Doing 5 things at once, this is a record!

I am listening to one full piece of music, eating soup, checking my blog roll, doing rows of knitting, warming my feet in a deep bowl of hot water and a 6th, writing this post.

There is a 7th...keeping an eye on my phone in case T texts from his trip North today.

I think there is a point where multi-tasking becomes being in a muddle!

Interestingly, I know I won't rush off and do something else because all 4 limbs are occupied and both my ears are clamped with the headphones. It is a mini mother holiday.

Poetry in Macedonian - Obsessed with Pipework

I have had an amazing experience. I read a collection of poetry. The English version was on the right, so I read that carefully, as you do. The original version in Macedonian was on the left. I have the weirdest sensation each time I look at the pages of text. The combination of blocky, part upper case and part lower case letters stumps me in some profound way. My grandmother was Serbian, and spoke Serbo Croat. Her language is now called Serbian, but as far as I can tell it is still the same language and is written in something very similar to the Macedonian script of my new poetry book.

It is so familiar, yet I can't read a single word. The type takes me back to her drawing room with these hardback books on the side table. She never enthused about anything Serbian to me. She never showed me a picture from any of these books, I don't think they had any, they looked very dull. Thinking about her now, they might have been biographies because I heard that this is what she liked to read, but I always assumed that meant in English.

There is something frozen about it, dead and cut off. I asked her once to teach me, but she said not to bother, to concentrate on French. In the photo at the top of my blog the space on the globe for Serbia is blocked by the support. How odd and significant.

I'm still not explaining myself. This could be my madeleine moment. It is reminding me of something very real in my past, which I had never re-encountered until now.

Obsessed with Pipework is a stapled pamphlet which comes out 4 times a year. I have treated myself to a subscription because the back issue I looked through was so suitable to my poetry tastebuds!

Troy Davis: Don't Give Up The Fight

Jen Marlow has made a short video to celebrate the progress made towards abolition of the Death Penalty. It is called 'Troy Davis: Don't Give Up The Fight'.

There is a clip of Troy Davis speaking words of encouragement.

There are photos by Scott Langley.

So keep on keeping on!!

Weird Feeling Tonight

I can't believe it has been a year now of tweeting #TroyDavis or #RIPTroyDavis alongside others who did this too.

When I went to sleep a year ago I knew there was a stay of execution and I assumed that this was permanent.  I assumed that Obama's post of President was worthy of being appealed to by signing petitions. I had no idea of the intransigence and stubborn nature of the system.

It was a school day the next day so I needed to sleep and then get up early to get my son off to school.

I can't remember finding out the news. It would have been online. I can remember the feeling that I had been slapped right in the face, personally. I also knew that many, many people had been violently ignored too.

After a while the phrase 'stiff-necked' came to me, it is from the Bible somewhere. All these old words and phrases have a meaning which only reveals itself when the circumstances fit exactly what it means. So the phrase comes alive and carries a whole situation in one little package.

I don't look forward to reading what other thoughts people have on this. I will read a lot anyway, but it is hard reading, even when there is good news about repealing the death penalty. It seems to go so slowly, State by State.

If you go back to Sept 2011 on this blog there are several posts to read.

Debussy - La Mer - more Ambleside Online/Charlotte Mason

Movement 1 - conducted by Valery Gergiev

Movement 2 - conducted by Milan Horvat

Movement 3 - conducted by Claudio Abbado

All movements - conducted by Riccardo Muti

Enjoy! I am sitting with my headphones on doing sewing or knitting in front of my laptop. I won't be laughing when I get backache, but for now it is great.

The Arab Revolutions - Day of Discussion Online

The South Bank Centre in London is hosting a day of voices from witnesses and movers and shakers in the revolutions. Livestreaming!!

#ARD12 is the hashtag on Twitter for the event.

Hilary Davan Wetton

This blog post has a link to a short bit of chat by Hilary Davan Wetton, a blast from the past, as he was Director of Music at St Paul's Girls' School and let me into the Senior Choir. He was a wonderful choir master and I have met quite a few, all wonderful in their different ways. I have been very, very lucky in my choirs.

So if you live in London, try to blag your way into whichever choir he is with now.

Joy - My time line book has been useful - Mouse engineering

I have been adding notes to my Charlotte Mason inspired timeline book for 3 years or so. It goes from the Big Bang to the present day, but the far and distant times are the most interesting.

Today H asked me something about why cats don't stand up on 2 legs. I have seen our visiting cat d just  this in order to get a better view of another cat which was prowling around. That chat led on to me showing him my timeline, I was able to point to the moment when early chimpanzees and early humans diverged.

Luckily I had put a star beside the time when Fire was first used, and the start of the use of Spears, then the practice of Burial and Jewellery. So I said, look at those things too!!

After that, H brought me his mouse with all its replaceable parts, so we fiddled with this and I showed off my cave woman skills of finding out how to do the replacing. I also showed off my high tech woman skills by explaining that the dusty item was the bit which had most recently been in use. That was fun. We have a large piece of black fleece as our table cloth in the kitchen at the moment. It is a wonderful surface to use for this sort of taking apart work. Nothing rolls away and everything is visible. Neither of us could work out where the little weights were meant to go. We didn't care enough to google it.

Charlotte Mason - Ambleside Online - Debussy

I have printed off the list of pieces for this term. The first is below:

L'apres-midi d'un faun

Draft legislation on Reform of provision for children and young people with special needs

Tomorrow I will look carefully at the draft legislation issued today by Sarah Teather.

It is looking to be a busy autumn:

There is a Select Committee event tomorrow on Home Education and Special Needs; there are the Wales Proposals, and this draft legislation.

Assange - did the US spokesperson let something slip?

A section from the US State Department daily press briefing question and answer session back on 17/8/2012:

"QUESTION: All right. And then just back to the Assange thing, the reason that the Ecuadorians gave – have given him asylum is because they say that they agree with his claim that he would be – could face persecution, government persecution, if for any reason he was to come to the United States under whatever circumstances. Do you find that that’s a credible argument? Does anyone face unwarranted or illegal government persecution in the United States?

MS. NULAND: No.

QUESTION: No?

MS. NULAND: No.

QUESTION: And so you think that the grounds that – in this specific case, the grounds for him receiving asylum from any country or any country granting asylum to anyone on that basis that if they happen to show up in the United States they might be subject to government persecution, you don’t --

MS. NULAND: I’m not going to comment on the Ecuadorian thought process here. If you’re asking me whether there was any intention to persecute rather than prosecute, the answer is no. Okay?

QUESTION: Okay. Well, wait. Well, hold on a second. So you’re saying that he would face prosecution?

MS. NULAND: Again, I’m not – we were in a situation where he was not headed to the United States; he was headed elsewhere.

QUESTION: Right.

MS. NULAND: So I’m not going to get into all of the legal ins and outs about what may or may not have been in his future before he chose to take refuge in the Ecuadorian mission. But with regard to the charge that the U.S. was intent on persecuting him, I reject that completely.

QUESTION: Okay. Fair enough. But, I mean, unfortunately this is – this case does rest entirely on legal niceties. Pretty much all of it is on legal niceties, maybe not entirely. So are you – when you said that the intention was to prosecute, not persecute, are you saying that he does face prosecution in the United States?

MS. NULAND: Again, I don’t – that was not the course of action that we were all on, but let me get back to you on – there was – I don’t think that when he decided to take refuge that was where he was headed, right?

QUESTION: No. He was headed to Sweden.

MS. NULAND: Obviously we have – right. Right. But obviously we have our own legal case. I’m going to send you to Justice on what the exact status of that was. Okay?

QUESTION: Okay. There is – so you’re saying that there is a legal case against him?

MS. NULAND: I’m saying that the Justice Department was very much involved with broken U.S. law, et cetera, but I don’t have any specifics here on what their intention would have been vis-a-vis him. So I’m not going to wade into it any deeper than I already have, which was too far. All right?

QUESTION: Okay. Well, wait, wait. I just have one more. It doesn’t involve the – it involves the whole inviolability of embassies and that kind of thing.

MS. NULAND: Right.

QUESTION: You said that at the beginning that you have not involved yourselves at all, but surely if there was – if you were aware that a country was going to raid or enter a diplomatic compound of any country, of any other country, you would find that to be unacceptable, correct? I mean, if the Chinese had gone in after – into the Embassy in Beijing to pull out the – your – the blind lawyer, you would have objected to that, correct?

MS. NULAND: As I said at the beginning, our British allies have cited British law with regard to the statements they have made about potential future action. I’m not in a position here to evaluate British law, international – as compared to international law. So I can’t – if you’re asking me to wade into the question of whether they have the right to do what they’re proposing to do or may do under British law, I’m going to send you to them.

QUESTION: Right. But there’s – but it goes beyond British law. I mean, there is international law here, too. And presumably the United States would oppose or would condemn or at least express concerns about any government entering or violating the sovereignty of a diplomatic compound anywhere in the world, right?

MS. NULAND: Again, I can’t speak to what it is that they are standing on vis-a-vis Vienna Convention or anything else. I also can’t speak to what the status of the particular building that he happens to be in at the moment is. So I’m going to send you to the Brits on all of that. You know where we are on the Vienna Convention in general, and that is unchanged.

QUESTION: Okay.

MS. NULAND: Okay?

QUESTION: Well, when the Iranians stormed the Embassy in Tehran back in 1979, presumably you thought that was a bad thing, right?

MS. NULAND: That was a Vienna Convention covered facility and a Vienna Convention covered moment. I cannot speak to any of the rest of this on British soil. I’m going to send you to Brits. Okay?

QUESTION: Very quick follow-up. You said there is a case against him by the Justice Department. Does that include --

MS. NULAND: I did not say that. I said that the Justice Department is working on the entire WikiLeaks issue, so I can’t speak to what Justice may or may not have. I’m going to send you to Justice.

QUESTION: Is there a U.S. case against him?

MS. NULAND: I’m going to send you to Justice, because I really don’t have the details. Okay? Thanks, guys.

(The briefing was concluded at 1:19 p.m.)

DPB #146"

And here is an hour long interview released today. It is between Julian Assange and Jorge Gestoso of Uruguay held at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.