~

[pat grimshaw]

My friends tell me this is the most exquisite building in the world— despite it being basically one room.

They also say it's impossible to catch it within a camera lens.

 

[zoltanspawn]

My friends tell me this is the most exquisite building in the world— despite it being basically one room.

They also say it's impossible to catch it within a camera lens.

It is exquisite, isn't it?

Now, just never mind the guards who zip around on roller skates blowing whistles when people touch the inlays. Also, never mind the pollution that's slowly turning the moonlight into suds. Or Agra, just outside.

All that, it still glows.

 

[Latimer]

If only the Japanese would issue an imperial fatwa for all the rest of us.

Amazingly even public restrooms in Japan often have toilets that offer washing and drying as an option. Some of the buildings also broadcast a chirping sound, presumably to alert a blind person that a toilet is nearby. These modern restrooms are as handsomely built and detailed as the best modern and neo-traditional architecture in the country.

 

[pat grimshaw]

It is exquisite, isn't it?

Now, just never mind the guards who zip around on roller skates blowing whistles when people touch the inlays. Also, never mind the pollution that's slowly turning the moonlight into suds. Or Agra, just outside.

All that, it still glows.

The parsimonious pedant within me would be distressed at so much expensive grandiosity for a deceased wife but I suppose I should be thinking of all the millions of tourist dollars.

I guess this building is similar in that lots of people come to see its exterior but haven't the faintest idea of its function.

 

[jbrown329]

The parsimonious pedant within me would be distressed at so much expensive grandiosity for a deceased wife but I suppose I should be thinking of all the millions of tourist dollars.

I guess this building is similar in that lots of people come to see its exterior but haven't the faintest idea of its function.

It's the Sydney Opera house (I didn't have to look it up). Never even been to Australia, but have seen images/film of it on the TV for years. I'd like to see both inside and out. Wouldn't attend an opera though.

 

[pat grimshaw]

... it still glows.

Is that because of the ceramic tiles reflecting light? Or are you speaking metaphorically?

 

[pat grimshaw]

...Wouldn't attend an opera though.

Opera and classical music is better appreciated at home in comfort with a good CD.

 

[pat grimshaw]

So much for civilisation when it is deemed necessary that a religious body gives instructions on how to clean your arse.

I saw a TV doco how the 21st century British Army has to teach their new chav recruits how to shower and wash themselves.

 

[pat grimshaw]

I hear that Sanjeev Rathore was obliged to cut off the nose of his wife Kamleshin because she couldn't pay the over £550 dowry due to him on marriage.

(It happened in Shahjahanpur and the pictures are on the Interweb)

(BTW: I'm not one of those clamouring for the so-called marriage-equality")

 

[jbrown329]

Opera and classical music is better appreciated at home in comfort with a good CD.

Opera makes my head hurt. I guess that I have no 'culture'. I can take a bit of classical.

 

[jbrown329]

I saw a TV doco how the 21st century British Army has to teach their new chav recruits how to shower and wash themselves.

How damn stupid does one have to be not to figure out how to wash themselves?

 

[pat grimshaw]

Opera makes my head hurt. ... I can take a bit of classical.

Yes. Opera was a popular form of night-time entertainment in the days before people had TV and movies. So it isn't easy for our generation to be bothered with it.

As I said earlier, it's easiest to appreciate it at home with a CD at home of 'opera excerpts' or 'highlights' or even one of those CDs where they play the good music WITHOUT the singing.

And, then later, if you're motivated try a CD of the more tuneful ones like Carmen or The Magic Flute.



(I had to understand it all as part of my job and so have experienced about 60 of the best operas. Most of them I would not want to sit through again but I have enjoyed many performances of Puccini's Turandot.)

 

[jbrown329]

Every year here is the Royal Fireworks Concert. The local Symphony sets up on the floating stage in the park and performs a classical concert. The final movement is choreographed with fireworks. I've went down several years and watched.

 

[frankfrank]

2.32kg = 5 lb 1.5oz per child.

You're saying they lose 1/10th of their body weight in shit?

I noticed the improbable statistic right away, too. (Though not entirely accurate, but well within the margin of error, my mind converts kg/pounds-ounces instantly.) Shit AND piss. The article only said "waste" not "excrement" or "feces." That's STILL a rather ambitious statistic, methinks. That's even more than I do on some days and I weigh three or four times as much as those children.

It's the Sydney Opera house (I didn't have to look it up). Never even been to Australia, but have seen images/film of it on the TV for years. I'd like to see both inside and out. Wouldn't attend an opera though.

Been there, for a ballet. "The Dream" based on Shakespeare. (I never read Midsummer Night's Dream, so I couldn't recognize and compare stories.) Is this the most recognized landmark in the Southern Hemisphere? Or perhaps the ALIEN statues on Easter Island? Or Macchu Pichu, Uluru (Ayers Rock), and the mountaintop Cristo Redentor (Christ The Redeemer) in Rio de Janeiro**, are some other easily recognized things in the southern half of the world. A picture of the Antarctica ice cap, somebody might guess as Greenland instead. Yeah I DO wonder which one most people recognize on sight.

**That DOES sound a lot better than January River, doesn't it?

Opera and classical music is [STRIKE]better[/STRIKE] appreciated at home in comfort with a good CD.

Second, only to BEING THERE. (I'm not talking about Sydney...I'm talking about ANY venue.) At a concert symphony, an opera, whatever, you're there for that purpose AND NOTHING ELSE, and so is everybody else, and there *is* an energy of enjoyment surrounding me entirely. Also, I know that the phone isn't going to ring. I also can't accidentally glance off to the side and get the distraction, as subliminal as that distraction may be, that there's that pile of work, or something else, that has to be done. No, it's not there - it's somewhere away, back at home. I've managed to escape all that when I'm at a venue.

 

[pat grimshaw]

How many public restrooms have you built....

Tomorrow is World Toilet Day. We CAN contribute.

http://www.worldtoiletday.info

Excrement left in India’s streets could fill 8 swimming pools daily!

It is the world’s fastest growing economy yet 41million of them excrete in the streets and rivers and temples and lakes.

This the elevated toilet in the Liberian town of Monrovia which, as you know, was named by the American Colonization Society to honour James Monroe, the President of the USA.

 

[rareboy]

And of course, you can just leave your shit right here like Grimshaw does.

 

[Zeno Lorea]

Whether or not it's correct to detect some measure of prejudice in Pat's focus on this problem (are you interested in travelling to India, Pat?) he remains correct that the problem is outrageous.

Why aren't better sewer systems in place? Why are so many of the streets still littered with garbage and shit? What resources are the public willing to spend on addressing the terrific problems the slums present? What about healthcare for the poor? I find the questions infuriating.

If issues of healthcare, public spaces and sanitation are divisive in our home countries, I assure you that the complications India faces are multiplied a hundredfold. Politics, corruption, infrastructure, communalism, class, caste, resignation, environment, language, history, on and on. It's not easily solvable.

Corruption, class, caste,... Allow me to add one more force of retrograde: religions.

 

[Zeno Lorea]

How damn stupid does one have to be not to figure out how to wash themselves?

If they're really cute, they can't be stupid enough for me. I'll teach them with lots of love and patience.

 

[rareboy]

Corruption, class, caste,... Allow me to add one more force of retrograde: religions.

Pretty much this.

In a country still very much divided by caste...there are people who have no voice in their country, they are the poorest of the poor.

They portend what the US could look like.

 

[pat grimshaw]

Pat, one of the interesting things about caste is that it's almost totally invisible to an outsider, and highly visible to an Indian. Surnames communicate caste status, but unless one is familiar with the constellation of surnames they won't indicate much to you. I've always found this amenable since I don't care if I'm talking to a royal or a peon. ...

I wonder about this person's caste.

He works in the capital and largest city of Bangladesh. It is one of the world's most populated cities, with a population of 17 million.

His job is to go down and scrape out the blockages out of the sewers for the Dhaka City Corporation.