peekabo

have thought of reviving this blog. does anyone think this is a good idea?

La Strada

Why La Strada? That's Italian for 'the street' and I'm on the road now, on my way to fencing :-)

Sent from my phone using trutap

Test test

Let's see if trutap, a mobile blogging software i'm trying out, works!

Sent from my phone using trutap

A Return, Of Sorts

Soundtrack: 'Requiem aeternam' from Pierre De La Rue's Requiem, sung by Ensemble Clement Janequin, dir. Dominique Visse. One of the earliest polyphonic requiem settings, remarkable for the incredibly low bass lines which go down to a low B-flat.

So, I'm sort of back to blogging. I've set up a separate wordpress site because blogger no longer supports Blogplanet, the mobile blogging software I rather like using on my Nokia. I'd originally thought to move entirely to the new blog here, but then I can't bear to abandon this blog though, so we'll see how the two work out. One idea is to keep the wordpress site for mobile blogging and this one for longer posts. We shall see. I'm mostly on facebook these days, so if you're a friend, look for me there!

Montenegro!

Crna Gora or Montenegro, from a Montenegrin friend!

Fun & Games

Got in to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia just last night. Just had the delightful spectacle this morning at the breakfast buffet - religious police came and took away some Arab tourists for eating during daylight hours. The Arabs were kicking and screaming and protesting that Arab custom permits travellers to eat. The Malay religious police answered that since they were doing it in full headscarves, they were insulting the religion, and that Malaysian law makes no provision for travellers - all Mahometans must fast in this land.

They'd had a little scene with the manager of the hotel, who said that they had to remove their headscarves before eating in public, 'please don't make it so obvious'. They refused. The manager offered to bring breakfast up to them so they could eat in their rooms. They wanted to buffet. He warned them that if they ate in full headscarves in public, he was obliged to call the police. They did, and so did he. Whee.

The fine for first-time violators of the fast (both those eating/drinking/smoking and those non-Mahometans who supply them) is 1000 Malaysian Ringgit (roughly 280 USD) and up to 6 months jail. Second-time violators get a fine of 2000 Ringgit and up to a year's jail.

What fun.

Another test

Again, from my mobile phone this time





Sent by pfingoACTIVE .

Testing

Let's see if this email to blogger thingy works...

Soapy Ear

This is going to sound strange. Three time out of four, as I'm getting out of the shower and drying myself, I notice I've omitted to rinse the soap off my right ear. This is odd, as I'm meticulous about rinsing soap suds off everywhere else. It's almost as if I have a little line in my ROM that says 'please forget to rinse right ear so you will then have to get back under the shower when you've nearly dried yourself off'.

Not exactly vexing, but curious and annoying nevertheless.

Learing Latin Euro-Centric?

Cardinal Hamao of Tokyo appears to think that learning Gregorian Chant and Latin prayers is Euro-centric, and 'impossible for Asians'. source here

Gee, Eminence, what, we slitty-eyed yellow-faced Asians aren't capable of learning Latin? Talk about racism. As a Classicist and a teacher of Latin, I find this highly offensive, and I'm sure those of my students who are Asian will think so too. I guess my four years at King's College London doing a BA in Classics were wasted.

Up yours, Eminence.

- link from The Western Confucian.

Sweet Beatrice!

Beatrice, the idealised muse of medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri, is still winning hearts as young singles from around the world leave notes on her tomb in an 11th century Florence church seeking her intercession.

That's curious. When I visited her tomb, there were no such notes on it. Must be something new. I did say a little prayer there though, figuring that a lady who was able to inspire so great a poet as Dante, must have been quite something. Full story here and here.

Oh, and in case my readers are wondering what I've been up to, I've been active on Wikipedia, editing articles to do with Eastern Christianity. :)