Fargo

After the old chap up the close has spent weeks sawing and clearing stuff by hand, the Council's contractors have finally arrived to clear the dead wood by the stream at the back of our plot that was threatening to collapse over our drive (and car). It shouldn't be noteworthy, but I'm gratified to see that one of the three chainsaw-wielding, chipper-feeding bodies is a woman: there must surely be a market for a (non-pink) "my little chainsaw" to counteract all the reactive, repressive, gender-normative crap in the stores.

Business as usual

Images from 1968 (Chicago), 1984 (San Francisco) and 2008 (from here); prompted by listening to Short Sharp Shocked this afternoon and being reminded just how good an album it is.

Does anyone actually need reminding that Obama not being McCain doesn't mean - whatever happens in November - that there's going to be any real change in the US? The walls are closing in everywhere and I can't see anything happening to stop, let alone reverse, that in the foreseeable.

Have a nice day, and remember that the innocent have nothing to fear.