Category Archives: amusements

amusements

More Auction Oddities

Yet another collection of strangenesses from our local auction house. This collection is garnered from two recent sales. Just marvel at the weirdness of it all!
A half mannequin and two busts.
A large lot comprising Technics and JVC hi-fi, a shredder, a workman’s luminous jacket, plastic piping, modern ceiling lights, shelf unit, a mitre saw, a child’s duvet, cushions and tent equipment, etc.
A collection of Dinky model planes, including “Empire Flying Boat”, “Ranger Bomber” and “York”, an Astra model canon, 2 brass combs, a can of American wartime pure Dried Whole Eggs, unopened, and a Dried Machine Skimmed Milk, unopened, 2 bobbins, thimbles, lead soldier figures and a game of peg patience etc.
Why? Just why?
Costume jewellery, a silver-backed dressing table set, Wade rabbit and trough, small books on Freemasonry, two Oxo tins full of cotton reels, etc.
Two decorative portrait miniatures of elegant ladies in piano key frames …
A carton of old leather handbags and a box of old railway track, a tinplate lorry, a racing car, beads, etc.
An interesting accumulation of items including decorative scent bottles, Art Deco glasses, an old French roll of loo paper, cake decorations, a carved box, a crocodile spectacle case, purses, etc.
WTF with old French bog roll?
A carton of old tins and pipes, including Lions [sic] French Coffee, and a Milady tin of mainly bronze coins.
A collection of old boxes including a mirror and brush box, jewellery boxes, a clockwork spit, miscellaneous jewellery, a Robert Held art glass paperweight set with a diamond, an old paste pot the lid entitled ‘A Letter From The Diggings’, a set of weights, large tile, etc.
An album of mint gutters and traffic lights GB 1948-2005.
Very sad, but yes I do know what this means!
Five unused tortoiseshell style handbag frames.
A pair of lorgnettes, two monocles, a folding comb, and a pick.
A quantity of unboxed Matchbox cars and vans including Mercedes 300 SE, Ford pick-up and Lamborghini Mivra, a Ford Consul, Corgi car and a Husky walk-through van, a boxed Matchbox Y-12 1909 Thomas Flyabout, a tribal club and two boomerangs.
A pair of antlers.
A mounted claxton [sic] on a wooden base and a clear bottomed pewter tankard.
A zither by the Anglo American Zither Co.
Guinness ware comprising five jugs in sizes and three flagons in sizes
Two Beswick wall ducks
A substantial and interesting Victorian carved dark oak dresser, the large panelled back carved with an armorial of four rampant lions, dinosaurs and dragons, and biblical scenes and a portrait, supporting display shelves above a carved base with three frieze drawers and cupboard

amusements, people, photography

Weekly Photograph

This week’s photo was taken last October when Noreen and I travelled on the paddle-steamer Waverley from London (Tower Pier) to Southend. This guy was one of the passengers. He was totally oblivious to me sitting on deck less than 10 feet away taking his photo. I don’t know how he was warm enough in just a t-short at 9AM on a cold foggy morning. I ask you, what does he look like?!

Click the image for a larger view

Plonker
River Thames, October 2013

amusements, science

Oddity of the Week: Banana Radiation

We are exposed to ionising radiation every minute of every day, much of it in the form of background radiation including cosmic rays, rocks in the ground, radon gas, water and food.

banana

Bananas, for example, contain naturally occurring potassium-40, a radioactive isotope of potassium. Incredibly, there is even something known as the ‘banana-equivalent dose’, an attempt to contextualise artificial radiation exposures for the general public.
An X-ray screening at a US airport is roughly two and a half times a banana-equivalent dose.
From Simon Flynn, The Science Magpie (2012)

amusements, people, photography

Weekly Photograph

This week’s photograph was taken last summer while sitting outside a pub in London’s Covent Garden. The guy spend quite some minutes ferreting around his pockets while making mobile phone calls, it appeared all in aid of paying for parking his motorbike. It was street performance at it’s best — completely impromptu!

Click the image for larger views on Flickr
Contortionist
Contortionist
Covent Garden; August 2013

amusements, arts, ramblings

Five Questions, Series 5 #3

So here you go with my answer to question three of the Five Questions in Series 5 that I posed at the beginning of the month.


Question 3: Do stairs go up or down?
Well now there’s a question! It’s a bit like “Is the glass half full or half empty”.
The answer is really either both or neither, depending on one’s philosophical position.
You can look at it as stairs going up to or from something or equally down to or from something.
But do they really?
No, not in my book of logic. Stairs are stationary. It is we who do the going up or down.
mce

So I would submit, m’Lud, that stairs go neither up nor down. They go nowhere. They just are.
Unless of course they’re on the back of a truck (or other conveyance) when they could well be going from place A to place B. But that also may be neither up nor down; or it could be both.
Confused? Yeah, well that’s philosophy and logic, innit!