Category Archives: current affairs

amusements, beliefs, books, current affairs, freedom of speech, nudism, quotes, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

So here’s this week’s cornucopia of quotations. There’s a philosophy PhD in this lot somewhere!

A clean house is the sign of a broken computer.
[Unknown]

At the worst, a house unkept cannot be so distressing as a life unlived.
[Rose Macaulay]

A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity.
[Robert Frost]

The human body can remain nude and uncovered and preserve intact its splendour and its beauty … Nakedness as such is not to be equated with physical shamelessness … Immodesty is present only when nakedness plays a negative role with regard to the value of the person … The human body is not in itself shameful … Shamelessness (just like shame and modesty) is a function of the interior of a person.
[Pope John Paul II, The Theology of the Body]

The prettiest dresses are worn to be taken off.
[Jean Cocteau]

The best things in life aren’t things.
[Unknown]

Those who are at ease with themselves […] want to undermine authority rather than exercise it.
[Prof. Paul Delany]

[Tony] Blair has […] told us, “Hand on my heart, I did what I thought was right”. If a dry-cleaner said this after ruining our jacket, we would not be pleased with the explanation. Politicians are different: don’t look at any unfortunate results, they say, just admire my generous motives.
[Prof. Paul Delany]

A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason, and the real reason.
[Financier JP Morgan]

One of the basic human rights is to make fun of other people, whoever they are.
[Anthony Powell quoted in John Russell, Reading Russell: Essays 1941 to 1988]

If you don’t like our sense of humour, please tell us so we can laugh at you.
[Unknown]

beliefs, current affairs, medical, science, sexuality

Sex and Religion in Public Life

Jeana over at MySexProfessor writes an incisive post about why it is more important that we know about the religious lives of public figures than their sex lives — albeit the article is built on the words of one of my hate figures, Richard Dawkins. It isn’t that I disagree with the sentiments behind much of what Dawkins says (I don’t), but the bigoted and intransigent way in which he says it — he is just as fundamentalist as any of the religious believers against whom he rails.

As so often others have said what I think so much better than I can, so here are a couple of seminal extracts.

[O]ur society has so many hang-ups about sex that we’re practically responsible for creating an environment in which any sexual expression could potentially be deviant […] even fairly innocuous acts (which one could argue, taking pictures of one’s genitals counts as) are made out to be of huge significance because so many people are hung up on the idea that ANY sexual expression outside the norm is automatically inappropriate or gross or bad.
…
Dawkins asserts that it does matter what a public figure’s religious beliefs are, since those beliefs, far more than their sexual acts, may determine how they pursue public policy. He gives these examples: “[…] George Bush has publicly boasted that God told him to invade Iraq […] To push to an extreme, who would deny Congress’s right to ask whether a candidate for Secretary of Health is a Christian Scientist or a Jehovah’s Witness? Or take a Christian sect that fervently desires the Second Coming of Christ, and believes the key Revelation prophecies cannot be fulfilled without a Middle East Armageddon. Would you wish the nuclear button to be made available to a follower of such a creed?” This is scary stuff.
…
[W]e must grant people the dignity of privately pursuing things that oppose the sexual mainstream.** Just because a politician likes unconventional sex doesn’t mean they’re going to try to force it on everyone through legislation. Unfortunately […] politicians have done much to make anything that deviates from heterosexual monogamous reproductive sex a crime.

** And not just the sexual mainstream. People must have the right to deviate from and oppose mainstream thought and opinion on anything. For that is how opinions are changed, new ideas formed and progress made. But this doesn’t give anyone the right to force or attempt to force (violently or otherwise) their opinions on others.

current affairs, medical, natural history, science

Foxy Magnetism

As one of those filial duties I pay for my mother’s subscription to BBC Wildlife magazine, and once she’s read it my mother passes the copies to me. So it was that last evening I was reading the May 2011 issue and came across this amazing report of foxes using the earth’s magnetic field. I hope I might be forgiven for reproducing the short news item here as it doesn’t otherwise appear to be online.

Magnetic foxes

Scientists reveal the otherworldly talents of red foxes.

The hunting skills of the red fox Vulpes vulpes are out of this world — literally. According to new work, this hunter taps into the cosmos to pinpoint prey.

The fox feeds mostly on small mammals such as mice and voles, and has a clever way of going about it. It often performs what is called mousing — leaping high into the air in an arc and landing on unsuspecting prey from above. Remarkably, it can pull this off in 1m-high grass (or, in winter, snow of that depth). It’s assumed that, under these conditions, the fox relies solely on hearing to locate its quarry.

But when a team led by Hynek Burda, from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, scrutinised the hunting habits of wild foxes at various locations in the Czech Republic, they noted a peculiar trend: hunters tended to catch dinner most often when they were facing north. This was especially true if their prey was snuggled under vegetation or snow – the foxes then had a 75 per cent hit rate with north-facing strikes. Attacks in all other directions were mostly futile.

What’s so special about looking north? The researchers believe that the foxes use the Earth’s magnetic field to home in on prey.

Some other mammals, and also birds, are known to sense magnetic north — and some are thought to actually see it, when looking northward, as a bright (or dark) patch in their field of vision — a little like a sunspot in a camera lens — due to special receptors in their eyes. If foxes have this ability, they could use its fixed position to gauge their distance to prey.

Think of it as a circle of light from a headlamp aimed, say, 1m in front of your feet. No matter where you go, the circle is always 1m ahead. Thus, a northward-facing fox that has located prey with its hearing needs only to creep forward until that location is within the circle of light. At that point, it knows it’s exactly 1m away. All that’s left to do is pounce.

It’s the first evidence of an animal using the Earth’s magnetic field as a hunting tool.

Animal Magnetism
» This is the first case of an animal using the Earth’s magnetic field to judge distance rather than direction.
» Except for jump direction, no other factor — from an animal’s age/sex to the season, wind direction or time of day — affected the observed pattern.
» Animals that sense magnetic north probably also sense magnetic south to a degree. Indeed, 60 per cent of fruitful attacks that were not northward faced due south. Overall, 90 per cent were along the north-south axis.
» Cattle and deer tend to line up along the north-south axis – except near high-voltage power lines that disrupt the field.
» When foxes could see their prey they had success in all directions.

amusements, beliefs, current affairs, medical, personal, science, thoughts

Works of the Devil

Katyboo recently listed a number of things she considers the works of the Devil. And naturally this got me thinking, the way such things do. So here are a few more things which the Devil has sent as a pestilence upon us.

  • Top of the list has to be RELIGION. Now look all you religious people, you’re all Devil worshippers! If you didn’t believe in the Devil you wouldn’t need God to save you from him.
  • And then comes politics. Need I say more when one looks at workers of Devil like Tony B Liar and Gordon Brown.
  • Fast food: especially McDonalds and KFC (or as it’s know in this house Kentucky Fried Food Poisoning). As an adjunct we must include ready meals, and indeed all False Food.
  • Then there is a collection of actual food stuffs, which includes Egg Custard (yeuch!) and Jellied Eels (double yeuch!) and tinned sweetcorn. I love eel, but jellied, no, disgusting – salty and slimy.
  • And a few beverages, especially Pernod and Absinthe which are just vile. They even look like the works of the Devil as well as tasting disgusting.

What else should one add?

  • Hermetically sealed clam-shell packaging. Well you could make that all plastic packaging.
  • Night clothes, especially pyjamas. Haven’t worn anything in bed since I was a student apart from the odd occasions I’ve been in hospital. It’s just so uncomfortable.
  • Braces (suspenders to you Americans). Something else that’s vilely uncomfortable and looks stupid – if you need braces your trousers don’t fit properly.
  • And while we’re on clothes, there’s fashion. Pretentious and a waste of time and money.
  • Girls wearing far too much make-up (so that’s most of them!). Why do they need to look as if they’ve strayed a 2mm thick skin of plastic on their faces?
  • Facial pubic beards and pudenda (on both sexes) without them.
  • Ballroom Dancing. I refused to have anything to do with it as a youngster, despite my parents’ prediction I would be a social outcast. So I’m a social outcast: it’s probably for the best!
  • Maggots. Anything that smells nasty and wriggles. No more to say really!
  • Cinema and films. I just ask “Why?”. What is the point?
  • And finally there are a few people including Lord Winston (I remain convinced that IVF is the Devil’s work), Richard Dawkins (who is just as bigoted as the believers he objects to) plus most of the twats that fill our TV screens.

Oh, you’d better add daytime TV too!

Interesting. Reading back over that list it is very much a reflection of our theory about False Life. Worrying!

Image from 123RF Stock Photos.

amusements, current affairs, history, natural history, photography, quotes, sexuality, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

This week’s collection …

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
[Mark Twain]

Now I know foreigners do things strangely but …

The 31-year-old king of the tiny Himalayan country of Bhutan announces his intention to marry this October.
[BBC News report]

Oh, that’s alright then. As long as he’s not marrying last October. That would be necrophilia.

I masturbate because it makes me feel warm, embodied, juicy, alert, calm, self-possessed, and fulfilled. I masturbate to celebrate my body and my sovereignty. I masturbate and am not ashamed to do so. There are other things I do when I’m alone that are far more embarrassing.
[Allison at http://thesexpositivephotoproject.blogspot.com]

One really shouldn’t laugh at other misfortune, especially in wartime …

9 May 1941 … We’d just got down to the Victoria in Turners Hill when there was a whoosh and a bang as a [250kg high explosive] bomb fell where the Fire Station is now – it was old Bertie Simpkins’ junk yard then. Mrs Whiddon who lived opposite had an old lavatory pan come in through her front bedroom window!
[Peter Rooke, Cheshunt at War 1939-1945]

Flowers always make people better, happier and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the soul.
[Luther Burbank]

Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.
[Dorothea Lang]

Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?
[Monty Python and the Holy Grail]

amusements, current affairs, freedom of speech

Sex and Football

Well I bet you think this is going to be about the goings on of footballers and their WAGs. Wrong!

I just spotted this headline on BBC News: FA raises mixed teams age limit. “A Devon girl is celebrating after her campaign to raise the age limit for mixed sex teams from 11 to 13 is accepted by the Football Association.”

Why? Why is there an age limit? Why is this even an issue? Isn’t this (legally) sex discrimination?

Why shouldn’t girls be allowed to play football with boys at any age? If they’re good enough why can’t they play for Manchester United, Arsenal or Dog and Bone Rovers? No, not in ladies’ teams. Alongside the men. Aside from the practicality of needing separate dressing rooms (and even that I don’t really understand; nor is it impossible), where is the issue?

I suggest the issue is all in the heads of the old stuffed shirts that run football – and not just football but all sporting organisations, at every level from the grass-roots to the international.

I remember many years ago (like the mid-70s) when I was 3rd XI captain of my then local cricket club, I got fed up with the lads not always turning up. The wife of one of the guys who played with me was a good cricketer – she played for the local polytechnic (now a university) side which was then one of the top ladies teams in the London area. I made it clear that if the lads weren’t going to be committed I’d play this young lady, who I suspect wouldn’t have disgraced the club 1st XI. And I got roundly condemned by a chorus of “You can’t do that!”. When challenged the only sensible objection was “Where will she change?”. Oh FFS! It’s not exactly an objection which couldn’t be overcome even though we did play on communal recreation grounds.

I found this so pathetic, even at the time, that ever since I’ve had a very jaundiced view of the hierarchy of sport governing bodies. Indeed I got so fed up with the attitudes of the stuffed shirts running cricket (my first love as a sport) that I gave up on cricket entirely some years ago.

Let the girls play with the boys if they want to. Just pick the best (wo)man for the team. OK?!

amusements, current affairs

UK Government Announces New Regulators

Just in case you missed it, yesterday Rt Hon Dr Vince Cable MP, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in the UK Government announced the new independent Statutory Regulators for a wide variety of industries. They are:

  • Office of the Gambling Industry Regulator, to be known as Offchance
  • Office for the Regulation of Comedians and Entertainers, Offcolour
  • Office for the Regulation of Hair Stylists, Offcut
  • Office for the Regulation of Sex Workers, Offhand
  • Office for the Regulation of Meteorologists, Office
  • Office of the Home Working Regulator, Offhome
  • Office of the Regulator of Private Security Firms, Offpeek
  • Office of the Regulator of Sales and Marketing, Offsales
  • Office for the Information Technology Regulator, Offit
  • Office for the Regulation of Musicians, Offkey
  • Office of the Association Football (Soccer) Regulator, Offside
  • Office for the Regulation of Child Minders, Offspring
  • Office of the Regulator of Stately Homes, Offhouse
  • Office of the Regulator of UK Plc, Offuk

[Re-listed courtesy of the London Gazette]

amusements, current affairs, topographical

You Really Didn't Want to Do That!

I’ve been reminded recently that English law contains many curious, ancient and still extant statutes. The following examples are culled from the endlessly interesting The Strange Laws of Old England by Nigel Cawthorne (Piatkus, 2004).

First, there are many curious statutes surrounding Parliament and the monarchy:

  • Under a law of 1324 all whales belong to the monarch as do all swans unless they are on the River Thames and marked as belonging to either the Vintners’ Company and the Dyers’ Company.
  • Under the Treason Act of 1351 anyone who do violate the king’s companion, or the king’s eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the king’s eldest son is committing treason – as of course would be the violated party.
  • Parliament is still technically allowed to burn books but under Section 39 of the Malicious Damage act of 1861 others persons are not.
  • Under a law of 1313 MPs are forbidden to wear armour in Parliament. However they may play roulette in the lobbies.
  • If any Jew becomes Prime Minister, under the Jews Relief Act of 1858 he (or presumably she) is not allowed to advise on the appointment of any ecclesiastical post in the Churches of England, Ireland and Scotland, with the duty devolving on the Archbishop of Canterbury. Roman Catholics are similarly barred but not Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs or Buddhists.

Many cities and towns have peculiarities enshrined either in statute law of their bye-laws. For instance:

  • In Hertford a wife has the right to throw out her husband’s stash of girlie magazines, adult movies and any other material of a sexual nature.
  • In Bristol it is illegal to have sex while lying underneath a car. (But inside it is OK.)
  • If a man takes a woman out for a drive in Leeds on a Sunday he is prohibited from making any suggestion of an amorous nature while he is driving – but only if he’s driving a car; any other vehicle is OK.
  • Couples in Edinburgh may not have sex in cars parked in car parks or on public streets. But it is OK if the car is parked on their own property as long as the act is committed on the back seat.

As one would expect London has a peculiar set of laws all its own …

  • Freemen of the City of London have various privileges including the right to herd sheep over London Bridge (which they still exercise from time to time), being allowed to go about the City with a drawn sword and if convicted of a capital offence they have the right to be hanged with a silken cord.
  • According to an old City ordinance it is illegal to check into a London hotel under assumed names for the purpose of having sex. It is also illegal to have sex in trains, buses, parked cars, churchyards, churches and parks. (But apparently it is OK in a moving car as long as one continues to drive with due care and attention.)
  • Many house-proud Londoners unwittingly break the law every day. Under section 60 of the wide-ranging Metropolitan Police Act of 1839 it is an offence to beat or shake any carpet, rug or mat in any street in the Metropolitan Police District although it is permitted to shake out a doormat as long as you do it before eight o’clock in the morning.
  • The same Act imposes a similar fine on every person who shall empty or begin to empty a privy between the hours of six in the morning and twelve at night, or remove along any thoroughfare any night soil, soap lees, ammoniacal liquor or other such offensive matter, between the hours of six in the morning and eight in the evening, or who shall at any time use for any such purpose any cart or carriage not having a proper covering, or who shall carelessly slop or spill any such offensive matter. (And quite right too!)
  • The slaughtering or dressing of cattle in the streets remains illegal, except if the animal concerned has been run over by the person who is doing the slaughtering or dressing. Moreover Metropolitan Streets Act of 1867 forbids the driving of cattle down the roadway between 10 AM and 7 PM without prior approval from the Commissioner of Police.
  • In view of the foregoing it is hardly surprising the Londoners are not allowed to keep a pigsty in the front of their houses.
  • And now for something completely odd … It is unlawful for anyone who lives within a mile of any arsenal or store for explosives to possess a pack of playing cards.
  • What few Londoners know is that it is illegal to hail a cab while it is in motion – technically you must go to a cab rank or place appointed. All taxi ranks are still required to have a water trough so the horses could take a drink.
  • The cabby is should ask each of his passengers, and he should carry out an on-the-spot medical examination, to determine if they are suffering from any notifiable disease such as smallpox or the plague as conveying sufferers is illegal. And if a passenger were to pass away during the journey he would be committing another offence as it is illegal for a taxi driver to carry corpses or rabid dogs.
  • The cabby is also required to carry out a thorough search of his vehicle before allowing his fare to go on their way as it is the cabby’s responsibility, not the passenger’s, to see that nothing is left behind.

More generally …

  • In a judgement of 1881 Mr Justice Kessel, then Master of the Rolls, decreed that a creditor may accept anything in settlement of a debt except a lesser amount of money as this would constitute a nudum pactum or one-sided contract. (In English law a contract has to be of material benefit to both parties.)
  • An Act of 1405 instructed every parish that ran its own affairs to have a set of stocks and decreed that any village without stocks be downgraded to a mere hamlet. And yes, this is still in force!
  • When celebrating Guy Fawkes’s Night it remains permissible for children to go door to door collecting “a penny for the guy” only with the written permission of the local Chief Constable of Police.


And finally … It remains illegal to impersonate Chelsea Pensioner.

amusements, books, current affairs, quotes, sexuality, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

A mixed bag of quotes this week …

When the British government set up the loss-making groundnut scheme in Africa in 1947, a law was passed which contained a paragraph that read: ‘In the Nuts (unground) (other than ground-nuts) Order, the expression nuts shall have reference to such nuts, other than ground-nuts, as would but for this amending Order not qualify as nuts (unground) (other than ground-nuts) by reason of their being nuts (unground).’
[Nigel Cawthorne; The Strange Laws of Old England]

We can reject everything else: religion, ideology, all received wisdom. But we cannot escape the necessity of love and compassion … This, then, is my true religion, my simple faith. In this sense, there is no need for temple or church, for mosque or synagogue, no need for complicated philosophy, doctrine or dogma. Our own heart, our own mind, is the temple. The doctrine is compassion. Love for others and respect for their rights and dignity, no matter who or what they are: ultimately these are all we need. So long as we practice these in our daily lives, then no matter if we are learned or unlearned, whether we believe in Buddha or God, or follow some other religion or none at all, as long as we have compassion for others and conduct ourselves with restraint out of a sense of responsibility, there is no doubt we will be happy.
[Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama]

If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.
[Voltaire]

‘A long time ago.’
‘I didn’t have white hair in those days,’ said Granny. ‘Everything was a different colour in those days.’
‘That’s true.’
‘It didn’t rain so much in the summer time.’
‘The sunsets were redder.’
‘There were more old people. The world was full of them,’ said the wizard.
‘Yes, I know. And now it’s full of young people. Funny, really.’
[Terry Pratchett; Equal Rites]

[S]he was opposed to books on strict moral grounds, since she had heard that many of them were written by dead people and therefore it stood to reason reading them would be as bad as necromancy.
[Terry Pratchett; Equal Rites]

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.
[WC Fields]

I screwed in the first one. I realised how hot it really was that day. I screwed in the second one. Now I was sweltering, and my wrist ached like I’d manually pleasured a rugby team.
[Antonia at http://yetanotherbloomingblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-darlings.html]