bolt flies off into the unknown, or is swiped by cats/toddlers/parrots, then all is not lost. It's a thoughtful thing to do.
Here is augmented reality beside actual reality.
And, finally, here it is. It probably won't remain there, but it's an okay place for now.
Between the three coats on the stand and one on the door, I have four water resistant hooded coats to choose from. You can just see a fluorescent jacket - a gilet jaune. That's for if I should want to go for a walk on a hunting day. And to the right, the orange thing is my bath towel with a black bathrobe in front. It's as good a place as any to store both, and to hang them up to dry.
 The coat stand.
The candelabra
After sorting out the coats, I took down and cleaned up the hanging candelabra. It's actually a chandelier in the literal sense of what a chandelle is, but I'm using the phrase "hanging candelabra" because "chandelier" tends to bring to mind decadent arrays of cut crystal, mirrors, and excess intended to impress.
Anyway, two photos of it in use. It would, no doubt, look much more impressive at night, but night comes late this time of year and I have to be up just after six so...
 Six candles.
 Me being "artistic".
Putting them out involved standing precariously on a chair and blowing, failing, moving the chair, and blowing some more.
Accordingly, I have ordered a candle snuff from Amazon. It is on its way from Ozarowice, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland. It's in southern Poland.
And... doesn't "Silesian Voilvodeship" sound like something from a sci-fi series? "Silesian", their planet of origin, and "Voilvodeship" being the class of spacecraft they are in.
In reality, Silesia is a region, and the other word means province. There's an IPA pronunciation guide on Wikipedia. But it's Polish so I'm not even going to attempt it!
Scots Gaelic
Turns out, Celtic Moon radio is based in Toronto. And it would seem that quite a number of people featured on the station are, in fact, Canadian.
Singing in gaelic.
Where it's an actual recognised language in Nova Scotia (clue in the name!). However, as in Scotland, it is a language often stigmatised and crushed by the juggernaught of English. In 1850 Canada had around two hundred thousand native gaelic speakers. Now, maybe about a thousand people around Cape Breton (and about seven thousand gaelic speakers in all of Canada). In Scotland, there are no monolingual gaelic speakers, and a little under fifty eight thousand biliguals (which will be Gaelic and English).
Compare between five and nine hundred thousand Welsh speakers (plus around three thousand in Canada!), plus around 170,000 first language users of Irish and a little under two million bilinguals.
Hell, even Breton has around two hundred thousand speakers, although more people are starting to speak it after years of oppression.
Bu chòir barrachd oidhirpean a dhèanamh gus cànanan a tha cudromach gu h-eachdraidheil a ghleidheadh.
(if it's worng, blame Google ☺)
Funny, I should be writing this today... Google tells me that the Scottish Government has just (yesterday) published an analysis of their commitments to Scottish languages (Gaelic and Scots).
Here's a link to the Scots version. It helps to read it out loud.
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| David Pilling, 9th June 2023, 12:32 |
Some people are mad, some are bad. We don't know yet. There was one day a couple of weeks ago, when there were two cases on the national news of parents killing toddlers.
"a hunting day", get a gillet with a target on it. |
| J.G.Harston, 9th June 2023, 23:39 |
Mindless. He has asylum in Sweden, so he has freedom of movement to France, and has freedom to register for residency in France, and has freedom to apply for work in France. |
| Anon, 12th June 2023, 23:54 |
Not that I'm being cynical or anything, but...
The 'asylum' application was probably a sham. He was, no doubt, on a 'mission from Allah' to 'wipe out as many infidels' as possible.
Because, of course, a 3-year-old understands ALL the concepts behind religion etc, and is OBVIOUSLY going to grow up to be a decadant Western, errm, infidel? </sarcasm>
And all these ragh^H^H^H^H people of middle-eastern origin wonder why they have a public relations problem?
On a lighter note (if that's possible), who's seen the post-credits scene in Deadpool 2 - where Deadpool travels back in time, is holding baby Hitler in one arm with a gun to baby Hitler's head in the other, and saying "I don't think I can do this!" (Then realising that the whole reason for Hitler's atrocities was because he needed his nappy changing.) Just to lighten things up a little. |
| Rick, 13th June 2023, 06:31 |
Actually, the reports are that he was a devout *Christian*.
Same nonsense, different god... |
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