Well, I call Deceived Wisdom on that! It sounded too spurious. There were claims that fairground owners make this distinction, but not in Britland they don’t. In Britland these contraptions are always called merry-go-rounds only a wannabe Amercun would call it a carousel…so thinking logically, I reckon the difference is not intrinsic to the contraption, it is simply a linguistic artefact of the Atlantic divide. Brits call them merry-go-rounds and perhaps because of our sword-bearing history and driving on the left and all that, here they go clockwise. While Americans call them carousels and in Americaland these contraptions go anti…sorry, counterclockwise. A paragraph in Wikipedia would bear this up, except that they say Europe when they mean Britain (don’t think Germans nor French call these contraptions merry-go-rounds in their native tongue.

If anyone has evidence that my logic on this is flawed, please let me know. Otherwise, this is a snippet for volume two of my book that’s written itself thanks to logic and a Facebook quiz.

Mike asserts that in the US both terms are used interchangeably, well they are here, they’re synonyms, but the English would rarely use the word carousel other than as an affectation. I wonder whether the merry-go-rounds Mike sees going clockwise in the US are imports and that explains why he reckons they shouldn’t be used interchangeably…

My usual mostly nonsense lyrics, of course. The phrase “wicked ways” has been in my head as a possible lyric for a long time and that phrase “been there, done that” was something we thought we’d coined back in the late 80s and deserved an outing even if it is a cliche…

Wicked Ways (Been there, done that)

You and your wicked ways are teaching me nothing
But I’m learning every day
You and your dreams well they’re leading me nowhere
You made it false no way to play

I’ve been down and I know where to fall
But you won’t ever catch me with your scheme
‘Cause I found out, well I taught myself, all about your wicked dreams

‘Cause I’ve been there and done that a thousand times
And I know what it means to lie
But you and your wicked ways won’t find me, lying down to die

Been there and done that a thousand times
And I sure know how to lie
But you and your wicked ways, won’t ever see me cry

Well, I’ve walked alone and I can believe it
There are things better left unsaid
And if you wonder what that really means then I might as well stay in bed

Been there and done that a thousand times
Well, I might as well leave it unsaid

Anyway, Peter Gabriel, “Here comes the flood”. This song is apparently not some quasi-Christian allegory as one might imagine from the lyrics and his penchant for such things in his Genesis days (Supper’s Ready, anyone?). Rather the flood in question is that of a mind flood that would drown us if everyone could hear everyone else’s thoughts all at once. It came to him while out on a walk along clifftops on the South Coast. Drink up dreamers, you’re running dry…

I used a MIDI backing track for the drums and a spot of piano, but recorded doubled vocals, six string acoustic and bass guitar…for those who like a few details. Bass goes direct to hard drive via an M-Audio USB interface and vocals and acoustic head that way via a condenser microphone.

via Daft Punk’s New Album, Random Access Memories, Streaming for Free on iTunes for a Limited Time | Open Culture.

Meanwhile, here’s a Windows app – SmartDeblur – that calls itself a user-friendly tool but has a comprehensive array of features for reducing blur in your photos whether you took them on a super-high resolution digital SLR or with the feeble little camera in your iPhone (tee hee) or other smart phone.

The creators of the app say it can remove motion blur, Gaussian blur and out of focus blur. It also has a blind deconvolution module that disentangle different types of blur in the same photo and make it sharper.

SmartDeblur – blurred images restoration.

Pale Blue Dot

Although I know that the world keeps turning
It never stops, my stomach’s churning
But, I worry about how much we’re burning

The fantasy of a global village
We pull together in some kind of New Age
But there are those set on rape and pillage

I took a trip, a billion miles I was to roam
Looking back on the place that we call home…

This old planet is broken in two, f you like it or not
Some with panic deep in their hearts, Others won’t stop the rot
This old planet is broken anew, If you like it or not
But, I’m worried about it, our pale blue dot

Although I know that we can heal the divides
It will take time coming up to size
Beyond our world she won’t hear our cries

Something happened and we don’t know why
When we look up, we can’t see the sky
And in the end it means we just might die

This old planet is broken in two
Whether you like it or not
There is panic deep in our hearts
I’m just worried about you, our Pale Blue Dot

You can learn more about the NASA image here. The sound with which the song fades is a snippet from the NASA Voyager 1 audio repository with a little added digital delay echo just for fun. I hope it evokes the feeling of Voyager racing endlessly away from our planet. At the time of writing, the space probe was almost 18.5 billion kilometres from Earth, about 125 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

UPDATE: Had some nice comments from the singer-songwriters on songstuff.com:

Monostone – “Great concept. Your voice and guitar sound great too. And ‘Pale Blue Dot’ is a brilliant hook.”

PBoaz – “You cannot escape Bowie comparisons . Very well recorded and performed piece. I think this is a very good piece.”

HoboSage – “I very much dig your guitar playing and singing – as I always do. I also really like the music for this – very cool. I think Pale Blue Dot is a great title and hook, and I dig the serious theme.”

GocartMoz – “I love this. To me, the music carries this one. It has just a fantastic groove. I am also digging your vocals and the guitar break was spot on.”

ClaireCreekProject – “Dig this a lot! Lot’s of neat little surprises… like the fade-outs. Very easy to follow along with and imagine what you had in mind. AND…. it’s totally unique! (that always score high on my like-O-meter) Awesome vocals & guitar work too. Sorry, nothing to whine about…. keep up the good work!”

Ferry0123 – “…your voice reminds me of Julian Lennon, especially when you sing ‘dot’.”

JanHutchinson – “I really like your lyrics, we’re so insignificant when looking at the size comparisons within the universe.”

pskains – “As soon as I saw the title, I had to come in for a listen, being a huge Sagan fan. It’s a good tune. Love the instrumental guitar break. Again, I must say, your voice has a really great quality to it. Really nice stuff.”

via How to Take Pinhole Photos with a Digital Camera.

Just prior to walking our dog today, this little fella alighted on our wing mirror the moment I switched off the engine, spent a couple of minutes squaring up to himself and pecking at the glass. Not sure whether it was aggression, part of a quest for food, or a bizarre and inappropriate courtship attempt. When we returned to our car, (presumably) the same bird was sitting on another car that had parked nearby, gawping at himself in the mirror. I suppose it’s ever slightly possible that he was trying to get at the wing-mirror spiders that are ubiquitous.

The Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus or Parus caeruleus) is a small passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. The bird is easily recognisable by its small size and blue and yellow plumage. The species is commonly resident and non-migratory and is widespread in subarctic Europe and western Asia in deciduous or mixed woodlands, with a preference for oak. They usually nest in holes in trees but will adapt to garden and other nest boxes.

Here’s a close up of the blue tit’s feathers

Blue Tit – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.