One Green Bottle
The other nine ran off and are now seeking asylum.
Category Archives: amusements
Who Knew …
I spotted this in a Daily Telegraph online news item yesterday …
“the survey of 1000 women found that two in five female British women admitted to have “al fresco sex“.
So how many male British women admitted to it?
Sadly(?) they’ve since updated the page and corrected the grammar.
Just for a few of my friends …
Quotes : Stop and Think
Some mornings it just doesn’t seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps.
[Emo Phillips]
So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.
[Peter Drucker]
The saying “Getting there is half the fun” became obsolete with the advent of commercial airlines.
[Henry J Tillman]
Censorship is telling a man he can’t have steak just because a baby can’t chew it.
[Mark Twain]
I see no way out of the problems that organised religion and tribalism create other than humans just becoming more honest and fully aware of themselves … we’re living in what Carl Sagan correctly termed a demon-haunted world. We have created a Star Wars civilisation but we have Palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. That’s dangerous.
[EO Wilson; New Scientist, 21/04/2012]
Not so much an auction …
… more a way of life!
More amusements from the catalogue of our local auctioneers.
An unusual Walt Disney Mickey Mouse ring, in 10ct gold, dated 24.9.56
A crude porcelain figure of a crouching man with naked bottom …
Just what I need for the mantelpiece!
A shelf of decorative ornaments and toys including … a figure of a lady seated with her dog in a crinoline …
How do you get the dog into the crinoline?
An interesting lot of old tennis rackets with presses, old golf clubs, lacrosse sticks, old radio valves and radios, a garden spray, old light bulbs, a tie press, an early photograph of a rugby team, and two fur coats, one faux
A set of 4 Royal Doulton Brambly Hedge seasons beakers, a set of 4 Royal Doulton Brambly Hedge seasons plates, 5 Royal Doulton Brambly Hedge figures: Primrose Woodmouse, Mr Apple, Poppy Eyebright, Wilfred Toadflax and Mr Saltapple; a Beswick figure of Mrs Rabbit and 3 Royal Doulton Bunnykins figures: Birthday Girl, Emperor and Mermaid Bunnykins
Oh dearie, dearie me!
A biscuit tin full of Robertsons Golliwogs paraded like the terracotta army …
Like one does!
A Victorian Aesthetic Movement brass wall sconce for three lights of leaf shape, applied with a lizard and butterfly
So hold on. You’re telling me that to use this I have to find leaf-shaped bulbs, and then a lizard and a butterfly to be able to fit them? Que?
An impressive radio-controlled liquid fuel model U-Boot Class XXI, with U.2511 transfer, in fibreglass painted grey, 64 ins. long …
A good old stuffed black-throated diver in a glass case
Hmmm …
A Burlington Wade Long John Silver musical Toby jug …
A Royal Copenhagen fawn on a column …
Takes a lot of skill does fawning on a column.
A Coalport neo-rococo milk jug enamelled with flowers and in grey and gold …
OMG!
A mounted fallow deer’s head with tail
A set of three mahogany salon chairs of gondola shape, each with an inlaid floral pattern above a pierced splat, each raised on cabriole legs
A modern cane chair of Sombrero design …
You're Selling What?
Even our more up-market local-ish auction house have their moments of amusement …
An unusual silver plated four branch epergne on hairy paw feet, lack glass bowls.
Two boxes of early 20th century British made, medical, chemist and surgical instruments, some military, including dental elevators, atropine injection, First Field dressing, various tube and glass ointments, circa 1945, etc.
An unusual yellow metal coiled snake, with blue cabochon eyes and a gold quartz ring.
[A species new to science?]
An early 20th century Chinese embroidered silk rope [sic], cream ground with embroidered floral vase arrangements, blue sleeve and neck trimming.
A ‘Milliners Joy’, German 1870s, tucks combs dressed as Millers … (one lacks right leg), a grotto diorama of small houses, a windmill and farm animals, painted and carved wood, including horses, deer, dog and cat … (loose small parts, windmill needs two blades repaired, sits in old wooden box with no front).
[Yes, it’s a box of toot!]
An old North-West Persian runner, with co-joined complex medallions …
[Pity his cleft stick isn’t included!]
A 19th century Chinese hardwood carving of an athlete with glass eyes.
[How do we know the original athlete model had glass eyes?]
A 19th century unusual brass syringe with ivory nipple.
A modern concrete statue of David (weathered).
And for the pedants amongst you, I spotted “a candelabra” and “a pair of candelabrums“.
In Case You Missed …
The usual links to things which have amused me and which you may have missed …
First of all … politics. Never short of an Idiot, and interesting cynical take on James Murdoch vs David Cameron.
And secondly … politics. The politicians are about to remove some of the interest in our lives by having “a bonfire of dead wood statutes” and abolishing some 800 outdated and obsolete laws. Have they really nothing better to do? Oh, sorry, it’s their job to make our lives boring.
So to alleviate that boredom here are a few seriously amazing items …
How long would it take to travel to the moon at the speed of whale? One Minute Physics has the answer.
[Not safe for the faint-hearted!] Turning to biology, entomologists have recently found and described an enormous Warrior Wasp, aka. Waspzilla. Talk about awesome! Yes, I really would love to meet one.
Still on the biological, I discovered The Tiny Aviary, the website of illustrator Diana Sudyka. Gorgeous drawings like the one above.
And finally more stunning art, this time from Dalton Ghetti who carves sculptures in pencil lead. How you even start doing that makes my head hurt!
Enjoy!
A Week in View
I guess that's me!
I can definitely identify with this …
Bird Watching : The Tits
Spring is sprung. The birdies are singing. Once again the British birdwatcher can enjoy their pleasure without having their nuts frozen off. So we are starting a new occasional series to introduce those unfamiliar with British birds to species identification in the field. First …
The Tit Family
There are seven (or maybe eight) species of tits seen in Britain (most commonly seen first).
Blue (or Tiny) Tit |
Great Tit |
Coal Tit |
Long-Tailed Tit |
| Marsh or Willow Tit May be two separate species but impossible to tell apart except hand. Named after the weeping willow tree.  |
Crested Tit |
Bearded Tit |