The latest in our irregular series of links to items you may have missed and which interested or amused me. In no special order …

I know about Tibetan singing bowls (I even have a couple) but I had no idea about the existence of the Chinese Singing Fountain Bowl.

Topology is interesting, but also mind-breaking, stuff and the Klein Bottle is just weird. But three, one inside another?!?!

Excellent spoof article taking the p*** out of “top people’s supermarket” Waitrose. Hold on … I shop there!

Could you pass the 11-plus? I did but anyone under about 55 won’t have been given the opportunity. Try these extracts and find out if you’re up to it now — should be easy for an intelligent bunch like you!

Great hairy faces! Well that’s what was at the British Beard and Moustache Championships earlier this month in Brighton. I was going to say only in this country, but I can think of several places which would sport such championships. Bring back Eurotrash!

The Royal Society, Britain’s “national academy of science” have come up with the 20 Most Significant Inventions in the History of Food and Drink. It’s an interesting list, but I’m not sure they’re all what I would have chosen.

We need crazies; they make life interesting. So why don’t more species have awesome names like the Rasberry Crazy Ant? We should all have awesome names like that, Winston Banana, or Willie McSporran.

And finally this week saw the announcement of the 2012 IgNobel Prizes, awarded for the research papers that most make you laugh, and then make you think. Scicurious has the list and has promised follow-up articles over the next week or so.

Enjoy!

It’s been a busy week, most of which I seem to have spent in meetings. In addition I’ve been fighting a losing battle against a filthy cold and sinus infection. That’s why there hasn’t been too much activity here. It also means that I’ve built up a little backlog of links to things you might have missed, some of which, in more equable times, I would have written about in detail.

A few weeks back, Ian Visits, went to look at a 600 year old “timber cathedral” near Heathrow Airport. Looks like an old barn on the outside, but just get those timbers on the inside!

Meanwhile in Leicester archaeologists have been digging up a car park looking for a king. And lo, verily! They believe they’ve found Richard III, “hunchback” and all!

But who needs a king when you can have a naked lady to ramble over? Northumberlandia, is a public open space landscaped as as naked lady. What better use could there be for old slag heaps?

While on the subject of nudity (nothing unusual there then!) I note that Stephen Gough, the “Naked Rambler” has been jailed again by the prudish Scots judiciary. From reading the Telegraph report the guy clearly isn’t mad, but he is certainly misguided and pig-headed — especially given that this has not only kept him (wrongly in my view) in jail but also cost him his family. Clearly he doesn’t see it that way and I suspect there’s nothing that’s going to change him. It needs a certain level of flexibility and common sense by “the authorities” in Scotland to release him from jail, put him in the back of a police van and deposit him a free man somewhere in England where he appears to be less likely to be re-arrested. It’s crazy that no-one (on either side) is prepared to budge enough to resolve something which is a huge waste of money and resource.

While talking of wasting money, the TUC has this week dubbed Britain’s railways “a gigantic scam” with passengers being fleeced, and public money wasted, to line the pockets of shareholders. And for once I have to say I agree with them. Railways, like the utilities, should never have been privatised.

How on earth does one write a bridge from the unions and railways to cats? Because next up, yes we have pussies. Guess what? Researchers this week have discovered that we humans can catch toxoplasmosis from cats. Who knew? Well I did; and what’s more I’ve known for 30 years! Duh!

I’m not even going to try the next link. I doubt I can do it without descending into the bowels of indecency. For next we have two weblog items from sex educator (and sex “a lot of other things”) Maggie Mayhem, who I enjoy reading because she’s not afraid to call a spade as shit shovel and tell things like they are, albeit often somewhat amusingly. First off she’s written an absolutely scathing attack on the elements of (mostly American) society who believe in “Biblical Anti-Feminism” — basically keep the girls uneducated and trained only to praise their men and God, and bear their children. Read it and weep … read the links she provides and you’ll likely become suicidal, if not homicidal.

Secondly Maggie Mayhem has written about how she has rebelled against the current fashion for females to remove body hair. Sing praises for some common sense!

After which you’ll need your daily dose of mind-boggling. Here’s an old article which describes a one line program (above), written in IBM’s APL language, which runs Conway’s Game of Life. What’s even more scary is that I used to be able to write and maintain this stuff. No wonder I’m out of my brain!

For your second sorry third, including the Biblical anti-feminists, mind-boggle of the day … have you ever wondered how long you’d need to lie outside with your mouth open before some bird shit dropped in it? Well wonder no longer, because What If? from XKCD will tell you. It’ll also tell you something weird about the fuel consumption of your car.

Finally in this edition we go from the totally mad to the … totally mad. Did you know that the world’s longest recorded parsnip is 18 feet 5 inches (5.607 metres) from stem to tip? Yep, it’s all part of the National Giant Vegetable Championships. Or perhaps you’d prefer a 3.76kg spud with your roast? There’s nowt so queer as gardeners!