naked and bizarre

The sun is shining, and it has been all week. That alone is enough to put me in a good mood. What’s more, we have a long weekend approaching and all the indications are that the sun will continue to shine until at least then. We’re planning to plant more things in the allotment. Even the fact that I am up to my nipples in end-of-month reports is really not bothering me much today.

We spent the weekend in Devon, which was nice. It was a joint birthday for mother, brother, and the boy, all of which actually occurred while we were abroad. We did lunch at the Tarka Inn (now apparently renamed the Braunton Inn) and everyone got presents. I bought mother a Kindle. I liked it rather more than I thought I would. I’m starting to think I might like one myself. The only issue with it appears to be that it’s too easy to buy stuff. We bought a book by mistake and had to discover how to get a refund. It worked though.

The Telegraph website has put up a firewall, which slightly annoys me, but it does mean I am now trawling stranger places for my news fix. This in turn means I am finding more odd and quirky stories, like this from the Phily.com website. Apparently the bishop of Pittsburgh (yes Pittsburgh apparently has a Catholic bishop) is jolly upset because a student at Carnegie Mellon University seemingly passed out condoms at a parade organised by the university’s art department while dressed as the Pope from the waste up, and naked from the waste down. The thing that really seems to have got up the bishop’s nose is the fact that the female student seems to have shaved her pubic hair into the shape of a cross.

This story has all my favourite things; nudity, religious protest, a hint of the bizarre, and an angry clergyman. According to philly.com, the bishop has been in contact with the university, but I confess, I don’t really understand what he really wants them to do. It would appear to me to be an entirely legal, peaceful, and legitimate protest. It’s also imaginative and provocative. If the bishop thinks this lady has broken any laws, he could of course contact the authorities himself, but I notice he hasn’t done that. If no laws have been broken, I say he should shut the hell up. The report is worth a read if only for the baffling arguments of the bishop. Sorry, but there are no pictures and I cannot congratulate this student by name because she has not been identified.

And since we’re on the subject of the naked and bizarre, the Sun today reports that a woman brightened up the train journey for commuters in Dusseldorf by travelling on the train wearing only glasses and shoes. Various words were written on her body in place of clothes. It would seem to be an art project, and of course the Sun managed to get pictures and even a high quality video of the stunt. I might forget how shite First Great Western is if anything like that happened on my commute.

I also discovered today that the late Kim Jong Il, in 1978, while his father was still leading North Korea, ordered the kidnap a South Korean film maker and forced him to direct a film. The result was Pulgasari, a truly awful Godzilla style monster flick. And the absolutely best thing about this story is that the film is available on You Tube with English subtitles!. I haven’t watch much yet, but enough to confirm that this film is so bad it’s good.