Category Archives: amusements

amusements, beliefs, books, quotes, science, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

The usual eclectic and kleptological collection this week …

Blunt common sense is valued above Gauloise-wreathed nuances of gossip about concepts.
[AC Grayling, The Form of Things]

Religion is false but the masses should be encouraged to believe it; it keeps them in order.
[Plato quoted in AC Grayling, The Form of Things]

Harvester of maidenheads
[Description of the second Earl of Rochester, circa 1660, quoted in AC Grayling, The Form of Things]

The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.
[Bertrand Russell]

… and those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
[Friedrich Nietzsche]

I like prime numbers … I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your lifetime thinking about them.
[Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time]

The greatest university of all is a collection of books.
[Thomas Carlyle]

Long range planning does not deal with future decisions, but with the future of present decisions.
[Peter F Drucker]

Life begins at 40 — but so do fallen arches, rheumatism, faulty eyesight, and the tendency to tell a story to the same person, three or four times.
[Helen Rowland]

If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
[Anon]

amusements, current affairs, quotes, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

This week, a few words of wisdom from some Americans …

Any social organization does well enough if it isn’t rigid. The framework doesn’t matter as long as there is enough looseness to permit that one man in a multitude to display his genius. Most so-called social scientists seem to think that organization is everything. It is almost nothing — except when it is a straitjacket. It is the incidence of heroes that counts, not the pattern of zeros.
[Robert A Heinlein, Glory Road]

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
[Thomas Jefferson]

Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion.
[Scott Adams]

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
[Thomas Edison]

I have always believed that I was slightly saner than most people. Then again, most insane people think this.
[Truman Capote]

amusements, personal

Listography – Ice Cream

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It’s summer! Well at least that’s the theory. And in acknowledgement of summer this week’s listography is to pick out top five favourite ice creams (or ice lollies). Hmmm. I’m not a great ice cream eater, however …

Magnum Ecuador Dark. I like Magnums, all of them. But this dark chocolate is especially good.

Real Strawberry Ice Cream. It has to be real strawberry, with chunks of fruit in it, as made by a number of the small local firms and often available at the seaside.

Rowntree’s Fruit Pastille Lollies. Definitely the best of the ice lollies currently available.

Double Ripple Ice Cream. This is one I remember from my childhood in the ’60s, which probably isn’t available now. Made by Wall’s and available only as a brick, it was normal vanilla ice cream with a ripple of two red flavourings: one was obviously raspberry, but I don’t remember if the other was strawberry or cherry. And I don’t think it was available for very long; maybe only one summer as a trial.

Top Quality Chocolate Ice Cream. It really has to be good quality chocolate and quality ice cream; I especially like Beechdean Double Chocolate as sold by Waitrose.

amusements, current affairs, pleasures, words

Railspeak

About a week ago David Marsh wrote a brilliant article in the Guardian about the peculiar torture of Railspeak, that surpassingly odd distortion of English perpetrated by train companies:

Railspeak is a language with a unique syntax and vocabulary — characterised by, for example, the mandatory use of auxiliary verbs (“we do apologise”), the random deployment of redundant adjectives (“station stop”, “personal belongings”) and the selection of inappropriate prepositions (“journey time into London Paddington is approximately 25 minutes”).

Trains never leave, but “depart”, never reach their destination, but “terminate”, and are frequently delayed by mysterious “incidents”. Rail catering, meanwhile, has been transformed from a music hall joke (British Rail sandwiches) to a surreal world of its own, offering among other treats “teas, coffees, hot chocolates [sic] …” (Has anyone tested this by asking how many varieties of hot chocolate are, in fact, available? To enjoy, perhaps, while reading the safety information leaflet in braille?)
…
Meanwhile, someone should tell the announcer at Waterloo station that the ever-lengthening list of things we can’t do — smoke, run, cycle, skateboard, find a rubbish bin, find a seat — does not, so far, extend to playing boules or yodelling. Is this an oversight?

Customers requiring enhumoration into their Monday will find the article in the vestibule at the end of the post. Here.

amusements

More Auction Oddities

More mysterious lots, often containing odd assortments of objects, from our local auction house.

A wooden Hemley’s mah-jong set with bone pieces, and another modern mah-jong set.

A pair of reproduction plated napkin rings with cherub supports and a quantity of plated cutlery.

A good pair of late Victorian plated candlesticks in Adam style, with square tapering stems, with nozzles.

My heart sinks as soon as I read the first few words of the next lot …

An extensive interesting lot on four shelves including brass and copper ware, horse brasses, door furniture, kettles, taps, ornaments, trays, candlesticks, lamps, etc., buttons, clocks, weights, pewter ware, decanters, ceramic hot water bottles, mineral samples, playing cards, painted eggs, plate racks, reference books, etc.

An attractive French mandolin with paper label of JTL Jerome Thibouville-Lamy, Paris, inlaid with flowering stems in mother of pearl in leather case with sheet music.

Yes, but does it slice cucumber?

A German bisque piano baby, seated naked, another with small dog, and a large Sylvac comic dog with toothache.

A taxidermy specimen of a Barn owl in glazed case, early 20th century.

A taxidermy specimen of a curlew in a glass case, early 20th century.

I note they’ve stopped referring to “a stuffed booby”. “A taxidermy specimen” has a much less interesting ring to it.

A wonderful Saint Laurent Rive Gauche python skin lady’s suit with suede trim, bomber style jacket, straight skirt.

An old white painted water tank, a terracotta chimney pot, an old cut stone mill wheel, a pair of classical patinated urns, and three other troughs and three pigeons.

I hope they’ve been feeding the pigeons!

A large quantity of garden gnomes, squirrel, hedgehog, tortoise, etc.

A good collection of patinated garden ornaments including semi-clad ladies, figure of Pan, reclining dog, lions, pineapples, and a trough.

A large patinated terracotta pot containing a good example of a twisted Ficus plant, currently in healthy condition.

A WWII tin hat, gas mask, four old earthenware bed warmers and a soda syphon.

A 19th century elm and yew Windsor armchair with pierced and stick back and crinoline stretcher and a milking stool.

Presumably the milking stool folds away under the armchair when not in use, but carrying an armchair into the fields for milking must have been a real chore.

amusements, topographical

More Silliness

On Sunday morning I shall be travelling through central London by car, so I looked to see what major roadworks/closures there are lined up only to find that at the Blackfriars Bridge/Queen Victoria Street interchange

TfL contractors will be working at the junction to put poles into barrels.

Presumably this is so the foreigners can be pickled and repatriated.