(143) The parachuting dog

On the morning of September 18th 1997 I was travelling by train to London when I started to think how, in times of ebbing religious faith, satire thrives. I thought of Private Eye, and approved of its existence. I especially liked the cartoons.

And I thought back to one from the early eighties where a ring of skydivers had a dog amongst them! Some minutes later a man sat down next to me and opened a copy of The Daily Telegraph. On page six was a story, and photo, of a parachuting dog.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Narrative, plus Epilogues and Appendices

Image
" When a man looks for Truth, Truth looks for him." (Sufi aphorism) "The plural of anecdote is not data." Introduction The coincidences in this section, mostly from early 1988, seemed to lend themselves more easily to a narrative exposition.  To those examples which are, to some extent, verifiable,  I have appended a V. And to make the following of it all easier I shall begin with a synopsis. Before I begin, permit me to note that when, in April 1994, I attended the Society for Psychical Research Psi/Synchronicity workshop  (94) Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (james-plasketts-coincidence-diary.blogspot.com)   I was made aware by Dr Caroline Watt of what she called the "Mine Vs Yours" syndrome. i.e. that people tend habitually to regard their own coincidences as more cute, amusing, worthy of attention than those of others.  I think this is basically for two reasons:- a) Having lived through it all the experiencer will of...
Read more

(166) Paula Yates and family and friends. And from the Third to the Fourth

Image
( AMPLIFY ING the above article will make it easier to read.) I first met Fiona in March 1994, marrying her in December 1995 and hence moving to Hastings. I noted that a lot of her arty friends and neighbours had children with unusual names. Judy Neate had a son called Bingo, and Alistair Fairley a son called Paris and a daughter called Carson. Laetitia Yhap had a son called Ajax and Craig Sams a grandson called Mars. Unconventional children’s names automatically prompted thoughts of the TV personality, Paula Yates, and her four daughters - Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches Honeyblossom, Little Pixie and Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Yates More than once, in the first years of our relationship, I joked to Fiona that all we needed now was for Paula Yates to move into the area. Ms Yates had a close friend in Jo Fairley, Alistair’s sister, who had a house just around the corner from us. We had heard that Paula would sometimes be seen in the shops of Hastings...
Read more

(281) "Are you not entertained?"

Image
At 21:12 on June 29th 2015 I was flicking through a Youtube version of the 2000 film Gladiator - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbBiXPVKuTA I reached the point just before a particular scene which I wanted to see. Other available versions showed only certain excised scenes, but not the film in its entirety. It is where the gladiator portrayed by Russell Crowe talks with the slave owner played by the late Oliver Reed. The preceding scene, where Crowe takes on and slaughters a half dozen gladiators one by one, I had seen before as one of those excised. I now saw Crowe, after his killing spree, lobbing his sword to hit a distant table and asking of the ampitheatre crowd, "Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?" He then spits into the dust and walks off as the crowd chant his name. And I had seen that finale before, too. But the complete film here seemed to show a slightly different cut to that with which I was familiar. A missing bit ...
Read more