The 20th century of Green Bamboo

The Modern Age.

I’m now in my 20th century of blog posts. The boys at WordPress have obviously been fiddling about so that in recent days, whenever I post a new entry, I’m told what number it is. This should be the 1902nd. It would be nice for the 2000th post to coincide with the 6th anniversary of Green Bamboo in November, but that post won’t be happening much before December by my reckoning. [27.09.14. Having trashed so many pointless blog posts over the summer, I’ve sent the blog back to the 18th century.]

I wonder which personal blog has the highest number of entries in the world. I know. Let’s ask Google. Oh, hang on a mo’. Since Google+ appeared, Google has been neutered beyond the first page of results.

Yes, I was expecting that Google+ would be blocked (which is why I didn’t even bother trying the service; apparently, it was live briefly before the imperial zombies panicked as usual and had to ask the nurse to fetch their especially absorbent underpants to deal with all that zombie diarrhoea which comes squirting out the moment there might be the slightest hint of an opportunity for independent thought), but that seems to have buggered up Google the search engine. (Currently gmail seems not to be working, but I assume that’s one of those mysterious service failures.) [27.09.14. I don’t see much point in G+. I’d perhaps see some point to it if it was populated by people I know, but it isn’t, and I have no real interest in it.]

Of course, things could be worse because this could be Iran where even having a little harmless fun ist verboten. (Iranian youths arrested for public water pistol fight in Tehran.) Mind you, I wouldn’t be surprised if the imperial government issued the some fatwa against having fun with water pistols to university students here. Iran and the Empire are like joy vampires, sucking the happiness out of life. [27.09.14. There was another, similar case just recently of a group of young people who have been prosecuted for dancing together; and the case of some British-Iranian wo­man who is in trouble for watching a volleyball match. There is some saying about getting the government you deserve, but I don’t think the Iranians deserve this.]

Remember the accident I mentioned the other day where one moron on an electric scooter crashed into another one? Well, today as I was heading from Baoli to 远东百贸, I was following someone on an electric scooter who turned right onto 中山路. Meanwhile, Mr Blinkers starts walking out across the road without even looking. Scooter Man skirts round in front of him, and even although I was right behind Scooter Man, Mr Blinkers kept walking. There was no accident, but Mr Blinkers is one of those brain-dead morons who deserves to win a Darwin Award.

Over on Sinosplice, there’s a report about a poll on some Chinese website which asked the question What can save this country? The most popular answer by quite some way was “There’s no hope; don’t want to save it”. Oddly enough that might just about be right. Let the Empire revert to the way it was during the Warring States Period (or the 19th century), but without the warring; let it be what it ought to be and has tried to be for large periods of its history: a collection of disparate nations inhabited by a Sprachbund. But at the moment, the Empire remains a megalomaniac’s idea of a country.

A blast from the past

Rear of the Year.

A long time ago, when Green Bamboo was in its infancy, I happened to mention Siân Lloyd after the news that her long-term relationship with Lembit Opik had come to an end when he opted for half a Romanian novelty act which was about half his age. That, as we know, has also come to an end along with Lembit’s parliamentary career. Some time not long after that, I discovered that Siân had won the Rear of the Year Award. I think I posted a picture and, as a consequence, I got quite a lot of hits for that for a time.

Fast forward to the present day. After my first few attempts to access my home page failed without even getting as far as officially failing, I skipped off to The Guardian where I was able to read the stories beyond the front page until I went to the comment section where I could get no further. I decided to go to The Independent, which seems less prone to abuse, and there – what should I find? – but the winner of Rear of the Year 2011, Carol Vorderman.

The last time I remember seeing anything about Carol Vorderman was when she wore some dress (BAFTA award ceremony about ten years ago?) which had the Mail and Mirror hacks all hot and flustered because they thought she wasn’t dressing her age.

Has the summer heat finally arrived or are we experiencing another blip?

In The Mysteries of Udolpho, Madame Montoni has finally had the decency to up and die, leaving Emily her estates in France. (Cue much gnashing of teeth and moustache twirling by Montoni.) She now thinks that the mysterious figure which haunts the battlements of the castle might be Valancourt, but I think that’s unlikely with my money still being on Signora Laurentini.

BMW are squeezing out another Mini, I see. This time its a coupé which looks like a three-way cross between a Mini, and Audi TT, and a BMW SUV. According to the story on the Evo website (New Mini Coupe news and pictures), it’s meant to be in competition with the Audi TT. I’m not sure who drives Audi TTs here, but I’m guessing that it’s a WAG car, which, depending on the model, is somewhere in the Hyundai Coupé-BMW Z4 range.