Category Archives: personal

personal, topographical

No, I'm Not Ashamed

As a result of the current “little local difficulties” being experienced in London (see, for example, here) there are a lot of people around saying they are ashamed to be Londoners.

But I’m not one of them.

Yes, I’m a Londoner. But I’ve never been ashamed to be a Londoner. Because I’ve never been proud to be a Londoner. I’ve always known that London is, under a thin surface veneer, crap. And I have never understood why anyone would have any interest in, or get any enjoyment from, the place despite all it’s interesting history (which I love).

London is crap. It always has been. And likely always will be. All that’s happening now is that it is living up (down?) to it’s true nature. And this is a nature which is probably that of many large cities.

That is not to condone what is happening in the smallest iota. I wish it wasn’t thus. Probably we all wish it wasn’t thus. But it isn’t. Shit happens. Always has. Always will. The best we can hope for is that some semblance of the rule of law returns and we’re allowed to back to being crap in our own, relatively peaceful way.

I recall some proverb about leopards and their spots.

Plus ça change!

memes, personal, photography

[32/52] Rainbow

[32/52] Rainbow by kcm76
[32/52] Rainbow, a photo by kcm76 on Flickr.

Week 32 entry for 52 weeks challenge.

Rainbow seen this evening from our study window. When Noreen first drew my attention to it, it was very bright, almost a complete arc with a second fainter rainbow outside it. By the time I got a camera on it, leaning out the window, it was beginning to fade. Still it looks like someone in the next street has a crock of gold for a TV set.

memes, personal, photography

[31/52] Mother at Nearly 96

[31/52] Mother at Nearly 96 by kcm76
[31/52] Mother at Nearly 96, a photo by kcm76 on Flickr.

Week 31 entry for 52 weeks challenge.

This is my mother who will be is 96 in October enjoying the summer in the gardens of her care home yesterday. She spends quite a bit of time just sitting quietly under the trees watching the wildlife; apparently in the Spring there were hares running around the lawns quite oblivious to her presence. OK she’s very frail and needs a zimmer frame, but she’s mentally all with it and can still draw and paint and read. And although she’s very deaf with her hearing aids she can still hear the birdsong.

And yes, that’s Noreen in the background who will be 60 also in October.

natural history, personal, photography, science

Skills I Do Not Have, No. 253 of 44975

Common Wasp, Vespula vulgaris by kcm76
Common Wasp, Vespula vulgaris, a photo by kcm76 on Flickr.

I present you with the Common Wasp, Vespula vulgaris.

I found this critter dead on the bedroom floor this morning and in picking it up for recycling I realised just what stunning creatures wasps are. We so often think of them a nuisanceful pests whereas they’re amazingly engineered and even in death almost beautiful. So I had to photograph it – click the links below for larger views.

Image 1 (top left) shows just how hairy they are when we think of them as bald. And you can just see the tiny, shiny bulge of the top of the wasp’s compound eye.
Image 2 (top right) shows some of the mazing engineering: just look at the hooks and barbs on the legs – just what is needed for gripping caterpillar/insect prey and crawling over plants.
Image 3 (bottom left) shows the face and jaws which are the characteristics that identify this as Vespula vulgaris rather than any of the other UK species.
Image 4 shows something I’d never realised before (although my book shows it clearly) and that’s that wasps have two pairs of wings: look carefully and you can see in front of the large main wing a smaller wing. No wonder they’re such skilled flyers.

These are tiny, amazingly delicate yet robust insects. This individual, a worker, is just 12mm long with a wingspan of about 22mm. In her lifetime she may well have “salvaged” numerous flies, caterpillars etc. as food for the next generation of grubs – without wasps we would be knee deep in creepy crawlies.

This was taken under my desk lamp (hence the slight colour cast) with my point-an-shoot Lumic TZ8 – which is amazing for macros like this as it will focus down to just a couple of centimetres (much better than my dSLR)!

And as I was taking these I thought: how the hell do you go about dissecting something this small? Clearly scientists have done so, but it’s a skill I don’t have and I’m not dexterous enough to ever conceive how to do it! Amazing insects and amazing scientific work to dissect one!

Montage created with fd’s Flickr Toys

personal, thoughts

Intellectuals

Why do I matter? If I matter at all it’s because I’m an intellectual. And society needs intellectuals, pace this short essay in AC Grayling’s collection The Form of Things …

The role of the intellectual

Ideas are the motors of history. They take many forms and have many sources, and often assume a life of their own, and prove to be bigger than the epochs they influence. As such they are matters of vital concern; and therefore it is necessary that they be examined and debated, clarified and criticised, adopted when good and defeated when bad. The job of doing these things belongs to all of us, but in practice it falls to those with a particular interest in, and sometimes aptitude for, the task. Such are the ‘intellectuals’.

Intellectuals are people who are not just interested in ideas, but who actively engage with them. They set themselves the task — some of them see it as a duty, given the opportunities they have had for acquiring the relevant interests and skills — to analyse, to ask questions, to clarify, to seek fresh perspectives, to suggest, to criticise, to challenge, to complain, to examine and propose, to debate, to educate, to comment, to suggest and, where possible, to discover. They see it as part of their remit to contribute to the conversation society has with itself about matters moral, political, educational and cultural, and to remind society of the lessons history taught it, and of the promises it has made for its future. And thereby the intellectual comes sometimes to be — as Socrates elected himself to be — a gadfly on the body politic, stinging it into alertness of mind.

The risk run by intellectuals is to seem pretentious, fatuous, pompous, self-congratulatory and given to polysyllabic mouthings of banality and cliché. And too often they actually are so — often enough to have a bad name in the Anglo-Saxon world, where blunt common sense is valued above Gauloise-wreathed nuances of gossip about concepts.

But the advantage to society of energetic intellectual activity is that it offers society self-awareness, wakefulness and clarity, inspiration and new ideas, and intelligence in debate and action. A sluggard community which never asks questions or inspects the world around it with a bright eye, and which never tries out different ways of understanding its circumstances, is sure first to stagnate, and then to slip backwards.

Thus do intellectuals perform a service: by keeping the hope of progress alive, and by never ceasing to argue about its nature and direction.

And for me being a working thinker goes hand-in-hand with being a catalyst and with my role as Hon. Secretary of the Anthony Powell Society.

amusements, personal

Listography – Ice Cream

1 Comment

It’s summer! Well at least that’s the theory. And in acknowledgement of summer this week’s listography is to pick out top five favourite ice creams (or ice lollies). Hmmm. I’m not a great ice cream eater, however …

Magnum Ecuador Dark. I like Magnums, all of them. But this dark chocolate is especially good.

Real Strawberry Ice Cream. It has to be real strawberry, with chunks of fruit in it, as made by a number of the small local firms and often available at the seaside.

Rowntree’s Fruit Pastille Lollies. Definitely the best of the ice lollies currently available.

Double Ripple Ice Cream. This is one I remember from my childhood in the ’60s, which probably isn’t available now. Made by Wall’s and available only as a brick, it was normal vanilla ice cream with a ripple of two red flavourings: one was obviously raspberry, but I don’t remember if the other was strawberry or cherry. And I don’t think it was available for very long; maybe only one summer as a trial.

Top Quality Chocolate Ice Cream. It really has to be good quality chocolate and quality ice cream; I especially like Beechdean Double Chocolate as sold by Waitrose.

books, history, memes, personal, science

Ten Things – July

Number 7 in my monthly series of “Ten Things” for 2011. Each month I list one thing from each of ten categories which will remain the same for each month of 2011. So at the end of the year you have ten lists of twelve things about me.

  1. Something I Like: Beer
  2. Something I Won’t Do: Parachute
  3. Something I Want To Do: Visit Scilly Isles
  4. A Blog I Like: Not Exactly Rocket Science
  5. A Book I Like: Diary of Samuel Pepys
  6. Some Music I Like: Amanda Palmer, Map of Tasmania
  7. A Food I Like: Cheese
  8. A Food or Drink I Dislike: Tapioca
  9. A Word I Like: Numpty
  10. A Quote I Like: It will pass, sir, like other days in the army. [Anthony Powell]