Wednesday, February 28, 2007

The Rostrum (interim posting)

The new rostrum was installed in the Kingdom Hall a week ago, and is working well. This post will be supplanted in due course by a better one, I hope. We do have a video of the rostrum actually working, but we're having trouble uploading it.

So, a photograph: Gleaming timber - a front view of the rostrum.

And another: And a side view, showing also the new microphone stand.

And this video shows something of the internal workings, but it's not at all clear, I'm afraid. I'll record another some time.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Demolishing the Treehouse

Simon looks through a hole in the treehouse wall.

The treehouse was rotten and unsafe, and needed to come down. So Daddy started some work on it. Then Simon arrived, and got enthusiastic. When I came home from walking in the woods, I started taking photos. The one above is taken over the top of the garage roof.

"Is the recording with the orange light on or off?"

Simon stands in the treehouse, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. The entire wall facing onto the lawn has gone, so he's clearly visible. Timothy stands on the outside deck looking in.Pretty much the same view as above, except that the camera is lower and shows the rubbish which has been thrown out of the treehouse.

The treehouse has been used as a store for general junk for a while. There was a busted leather sofa in there, for one thing. There was also sacks of straw and hay for use as duck bedding, and cardboard to put under the straw to make it cleaner and easier to remove all the bedding at once and chuck it on the compost heap.

Does my voice really sound that silly? Or is it just when I hear it?

As with most acts of violence, there was a certain amount of fun to it. But it was sad, too. That treehouse has seen many happy days. We slept in it many times. Some summers, we were there almost every night for months. It was big enough to sleep five in comfort, and six at a push. I slept there alone for a few weeks too, when we had visitors in my room. (Well, my room and my brother's, but he was away somewhere else. I forget. It was a while ago.)

In case you're wondering, at this stage, I did do some work myself, including some axe-weilding. It just wasn't recorded. The treehouse is left now with the rotten external platform gone, and with the fireman's pole felled. All the vertical supports from the ground still stand, as does the treehouse roof, though the walls are gone.

View over garage roof. Timothy stands on outside platform with his back to the camera, looking into the treehouse. Simon, visible inside the treehouse through the gappy wall, swings an axe.View from the lawn. All the walls are gone now, except for the door which opens onto nothingness above the slide (that's on the far side of the treehouse). Simon, inside the treehouse, swings an axe at the edge of the floor.View from the lawn. It's dark now. Simon cuts with a chainsaw at the supports of the now non-existant platform in front of the treehouse door. Timothy stands on the garage roof keeping the chainsaw chord out of harm's way.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Demolishing the Treehouse (part 1)

And so we did a bit of work. The camera was acting up a little, so the audio and video are not quite in sync. I think the batteries were failing.

Thursday, February 1, 2007

Some disturbing videos

I thought I'd share with my readers (assuming, of course, that there are any) a few things I've come across recently. Be warned that these videos contain content which may harm delicate minds. Readers of a nervous disposition or those likely not to shrug off a traumatic experience are encouraged not to read further.

Proceed with caution!

 

We start with the most innocuous: The song "Marvin" set to clips from the television version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxey. Enjoy!

 

Now this is disturbing. Colin Baker as Marlene Dietrich. Very very strange. Be warned now that you will not be able to erase these images from your mind after seing them.

 

And, saved for last, we have Leonard Nimoy singing "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins". You have been warned.

Overheard: From MailMetro

A little letter to Dublin's free Metro newspaper:
You know how sometimes you pass someone on the street, and you hear just a few words of conversation? That happened to me yesterday. A chain of primary school children went past, and I heard one boy say, 'Tony Blair's trousers'. At first I wondered what on Earth he had been talking about. But then I decided I didn't want to know. It would spoil it.
I think that's rather beautiful, don't you?