When Animals Attack!
Feral ferrets, belligerent badgers in the news... Been some great, improbable 'animal attack' stories in the news in recent days. These are both from the UK: Hungry ferret causes rail scare A hungry ferret has caused panic on a train by racing around carriages and eating the driver's lunch, a train company says. From BBC News Badger rampage injures five A rogue badger attacked five people during a 48-hour rampage in a quiet suburb. One man required two skin graft operations, after the badger woke him up and attacked him when he went outside to investigate. More on the BBC website Incidentally, I've been appalled by the amount of dead badgers I've seen on Irish roads this year. I've started a 'dead badger watch' on p45rant.com.
Kangaroos in Austria
A kangaroo was hit by a car and killed in central Austria... From Yahoo News Wed May 14, 2:13 PM ET VIENNA, Austria - Who said there are no kangaroos in Austria? Those struggling to distinguish the small alpine country in Europe from Australia were dealt a blow when a kangaroo was hit by a car and killed in central Austria. more >> For stories on Irish and other out-of-place 'roos, check out my articles Kanga-ruse and Animalous Phenomena Added 28/05/03: New Scientist: Bizarre 'horned' kangaroo fossils unearthed
Alcohol effect lingers on brain
Alcohol impairs the functioning of the brain for longer than previously thought, research suggests. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3023495.stm Alcohol effect lingers on brain Alcohol impairs the functioning of the brain for longer than previously thought, research suggests. In fact, even after people think the effects have worn off, it is actually still having a negative impact on certain functions. After experimenting last night with Guinness, Moroccan wine and both Spanish and French absinthe, I can attest to this statement - daev
Bruce Sterling: Furoshiki Revisited
This article by Blather's Dave Walsh first appeared in The Irish Times of Monday, July 23, 2001, as PCs are the fabric of life '"I've never seen on these furoshiki." Maya leaned over the table. "I've certainly heard of them..." The intelligent cloth was woven from a dense matrix of fibre-optic threads, organic circuitry and piezoelastic fibre.The hair-thin optical threads oozed miniscule screen-line pixels of coloured light. A woven display screen. A flexible all-fabric computer.' - Bruce Sterling, Holy Fire Just eight years ago, in 1993, the average Westerner had never heard of the Internet, much less shown a desire to own a home PC. Back then, the idea of widespread Internet use seemed as crazy as having human moon-dwellers by 1999. We're now half-way through 2001, millions of us are "jacked into the matrix" - to use the parlance of early 1990s cyberpunk literature - but Martin Landau and...
Let’s Get Spiritual, Spiritual: Spirits in the material world
At about 6 PM on a cold January Sunday, I hastened past the remains of the recently collapsed Brighton Pier, and wound my way past the Pavilion. On past the D.K. Rosen clothes shop (where, as legend has it, one can find the real 'Suits you' shopkeeper), and towards the bohemian Kemp Town section of Brighton, where I had an appointment to commune with the dead... The 'Brighton National Spiritual Church' is located on Edward Street, near the American Express building (a sure contender for the vilest structure in south England) and opposite Devonshire Place. An unimposing building, it didn't prove too difficult to find, even in the foggy haze that blanketed this seaside town. I had managed to strong-arm a friend of mine (we'll call him Injun Bob) into accompanying me. 'Why do you want me to go?' he had asked an hour beforehand in the pub. 'Well, you...
Attack Of The Clones
Why are manufactured boy bands and girl bands so utterly objectionable? Why do they gall us so much? How can the sight of Westlife send us into inexplicable paroxysms of rage? Utter contempt Railing against the onslaught of pop-clones is a difficult task, perhaps because it's so hard to articulate precisely why we hold these ‘bands’ in such utter contempt. When someone expresses their abject hatred of whatever group of automatons the Louis Walsh sausage factory (the Irish manager who brought us Boyzone, Westlife, Samantha Mumba, etc) has spat out this month, he is rapidly censured for being a whiner and a jealous begrudger. This accusation of jealousy tends to leave the 'jealous begrudger' with his mouth flapping. I believe that the proliferation of manufactured boy and girl bands actually represents a serious threat to our society. I believe that they, in conjunction with the general takeover of the creative...
I See Dead People II; Dr. John Harbison
by Michael Cunningham & Dave Walsh Part I: I See Dead People » Dr. John Harbison My arrival in the Burke Theatre was typically haphazard and considerably late. I missed Dr. Whittaker's talk, stumbling in during the appreciative applause, and found some floor to sit on while the bearded Dr. Harbison fumbled with his slides. Here in Ireland, John Harbison is something of a celebrity. With less than four million inhabitants in the republic, one state pathologist was, for many years, more than enough. Everyone in the country is used to news footage of the tweedy doctor, along with the words '...the State Pathologist, Dr. John Harbison, arrived at the scene to carry out a post- mortem examination...' In recent years, Harbison's workload has doubled. This may be less to do with any sudden increase in murder than an altered definition of a 'suspicious' death. However, Harbison reserved commentary on...
I See Dead People
by Mick Cunningham & Dave Walsh Professor David Whittaker The twentysomething American woman sitting on my right is convinced that the O.J. Simpson murder trial in the States was the main turning point. I paraphrase, but it pushed the language of criminology into the vernacular, and audiences are now primed to view forensic science in drama form, hence primetime successes such as "CSI". Or maybe it was "Quincy". The thirtysomething woman sitting to my left likes "a good Patricia Cornwell" (novel), though her theory is that Ireland caught the forensics bug after the notorious "Kerry Babies" trial. It's Halloween, it's Trinity College in Dublin, and we're in a packed lecture hall (built in the late 1970s, official attendance 500) for an evening of public lectures entitled "Over Their Dead Bodies... The Secrets That Dead Bodies Tell". And dead bodies speak volumes. The first speaker is David Whittaker, Professor of Forensic...
Them & Us – John Ronson in Belfast
The promotional material stated that on the night of 15 October 2002, author and journalist Jon Ronson would give a reading at Belfast’s Linen Hall Library. What actually took place was nearly two-hours of free association, ping-ponging between whether David Icke really believes that the world is run by 12-foot reptiles disguised as human beings (apparently yes) or whether Ian Paisley might ever change his tune (apparently no). Ronson would periodically interrupt his riffs on bizarre cults and conspiracy theorists to peer out at the audience and ask, “Is this OK?” Yes, indeed it was. Except for the naggin of whiskey that stood beside the speaker’s standard-issue bottle of mineral water, the proceedings started off conventionally enough, with the appealingly nebbishy-looking Ronson reading a bit from his book Them: Adventures with Extremists. The chosen section detailed how the tables had been turned on him during his investigation into the shadowy...
Megalithomania: Maybe It’s Because I’m Not A Londoner
Day Back in London... A city I can appreciate on many levels, but can never quite warm to. My last visit had been in 1999 or 2000, probably for a Fortean Times UnConvention. My lightning-raid incursions tend to happen over weekends of busy intensity, so I'm perhaps unqualified to judge the place. Besides, the denizens seem to be managing quite well with out me. London provides a home to several of my friends. Mark Pilkington, of the Strange Attractor posse, was involved in putting on Megalithomania in conjunction with Third Stone magazine, in Holborn's Conway Hall. A delegations of the Blather Inner Circle decided to attend. So we did. Mr. Kavanagh - Blather.net's Man In London - was up and gone early on Saturday morning, in order to catch John Michell's talk and to help out. The lovely Ms. Maria Behan and myself, after coffees and cake, sailed into Conway...