Bongo Vongo

I’ve yet to transfer the old posts to the new bongovongo but I will. Anyway, we were at the food festival in brum today — it’s been running for a week now — it’s like a cousin of the extremely successful Christmas Market except that it is slightly more international. There’s French biscuits, Caribbean chicken, Spanish paella (delicious) as well as local farm produce — hot pork sandwiches, ostrich burgers and local speciality cheeses.

It finishes tomorrow but I hope and expect that it will be back next year.

I hate Hackers! — The rest of this site will rise phoenix-like from the ashes of the Previous Bongo Vongo sometime in early June.

Thanks for your patience.

Forget this world and all its troubles and if
possible its multitudinous Charlatans — every thing
in short but the Enchantress of Numbers.

– Charles Babbage, 1843

It’s 25 years since the miners’ strike and the media turn their mayfly-like attention spans to those events from 25 years ago. They’ll not mention it again till the 30th anniversary I expect.

I’ve just listened to someone comment on how there’s a whole generation now growing up who know nothing about Arthur Scargill’s battle royale with the evil Baroness Thatcher.

I expect hose who are interested in history do know and the rest are like young peole anywhere far more interested in the future than the past. The past is the land of their parents and grandparents and the future, ‘the undiscovered country’, is theirs to explore.

Arthur’s class war inspired battle against the reactionary forces of capitalism ended in defeat as did the hopes of all of us deluded young people of those days who thought that a socialist utopia was just a revolutionary battle away. Well, we were wrong. Arthur was wrong and eventually it has to be said Maggie was wrong too.

Socialism collapsed and now capitalism appears to be collapsing about our ears so what did any of us actually know — not a lot — so to paraphrase an Bowie, ‘All the young dudes (should) Carry the news. Boogaloo dudes. Carry the news’

We went off to Portuguese class last night only to get to the doors of the Brasshouse language centre and read that classes had been cancelled due to the snow.

So, we decided to go to the cinema and found that Slumdog Millionaire was just about to start. Well, there’s enough good things being said about that so that my largly positive thoughts need not bother this page but I particularly agree with the Shakuntala Rao of the Tribune,

But what mesmerised was less the seductive visual style (which genuinely came to life in the hands of ace cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantel) as the music. Slumdog’s soul is in its music. The opening track, O…Saaya, I suspect, landed A. R. Rahman, the music director of Slumdog, his first Golden Globe award and I predict should also earn Rahman an Oscar.

Hats off to old-skool, Mumbai heartthrob Anil Kapoor though for a convincing performance against type as the smarmy and ultimately un-likeable game show host although I couldn’t help smirking every time he attempted to say millionaire and it came out as ‘Slumdog Miliner’.

…films

Barack Obama’s favourite picture is The Candidate. “I can’t get enough [of it],” explains the Democrat du jour. “Robert Redford’s idealism harkens back to a better day. That said, my team won’t let me watch the end for some reason!”

…books

Barack Obama: Well, the bible is the book that shaped me and moved me the most. But, in addition to that, Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon” might be one of my favorite books. It’s just a beautiful, beautiful book.

…music

Fugees – ‘Ready Or Not’
Marvin Gaye – ‘What’s Going On’
Bruce Springsteen – ‘I’m On Fire’
The Rolling Stones – ‘Gimme Shelter’
Nina Simone – ‘Sinnerman’
Kanye West – ‘Touch The Sky’
Frank Sinatra – ‘You’d Be So Easy To Love’
Aretha Franklin – ‘Think’
U2 – ‘City of Blinding Lights’
William – ‘Yes We Can’

…TV show

Sen. Barack Obama has previously said that HBO’s “The Wire” is his favorite show. But now Obama’s revealed another tidbit. In a story from Monday’s Las Vegas Sun, the presidential candidate said that the bold thief Omar is his favorite character on “The Wire.”

…pizza!

Barack Obama’s favorite pizza is from Italian Fiesta Pizzeria, a chain on Chicago’s south side and south suburbs.

So now you know.

Over at Slashdot DesCorp announces…

“Ricardo Montalban, immortalized as Khan in the Star Trek franchise, is dead at age 88, passing at his Los Angeles home. Montalban had a long and successful career on television and film. The voice of Rich Corinthian Leather is silenced, but we still have the memories.”

Bangladesh had some elections yesterday and the results are in. It looks like a fairly convincing win for the secularly inclined Awami League.

A lot of credit has got to go to the Army which has spent the last two years actually laying down the foundations of these largely free and fair elections by having a good go at rooting out the corruption endemic in Bangladeshi politics.

Unfortunately the Winner, Sheik Hasina is one of those who is the leader of, it is alleged, one of the two parties implicated in the corruption.

Still, there’s always hope that things have changed.

You have to admit, ducking out of the way of that journalist’s first shoe was impressive enough but when dubya ducked out of the way of the second one I was almost in admiration of the cat like reactions of the lame duck president.

That was until my better ‘arf launched into an easilly justifiable tirade against Bush the Younger and reminded me of the thousands of innocents that have perished on account of the ‘deciders’ … decision.

In anycase let’s hope that Muntadhar al-Zaidi appreciates the bloodily won freedom of the press … from his jail cell.

…of course once there was plenty to see or at least to read but now no longer. Mostly because I don’t have the time but paranoia, other web based distractions and a kind of constipation of the soul all have played their part in the bittrickle.
Besides, I have nothing of any significance or consequence to share with passers-by.

It’s not that I consider I ever did have but time and the quality of information available elsewhere have opened my eyes to the relatively low entertainment value a detour to these pages must represent.

But, if anything significant turns up I’ll be sure to jot it down here — just don’t hold your breath for it.