Category Archives: pleasures
Weekly Interesting Links
OK guys & gals, so here’s another weekly, but doubtless occasional, new series — links to interesting sites I’ve come across during the week but which haven’t made it into a full posting.
An article by my friend Potter-san on the Soul of Okinawan Music. The music of Okinawa (the southern-most tropical islands of Japan) is a fun eclectic mix of their native music and just about anything they can import. Try it! I was surprised how much of it I liked.
Also advance information on the London Okinawa Day 2011 on Saturday 25 June. I’ve never managed to get to this annual event but it sounds like it should be a fun day. Anyone want to get together a party of us?
On a totally different subject, a thought-provoking item Should Young Teens be Prescribed Hormonal Contraception? by Prof. Kate Clancy. All the more powerful because Clancy is American and her stance is totally contrary to the prevailing American ethic of total teenage abstinence.
If you are interested in your family history and have forebears who worked on the railway you might be interested in the Railway Ancestors FHS.
In view of the week’s biggest event (at least here in the UK) history buffs may be interested in Medieval Weddings.
One of the most misunderstood areas of the law as it affects anyone involved in literary or artistic ventures is copyright. Fortunately the British Library describe the duration of UK copyright in one easy flowchart. But I suspect I shall have to continue to explain intellectual property law even to our literary society trustees. 🙁
And finally, here’s a super eco-idea: use cardboard packaging impregnated with seeds to rejuvenate the environment. No sorry you can’t have the idea, it’s already been done by Life Box.
[17/52] Pussy Porn
[17/52] Pussy Porn, originally uploaded by kcm76.
Week 17 entry for 52 weeks challenge.
Over the long weekend we’ve started the process of clearing out the rat’s nest known as our study. Progress has been slow, but steady.
Anyway I was sitting at my desk early on Monday morning, and trying vainly to wake up, when I heard this rustling sound. I checked and the pickled pussy wasn’t in Noreen’s chair so I thought “oh well she’s probably burrowing under Noreen’s desk somewhere”.
Some minutes later I heard the rustling again, and turning round saw Sally emerging from the cardboard box which was stacked inaccessibly behind my chair. This had clearly been sleeping place for the night having clambered over various obstacles including my big camera bag.
Just what is it about cats and boxes?
Quotes of the Week
A good selection of amusements amongst this week’s quotes …
The future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed.
[William Gibson]
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
[Thomas Jefferson]
Society places a great deal of importance upon “being concerned” about this, that or the other terrible thing going on somewhere in the world. I agree that a bit of this concern is useful in helping alleviate suffering in those places. But it strikes me that the vast majority of what we call “being concerned” involves getting into our own heads, turning over the information, imagining whatever we want to imagine, working up our emotions, wallowing in our feelings like a pig in mud. For some reason I’ve never been able to comprehend very clearly this makes us look good socially, like we’re doing the right thing. But I’m unable to see how watching endless reports […] about a disaster really helps anything.
[Brad Warner at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/]
You can keep a dog; but it is the cat who keeps people, because cats find humans useful domestic animals.
[George Mikes, How to be Decadent]
Cats are smarter than dogs. You can’t get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.
[Jeff Valdez]
Life is fragile. You and I are living lives just as precarious as those people who got swept away into the ocean last week. We just fool ourselves into believing otherwise. But that’s not a reason to live in fear. Life is a terminal disease.
[Brad Warner on the Sendai Earthquake at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2011/03/japan-earthquake.html]
Every mountain; every rock on this planet; every living thing; every piece of you and me was forged in the furnaces of space.
[Prof. Brian Cox; Wonders of the Universe; BBC2 TV, 13 March 2011]
I hear the argument, and it is an ingenious argument only a lawyer of his brilliance could make …
[David Cameron replying in House of Commons to Sir Malcolm Rifkind]
Never play with a dead cat and above all never make friends with a monkey.
[Osbert Sitwell, quoting his father in Tales My Father Taught Me. Thanks to Katyboo for this one.]
The natural world is a living erotic museum filled with variations in male genitalia, illustrating how natural selection has paid nearly as much attention to the male member as Catholic priests have.
[http://zinjanthropus.wordpress.com/]
To you , I’m an atheist; to God, I’m the loyal opposition.
[Woody Allen]
“Are there circumstances in which the government might …?”
“Well there could be circumstances. To answer your question in any other way would preclude all possibilities.”
[William Hague, UK Foreign Secretary, answering a question from the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee; 16/03/2011]
Public Holidays
Diamond Geezer posted an interesting analysis yesterday about the UK’s public holidays. In it he shows why we will never get St George’s Day adopted as a public holiday. Basically this is because it concentrates too many public holidays in the period from late March to late May, especially given that Easter most usually falls in April and this we would get Easter, St George’s Day and May Day holidays all within a period of 3-4 weeks. Well yes, that’s just like this year when Easter is exceptionally late (it can fall anywhere between 22 March and 25 April) when we also have the extra bank holiday for the royal wedding knees-up.
Diamond Geezer also makes the point that we’re essentially stuck with this scheme as we can’t move Easter because it’s fixed by the church. Err … why not? We moved the late May holiday away from Whitsun which is also fixed by the church. And we don’t actually celebrate May Day but pick the first Monday in May. So why can we not move (or ignore) Easter?
I suggest an alternative scheme for our public holidays, viz:
- New Years Day (1 January)
- Spring Equinox (21 March)
- St George’s Day (23 April)
- May Day (1 May)
- Summer Solstice (21 June)
- August Holiday (last Monday in August)
- Autumn Equinox (21 September)
- Christmas Day (25 December)
- Boxing Day (26 December)
Note that I propose we keep the actual days and not the nearest Monday, although obviously where any of these falls on a weekend they would be moved to the next available working day. Note too that I have not stooped to include red letter days from ethnic minority traditions.
In the provinces of the UK St George’s Day could be replaced by their “national day”: St David in Wales (1 March), St Andrew in Scotland (30 November), St Patrick in Northern Ireland (17 March).
This has, to my mind, several advantages. It spreads out our holidays a bit better. We get one extra day bringing us more into line with western Europe and other English speaking countries where the average is more like 10 or 12 public holidays annually. It also takes the calendar away from the religious focus and returns it to the actual solar cycle without making it too overtly pagan.
It also presents some other options:
- We could keep Good Friday, if desired which would generally slot in between the Spring Equinox and St George’s Day. I see no logic, sacred or secular, for retaining Easter Monday, although this could be retained in preference to Good Friday.
- If desired the late August holiday might move back to the first Monday in August (as it still is in Scotland) from where it was moved in 1965, thus better harmonising the UK’s public holidays.
- To be logical Christmas should relocate to the Winter Solstice (21 December). However given how entrenched Christmas now is in the collective psyche I can see this not being acceptable. Maybe we should scrap Boxing Day and move that to the Winter Solstice? No, that’s a really bad idea because it will give us three separate holidays within 2 weeks (Solstice, Christmas Day and New Years Day) thus we risk everything shutting down completely for two weeks rather than the current week. So Christmas has to be retained as is, which also helps the balance of holidays between sacred and secular.
I still see one problem with this scheme though. There is still a long (3 month) gap between the autumn Equinox and Christmas, at a time when we arguable need a break. Trafalgar Day (21 October) has been mooted as a possible public holiday. I personally don’t like this as I feel we ought to stay clear of celebrating the military and I’d rule out Armistice Day (11 November) for the same reason (see also my dislike of Remembrance Day). Equally Guy Fawkes Day risks being interpreted as celebrating terrorism rather that its defeat. Halloween I would also rule out as it would inevitably perpetuate that annoying American import: trick or treat. Perhaps we ought to celebrate Harvest Festival (which need not, of course, be religious but remind us where our food comes from) in mid- to late-October?
Anyone got any better ideas?
Sunday Cat Porn
Just to prove, as we had always suspected, that we do have a second cat …
… Sally, having breakfasted on tuna, decided to have a Sunday morning lay-in …
Currently she seems to be spending something over half her life snuggled into our duvet …
… Well it is duck and goose down, so who blames her – we like it too!
More Cat Porn
Yet again this morning Harry the Cat is sleeping on my desk. He seems to want to be there if I’m there. And of course we insist on having the sun lamp on! But we try to rouse ourselves and look suspicious as son as I get the camera out …
… but soon return to our slumbers, having made sure we occupy all the desk space!
Quotes of the Week
This week’s selection of the good, the bad and the ugly …
Relationships are like a card game where you start with two hearts and a diamond, but end up needing a club and spade.
[Tony Green on Facebook]
Every concept the mind can create includes its opposite. No thought is ultimate because each idea depends on every other idea it might possibly contrast with for its apparent self existence. Our own existence as individuals is dependent upon all of creation. This does not negate our individual existence. It is an attempt to see our individual existence in a different light.
[Brad Warner at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com]
When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not passing time with me rather than I with her?
[Montaigne]
Urethane treatment is standard on all products (with exceptions)
[Amtico Flooring Brochure]
Comedians really aren’t that different from scientists. They look at the world and question why things are as they are and try to find an answer. It’s just that scientists do it with far more rigour and the possibility that humanity will be much improved by their discoveries. Perhaps comedians are just lazy scientists. Very, very lazy, stupid scientists.
[Robin Ince, The Times Eureka Supplement; March 2011]
And finally, dreadful joke of the week …
Why did the scarecrow win a Nobel prize?
Because he was out standing in his field.
[The Times Eureka Supplement; March 2011]
Bring back Basil Brush, all is forgiven!
Pussy Porn
Another for all you pussy fans out there …
Harry the cat sleeping the sleep of the just on my desk this afternoon, under my desk lamp – again! And who should blame him when it is throwing it down with rain outside. He was spark out; he didn’t twitch a whisker at having the camera stuck 4 inches from his nose clicking away.
As Garfield once remarked: “Eat and sleep. Eat and sleep. There must be more to life but I do hope not.”
Mapping the Cat Brain
Oh, yes. Cat’s certainly do have brains. They have very well developed, subtle and devious brains. In fact it has been shown recently that Cats Adore and Manipulate Women. They do it to men as well, but either they don’t like men as much or we’re more immune to it.
The bond between cats and their owners turns out to be far more intense than imagined, especially for cat aficionado women and their affection reciprocating felines, suggests a new study.
[…]
The researchers determined that cats and their owners strongly influenced each other, such that they were each often controlling the other’s behaviors. Extroverted women with young, active cats enjoyed the greatest synchronicity, with cats in these relationships only having to use subtle cues, such as a single upright tail move, to signal desire for friendly contact.
And then today I came across this mapping of the cat’s brain at CatStuff.
In the light of this latest research the diagram clearly ought to contain a tiny gland for sniffing out male humans and a much larger gland for detecting females.
Oh come on lads, you already knew we stood no chance!
