Oh Danny Boy

Danny MacAskill (you may remember him from such posts as Epecuén and Imaginate) is back, and this time, he’s in the Skye. The Isle of Skye to be exact.

Well, there we go. Fairly astonishing once again.
Scenery, cinematography, colours, skills – and this image:

Danny-Macaskill-03

Music this time is by Martyn Bennett – it’s called Blackbird. And do click on that link, because his story is hugely inspiring too.

Skin

Not the Skunk Anansie one, although that would have been pretty apt, given that it was about a year ago that she rocked us at Rocking The Daisies. Their lineup this year is underwhelming at best.

But I digress. Often.

Quota photo time, lest there be no chance of getting anything up later (careful now) and I rushed to my Flickr and somewhat randomly chose this one:

Folds of giraffe skin, still very much on the giraffe, at Paarl’s Giraffe House earlier this year. This was a fully grown giraffe, but it still appears to have a fair amount of spare skin. I thought that was something that animals grew into, like Colin has been doing.

Unsurprisingly, if memory serves me correctly, it did seem quite taut on his neck though.

More Flickry Giraffellove here.

October

Dawn awaits a sleepless English town of coloured grey.
Here I roam the streets without you as summer fades away…

It’s been a while since we’ve had any a-ha on the blog, so here, on the 1st of October, is…er… October from the 1986 Scoundrel Days album*. This isn’t the official video (I don’t think one was ever made, as the song was never released), and you can easily deduce that because One Canada Square (the Canary Wharf building) featured in the video wasn’t built back in 1986.
Yes, I suppose that the Millennium Dome is a bit of a clue as well.

Still, the song is the real deal.

* still probably my favourite a-ha album.

Breakdown

Listicle time. (Sorry). But those with children will surely recognise something from these (and here I quote):

34 Hilarious Photos Of Kids Losing It Over NOTHING

Indeed:

kid2

To be fair, I would have reacted in pretty much the same way.

kid3

Ataxia should not be mocked. This is sick.

kid1

Argh! The frustration!
And that wooden swan lamp would be enough to make most people throw a wobbly, anyway.

My best (worst?) experience of this was probably the occasion when my 3 year old son was crying because he didn’t know why he was crying. This vicious circle was only broken after about an hour (it felt like 8) when he ran out of energy and fell asleep. It was both very annoying and highly amusing at the same time, which I suspect is exactly why these parents took the photos above.

justboristhings

I love Boris.

Boris Johnson is the incumbent mayor of London and he’s a polarising figure. I think he’s great, and I’m not alone in that – he was recently revealed as (easily) Britain’s most popular politician, albeit that the competition wasn’t up to much, consisting, as it did, exclusively of British politicians.

Boris is undoubtedly a star attraction in British politics and the Conservative Party will be pleased to have him onside in 2015. A Tory that can win in London is a rare thing and what makes Boris so attractive within the Party.

Some of the stuff he does and some of the soundbites he comes out with make me cringe, others make me wish that Cape Town’s mayor, Patricia de Lille, had a bit more personality and a bit more gees about her. But her attitude is more to toe the party line. Boris’ attitude is not to give a flying toss about the party line. He’s a law unto himself, but if you believe that there’s nothing behind the apparent buffoonery of his outward image, I think you’re mistaken. You don’t get where Boris is by being a buffoon. Acting one, perhaps – being one, no.

Here’s his latest offering, regarding the recent defections from the Conservatives to UKIP:

Speaking to Conservative Party members, he suggested UKIP should throw its weight behind the Tories in order to defeat Labour and secure an in/out referendum on Britain’s EU membership in next year’s general election.

He told the rally: “The EU commission wants to ban vacuum cleaners on the grounds that they are too powerful. If you do not handle your vacuum cleaner correctly, you may end up inhaling the hamster – the budgerigar through the bars of the cage.
And I have read that there are some people – probably the type who are thinking of defecting to UKIP – who present themselves at A&E with barely credible injuries sustained through vacuum cleaner abuse.”

Yes. He’s basically saying that his political opponents have intimate relations with electric cleaning equipment.

Next. Level. Stuff.

Spectacular. It’s weirdly similar to (a classier version of) Julius Malema’s immaturity (and without the charges of racketeering and 52 other allegations, including fraud). Whether it will work any better than the EFF’s very vocal, but wholly ineffective shouty parliamentary behaviour remains to be seen.

Either way, I love Boris.

 

P.S. Incidentally, for the record, I don’t think you get where Julius Malema is without being fairly clever, either.