The Ascent of Man (and descent...)

Bonus Friday joke 

No caption needed

Friday Joke - Noah and the adders

When Noah's ark had finally come to a rest on top of mount Ararat, and when the waters had receded, Noah and his family - along with all the animals - left the ark, and God told them to go forth and be fruitful . nd re-populate the Earth.

Noah dispatched the animals with the instructions to go out and multiply.  Soon there were baby lions and tigers and sheep and goats and frogs and every other sort of animal... except the adders. The adders refused to multiply, they would only add.

And Noah fearing the wrath of God who had told him to make ALL the animals multiply called his family together and explained the problem.

Noah's oldest son Sham was a smart kid who had an idea. He took the two disobedient snakes and locked them in the woodshed.

Two weeks later they came back and opened the woodshed door and out slivered the snakes followed by 20 baby adders. Noah was ecstatically happy.

"Sham my Son, how did you do this? Before you put them into the wood shed the adders would only add. Now look at them, they have multiplied. Its a miracle!"

"No father its not a miracle, just maths".

"I got them to use logs!"

Wednesday Movie - Wildlife

Nice simple but very pleasing video from the WWF about living on a connected planet (from Shane via FB).

Two Pandas just arrived in Edinburgh Zoo on loan from China. It's the first time in 17 years that there have been an randy pandas in the UK - this is what they will probably getting up to

And finally a great video about the logistics of Noah's ark.

Cowieswells Update

Work has almost finished on the steading (barns) at Cowieswells and it looks stunning. There are some timelapse movies of the roof going on here. They took the scaffolding down today and we got a first glimpse of the place in its restored glory.

The steading looks huge and its great to see it with a roof, doors and windows. Lots of space which I have already started filling with crap! We have plans for workshops, storage, climbing wall, animals etc. This is so much fun, as I drove down there today it was really cold and sunny and as I came over the hill into Stonehaven I felt so alive and happy. It really feels like it is all coming together.

I have been researching the place a bit. It seems that the last people to live in the bothy moved out in the 1950's and I found an aerial photo from 1973 which shows a working farm in much better shape than when we bought it. If you look closely at the picture you can see the former owner on the left side of the house, looking up at the plane. I find this both intriguing and also rather sad because I know what is going to happen to this fit and healthy looking young man, standing proud on his farm with his well tended vegetable plot and his animals.

The plans for the house are now complete and we go to tender this week.

Fifty Thousand Hits

Its been a while since I checked Statcounter so I was pleasantly suprised when I logged in and found that Karmasotra has hit more that 50,000 hits - that's quite a lot for a blog that doesn't have any theme or purpose beyond random stories, rants jokes and the odd movie.

The stats are displayed below, it needs to indicate that there is a stable readership of about 270 hits per month and progressively increasing number of unique visits each month. Presumably that reflects that there is now so much content (crap) that the site comes up more and more on Google searches.  

Thanks for reading and if you have any feedback I would be happy to hear it.  In the meantime I will try and write something more interesting in the coming months.

Wednesday Movie

Three movies this week with no theme
The first is by me and its the latest version of the timelapse of the roof going on our steading (barn)
The second is a total crazy guy flying a jet suit, straight out of batman, this is for real
And finally some fairly crazy Spaniards showing a total lack of respect for the sea (turn the volume down)

Friday Joke - When Grandma goes to Court

In a trial, a small-town Southern prosecuting attorney called his first witness, an elderly, grandmotherly looking woman to the stand. He approached her and asked, 'Mrs. Jones, do you know me?' She responded, 'Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a boy, and frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you'll never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you.'

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, 'Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?'

She again replied, 'Why yes, I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can't build a normal relationship with anyone, and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him.'

The defense attorney nearly died.

The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench and, in a very quiet voice, said,

'If either of you idiots asks her if she knows me, I'll send you both to the electric chair.'