Category Archives: amusements

Auction Oddities

As usual there are some strange, and slightly zen, lots in our local monthly auction.

A conductor’s baton, in ebonised wood and silver, London 1920, and a silver child’s fork
Is the fork for use conducting, or the baton used as a child’s eating implement? 

A stuffed red squirrel clasping a nut, perched on a branch. 

An old wooden bottle box containing old garden tools, trowels, chisels, hammers, an old fire extinguisher, a carton containing an enamelled measuring jug, old door plates, a first aid box incl. old spark plugs, an enamelled bread bin and lid containing a pair of green plastic picnic tables for suspension from car windows, a collection of shells, old buckets, an old water feeder by Eltex, 2 prints, etc.
Why does one keep spark plugs in a first aid kit?  Or green plastic picnic tables in a bread bin?

Old wooden cartons containing a large number of small terracotta garden pots, some in an old pram body, a small wall cupboard and an empty box
It was the “pram body” which finished me off!

A Belgian brass trumpet signed C. Mahillon, in case, a pair of shoe trees, and a club.

A python skin, four metres long.
Every home should have one!

I’ve never actually been to this sale as, apart from the odd sword, I’ve never seen anything of interest to me.  One day I must go to the viewing if only for amusement.

Nude Day at Work

I’ve posted quite a bit about nudity, naturism and “clothing optional” over the years; a search on “nudity” will pick up the majority of postings.  As you’ll all guess by now I’m a great believer in not wearing clothes if I don’t need to: “nude when possible; clothed when necessary” is the motto.  Having said that I’m not an active member of the naturist movement, partly because I’m not a clubby sort of person and partly down to sheer convenience; I do though support British Naturism (BN) by being a member.

All of which is a preamble to say that I’m not sure I have blogged this cartoon before; if I have it was before this incarnation of the weblog, so a long time ago.  You’ll need to click the image to get a larger, readable, version.

Now wouldn’t that be a great idea.  I wonder which company would have the courage to be the first to introduce Mondays (or any day!) as Nude Day at work?

Quotes of the Week

Another in our occasional series of quotations encountered during he week which have struck me: because of their zen-ness, their humour, or their verisimilitude.

Although the world’s religions may differ fundamentally from one other in their metaphysical views, when it comes to their teachings on the actual practice of ethics, there is great convergence. All the faith traditions emphasize a virtuous way of being, the purification of the mind from negative thoughts and impulses, the doing of good deeds, and living a meaningful life.
[Dalai Lama]

Don’t forget those irregular verbs like hoggo, piggeri, swini, gruntum.
[pmh {at} cix]

Sex and money: the forked root of evil
[Ross Macdonald, The Drowning Pool]

Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.
[Tom Robbins]

Girls are like pianos. When they’re not upright, they’re grand.
[Benny Hill]

Bad Guy Think

© Scott Adams

A couple of excellent, if slightly cynical, quotes from Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) in an article in the Wall Street Journal, Saturday 5 June on why one should invest in companies you hate (sic).

CEOs are highly skilled in a special form of lying called leadership.

Every investment expert knows two truths about investing: 1) Past performance is no indication of future performance. 2) You need to consider a company’s track record.  Right, yes, those are opposites.

Adams Complexity Threshold

The eponymous author of the Scott Adams Blog (yes, that Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert) a couple of days ago wrote a prescient piece about complexity.  It’s worth reading the piece, including the comments, in their entirity. But here’s a taster:

The Adams Complexity Threshold is the point at which something is so complicated it no longer works.

The Gulf oil spill is probably a case of complexity reaching the threshold. It was literally impossible for anyone to know if the oil rig was safe or not. The engineering was too complex. I’m sure management thought it was safe, or hoped it was safe, or hallucinated that it was safe. It wasn’t possible to know for sure …

It’s our nature to blame a specific person for a specific screw-up, but complexity is what guarantees mistakes will happen and won’t be caught …

Complexity is often a natural outgrowth of success. Man-made complexity is simply a combination of things that we figured out how to do right, one layered on top of the other, until failure is achieved.

And from the comments:

I think government has a lot to do with adding complexity. Some failure happens and those in charge feel they have to earn their constituents votes by “doing something.” This usually results in regulations that work as well as the Maginot Line stopped Hitler …

Humans just can’t leave well enough alone. When (insert anything here) works perfectly the human race will re-refine it into incompetence. Why? Because eventually, no matter how incredibly efficient something is there’s always some Wag out there insisting it could be better. Even though there’s no rational reason to tinker with it, eventually people buy into the need for “continuous improvement” until the entire thing collapses …

“In simplicity is power.”

Why is it that so few can see this? Oh, sorry, Emperor’s New Clothes Syndrome.

Picture Imps

Another zany moment from the “Feedback” column of this week’s issue of New Scientist:

[Feedback reader X] tells us that her mother says her new camera works much better “because it has many more pixies than her old one”. Meanwhile, X’s daughter is apparently excited at the discovery that “there are millions of haemogoblins capering round the circulatory system, delivering parcels of oxygen”.

As for X herself, she says she gets along fine in life so long as she’s got her elf (try saying that with a cockney accent). She wonders if other Feedback readers have noticed the presence of similar “differently real” companions in their lives.