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Reader Comments (51)
Thanks for the heads-up - they are now both sat nicely next to each other in my "Following" list.
Sadly I see they don't seem to follow each other yet!
I see that he is using a photo of himself (as his I.D.) leaning on a piece of vital evidence which was much mocked in the famous video clip....!
Incidentally, see my comment on unthreaded from earlier today on the same person and his court case prospects.
Everytime I get to post 3 consecutive comments I begin to feel like a troll!
"I begin to feel like a troll!"
Me too. They are delicious!
But don't overcook them..they taste like leather
As a troll, Peter, you cannot feed yourself. So its off to bed without dinner.
RB, you have forgotten your basic learning on trolls, so please refer "The Hobbit", chapter 2, Roast Mutton. This is where Gandalf fools my old, but dead, troll friends, Bert, Tom and William into not being holed up before morning dawns. They suffered, what we trolls call a fate worse than death by being turned to stone.
This is the "Troll bible" in survival techniques so me and my mates have been safely tucked up in one of our caves for hours with half legs of mutton, some grey squirrels and an occasional piece of human or dwarf.
By the way, let's get back to the subject..please.
Er... What was the subject?
Good one Anteros..
My comments above (#2 & 3) on M E Mann to start with...and my other comment on unthreaded
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the books Mann so kindly identifies. I wonder if he'll also go on to recommend "The Chilling Stars, "Watermelons" and, of course, "The Hockey Stick Illusion", being the open-minded person that he is.
Oh no - not another f....g elf!
To quote an early listener to Tolkien reading his latest work. LotR is one of the most inane and unreadable books ever to have emerged from Oxford...and that is setting a high bar.
Let us hear no more of him or his drivelling nonsense. I almost hanker for our real resident troll ...
Michael Mann is also on Facebook.
Here's a photo of him looking for Polar Bears in Manitoba
http://on.fb.me/owap7D
There's more to the Mann than just tree rings.
Who <> our resident troll?
andy
Wait, I know what that is,...it is Gavin, Mann and these other celebrities going to the 'tundra' in this thing that looks right out of Star Wars,....'looking for polar bears'
Mann's Facebook pictures are great. There's even one of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Ben Santer looks a bit serious though. Looks like he's about to punch someone.
Yeah, hanging around with Stewart Brand (= good thing). Spencer hanging around with Creationists (= bad thing). Yeah.
Mann provides this insight into himself on his Facebook page:
Thanks Cathy--yes, the Vatican has taken a very enlightened view about climate change. I continue to believe that the faith community can, and will, play an important role in raising awareness over the threats posed by climate change.
This was in response to his rant on the Vail Valley Voices
http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20111001/EDITS/110939988/1021&ParentProfile=1065
Latimer Alder's opinionated comment on Lord of The Rings: (To quote an early listener to Tolkien reading his latest work. LotR is one of the most inane and unreadable books ever to have emerged from Oxford...and that is setting a high bar.)
This was Tolkien READING his book(s), probably on BBC Steam Radio aeons ago.
Things have changed Latimer, now we can have our own copies of the books in our very own homes and if you have never read them, that's your problem.
In our house they rank as the most read books alongside Nevil Shute, P G Wodehouse, Maeve Binchy, Isaac Asimov, Thomas Keneally (Schindler's Ark), Thomas Kinsella (The Tain) and others.
Don't criticise unless you have tried.
PW
To the above list please add "Ultra Goes to War" (1980) by Ronald Lewin. This is the story of the wonderful people of Bletchley Park in WW2.
PW
Andy Scrase above on M E Mann: Mann provides this insight into himself on his Facebook page:etc. I managed to get a brief comment in on the Vaticans attitude to cAGW::
(Cathy said:)
The Vatican's Permanent Observer to the United Nations has praised the IPCC 4th Assessment report you worked on:
October 2 at 12:44pm · Like
Michael E. Mann Thanks Cathy--yes, the Vatican has taken a very enlightened view about climate change. I continue to believe that the faith community can, and will, play an important role in raising awareness over the threats posed by climate change.
October 2 at 3:21pm · Like
Peter Walsh Cardinal Pell in Australia is "off song" then with the Vatican as he thinks totally in the opposite direction on Climate Change cAGW
@peterwalsh
I have tried, Peter, I have tried.
Many of my college chums studied Eng. Lit. and spent their 1st year time studying Anglo Saxon and the like a la Tolkien. Some were so moved as to spend their idle time (and English students at Oxford have a lot of it) in the Eagle and Child in the hope that something from the Inklings would rub off on them. Ironically they probably ignored the guy sitting in the corner - Colin Dexter writing Inspector Morse.
Eventually I was persuaded to read the 'best novel ever written' and 'a fantastic adventure story'. I sincerely tried for 100 pages before I gave up in disgust.
Plot summary: Chaps (elvish) ride along a road. A rustle in the woods. The elvine creatures dash off the road and get lost They are scared. They find the road again. Repeat ad nauseam.
If you want fantasy stuff, then TH White's 'The Once and Future King' is a far better yarn. I still go to the Bird and Baby when visiting Oxford....but mostly for the pies and decent beer. And to give thanks for Colin Dexter, Morse and Lewis. But never to prasie the Lord of the F....g Rings
Just to finish.
The original comment was atttributed to Hugo Dyson - who was a fellow Inkling and heard Tolkien read aloud in the pub above. It was probably the first review of the work...and made all others redundant.
Latimer, I agree to an extent..! Yes you do have to persevere to get to the action, nuts and bolts of LOtR but when you get through the early stages they are 3 great books and the story of good overcoming evil is just wonderful. In the films, which I have on DVD, they unfortunately changed a tiny bit right at the end when Aragorn (the King now) addresses the assembled multitude and praises the hobbits. This tiny change almost ruined the ending for me.
However, we can agree to disagree.
I mentioned a book about Bletchley Park and WW2. (Ultra Goes to War)
If you ever manage to find a copy of this, (mine is paperback and I bought it in a bookshop in Manners Mall, Wellington, N.Z. in the early 1980s) you will have the same problem.
But this is a real life story and demands 100% attention all the time and gives a brilliant insight into the story of the breaking of the German Enigma codes in it's almost 400 pages.
Rgds, PW
P.S. I withdraw the word opinionated.
Is this tweetworthy?
'So of the 32 members of the IPCC’s core writing team that we might have expected to be world-class scientists, 11 of them (34%) are publicly affiliated with environmental NGOs.'
From the latest researchings of Donna LaFramboise..
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/10/04/wwf-influence-at-the-highest-levels-of-the-ipcc/
Since the comments in this thread seem to be all over the place I thought I'd add my bit which, oddly enough, I'll manage to connect speeding, climate change and LoTR.
I was caught speeding a few weeks ago (35 in a 30) and opted for the "speed awareness" course instead of the 3 points. The course was quite good apart from one entirely unrelated section called "Eco driving". The two instructors looked somewhat sheepish and said that all government approved courses they ran now had to have a section like this. I never thought to ask them under what regulation it was required as I wanted to get out as fast as possible. Does anybody know of a regulation about this?
The "eco driving" section had what you would expect as the introduction: Driving emits CO2 - CO2 causes climate change - We are all going to die. I might be exaggerating the all going to die bit. The rest of the eco section was things like use the correct tyre pressure, empty your boot (trunk) etc.
As for LoTR. I first start reading this (and The Hobbit) as a child in the sixties when I had to spend six weeks at home recovering from being run down by a speeding motorist. The reading material available to me was Enid Blyton, Captain W.E. Johns, E. E. "Doc" Smith and Tolkien. I opted for Smith and Tolkien with the occasional Biggles.
Okay okay. I did read some Enid Blyton as well, but only one book.
or maybe 2.
@peter walsh
If you sincerely promise that 'Ultra Goes to War' has no f...g elves in it at all, I will put it on my look-out-for list. :-)
Terry S, my fault for the thread being all over the place. I apologise and will go back in my shell.
Latimer, absolutely no F*****g elves.
Paperback is Arrow Books ISBN 0 09 922770 3 (Arrow edition 1980, 1st published Hutchinson 1978)
> Latimer, absolutely no F*****g elves.
But plenty of celibate ones.....
@Peter Walsh
Do you know 'Between Silk and Cyanide: a Codemaker's War 1941-45' by Leo Marks?
Some of the cryptography left me behind but I thoroughly enjoyed the book.
@ Messnger..
No I don't know this but I will look around for it on your recommendation.
I too am not a cryptographer but once it ain't too much over my head it sounds like it might be interesting.
Tks
PW
Terry S...very amusing
Now that a book club has been organised on the Bishop's blog..back to MANN-ing the ramparts kids!
re Mann's tweet.
My post above at 0932 and my comment re Cardinal Pell..it appears this has been removed from the Mann Tweet on Twitter
@peterwalsh
I'm an English Lit. & Lang. Oxon grad. Tolkien's son was lecturing then on Old English. The perfect remedy for insomnia.
Eagle and Child
Bird and Baby
Fowl and Foetus
any more?
But not a lot.
How do you find Tolkien compares with Joyce?
Glad to find some fellow Tolkien-loathers. Loathe all elvish tripe, inc. H Potter, and sci-fi and f***king Wagner.
@Mike Jackson
Joyce and Tolkien? Easy...no f...g elves ... and I am with Latimer on this one... in the 1970's, on the playground, it was separate crowd who carried LotR around. 2001 a Space Odyssey was another... You had to be "in" to read those two...
Not OT - both made of carbon. And in LotR's case a lot of it... Hang on maybe it does have something going for it after all?
Still as a non-tweeter (and never will be) both are better than Mann's contribution to the social web... give me f...g elves any day...
@bill - don't you get me started on Harry Potter ;-)...
Now if only I could link in Tolkien, Harry Potter, climate sensitivity,and the size of the Artic ice we could get this thread to go ballistic...
We ever have are own House Trolls...
@Mike Jackson
Tried Joyce several times over the years, I don't like to give up so I kept banging away at it but the banging hurt my head so much I gave it away.
The only thing that I had to give up on where Tolkien and LOtR was concerned was the Silmarillion. It is just a few feet away from me on the bookshelves, unread-mostly. Or almost totally unread to be honest.
I prefer them in translation, as I find they suffered in the original.
'The Dubliners' is the Rosetta Stone.
==========
Not with a boil,with a snowfall.
============
"'The Dubliners' is the Rosetta Stone."
Whiskey in the jar? Should help!
The "followers of Mann" has a nice ring to it. The people he's following are also interesting in an SNA kind of way.
As for trolls, someone has been busy tagging the bridges around me with 'Troll below?' which gives me a chuckle on the walk to work. For Joyce, there was a culture festival recently and had strange people wandering around reciting passages from Ulysses, which put me in mind of Snowcrash. That's one of my favorite books and doesn't have elves, but does have an Aleut with attitude and reason. Now for more Bushmills.
MANN should read "The Terror" by Dan Simmons then pass it/tweet it onto Stieg.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Terror-Dan-Simmons/dp/0553818201/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
Go Peter...
Stewart Lee on Harry Potter
"Have you read the new Harry Potter, ...Harry Potter and the Tree of Nothing"?
he he!
My kids loved having The Hobbit read to them 30 years ago, but were bored stiff by LotR. Good judges even so young.
But I will admit that the films were worthwhile - just to see New Zealand in all its natural glory, I ignored the ridiculous "plot".
I'd recommend Most Secret War by R V Jones - an insider's account of the application of science in WW2, by a physicist who was recruited into the close circle of scientists advising Churchill. Now re-issued by Penguin (abridged?) - it gets 5-stars on Amazon. He knew, of course, of the crucial importance of the Bletchley work, but stayed silent when he wrote that book many years ago.
A Professor Jones worthy of the title !
There is a superbly crisp takedown of Michael Mann by Martin Hertzberg over at the WUWT site - October 5. Mann had called Hertxberg a charlaton, what a joke.
John in London says:
"
I'd recommend Most Secret War by R V Jones - an insider's account of the application of science in WW2,"
Yes, agree with that John
I have an original copy Coronet edition paperback printed 1979 of 702 pages on my shelves. 1st edition by Hamish HaMilton 1978,
BBC TV series..The Secret War.
ISBN 0 340 24169 1
Rgds PW
I have just re-ordered the new Penguin version. And last night I googled "R V Jones" - some fascinating entries, a giant of a scientist compared with some of the pygmies in the Warmist camp.
And he was a great teacher, evidently. Always explaining Occam's Razor. Using the OR approach - any gang that tries to eliminate the MWR and to suppress all criticism immediately looks untrustworthy to me.
I doubt if RV Jones would have had much time for the Warmist camp - or trolls.
Read at Climate Audit that Mann is on a sabatical researching how to improve the communictaion of climate science to the public. Maybe his twitter account and his facebook page (have you seen it? the man, no pun intended, has literally left the reservation) are his two big ideas!
I guess re-writing history didn't work out for him!