Treehouses

From David Thompson's Friday roundup comes a collection of German Treehouses. They are incredibly impressive and put the rickety dollhouses seen on these shores to shame.

Testing Tanks

Does exactly what it says on the tin (except they're not tanks).

Litterers "are like the Wests"

People who drop sweet wrappers are acting like a Gloucester couple who tortured, raped and murdered at least 12 young women, an Anglican bishop has said.

In a letter featured in parish magazines in the Diocese of Lichfield, the Bishop of Stafford, Gordon Mursell, wrote: "Fred and Rosemary West represent merely the most extreme form of a very common philosophy of life: I will do what makes me happy, and if that causes others to suffer, hard luck."

"In fact you could argue that, by our refusal to face the truth about litter, we are as guilty as they were - we are in effect kidnapping young women and submitting them to a brutal ordeal of torture and rape before murdering them and burying them in the garden."

He said people were "right to be disgusted at these crimes" but that "mere disgust is too convenient".

"There are lessons for all of us to learn," he added.

Battlestar Operatica

I've made no secret of my love for the reimagined Battlestar Galactica and one of the features that makes it so unique is its soundtrack;
Bear McCreary's compositions are astounding in their originality, their influences, and in the sheer quantity he is able to score for what is a weekly television series.

Best. Video. Ever.

If you don't agree: you're wrong.

Going On

I failed to pick up on quite how amazing this song was when the second Gnarls Barkley album was released, but I now agree with Kanye West, this is the best song on it.

A Popular Choice

David Thompson has a post up about the horror of Guardianistas at Boris Johnson's election. The 'racist' and 'snob' epithets continue to be popular - all that hard-hitting research by Compass must have really swayed opinions - but the comment that really underlines the left's problem with Boris is Vivienne Westwood's:

"Boris as mayor? Unthinkable. It just exposes democracy as a sham, especially if people don’t vote for Ken."

Johnson won a bigger mandate on a bigger turnout; democracy hasn't been exposed as a sham, it has been demonstrated in action.

An Unfortunate Choice

The LibDems probably ought to regret their choice for London Mayoral candidate; from Iain Dale:

"Unbelievable. Brian Paddick just admitted on BBC London that he had given his second preference to Lindsey German, the Left List Candidate! Words almost fail me."

Bear Grylls

Tonight's episode saw our intrepid adventurer facing yet another generously shot "sheer rockface" - this time not once, but twice - which led me once more to the inevitable question/survival tip at the heart of his whole 'Man vs. Wild' shtick: why doesn't he just buy a fucking map?

"Without firing a shot..."

This footage underscores pretty well just how foolish John Reid was when he described the prospect of Britain's deployment in Helmand. That we could come out of that place without a battle is not just unlikely, believing such an obvious fairy tale demonstrates a wilful ignorance. Not believing it, but asserting it anyway, demonstrates a much more serious problem.

The footage comes from At War, an upcoming documentary about the war in Afghanistan. Proper coverage of the fight for Afghanistan's future is slowly trickling out now, but it is long overdue.