Category Archives: ramblings

amusements, ramblings

Oddity of the Week: Tube Announcements

This week we’re stretching the definition of “oddity” a little more than usual.
Last year Londonist published a couple of selections of amusing announcements London Underground tube train drivers have made over their tannoy systems. Here is a selection of the best …
Sorry for the delay, we are just waiting to clear a drunk dancing topless man from the tunnel.
Would the guy with the piano accordion please put your trousers back on.
Apologies for the delay but we have lost the driver.
We are currently experiencing delays on the Northern line due to a handbag on the line at Bank.
Ladies and gentleman, upon departing the train, may I remind you to take your rubbish with you. Despite the fact that you are in something that is metal, fairly round, filthy and smells, this is a tube train for public transport and not a bin on wheels.
Please do not obstruct the closing doors. Specifically, please do not use your children as a wedge to hold the doors open.


Please keep your kids with you at all times. Even the annoying ones.
Don’t forget to take your children and livestock with you.
Please let passengers off the train before boarding. It’s not the storming of the Bastille you know.
There’s a dog on the line ahead. They’ve sent a manager to rescue it. That’s not going to help.
[10 minutes later]
The dog is now at Plaistow. So it’s making better time than us.
This train is early and is now being delayed so that it is late. I don’t understand this either.
Mind your fingers, mind your toes, watch the doors, they’re gonna close.
I can assure the passenger in the second carriage that it is not raining in the train. Please put your umbrella down.
For those of you alighting here at Willesden Junction, welcome back to paradise.
There are lots more here and here.

beliefs, current affairs, ramblings

Brexit Reprise

Following on from my earlier post To Brexit or Not to Brexit, there was an interesting article by Stephen Curry in the Guardian on Monday 23 May under the banner

Why I am wrong about Brexit, and you are too

The crux of his argument is that we can never actually be right, because there are too many variables and unknowns. Indeed it is as he quotes Kathryn Schulz: “the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of Error: we can be wrong or we can know it, but we can’t do both at the same time“.
In other words we can either “know we’re wrong” or “are wrong but think we’re right” so we have real problems making reliable judgements about anything. Which really goes back to what I’ve always maintained:

  1. You can never have all the information required to make a decision; if you had all the information it would be a fait accompli not a decision.
  2. No-one sets out to make a bad (aka. wrong) decision. We make the best decision we can with the information we have at the time. And that information includes the price of herrings, Granny’s favourite breakfast cereal and the predilections of your brain.

As Curry also says: “We are hardwired to make snap judgements based on limited information“.


Ah, you say, but we have experts to guide us. Well yes, up to a point Lord Copper. To quote Curry again:

I don’t have the time to figure all this stuff out for myself, and so I have to rely on the experts … The trouble with experts or authority figures is that people will tend to accept or reject those who are in sympathy with their prejudices … the real aim of [academic experts] is to argue from authority. The same goes for … business leaders … economists, and even … leading luvvies. These messages don’t challenge strongly held views. Rather they offer the comfort of expert blessing … for opinions that are inevitably formed from incomplete information. At best they will nudge a few undecideds from the fence but the rest of us simply feel validated and carry on undeflected.

So the bottom line is that you have to make up your own mind, on incomplete (or even misleading) information, and hope that you’re as little wrong as possible. And Curry helpfully suggests a few websites which appear (and I use “appear” deliberately) to be relatively impartial to help you decide on the facts. The most useful are probably:
Fullfact.org, a non-partisan fact-checking charity, and
the analysis produced by the Libraries of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
Good luck … you’re going to need it!

amusements, ramblings

More Auction Amusements

Here’s another in our series of the strange and weird from our local auction house.
Left’s start off with something which is an occasional visitor, but turns up in a flock in this sale: stuffed birds (all separate lots) …
A stuffed songbird on a branch in a Victorian glass cabinet
A taxidermy barn owl in shrubs, under glass dome on mahogany base
A taxidermy barn owl on tree stump under glass dome on mahogany stand
Taxidermy: a Hen Harrier on wooden base under glass dome
A taxidermy kestrel on rocky base in glass and wooden case
Followed quickly by …
A rare mounted vintage animal head, probably a blackbuck, with one with normal horn, the other withered, on a wooden shield, with fragmentary taxidermist label from Byculla, Bombay
But then …
Two goatskin rugs, unused
The goats must have been mighty cold!
After which we sadly have to descend into the relatively ordinary …
A collection of cigarette cards; (some in albums) on the topics of dogs, The Reign of King George V, motor cars, railway engines, etc. also loose cards including fish, English period costumes, History of Army uniforms, Typhoo tea cards, ‘Cellarius’s Ancient Atlas New edition 1835’, and a leather bound album of old photographs concealing a hidden musical box
An Elizabeth II silver clown orchestra of five musicians, each performing on loaded circular base, 6″ and smaller, London import marks for 1974
An antique brass turban box plus a Johnson and Ravey brass cased mechanical spit
A large decorative silver coloured vase, a decorative bird in cage, a silver plated hinged pen box plus other decorative ethnic bowls, jars and dishes
A good selection of vintage shoe horns to include one Bakelite and metal, plus oriental leather canvas and beaded shoes, etc.
A collection of animal figurines including a large zebra, frogs, parrot, a Russian horse, cats, and a collection of Laurel & Hardy fridge magnets, a Nao figurine of a girl, and a Beswick figure of a Robin.
A large pale [sic] and lid [actually it’s a churn, not a pail] plus two further smaller pales [sic] with handles, and another, also a wicker log basket
An antique oriental bronze temple
In pieces!
An unusual Edward VIII commemorative toilet roll holder, circa 1936, with an unopened pack of Tri-Sol medicated toilet paper (price 6d), together with twelve Wedgwood Edme undecorated coffee cups and saucers
An interesting Chinese bronze large cover, possibly to a brazier, Ming dynasty or later, cast with the eight trigrams and with inscriptions, with two handles, 39 cms across
Just the lid; nothing to go with it!
A box of old fishing floats, several glass and wrought iron table lamps, a box of wooden items including animal figurines and boxes, a quantity of old horse shoes, a box of vintage tins, some commemorative, and a box of glassware including pressed coloured glass and a Cornishware storage jar and cover, plus others
A charming lot comprising a handsome Marks Garage, lot also includes a small quantity of vehicles, some boxed including a Corgi Toys Bentley Continental Sports Saloon, a Corgi Classic 9031 Renault, unboxed vehicles include a Ford Zephyr, by Meccano, a Dinky Aveling-Barford and a yellow Dinky Super Toy Mobile Crane, lot also contains a silver plated tea pot on stand and milk jug and sugar bowl, etc.
A Vintage ‘BP Zoom’ metal petrol pump
An unusual garden ornament in the form of an obelisk on concrete plinth
A vintage Agricastriol hand delivery pump for oil in original green cabinet
And finally three things I never thought to see, and certainly ot away from the big auction houses …
A single manual harpsichord by William Dowd, Paris 1975, in a blue painted case with gold line decoration, the sound board painted with flowers and raised on a turned painted stand. This lot comes with a padded removers case, a small leather attaché case of tools and a red pouch of tools.
A two manual harpsichord by William Dowd, Paris 1975, the blue painted case with gold line decoration raised on stop fluted tapering legs. This instrument comes with a padded removers case and a red pouch of tools.
And especially …
A Brookes Champion Standard B17 reproduction penny farthing

environment, ramblings

Oddity of the Week: Street Names

This week we’ll take a quick look at street names. Not just any street names but the less salubrious ones that could have been found in historic London.
John Rocque’s 1746 map of London, a brilliant resource, shows an absolute warren of little alleys, courts and slightly larger lanes. Many, of course, took their names from local inns, churches, commercial establishments or trades. Hence …
Thread Needle Street, which now houses the Bank of England.
Black Friars, named for the nearby monastery.
Of Alley (near Strand) which is one of a group of streets named for the various components of landowner George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham’s name and title.
Dunghill Mews, off Trafalgar Square, which is now the site of the Canadian High Commission.
Whore’s Nest, a self-explanatory name of a courtyard in Southwark along with the nearby Dirty Lane, Foul Lane and Little Cock Alley.
And then, of course there are the even more ribald. London was not the only place to sport a Gropecunt Lane, in fact London apparently had several so named. To which we can only add Shitteborwelane (now Sherborne Lane) off the now King William Street, which was so named to the vast amounts of ordure it once contained.
But one of my favourites, and not at all salacious, is the relatively recent Ha-Ha Road in Greenwich.


The Londonist has more!

current affairs, ramblings

To Brexit or Not to Brexit?

2 Comments

So should the UK stay in the EU or leave? This is the question we are being asked to decide at the referendum on 23 June.
Importantly there is the question of whether anyone can make anything other than an emotional decision. And I suspect the vast majority of the great British public — or at least those who bother to vote — will do just that: make an emotional decision.
How can they do otherwise? Because no-one actually knows the consequences of either staying or leaving, and all we’re hearing is speculation, guesswork and wishful thinking. I have yet to find anyone with a reliable crystal ball.
As I have an almost total mistrust of everything which comes from the mouths of politicians, I’ve been almost completely ignoring the hot air, waffle and rhubarb which is permeating our airwaves.
Nonetheless we do need to try to come to some sort of rational decision, so in the following table I’ve attempted to pull together what little we do know of the facts, for and against, staying and leaving the EU. It isn’t easy, and some of this is still undoubtedly emotionally biassed, although I’ve tried to avoid this.
So this is the state of play as I see it.**

  For Against
Stay in the EU

  1. Human Rights protection (although much of that is down to the ECHR, not part of the EU, so a separate issue)
  2. Workers’ rights protection (holiday, equal pay, maternity leave, working hours)
  3. Some protection from the worst ravages of UK government
  4. European Arrest Warrant
  5. Open international trade
  6. Inward funding for universities
  7. Large farm subsidies
  8. Free movement (in and out of UK) — yes that means easy visa-free travel to Spain, Cyprus, Greece etc. on holiday as well as for Europeans coming here
  9. Ability to buy (cheaply) and import alcohol and tobacco for personal use …
  10. … which (probably) keeps UK duty down
  11. Flights and mobile phone charges are among the goods and services that are cheaper, because of EU regulation
  12. Curtailing of market abuse by corporations like Microsoft
  13. British tourists enjoy free or cheaper healthcare in other EU countries

  1. Fewer border controls
  2. TTIP
  3. Cost of membership
  4. Huge, expensive and unchecked bureaucracy
Leave the EU

  1. More border controls
  2. More control of tax (eg. VAT)
  3. Fewer food etc. regulations
  4. Decreased Nanny State micromanagement. Well maybe?
  5. No TTIP? Well maybe?
  6. No Common Agricultural Policy

  1. Opens up unhindered privatisation of NHS by government with no checks and balances — although to be fair TTIP may do that too
  2. Are trade deals (not just with Europe) negotiable? And even if they are how long will it take? See for instance Canada.
  3. Possible loss of rights for ex-pat Brits living in Europe
  4. Possible dismantling of workers’ protection
  5. Probable dismantling of human rights (although much of this is not directly EU controlled)
  6. Households allegedly ~£4300 a year worse off by 2030. Ummm, maybe.
  7. Possible barriers to travel to Europe (eg. visas)
  8. UK would still have to contribute to the EU budget to retain access to the single market. See Norway and Switzerland.
  9. It’s a complete leap in the dark; no-one has a clue what will happen because no-one has been here before

That looks to me like a good case for staying in the EU. But of course, you should all do your own research, decide how important you feel each of the factors to be and make up your own minds. All I ask is that you make a properly informed decision — the best decision you can, at the time, with the information you have (and that information includes the proclivities of your brain).
Sadly, though, I suspect the British public will be beguiled by the speculative arguments and sound bites of those campaigning to leave. If they are, it really will be a leap in the dark, because no-one knows what will happen. So gawdelpus!

20/05/2016 Update
I promised updates, so here is the first. In the last few days I’ve come across this graphic from Richard Murphy of Tax Research LLP.


Click the image for a larger view

It appears to refer to the way in which the 2014 “tax take” was used by the government. If we assume the data is correct, then we pay just 0.37% of our taxes to the EU (yes, it’s that tiny figure at 12 o’clock on the pie chart). Now that strikes me as being eminently reasonable.
In fact extrapolating the figures from this recent Daily Telegraph article suggests that the net cost of the EU is in the region of £100 a year per person in the UK. Which again seems to me to be eminently reasonable.

** I will try to update this as we go along if any new evidence (as opposed to spin, myth and guesswork) appears.

food+drink, personal, ramblings

Ten Things

I love the summer months for the variety of locally grown foods, and some from warmer climes, are available and at their best. And May is when one of my favourite foods — asparagus — is in season here in England. With summer fruits like strawberries hard on its heels.
As Noreen often observes, to our 19th century (and earlier) ancestors we must be living like the gentry because here are …

10 Foods I’ve Eaten in the Last Week
(some of them more than once!):

  1. Asparagus
  2. Avocado
  3. Smoked Salmon
  4. Duck Breast
  5. Brie
  6. Fruit Crumble
  7. Curried Steak Salad
  8. Sausages
  9. Olives
  10. Strawberries
personal, ramblings

Ten Things

As last month’s Ten Things was places I have no desire to go, I thought we should redress the balance with places I want to visit. So here we have …
10 Places I Want to Visit:

  1. Sweden
  2. Norway
  3. Japan — from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the south
  4. Holland (again)
  5. Iceland
  6. The Amazon
  7. South of France
  8. Italy
  9. Bruges
  10. Antarctica

So why haven’t I been to these places? Well it’s a combination of …

  • Laziness.
  • I hate the hassle and stress of travel.
  • The cost; every time I look at maybe visiting one of these places I’m horrified how much it costs.
  • Several of these places have environmental policies of which I disapprove — see mostly attitudes to whaling in Japan, Norway and Iceland.
  • The general environmental damage we’re doing visiting these places, both in terms of long-haul travel and damage to their environment; I’m thinking here specifically of the Amazon and Antarctica.

All of which means I may never get to see these places.

food+drink, history, links, medical, nudism, ramblings, science

Your Interesting Links

There’s a lot in this month’s edition, which is a few days late, so let’s get straight in.
Science & Medicine
Scientists have tried to work out the five most addictive substances on Earth and what they do to your brain.
No real surprises though.
Another set of scientists have discovered a mysterious boiling river in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. Well it’s almost boiling and certainly hot enough to lightly poach the unwary.


Talking of boiling water, what temperature does it actually boil? And why can’t you make tea at the top of Everest (even supposing you were stupid enough to want to)?
And to the other end of the scale … Yet more scientists have been and recorded the sounds at the bottom of the ocean. Not just any ocean but deepest part, the Mariana Trench. And they were in for quite a surprise.
From sound to … sound. It seems that parrots are a lot more than just pretty birds. They have their own parrot languages and are also known to make tools.
Back to water and a German scientist has worked out just how Archer Fish are so adept at shooting down insects with a jet of water.
And now to things medical … One in five of us believe we have a serious allergy, but most of it is just belief. Here’s a summary of some key things you should know about allergies and intolerances (which aren’t the same at all!).
“I’ve been told bacon smells lovely.” Just what is it like to live with no sense of smell?

There’s no reason why it should work, but it does. We’ve all experienced the placebo effect but here are five popular placebo myths explained.
[Trigger Warning] It is thought that anything up to a quarter of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, the vast majority in the first 12 weeks, and often there is no obvious reason. However miscarriage remains a taboo and is seldom talked about. But medics are now putting effort into trying to find underlying reasons and to help those women most badly affected and those most at risk. [Long read]
What happens when you have a hole in your ear? Specifically a hole in the canal(s) of your inner ear? It’s rare, but the effect is quite frightening. [Long read]
Seems that attacking people who are overweight (or worse) is counter-productive. You don’t say!
Are you a loner? And a nerd? Yes many of us who do a lot of thinking (it’s often called research, or work) are. So we need some peace and quiet — and a little sympathy.
Sexuality
It is important that we talk openly, frankly and honestly to our children about sex and pleasure. Peggy Orenstein has a new book out on “Girls & Sex”; here‘s a piece about it and a few myths exploded. But don’t forget the boys as well; they have to be taught about sex and pleasure, and often respect for the girls too.
At which point it seems appropriate to ask why the clitoris doesn’t get the attention it deserves? And why does this matter?
It seems there are engineering lessons to be learnt from the design of the penis and the mechanics of erection
Social Sciences & Business
The surprising chances of our lives can seem like they’re hinting at hidden truths. On coincidences and the meaning of life.
History
Apparently a 5000-year-old linen dress is the oldest know woven garment. and it’s on display in London.
There are many mysteries about the lives and deaths of the Egyptian Pharaohs. But it looks as if one may have been solved as CT scans have revealed brutal injuries to Pharaoh Ramesses III.
We’ve all come to know (and love?) the @ sign. But I remember being totally mystified by it as a kid using my father’s typewriter, which isn’t surprising as it appear to have a long and rather convoluted history.
Edward Johnston and the typeface that changed the face of London Underground, and much else besides. with a rather more than walk-on part by Eric Gill.
I love the Museum of London Docklands and they’re opening a new gallery which centres around the museum’s building itself. IanVisits got a sneak preview.
Food & Drink
Are you a devoted breakfast eater? Or are you like me and usually not want breakfast? Breakfast is supposed to be the most important meal of the day, but is it? Spoiler: probably not.
Apparently we don’t have a clue how to shop for vegetables. Dear God, Mr American, tell me something I’ve not known this last 60 years.
Professional chefs on mould, food waste and expiry dates.
The UK has sheep coming out of its ears, so why won’t UK supermarkets stock British lamb? Surely it has to be better than frozen New Zealand lamb that’s been shipped round the world; and because it’s on our doorsteps it really shouldn’t be more expensive. Sorry supermarkets (and butchers) if you aren’t going to sell me fresh British lamb, I’m not buying lamb. Simples.
Shock, Horror, Humour
Finally, for the avoidance of doubt — and the education of the masses — here’s the CPS guidance on nudity in public.

personal, ramblings

PSA

Apologies, everyone, for the sudden and less than desirable change of appearance hereabouts. My previously carefully hand-crafted theme has been well and truly borked by the latest version of one of the standard WordPress plugins. It had been threatening this for a while with various bits of silliness which I couldn’t’ pin down, but today it was total. The site displayed OK but I couldn’t get access at all and had to resort to reloading an old version of the plugins.
I will, I hope be able to fix the appearance and make it more readable, but for all sorts of reasons this isn’t going to happen for a at least a couple of weeks. And during this time posting may also be somewhat more intermittent and erratic than usual. So please bear with us. Normal service will be resumed as soon as we work out which broom-cupboard is the lurking place of sanity.
Thank you!