Phil Meloy

Here's an excellent album I managed to find - Moses Taiwa Molelekwa live in Nantes. It's a live recording of his quartet performing at the Fin de siecle Festival in 1997 in a converted warehouse called Tour a Plomb. The CD includes six original tunes, most of which appear on the studio releases but as much shorter versions than when performed live on this recording. The other musicians are South Africans also - Kaya Mahlangu (tenor/sopranu/flute), Fana Zulu (bass and Sello Montwedi (drums).

About as popular as dog shit on the carpet.

I hope sal sees this!

I can't believe you said this Bev.

Hi Sal - the guys are right about London rents these days but if you look around you can still find something. A good place to look is in Loot newspaper or TNT which is a London Australian magazine rather than high street letting agencies. It is better to rent privately dealing directly with the landlord. Your choice of where to live will be influenced by whether you are working in Sunbury or Hemel Hemstead. Hemel Hemstead is slightly north-west of London while Sunbury is just outside to the west. If you are working in Sunbury, Richmond or Kingston upon Thames would be good spots to live. You could probably find a small flat for about £700 per month in these areas if you looked around. Both these have good links to central London. Both are close to the Thames as well as Richmond Park which is enormous. Richmond is actually the last station on the District line tube which is an added advantage. Clapham, and Putney also link to Sunbury by train and are fairly central in London. The advantage of all of these is that you would have a short train journey to work. Who wants to spend several hours a day commuting? From Richmond or Kingston it would also be a very short car journey to work. A new jazz gig has just started up once a week in the Grey Horse pub in Kingston. The closest tube station to Hemel Hemstead is Amersham at the end of the Metropolitan line. Have a look at a map of London and its suurounding areas to get a picture of things.

I wonder how he he discovered that his ears leaked air.

Man can blow up balloon using his ears A Chinese man can blow up balloons and blow out candles with his ears. Wei Mingtang, 55, a factory worker from Guilin city, Guangxi province, discovered his ears leaked air over 30 years ago reports Nanguo Morning News. He then came up with the idea of using them to inflate balloons with the aid of a pipe. On a recent city Spring Festival Party, Wei also blew out 20 candles in a line within 20 seconds using a hose leading out from his ears reports the paper.

Penguins can stay gay A German zoo has scrapped plans to break up homosexual penguin couples following protests from gay rights groups. The Bremerhaven Zoo had earlier flown in four female Humboldt penguins in an attempt to encourage three couples discovered to be all male to reproduce. The zoo originally defended the experiment, claiming that the birds were an endangered species, but following protests from gay rights groups, director Heike Kueck has said that the zoo is abandoning the plan. She said: "Everyone can live here as they please." Kueck said that it was neither her intention nor possible to separate the gay couples by force and interest them in their new female companions. She added that the penguins had shown little interest in their new female companions but said that the programme could have been started too late in the year. Gay groups had earlier protested against "the organised and forced harassment through female seductresses" in an open letter to Bremerhaven's Mayor Joerg Schulz.

Man tied a knot in it A Romanian man ended up in hospital after he tied string around his penis to avoid going to the toilet. Vasile Barbulescu now faces months of complicated surgery to correct the damage caused, according to local press. He was taken to hospital in Galati in southeast Romania where he admitted wrapping string around his penis to put off going to the toilet until he got home. Doctors have said they are unsure whether they can repair the damage and say he faces repeated surgery. Dr Alexandru Iurea who treated the man, said: "He told us he had tied it round really tight. When we finally got it off we saw his penis had massive injuries."

IKEA job interview...

Neither does anyone else.

The controversy continues... Zoo defends bid to mate gay penguins By Kate Connolly in Berlin - [Telegraph, UK] (Filed: 14/02/2005) The director of a German zoo has defended her campaign to mate a group of homosexual male penguins with females, arguing that it is the only way to preserve a dying breed from extinction. Heike Kück said that she had been inundated with criticism by the gay lobby after making public her plan. "We're simply trying to help save a threatened species," she said of the Humboldt penguin, a bird whose homosexual tendencies are well known to zoologists. Six penguins at Bremerhaven Zoo in north-west Germany provoked excitement across the world when, in the absence of any females, they were discovered wandering around in pairs, trying to mate with each other and sitting on stones as if they were eggs. Gay groups reacted with outrage when four female penguins were flown in from Sweden to allow keepers to see if they had any influence on the homosexual pairings. Since then gay activists from as far afield as Australia have been protesting at the zoo's attempts to "cure" the penguins of their homosexuality. The zoo has been bombarded with threatening letters and telephone calls.

Thanks for the link deus. There's some great images in there.

There's nothing like a good follow-up story.

Gay penguins won't go straight www.ananova.com A German zoo's plans to tempt its gay penguins to go straight by importing more females has been declared a failure. The female penguins were flown in especially from Sweden in an effort to encourage the Humboldt penguins at the Bremerhaven Zoo to reproduce. But the six homosexual penguins showed no interest in their new female companions and remained faithful to each other. Zoo Director Heike Kueck said: "The relationships were apparently too strong." A keeper confirmed that the male couples had adopted rocks which they were guarding like eggs in their caves. The zoo has said that it will try again in Spring 2006, because the penguins are an endangered species and need to be encouraged to breed.

Fire-starting doc to pay $450G to family By J.M. Lawrence Thursday, February 10, 2005 A Quincy surgeon agreed yesterday to pay $450,000 to the family of a retired Milton teacher whose throat was accidentally set on fire in the operating room when the doctor used an electrical surgical tool despite an oxygen leak. Attorneys for Dr. Peter N. Friedensohn settled the case with the Shute family after nine days of a civil trial before a Norfolk Superior Court jury. ``The family is pleased this long ordeal is now over,'' attorney William J. Thompson of Lubin & Meyer said. ``They were willing to take it all the way because they believed mistakes were made and nobody was willing to take responsibility.'' Paul J. Shute, 81, died 19 days after the flash fire in the Milton Hospital operating room during a procedure to put a tube in his windpipe to help him breathe. He had burns to his mouth and trachea. Expert witnesses for the doctor testified that Shute's burns were superficial and said he died from heart failure, not the fire. The settlement acknowledges Shute's pain and suffering but does not blame the doctor for his death

Card delivered for Hitler The German Postal Service has delivered a card addressed to Adolf Hitler 60 years after his death. The card had been sent from the UK and was addressed "To Führer Adolf Hitler, Reichstag, German Parliament, Berlin, Germany." It arrived at the German Parliamentary building with a Postal Service comment saying it had been "re-addressed because of faulty address." According to Spiegel Online, parliament officials think the Postal Service has displayed bad taste. But a post spokesman told the website it wasn't up to them to decide not to deliver mail. A spokesman said: "As long as an address exists, cards and letters will still be delivered, regardless of whether the person they are intended for is still alive."

Maybe all those states in the US that are so worried about gay marriage should just import thousands of females from Sweden.

Zoo tempts gay penguins to go straight Ananova.com A German zoo has imported four female penguins from Sweden in an effort to tempt its gay penguins to go straight. The four Swedish females were dispatched to the Bremerhaven Zoo in Bremen after it was found that three of the zoo's five penguin pairs were homosexual. Keepers at the zoo ordered DNA tests to be carried out on the penguins after they had been mating for years without producing any chicks. It was only then they realised that six of the birds were living in homosexual partnerships. Director Heike Kueck said that the zoo hoped to see some baby penguins in the coming months. She said that the birds had been mating for years and one couple even adopted a stone that they protected like an egg. Kueck said that the project has the support of the European Endangered Species Programme because the penguins, which are native to South America, are an endangered species. A biologist will be on hand to monitor the experiment. But introducing the Bremerhaven penguins to their new Swedish friends may not be as successful as hoped after earlier experiments revealed great difficulties in separating homosexual couples. In case they show no interest, the zoo has also flown in two new male penguins "so that the ladies don't miss out altogether", Kueck added.

For speakers you might wish to check out the Mordaunt Short Avant 908s. I don't think they're that widely known in the States but they're distributed there by Marantz. Here's a review of them: Mordaunt Short Avant 908s I have a pair of their MS 906s which are pretty similiar - minus the side throw woofer and am extremely happy with them. I think the 908s retail for about $1100 - the 906s for $800.

Fire engine used to collect pizza A Sydney fire station allegedly missed an emergency call because one of the crew was using the only fire engine to pick up a pizza. The New South Wales Fire Brigade has launched an inquiry into the incident at Maroubra fire station, reports ABC News. After picking up his pizza, the fireman allegedly picked up some friends and took them for a ride. During the time the fire engine was away, the station received an emergency call and was unable to respond. Assistant Fire Commissioner John Benson insisted there was no risk to the community as two other fire crews responded to the alarm. "This is extremely rare - I mean I would say that this incident is unheard of in the New South Wales Fire Brigades in regards to utilising fire appliances in an inappropriate manner and as I said it's being thoroughly investigated," he said. But state opposition emergency services spokesman Andrew Humpherson said: "This is not a humorous matter, this was a fire truck and somebody could have died."

Yeah some of them are pretty brutal - I'd be surprised if the person involved didn't get pretty badly hurt in a few of them.

My apologies if any of you have seen any of these before. I recognise a couple of them. Ouch!

Drivers made to hop like frogs Truck drivers who are caught speeding in an Indian state are being made to hop like frogs. Police in Bihar dish out the humiliating punishments instead of taking offenders to court, reports Newindpress.com. For the most popular punishment, leapfrog, speeding truck drivers have to sit on their haunches, hold their ears and hop for almost half a kilometre. And the drivers are made to chant the name of the political leader they like most while they are being punished. One policeman was quoted as saying: "If they remember their leader when they are being punished, it's like they are insulting them. If they have any sense, they won't do the offence again."

I thought I heard Bush talking about them just last nite. Through my heavy earlids I hear he has passed some law about these harbourers of pleasure. No/ You sure that weren't the Syrians - mind you they tend to not bring him a lot of pleasure at the moment?