Elizabeth James

The State of the Art by Iain M Banks - BBC Sounds A spaceship arrives on Earth and finds a planet obsessed with alien concepts like 'money'.

My BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Iain M. Banks' The State of the Art can now be found and played here: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Thank you for bringing this to my attention!

An image containing a text quotation, with a yellow and white circular design in the bottom left-hand corner containing sun, moon, and star. The text, from D.H. Lawrence, Apocalypse, reads: Loss of Cosmos: “Now we have to get back the cosmos, and it can’t be done by a trick. The great range of responses that have fallen dead in us have to come to life again. It has taken two thousand years to kill them. Who knows how long it will take to bring them to life. “When I hear modern people complain of being lonely then I know what has happened. They have lost the cosmos. — It is nothing human and personal that we are short of. What we lack is cosmic life, the sun in us and the moon in us.”

“Now we have to get back the cosmos, and it can’t be done by a trick. The great range of responses that have fallen dead in us have to come to life again. It has taken two thousand years to kill them. Who knows how long it will take to bring them to life ...”

~ D.H. Lawrence.

Yes. A lot of people are fiercely focussed on their immediate bubble of existence bc of various truly difficult factors.

But I have been wondering if there's a way to do the mass-hypnosis (on the masses :D) to 💙 our planet, like was done when they convinced 99% of people that cars are sexy?

Case in point, one time I was introduced to OH's friends, who'd obviously been warned about me, and a young woman opened up the convo with "They say we're going to get global warming. Well, I *like* it hot".

Humanity heating planet faster than ever before, study finds Researchers identify sharp rise to about 0.35C every decade, after excluding natural fluctuations such as El Niño

It doesn’t matter whether the rate of global warming is increasing. It’ll never cease to amaze me that people don’t care that it’s happening at all. It should be the most alarming thing ever.

Is the exclamation mark ironic?

There's confusion in many areas of modern life where law-drafting is problematical, and space is up there too:

"Space lawyers are increasingly trying to understand if international space law can actually hold corporations or private individuals accountable"

Smoke and fire rise from the site of airstrikes at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran

A fireball ascends from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut

Houthi supporters in Yemen rally in solidarity with Iran and Lebanon

Israeli tanks gather near the Israel-Lebanon border

War in the Middle Est.

Here are the latest events: u.afp.com/SuEV

General Sir Richard Shirreff: "if Britain is involved, our hand is in the mangle... we should not in any way, shape or form be involved with the Americans closely because they are being led by a couple of gung ho nutters without a proper strategy..."
After that, he let's rip.

We have 3 months to tell the UK government to stop using "but think of the children" as a phoney reason to police our right to communicate.
The #OnlineSafetyAct just wasn't enough, they say.

I'm going to transcribe that into a letter to my MP despite the fact it will fall on stony ground.

The Rainbow was a Burned Book🔥
'Lawrence's frank treatment of sexual desire, and the part it plays within relationships as a natural and even spiritual force of life, caused The Rainbow to be prosecuted in an obscenity trial at Bow Street Magistrates' Court on 13 November 1915'
And now look at us 😔

What's the fake job the Trump administration gives you after they humiliate you because they're worried you'll spill the beans?

I'm Roaming Ambassador Plenty Potentiary for Marble Flooring and Judeo-Christian Spice Options at Asian Restaurants.

But then, the saving idea:
"And then, in the blowing clouds, she saw a band of faint iridescence colouring in faint colours a portion of the hill. And forgetting, startled, she looked for the hovering colour and saw a rainbow forming itself..."🌈
▫️▫️▫️
Best final chapter ever.

...advancing from Beldover to meet the corrupt new houses from Lethley, the houses of Lethley advancing to mix with the houses of Hainor, a dry, brittle, terrible corruption spreading over the face of the land, and she was sick with nausea so deep that she perished as she sat."
3/3

A "The Rainbow" vibe to it
" ...she saw the dun atmosphere over the blackened hills opposite, the dark blotches of houses, slate roofed and amorphous, the old church-tower standing up in hideous obsoleteness above raw new houses on the crest of the hill, the amorphous, brittle, hard edged new houses

Can just about see the teeny weeny church and houses.

This image is crying out for ALT text
#AltTextPlease

Horrible to see all the plastic 'clay pigeons' on the bogs. These amazing habitats are just thought of as waste areas only fit for cutting, conifer monocultures, fly tipping, dumping garden waste full of non native species ( which go on to become invasive species).

Willful ignorance born of arrogance?

Still getting peeved from looking at my MP's activities. She's asked a question in Parliament about advice for people going on their holidays in war zones. I'm guessing that *certain constituents* have asked her what to do about their upcoming cruise(s) to Dubai etc. Valid but that is very niche.

Yep!

That looks like a nuthatch in the photo, not a blue tit.

I'm getting a copy tomorrow!

Oh. I never knew

BBC PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT LIMITED
Company number 04243136
Private limited Company 👀
Nature of business
68100 - Buying and selling of own real estate

How long has the BBC been into property development?
Or is this line of activity just par for the course when a body stops using one of its facilities?

But the Tories, I mean Labour, are more cheapskate

On today's BBC news website re raising money for a zebra-crossing: "Gloucestershire County Council said ... it could not fund the entire ... crossing as it does not count as a priority as no-one had yet been killed or seriously injured at the site" Ok it says 'priority' but it's not a valid excuse.

Yesterday I got off the bus and a polite-sounding lad asked for directions, but I wasn't sure, so I thrust my phone into his hands, as he said his was out of data.
He checked the map and I took back my phone and we parted:)
Only then did I think I'd been a bit rash. No wonder he looked surprised!

Horse Race Politics - Political Forecasting Platform Horse Race Politics is a gamified political forecasting platform that invites you to make forecasts about election outcomes, like which parties will gain seats or form coalitions.

"The innovative website, dubbed ‘Horse Race Politics‘, brings the excitement of fantasy sports to the world of Welsh #politics ... transforms the complex world of electoral forecasting into an engaging, social experience."
www.horseracepolitics.com/landing

So it's #betting on who'll win votes?