Donkeyshott & Xuitlacoche

We arrived in Mexico City in the year 2000 and left it in the year 2002. I've written about it. But I want to write about it again because I want to refine an experience that puzzles me. That really puzzles me. I know it is real because I phoned my mother and discussed it with her. My mother could not come to see us because she was undergoing an operation for a minor cancer. The house is a 1930s house or was. It was due for demolition from what I saw on street view. A hotel to be built in its place. It was a beautiful house in its way, but quite dark. On the ground floor the windows opened out onto our privada. The walkway we shared with six other houses, decorated with tiles. The houses were large with wooden flooring and high. There were three floors but then there was also a long spiral staircase which took you to the roof and a servants' quarters on the roof.  The stairway was dramatic. It swept down to the lounge, and in the lounge there were white pillars. The stairwel

George Monbiot, a modern Calvinist Global warming is going to happen so we should work out ways of dealing with it, and geo-engineering is one rational way out of the labyrinth. We have to go under the knife and the fact that you, George Monbiot, downplay the importance of geo-engineering is neither here nor there. Echoing the author of the Gaia Hypothesis, J. E Lovelock, David Deutsch in his TED talk pointed out that it was already too late to prevent global warming. It is already a disaster. The actions taken to reduce CO2 are not even purported to solve the problem. The lesson seems clear to him. We need a stance of problem fixing not just problem avoidance. He goes on to say that the world is buzzing with plans to reduce gas emissions at all costs, but that, instead, it should be buzzing with plans to reduce global temperature, and reduce the higher temperature efficiently and cheaply. He notes that, at the moment, these initiatives are on the fringe, but says they should

Our grand liberal, Polly Toynbee Polly, I am a fan and you have my qualified support for most of the things you say. But let me ask you this.  Micheal Rosen said that you, Polly, talk about class at length without once mentioning the word capitalism. Michael Rosen is right. It doesn't make sense to speak of class without understanding it in terms of the economic system we exist in. If class is a product of capitalism, just as serfdom was a product of feudalism, then can we ameliorate its negative effects in some way? Can you stop people accumulating power and wealth? How can you stop them if they are the ones with all the wealth and influence? Isn't it really a win for some, do well for a few others and then a lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose situation for the rest? You could legislate of course. But the legislators are not unbiased, they favour the powerful, the ones who can pay good money to work the angles in the legal system in their favour

Torta Cubana from Ryan's blog When I was single and didn't have time to cook and I was working in Antonio Caso Street in Mexico city, I dared to eat this sandwich on several occasions with the promise to myself that I would not have supper and the excuse that I had not eaten breakfast.  It is the equivalent not of one meal but of three.  It's hard to eat it with delicacy and you have to approach it from the right angle. Moreover, as it is usually sold in the street and so you have to be a little careful. Only real Chilangos eat this sandwich. The sandwich is hot and weighs about three quarters of a kilo.    Between two large elongated baguette-like baps place the following ingredients in succession: 2 slices of fried ham 1 wiener schnitzel  1 fried Egg  Yellow cheese  Avocado slices 1 thin steak  2 slices of tomato  Mayonaise Rashers of bacon Leaves of iceberg lettuce  Fried onion A slice of fresh, white Panela cheese 1 frankfurter sau

Words from Obama's Libya speech. Some people think the only good linguist is a descriptive linguist, but they are probably wrong. There should be an official Academy of the English Language The failure to regulate language is abdication, because to ignore what we consciously think and know about the structure of words - to ignore our attitudes to them, is wrong. We can mould language, just as we can alter our DNA. For example: Conflicted is a horrible borrowing into British English, d econstruct is a vacuous term, quantum is not understood and misapplied, doors are never alarmed , blogs sounds shitty, Shiites are actually Shias , quality time and me time are shoddy, selfish concepts, substantive is rather insubstantial and the focus group should be penned up in marketing, not left to roam free. An academy could rule out the stupid and influential jargon of the half educated young invented on the bus on the way home from school. I'm going gym. They say. The young

A chimp Language is the defining characteristic of human beings because, mainly through language, we create our representation of the world and act on it: history, art, film making, science, maths, literature, architecture, electronics, and so on, all require us to be capable of modelling the world. Modelling the world is closely linked to our feelings about the world.We develop empathy and compassion because one human can represent how another feels in their mind. I feel your pain - I really do - and I share in your hopes and wishes. In literature we live vicariously and intensely, and some of our strongest feelings may derive, not from our own experience, but from vicarious experience. This does not entitle us to greater freedom from pain and want than an animal. But humans have to be given the opportunity to fully inhabit the world of representation and imagination. People do not live by bread alone. An essential human right is a universal education, not simply the educat

William Blake, The Gates of Hell How do you rough up Wrath, Greed, Pride, Lust, Envy, Sloth and Gluttony?  What do you wallop them with? Blakean rhyme; with  ‘bows of burning gold, arrows of desire? How about self-flagellation? Equanimity and acceptance? We sit in theatres of cruelty - in our living rooms in front of screens, and then writers, actors and directors serve us up with large portions of evil, for entertainment. Assuredly, evil is better understood personified. Coppola, Tarantino and the Cohen brothers plagiarised the life of The Iceman, who killed over 200 people for the Mafia. These directors flaunt evil in quixotic, individual packages - they excuse themselves suggesting that they offer explanatory metaphors for capitalism, where Iago the killer is a City boy now, a speculator in futures who short sells country debt. He’s out for himself, for profit. He says: There are those who know the score and fake their respectability and honesty when they are just out for