I just love this advert, and not just because it's incredibly erotic. It seems that everyone on the net is trying to get hold of the song which is called Parlami d'amore, Mariu and is sung by Achille Togliani who is some very old Italian opera singer from the '50s. It seems the song is only available on one compilation cd on an obscure label, and which is unavailable everywhere. It's very annoying. You know it's rare when the internet can't find it for you. There are dozens of different versions on iTunes but the trouble with classical music is that there are always multiple versions and if you don't get the one you first fell in love with, everything else sounds like a poor imitation... ho hum.

In the meantime here's some music for ice cream vans

I love pixel art, but silly me has only just discovered the fantastic eboy.com site - loads of amazing lovely pixellated goodness. I printed out a bunch of their pictures to stick on my wall and may just shell out £12 for one of their giant posters (or maybe I'll go the whole hog and get the wallpaper instead). You can get trainers and cushion covers and wrapping paper and all sorts too, though I think that could be a bit much. I once tried my hand at creating pixel art with very little success but having just read this handy tutorial (illustrated after chapter 1), it now seems a lot easier than I remember (though that's probably an illusion)

well it's getting towards the time that my snooty-teacher-housemate moves out and I will no longer feel like a guest in my own home, and I won't have her boyfriend struggling to hide his irritation that I'm sitting in my sitting room watching my telly... we have come to develop a slight rapport, usually revolving around guinea pigs (pets are great ice breakers). (Did I mention that I found one of them lying dead in a puddle a few weeks ago? She'd left him there and gone to work - she didn't murder it by the way, it was just old and with dodgy kidneys). There's going to be so much room when she moves our her mountains of stuff.

Tonight she mentioned that she's reading The God Delusion by (militant atheist) Richard Dawkins - in which he preaches to the choir about how religion is a terrible thing. I mentioned that I'd read some of his books and that he makes a fine scientist but a lousy philosopher and she more or less said back off or we're going to have an argument and you don't want that... which is fair enough. It's not polite to discuss politics or religion unless you're close. It seems like non-atheists are the new paedophiles these days (not that I'm especially sympathetic with paedophiles mind you) the way that people instantly have a hateful knee-jerk reaction if you profess to a belief in God, and that seems to be the acceptable and morally just reaction with people today. If someone would actually learn about religion and understand all the philosophical and spiritual arguments and reasons that people believe in it, and then still argue against it, then their argument would be worthy of so much more respect. Instead all you get is lot of ignorant and simplistic and blinkered ranting which never really addresses the issue on a deep level and just goes to perpetuate prejudice, in my humble opinion....'tis a shame but you probably know by now it's one of my pet subjects. Anyway it's not as if religion is going to go out of style any time soon though I think the thought police in the secular west might try to put a stop to it, ho hum!

sorry that was a bit of a ramble, but I wanted to get it off my chest...

not far from me, there's a Lime tree (or rather Linden tree to give it's correct name) which when it flowers every year, creates the most amazing and strong scent which drifts all across the park - and it smells so heavenly. This weekend I've walked under it several times and collected a few bunches of the little yellow flowers and they make my bedroom smell heavenly. It's sad that it'll probably only be in flower for a week or so then then the smell will be gone. I wonder if I can buy some kind of essential oil so I can smell it all year round? I shall endeavour to find some anyway. Apparently the Germans wrote a lot of romantic poetry about the flowering of lime trees. Here's another article about it with some pretty pics. In other news, I also bought a bamboo wind chime for the tiny sum of £2 so I am having a very sensual experience at home at the moment - which is nice...

update: well that took about a minute to find some linden flower scented oil so it'll be summer all year round at the jetpack technology institute from now on. A quick google brought up dozens of pages full of superlatives describing the lovely smell. This person clearly feels the same as me...

here's an online shop that sells products with (almost) every (pleasant) smell you can think of - including new car, ice cream and er, "clean" (and dirt too!)

you can check out my crazy hair, and read about my music in this interview!