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Faint O Gloch?

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Pictured, centre-stage, our latest acquisition/project: a long-case clock, with appropriately local [Llangefni] branding. In my estimation late Victorian; might even be a bit older than that. We were told that it was just the case with only the face and no innards. But for thirty quid; what's not to like? A nice decorative conversation piece that suits the room, so all good. Turns out the movement is still in there, minus weights, pendulum and two of its hands, admittedly, but these can all be sourced via eBay or similar for a future resto-project: I'd need to call in the expertise of our mate John, who trained as a clockmaker, but we'll see how it pans out. The decorative woodwork is a little world-weary and will require some gentle restoration of missing bits: some of them came in a bag with it, but I'll need to fabricate at least a few of the missing decoration from my stock of old hardwood furniture bits, but that will be on hold until I have a full compliment of op...
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Phoenix x2

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  Again, I intended to make comment about the stuff that I read in Monday's FT about the stupidity of capitalists and government, and indeed I watched some very good YouTube footage of an interview with the estimable George Monbiot this afternoon which just amplified my views on the subject. However, I'm just going to offer - and I promise I will return to said subject - a reflection on rebirth, sort-of. Although I didn't mention it at the time: last Wednesday, to be precise, I had a slight contretemps with my table saw. My thumb lost the contest. Mea Culpa: I simply lost concentration for a fraction of a second in a dodgy situation of my own making. It could have been a whole lot worse, but it was a pretty traumatic injury to my digit, nevertheless; leaving me minus a large chunk of my thumb pad through approximately a millisecond's inattentiveness. Being me, I triaged the situation myself, decided that the wound, whilst pretty radical, had not quite reached the bone a...
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A Perfect Evening

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Pictured, Clematis blooms on the arch, this evening: the warmth of spring seems to be with us at the moment, unlike last year's El Nino-marred weather. Let's hope for a more temperate climate this year. I was going to mention something else that struck me from yesterday's Financial Times regarding the obvious and complete disjunct between government and business - in a global sense, but not including last night's focus, China - but I won't, because as you can see from the above, to quote the late, great Stevie Marriot: '... it's all too beautiful...' Talk later...
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East Is East...

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Despite all Trump's lying, posturing and 'economic' gaming, guess who holds all the cards that he so dearly thinks he holds? China, that's who. While America has been lurching back and forth between their two incompatible governmental [im]possibilities for the last fifty years, egged on by the rise and now the gradual decline of neoliberal globalist capitalism; the Chinese have learned, as only a society with such a deep and sophisticated cultural & political history as their's could, to transcend their increasingly embattled twentieth century position on the global stage, whilst the rest of the world blithely chose to ignore what was happening there. Whilst everyone else's eye was far from the ball, China rebuilt it's economy and infrastructure quietly and competently against a background of political pariah-hood; gradually taking advantage of the always on internet economy and lack of any real, formal trade constraints to position itself as the globa...
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Barcud Coch

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On our way back from visiting the boys yesterday - they live at the top end of the island of Anglesey, just shy of the most northerly town in Wales - we were stopped in our tracks by the sight of a Red Kite [Milvus Milvus] being harassed by a brace of buzzards: at one point the Kite was literally no more than thirty feet away from us; utterly magnificent. Unfortunately, as usual, we were so mesmerised by seeing this fabulous bird - and at such close quarters - that we completely forgot to get a picture of the event [stock photo pictured]. What is gratifying though is that we are seeing a gradual increase in sightings of the bird this far north. A wonderful and erstwhile maligned creature, it's a very welcome addition to the avian fauna of Gwynedd and Ynys Môn. Hope to more and more of them in the coming years, although the buzzards might not agree with that sentiment!
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Heno

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Beer and FT Magazine crossword on the terrace, Chez Fairview Heights, heno. The first glimpse of the proper arrival of Spring here, although the air out of the sun still carries with it enough chill to suggest another layer of clothing: 'ne'er cast a clout till May is out' still holds true this year, but the otherwise fine and calm weather still brings a cheer to auger the cessation of hostilities of Winter. It's been a busy couple of days here for us, so I'm going to leave tonight's scribble at that. Hopefully tomorrow will be a more relaxing day and a genuine rest from the hurly-burly. Catch you later...  
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Woz Up!

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It looks like Steve Wozniak - aka 'Woz' or 'The Other Steve', co-founder of Apple and its original magister of tech and programming - remains on the side of the angels, committing a new space company of his making "...unlike the others...", 'Privateer Space' to 'clear up' space junk from near Earth orbit. As always, Woz sees the ultimate point in tech - to benefit mankind, rather than simply extract as much money as possible from it by selling 'lifestyle'. In the middle years of his relationship with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, as the company's revenue and stock increased, he was often at odds with Jobs over the company's direction, and he left Apple behind in 1985, the year after the Macintosh computer which he, Jobs and Jef Raskin, among many others, had developed, had been launched with the legendary Super Bowl advert in 1984. Where he and Jobs differed was on user expandability and programmability of the machine. Jobs wante...
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