Category Archives: amusements

amusements, natural history

Oddity of the Week: Eggs

It isn’t just birds that lay eggs, in fact there are far more egg-laying species than there are placental mammals. So naturally the eggs vary a lot and can be quite weird …
Birds
There are over 50 breeds of chicken and the colour of their eggs is dictated by genetics. All eggs start out white and any pigment is deposited during the egg’s 26-hour journey through the hen’s oviduct. What’s more, you can often predict what colour a chicken egg will be by the hen’s earlobes. (Bet you didn’t know hens even had earlobes!)


Leghorn chickens lay white eggs and have white earlobes, while chickens with red earlobes lay brown-shelled eggs — but of course there are exceptions. Araucanas lay blue-shelled eggs and when you cross them with a breed that has eggs of a different colour the dominant blue-shell gene makes the resulting eggs blue, pink or even green.
The tinamou (an ostrich relative) may have evolved bright turquoise eggs to attract other females and encourage them to lay their eggs nearby, creating a sort of safety-in-numbers strategy for avoiding predators. Curiously the tinamou’s eggs are also as shiny as Christmas ornaments.
And cassowaries have bright, almost fluorescent, green eggs.
Insects
The green lacewing creates a silky stalk on which it hangs its eggs. This keeps the lacewing larvae safe from predators — and cannibals. The insect also coats the stalks with a chemical defence against ants.
Many butterflies and moths lay beautifully sculpted and shaped eggs, like this owl butterfly egg …

Sharks
The horn shark has a spiral-shaped egg which looks like a natural drill bit and allows the mother shark to screw the egg case into hard crevices making it tough for predators to get them.

The egg cases of other sharks and rays — often called mermaid’s purses — come in a variety of shapes from sculpted flatfish-like to ravioli shapes. These egg cases are not like birds’ eggs in that the case is porous with both water and oxygen able to flow through to the growing embryo.
Based on Weird Animal Question of the Week: Oddest Eggs of the Animal Kingdom.

amusements, ramblings

The Amusements of 2014

A review of 2014 in things that have amused me during the year.
Product of the Year
In third place we have these magnificent Magical Unicorn Slippers
In second place, is something I find slightly disturbing: Cussons Mum & Me Bump Smooth & Glow Pregnancy Shampoo


But the winner is the Chinese Automatic Sperm Extractor as installed in a Nanjing hospital.

 

Auction Item of the Year (from our local auction house)
In third place we have: a set of 25 antique glass eyes in fitted case.


In second place: A Second World War papier-mâché helmet .
But pride of place must go to: An old French roll of loo paper.

 

Name of the Year
Two names stood out for me this year, and I can’t decide between them:
Rev Nims Obunge — a non-conformist minister from Tottenham.
Patriarch Moran Mor Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, Supreme Head of the Universal Syriac Orthodox Church who died on 21 March this year.

 

Best Named Organisation of the Year goes to the US National Fenestration Rating Council who were mentioned in the 12 April edition of New Scientist.

 

Best Oxymoron
Again we have two contenders.
Finest quality recycled paper, which is the proud boast on the paper towel dispenser in the toilet at my doctors’ surgery.
And the Vegan butcher’s shop which has opened recently in New York.

 

Recipe of the Year
This is one from the archives: Christmas Candle Salad


Just what were they thinking?!??!

 

Book Titles
These are books I’ve come across (don’t ask!) during the year rather than books published during the year. Again there are several contenders, none of which, I hasten to add, have I read:
The Jewish-Japanese Sex & Cook Book and How to Raise Wolves by Jack Douglas (1972)
Rossetti’s Wombat: Pre-Raphaelites and Australian Animals in Victorian London by John Simons (2008)
You’ve Had Worse Things in Your Mouth Cookbook by Billi Gordon (1986)
But the winner has to be:
Harlequin: Prince Cherrytop and the Good Fairy Fuck, a Pantomime by George Augustus Sala (circa 1877)

 

Best Academic Paper Title
There was really only ever going to be one contender here. The prize has to go to a paper about stopping nose-bleeds with bacon, which deservedly won on IgNobel Prize:
Nasal packing with strips of cured pork as treatment for uncontrollable epistaxis in a patient with Glanzmann thrombasthenia which is available on PubMed.

 

Headline
There have been just so many wonderful headlines during the year, but I managed to whittle the list down to these three:
‘Penis soup is something I’ll treasure for ever’: Adventurer Simon Reeve reveals the most stomach-churning dishes he’s encountered, Independent, 2 February
Warwickshire man nose-pushes Brussels sprout up Snowdon, BBC News, 2 August
But by a short head the winner is
Mick Jagger has 19-million-year-old species of ‘long-legged pig’ named after him, Guardian, 11 September

 

Best Named Animal
Magistrate Armhook Squid (Berryteuthis magister)

 

Sport of the Year
Again there are three contenders:
Wheelchair Curling — I still can’t work out how you get curling tongs large enough.
Underwater rugby, BBC News, 24 May
But best of all was Penny farthing bicycle polo, again BBC News, 24 May

 

Best Research Project
What Happens When You Play Music Through A Squid?

 

And finally …
Best Tweet
Yellow snow warning for Wales, @BBCNews on Twitter, 26 December
I guess the culprit must be all those sheep!

 

Let me know your favourite amusements of the year — and don’t forget to start collecting for 2015!

amusements, music

Oddity of the Week: Pear Music

Trois Morceaux en forme de poire
(three pieces in the shape of a pear)
A set of six (not three) piano pieces for four hands by Erik Satie, dating from 1903. Among Satie’s other works are Chases nues a droite et a gauche (sans lunettes) (things seen to right and left, without spectacles); and Embryons dessèchès (desiccated embryos). His scores contain instructions to the player such as ‘light as an egg’ and ‘with much sickness’.
His sister Olga commented: My brother was always difficult to understand. He doesn’t seem to have been quite normal.
From: Ian Crofton; Brewer’s Cabinet of Curiosities

amusements

Oddity of the Week: Insurance

People insure some unlikely things.
Egon Ronay, the restaurant critic, insured his palate for £250,000 in 1993, arguing that without this asset he would be like a sculptor shorn of his hands.
While playing cricket for Australia between 1985 and 1994, fats bowler Merv Hughes took out an estimated $370,000 policy on his trademark walrus moustache, which, combined with his 6’4″ physique and outstanding playing ability, made him one of the most recognized cricketers in the world.


And in 2003 Basil Brush apparently insured his tail for £1M.
Boom! Boom!

amusements

More Auction Oddities

Yet another collection of the strange and surreal from the catalogue of our local auction house. As always it is not just the wonderful variety of old toot that people sell, but the eccentric collections put together to make a lot. Enjoy this selection!

3 sweet jars full of matchboxes from around the world, and a small quantity of costume jewellery comprising 3 glitzy necklaces
A good quantity of interesting items incl. children’s toys and dolls incl. Bayko building set, cased Hotwheels Ferrari, tinplate model car with Dunlop tyres, a quantity of boxed playing cards, draughts and chess set, 1950s doll, a cased Polaroid Powerzoom camera and a Ricoh L20 camera, 3 old walking canes and a golf club, pewter chamberstick and snuffer, a small quantity of wooden items incl. fans, stands, etc., Beatrix Potter figure of Mrs Tiggywinkle and other small decorative items and pin trays, a quantity of carved items, a black and white picture of Concorde, etc.
Two decorative barbed hunting spears with metal engraved heads
Two Royal Doulton character jugs, ‘Sairie Gamp’ and ‘Simon Cellarer’, a quantity of novelty teapots incl. one in the form of a dresser and another as a desk with typewriter, a model phrenology head and a palmistry hand, a small quantity of model townhouses, an old zither, and a quantity of sheet music, etc.
A pair of mounted antlers c.1900, on a good mahogany acorn-leaf base
Two lady’s handbags, C. Valentini and Jacques Vert, a gentleman’s black shoulder bag, a handbag modelled in glass, a small quantity of blue and white plates decorated with country scenes, a few CDs and DVDs. a boxed Mesaco muse horn, two old photographs of World War II planes, a quantity of LPs incl. Boney M, a set of framed cigarette cards of planes, and a lady’s boxed watch

A pair of mounted antlers and a pair of mounted horns
A box of interesting items incl. four dolls, a kangaroo toy, an old peg doll in box, silver-plated fruit bowls, a quantity of cigarette cases and compacts, African wooden carvings, Panama hat, etc.
A Victorian taxidermy specimen of a four-legged duckling and another small bird in grassy case


A collection of decorative arms comprising a pair of tribal pistols, a Japanese sword, a chain mace, a throwing stick, also a native spear and an arrow, an Indian walking stick and two foils
A set of 25 antique glass eyes in fitted case

An Italian Fascist square printed scarf, in white against a black ground, with Mussolini’s Ethiopian speech dated 2nd October XIII (1935), and dominos in a box
A pith helmet, a fencing mask, and a policewoman’s hat
A good quantity of wall masks from across the world, including Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, etc., and others in the form of cats, a witch head, ideal for Halloween and a papier-mâché figure of a man.
A quantity of table lamps, ceiling lights, etc., walking sticks, box of framing nails, door handles, statue of Buddha, German vase, lava lamp, sports bags, etc.
A quantity of skis including Techno-pro and Monocoque, and a quantity of golf clubs including American Durablock, and a zimmer frame.
Yes, it was the zimmer frame with the skis that finally finished me off!