Who knows where the time goes?

Posted by Vale

Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving
But how can they know it’s time for them to go?
Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming
I have no thought of time

For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

Sad, deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving
Ah, but then you know it’s time for them to go
But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving
I do not count the time

For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

And I am not alone while my love is near me
I know it will be so until it’s time to go
So come the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again
I have no fear of time

For who knows how my love grows?
And who knows where the time goes?

Quote of the day

 

Posted by Vale

“You’d better get busy, though, buddy. The goddamn sands run out on you every time you turn around. I know what I’m talking about. You’re lucky if you get time to sneeze in this goddamn phenomenal world. … I used to worry about that. I don’t worry about it very much any more. At least I’m still in love with Yorick’s skull. At least I always have time enough to stay in love with Yorick’s skull. I want an honorable goddamn skull when I’m dead, buddy. I hanker after an honorable goddamn skull like Yorick’s.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

Death of a race car

Posted by Vale

I have never loved cars. I side with H.G.Wells when he said that everytime he saw an adult on a bike ‘I no longer despair for the future of the human race’. Or Orwell when he said ‘Four wheels bad, two wheels good’. Or something like that.

But I do understand that some people feel differently, lavishing all sorts of devotion on the mechanical brutes. Even so very few cars are loved enough to have their own obituary. Jimmie Johnson’s Daytona 500 race car No. 48 was one of those special cars. It’s a tragic story that starts with the patient facing its emergency team:

Ten men in matching black-and-blue jumpsuits surrounded the $250,000 car and readied for surgery. One held a motorized saw. Another yanked his gloves tight. Their job was to bring life back to a car in critical condition.

Jimmie, the driver who crashed this beauty, is clearly not the story. Doctors looked at him and, seeing he was only shaken up, focused back on the real victim of this Daytona scrimmage.

“It’s like the ER,” Malec said. “After someone gets into an accident, you clear out the wound, cut it open and find out if she’s curable.”

Mechanics cut out the firewall…Off came the hood, too, like a chest being cracked, so the parties could see the car’s guts. The engine, all 358 cubic inches and 800 horses of it, was salvageable. The rest of the car’s front not so much.

Mechanics crowd round. There is much waving of spanners and the like (forgive me, I am not technical). But in the end not enough could be done and:

They rolled the 48 onto a platform. It lifted the car above the hauler’s main cabin and into the top compartment, behind the pristine backup. In the front of the 48, an open hose still puffed steam, the last breaths of the great machine that gave its life on Lap 2, Turn 1 of the Daytona 500.

I was relieved that the poor thing was carried away on a ‘pristine’ backup. It’s what we’d all want for a loved one. Terrific stuff. You can read the full story here.

All in a state funeral

Posted by Vale

When is a state funeral not a state funeral?

Back in 2008 there was speculation in the press about plans for a state funeral honouring the life and achievements of Lady Thatcher.

The rumours were denied at the time but have never gone away or stopped being controversial. Look at the reactions to the recent film The Iron Lady. It’s clear that the memory of Lady Thatcher still has the power to stir people up. One conservative commentator has has even argued that she should forego the honour – not because she doesn’t deserve one, but because celebrating her life so publicly would divide rather than unite the nation.

Here at GFG we have no political views. We are aloof. We rise above.

We do recall though that the last PM honoured in this way was Sir Winston Churchill – a great man who was himself not universally loved. And we were intrigued by the epetition that appeared recently on the Direct Government site here. It simply states that ‘we the undersigned believe that’:

In keeping with the great lady’s legacy, Margaret Thatcher’s state funeral should be funded and managed by the private sector to offer the best value and choice for end users and other stakeholders.

The undersigned believe that the legacy of the former PM deserves nothing less and that offering this unique opportunity is an ideal way to cut government expense and further prove the merits of liberalised economics Baroness Thatcher spearheaded.

We do not comment on the merits or not of the idea. We do, though, wonder what a privatised ‘state’ funeral might look like?

State funerals are rare. They involve lying in state and a funeral procession in which the coffin is drawn on a gun carriage by sailors from the Royal Navy. Royal Ceremonial Funerals (as for State but minus gun carriage and sailors) happen more frequently. Princess Diana’s and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s funerals’ were Royal Ceremonials.

So what might a ‘private’ state funeral look like? Fewer sailors, but more cars? The cavalcade that took Diana to Althorp would be an example. What could the industry do for Lady Thatcher?

The Good Funeral Guide
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