Notes on the Welcome Death of Fred Phelps

"Religion is like a penis. It's fine to have one and it's fine to be proud of it, but please don't whip it out in public and start waving it around ... and PLEASE don't try to shove it down a child's throat."

Too upset to write.

So farewell then, Tony Benn: the last honourable and decent politician on the planet.

You Only Die Twice

Many the mystery revealed by the clearance of the overgrown end of the cemetery.
Here are Hetty and Sam …

 … and here's Sam again, this time in green. He liked dying so much the first time he rose up and did it all over again.

Friday Morning Wood

This tree is virtually horizontal. I rather enjoyed the effect of foreshortening looking back along it.

WTF Monday - Not Out

It's how they would have wanted to be remembered …

Friday Morning Wood

Eliza And The Curly Tree

What tales lie beneath yonder nettle bed?

I Only Asked for Flowers on My Grave, Not a Whole Tree …

Carrying on from yesterday's post, here's some of the work being done in the old cemetery.
It's all a bit of a mess at the moment, but after a century or more of neglect I'm sure most of us would look a little messy, too.
This bunch of headstones looks slightly startled to see daylight again and a little shy and unsure of being exposed.
I'm not sure why they're clearing it after all this time, but the parts they've completed certainly look a lot better. It did have a certain wild and overgrown charm before, though.

WTF Monday - Ears

If anyone wants to know where they can go dig up some ears, I can help.
I found this in a local cemetery that had been left to grow wild for a hundred and fifty years or so. Now they've started clearing away the trees to reveal lots of spooky debris.

More of that another day.

Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead

Hey, it just came on the news. Thatcher has dropped dead!
Bwahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa …
Rejoice, oh, happy world.
I'm going to be smiling for weeks.

One For Neil

We've all got our memories of that momentous moment and the TV is full of the original footage today, so here's the closest I came to the great man.

This is one of the small number of back-up lunar modules that never got used.

It sits in the Science Museum in London.

And here's the actual command module from the dress rehearsal that was the Apollo 10 mission.

Neil, Buzz and the other guys who made it happen are all heroes.

And they always will be.

Sigh …

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19384330

Too sad to write.

Hey Ho … Another One Down

Seems like I'm forever mourning people these days; they're dropping like flies. Here's another one: Dom Mintoff; a good Socialist rabble-rouser from the beautiful little island that brought the world Old Dive.
Sigh …

Sigh …

Lol Coxhill's died. Another hero down …



The man was a jazz diva and one of the nicest people on the planet.
He'd famously jam with anyone, including me, but he was at his very best playing solo.
And yes, one urban myth at least is true: he WAS the inspiration for Joni's beautiful "For Free."

Our loss; Heaven's gain.

True Heroes Live Forever, pt.2

I put my back out last Sunday and I've been hicking about with a walking stick all week, much to the hilarity of the office.
I've also been too grumpy to blog (as per …).

This evening, however, I'm too sad not to. Another great hero of mine that none of you will have heard of died today.

What a shitty week all told.

I'll be back when I'm less grumpy and my heroes stop dropping like flies.

True Heroes Live Forever

This year's Goodwood Revival will see a celebration of the Shelby Cobra and I'll probably cry like a baby as those sweet, elegant and sexy machines roar past me.

Carroll Shelby died yesterday.

What he did with his life, however, will ensure his immortality.

So Farewell Then, Ronald Searle.

Not since Edward Gorey has there been an illustrator quite so magnificently  attuned to my own worldview.
Bless his cotton socks. He leaves a hole in the world that isn't going to heal over.