...for an achievable target...

i've given up on intelligence.

having spent many years of my life in a lazy attempt to boost my iq by consuming brain-foods (oily fish, walnuts, pumpkin and flax-seeds), i've finally given up the chase for membership of mensa (which requires an iq level of 140)

i've learned that my brain weighs around one and a half kilos, 

but using it gobbles up a whopping 20% of my daily calorie intake. 

no wonder i'm always hungry.

not only would i eat brain-cell boosting foods, 

sometimes i'd even give it some exercise and read a book.

however even this i shall quit, since one of the books i read extolled the virtues of giving the brain complete down-time.

i know from my cycling that muscles can be over-trained, and that recovery time is an important part of any athletes strategy. 

so that's it, i'm permanently resting my brain.

the clincher though was my discovery that the average iq

 of nobel prize winners is just 120. 120!

henceforth my aim shall be to reduce my iq in the hope that

 one day i shall be awarded a nobel prize.

finally, an achievable target.

...for xanadu...

or at least for sandy island.

so it now seems that a whole island we thought existed,

actually doesn't.

well, when i say 'we' i think i mean 'you' because until today i'd never heard of sandy island. and if i had i like to think i would have had enough about me to realise that even the name is clearly a giveaway to its fictitious status, 

it being rather too 'enid blyton' for my liking. 

apparently this south pacific non-island first appeared on google earth and google maps within the past few years, and has been replicated as other maps have lazily been produced.

once it appeared on a map its existence was confirmed. 

and unquestioned.

it seems terribly easy to invent an island.

perhaps it would even be possible to invent a whole country.

that would be a really neat trick.

although it could never really happen, because we're far too intelligent to let anyone get away with it.

wait a minute.

what about israel?

you can read more about sandy island by googling 'sandy island'

you can learn more about israel by googling 'historical region of palestine'

...for someone to believe in...

...so in the absence of this, i'll just be satisfied with a gripping political ad.

this thursday sees the latest in the series of what appear to be becoming bi-annual general elections here in the state of kuwait.

i can't vote, and i don't speak a word of arabic, so i'm just amusing myself by watching the circus.

this one caught my eye.

i do know enough about the history of this nation (both recent and further back) to know what is going on here.

what was once a decent country is being dragged down. and there are some people here who genuinely want to see a change, and to reclaim their country from the idiots.

these are the people i support.

if nothing else, we might at least get some moody tv here.

...for a happy pill...

to take on monday, 16th

or sunday, 15th.

to be honest i'm not sure when to take it.

and the worry of it is getting me down.

a few years ago some bright spark nominated the first day of the third week of january as the most depressing day of the year. he named it 'blue monday' because, where he comes from, the first day of the working week is monday. where i live the first day of the working week is sunday.

it's not as if i don't have enough on my mind without this additional projected burden.

his rationale was generally well thought through though:

* by this time most people will have failed miserably to keep their new year resolutions

* the realisation of debt accumulated during december's festivities will have hit home, and january's payday still feels an excruciatingly long way off

* january is typically dull. both in terms of daylight, and in terms of jovial things to do

* plus there are no public holidays due for the
 foreseeable future

regardless, even once blue monday is over, i suspect everything will be only slightly less depressing.

i'd have probably passed through the 15th and 16th days of the year without giving them any more thought than i shall the 14th and the 17th.

but now that i know that one of them is the most depressing day of the year, i shall fret until it has passed.

 and i shall still have to wait a full five months to reach the zenith of what is apparently the happiest day of the year -
june the 17th.

already i'm depressed that, come june the 18th, i shall have nothing left to look forward to in 2012.

apart from the end of the world. 


image effortlessly stolen from here

...for a great song about coffee...

i spend too much time thinking and reading about coffee.

but i also spend a lot of time drinking it too.

i got thinking about how, although coffee has percolated* deep into our psyche over many centuries, it has inspired, to my mind,

 only pitifully poor songs to be written about it.

doubtless many more have been written during late-night sessions fueled by it (and, who knows, perhaps even harder substances).

coffee and song are indivisible.

but why so few great songs?

i commented on sketchbloom whilst considering this conundrum, 

and here is her sage response: sketchbloom - fall bouquet

*percolated - clever aren't i?

some of my previous outstanding coffee-related posts:

still searching for the perfect espresso (part five)

still searching for the perfect espresso (part four)

still searching for the perfect espresso (part three)

still searching for the perfect espresso (part deux)

...for the shortest queue...

i'm british. we love to queue.

if no queue exists, you can count on two brits 

to get together and form one.

it is not, regrettably, quite the same art-form it used to be.

 one rarely sees queue-rs / queuesters / queuees camping out overnight in order to gain entry to anything

 (unless it is an apple store, and that doesn't count

 because it's driven by pointless consumerism).

apparently other nationalities queue too.

 out of necessity though, rather than for pleasure.

the diane arbus retrospective, currently showing at the jeu de paume in paris, has had heart-sinkingly lengthy queues, as has london's national gallery's leonardo at the court of milan show.

regrettably i have been unable to join the throngs

 queuing for either of these. 

it got me thinking though - how long is too long to queue?

i'm not sure.

but i did begin to wonder if, once an artist's show becomes

 a blockbuster, perhaps their game is over.

...for some loose change...

how can EVERY country be in debt?

where did all the money go to?

...for adulterated freshness...

tinned fruit.

does this count towards my five-a-day?

according to nutritionists apparently it does

(but only because the fruit is in its own juice, not in syrup).

they're convenient - but in the same way that the flavour of instant coffee has little in common with that of freshly-ground coffee, these are distant cousins of fresh strawberries.

although i understand they can be used as the

 core ingredient for a rather cheeky homemade wine.

how very 1970s.

...for the safest of havens...

whilst nuclear holocaust has slipped steadily down my own
 mental ladder of current concerns, it has been replaced by a
 great many other impending events that seem certain to bring
 on my untimely annihilation. and possibly yours too.

a) the economic meltdown could see civil order turned on it's head.

b) the global food crisis could see those whom the west
 currently exploits coming to knock on our door and
 asking for their fair share.

c) global warming is certain to cause sea levels to rise
 putting at risk anyone afflicted with dwarfism or those
 a little-on-the-short-side.

and d) there's still the nagging threat of nuclear fall-out
 either through conflict, terrorism or accident.

oh, and harold camping has predicted that friday 21 october will really honestly and truly be the last day of life on the planet.
 he got it wrong when he predicted it would be 21 may.
 but he guarantees it this time.

so, i'm making plans.

where are the world's ultimate safe havens?

1. chiang mai, thailand - marc faber, one of the world's gloomiest investors, lives here. whilst most of south east asia has been torn apart by both drug wars and wars of the conventional kind, chiang mai has remained stable. the rural and agricultural setting would provide for sustenance when, after the economic meltdown is complete, your dollars are worthless.

2. tristan da cunha, somewhere in the south atlantic - with a population of just 271 they're probably looking to grow and would welcome some company. great opportunities for anglers.

3. denver, colorado - a mile high, so is likely to be amongst the last to be affected by higher sea-levels.

4. bern, switzerland - because it's in switzerland.
so everything will be fine.

5. pancuk jaya, indonesia - not much going for it other than it is home to the world's largest gold mine, and third largest copper mine. get your feet under the table here and you're sorted.


and -

6. tierra del fuego, chile or argentina, not sure which but it's right at the bottom of south america - wind patterns make this city the perfect place to avoid nuclear fallout.


of course none of us will be safe anywhere should harold camping be proved correct this time. should this be the case we shall all have cause to mourn, not least, for harold himself.

...for something interesting to say...

it just is. ok?

...for the way out... (part two)

some days are harder than others.

...for the way out...

it's personal.

...for just one more day...

'thirty days hath september'; and that's always bothered me.

i don't much care that april, june and november also 'hath' thirty, but september is different altogether.

september is a month for looking back over a great summer. it's a month where i remember only the good of the past months, and forget the bad. winter is coming, so every day that mother nature colludes with me to keep it at bay is a bonus.

september ends abruptly, a thirty-first day would ease me into autumn. the first of october brings a different mindset altogether, before long thoughts will begin to readily turn towards next year.

march could be the one to sacrifice. march is at least a day too long anyway following, as it does, the runt of the calendar. 

september the thirty-first.

i need just one more day.

...for the other sock...

i think this post was supposed to be a metaphor for something.

i just can't quite remember what for.

...for a reason to be bothered...

so, albert einstein has been proved wrong. so what?

the interweb has been ablaze with news that sub-atomic particles have been measured travelling at a speed exceeding that of light. much of modern physics - as largely defined by albert einstein in his theory of relativity - is tied to the fact that nothing can exceed it.

well, something has. and they're called neutrinos.

i just want to ask all those that have tweeted, re-tweeted, blogged and forwarded the story - "so what?"

i guess we all know it's an important discovery, 

but can anyone explain why?

answers on a postcard to:

CERN,

somewhere under the alps

switzerland

...for my own personal barcode...

i want to have my own barcode tattooed on my forehead.

i can supply a reader, but i'd much prefer it if you all had your own. it'll be programmed with all those little details that everyone finds so interesting, and could therefore be accessed by anyone wishing to disrupt my day in order to try and have a 

pointless conversation with me.

it is the only way i can see myself avoiding those

"how are you?"; why have you lost so much weight?"; "why don't you drive?'; "how do you take your coffee?"; "where did you go on vacation?"; "where do you live?"; "where do you work?"; "why don't you smile more often?"; "is this the way to amarillo?"; "how did you chip your tooth?"; "would you like another slice of pizza?"

sort of questions.

look, there's probably a very good reason you don't already

 know my answers to all of those questions,

and the reason is most likely to be that i didn't

want to talk to you in the first place.

capiche?

...for a soft landing... (part deux)

From NASA:

"As of Sept. 16, 2011, the orbit of UARS was 225 km by 250 km.

Re-entry is expected Sept. 23, plus or minus a day.

The re-entry of UARS is advancing because of a sharp increase in solar activity since the beginning of this week."

That's good news then.

You can find the original post here:

http://thestillsearchingblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/for-soft-landing.html

...for a soft landing...

i'm not usually one to panic,

but right now i'm a little concerned.

in one week's time nasa's upper atmosphere research satellite (cosily known as 'uars'), having fallen out of orbit, will crash back to earth. it could land anywhere between 57 degrees north and 57 degrees south. that's most of the populated world.

comfortingly nasa say the risk to life has been

calculated at 'just' 1 in 3,200.

i'm not comforted.

but it did get me thinking where, when it lands,

would i most like it to hit in order to serve the world some good.

here's my wish list:

1 - the knesset

2 - wherever gaddafi is hiding (and i hope he sees it coming)

3 - on a large group of somali pirates

4 - the knesset

5 - microsoft

6 - on bashar assad

7 - the knesset

8 - near lady gaga (not enough to hurt her, yet just enough to snap her vocal cords)

9 - the knesset

10 - umm, the knesset

in the meantime, heed nasa's advice, and don't panic.

...for someone else to blame...

i learned some startling facts yesterday.

a third of irish travellers die before they are 25,

half die under 39, and 80% die before 65.

i pause because it disturbs me that i feel

no sense of guilt nor any responsibility.

The Right Reverend Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Chelmsford (L) and the Right Reverend Thomas McMahon, Bishop of Brentwood (C) talk to Nora Sheridan at Dale Farm on August 30, 2011 in Basildon, England. Dale Farm is the largest Romany Gypsy and Irish Traveller site in the United Kingdom. Part of the site is due for demolition after the local authorities deemed that it was built without planning permission.