War and (enforcing) peace in Georgia. Good idea.

Another war happening. South Ossetia.

So again, we’ll se a tennis-match war. One side is saying we took that city, the other side says nowhere near it! all is going swimmingly our way! Felons! Then the others says “yeah, really what about this bombed village/destroyed dock/missing town hall?”,

best books – non-fiction

Some of the best non-fiction books I have read. Some of them are not necessarily well written, and would not win prices for excellent language; at least one of them is actually annoying in that respect, but I have included them because the subject is interesting/important. I am sure I have forgotten some, but there you go. Teflon brain.

The art of looking sideways
Alan Fletcher
This is how it looks like inside my head. It a fountain of musings, facts, the odd, solid, and whimsical. It is design, doodles, unfinished thoughts, images, drawings. It is colours, shapes and wisdom. It is a delight and frustration at the same time – if I could show what goes on in my head, this is pretty much it.

best books – fiction

I read a good deal of books, and picking out the best 10 was too difficult, so here is a handful, in no particular order. These I read and re-read over and over. I have probably forgotten some (best non-fiction and best covers coming up later). ..and please do not say the word post-modernism, social realism or stream-of-consciousness. I’ll throw up all over your tie.
Feel free to nominate other books.

The poisonwood bible
Barbra Kingsolver
A stunning story about a bible-bashing missionary, his wife and four daughters, in the last days of Belgian Congo. Impressively, the five women have distinct voices and their common story unfolds in different facets through their different viewpoints. The family and the country disintegrates, and the girls all choose different lives based on those two years in Africa.

Design Observer – the pathetic dinosaur?

I have been reading Design Observer on and off for a few years. Sometimes it’s desperately navel-gazing, sometimes is preaching to the already converted, sometimes it’s talking to a few insiders. Sometimes, it is good. The last time I scrolled through, though, made me feel despondent.

Found

Have found some good pictures out there on the big web. I like the genuinely miserable look on the left guys face.

Insomnia – nightly expedition and sneaking around on the net

I live in a shithole. I try to ignore that I live in a shithole.  My sleep pattern gone haywire, my eating habits likewise. Time does funny things, and seems to coil and loop. That is why I drove out last night, at three thirty in the morning to capture the early morning light.

Crop circles, math and outer space

I know a lot of strange people. Some of them are the kind you might think the most ordinary figures, until.. something seeps out.

I know a guy who believes crop circles are made by creatures from outer space, the «wee folk» or «unidentified streams of energy». That is pretty off, but extraordinary coming from him. He is a great fan of science, in practicality.

The colour blue – the devil, the virgin and the red dyers’ bribes

Today, blue is probably the most popular colour around.
We assosiate good things with it, it represents all sorts of positive things: air, sea, freshness, calm, and a few not so; feeling blue, blue monday. At least in this day and age, blue get a good deal of attention. But it was not always so-
Blue is not an old colour- it is not a paleolithic colour- our ancestors in the caves didn’t have blue. The prehistoric palette was – as mentioned elsewhere – ochre, white, black and iron oxide. Yellow-brown, chalk, ash and rust.
This was the case a few millenia later too- when we settled down and started farming – and dyeing. Until the Middle Ages, these where in fact the main colours around- and social and religious structures and symbolism buildt around them (note that the catholic church still revolves around red, white and black, with green added as a tag-on for «all the other days»).

In europe, the oldest fabrics are all dyed in shades of red. In fact, they say, in Roman times, the latin word for ‘coloured’ and ‘red’ were synonyms. Greeks and romans rarely dyed in blue, but the celts and germanic tribes did – using woad (that yellow plant you see all around temperate europe). Hence, blue was seen as primitive and barbaric.

Northern Irelands silly ghosts. Attempted murder, hahaha!

I admit I don’t really keep up with Northern Irish news much these days. It’s either desperately provincial – or just plain desperate. Yes, someone planted a bomb the other day, and yes, somebody got hurt. And I’m sure the obscure rural radio show is still going on without me. So. Some things never change.
But the other day, I got tangled in a BBC-infused NI-news-net. And some old skeletons dropped out of the closet. Good old names like Michael Stone and Mad Dog Adair.
Gerry Adams and Martin McGunniess nearly had their parlamentary meeting disturbed by Michael Stone, the old rascal, who wanted to slit the throats of the Shinners. Seriously. No kidding.

Michael Stone – exceptionally bad haircut and not-a-winning personality – stuck his nose out again, and this is a good wan!

The worst books ever written

Few books deserves a place on the bookshelf of shame, and I’m a little ambivalent about this – should I dignify the biggest drivel I have ever read, or is the best plan to let them die in silence? For artists and authors the worst thing is indiffrence. Hate is at least an emotion too.
But on the other hand: the world should be warned. I have no place for nazi techniques, but burning them will at least keep you warm for a bit. The only good I can see for those books. They should never have been written, never published and never read. These books are drivel, rubbish and the world would be a better place without them. So, as a service, here I present two books you can stay clear of, and consider yourself lucky and a better person for not having read them.

So- without further ado: