In the Dark

Leonard Cohen has paid tribute to Marianne Ihlen, the woman who inspired ‘So Long Marianne’ who died last week.

Writing on Facebook, Cohen asked that this letter to him from Jan Christian Mollestad be used in his memorial. Jan Christian Mollestad is currently completing a biographical film about Marianne.

“Marianne slept slowly out of this life yesterday evening. Totally at ease, surrounded by close friends,” the letter began. “Your letter came when she still could talk and laugh in full consciousness. When we read it aloud, she smiled as only Marianne can. She lifted her hand, when you said you were right behind, close enough to reach her.”

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It continued, “It gave her deep peace of mind that you knew her condition. And your blessing for the journey gave her extra strength. Jan and her friends who saw what this message meant for her, will all thank you in…

Yesterday we had a request for a shareable summary of the #LeaveTheDark manifesto. That’s quite difficult to do in brief. There’s a lot to it. A more complete manifesto will follow within the next few days.

But in the meantime we thought these little images might be helpful for people who’d like to spread the word a bit. There’s no issue with copyright or anything like that. We want and need people to share our stuff. That’s the only way we’ll reach enough people to turn last week’s idea into next year’s reality! And we will make this a reality.

So feel free to download and share these images across your networks. The more the merrier…

Thankyou! Together we really can make a difference and turn back the growing swell of hatred that threatens to engulf our society.

Beard Liberation Front

19th July

Dos and Donts for beard wearers in hot weather

With temperatures of 30C and above across much of the UK the Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has produced a guide for beard wearers covering what is prudent for the beard in hot weather and what is not.

Don’t
Don’t expose the beard hairs and follicles to the sun for any longer than 5 minutes at a time. The sun can dry out hairs and follicles and cause a withering effect.
Don’t use beard oils or waxes. In hot weather they may drip and may cause the beard to become sticky with beard hairs tangled*
Don’t shave off the beard unless absolutely unavoidable, for example you are already working in a very hot environment

Do
Do cool the beard by placing it from time to time in a freezer compartment for a…

The EU referendum result came as a shock to just about everyone, including the leaders of the “Leave” campaign (and me).

The aftershocks of this earthquake in British politics are still being felt.

Three of the central antagonists – the Prime Minister David Cameron, the leader of “Leave” Boris Johnson and leader of UKIP Nigel Farage – have all ‘resigned’. The leader of the Opposition is clinging onto office by his fingernails.

These individual dramas and excitements are, however, mere sideshows.

The real tragedy is the way the British constitution has been turned on its head.

This is by Mike Grannell, and is published here with his permission. Enjoy!

It was 2025 when the trouble really began. There had been some muttering prior to this, but in July 2025, Microsoft introduced Windows 25. Every time users of Office-Infinity entered the consecutive characters pi, the system automatically started to produce the decimal digits of ? to unlimited accuracy. Previous versions had a similar bug, but this could be turned off with a simple expletive to the voice-recognition system. Windows 25 was different ? it had a mind of its own and would shout back in highly offensive terms.

At this point, demand began to grow for a referendum on the true value of ?. Older people seemed to prefer 22/7, but there were vigorous arguments in support of alternative values. The Sun newspaper was strongly in favour of taking the value to be 3 on grounds of…