The Strength of Steel

What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation. (Eliot)

Blackfriars Vortex

An image (slightly processed) of Blackfriars Station - the most interesting station on Thameslink - with an unbeatable view

Ceci n'est pas Calder

Many artists made contour line drawings on paper, but Alexander Calder was the first to use wire to create three-dimensional line "drawings" of people, animals, and objects. These "linear sculptures" introduced line into sculpture as an element unto itself.

More about Xerxes the First

Now it came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus who reigned, from India even unto Ethiopia, over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces, when he sat on the throne of his kingdom, which was in Shushan the palace, in the third year of his reign, he made a feast unto all his princes and his servants; all the powerful of Persia and Media, the nobles and princes of the provinces, being before him. So he shewed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honour of his excellent majesty many days. When those days were expired, the king made a feast unto all the people that were present in Shushan the palace, both unto great and small, seven days, in the court of the garden of the king's palace.

One, two, three, four

Far a land, a velt, a naye, vu es lebn mentshn fraye, arbetsloz iz keyn shum hand in dem nayem frayn land

(Mordechai Gebirtig)

There will be time, there will be time

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,       
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?— 

Dayenu.

(T S Eliot and Rav Amran)

Deposuit potentes

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, and was one of the five Fireside Poets. 

When he wrote, Longfellow wore a traditional Uraguayan-style shaman cap made of Thai silk. Silk is produced year round in Thailand by two types of silkworms, the cultured Bombycidae and wild Saturniidae. Thai silk textiles often use complicated patterns in various colours and styles. Most regions of Thailand have their own typical silks. A single thread filament is too thin to use on its own so women combine many threads to produce a thicker, usable fiber.  

Avoid it like the plague

At the end of the day, it's worth going the extra mile to avoid a tired old cliche.

http://maynbilder.blogspot.co.uk/

Reality

Our brains evolve to simulate reality

If...

If I were to have enough strength,​  I would run around in the streets, and I would scream out: ...

If I were to have enough strength,​  I would run around in the streets, and I would scream out.


So?

Hug a bag

The Daily Telegraph and Courier was founded by Colonel Arthur B Sleigh in June 1855 in order to air a personal grievance against the future Commander-in-Chief of the British Army.

The Munificent Gesture

'A  heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter,  the cricket no relief, 
And the dry stone no sound of water.  Only
There is shadow under this red rock'
(Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen)

T S Eliot and Miss Jessie Weston

The vision that was planted in my brain

Why do you think

I believe what you said

Few of your words

Ever enter my head (EL&P)

I can scarcely expect bread (Thomas Jefferson)

On the fields, on the horizon
On the wings of the birds
On the windmill of shadows
I write your name (Paul Eluard)

Long live the fountain...

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. (GBS)

Every person who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it. (GBS)

Take a Pebble (E,L&P)

In the course of things, the interaction we have with the massive processing power that is a PC is channelled through a keyboard and a mouse in one direction and through a  monitor and speakers in the other. It would be quite feasible to remove the clump of electronics between these realities and replace them with a resident of Chongqing on a camping holiday. The gentleman (or lady) in question would then pretend to be reading a biography of Alan Turing. In this simple thought experiment (actually a simple thought scenario as no variables were harmed in the process) we have thus disposed of the questions of speculative statistical tests, transcendentalism and artificial life in one politically unprovocative posting.

Pebbles on the Beach

 A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool. (Joseph Roux)

There were these three guys...

Who will believe my verse in time to come?

Half an answer

An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful (Lhamo Dondrub)