Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labelled “This could change your life”.
Helen Exley
Category Archives: amusements
Unblogged January
Diary-type thoughts on what occurred around here which weren’t otherwise written about.
Wednesday 1
I find it mysterious that I awoke this morning to find an empty champagne bottle in the bedroom wastepaper bin. Such decadence! Happy New Year!
Thursday 2
So the weather people have issued a weather warning for snow and ice (maybe someone needs to explain to them that snow is ice!) over the weekend – and for some much colder days and nights. What are the odds of us getting snow here in suburban west London? In my estimation approximately zero ± a gnat’s testicle. We’ll see; I could be wrong.
Friday 3
It was a nice sunny day, but they weren’t wrong about the cold. Bright sunshine and good light even at 15:30; pitch dark by 16:30.
Sunday 5
The squirrels are cheeky little monkeys; you can quite see why they’re so successful. Over the months they’ve created large holes in the mesh at the bottom of the peanut feeder outside the dining room window; I’m surprised the bottom hasn’t fallen out! Lunchtime today the feeder was almost empty and there was our chubby squirrel raiding it. There’s so little wire that said squirrel was getting a paw in the feeder to retrieve whole nuts – a bit like a cat feeling under the bed for their lost mouse.
Oh and we got a bit of snow last evening: rain turned to ice and then came snow; just enough to make things white. It had gone by morning to be replaced by rain and fog; the former continued persistently all day so by dark-fall we had half the garden under casual water.
Monday 6
I gave in and had my annual pre-birthday haircut and shower.
Friday 10
This week from the supermarket we have tangerines from Tangier … possibly. They’re certainly from Morocco. They’re rays of sunshine at the end of a cold, dull week. Today has only just crept above freezing having been around -6°C last night – and early this evening it is already around -4°C so we’re going to get another cold night. Indeed apart from roughly midday Sunday to sunrise Monday when it was relatively warm and wet, no day in the last week has got up to 5°C. And this is in the relative warmth of suburban west London!
Saturday 11
So that was a birthday, was it? N was at the hospital. I spent the day in the study doing paperwork & admin for various projects, and getting cold because I was resisting putting the heating back on. I work on the basis that it’s known that if you’re too hot you burn extra calories to keep cool, so it stands to reason that if you’re cold you’ll burn extra calories to keep warm – and after all I have plenty of calories to burn!
Sunday 12
Birthday part 2. Again, apart from 15 minutes doing bits outside, I spent the day mostly working on various projects, although I did have a good lay-in. Finished off with cold smoked chicken, new potatoes & fennel slaw, followed by strawberries & cream; all washed down with a bottle of champagne and a liqueur. End result = fairly incapable! Hic!
Wednesday 15
So I look out of the study window this morning and the trees in the garden are full of green parakeets. Count 16. 2 minutes later, count 18. Another 2 minutes, count 21. The final count got to 23! I think that’s a record for us. It’s no wonder N is having to refill the feeders every other day – what with the parakeets, tits, and at least 3 squirrels.
Thursday 16
Somewhere in the house the cats have lost a dead mouse. I can smell it, but not trace it. Gah!
Friday 17
They’re Moroccan and they’re whoppers! Most girls would be proud of them. [Spoiler: see a week ago.]
Saturday 18
Does anyone else have weird, byzantine, waking dreams? This morning my dream was a mixture of travel by taxi or given a lift by a colleague from two adjacent work locations, through a mixture of (London) suburbs, some rebuilt some not; to a big hospital where I was having regular bits of minor (but internal, abdominal) surgery. I think the consultant was one I’ve seen before who has done a couple of colonoscopies for me. And … I was also having dental treatment with my actual dentist in some rather dilapidated Edwardian rooms which were part of the same hospital. I was having to scuttle from one to the other, and trying to arrange appointments. The culmination was this complex dental work on a Saturday (my real dentist is Jewish so doesn’t work on a Saturday!), which involved not just my dentist, but also another dental consultant and an anaesthetist, all together. GOK what it was all about – other than anxiety!
Sunday 19
David the Pond Man came to do a much delayed late autumn overhaul. Blimey he drained the whole pond (the fish were put in a holding tank) and said he removed 2 inches of muck from the bottom. The saved water from two holding tanks went back in; and by dark-fall the hose had refilled the pond about ⅓ – quite enough for the fish and putting the pumps back on (we’ll refill the rest tomorrow, but God help the water bill!). But lo-and-behold, we still have 21 goldfish, which means we’ve not lost any in 2½ years; and they’re now big chunky goldfish which started out as tiny fingerlings.
Monday 20
Make that 22 goldfish.
Wednesday 22
It’s been one of those days where everything either conspires to be difficult, or actually goes tits up. In fact it was one of those days before I even got out of bed this morning. But I take consolation in that I’m not the only one suffering this today.
Friday 24
I still haven’t finished refilling the pond. It’s ⅔ full and filter running so should be OK. But I’ve declined to brave the rain, the lake on the path, and the mud to venture forth. This weather is driving us all up the wall. Can we actually manage to go a week without a major storm? So we consoled ourselves this evening with sausage and chips.
Saturday 25
There must be something wrong! I actually spent most of the afternoon reading.
Sunday 26
Cometh the gardener. He thinks he’s going to finish refilling the pond for me. Why bother? It is pissing with rain. And within an hour the garden is awash with casual water, again. Oh and the gardener thinks we have 23 goldfish – so one of us can’t count!
Monday 27
This afternoon, the usual twice yearly dental check-up etc. And as I was warned last time I need a raft of work done: at least 4 fillings, mostly because the existing fillings are beginning to fail. Well one of those fillings is old amalgam, so it must be 25+ years old. That’s going to hurt the wallet! I might have to have a replacement crown too, but at least for the moment that can has been kicked down the road, so even more cost postponed. It’s all surprisingly draining, even though I don’t actually mind going to the dentist.
Tuesday 28
Well if I pissed him off, it’s just too bad. Tell me on Monday evening that I have a meeting on Tuesday afternoon, and that I’m supposed to know about it, when this is the first I’ve heard? Don’t be surprised if I say “no”, followed by “and not this week”. A lack of planning (or attention to detail) on your part does not constitute a crisis on mine.
Wednesday 29
I had to chuckle this afternoon when we at the doctors doing outreach work. One of the young lady clinicians (not one of the doctors or nurses) was wearing black patent, very pointed, slightly upturned shoes, which reminded me of medieval poulaines – although not as exaggerated; more akin to 1960s winkle-pickers. I said to her that I liked her medieval shoes; she said she called them her Pied Piper shoes!
Friday 31
I’ve just tried some seaweed crisps. My advice: don’t!
Annual Impossible Exam 2024: the Answers
Way back on Christmas Eve I posted a link to this year’s King William’s College General Knowledge Paper 2024-25.
As always it was obscure and fiendishly hard.
Today the Guardian have published the answers.
I’ve not yet totted up exactly how well I didn’t do, but I doubt I have more than a handful of correct answers! Did anyone manage to get into double figures without internet searches?
January Self-Portrait
Just playing about while I had my annual birthday haircut!
[Click the image for a larger view]
Ten Things
This year our Ten Things column each month is alternating between composers and artists a century at a time from pre-1500 to 20th century. As always, there’s no guarantee you will have heard of them all!
Ten Composers Born Before 1500
- Nicholas Ludford
- Robert Fayrfax
- Johannes Ockeghem
- Guillaume Du Fay
- Gilles Binchois
- Josquin des Prez
- John Taverner
- Robert Carver
Robert Carver
- Guillaume de Machaut
- Antoine Busnois
This Month’s Quote
Nothing disturbs me more than the glorification of stupidity.
Carl Sagan
Unblogged December
Being some of the things that happened, but which I didn’t otherwise write about. Not every day, as foretold last month.
Sunday 1
Just what is it that screws up the universe? Both N and I have had one of those days, where everything has gone wrong, not worked, fallen on the floor, got tangled, or otherwise buggered up. Apart from wasting time and stuff, it is not good for the blood pressure. Why is it like this?
Monday 2
More garden bird fun today. While we were eating lunch a jay appeared on the peanut feeder a few feet outside the dining room window; I wasn’t too surprised as I had seen it fly across the garden a few minutes earlier. It had a good feed, went away, came back … Of course the green parakeets were around as well, and took exception to the jay. On one occasion a parakeet saw the jay off the feeder; the jay having flown into the top of the ballerina crab apple, was then bombed, quite deliberately, by another parakeet and displaced again. The parakeets were defending their feeder against this jay, and despite the jay being a bit bigger they were winning. This went on for a good 15-20 minutes, interspersed with visits from the squirrel and at least one great tit. Meanwhile another two squirrels were chasing each other, nose to tail, to and again across the middle of the garden. All highly amusing to watch.
Friday 6
I got some tangerines in this week’s supermarket order. Real tangerines. None of this satsuma rubbish. They’re absolutely wonderful: sweet, flavourful and not a mouthful of membrane. They’re a good size too. Just as they should be. It is a real change to find some citrus which is worth eating these days.
And while we were eating lunch there were squirrels running about the garden as if they’re on speed or something. One is quite podgy, so I guess could be pregnant although it’s not showing any signs of nipples and it’s a bit too early as they generally don’t start giving birth until late-February after a gestation of 45-ish days. So maybe we just have a Billy Bunter squirrel.
Saturday 7
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain … For the rain it raineth every day.
Monday 9
Blimey creatures! Yesterday afternoon the seed and peanut bird feeders were refilled, to the brim. A combination of mostly squirrels and parakeets have emptied the peanut feeder outside the dining room window, within 24 hours. While we ate lunch there was our podgy squirrel almost continually eating the peanuts: it would extract a nut and sit there nibbling away, rinse and repeat. In the time it took us to eat lunch this squirrel got through about an inch of peanuts!
Tuesday 10
16 green parakeets sitting in a tree.
Friday 13
Today I received my 250th Postcrossing card – which is rather sooner than I had initially expected. Here are cards 201-250 on our corkboard.
Saturday 14
And today my 250th Postcrossing card arrived at it’s destination in Switzerland. And another 3 cards in my letterbox, so we’re off to a flying start on series 251-300.
Monday 16
Tom came and brought us a couple of very nice fillet steaks – he knows somewhere he can get them at a sensible price (we don’t ask!). So we had steak (pan-fried, medium-rare) and chips for evening meal, and very good they were too.
Tuesday 17
What an awful dull, grey day, which seems to have fitted everyone’s mood. I started wrapping Christmas presents while N was at the hospital, and didn’t make a lot of progress. I’ll have to finish them on Thursday afternoon.
Thursday 19
Our friend Sue dropped by for a coffee this morning, having disgorged her husband at the hospital for a minor op. It was about the best time we could muster between us; fixing our Christmas pressie swap is always fraught. Sue originally suggested we go to them for food on 23rd or 24th, but N is being extra cautious about too much mixing at the moment, especially with the amount of flu there is around – and it’s looking as if this year’s flu jab is not very efficient.
Friday 20
Don’t you just love the NHS’s ability with communications! Late today N was told she has an appointment with the renal consultant on 7th January (not before time!), exactly at the time she is supposed to turn up for her dialysis session – although, for a wonder, it’s the same area of the same hospital! Moreover it is clearly expected that I go with her – which I want to anyway, as it’s time to harass the consultant. But of course this means I have to rearrange, for the third time, the meeting scheduled for that afternoon.
Sunday 22
Who knew that foxes like garlic bread? We had the crusts left over from the end of a loaf we’d made into garlic bread. So N put them out along with some chicken remains. Looking at the trail camera images, the chicken of course vanished first, but the foxes came back for the garlic bread. It’s all easy calories, so useful for them at this time of year.
Monday 23
Working in food retail is a pig of a job at this time of year; I know because I did it in the early days of UK supermarkets in late 1960s. So I wasn’t surprised when today’s grocery delivery turned up with only 3 crates out of 4 – luckily nothing missing that would have been a tragedy. The delivery guy said that the fourth crate would be delivered “this afternoon”. But at 19:30, no sign. I rang Customer Services who promised to give the Fulfilment Centre a prod. Sure enough, as soon as we sit down to eat the missing crate appears. Phew! I do have great sympathy for the guys at this time of year; both those working in retail and on the post, having done both.
Tuesday 24
As usual there’s just the two of us for Christmas, so we did what we traditionally do and bought a small bronze free-range turkey and a pork joint (leg, boned & rolled). I butchered the turkey: remove spine, legs and wings. That leaves us the crown for tomorrow; the rest is in the freezer for later. The pork came up 25% larger than we expected, so I removed a third which is now also in the freezer and the larger piece will be roast tonight. Result: we have a good amount of meat frozen for the future, and after roast for two days we’ll have lots for cold/pie/meat loaf/etc. over the next week. No doubt the cats will help too; in fact Rosie was wanting raw turkey (no chance).
Wednesday 25
A pretty normal Christmas Day here. Just the two of us; very quiet. Roast dinner in the evening with a bottle of champagne. A mountain of washing-up.
Monday 30
It’s that disconcerting time between Christmas and New Year when nothing is happening, little is working, you don’t know what day it is, or even what year it is. For some reason this year seems to have been more disjointed than usual. I wonder if that is because Christmas, and then New Year, are midweek so there’s no run of “normal” days from which to get one’s bearings. Of course N’s hospital trips don’t help, especially as the schedule has been juggled to avoid holiday days, so even that isn’t stable. Hopefully thinks will become more reliable next week when everything opens up and we’re no longer subject to Christmas TV.
Tuesday 31
So the old year ends, much as it started, grey and miserable, with little bits of rain. It’s scheduled to be a wet, warm and very windy start to the new year, but after tomorrow it gets much colder for at least a couple of weeks, although there is little sign of snow at least here in outer London. But we’ll keep warm, if only because we have a full wine rack! And, of course, we have a bottle of champagne in the fridge up for later: a glass just before midnight to say good riddance to the horrors of 2024, and a glass or two at/after midnight to welcome in 2025 with a wish that it is a much better year for everyone.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE
Monthly Links for December
So here we are with the last round of Monthly Links for 2024, and were ending with a fairly bumper bundle …
Science, Technology, Natural World
Let’s start off with Quanta Magazine‘s reviews of science during the year. [All are LONG READS]
The Year in Physics
The Year in Biology
The Year in Maths
The Year in Computer Science
For some reason Quanta don’t cover chemistry or medicine.
There’s this idea in theoretical physics that we are living in a simulation, driven by some higher powers. And now there is a possible new law of physics which could support this.
The mathematics of random gatherings is a bit of a riddle.
Exponential growth can be somewhat counter intuitive.
Meanwhile scientists have tossed 350,757 coins to prove that they’re not 50/50 heads/tails and that a fair coin is probably impossible.
By most standards our modern atomic clocks are pretty accurate, but they’re about to be superseded by nuclear clocks which are orders of magnitude even more accurate.
Somewhat at the other extreme there’s an ancient piece of space hardware which is surprisingly still working well beyond it’s intended lifespan.
Talking of space hardware, there’s growing concern at the quantity of space junk left flying about up above, and how it could destroy all possibility of further space missions.
There are, as NASA have discovered, a whole host of so-called “dark comets” flying about above our heads.
Let’s come back to earth, or rather the sea … a strange, previously unknown, predatory crustacean has been found miles deep in an ocean trench off the west coat of South America.
Land predators aren’t going to be left out … the 280-million-year-old fossil of a dog-like predator which is likely one of our oldest mammal ancestors, has been found in Spain (above).
From dogs to cats … scientists have made a lot of progress unravelling the complex genetics of ginger cats.
Finally in this section, Independent SAGE, which was formed early in the pandemic to communicate good and transparent science, have been doing some navel-gazing to see what they could have done better. There are two summaries by Kit Yates of the published research paper: activities and organisation and lessons learnt.
Health, Medicine
Although it’s now a bit late for Christmas 2024, here are some generally applicable ways, from a GP, to avoid some common health hazards.
The science and medical community are getting worried about a possible pandemic of H5N1 bird flu. But how close are we really close to a pandemic?
Meanwhile Bob Hawkins is writing a series of four articles on how one models a pandemic in order to understand how various scenarios play out. Here’s part 1, part 2 and part 3.
Here’s a look at why it makes sense to vaccinate boys against HPV.
Poliovirus has been found in wastewater in Spain, Germany and Poland. How important is this?
One of our most common symbols of Christmas, mistletoe, provides a number of therapeutic agents.
The Vagus Nerve, our most complex nerve, is responsible for the messaging associated with many of our organs, but it’s role in mental health is also being unravelled. [££££] [LONG READ]
Sexuality
It seems that sexual identity is much more fluid than we previously thought.
Sex educators provide 16 ways to talk to your children about bodies, porn and consent.
Environment
Here are five UK biodiversity success stories.
So what does happen to the natural world when people disappear? [LONG READ]
Carbon-positive gardening in your own back yard.
Hunting wildlife to remove them doesn’t work: hunt more coyote, get more coyote.
Social Sciences, Business, Law, Politics
So how much do we know about really old people, and how reliable is it? [LONG READ]
Sweden is almost a cashless society, and that’s not good for who are left out.
Art, Literature, Language, Music
As one had always suspected, “Word of the Year” is a marketing gimmick which tells us nothing about the actual state of the world.
Many authors place imaginary books within their own real books. Now there’s an exhibition in New York which brings some of these imaginary works of literature to life.
History, Archaeology, Anthropology
Let’s start off with a summary of ten fascinating archaeological discoveries of 2024. [LONG READ]
It seems highly likely that the first tools were made from plants, not rocks; but it is difficult to prove. [££££] [LONG READ]
A Bronze Age pit in Somerset has revealed evidence not just of mass murder, but also cannibalism.
Back around 4500 years ago, the area which is now Iran is known to have had a number of sophisticated board games including the Royal Game of Ur; and of course there are no manuals. Now two researchers have looked at another of these games, which has not just the board but also many of the pieces, and worked out a possible set of rules for the game. (If you really want brain-ache, follow the link to the preprint paper at the end of the linked article for a detailed explanation.)
In Norway, a number of Viking women’s graves have revealed jewellery, coins, and a ‘vulva stone’
An archaeological site in Kent is turning up lots of Anglo-Saxon finds, including a remarkably well preserved sixth-century sword.
Two articles on the plethora of archaeological finds from the reconstruction of Notre Dame. First from Science and second from Good News Network.
Unexpectedly, letters from Elizabeth I, Benjamin Franklin and Lord Byron are among a collection discovered in British stately home.
Around the globe there are around 8,500 shipwrecks from WWI and WWII, and many are now a ticking time-bomb of pollution, or worse.
Polluting shipwrecks are the ticking time-bomb at the bottom of our oceans.
Food, Drink
Now here’s a curiosity … Diamond Geezer has discovered that the British are drinking a lot less tea than 50 years ago, but coffee consumption is about the same.
Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs
People have always needed to make sense of the world within their knowledge span, so they end up believing all sorts of things which later generations reveal to be rubbish.
Here are three articles from Corey S Powell in which he takes a cosmic look at thought …
Perspective from the stars
You Are a Ripple of Information
Your information bubble is your legacy
How Polynesian voyagers navigate Earth’s biggest ocean.
So just why don’t more women choose to propose to their male partners? Spoiler: patriarchy.
Once they reach 40 many women become invisible to men, and they won’t all accept it. [££££]
Another look at why women wear bras.
And finally for this year … ten reasons why you need to sunbathe naked.
Annual Impossible Exam 2024
As is traditional, once again we bring you this year’s King William’s College General Knowledge Paper 2024-25.
For over a century the College has set an annual general knowledge test, known as the General Knowledge Paper. The pupils sit the test twice: once unseen on the day before the Christmas holidays, and again when they return to school in the New Year – after spending the holiday researching the answers. The test used to be mandatory but these days participation is voluntary.
The quiz is well known to be highly difficult, a common score being just two correct answers from the list of several hundred. The best scores are around 12% for the unseen test and about 70% for the second attempt – and of course the average scores are going to be very much lower than this.
The quiz is always introduced with the Latin motto Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis, ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est, “To know where you can find anything is, after all, the greatest part of erudition” – something my father always impressed on me as “Education is not knowing, it is knowing where to find out”.
You can find this year’s GKP on the King William’s College website at https://kwc.im/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/GKP_2024_25.pdf.
I’ve not yet tried this year’s test myself, but unseen I don’t normally have many more clues that the KWC pupils!
Enjoy your Christmas!
December Quiz Answers
Here are the answers to this month’s five quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.
Christmas
- In what country did Silent Night originate? Austria
- In what country did the custom of putting up a Christmas tree originate? Germany
- What plant based Christmas tradition did servants in 18th and 19th century England popularize? Kissing under the mistletoe
- How many wise men does the bible say visited the baby Jesus? It doesn’t mention a number.
- In which European country was the original St Nicholas born? Turkey
Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2023.