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, words

100 Day Word Challenge: Summary

It’s interesting to go back and look at my 100 day word challenge …

Over the 100 days, grouped as 20 sets of five words, I chose one word in each group as a favourite. Some of these were chosen because of their meaning, while others were chosen because I just like the word itself. Here are those favourites, in alphabetical order:
alopecoid: of, or resembling, a fox
belomancy: divination by means of arrows
bloomery: the first forge in an iron-works through which the metal passes after having been melted from the ore, and in which it is made into blooms
chiru: Tibetan antelope with a thick, reddish-brown woolly coat, and (in the male) very long straight horns
circumjacent: bordering on every side, surrounding
hieromonach: a monk who also serves as a priest
hwyl: emotional state capable of arousing intense eloquence
limaciform: having the form of a slug
pegomancy: divination by the examination of springs or fountains
plenicorn: of a ruminant: having horns that are solid rather than hollow
polemarch: Ancient Greek military commander or an official with certain civil or ritual duties
pourpointerie: quilted material with studs at the seams, worn in the Middle Ages as armour
prasinous: a leek-green colour
quinticlave: upright brass-wind instrument like a keyed bugle
scop: an Old English poet or minstrel
squarrose: having scales sticking out at right angles
tonitruone: musical instrument that imitates sound of thunder
vervecine: of or pertaining to a sheep
yellowplush: a footman, esp. one who wears breeches made of yellow plush; an underling, a lackey
yelt: a young sow

Of these 20 I think my very favourite might be yellowplush; it’s just so “off the wall” but brilliantly descriptive while being slightly, but politely, derogatory. And it always reminds me of Sir John Tenniel’s brilliant illustration of the Frog and Fish Footmen, from Alice in Wonderland (below).

Needless to say there are others I particularly like; here are another dozen:
cabasset: light iron helmet
cicisbeo: the male companion of a married woman
ecdysiast: a striptease performer
ketjak: traditional Balinese dance accompanied by male chorus
labiomancy: lip reading
megachiropteran: of, like, or pertaining to fruit bats
orf: an infectious disease of sheep and goats caused by a pox virus
pongee: A soft, usually unbleached kind of Chinese silk fabric, woven from uneven threads of raw silk
pubarche: the first appearance of pubic hair
yatzy: A dice game popular in Scandinavian countries
zenana: system of segregating women away from men in harems
zenzizenzizenzic: the square of a square of a square number; the eighth power of a number

I’ve also taken a look at the subject matter covered by the words. I am slightly surprisedd at the top three categories:
Pertaining to Animals: 16 words
Pertaining to People: 14
Pertaining to Science: 12
The people and science categories don’t surprise me so much, but I would not have expected the animals to come out on top. I would probably have that things historical would be much higher than languishing in the bottom half.

What else can we learn? Quite by chance I managed to pick at least one word beginning with each letter of the alphabet. Some initial letters were more popular than others: of the 100 words, 13 begin with S, 11 with P and 8 with C; all the rest tag along behind. Slightly unexpectedly both D and E occur as initial letters only once; less unexpectedly they’re joined by K and W. I suppose that given the dependency of English on Latin and Greek that the proponderance of S, P and C isn’t hugely surprising.

Anyway, there we are. 100 words which I didn’t know – and along the way I must have passed over at least 10 times that number I did know. How many of them will I remember and use? If only a couple stick it will have been worth doing.

amusements, memes

Ten Things: February

This year our Ten Things series, on the tenth of each month, is concentrating on things which are wackier than usual, if not by much. From odd road names to Christmas carols by way of saints and scientists. So here goes with February, and especially for Lent …

Ten English Saints

  1. Thomas Beckett (right)
  2. Margaret Clitherow
  3. Edmund Campion
  4. John Fisher
  5. Gilbert of Sempringham
  6. Alcuin of York
  7. Venerable Bede
  8. Edward the Confessor
  9. Hilda of Whitby
  10. Margery Kempe
amusements, words

100 Day Challenge: Words #20 (Final)

Yes, we made it! Here’s the final episode (days 96 to 100), of my 100 day challenge to find words I don’t know. I’ve been scraping words from https://randomword.com/ and each day picking one that I find interesting and which is also in the OED.

Day Date Word Meaning
96 Tuesday 4 February unguiculate having claws
97 Wednesday 5 February hwyl ** emotional state capable of arousing intense eloquence
98 Thursday 6 February cacolet a military litter for the sick or wounded carried by mules
99 Friday 7 February ketjak traditional Balinese dance accompanied by male chorus
100 Saturday 8 February oneiric of, like, or pertaining to dreams

** My favourite of the words presented.

So that’s it for this 100 day challenge. I’ll try to write a summary in the next few days. And look out for another challenge – I’ve got some ideas lined up but we’ll maybe have a break first.

amusements, words

100 Day Challenge: Words #19

1 Comment

We’re almost at the end! Here’s episode 19 (days 91 to 95), the penultimate summary of my 100 day challenge to find words I don’t know. I’m scraping words from https://randomword.com/ and each day picking one that I find interesting and which is also in the OED.

Day Date Word Meaning
91 Thursday 30 January tonitruone ** musical instrument that imitates sound of thunder
92 Friday 31 January sponsalia espousals, marriage
93 Saturday 1 February rhopalic verse in which each word contains one syllable more than the preceding one
94 Sunday 2 February corbeau a dark green colour verging on black
95 Monday 3 February rulley flat four-wheeled wagon for carrying goods

** My favourite of the words presented.

The final episode on Sunday!

environment, science

Fukushima’s Tritium

The Fukushima nuclear site is now overflowing with contaminated water (from cooling the remaining fuel cores to prevent further meltdown) which is being stored in huge tanks. Like they have almost 1.2 million tonnes of water from which the major radioactive contaminants have been removed (they say). And they’ve almost run out of space for more tanks.

However the stored water is still contaminated with tritium (3H), a rare radioactive isotope of hydrogen with a nucleus containing one proton and two neutrons, and a half-life of 12.32 years. Although radioactive, tritium is generally considered safe, at least externally (one common use is in luminous watches and displays).

But this presents a problem, because to even reduce the tritium level by 90% through natural decay will, I guestimate, take in the region of 40 years (something over 3 half-lives). Would that level of reduction be enough? I don’t know; I’ve not seen the data.

Extracting the tritium from the water is technically very difficult and there is no industrial-scale process available to do it.

So to solve their storage problem Tokyo Electric (Tepco) want dump the contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean. The alternative contending suggestion is to allow the water to evaporate into the atmosphere (taking the tritium with it); but this has been rejected.

Now I see the logic of dumping the water into the ocean. There is already a (low) level of tritium in seawater anyway; and most nuclear facilities use either seawater or river-water as a coolant, with the waste water flowing back into the river/ocean in real-time with low levels of contaminants (mostly tritium).

My reaction to this as a scientist is that dumping the water into the sea, over a period of years, and maybe from several sites separated by a distance, is likely the best solution; and not a solution that would, I think, worry me if it were “in my backyard”. On the other hand I do quite see, from an environmental viewpoint, why local people and nearby countries don’t like the idea.

It’s just a pity there isn’t an industrial-scale extraction process, because the tritium would be extremely valuable, even if it amounted to just a handful of grams. For one, the JET European Torus experimental nuclear fusion reactor is planning a run for late this year, and for that they need a few grams of tritium, which costs around $30,000 a gram. Surely there must be a way?

amusements, memes

February

We’re beginning every month this year with a haiku (or a longer poem made of haiku) relevant to the month.

Valentine

Valentinius –
Not much is known about him,
But all girls love him.

Saint Valentine’s Feast,
On February fourteenth:
Mostly chocolates!

It would make more sense
To honor Aphrodite …
So then, why don’t we?!

[Mark J Halliday]

All the poems can be found online at http://www.haikupoemsandpoets.com.

current affairs

Welcome!

Welcome everyone in the UK to the world’s newest third world country

So you think Britain isn’t a third world country?
Outside the EU it will be about as important as Tristan da Cunha.

Gawdelpus!

environment, history, links, medical, science, sexuality

Monthly Links

Welcome to thee first of our monthly links for 2020. Here are links to items you may have missed the first time round, but will be glad you’ve now found. We’ve collected a huge number of items this month, so lets get stuck in …

Science, Technology, Natural World

You may well poo-poo astrology (and who should blame you!) but there is an argument that it paved the way for predictive, analytical science.

In the western world we do a lot to mask our body odour. Here’s some of the chemistry behind what we’re trying to mask.

Science’s theoretical models can be complex, however the most successful ones usually aren’t. [££££]

So how is it that some trees life 1000 years, apparently healthily?

Health, Medicine

I know my body temperature is naturally low, but it now seems that human body temperature is generally cooling over time. Two looks at this from New Scientist [££££] and Scientific American [££££]

Six curious facts about our sense of smell.

The whole situation around the new Chinese Coronavirus is moving so fast I’m not going there with blog posts. However here is something about the viruses which cause colds and flu.

While mentioning flu, researchers are now discovering that injecting the flu vaccine into a tumour stimulates the immune system to attack it.

Medics are coming to the opinion that many mental health conditions, from depression to dementia, are caused by inflammation.

The vaginal, uterine, cervical, clitoral, urinary, rectal, and muscular dimensions of the pelvis: the VAGGINA hypothesis.

Which takes us nicely on to …

Sexuality

Apparently almost half of British women have poor sexual health, around three times the rate for men.

Here’s something I didn’t know … One part of this is poor sexual health is that some women have incredibly painful orgasms. It’s not clear if this also affects men.

But men do have sexual problems too: it is thought that around 10% of men have Peyronie’s disease, which causes significant bending of the penis; it’s often painful and prevents sex.

One woman talks about how wanking brought her closer to her husband. [NSFW]

Environment

One UK scientist is suggesting that half the country’s farmland should be transformed into woodlands and natural habitat to fight the climate crisis and restore wildlife.

Following in the footsteps of the Woodland Trust, the National Trust to plant 20 million trees in the UK over the next decade as part of efforts to achieve net zero emissions by 2030.

It’s reported that London’s new year fireworks increased air pollution with a legacy of metal particles. Why is anyone surprised?

York is the latest city (following Bristol and Birmingham) to plan on banning private car journeys from the city centre.

I’ve been saying this for twenty years: the majority of business air travel is unnecessary; there are more environmentally, financially and employee friendly ways of doing business – and they’re just as effective. Why is there no will to grasp this?

Social Sciences, Business, Law

Hansard is the official record of business in the UK’s parliament. Here’s something on how their reporters handle getting to grips with an influx of new MPs.

Art, Literature, Language

OK, so who understands what sodomy actually is, at least according to the medieval world view. [LONG READ]

An Italian art gallery has discovered its stolen Gustav Klimt painting in a wall.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Archaeologists have found the graves of high-status Romans in Somerset.

Here’s a series of long reads from Going Medieval about medieval life …

The most maligned of creatures, since ancient times, the wolf has a central role in mythology. [LONG READ]

Medieval people were nicer to cows than we are now. [LONG READ]

Medieval courtly love was just as full of pick-up artists as other times. [LONG READ]

There’s a subset of society who (erroneously) believe the medieval Church was a shadowy organisation dedicated solely to suppressing knowledge and scientific advancement. [LONG READ]

No medieval people weren’t dirty. Yes, mediaval people bathed – a lot more than we think. They even invented soap! [LONG READ]

It’s interesting what you can find in the sludge of a London medieval cesspit.

Slightly nearer our own time, it seems that Columbus may well have been right in his claims of cannibals in the Caribbean.

Lifestyle, Personal Development

A Utah (think Salt Lake City and Mormons) court convicts a mother of lewd behaviour for bearing her breasts in front of her children. But is being naked around your own kids good for them? Spoiler: yes.

The “power of bad” and the “curse of good”. We’re living in a gilded age but can we defeat negativity?

There is some surprising psychology behind being perpetually late.

Shock, Horror, Humour, Wow!

And finally, the United Kingdom wins a Darwin Award for Brexit. Well who would have guessed?!

amusements, words

100 Day Challenge: Words #18

Episode 18 (days 86 to 90), the antepenultimate summary of my 100 day challenge to find words I don’t know. I’m scraping words from https://randomword.com/ and each day picking one that I find interesting and which is also in the OED.

Day Date Word Meaning
86 Saturday 25 January belomancy ** divination by means of arrows
87 Sunday 26 January orf an infectious disease of sheep and goats caused by a poxvirus
88 Monday 27 January fanfaron a blusterer, boaster, braggart
89 Tuesday 28 January schapska a flat-topped cavalry helmet
90 Wednesday 29 shandry a light cart or trap on springs

** My favourite of the words presented.

Next episode in a few days!