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.
words

Word:

2 Comments

Chirography
1. Handwriting.
2. One’s own handwriting or autograph.
3. A style or character of writing.


The word was first recorded (at least according to the OED) in 1654 and derives from the Greek.

ramblings

Stupid People

2015 is lining up to be the year of the Stupid People

So says Diamond Geezer in a post yesterday taking an extremely askance look at the way in which “stupid people” influence the direction the country goes:
stupidpeople

There are Stupid People everywhere … they’re the ones who’ll be voting in the upcoming General Election and letting the wrong lot in. Be very afraid …
[T]hey only see personal truth, and your opinion is wrong QED … You and I can see the flaws in their arguments, but the Stupid People plough on regardless …
And so the soundbites sparkle and the slogans flow because, although you and I don’t need them, they help the Stupid People make their minds up … [and] be temporarily recruited. And once they’ve spoken, however wrongly, the entire country has to put up with their decision.
Hence 2015 will be defined by the thoughts and actions of the Stupid People. May they jump the right way this General Election year, because the rest of us alas have no say in the matter whatsoever.

Gawdelpus!

science

Oddity of the Week: Underarm Odour

Scientists have discovered that a gene called ABCC11 determines whether people produced wet or dry earwax. What is even more curious is that people who produce the “dry” version of earwax also lack a chemical in their armpits that bacteria feed on to cause underarm odour. And it seems that this gene is the single determinant of whether you do produce underarm odour or not.
Strangely while only 2 percent of Europeans lack the gene for smelly armpits, most East Asians and almost all Koreans lack the gene.
From: Tia Ghose, “People without Gene for Underarm Odor Still Wear Deodorant” at www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-without-underarm-protection/.

photography

Weekly Photograph

This week’s photo is another I took in October 2013 when Noreen and I travelled on the paddle-steamer Waverley from London (Tower Pier) to Southend. This is a shot of some bit of waterside industrial buildings somewhere along the south bank of Thames below Docklands. You can often get some interesting effects shooting lights at twilight or at night from a moving platform (boat, train, car) which make boring scenes rather fun.

Click the image for larger views on Flickr
Industrial Twilight
Industrial Twilight
London; October 2013

current affairs, ramblings

2015 Predictions

I thought I’d give my crystal ball a dust off and see if I could come up with a few ideas as to what might happen over the course of this brand new 2015.
What follows is the best I can interpret from the misty images I saw in the aforesaid crystal ball. They are just my ideas of what might happen based solely on hunches and gut feel; I have no inside knowledge and I haven’t been studying the form — so if you base any decision on any of this I will take no responsibility for your idiocy.
Anyway, here are my thoughts on what might transpire this year:
UK

  1. Labour win the General Election — although probably not with an overall majority; they form a government in coalition with the LibDems
  2. As a result of the new government the unions start demanding, and getting, inflation busting wage rises
  3. Theresa May beats off a challenge from Boris Johnson to become leader of the Conservative Party
  4. There is no change in UK interest rates
  5. A major household name (possibly a high street store) calls in the receivers
  6. At least one UK holiday tour operator goes under stranding several hundred holiday-makers abroad
  7. Against expectations UK inflation will be around 4% driven by higher wage settlements and spending by the new government
  8. On 31 December FTSE will close down 10% compared with 1 January
  9. UK will see at least one major plane crash and one major train crash
  10. Duke of Edinburgh dies and is given a state funeral
  11. Queen Elizabeth II becomes Britain’s longest reigning monarch
  12. The UK has a warm winter and a cold wet summer

Overseas

  1. Violence in South Africa between black tribes threatens to turn into civil war and causes a white exodus
  2. Death of President Mugabe of Zimbabwe is followed by further civil war
  3. Major epidemic will affect the developed world — could be Ebola or flu or MERS or something entirely new
  4. Australia will experience an earthquake of at least magnitude 7
  5. The Pope will issue a revolutionary encyclical, possibly on birth control, divorce or the celibate priesthood
  6. A number of international sporting bodies are proven to be driven by massive bribery and fraud
  7. The Islamic world continues to descend into total meltdown with more factional fighting, civil war and coups d’état; the exceptions are Saudi Arabia and UAE which remain relatively stable due to their oil wealth
  8. Russia continues to be belligerent over Ukraine and only their economic woes will prevent World War 3
  9. Brussels finally gets fed up with the UK’s posturing and formally asks us to leave the EU
  10. A major airline goes into liquidation

Personal

  1. I finally have to be put on insulin to control my diabetes
  2. We lose the venerable Harry the Cat (well he is over 17) but he is replaced by two kittens

It will certainly be interesting to see what really does occur. I’d be tempted to put money on none of this happening.
Do you have any good predictions for the year ahead?

personal, ramblings

Happy New Year

Here’s wishing all our friends and followers a
Happy & Prosperous New Year
May your 2015 be better than your 2014!

And welcome to another year of Zen Mischief blogging. We started back in January 2004 and since then have gone through a number of incarnations and design changes. But there are no major changes planned for this year (well at least none that I know about yet) — we’ll be continuing with the usual eccentric and eclectic mix. So please keep checking back to see what we’re up to!
Meanwhile it must be time for another glass of champagne! Hic!

amusements, natural history

Oddity of the Week: Eggs

It isn’t just birds that lay eggs, in fact there are far more egg-laying species than there are placental mammals. So naturally the eggs vary a lot and can be quite weird …
Birds
There are over 50 breeds of chicken and the colour of their eggs is dictated by genetics. All eggs start out white and any pigment is deposited during the egg’s 26-hour journey through the hen’s oviduct. What’s more, you can often predict what colour a chicken egg will be by the hen’s earlobes. (Bet you didn’t know hens even had earlobes!)


Leghorn chickens lay white eggs and have white earlobes, while chickens with red earlobes lay brown-shelled eggs — but of course there are exceptions. Araucanas lay blue-shelled eggs and when you cross them with a breed that has eggs of a different colour the dominant blue-shell gene makes the resulting eggs blue, pink or even green.
The tinamou (an ostrich relative) may have evolved bright turquoise eggs to attract other females and encourage them to lay their eggs nearby, creating a sort of safety-in-numbers strategy for avoiding predators. Curiously the tinamou’s eggs are also as shiny as Christmas ornaments.
And cassowaries have bright, almost fluorescent, green eggs.
Insects
The green lacewing creates a silky stalk on which it hangs its eggs. This keeps the lacewing larvae safe from predators — and cannibals. The insect also coats the stalks with a chemical defence against ants.
Many butterflies and moths lay beautifully sculpted and shaped eggs, like this owl butterfly egg …

Sharks
The horn shark has a spiral-shaped egg which looks like a natural drill bit and allows the mother shark to screw the egg case into hard crevices making it tough for predators to get them.

The egg cases of other sharks and rays — often called mermaid’s purses — come in a variety of shapes from sculpted flatfish-like to ravioli shapes. These egg cases are not like birds’ eggs in that the case is porous with both water and oxygen able to flow through to the growing embryo.
Based on Weird Animal Question of the Week: Oddest Eggs of the Animal Kingdom.

personal, ramblings

My 2014 in Summary

As last year here is a survey to summarise my engagement (or lack of it) with 2014.
BA46231. What did you do that you’d never done before?
Yoga
Have a full body massage
Got hearing aids
Injected myself with drugs (legally!)
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t make New Year resolutions (see here); but I did have some goals most of which I failed to achieve.
3. What would you like to have in 2015 that you lacked in 2014?
£2M
Good health
4. What dates from 2014 will remain etched upon your memory?
None that I can think of.
5. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had an awful respiratory virus which floored me for over a month in February/March and again in October/November.
And then there’s the ongoing diabetes and depression.
6. What was the best thing you bought?
Gin and champagne
7. Where did most of your money go?
As far as I can tell absolutely nowhere, and certainly nowhere very worthwhile (unless you count gin and champagne!).
8. What did you get really, really excited about?
Nothing; I don’t waste effort on excitement or panic.
9. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a. happier or sadder? — sadder, ‘cos I haven’t kicked the depression hard enough in the gonads.
b. thinner or fatter? — fatter, but not by very much.
c. richer or poorer? — poorer, if only due to expensive dental treatment.
10. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Sex
Sit in the garden in the sun
11. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Been stuck to a desk
12. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Survival
13. What was your biggest failure?
Yoga
14. How many one-night stands?
None
15. What was your favourite TV program?
I’ve just not watched anything like enough TV to be able to make any sort of judgement.
16. What was the best book you read?
Two books by Alice Roberts come out top of the heap: Evolution: The Human Story (Dorling Kindersey, 2011) and The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us (Heron Books, 2014)
17. What did you want and get?
An immense amount of help and support, in all sorts of ways, from Noreen, for which I am far more grateful than I think she realises.
18. What did you want and not get?
£2m
Sanity
19. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Choose between better health and a couple of holidays.
20. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2014?
Nude when possible, clothed when necessary.
21. What kept you sane?
Did anything keep me sane?
22. Who did you miss?
I’ve no idea! I’m not conscious of having specifically missed anyone.
23. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2014:
Quality of life is more important than stressing yourself to conform to society’s expectations. But then I failed to live up to it.
24. A quote or song lyric that sums up your year:
It’ll pass, Sir, like other days in the Army.
[Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time]
25. Your hopes for 2015
Society normalises sex and nudity rather than criminalising it
Any office block which is less than half occupied for more than 3 months has to be converted into flats, or demolished and homes built on the site
Drink more champagne
Be painted or photographed nude
Have at least one 2 week holiday
My mother makes her 100th birthday
So how was your 2014? And what are you hoping for in 2015?