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.
amusements

Oddity of the Week: Crazy Inventions

The Japanese are famous for their crazy inventions. Here are a couple I especially like (ie. they’re sufficiently crazy that their whackiness is excellent).
First we have the portable nose-wipe supply for when you have that streaming cold:


And then there’s this for you guys who are just too shagged out to be able to stand up to pee:

Finally girls, you can get your own back on us men over breastfeeding in public:

There are lots more on the internet, start at http://nuffy.net/cool/articles/totally-crazy-japanese-inventions.html or http://justsomething.co/23-craziest-japanese-inventions-you-never-knew-existed/.

personal, ramblings

The Oddness of Me

2 Comments

Yesterday my friend Katy posted on her blog about feeling slightly strange.
Once I’d recovered from my initial reaction of “well, yeah, I wouldn’t expect anything less from you!” I realised that it wasn’t just Katy. Because I feel a bit the same. Which is odd.
This year started with me struggling as I had done most of last year. Struggling to do anything other than want to sleep. Which is partly down to the depression and partly a reaction to being overloaded with things to be done — which are actually much the same thing in my brain.
And then about 10 days ago I had a filthy cold. And my lower back was giving the hell, despite having been to the osteopath and had a massage a couple of days before. In fact my back was so bad it was giving me awful guts ache.
Then something odd happened. The cold gradually wore off during last week so that by about Thursday I was feeling human again (well, as human as you would expect me to be!).
But it was more than this. The cold was gone. I had managed to make myself some relief from the never-ending demands of too much to do — it was all still there, and all still needing to be done, but it felt easier; less overwhelming. My head was clearer and everything was brighter. And my back was much more at ease — not right, it never will be, but much easier.
I like this. This is how I should feel. I’m managing to get things done. Probably not much more than I was forcing myself to do before, but there’s a lot less effort involved.
I seem to be sleeping better, which is being helped by being able to wake up naturally most days. That’s generally between 8 and 9 o’clock; and not the struggle for consciousness at 11 as it was before.
I would love this feeling to continue; but, ever the realist, I’m not holding my breath. I’m just enjoying the few days while it’s here and hoping it decides to stay.
And all this despite some unwelcome medical stuff on the horizon, starting today with, I expect, a difficult discussion with my GP about my diabetes — which because I’m relatively relaxed and prepared seems a lot less worrying than it probably should.
As Katy comments (of herself): I think I am experiencing a form of self care. It’s not something I do very often, not properly. I’m not talking all that take a bath in expensive bath oil and light candles bollocks. I’m talking about proper, solid self care.
If that’s what it is, I have no clue where I caught it; it certainly wasn’t conscious. I don’t know how to feed it properly so it wants to stay. But stay it certainly may.
Please!

photography

Weekly Photograph

This week let’s have something cheering and summery from the archive. This was taken on a scorching hot day in Beer, Devon almost 10 years ago.

Flowery Front
Flowery Front
Beer, Devon; July 2006
Click the image for larger views on Flickr

photography

Weekly Photograph

Not enough snow here (at least yet) for any good winter shots, so another cat shot this week.
Tilly the Cat having been deprived of two live mice earlier in the week then proceeded to try jamming the printer with the catnip variety. Fortunately the mouse ran off onto the floor first.

Cat - Printer - Mouse
Cat — Printer — Mouse
Greenford; January 2016
Click the image for larger views on Flickr

quotes

Quotes

So here is the next instalment of interesting, amusing and thought-provoking quotes recently encountered. And as with our “Interesting Links” posts these posts will now be monthly, on or around the middle day of the month. So here goes …
The best thing that can happen to someone before they retire is that they hate their job at the end. Those that have loved it and are restructured out or pushed out have a harder time. If I had a recipe for good retirement it would be to have a bad job in the last three working years.
[Ken LeClair, professor of psychiatry]
Maybe our western culture just doesn’t help people deal with their feelings. It’s complicated, loving someone is hard. Staying the course with someone is hard. You can’t just keep upgrading people like you do with your phone.
[Jeanette Winterson]
Secresy is an instrument of conspiracy; it ought not, therefore, to be the system of a regular government.
[Jeremy Bentham, in his essay “Of Publicity”, published in 1843. And yes, “Secresy” is the spelling in the original]
There is no difference between talking to someone with their top on as there is with their top off. I think you make a choice whether to make the situation sexual, and it’s usually the relationship you have with the person that makes it erotic.
The skin is more beautiful than the garment in which it is clothed.
[Michelangelo]
We have come into the world naked, and all the animals are naked, why should man hide his body behind clothes?
[Osho]
Is obesity a result of overeating? Yes, maybe, and no. There’s science and then there is the agenda of the various health, fitness and diet businesses mixed up in this. Sometimes fatness is the result of inadvertent repetitive dieting which can upset our metabolism. Sometimes it’s a result of eating the non-food foods that industry peddles. These drench our tastebuds with fat, salt and sugar combinations that overstimulate without giving a sense of satisfaction — other than reaching the end of the packet. Sometimes it is because these same non-food foods take a too-quick journey through our body without being properly digested.
Sometimes, as epigeneticists are discovering, it is to do with changes that occurred two generations ago, when food was very scarce. Sometimes … it is to do with changes caused by early and frequent antibiotic use which alter the flora in our gut.
And then there’s the psychology of it all. Sometimes it’s because the pressure towards restraint leads to rebellion, to a desire to gorge ourselves, as consumerism invites us to with beautiful food-porn programmes. Sometimes of course, fat is a form of individual protest in a world that valorises thin. Sometimes fat is a result of emotional hungers perceived to be too difficult to express any other way. Sometimes fat is a result of absorbing a family preoccupation with food and then contesting it. Sometimes fat, like anorexia, is an eating difficulty that shows. Most don’t, but fat does.
[Susie Orbach; Guardian; 14/12/2015]
Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.
[George Carlin]
None of us knows the future. You always have to act with only the knowledge you possess at the moment. You’re going to make mistakes. When you’ve made a mistake … it’s best to apologize or try to put it right …
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen; 21/12/2015]
Yes, English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.
[David Burge, @iowahawkblog on Twitter]
No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-Mare.
[Kingsley Amis]
Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.
[Mark, 3:28-29. Such a good way to get rid of Jehovah’s Witnesses et al.]
Last year, 44 Americans were shot by Muslim terrorists. By comparison, 52 Americans were shot by toddlers. Which raises the question: Why isn’t the government doing more to protect us from toddlers? Think about it. They don’t share our values. They barely speak English. They steal our welfare. They have no marketable skills. They’re prone to angry outbursts. Worst of all? Most of them aren’t even Christians. How long until we say enough is enough and deport these free-loading parasites once and for all?
[Jeremy McLellan, comedian]
In the Elizabethan play Wily Beguiled, a character named Will Cricket boasts that women find him attractive because he possesses “a sweet face, a fine beard, comely corpse, and a carousing codpiece”.
[From: What goes up must come down: a brief history of the codpiece]
Rationality is what we do to organize the world, to make it possible to predict. Art is the rehearsal for the inapplicability and failure of that process.
[Brian Eno]
History is changed by people who get pissed off. Only neo-vegetables enjoy using computers the way they are at the moment. If you want to make computers that really work, create a design team composed only of healthy, active women with lots else to do in their lives and give them carte blanche. Do not under any circumstances consult anyone who (a) is fascinated by computer games (b) tends to describe silly things as ‘totally cool’ (c) has nothing better to do except fiddle with these damn things night after night.
[Brian Eno]
A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.
[George Santayana]
The problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense.
[Professor Brian Cox]
More next month.

beliefs, sexuality, uncategorized

Abortion Rates

Here’s another piece which highlights our need to normalise sex — and specifically sex education and the discussion of sexuality. George Monbiot (yes I know not all of you like the guy, but at least his controversial opinions are based on published data) points out in the Guardian (13 January) that …

[T]here is no association between [abortion’s] legality and its incidence. In other words, banning abortion does not stop the practice; it merely makes it more dangerous.
… once you grasp the fact that legalising women’s reproductive rights does not raise the incidence of abortions, only one issue remains to be debated: should they be legal and safe or illegal and dangerous? …
There might be no causal relationship between reproductive choice and the incidence of abortion, but there is a strong correlation: an inverse one. As the Lancet‘s most recent survey of global rates and trends notes: “The abortion rate was lower … where more women live under liberal abortion laws”.
… laws restricting abortion tend to be most prevalent where contraception and comprehensive sex education are hard to obtain, and when sex and childbirth outside marriage are anathematised.
Young people have sex, whatever their elders say — they always have, and always will. Those with the least information and the least access to birth control are the most likely to suffer unintended pregnancies. And what greater incentive could there be for terminating a pregnancy than a culture in which reproduction out of wedlock is a mortal sin?


No-one is suggesting abortion is easy; even when legal it is too often a traumatic experience, mentally and/or physically. But women should have the right to choose. Their bodies; their choice. Isn’t it immoral to deny people this simple human right?
But yes, it would be so much better if we had much more open attitudes to sex, sexuality and sex education; with the promotion of effective contraception. That way there would be a much reduced need for abortions in the first place.