Category Archives: amusements

amusements, books, history, quotes, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

OK, here’s this week’s selection of oddities encounter in the last few days …

‘Look at the bird.’ It was perched on a branch by a fork in the tree, next to what looked like a birdhouse, and nibbling at a piece of roughly round wood it held in one claw.
‘Must be an old nest they’re repairing,’ said Lu-Tze. ‘Can’t have got that advanced this early in the season.’
‘Looks like some kind of old box to me,’ said Lobsang. He squinted to see better. ‘Is it an old … clock?’ he added.
‘Look at what the bird is nibbling,’ suggested Lu-Tze.
‘Well, it looks like … a crude gearwheel? But why —’
‘Well spotted. That, lad, is a clock cuckoo.’
[Terry Pratchett; Thief of Time]

Hindsight, the historians’ parlour-game, can lead from false premise to false conclusion. Because we see the fateful consequences of our forebears’ actions, we can wrongly suppose that, had they done differently, things would have been better.
[AN Wilson, After the Victorians]

The clergy were seldom rich, but they were treated as if they were gentlemen: very often they were. Nearly all of them had degrees. High Church, Low Church, Broad Church, they were disseminated throughout the land. If they were even half good at their jobs, they and their wives and families mixed with everyone in their parish. They were extraordinary agents of social communication. It meant that almost everyone in England was within five miles of a man who could read ancient Greek.
[AN Wilson, After the Victorians]

Snow fell, east winds blew, pipes froze, the water main (located next door in a house bombed out and long deserted) passed beyond insulation or control. The public supply of electricity broke down. Baths became a fabled luxury of the past. Humps and cavities of frozen snow, superimposed on the pavement, formed an almost impassable barrier of sooty heaps at the gutters of every crossing, in the network of arctic rails.
[Anthony Powell, Books Do Furnish a Room]

In the highbrow world you “get on”, if you “get on” at all, not so much by your literary ability as by being the life and soul of cocktail parties and kissing the bums of verminous little lions.
[George Orwell]

In a mad world only the mad are sane.
[Akira Kurosawa]

amusements

More Auction Oddities

Another small collection of oddities from the recent catalogue of another of our local auction houses …

A collection of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ceramic figures including the “Lenox Treasure box collection” (that has gold plated charms within), also “Brooks & Bentley” salt and pepper collection.

A full size zebra skin rug, and an antelope rug.

A continental porcelain figure of a Grecian maiden holding aloft a twin-handled urn, together with a Coalport porcelain shouldered ovoid urn and cover, the cover having a pineapple finial raised on a socle supported plinth, the cream and midnight blue ground having gilt enrichments and gilt goat head masks, the cartouche painted with a ruined castle, signed: JH Plant
[I just cannot picture what sort of mess this is]

A Chinese porcelain garden seat formed as an elephant.

A miscellaneous selection of items, to include a pair of French First World War bayonets, a pair of African antelope horns and bison horns.

A large and interesting miscellaneous collection of tribal items to include various swords, an Eskimo arrow holder, a Burmese bird cage, a North African gunpowder flask, a Russian gilded sword and many more.

Two Zulu shields, an old African tribal paddle and various spears (bearing ‘Spink & Son Ltd’ labels).
[Why would Spinks be selling spears?]

A North West Persian tribal runner with a line of medallions alternating between hooked diamond and cruciform designs and contained within three borders.
[As well as having rather ornate body art I trust the runner comes with cleft stick.]

A boxed cherub table lamp.
[You mean there is a type of cherub I never knew about – the boxed cherub?]

In amongst this collection there is though the usual selection of really nice schmutter.

amusements

Auction Oddities

2 Comments

Another in our occasional series highlighting the oddities which turn up at our local auction house. In reading this remember we are talking suburban London, not seaside.

A square of South African grass weaving in yellow, brown, black and orange, size 25″x25″ approximately.

A canteen of plated cutlery for not quite six.

A stuffed gull in a glass case.

A mixed lot including Wallace & Gromit teapot, a pair of large oriental vases, bejewelled scent bottles, wind-up tin-plate Mickey Mouse, a pair of china horses, mottled glass basket, figurine in Highland dress, etc.

A Black Forest gateau carved cuckoo clock, embellished with stag head, hare, game bird.

A fishing creel with leather straps and handle.

A vintage ear trumpet, with telescopic stem, of tortoiseshell appearance.

A vintage model of a goat, in goat fur and simulated horns.

An old wooden box containing old packaging, Fairy toilet soap, old matches, old tins, and a box of old bulbs and Aladdin 2″ wicks, Delsey toilet tissue, soap, etc.

A pair of moulded concrete garden flower pots and a pottery elephant stand.

A baby bath full of old saws, secateurs and similar, an old Ransomes hand push lawn mower and four boxes of old tools, mainly chisels, hammers and spanners.

I’ll just leave your minds to boggle quietly. Although having said that they are also selling a lot of rather nice sounding 18th & 19th century silver and a few valuable Chinese vases. I guess that’s the joy of a “provincial” auction house.

amusements, music, personal, sexuality, thoughts

Tasmanian Liberation

Just today (where have I been?) I came across this song from Amanda Palmer & The Young Punx. It’s catchy. But more than that, the lyrics (at the bottom of this page on Amanda Palmer’s website if they’re not clear) are a hoot. (And they mostly accord with my view of the way the world should be. Hehe!)

There’s the background to the song (if you need an explanation) and a video of her original rendition on Amanda Palmer’s blog. And comment on SPIN amongst other sites.

Enjoy … but it’s probably NSFW!

[youtube

OMG! I’m turning into a punk rapper! At my age!?!? OMG!!!!!

amusements, beliefs, history, personal, quotes, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

This week’s selection …

There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.
[Denis Diderot]

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
[Dalai Lama]

[…] meeting at the College of Arms [with] Clarenceux King of Arms to discuss what might be appropriate [on a] coat of arms […] He suggests that though some people like to incorporate a play on their name in their Arms he was not sure a champagne bottle was on their approved list.
[Sir Stephen Bubb; http://bloggerbubb.blogspot.com/2011/01/arms-and-church.html]

In the movie Stardust Memories, Woody Allen meets some aliens and starts asking them all the Big Questions About Life. They tell him, “You’re asking the wrong questions. If you want to make the world a better place, tell funnier jokes!”
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality]

The next two are quite deep philosophically, but absolutely right logically …

I don’t know what’s waiting at the end of our lives. No one does. But it’s not the future that matters. Right now is what counts. If you want to believe in reincarnation, you have to believe that this life, what you’re living through right now, is the afterlife.
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality]

The present moment is eternal. It’s always there. It is unborn and it cannot die. And it does not reincarnate.
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality]

A guy walks up to a Zen master and asks, “Is there life after death?
The Zen Master says, “How should I know?”
The guy replies indignantly, “Because you’re a Zen master!”
“Yes,” says the Zen master, “but not a dead one.”
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality]

You cannot find reality inside a computer!
[Nishijima Roshi]

amusements, food+drink, sexuality, thoughts

A Difficult Question

1 Comment

OK, so here’s a really hard question for everyone which I saw being discussed on the internet a few days ago.

Which would you rather give up forever … cheese or oral sex?

And no, you aren’t allowed to negotiate restrictions and loopholes. It means all oral sex, both given and received. And it means all cheese: from cheddar to Camembert and Gorgonzola to cream cheese.

Although it is interesting to speculate why one might ever have to make such a decision, it is a hard question, isn’t it?

I think I have to agree with the apparent majority and elect to forego oral sex. As one person has remarked: there are lots of ways to have an orgasm but only one way to eat pizza, macaroni cheese or deep-fried brie.

What would you choose – and why? (And no you don’t have to make your decision public if it embarrasses you!)

amusements, science

A Cable Too Far

Clearly I’m not the only one capable of extracting the wee from things. This from the “Feedback” column of the current issue of New Scientist:

Almost three years ago Japanese electronics giant Denon offered hi-fi enthusiasts the chance to pay $499 for a short length of computer network cable, usually costing only a few dollars (23 July 2008). The claim was that the cable “thoroughly eliminates adverse effects from vibration”.

We never did get a clear explanation of how vibration can affect digits running through a cable. But it seems the price was a bargain, because the AKDLi cable is now on sale at Amazon.com at $9999 new or $999 used (plus $4.99 for shipping). Hi-fi fans have not been indifferent to the cable’s qualities. They have turned Amazon’s customer comments pages, at amzn.to/cablereviews, into a paean of ironic praise for these bits of wire, with well over 1400 reviews.

Recent postings include this from DMan: “I filled a large glass with ordinary tap water and carefully dipped the doubled-over cable in. The whole glass turned instantly dark, red and more viscous. A quick taste and both my friend and I agreed that it was the finest tasting red wine we’d ever encountered.”

This comes from jmf: “Ever since I started using the cable … my light sabre skills have improved dramatically, much to the awe of my Master. I am able to jump from an anti-gravitational car running at full speed onto another, all the time dodging a laser gun.”

Perhaps most startling is what happened when Philip Spertus connected his cable to an iPod: “After listening to the entirety of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony I went on to listen to his 10th, something that I have never been able to accomplish with the lower quality ethernet cord that I had previously been using.”

amusements, current affairs, quotes, sexuality

Quotes of the Week

Here’s this week’s selection …

Balian of Ibelin: [to the people of Jerusalem] It has fallen to us, to defend Jerusalem, and we have made our preparations as well as they can be made. None of us took this city from Muslims. No Muslim of the great army now coming against us was born when this city was lost. We fight over an offence we did not give, against those who were not alive to be offended. What is Jerusalem? Your holy places lie over the Jewish temple that the Romans pulled down. The Muslim places of worship lie over yours. Which is more holy?
[pause]
Balian of Ibelin: The wall? The Mosque? The Sepulchre? Who has claim? No one has claim.
[raises his voice]
Balian of Ibelin: All have claim!
Bishop, Patriarch of Jerusalem: That is blasphemy!
Almaric: [to the Patriarch] Be quiet.
Balian of Ibelin: We defend this city, not to protect these stones, but the people living within these walls.
[From the film Kingdom of Heaven; 2005]

When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties they lead their country by a short route to chaos.
[Robert Bolt]

It’s not about orgasm. Pay attention to your partner. Enjoy the sex you’re having.
[Emily Nagoski; ]

What is it with pathology journals and autoerotic deaths? Every other issue seems to have a case report of some heedless, autoasphyxiated corpse with ill-fitting briefs and a black bar across his eyes. Occasionally, they seem to be in there for sheer color, as in the case of the young Australian who perished from “inhalation of a zucchini.” This one raises more questions than it answers. Was he trying to intensify his climax by vegetally choking himself, or was it a case of overexuberant mock fellatio? (We do learn that the zucchini was from his wife’s garden, admittedly a nice touch.)
[Mary Roach, Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Sex and Science]

Michael called the purported rhesus pheromones “copulins,” a word I cannot write without picturing a race of small, randy beings taken aboard the starship Enterprise.
[Mary Roach, Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Sex and Science]

The bottom line is that men’s armpit secretions are unlikely to serve as an attractant to any species other than the research psychologist.
[Mary Roach, Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Sex and Science]

amusements, beliefs, books, history, sexuality

Quotes of the Week

Lots and lots to choose from this week, mainly because I’ve been reading Brad Warner’s books on Zen as well as his website and lots else besides …

Imagine, for a moment, what the world would be like if we took the same approach to money as we do to sex. Imagine trying to hide all evidence of money from children, telling them that it’s not something they should know about. Imagine shaming them for asking questions about it, for expressing an interest in it, and for wanting to experiment with it. Imagine that you never explained how budgets work, or how to balance a checkbook, or how to pay for anything. Then, imagine that when they turn 18, handing them a credit card and saying “good luck with that.”

In essence, that’s what we do with sex.

Would you be surprised if those young adults didn’t know how to responsibly handle money? Would you be shocked if they ended up in crisis because they didn’t have the skills to take care of themselves? Would you think that their parents and schools had done their job?

If you answered “no” to these questions, then maybe you can also ask yourself why it should be any different when it comes to sex.
[http://www.scarleteen.com/blog/scarleteen_guest_author/2010/10/22/why_we_need_scarleteen]

Albert R Shadle was the world’s foremost expert on the sexuality of small woodland creatures.
[This could easily be the opening of a Douglas Adams or a Terry Pratchett novel, but it’s actually from Mary Roach, Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Sex and Science]

Our life is just action at the present moment. The past is nothing more than memory, and the future is nothing but dreams. At best, past and future are no more than reference material for the eternal now. The only real facts are those at the present moment. You cannot go back and correct the mistakes you made in your past, so you better be very careful right now. You can dream about your future, but no matter how well you construct that dream, your future will not be precisely as you envisioned it. The world where we live is existence in the present moment.
[Brad Warner, Sit Down and Shut Up: Punk Rock Commentaries on Buddha, God, Truth, Sex, Death, and Dogen’s Treasury of Right Dharma Eye]

The Paris Peace Conference [of 1919] dispensed recipes for war. The powerful nations dished out independence: which meant it was not independence. Something which has been given you through the benevolence of a higher power is not true independence: it is a sign that you are not strong enough to stand on your own.
[AN Wilson, After the Victorians]

Virginia Woolf’s prose was as beautiful as her face, but like many twentieth-century English writers, she had nothing to write about.
[AN Wilson, After the Victorians]

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
[Andre Gide]

These ambiguities, redundancies, and deficiencies recall those attributed by Dr Franz Kuhn to a certain Chinese encyclopaedia entitled Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. On those remote pages it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel’s hair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance.
[Borges; Essay: “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins”]

Action and its results are one and the same. Time, the thing which makes us see them as separate matters, is the illusion. Time is no more than a clever fiction we humans have invented to help organize stuff in our brains.
[Brad Warner; ]

Boredom is important. Most of your life is dull, tasteless and boring.
[Brad Warner; ]

I am where I am because I believe in all possibilities.
[Whoopi Goldberg]