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, natural history

Oddity of the Week: Drinking Party

On the edge of a forest track, I crouched briefly to admire some lovely red campions.
But as I stood up, a can of Special Brew plummeted to the ground from somewhere above me. I looked up, half-expecting to see a jeering gang of adolescent boys, only to catch sight of a grey squirrel scampering up a nearby tree. He was carrying another can of the iconic beverage, so distinctive in its unique gold and crimson livery.
Was it a heat-induced mirage, I wondered? Had the crazy weather finally got to me? No: Sarah had seen the squirrel too, and pointed the animal out as he clambered into the canopy. We wondered if he might be using the can as building material for a drey — perhaps he’d picked up a tip from watching Grand Designs.


On closer inspection, we could make out three more squirrels together among the branches, and noticed several more empties at the base of the trunk — someone must have thrown them away. When the first squirrel reached his friends, he perched the can horizontally so that the dregs started to spill out. All four vied to drink the beer, arguing and scrapping noisily over this not-quite-amber nectar. One of his mates scrambled down the trunk to select another can from the ground. The squirrel was about to take a swig … when he noticed us for the first time. He alerted the trio above with his distinctive chirping alarm call, and the whole gang scarpered. Suddenly it was just us again, and that pile of tinnies.
I was telling a friend about our close encounter of the furry kind a few days later, who mentioned that he’d once seen a squirrel slurping out of a Coke can. He’d assumed that it was because of the sugars in the drink, and thought the same could be true of beer … the incident certainly provoked a few chuckles. We’d seen a young gang of 21st-century invaders out boozing, scavenging empties that could well have been left by wayward teens.
From: Stu Bullen; “The Booze Brothers”; BBC Wildlife Magazine; March 2014

words

Word: Bindlestiff

Bindlestiff
A hobo, especially one who carries a bedroll.


According to the OED a bindle (which is American slang) is “a bundle containing clothes and possessions, especially a bedding-roll carried by a tramp”. Hence a bindleman or bindlestiff, is a tramp who carries such a bundle.

photography

Weekly Photograph

This week’s photograph is a recent, simple one: flowers on the Horse Chestnut trees by A406 at Ealing Common. It was taken from the car while at traffic lights.

Click the image for larger views o Flickr
Horse Chestnut Flowers
Horse Chestnut Flowers
Ealing; April 2014

food+drink, ramblings

Tasse de Dégustation

A couple of months ago I acquired from a friend four tastevin (or tasse de dégustation, tasse du vin, wine cups, depending on your predilection). My friend had bought them in northern France and cleaned them up before passing them on to me in exchange for a few drinking tokens.

tasse1

crestThey are all of the same standard design with bowls 75mm in diameter and have the crest of Bouchard Aîné & Fils, a recognised Beaune wine house. All appear to be white metal plating over a yellow metal base, the latter showing through where the white plating is rubbed. The base metal is therefore likely to be brass (or possibly some form of pewter).
One of the four is clearly silver plated as it has a small stamp “METAL ARGENTE” (the French indication of silver plate) on the bowl near the handle. Two are stamped just “METAL”. The fourth has a tiny (2mm) square maker’s mark of M and P with what appears to be an upward pointing arrow between the letters — I have not been able to satisfactorily identify this maker. As far as I can see there are no other marks. The two “METAL” ones have a very slightly greyer/duller lustre than the other two, which makes me suspect they are maybe tin plated, the brighter two both being silver — but that is pure speculation on my part.
MetalArgente    Metal1
MP

This fourth, with the maker’s mark, is noticeably the most worn, with more yellow metal showing through, so it looks as if it may have been someone’s favourite. The stamping of the crest is also of a slightly better quality, so this one could be older.
Looking further at the wear on the handle of this one with a maker’s mark, two further things become apparent: (a) there is a slight wear mark where the tasse would have been worn on string/ribbon round a sommelier’s neck (in fact all four have this) and (b) the wear on the crest suggests that the sommelier was right handed.
Nonetheless I doubt any of them is of any significant age.
I have no expectation that they are of any useful monetary value but nonetheless I’m interested to work out their provenance. I have written to Bouchard Aîné & Fils asking if they can date them or provide other information, but I have so far not received a reply.
If anyone can shed further light on them, then I would love to hear from you.
Meanwhile they are nice little things to have!

beliefs, freedom of speech, links, nudism, sexuality

Your Interesting Links

Interesting items seem to be coming thick and fast at the moment, so here’s another instalment of links to items you may have missed. And not so much boring science stuff this time!
Apocalypse? So what would happen if all our satellites fell from the sky? Yep, apocalypse may not be far off the mark!
Do you wear glasses? Or lenses? Ever wondered whether you could see without them? You can. Here’s how. And it really does work!
The strange story of a tetragametic woman — that’s someone made from four gametes (two eggs, two sperm) rather than the usual two. This is a form of chimerism and as chimeras are normally detected only because of external abnormalities (for example differently coloured eyes) we don’t really know how common it is.
We know the phases of the moon influence the behaviour of many creatures from big cats to owls, but how much does the moon affect human behaviour?


An interesting short read on saffron, that brightly coloured spice from crocus flowers.
While on plants, this stunning piece of sculpture was carved into an olive stone in 1737.
And so to religion … here’s an interesting evolutionary tree of religion.
Allegedly the human mind is primed to believe in god. If so, how is it that atheism is on the rise?
Meanwhile archaeologists have been staring into the mists of time and come to the conclusion that Britain’s oldest settlement is Amesbury, near Stonehenge, in Wiltshire. Doesn’t seem too surprising to me.
An American mother takes a very sensible look at nudity and how it does not cause any problems for kids.
And to finish on our usual theme of sexuality, here’s a considered response to the Nordic conception of controlling prostitution from a Canadian sex worker.
These final two items may not be safe for those of a pathetically puritanical mind; they are included here in the interests of normalising our attitudes to sex and sexuality.
Girl on the Net asks whether blowjobs are anti-feminist. Spoiler: No, because feminism is a state of mind not an attribute of “things”.
And really finally, with the spotlight on Girl on the Net, here’s an interview with her in the University of York student newspaper, York Vision (it was called Nouse in my day!).

food+drink

Special Salmon

Another culinary triumph from our kitchens. At first sight it sounds fairly ordinary, but the little touches made it really yummy …
Zen Salmon Wellington
This serves two, generously.
You need:
2 100g salmon fillets
4 scallops (with coral)
1 pack chilled puff pastry
juice ½ lemon
butter
fresh black pepper and dill herb (optional)
egg or milk to glaze


What you do:
1. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C (with fan, 220°C if no fan) and line a baking sheet with some baking parchment.
2. Halve the pastry and roll out each piece to make an oblong about 10×12″.
3. Rinse the salmon fillets and scallops.
4. If the salmon fillets have a long thin edge, cut half this off and just fold it over so the piece is smaller and of more even thickness.
5. Place a fillet on each piece of pastry, and two scallops on each fillet.
Top each with a good knob of butter and a teaspoon of lemon juice; plus if you wish pepper and dill.
6. Dampen the edges of the pastry with more lemon juice, fold over and crimp the edges sealed.
7. Cut a couple of slashes in the top of each wellington and glaze with egg or milk.
8. Bake for about 30 minutes.
9. Serve with salad or lightly steamed veg — we had plain steamed English asparagus with a knob of butter.
It is simple. But the lemon juice is what makes this, adding an unusual tang to the pastry. And the scallops add that touch of luxury.

books, science

Book Review: The Disappearing Spoon

Sam Kean
The Disappearing Spoon and Other True Tales from the Periodic Table
Black Swan, 2011
This is a science book for the interested layman. Its premise is to tell interesting stories about the elements, their discoveries and their properties.
Each of the 19 chapters follows the fortunes (or otherwise) of several, not obviously related, elements — who discovered them and how; why they are interesting and idiosyncratic. Kean is certainly able to tell the stories well and keep the reader engaged; as the cover quote from New Scientist says:

Kean has Bill Bryson’s comic touch … a lively history of the elements and the characters behind their discovery.

I found the book easy, but engaging, reading and quite hard to put down to the extent that I had to ration myself to a couple of chapters a night rather than stay up reading all night.
It is an interesting read although for a trained chemist it doesn’t really go deep enough. There are almost no pictures, diagrams or chemical formulae. That’s fine as it does make it accessible to the intelligent layman and means the book can be printed cheaply in monochrome on poor quality paper. But as a trained scientist I found I wanted more explanatory images and formulae. To that extent I was disappointed.
Overall a book I enjoyed and which should appeal to those with a scientific interest, although I would have liked something deeper.
Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

quotes

Quotes

1 Comment

Another in our series of interesting, thought-provoking or humorous quotes recently encountered.
Don’t feel stupid if you don’t like what everyone else pretends to love.
[Emma Watson]
Goodness knows what may have changed since then. Worlds have turned, parallel universes have made and unmade themselves. People have been born. People have died. Stars have winked in and out of existence like the breath of God, leaving a transient mist on a universal car window where the Holy Spirit has drawn a giant knob with his finger.
[Katy Wheatley at katyboo1.wordpress.com]
In order for you to insult me I would first have to value your opinion.
[Unknown]
We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible. To have real conversations with people may seem like such a simple, obvious suggestion, but it involves courage and risk.
[Thomas Moore]
Our lionisation of size zero, our aversion to pubic hair, even an increasing trend towards vaginaplasties are all symptomatic of a desire to take the female body back to its pre-pubescent state. The full Brazilian is a look that is borrowed from pornography — can there be a more damning style endorsement?
[Helen Walsh, So older women don’t have sex?, Observer, 13 April 2014]
Sacred cows make great hamburgers.
[Robert Reisner]
In the end only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.
[Buddha’s Little Instruction Book]
What we find in a soulmate is not something wild to tame, but something wild to run with.
[Robert Brault]
When I free my body from its clothes, from all their buttons, belts, and laces, it seems to me that my soul takes a deeper, freer breath.
[benudetoday.tumblr.com]
I will always remember what it felt like to have a little mermaid swimming in my belly.
[Leone Dawson]
Alcohol is the anaesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.
[George Bernard Shaw]
And finally …
Don’t forget: Jesus died for your sins in advance, so make sure you get your money’s worth.
[Girl on the Net; ‏@girlonthenet]