Apologies for the hiatus over the last week or so; I’ve been frantically trying to catch up on lots of the things which were too urgent to be ignored any longer. September is going to be very busy, but I’ll try to keep up with posting here.
Meanwhile here’s an old Garfield for weekend amusement.
OK, so here’s another recent shot for this week’s photograph. We have a rampant passion flower just outside out back door which produces some glorious flowers. This is from a couple of weeks ago.
This week’s amusement …
Another selection of oddities, curiosities and amusements from the catalogue of a recent sale at our local auction rooms.
Baculm
The os penis, a bone found in the penis of many placental mammals. It is absent in humans, but present in primates such as the gorilla and chimpanzee. The bone aids sexual intercourse by maintaining sufficient stiffness during sexual penetration. It is also suggested that certain shapes may assist in the removal of a rival’s sperm from the female vagina.
The female equivalent is the os clitoridis, a bone in the clitoris.
Meet Tilly … the latest addition to the household. She arrived last Friday evening. She is about 12 weeks old, the last remaining kitten of one of our neighbour’s two cats’ recent litters. Although they aren’t brilliant pix, these are two of the first photos of her.
Here’s a summer holiday one for all the school kids (and mums) out there …
Yep, that’s right, left-handers have their own day on Tuesday 13 August. Celebrate your right to be left-handed.
Although I’m right-handed — very right-handed — I can envisage how frustrating it must be if you are naturally left-handed. And I can also see why for many centuries until fairly recently, left-handedness was discouraged if not actually considered evil … although there are advantages to that: my 97-year-old mother is naturally left-handed and it was only when she changed schools at the age of eight that she was made to write right-handed; as a consequence she is now ambidextrous and can also do mirror writing.
Yes, here’s another selection of items you may have missed. There are quite a few science-y things in this edition, although they should all be fairly “accessible”.
Biologist Rob Dunn writes an open letter to high school students about being a scientist. I wish someone had told it to me like this when I was 16 or 17!
Here’s another on what doing synthetic organic chemistry is like. If you aren’t a chemist you can skip the techie bits but do follow the metaphor in paragraphs four and five. This is why I never was a synthetic chemist.
This will totally change your relationship with mozzies! What really does happen when the mosquito bites.
Another from Rob Dunn … So how do you try to work out the number of ants living in New York City? And what might the number be? Fuck, that’s big!
Tardigrades (right) are tiny, even compared with ants. But they are the hardiest critters on the planet — awesomely so!
At last medics are beginning to wake up to the fact that they are over-testing and over-treating us.
Surprise! Shaming people doesn’t work, it just makes them worse. At least for the obese.
Be afraid! Be very afraid! Porn panic is driving us to the state where the only thing left to masturbate to will be the Daily Mail. Eeekkkkk!!
Girls: Got a retracted nipple? Then get the lads on the job! Boys: Might be your lucky day!
On the other hand not all buttons actually do something: the world of placebo buttons.
And on placebos, Nicholas Humphrey has a theory that society at large is built from a myriad of placebos. Yep, it is indeed all bollox. [This may be behind a paywall.]
Crossrail are still digging holes in London and finding all manner of archaeology. The latest is the site of the Bedlam Hospital near Liverpool Street.
And while on the ancient, here are twelve words which have survived only by getting themselves fossilised in idioms never to be seen alone in the wild.
The last 24-36 hours has been decidedly “Meh”, at best.
It all started yesterday afternoon when I fell asleep in the chair. Which is, of itself, not that unusual. But the thing was that when I awoke I felt decidedly out of sorts: lethargic, miserable (almost depressed) and ratty; generally incapable. Again nothing new there.
Because we were supposed to be visiting our friend Katy in Leicester today, things had to be done. And as it was to be an early start, an early night was desired. Which was good, ‘cos I still felt “meh” and put it down to the inevitable stress of being bright-eyed and bushy tailed long before o’God o’clock.
Signal for the phone to beep, with a text …
<flashback>
On Saturday we had been out to a local Thai restaurant with friends who had recently returned from holiday in foreign parts. Eldest child (a teenager) wasn’t there ‘cos he was ill with what sounded like ‘flu — the way one does. Anyway we went back to theirs for coffee after the meal as the youngest needed bed before an early Sunday start.
</flashback>
Anyway the upshot was that the teenager was taken to the doctor yesterday, and then to the hospital, to be diagnosed with a nasty, and rather infectious, foreign disease. Hence the text message. We didn’t at this stage know how far the infection might have spread, so I felt we should warn Katy — and she sensibly suggested we abandon our meet-up.
Well, if nothing else it’s a novel excuse!
And it seemed like a good call.
So we relaxed and drank to the teenager’s speedy recovery with a large G&T. But, unlike in days of yore, “meh”-ness was not abated by internal application of gin.
Sleep finally overcame me at about 1AM. And it stayed. And it then couldn’t find its coat to leave. I finally woke up some time after 11AM. Now not just feeling “meh” but also depressed. Bugger!
This last I do not understand; although there must be a genetic something there as my father was the same. He’d not sleep well but then be dead to the world all morning. I remember him being like this even when I was a teenager. Even on non-work days my mother would be up by about 8.30 and around 9-9.30 bring both me and my father cups of tea (in a desperate attempt to get us out of bed). I’d struggle into consciousness and descend by around 10. But not my father. He’d appear at 11, or later, with the words “It’s very odd, I found this cold cup of tea by the bed”.
My father was little better during the week. He’d normally struggle from his bed after 8AM and expect to catch the 8.33 train. (Luckily we lived 3 minutes trot from the station so he usually succeeded.) As a teenager I got so fed up with his frantic approach to mornings that, by choice, I used to get up at 7 and be out to school (just a mile away) before 8AM.
I recognise this now as all being down to depression; depression which didn’t abate as my father got older: he was no better in his 80s than in his 40s.
So anyway … after lunch today I spent and hour lying in the sun in the garden, enjoying warmth and light; and I then spent the rest of the afternoon “jellivating” — just sitting like a lump of jelly doing naff all of any use.
