Should I say or should I go?

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

A curious day. I usually volunteer at a bike restoration scheme, but nobody turned up today. So I've just mooched about achieving very little.

keep to the Fen Causeway

It's the second heat wave of the year with temperatures above 35°C here, and I feel like Dr. Kerans when heading south at the end of J. G. Ballard's The Drowned World. For now it was "only" the fifth consecutive day with a max in the thirties & the fourth consecutive with a max passing 35°C and the second with an average in the thirties, but forecasts are pretty consistent in predicting a 8-9 consecutive days at >=35°C max and 14 in the tirties. This morning my bedroom "cooled" to 28°C, right now my computer room (under the roof) is at 33.5°C, the same as the early afternoon temperature in my office – not yet as brutal as in 2007, but both temperatures climb one degree per day... the joys of living in an urban heat island.

Fortunately for me, I'm going on holiday in the second week of this. But I suspect that there will be excess deaths in the population like in France in August 2003 :-(

Oh, and the day before I'm leaving, I'm to receive a useless award (along with a hundred or two colleagues). My boss wants me to come in a suit, but I flat-out refused.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

...It's just that I'm a fan of the kanun!

"Beware of the man who does not talk, and the dog that does not bark." Cheyenne

steady in the high thirties (c.italy) for 3 weeks now, and no sign of change yet, even in the forecasts.

lots of onions and potatoes harvesting, good crop from both, potatoes nice and creamy textured, onions sweet and bitingly fresh. echinacea plants flowering away surrounded by butterflies, enchanting presence.

i love gardening! working early mornings and evenings, midday and afternoons hammocking in the shade, listening to and playing music, and some blogging :).

two new helpers, one from singapore, one from czech republic, very nice company, intelligent international conversations, mellow vibes in abundance.

a slight uptick in massage work, compared with the last couple of years, (green shoots?)

It's a fine line between homage, parody, and consumer opportunism. Jess Walter

It's a fine line between homage, parody, and consumer opportunism. Jess Walter

The Guardian: Nicolas Sarkozy's home raided by French police (3 July 2012)

A judge in Bordeaux is currently investigating whether Sarkozy's right-wing UMP party benefited from envelopes of cash from the ageing and mentally fragile Bettencourt, during Sarkozy's successful election campaign in 2007. The investigating magistrate is trying to establish whether Sarkozy's campaign might have received euro 800,000 in illegal funding, and whether transfers from Swiss accounts may have been handed over to Sarkozy's campaign treasurer or even to Sarkozy himself.

In February, Eric Woerth, the former French budget minister and treasurer of Sarkozy's ruling UMP party, was placed under judicial investigation over cash he was alleged to have received from the billionaire Bettencourt to fund the 2007 campaign. He denies any wrongdoing.

The investigation is part of the wider Bettencourt saga, which has gripped France for years with plot-twists including a disgruntled butler who hid a tape-recorder in the drawing room, and, crucially, security services at the head of the French state which might have spied on journalists to hush it all up.

If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa

EU Observer: German coalition partner threatens government break-up

Horst Seehofer, head of German Chancellor Merkel's junior coalition partner the CSU, has threatened to collapse the government if it makes more concessions to ailing euro-states. "Somewhere down the road a point will be reached ...where the Bavarian government and the CSU cannot say `yes` anymore," he told Stern maga[z]ine.

If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa

any tips from the geeks?

i can't watch a bunch of videos and it tells me i need adobe flash update, d/loaded it and now my mac says it doesn't recognise the file. have repaired permissions.

grrr

It's a fine line between homage, parody, and consumer opportunism. Jess Walter

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Need a debit card? Click on a few tweets - it speaks for itself.