Category Archives: amusements

amusements, arts, memes, personal, pleasures, thoughts

100 Days of Haiku

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As I have nothing else to do (joke!), and wanting to add something to my woeful practice of mindfulness, I have set myself a little challenge:

To write at least one haiku a day for 100 consecutive days.

What are haiku? Haiku is a Japanese verse in three lines with 5, 7 and 5 syllables respectively. Traditionally haiku are mood poems and don’t use any metaphors or similes; however beginners, like me, are usually start with just the restriction of the number of lines and syllables. There are many online collections of haiku, for example here, including those of the Japanese master Matsuo Basho.

I started this challenge last Monday, so I’m now seven days in and it is time to record the first results. In total I have written 16 haiku in the seven days – some good, many not so good. Here is one from each day showing a variety of ideas and subjects.

Monday 1 July
Cicadas singing
Long through sultry summer nights.
Thunder before dawn.

Tuesday 2 July
Sunshine streaming in
windows open wide for air.
Why such depression?

Wednesday 3 July
Hickory dickory dog,
rough enough through cough, lough and chough.
Cork works porky quark.

Thursday 4 July
Useful man, Paddy:
Build, fix, repair, recycle.
Moonshine of the bog.

Friday 5 July
Wispy cirrus cloud
Against Dutchman trouser blue.
Metal bird glides by.

Saturday 6 July
Sticky, sticky day
Energy drained away.
Starry, starry night.

Sunday 7 July
Seven round a table;
Friends’ dinner party makes mirth.
Mountainous paella.

Well no-one said that haiku had to make sense – at least not modern haiku; the traditional style seems more rigid!

I’m not going to post an offering every day, as some proponents of 100 day challenges do, but I shall attempt to post at least weekly updates. And I’m logging all the output, whether posted here or not, so who knows what might happen at the end.

amusements

Counters

Each month this year we’re bringing you a post under the general title “Things that Count in [Number]” where [Number] will be the month. And naturally each month’s post will contain the [Number] of items (so just one for January, up to 12 for December).

For our purposes the definition of counting includes things which either come in groups of [Number] (eg. four suits in a pack of playing cards) or things which count in [Number] (eg. decimal coinage counting in tens).

Things which Count in Seven …

  1. Deadly sins
  2. Swans a-swimming
  3. Colours of the rainbow
  4. Wonders of the world
  5. Chakras
  6. Petals on a lotus flower
  7. Dwarfs
amusements, ramblings

Auction Amusement

Our local auction house haven’t recently turned up the usual outstaning collections of oddly composed lots or strange things being sold. However here are the highlights of the last three sales.

A quantity of Egyptian dried scarab beetles

Two person tent, a quantity of cricket bats, a Mandoline Pro in box, a toaster, a Daewoo deep fat fryer, and one by Russell & Hobbs, plus five sculpture puzzles including Darth Vader and an Egyptian

A pine tool-box, an African drum, a vintage three-legged milking stool

Metal milk crate containing 19 milk bottles Middle Edgarley Farm, Glastonbury and a vintage Burroughs adding machine

An Edison Bell Gem phonograph, London-made, No. 21090, a Piccolo zither, a small oak barometer of banjo form, and a combined timepiece and barometer of lancet form

A cut-glass claret jug with Continental silver-plated mount, and a pewter mug inscribed to H Churchill of the Madras Fire Service

Ten saddle stands

A vintage cast iron tram controller dead man’s lever stamped BTH Co Ltd, Rugby, England

A Bo Peep sheep stool with wool cover

An interesting 19th century pine cabin trunk the black front panel painted Pte W Bryers 7/9th Regt the inside lid pasted with a period paper ‘Presentation of Colors to the 9th Regimental of Foot’ 1848, also a paper cutting reporting the death of John Bryers by drowning in the Regents Canal following a contretemps in a local alehouse

A good quality artist’s easel with full adjustments by Winsor & Newton, and two antlers

Four shelves of mixed items including a Tiffany style ceiling light plus another, photo frames including silver-plated, a Victorian silk table screen, framed pictures, a chess set, a four-drawer jewellery box, a cased set of Apostle tea spoons, wicker baskets, a brass clock in the shape of an over-sized pocket watch, vintage advertising tins, display cases, a Cardiff City shield, Chinese scrolls, replica swords, work boots, a Thomas the Tank Engine toy etc.

A pair of silver-plated three-branch candelabra, a mantel clock, a doorstop alarm, a fold-away rucksack, a micro jet tool, cord strap, fly swats, a sensor night light, packs of card, a charger, putty, a briefcase, a hobby drill, a red bag, a portable brush holder etc.

A French bronze spelter figure of an Arab horseman, circa 1900, together with a copper and brass bugle, and four similar horns

An antique AEG Mignon typewriter, Model 4, with TCM London transfers

Three black vintage telephones, a pair of 19th century Lucas bicycle lights, two lanterns etc.

A vintage PerryBuoy lifebuoy, a Smith Maritime rev counter, two old metal pulleys, three pairs of binoculars

An American Todd Protectograph cheque writer, with label for Halsby & Co Ltd, list of patents to December 30th 1924

A Clarice Cliff Bizarre Gayday dwarf candlestick painted with flowers, and an Art Deco vase with runny decoration

A Lark tuba made in China model no. M4050

An to end with, good though this is …

A vintage taxidermy display of three ermine on simulated rocks, with paper label of W.C. Darbey, Naturalist, 12 Banbury Road, Oxford

… the pièce de résistance surely has to be …

Henry John Yeend King, an oils on panel triptych of a classical idyll typical of the Aesthetic Movement, signed, applied to a Victorian upright piano in figured walnut by Justin Browne of London, the lower panel by the pedals also painted with steps to a lily pool

More as and when the mood takes the auction house!

amusements, personal

Another Meme

Oh dear! It’s time for another meme. This one stolen from David Hallett on Facebook and slightly amended.

  • How old are you: 68
  • Surgeries: 9 – appendectomy, 2x cystoscopy, sinuses & septoplasty, finger nail removal, 2x arthroscopy, 2x knee replacement; all as an adult
  • Tattoos: 0
  • Piercings: 1
  • Broken a bone: no – but have come close a few times
  • Ridden in an ambulance: yes
  • Ridden in a squad car: no
  • Ice skated: no
  • Ridden a motorcycle: no
  • Stayed in hospital: yes
  • Skipped School: no
  • Donated blood: to my shame, no
  • Last text: friend Jean
  • Watched someone die: no; never managed to get there in time
  • Pepsi or Coke: Diet Coke
  • Favourite season: spring/early summer
  • Received a ticket? yes
  • Favourite Colour: yellow, or light green
  • Sunset or sunrise: sunrise
  • Beach or mountains: beach
  • Who will play this with you: probably no-one
  • Cat or dog: always cats
  • Watch someone give birth? no
  • Kids: none
  • Samsung or iPhone: almost anything but Apple
  • Favourite alcohol: Adnams Dry Hopped Lager
amusements

Counters

Each month this year we’re bringing you a post under the general title “Things that Count in [Number]” where [Number] will be the month. And naturally each month’s post will contain the [Number] of items (so just one for January, up to 12 for December).

For our purposes the definition of counting includes things which either come in groups of [Number] (eg. four suits in a pack of playing cards) or things which count in [Number] (eg. decimal coinage counting in tens).

Things which Count in Six …

  1. Balls in an over in cricket
  2. Legs on an insect
  3. Noble gases
  4. Sides on a cube
  5. Wings on a seraph
  6. Dots in a Braille cell
amusements, quotes

Quotes

A monthly round-up of recently encountered quotes, interesting and amusing …

Hospitals are a dominion of streets and mapped lines. Their psychogeography filled up with each body that has passed through them. How many people have slept in this bed? A commonwealth of wards, a confederacy of the sick. Anyone who presents themself for care, cure or examination must accept the role of patient, which requires them to give up something: freedom/free will/free movement.
[Sinéad Gleeson, Constellations: Reflections From Life]

There was an old woman from Slough
Who developed a terrible cough
So she drank half a pint
Of warm honey and mint
But sadly she didn’t pull through.
[unknown]

Me: What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?
Dad: Never whistle with a mouth full of custard.
[Annie Morris on Twitter]

When I’m good I’m very, very good, but when I’m bad, I’m better.
[Mae West]

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.
[Richard Feynman]

There are two types of genius. Ordinary geniuses do great things, but they leave you room to believe that you could do the same if only you worked hard enough. Then there are magicians, and you can have no idea how they do it. Feynman was a magician.
[Hans Bethe on Richard Feynman]

First, what bothers me isn’t just that people said 5-HTTLPR [a gene, thought to have a role in depression] mattered and it didn’t. It’s that we built whole imaginary edifices, whole castles in the air on top of this idea of 5-HTTLPR mattering. We “figured out” how 5-HTTLPR exerted its effects, what parts of the brain it was active in, what sorts of things it interacted with, how its effects were enhanced or suppressed by the effects of other imaginary depression genes. This isn’t just an explorer coming back from the Orient and claiming there are unicorns there. It’s the explorer describing the life cycle of unicorns, what unicorns eat, all the different subspecies of unicorn, which cuts of unicorn meat are tastiest, and a blow-by-blow account of a wrestling match between unicorns and Bigfoot.
[Quoted by Derek Lowe at https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/05/10/there-is-no-depression-gene]

The police officer who puts their life on the line with no superpowers, no X-Ray vision, no super-strength, no ability to fly, and no invulnerability to bullets, reveals far greater virtue than Superman – who is only a mere superhero.
[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

I love this waterway [Regent’s Canal]. I’d like to have a private barge, and float down it waving to the tarts.
[X Trapnel in Anthony Powell’s, Books Do Furnish A Room]

There once was a man from Nantucket,
who, tired of life
inside a lewd limerick,

moved out
and set up home
in a piece of free verse,

situated
just on the outskirts
of Chepstow.
[Brian Bilston]

There was a young harpist called Niamh,
who would wear her heart on her sliamh.
But then she plucked Sean
(he played the French hean).
They married before New Year’s Iamh.
[Brian Bilston]

Don’t ever let a recipe tell you how much garlic to put in. You measure that with your heart.
[unknown]

Women are angels. And when someone breaks our wings, we simply continue to fly. On a broomstick. We’re flexible like that.
[unknown]

More next month.

amusements

Counters

Each month this year we’re bringing you a post under the general title “Things that Count in [Number]” where [Number] will be the month. And naturally each month’s post will contain the [Number] of items (so just one for January, up to 12 for December).

For our purposes the definition of counting includes things which either come in groups of [Number] (eg. four suits in a pack of playing cards) or things which count in [Number] (eg. decimal coinage counting in tens).

Things which Count in Five …

  1. Gold rings
  2. Pentacle
  3. Oceans
  4. Sikh scared symbols
  5. Spice Girls

amusements

Victorian Police Court Amusement

Some day ago I was searching the local papers for the Dover area around 1860-70 for one of my ancestors, a certain Henry Williams, Booking Clerk with the SE Railway. (Yes, it’s needle in haystack stuff, but he’s elusive so I’m clutching at straws.) In the process I came upon the following, very non-PC by our standards but still highly amusing, court report in the Kentish Chronicle for 19 July 1862:

Beautifying a Black Man
A tall woolly-headed negro, named Henry Williams, was brought before Mr Selfe, at Worship-street Police Court, on Saturday, charged with creating a disturbance, and breaking a pane of glass in the shop window of Mr Noah Sayer, a barber, in Well-street, Wellelose Square.
William Butler, a journeyman barber, said the prisoner came into his master’s shop on Friday evening, and said he wanted beautifying [laughter]. He proceeded to shave the prisoner – to polish him up, and cut his hair. He then shampooed the prisoner [great laughter].
Mr Selfe: Shampooed him! How did you do that?
Witness: Oh, I shampooed him in the American style – dressed his hair, and poured some odoriferous stuff, and beautified him nicely [roars of laughter]. When I had done all that he offered me a penny.
Mr Selfe: A penny for beautifying a black man! [increased laughter]
Witness: I told him a penny would not do; the charge was a shilling. He said he was not half-beautified, and would not pay it, but after creating a great disturbance he paid the shilling and took up a pot of cosmetic, which he was about to put on his head [laughter]. I told him that could not be included, on which he seized me and threw me on the shop door, and broke a large pane of glass.
Mr Selfe: What cosmetic was it?
Witness: Pomade, sir.
Mr Selfe: To make his hair straight?
Witness: No, sir; it is the sort of pomade to make the hair curl.
Mr Selfe: Pomade to curl a black man’s hair; it will curl without pomade [laughter].
Mr Sayer, the proprietor of the barber’s shop, said this was no laughing matter; but as the prisoner had made it straight he would not press the charge.
Mr Selfe: Made what straight – his hair?
Mr Sayer: No; he will pay for the glass he has broken.
Mr Selfe: Very well. Now, Mr Williams, when you want to be beautified again, don’t meddle with the barber’s cosmetics and break his windows. You may go.
The black man, who looked all the better for the “polish” he had received from the barber, then withdrew.

Well first of all this is not “my” Henry Williams. And, yes, as I say, very non-PC by our standards, although one can’t help feeling that it was all rather knowingly tongue-in-cheek and that the reporter and magistrate enjoyed it as much as the public gallery. How times change in 150 years; no such exchange would be permitted these days.

amusements

Counters

Each month this year we’re bringing you a post under the general title “Things that Count in [Number]” where [Number] will be the month. And naturally each month’s post will contain the [Number] of items (so just one for January, up to 12 for December).

For our purposes the definition of counting includes things which either come in groups of [Number] (eg. four suits in a pack of playing cards) or things which count in [Number] (eg. decimal coinage counting in tens).

Things which Count in Four …

  1. The Beatles
  2. Violin strings
  3. Classical elements
  4. Horsemen of the Apocalypse