Category Archives: personal

Mini Sports Meme


Mini Sports Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s Flickr meme is about sport.

1. Your favourite sport. Cricket — really good club cricket; I’ve given up on professional cricket: not only has it been dumbed down the idiots running the game seem totally inept
2. Your least favourite sport. Darts; the only place it belongs, if anywhere, is in the pub
3. A sport you use to play as a kid. Cricket was my first love, followed by hockey
4. A sport you like to watch. Rugby; I hated playing rugby at school, but always enjoyed watching it
5. The most stupid sport. Netball; how stupid is a game where you have to stop when someone is holding the ball?
6. A sport you wish you could play. Squash, although I’d settle for almost anything now my knees have given up; I used to play a lot of squash as a student, not that I was ever any good!

As always the photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.

1. Village Cricket, 2. 127/365: Dart board, 3. The Fever named Cricket!, 4. Mini Rugby Tournament Cooke Rugby Club – 4th April 2009, 5. neilhodgins_volley_netball-18, 6. squash

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys

Niffiness

Some while ago Hails, over at Coffee Helps, was mulling over smells. Nice smells. Nasty smells. And it set me thinking about the same. So here are some of my favourite and most detested smells; ten of each.

Nasty Niffs

  1. Sewers. As you’ll gather from this list I don’t have a “strong” stomach; I’d never have been able to work in the emergency services or medicine.
  2. Vomit
  3. Pernod; especially Pernod and blackcurrant. Disgusting!
  4. Stagnant water
  5. Unwashed people
  6. Rubbish bins
  7. Rotting meat and maggots
  8. Tobacco smoke
  9. Wet, humid buses; which I think is related to …
  10. New cars; that petrol, plastic and leather smell just makes me feel (travel) sick and “heavey”. Actually petrol on it’s own isn’t too wonderful either.

Nice Niffs

  1. Fresh coffee
  2. Grapefruit; especially grapefruit aromatherapy oil
  3. Christmas spices; that wonderful mix of cinnamon, clove, orange, pine etc.
  4. Church incense
  5. Wood smoke
  6. Fresh baking bread
  7. Lilies
  8. The sea
  9. Lavender
  10. Jasmine

It isn’t really surprising that most people have a fairly common set of abhorred smells as this is a biological design to make us avoid things which are potentially dangerous to health (eg. rotten meat) by making us view them as disgusting. But I’m always surprised at the things which people less commonly dislike — such as Hails’s dislike of lilies, or mine of Pernod. Similarly there are smells which it seems many people love; and here I’m thinking of baking bread (often used by supermarkets as an attractant) and coffee. Again why are some smells so commonly liked; I can see no obvious foundation in biology? What is it that makes us like or dislike something with no obvious basis in biology?

Smell is a surprisingly powerful sense, despite human olfaction being incredibly poor compared with most animals. So, yes, there are smells which bring back specific, pleasurable or not, memories and these will clearly influence our choices. But why the rest of them? As far as I know I have no experiential reason to like jasmine, lilies or wood smoke; nor to dislike Pernod. So why?

And why do some of use have “stronger” stomachs than others? Surely a “strong” stomach should be an evolutionary disadvantage?

What are your most loved and hated smells? And do you know why?

Niffs Nasty; Niffs Nice

A few days ago Hails over at Coffee Helps posted on the smells she most hates and those she most loves, which has inspired me to do the same. I’ve always known I have an excellent sense of smell; I can often smell things other people can’t — especially useful for gas leaks etc. But don’t have a strong stomach to ho along with it. So here are my selections; they aren’t necessarily the definitive top tens, but they’re going to be pretty close.

Top 10 smells I most hate:

  • Sewers and drains (make me retch almost instantly)
  • Vomit (as above)
  • Anything stagnant (and again; I really do not have a strong stomach)
  • Gas (well yes; natural gas is actually odourless and has sulphurous compounds added to make it smell nasty and prevent you gassing yourself accidentally; old style coal gas had these smells in it naturally)
  • Sweaty unwashed people (yeuch!)
  • Tobacco (especially cigarette) smoke (despite once having been a smoker)
  • Stale urine (as in subways)
  • Rotten meat and fish
  • Pernod and absinthe (disgusting stuff; how can anyone drink these?)
  • Burning rubber (this is organic sulphur compounds again)

Top 10 smells I like:

  • Brewing coffee (even though I hardly ever drink it)
  • Baking bread (heavenly; no wonder supermarkets use it to encourage people to shop!)
  • Frying onions
  • Newly mown grass (always takes me back to my childhood, and my youth playing cricket)
  • Sea (wonderful fresh iodine smell which clears the head)
  • Wood smoke (which always reminds me of my youth and scout camp)
  • Roses (especially old roses which almost always have a wonderful perfume; why do modern rose have no perfume?)
  • Grapefruit oil (it’s just so uplifting)
  • Christmas spices (that combination of orange, cinnamon, clove, etc.)
  • Pine trees (that fresh resinous smell which, like the sea, clears the head)

Anyone feel like contributing their favourite hated/loved smells?

What's in Your Bag Meme


What’s in Your Bag Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s Flickr meme is to share what we call carry with us day after day! What’s in your purse, bag, pocketbook, briefcase, backpack, etc.? Here’s my selection:

1. Moleskine notebook
2. Two mobile phones
3. Glasses cloth
4. Fuji F40fd camera
5. Keys
6. Coins
7. Sanford/Papermate PhD pen
8. Wallet (credit cards & cash)
9. Handkerchief
10. Extra strong mints
11. HP iPAQ
12. Pocket lint

As always the photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.

1. 24 aug 09 “ostrich”, 2. Sister two, 3. Utata IP72 – Easter Weekend, 4. Fuji Finepix F40fd Gunmetal, 5. Skeleton Watches & Pocket Keys, 6. 10 ancient Indian gold coins, 7. Paper Mate® PhD™ Multi™ Multipurpose Writing Instrument, Pen/Pencil/PDA Stylus, Medium 1.0 mm Point Pen, Fine 0.5 mm Point Pencil, Blue, 8. Tea wallets, 9. Julian waves it up, 10. extra strong mint, 11. HP iPAQ 210 Enterprise Handheld, 12. WTJ pg35/36 07/03/09 Collect Pocket Lint

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys

Dinner Party Meme


Dinner Party Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s Flickr meme is to imagine your ideal dinner party. Which 12 famous people / people from history would you invite? Here is my rather curious set of bedfellows:

1. Anthony Powell; English novelist and man of letters has to be my first choice!
2. William Byrd; Tudor composer and recusant
3. Samuel Pepys; Restoration diarist
4. Richard Feynman; hugely influential physicist
5. Galileo Galilei; another hugely influential and brave scientist
6. Dalai Lama; always calm, always measured and always laughing!
7. Terry Jones; formerly of Monty Python but also a first rate medieval historian
8. Mick Aston; archaeologist and eccentric
9. Alice Roberts; incredibly bright, multi-talented medic, and very sexy
10. Susanna Reid; another incredibly bright and attractive young lady who’s a BBC TV newscaster
11. Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll); Victorian mathematician and writer of Alice in Wonderland
12. Leonardo da Vinci; another hugely influential artist and scientist

Why so few girlies? I don’t know. I’m sure there must be more in my brain!

As always the photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.

1. ANTHONY POWELL, NOVELIST, AT HOME IN SOMERSET, 28 DECEMBER 1983., 2. William Byrd (c. 1540 – 1623), 3. Samuel Pepys memorial, St Olave’s Church, London, 4. Richard_Feynman, 5. Galileo, 6. His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, 7. terry jones, 8. Time Team in Salisbury, 9. alice roberts, 10. susanna 15, 11. lewis carroll was kind of cute, 12. vitruvian man leonardo da Vinci

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys

Thru' the Years Meme (2)


Thru’ the Years Meme (2), originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s Flickr meme is to pick things or events you remember from each year of your life – through 12? it could be anything: who your best friend was when you were 6; your pet when you were 10; a teacher when you were 12; your favourite toy at age 3 — you get to come up with the item for each of the numbers … or just use random years here and there with the big highlights of your life! Here’s a second selection covering some key times in my life to date.

1. -2 weeks; I arrive 2 weeks early; I’ve been early ever since.
2. 11; I go to grammar school and get an excellent all-round basic education; we were stretched all the time; and it must have been one of the few co-ed grammar schools in the country.
3. 17; started going out with Jill, my first proper girlfriend; we broke up at the start of our second year as undergraduates.
4. 18; off to university in York to study Chemistry; glorious campus but not the formative years they are for many (they came later as a post-grad).
5. 23; I lose my virginity to Faith; she’s 9 years older than me, and taught me a lot!; yes I was a slow starter.
6. 25; somehow I’m awarded my PhD from University of East Anglia; and yes I’ve got one of these super velvet Tudor bonnets too!
7. 25; and I immediately start working for IBM.
8. 28; Noreen and I marry; we met in Norwich and have known each other for about 4 years, but have been going out less than a year — oh and we’re still happily married almost 30 years later (and long may it be so)!
9. 30; we buy our house just as mortgage rates go through the roof!
10. 32; I have an affair and glandular fever at the same time; Noreen knows about both! Duh!
11. 49; I’m one of the founders of the Anthony Powell Society.
12. 58; just waiting for retirement; so much I want to do outside work.

As always the photographs are not mine (except #9 which is) please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.

1. The Holiday Guests Arrive Early Singing Carols, 2. Leeds Grammar School, 3. Jill, 4. Heslington Hall, 5. IMG 088, 6. Congrats! You made it!, 7. IBM Hursley, 8. The House Opposite, 10. Eve – glandular fever test, 11. ANTHONY POWELL, NOVELIST, AT HOME IN SOMERSET, 28 DECEMBER 1983., 12. Two at the Shoreline

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys

Thru' the Years Meme


Thru’ the Years Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s Flickr meme is to pick things or events you remember from each year of your life – through 12? it could be anything: who your best friend was when you were 6; your pet when you were 10; a teacher when you were 12; your favourite toy at age 3 — you get to come up with the item for each of the numbers … or just use random years here and there with the big highlights of your life! Here’s my selection up to the age of 12 (but not one per year, I don’t remember that much that well, and not in order).

1. Being stung on the big toe by a bee when I was about 6. I trod on it in the garden; it hurt; and my mother told me off for walking about in bare feet — didn’t do any good ‘cos I still do!
2. Summer holidays camping at nudist club when I would have been about 9-10.
3. Staying in my grandmother’s flat in Canterbury for summer holiday; guess I was about 6.
4. Finding abandoned duckling (aged 6) …
5. … and releasing it a year later as a handsome Mallard drake. We didn’t have a single slug in the garden that year! My grandmother (she of the flat in Canterbury) hated the duck ‘cos it nibbled at your ankles when you walked down the garden — which I thought was really funny. But then I thought my grandmother was a sour old bag: she was but at least I now understand why.
6. Derek Part who was my best friend when I was 10 or 11. His brother (who was 16) was drowned swimming in one of the local gravel pits. His mother kept a boarding kennels for dogs down next to the piggery. They moved to Liverpool soon after this.
7. Seeing Cliff Richard’s film Summer Holiday as soon as it was released in 1963 (I was 12). Cliff was a local boy (real name Harry Webb); The Shadows used to practice in the boy’s club which backed onto my primary school playing field.
8. Going to my primary school’s football trials at 10 or 11 … and failing miserably.
9. Fresh bread delivered by the bakers roundsman when I was about 4. I always wanted the crust — buttered! At first I think he had an electric hand-cart but later one of these Morris vans, only red. Oh and the bakers was Hill’s.
10. Getting concentrated orange juice & cod liver oil from the welfare clinic when I would have been 1 or 2; I guess this was just before rationing finished.
11. Going to Cub camp at Whitsun half-term when I was 11, and my parents coming out to tell me I’d got into Grammar School.
12. Smelly. dirty suburban steam trains to London; they finished when I was about 8 or 9 and were replaced by first by boring diesel and then even more boring electric trains.

As always the photographs are not mine (except which is from my photostream) so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.

1. Bee Sting!, 2. Mother & Son, 3. Canterbury, Weavers, 4. The duckling, 5. Mallard Drake on Ice, 6. Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage, Dungerness, Kent, 7. Cliff Richard, 8. How to penetrate the defense?, 9. HCVS London to Brighton 2009 – 1955 Morris J Type Van, 10. Wartime Rationing, 11. mega080024, 12. PADDINGTON STATION 1940

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys