Augmented Reality future according to Microsoft

Witch's Spell

Last weekend myself and a few others headed to the Oxfordshire village of Little Tew for a Cotswold caper.

We walked round Chastleton House - a Jacobean mansion.   This place was also popular with this charming Neo-Nazi family all dressed in black - the father had this really cute SS belt buckle on.   There were terrifying and aggressive but you can't fault their cultural taste; their idea of a Saturday afternoon jaunt is right up meine strasse.  Neo-nazis and I don't agree on many things but I think we may have just about found something in common here.  Which is great.

After this we headed to the Rollright Stones, a neolithic stone circle a few miles away. In the centre of the stones a fireplace and evidence of offerings and sacrifice piqued our interest and we happened upon a fold of paper stuck in a nook in one of the stones.   Here is a snap of us on the stones.

 When we tentatively unravelled it we found it was covered in drops of dried blood and some herbs.  The blood and herbs were the trimmings of what can only (and realistically) be understood as a pagan's spell.

Spell reads - and after some research understand this to be a 3by3 spell (apparently).

Goddess of Love

Fairy Apsara

Bring my love Karl

To visit and contact me

my love i see (?)

is so deep

I need to see

if he wanted me

one visit I know

will show and tell

Please bring to me

by the clock strike 12

by the power of 3x3

as i will it so shall be

blessed be

Let's not forget - it was covered in drops of real blood and sprinkled with magic herbs (mistletoe/rosemary {presumably}).  I'm 99% certain that this is  exactly the sort of behavior that gets you sectioned, or worse.  I can safely add that it would really rattle my cage to know that someone was creeping around, letting blood, sprinkling magic and hiding spells in preshistoric stones so that I would appear at midnight; if I did magically appear, I'd really wish I hadn't.

We are all reasonably worried for Matt and Dan.  Dan found the note and therefore presumably broke the current spell which means terrible will happen.  Likewise, a gust of wind blew the magic herbs up and all over Matt - again - this doesn't bode well.    I wish them both luck.

Isolated Sounds

Thanks to Andy Eschaskech for showing me this absolute wondrous site...

A Strangely Isolated Place -  the site features ambient mixes from many different electronic artists.  Brilliant resource for those who like this type of mesmeric audio Rothko - amazing stuff.


Czech aus ist ambient perfection from Marsen Jules - absolutely beautiful sequence of beatless perfection.


isolatedmix 18 - Marsen Jules - Drifting in the Liquid Air by astrangelyisolatedplace

Cyrano's Space Race

Cyrano de Bergerac was famed for his duelling skills as well as his prose.  It appears that his scientific theories deserve equal praise.

Writing in 1657, we see him devising several methods that would hopefully enable a human to reach the moon - something that was not actually managed until 1969.   Clearly a progressive thinker with big ideas, let's have a look at his seven potential methods:

BONE MARROW METHOD

0/10

 VIALS OF DEW METHOD

  0/10

 IRON PLATE & MAGNET METHOD

 0/10

HOT AIR CONTAINER METHOD

 1/10

 SMOKE FILLED GLOBE METHOD

0/10

 MECHANICAL STEEL GRASSHOPPER METHOD



0/10

10/10

Some of Cyrano's ideas are so preposterous that 0/10 is being too generous (practically every occasion).    However the overall mark has to be 10/10.  He worked hard on his ideas and wasn't afraid to think laterally. Getting to the moon isn't easy at the best of times and he fully deserves it. Ultimately got there in the end.