Category Archives: amusements

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!

amusements, photography

Buggered Britain #20

Another instalment in our very occasional series documenting some of the underbelly of Britain. Britain which we wouldn’t like visitors to see and which we wish wasn’t there. The trash, abused, decaying, destitute and otherwise buggered parts of our environment. Those parts which symbolise the current economic malaise; parts which, were the country flourishing, wouldn’t be there, would be better cared for, or made less inconvenient.
This magnificent frontage is not far from where I live; I spotted it earlier this week. What you cannot see is that the “stonework” is actually some very badly finished concrete and that the sides of the mini-porch-let are scrofulous wood in the same style as the tympanum. The door is a disgrace and the whole was just set off by the dying Christmas tree and recycling bags & bins. Seldom have I seen such awful construction.

buggered

amusements, food+drink

Oddity of the Week: Penguin

Penguin eggs were relished by the Vicomte de Mauduit:

Penguin eggs: greenish white … about the size of a turkey’s, should be eaten hard-boiled, cold with a salad. To hard-boil them takes about three-quarters of an hour; when shelled, the whites appear like pale green jelly … they are as delicious to the taste as they are attractive to the eye.
[The Vicomte in the Kitchen; 1933]


Penguin meat itself was served up by John Thompson, cook on Captain Cook’s first expedition to the Southern Ocean (1768-71); Cook described the flesh as “reminiscent of bullock’s liver”.

amusements

Ten Things #1

BA4623Here beginneth a new monthly series. My idea is that on the tenth of each month I will post a list of 10 things. They may be things I like; things about me; fun things; stupid things; or just random things like ships’ names or types of cauliflower. Who knows until we get there!? It’s just a bit of fun. I’m going to start semi-seriously with …
10 things I want to do in 2014:

  1. Sleep
  2. Eat well
  3. Relax more
  4. Be more active
  5. Be miserly
  6. Keep breathing
  7. Meditation
  8. Have a holiday
  9. Take more photographs
     

    10. And finally what could be better than …

  10. Drink more champagne
amusements

Oddity of the Week: Sheep Walking

OK, guys and gals, here’s another silly little regular (I hope) series to pique your interest in the middle of the week: Oddity of the Week.
There are just so many odd, curious and amusing facts out there. And they just cry out to be shared. Like everything here some will be serious; some will be amusing; and some will just be terminally out of their tree. It all depends how I feel at the time.
Let’s start with one of those real curiosities of English Law, and in this case a modern one:
Sheep-Walking.
On 10 December 2003 the then Under Secretary of State at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Ben Bradshaw MP, provided a Commons written answer to confirm that taking one’s pet sheep for a walk does not require a licence. However, walking one’s pet pig does: a regulation introduced in 1995 to reduce the risk of spreading disease.

amusements, personal

Five Questions, Series 5

5 Comments

To start off the New Year I decided we would have another round of Five Questions.
As before they are a mix of difficult and slightly silly questions, although of course you can treat them all as serious, or all as silly, should you wish. And there’s no knowing what I shall do when I get to answer each!


So the five questions for series 5 are:

  1. What is time?
  2. Describe your fantasy girl. (Yes girls, you can answer this too!)
  3. Do stairs go up or down?
  4. Give me the story of your life in six words.
  5. Unicorns or magic carpet as your only form of transport? Why?

As in previous series, if you take them seriously I think they’re going to be deceptively tricky. I certainly don’t know exactly how I’m going to answer them all, although I have a few ideas up my sleeve.
But answer them I will; one at a time over the coming weeks; the first probably in about a week from now — so you (and I!) have some think time.
And as I’ve said before, if anyone has any more good questions, then please send them to me. I’d like to continue to do this two or three times a year so good, but potentially fun, questions are needed.
Watch this space!