First Friday Fotos

I remembered that at the beginning of July I said I would try and start a regular posting of some photos from the previous month on the first Friday of the next one, so here goes. I hadn't realised quite how busy it's been....

The World Cup hadn't even finished, and the book-buying public had already given their opinion:



I went cycling in the Forest with similar success to our football team:



Meanwhile The Shard continues ever-upwards:



And The Cat's Mum and I investigated the back streets of Whitechapel in search of graffiti and found plenty else to see:





We managed a very magical weekend in a very magical part of Spain to go to a very magical wedding:












And not forgetting The Boy who found this interesting sign in Germany...

And now for something completely different...

Привет всем моим русским друзьям

На прошлой неделе я говорил, что я был подвергается цензуре со стороны наших услуг широкополосного доступа в который заблокирован России сегодня ... новостной сайт мне очень нравится и ценность. Я был страстный интерес в России и странах бывшего Советского Союза в течение многих лет ... моей половины степени было принято с Кремлем просмотра (это было за несколько дней до перестройки и гласности), так что мой визит в Москву и Санкт-Петербурге в начале нынешнего года о "поездке времени жизни типа" ... хотя я надеюсь вернуться на более позднем этапе, чтобы исследовать пределы городских границ.

Интересно, что мой блог вызвал число русских посетителей (я с удовлетворением отмечаю), один даже reposting въезда на ее собственном блоге.

Так что я изучал, чтобы увидеть, что говорится в другом месте ... если у вас есть момент здесь некоторые ссылки .

http://m-simonyan.livejournal.com/7842.html
http://cartesius.livejournal.com/friends?skip=30

http://freedomcry.livejournal.com/friends/

http://guliar.livejournal.com/friends?skip=10

http://1yy1.livejournal.com/friends?skip=40

http://santerellina.livejournal.com/friends/

http://prostak52.livejournal.com/friends?skip=20

http://orazaro.livejournal.com/friends?skip=40

http://uhan.livejournal.com/friends

http://valenok-ok.livejournal.com/friends

http://thewhoandzoe.livejournal.com/friends/

http://inetmakers.livejournal.com/friends

http://roland-expert.livejournal.com/friends

http://m-yu-sokolov.livejournal.com/friends

http://soundsimple.livejournal.com/friends

http://sapros.livejournal.com/friends/


Censored

Уже не первый раз коллеги из Британии жалуются, что на работе им перекрывают доступ к нашему сайту. Как обычно, свобода слова свободе слова - рознь.

Вот текст, а вот перевод недавней жалобы

Проверено цензурой

Я подсел на новости. У меня зависимость от новостей… Готов смотреть новости без остановки. Поэтому у меня в закладках Би-би-си (самая точная информация), Evening Standard (новости Лондона), Evening Argus (новости Брайтона), Sky News (если это и не самая точная информация, то, по крайней мере, самая быстрая), Euronews (новости с материка, отделенного от нас Ла-Маншем), France 24 (у них всегда показывают события под особым углом), The First Post (новости и комментарии для комфортного просмотра на диване), Al Jazeera (тоже особая точка зрения), China Daily News (серьезно отличается от всех остальных каналов, а почему бы и нет… очень скоро они станут доминирующей сверхдержавой) и, наконец, Russia Today (к этим ребятам должно быть особое отношение).

Не думайте, что весь день я только и делаю, что читаю… Я просто проглядываю страницы, чтобы ухватить суть, понять, как разные источники освещают события… И, что самое интересное, именно китайские новости смотрят на мир совершенно иначе… но совсем недавно куда-то пропал сайт Russia Today – на моем компьютере, как я ни старался, он не открывался… Сначала я подумал, что с сайтом какие-то неполадки, но он же у меня дома нормально работал… странно…

На прошлой неделе на работе я вызывал компьютерщика, у меня что-то там не работало. И он объяснил мне, что наш Интернет-провайдер заблокировал этот сайт. После каких-то манипуляций с DNS-серверами (не имею понятия, что это такое) я снова смог загрузить новостные страницы с последней фотографией Путина в позе настоящего мачо… Итак, порядок в моем мире новостей восстановлен.

Но теперь я задаюсь вопросом, почему компании блокируют этот сайт… как собственно и любые другие сайты. Значит, это очень просто сделать… а мы, обычные люди, даже ничего не подозреваем. Иногда мне кажется, что наступил тот самый «1984»-й – Саудовская Аравия не разрешает своим гражданам пользоваться Blackberry, потому что власти не могут отслеживать информацию, Apple прославился тем, что начал блокировать контент, который считает неуместным… такое ощущение, что высокие технологии налагают еще больше ограничений, хотя, по идее, должны давать большую свободу… Очень надеюсь, что Мальчик и Кот не вырастут в мире правительственной и корпоративной цензуры. Это было бы ужасно…

You may wish to try Google translate, and bear in mind I have no Russian, so this was English turned into mangled Russian by our friends at Google....

Playtime for Tara's gallery

It's Wednesday, it's Tara's Gallery time again.

Like all boys, The Boy likes to play rough...he loves cycling in the forest (as do I, but my legs fade a bit more quickly than his). He loves the mud:



And when he's not bombing round the forest, he likes to relax with the guitar. Neither his mum nor I are in any way musical...in fact when I sing in church I get told to hush. I do love listening to music, and introduced him to it from a very early age, but that doesn't explain what his teacher describes as a 'natural' talent'



Of course, playtime comes before tidying his room up...everytime!

Hubble bubble, (toil and) trouble

I'm really quite chuffed that '80's icon Lloyd Cole is now following me on Twitter (my personal one, not the Nota Bene Twitter feed)...he has somewhat declined in popularity, so when I signed up to his feed, he reciprocated. Stephen Fry, eat your heart out.

We are in cinema frenzy this week...

...last Friday the boy and I went to see Inception. Once upon a time, I wouldn't have given Leonardo the time of day, but I so enjoyed Catch Me If You Can, Blood Diamond, The Departed and Body of Lies that I'll make an effort for his movies these days. We saw it at the local flea pit (as it used to be known although now it's a multi-screen Odeon). If you like special effects and a very complicated and convoluted story line it's well worth a viewing...The Boy was transfixed. My only real concern was that the basic reason for the dream weaving was just some corporate bollocks...it would have been better if there had been a better starting point....

...Sunday we headed for Toy Story 3. I've nothing to add to all the superlatives already heaped on it. And yes, a few tears were shed. Thank heavens for a couple of nieces giving us a reason to go - I loved it when The Boy was a small wee one which gave me the excuse to go and see all the kids' movies...I'm having to beg, borrow or steal small children now so I can get to see these things these days....

And last night we went to see Bond, James Bond. Not a Daniel Craig extravaganza, but 'Goldfinger', which was being shown as part of the Somerset House outdoor summer season. I'd never seen it on the big screen, and better still it was introduced by the Director, Guy Hamilton...and Shirley Eaton...yes the very girl that was painted head to toe in gold - she had sashayed into the restaurant where we had been eating before...in a gold sparkly top! Yes she's obviously still playing the part. Of course the film creaks like a leaky old ship, but it was brilliant fun in amazing surroundings. Only one disappointment...nobody else joined me in shouting out, "No Mr Bond, I expect you to die"...but after a few glasses of whisky that didn't seem to matter at the time....



On Friday, we're back there to see Mulholland Drive...I seem to remember it's practically unintelligible, but should be equally fun. I have two spare tickets if anyone would like them...I'd be delighted to share the experience with you...just remember to bring a cushion and blanket!

Away from the films, The Boy is out of control...not too much, but he's clearly relishing his holidays. Yesterday he and The Cat took themselves up to Camden, managed to acquire some stuff (not quite sure what stuff, but it was stuff that should only be sold to an 18 year old). They then returned and set up the hubble bubble pipe and did whatever you do with one. I'm horrified. The Cat's Mum is horrified. But we don't think it's the slippery slope to Players No6 round the back of the bike shed...he knows that is a good way to die in a very horrible way. Clearly though there's some reigning in to be done.....

Censored

I'm a news fiend. An absolute news addict...I just can't get enough of it. So the opening pages on my computer are the BBC (most accurate) Evening Standard (what's going on in London) Evening Argus (what's going on in Brighton) Sky News (the fastest news, if not the most accurate), Euronews (what's happening in the land cut off from us by the Channel), France 24 (they always have their own way of looking at things), The First Post (news and commentary in a comfy-sofa style), Al Jazeera (a different perspective again), China Daily News (the most distinctive of the lot...and why not, soon, very soon they will be the dominant superpower)and finally Russia Today (you need to know where you stand with these folk).

I wouldn't want you to think that I spend all day reading...I just scan to get the gist and see how stories are reported in different media...interestingly, it really is the Chinese News that looks at the world differently.....however just recently, Russia Today disappeared - my computer wouldn't open up the web site no matter what I did...at first I thought that may be their site was down, but it was always fine at home....most peculiar...

Last week I had reason to call up out tech guy for another problem, and he quickly identified that our ISP was blocking the site...by fiddling with DNS servers (what ever they are) I managed to restore my news of Putin's latest macho posing...and all is well with my news world again.

But it does raise the issue of why a company would block that site...or indeed any other...it shows just how easy it is to do that...and we the innocent public are none the wiser...sometimes I feel that 1984 has arrived with avengeance - after all Saudi Arabia is now stopping people using Blackberry's because they can't monitor the data, and Apple is now infamous for blocking content which it deems inappropriate...it seems that that technology is bringing more restrictions when it should really be giving us greater freedom...I hope The Boy and The Cat do not grow up in a world of government and corporate censorship. That would be bad....

By coincidence, this was on the BBC today...


...and on a more important note, The Boy returned bearing a wonderful gift - a bottle of Ferrari after shave....it was a great and much appreciated thought...