All posts by Keith

I’m a controversialist and catalyst, quietly enabling others to develop by providing different ideas and views of the world. Born in London in the early 1950s and initially trained as a research chemist I retired as a senior project manager after 35 years in the IT industry. Retirement is about community give-back and finding some equilibrium. Founder and Honorary Secretary of the Anthony Powell Society. Chairman of my GP's patient group.
memes, personal, ramblings

Unblogged October

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The usual round-up of things which happened that I didn’t otherwise write about.

Wednesday 1
As usual the first of the month was busy with household etc. admin. It was made worse by two things. First it was one of those days when everything did its best to conspire against any and every activity. Secondly the gardener was here. Having him here is so disruptive, even when all he’s doing is beavering away in the garden. As N observed we never get anything done when he’s here; certainly it is difficult to concentrate on anything significant.

Thursday 2
Another day struggling against the depression, achieving little, and failing to get to the bottom of the pile of paperwork on my desk. Seldom has there been such a rubbish week. And next week isn’t looking too good either.

Friday 3
Got my new hearing aids today. 14:30 appointment; arrived at 14:00; seen at 14:10; out by 14:20 and home at 14:45. Now that’s what I call service! First impressions are that they are much clearer than the old ones – and more comfortable.

Saturday 4
Today is N’s birthday, but as she’ll be at the hospital for a large chunk of the day (and home late) the major celebration will be tomorrow – although presents this evening accompanied by pizza.

Sunday 5
N’s birthday, Part 2. A culinary day. First off we finished the Sweet & Spicy Apple Cheese – we’d cooked down the small or damaged apples from our crop on Friday, and now sieved and jammed it. (I should write it up!) Then I sieved out the proto-tomato soup, ready to be finished for lunch tomorrow. Dinner was duck and avocado salad, followed by peaches in alcohol with cream, washed down with a bottle of Champagne. Result!

Monday 6
What a curious and interesting day. It started just before 05:00 with a gorgeous full moon setting in the SW, at times draped in thin ethereal cloud; couldn’t photograph it because it was right above an annoying street light. Then off for Covid & flu jabs, and get a new passport photo. Home to find that author Jilly Cooper has died; she was a long time friend of Anthony Powell and a great supported of the Society; we last saw her at the anniversary lunch in June. Fell asleep for a good part of the afternoon. Finally this evening a good reading group call.

Wednesday 8
Two or three days ago the moon was rising in the early evening at about due East. This evening it is rising a good 45° to the north, ie. around NE. How has the orbit moved so far in only half a handful of days? Well, checking it out, it seems like it does! The direction of moonrise has moved 44° since last Saturday!

Thursday 9
Off to see the senior partner at my GPs this afternoon as he does minor surgery. As I suspected he decided to scalp my infected elbow. Apparently there’s no obvious underlying problem. Seen 15 minutes early, and all done, in and out, in 20 minutes. Job done. Result!

Friday 10
It is Saturday, isn’t it? Really depressed; feeling completely drained and unable.

Saturday 11
It doesn’t help that I’ve done something to my back. Not sure if it’s the old injury or a trapped nerve. Anyway I’ve managed to get an osteopath appointment for Monday afternoon. And this on top of still feeling really depressed and incapable.

Sunday 12
Keep your elbow dry in the shower they said. Hah! Some chance. Well at least we tried: taped a protective plastic film over the area, but of course it comes off as soon as you flex your elbow in the wet. But it did make me remove the dressing, which I’d been told to keep on for 2-3 days. The wound looks quite good, although oozing slightly (probably because it got wet). An hour later and it’s almost dried up, which is good. Just don’t lean on it!!!!

Monday 13
Comes the gardener. In tidying up the front garden he discovered a very well hidden wasps’ nest. Basically they’ve hollowed out one of the railway sleepers used as border edging; at least two large entrance holes, but the actual nest is well hidden as you cannot see it! Still quite a few wasps around the entrance. We will, of course, leave it alone.

Tuesday 14
Feel dreadful. Back not really any better. Trapped nerve pain in front of right thigh. Can’t get comfortable; didn’t sleep well. And no power in fingers/hands. This despite osteopath yesterday.

Wednesday 15
Also last Saturday I completed the latest board of Postcrossing postcards: numbers 401-450. The display (below) was taken down today to make way for the new set.cork board display of postcards

Friday 17
Still in trouble with back & right leg, so another trip to osteopath. Not sure how I managed the journey through the pain and panic attack – but I did.

Monday 20
Time for the Paraffinian’s Autumn campaign, although they never seem to make any advance. As is traditional, the campaign started this weekend with Diwali.

Wednesday 22
Quick medical update. Back is improving, but leg still painful: but all seems to improve with each visit to osteopath (which done again today). Elbow healing up well; scab beginning to peel off. Having lost a lot of power and dexterity in my right fingers, this evening I realised what may well have caused it: using a potato ricer to extract the juice from cooked apples for the apple cheese a couple of weeks ago – it was certainly hurting my hand at the time. New hearing aids working well, and more comfortable than the old ones.

Thursday 23
The house is littered with well-loved and beaten-up catnip mice, which wander the house courtesy of our 3 felines. Today I found a couple of new catnip mice and gave Tilly one. This was the result …

Saturday 25
N came in from dialysis about 19:15; when she got upstairs she was very shaky and uncommunicative. Wouldn’t/couldn’t tell me anything. So an ambulance was called. Impressive response time about 15 minutes. Well checked over by 3 paramedics and taken off to hospital. Probably an infection as high temperature. We’ll see. Now I can’t do anything.

Sunday 26
A day struggling not to be completely paralysed with stress, depression and panic. N still in hospital; may be out tomorrow if she continues to recover.

Monday 27
Last evening I caught a late BBC weather bulletin. The presenter is already wearing a Remembrance poppy. Come on guys, it’s still two weeks to Remembrance Sunday. Gah!
[As long-time readers will know, I majorly dislike Remembrance Day; I wrote about it 15 years ago!]

Wednesday 29
N finally home from hospital about 18:30. She’s glad to be home, although still a bit weary. She’s under instruction (from me) to get to bed early and rest – the question is, will she take any notice?

Friday 31
It’s been one of those months, and it ended with yet another such day. I still have a stack of stuff to do, which should have been done ages ago but I can’t get to – for lots of reasons – so I’m well behind. I shall be glad to see the back of October; I just hope November is better.

environment, history, links, medical, natural history, nudism, science, sexuality

Monthly Links

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Herewith my usual collection of links to items you may have missed, but really didn’t want to. As usual we’ll start with the hard science stuff and gradually get easier.

Science, Technology, Natural World

What can be done about the growing problem of academic fraud?

While we are often sceptical, this can be very selective.

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation (left over from the Big Bang) shows an unexpected streak; it’s still there in the latest observations, and scientists don’t understand why, and . [££££]

Galactic centres sometimes blow up, but what we see depends on our point of view. [££££]

Back to Earth (well the watery bit anyway) … There’s a lungfish which has 30 times more DNA that humans – which is a new record for an animal.

What does the world look like to a spider?

Health, Medicine

A lot of men have varicose veins in their scrotum, and it often affects fertility.

We’re still discovering things about the human body … Researchers have now worked out why most of us have innie navels (but not why some have outies). [££££]

Women’s use of cannabis goes back thousands of years.

Recent research is showing how the physical side-effects of antidepressants varies with the type of drug, potentially allowing clinicians to better tailor treatment to the individual.

The medical profession has been dealing with quacks since at least the time of Hippocrates.

Environment & Ecology

Wild honeybees are endangered across much of Europe …

… and it seems that the English garden is endangered with a study finding almost 50% of garden area now paved over.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

An exhibition in Cambridge is showing what archaeologists have found about Ancient Egypt’s workers from things like broken pottery.

You can learn a lot from a merkin.

London

The Boroughs of London is a new map-based book about London’s 32 boroughs which are now 60 years old.

Meanwhile Matt Brown (who wrote the words for The Boroughs of London) has continued his series of colouring thee 1746 map of London, this time with Westminster and Lambeth. [LONG READ]

Food, Drink

Beer is a proof for the existence of God.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Some thoughts on the difference between the freedom of skin and the performative society.

So just why do people wear clothes? Well, it’s complicated!

And finally, I’ll leave you with the results of research where 100 couples slept naked for a month. You might be surprised.

history

What Happened in 1725

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Here’s our next instalment of things that happened in ..25 years of yore.

Some Notable Events in 1725

20 January.20. James Figg hosts the first recorded international boxing match, fought between English livestock drover Bob Whitaker and Venetian gondolier Alberto di Carni in London .

20 February. The first reported case of white men scalping Native Americans takes place in New Hampshire colony.

25 March. Bach’s chorale cantata Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, is first performed on the Feast of the Annunciation, coinciding with Palm Sunday.

30 March. The second performance of Bach’s St John Passion takes place at St Thomas Church, Leipzig.

12 May. The Black Watch is raised as a military company, as part of the pacification of the Scottish Highlands under General George Wade.

24 June. The Grand Lodge of Ireland in Dublin holds its first recorded meeting, making it the second most senior Grand Lodge in world Freemasonry.

24 September. Born. Arthur Guinness, Irish brewer (d.1803).

29 September. Born. Robert Clive, British general, statesman (d.1774) .

24 October. Died. Alessandro Scarlatti, Italian composer (b.1660).

26 November. British astronomers James Bradley and Samuel Molyneux set up a telescope in Molyneux’s private observatory to begin their observations of stellar parallax of the star Gamma Draconis. The observations lead to Bradley’s pioneering discovery of the aberration of light.James Bradley portrait

Unknown Date. Gradus ad Parnassum, a seminal work on counterpoint, laying out rules of constructing music, is published by Johann Joseph Fux.

quotes

Monthly Quotes

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And so, once again,we come to this month’s collection of recently encountereed quotes.

If you want to know who rules over you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize.
[George Orwell]

Not everyone can stand the strain of gazing down too long into the personal crater, with its scene of Hieronymus Bosch activities taking place in the depths.
[Anthony Powell]

The rise of this blusterous man bewilders the educated among us, conjoins opposing politicians, agonizes our international allies, threatens minorities, spits on the disabled, and touches the hearts of those who just don’t know any better. Let’s stop propounding how mad this all is, and instead, do something.
[Liselotte Hübner, Germany, 1929]

Thou with strange adultery
Doest in each breast a brothel keep;
Awake, all men do lust for thee,
And some enjoy thee when they sleep.
[Abraham Cowley; The Innocent III]

Now all my days are trances
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy grey eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams –
In what ethereal dances
By what eternal streams.
[Edgar Allan Poe; To One in Paradise]

A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition.
[Rudyard Kipling]

Just two naked apes who have decided to keep each other company for the (geologically speaking) blink of an eye on a tiny spinning planet on the outer arm of a nondescript galaxy in a vast, and basically pointless, universe. Now that we’ve identified that, we may as well just enjoy ourselves.
[https://substack.com/home/post/p-175517959]

It’s better to look at someone you can’t sleep with, than to sleep with someone you can’t even look at.
[Chinese proverb]

No Buddhist, No Christian, No Hindu, No Muslim …
Deeply spiritual people have no religion.
They belong to no temple, mosque, or church.
Their only religion is the goodness of the heart.
[unknown]

An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field.
[Niels Bohr, Physicist (1885-1962)]

My land is bare of chattering folk;
The clouds are low along the ridges,
and sweet’s the air with curly smoke
from all my burning bridges.
[Dorothy Parker]

A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotional1y.
[Eleanor Roosevelt]

Systems fail when people with ability don’t have authority and people with authority don’t have ability.
[Amit Kalantri]

history, memes

October Quiz Answers

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Here are the answers to this month’s six quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.

Classical & Ancient World

  1. What is the name of the home of the Greek Gods? Olympus
  2. Which body of the water was called mare nostrum by the Romans? Mediterranean
  3. Ask and Embla are the Norse equivalent to the Christian what? Adam and Eve
  4. What was the name of the Egyptian God of the Sun? Ra
  5. In Roman mythology, who is the goddess of the sewers? Cloacina
  6. Which word derives from the Latin for “sand” and originally denoted part of a Roman amphitheatre that was covered with sand to soak up the blood from combat? Arena

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2024.

books, memes, quotes

This Month’s Poem

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On The Ning Nang Nong
Spike Milligan

On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There’s a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can’t catch ’em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Trees go ping
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang
What a noisy place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!

Find this poem online at All Poetry

amusements, memes

Ten Things

This year our Ten Things column each month is alternating between composers and artists a century at a time from pre-1500 to 20th century. As always, there’s no guarantee you will have heard of them all!

Ten Artists Born in 19th Century

  1. Amadeo Modigliani
    Amadeo Modigliani; Reclining Nude
  2. Piet Mondrian
  3. Jacob Epstein
  4. George Braque
  5. Constantin Brâncusi
  6. Henry Moore
  7. Paul Klee
  8. Paul Nash
  9. Henri Matisse
  10. Auguste Rodin