never hold a gun?

I've never held a real gun. Toy guns - yes. Even paint-ball guns. A real gun, never.

In England, unless I joined a military related group, a gun club or was a person of the land, it would be quite difficult to gain access to a gun. I'd still have to be background checked, could have medical records sought, would need two people to vouch for me and would need a certificate/licence. The gun would need to be locked away and the ammunition would need to be in a separate location.

The USA appear to let anyone over 18 years old buy a gun, after some rudimentary background checks. If the person wants to buy from a private collector, even the background checks are bypassed. When I'm in the USA, I noticed Wal-Mart has a whole counter similar in size to a mobile phone counter, dedicated to the sale of guns and ammunition. Actually, without a credit record, some mobile phone subscriptions may be harder to purchase than a cash sale for a gun.

In some States there seems to be a limit imposed on this. You can't buy more than one gun a month, so building a collection would take a little while. For the more adventurous, some States permit the purchase of semi automatic weapons and even of AK-47s and Uzi Sub-machine guns. The American Constitution says people are allowed to "keep and bear arms." The National Rifle Association in the USA doesn't talk for long on its home page without using words like "patriot" as a way to reassure that this is all okay.

Maybe the Second Amendment was right about citizens needing to have the right to protect themselves (including from an unjust Government), though interpreting this - comma by comma - as everyman can keep and bear arms seems to deliberately cloud the point. I'll stay unarmed.

isle

The sea was still quite cold, although the weather was doing its best to simulate midsummer during the weekend's Jazz festival. We took an early ferry on Friday to the island and then mixed sightseeing with hitting the festival. Part of the fun was having tickets which allowed us to visit any of the venues and that meant we could take a meandering course and spread our attentions between the seaside, bars, restaurants and the jazz venues themselves.

jazzed

Sublime, sunny and musical weekend but now to the Netherlands.

jazzy

Going jazzy on a island for an unplugged weekend

ashes to ashes?

I just watched the last episode of Life on Mars, which is the entertaining series about a policeman who gets bumped back from the 21st century into 1973. The speculation is whether its a result of a traffic accident which has thrown him into a coma and will he recover?

The real life he sees in 1973 is a politically incorrect cop force in Manchester running villains to ground with all the swagger of the old Sweeney series, right down to the use of beige and brown coloured Ford Cortinas. Amongst the street scenes are a few incongruities like closed circuit television, the occasional satellite dish, an overabundance of airconditioners, modern number plates and so forth but that actually adds to the parallel worlds aspects of the series.

There's a clever link to the WIzard of Oz concussion too, with hero Sam being refered to as Dorothy by one of the other characters and then a whole sequence of Over the Rainbow being played in the last episode. What could this mean?

The last episode featured a colliery payroll train robbery and a plot about whether the central character would be able to be brought back to the 21st Century. Suffice to say the coma-based life in the 1970s seemed more real to our hero and there are effectively two endings to the series which have been spliced together. Take your pick, but be careful or the Test Card girl will switch off your television.

I enjoyed the mind games of the series and will wait with interest to see how they flash it forward to the 1980s and maybe send someone else backwards to converge with this set of characters as they roll forward through time - assuming they make the series named after a different David Bowie track.

Of course there is life on Mars.

metropolis

Meetings in the Isle of Dogs today, in Canary Wharf, which is a part of London which has risen out of the old docklands area over the last few years. This once thriving Port of London cargo based dock area sank into uncompetitive urban decline into the 1980s then becoming a designated enterprise zone for redevelopment.

Nowadays, the area has a strong skyline of modern buildings and in a fairly compressed area has some the squeaky cleanest streets in London. Everything still has the sheen of the recently created and at this time of the year, the trees renewing their leaves only underline that feeling. There's something like 75,000 working in the area now and many high end shops and services at ground level and in the underground linking areas.

Global bank logos dominate the skyline. The area bustles the whole time; theres the folk in the offices, but also many of the cafes, shops and pubs filled with a well-heeled business clientele.

a cleaner post

The pictures are up on shoot experience from the recent Portobello photo quiz. I found it interesting to see how 65 or so teams interpreted the same clues and how they then generated their photo moments, veering from the straightforward factual to some rather more bizarre and strange angled shots. Theres a couple of hundred shots across at shoot experience, so enjoy.

pulp power tool fiction bunnies

A choice of viewings today; somewhat R-rated and based upon an improbable google search that hit my site. I also noticed that clarissa passed this way and her smoking hot power tools somehow added to the basis for today's choices:

a) Power Tools
b) Women with Power Tools
c) Bunnies with Guns

The bridge from B to C is not as strange at it may seem (lets say Jackie Brown.. Quentin.. Pulp.. Bunny)

So make you choice - I might be counting.

A) Power Tools

B) Women with Power Tools


Satisfaction By Benny Benassi - video powered by Metacafe
C) Bunnys with Guns

five minutes

Despite my concerns earlier today, the route through London was surprisingly direct. I picked roads that a taxi driver would be proud of, even if most of it was somewhat sarf. In addition to Kingston, there was an emergency retail detour to Smuggler's Way in Wandsworth in order to walk around a very French store. I also had to use my advanced parking technique in this area and found a spot on a switched off yellow line away from the maniacally busy car parks. And yes, there were traffic wardens patrolling the red routes today.

After the shop visit, quite near to the parking spot I noticed a row of bollards and a mystery footpath. So as a reward to myself for the support of relentless store hunting, I took a five minute stroll along the footpath, which led past barbed wire and a warning sign saying "Danger of Death".

A few more yards and I spotted a somewhat forlorn boat, capsized in the mud, and then glancing towards the main River Thames, saw a bird making a noisy running take-off. But my time was limited, so then it was back to the car and off across Wandsworth Bridge.

sweeping through London

Its a sunny Bank Holiday today splashing brilliance across the orange coloured broom in the garden (cytisus scoparius -the shrub - not a sweeping implement) and I'm headed for Kingston upon Thames.

There is a risk with this plan that a large proportion of south west London will do the same - unless they decide to visit Hampton Court instead. I may need to use my finest Zen navigation today to reach the destination by a route of ever decreasing circles.

What Kate did

I put Kate Walsh's mainly acoustic-sounding album into my car a few weeks ago and have listened to it frequently ever since. I didn't even know the name of it until today, but its called "Tim's House" - after where it was made.

I'd considered the album to be a somewhat obscure item, that I happened to like.

Today I noticed Kate in the Times in an article which said that this record was now outselling the Kaiser Chiefs new album and was number one on iTunes. Not bad for a home made recording of songs of heartache and growing up in Burnham-upon-Crouch.

The thing is, Kate sings and plays really well. Its an album that catches you off guard and then seeps into the consciousness. I like it as a collection of songs and I like it the more that somehow Kate has managed to navigate the twists and turns of the record industry to put out her music, her way.

Listen.

ere be dragons

Recently I decided to feature a few London snaps in my blog, but whilst out and about I've noticed that there are increased powers to stop people with cameras in the central part of London, on security grounds.

The police around the Houses of Parliament, for example, can question anyone taking photographs in case they are reviewing the security measures. This must be quite a difficult judgement call, because Parliament Square is slap bang in the middle of tourist London.

The ring of steel security and surveillance has been in place since the early 1990s and now we have the congestion charge cameras as well as just about every corporate building having a camera cordon. The City and most of Central London must be one of the most well filmed places on the planet.

The original City boundaries were guarded by statues of griffins (dragons), and I'm pleased to say, like this fierce one by the Law Courts, they are also still in place.