Category Archives: ramblings

environment, natural history, ramblings

Orchid Instructions

Yesterday I posted a photo of a Denbrobium orchid, and in the past I’ve posted images of Phalaenopsis orchids. Yesterday I also made the comment that orchids are very easy to get back into flower, but realised afterwards that most people aren’t going to have a clue how to do this. So instead of throwing out that beautiful orchid once it has finished flowering, this is what you do …
Phalaenopsis orchids, which is most of what are in the shops, are actually surprisingly easy if you do a few simple things. You will also sometimes find Dendrobiums and in my experience they can be treated in much the same way. (There are many other species of orchid but these are the ones you will normally find on general sale, eg. in supermarkets, in the UK.)

Purple Orchid
Phalaenopsis orchid

Orchids are epiphytes which grow in trees using their roots only to hold them lightly in place and to pick up water. They will also grow extra aerial roots to absorb any moisture in the air; these roots should not be buried in the compost. Good roots are essential for flowering.
Make sure your orchid is potted in bark chippings and NOT in soil or moss. Orchids must not stand in water or be waterlogged; their roots have to be free-draining. If your orchid is planted in anything other than bark chippings, get some orchid compost (which is basically bark chips) and repot it. Being waterlogged is the quickest way to kill an orchid.
Dendrobium
Dendrobium orchid

You’ll notice that most orchids are planted in transparent or translucent plastic pots. This is because their roots like light just as the leaves do. If possible keep the orchid in a light place and in a clear container.
Do not put your orchid in bright sunlight as this is likely to scorch the leaves. They are plants which grow in amongst the branches of trees so although they need good light they would only naturally get dappled sun.
Orchids also need to be warm (20-25°C) most of the time. Avoid putting them somewhere where the temperature fluctuates a lot and keep them out of draughts. However a few weeks of slightly cooler temperatures (maybe down to 15°C at night) and reduced watering forces them to rest and is almost essential to get them to come back into flower.
bboIt is a good idea to get some orchid feed. There is a “Baby Bio” orchid feed in a pink bottle; it is easily available — many supermarkets sell it — and is probably as good as anything specialist. A bottle will last a long time.
Now about watering. Your orchid needs watering once a week but it must NOT stand in water all the time. Each week put your orchid (in its plastic pot) in a bowl and fill it with water almost up to the level of the compost. If you have orchid feed add a small squirt of this to the water (read the directions on the bottle) although this should not be done every time they are watered. Let the orchid soak for an hour or two (but no more). Then take it out, put it back in its outer container and return it to its normal place.
Watering time is also a good opportunity to give the plant the once over. Remove any dead/dying leaves, dead flower spikes and dry shrivelled roots with a pair of sharp scissors. Try to make sure the leaves are clean and dust free. Keep an eye out for pests like scale insects — if you spot them I’ve found that unfortunately the only reliable way to get rid of them is with a houseplant insecticide spray.
When your orchid has finished flowering — hopefully after many weeks as the flowers can last 6 weeks or more — remove the dead flowers and cut off the flower stem of Phalaenopsis (with Dendrobiums you should only remove the flowering stem when it dies and withers). Keep the cane which was supporting the flower and any clips or ties. If it needs it this is a good time to repot your orchid.
Phalaenopsis Orchid
Another of my Phalaenopsis orchids

Don’t worry if your orchid isn’t growing lots of new leaves. Phalaenopsis grow very slowly, usually only one or two new leaves a year. Dendrobiums will throw up new stems quite easily; these may need staking and they should eventually flower.
Your orchid will flower again but normally it needs those few cool nights to trigger this. As the spike grows you should stake it (that’s why you kept the old stake and clips). Although the stems themselves are quite robust, they do tend to fall over with the final weight of the flowers and it is easier to keep stems upright if they are staked early and trained upwards.
Then just sit back and enjoy the wonderful flowers!

personal, ramblings

Five Questions, Series 7 #5

And so to the last of my Five Questions — at least for this series.
In some ways this is going to be the trickiest question to answer, as you’ll see. Which is why it has been left until last. So …

★★★★★

Question 5: What character (fictional if you wish) you would like to kiss?
Now I feel like I’m on a hiding to nothing here. For if I name an obvious friend I’ll doubtless get a smack round the chops, either from the person concerned, their partner or “her indoors”.
And were I to name someone well-known, doubtless everyone would say “What?! Them!”, and immediately downgrade their opinion of me. Oh wait, that’s not possible; it is rock-bottom anyway!
And if I name someone fictional there’s at least a sporting chance no-one will have the first clue who I’m talking about. So that is rather pointless.
Of course there are lots of people “out there” (mostly female) who I think are sexy, hot or whatever other synonym you like to choose. But I cannot visualise myself ever being in the position to even consider a kiss might be on the cards. And if I can’t visualise it as a possibility then it is hard — at least for me — to imagine it. Besides, this sort of intimacy is not something I’ve grown up with; as a family (and hence it has rubbed off on me) we are very undemonstrative; the net result is that I don’t do emotion and intimacy well, however much I might wish otherwise. (And, yes, I know all of that says much about me.)
However I could just say … perhaps … Ella, or … Janet, or … Laura, or …
Then everyone can try to work out which of the 47 girls called Ella, Janet or Laura who I might know (or know about) I mean.
But whoever you decide it is, you’re wrong; it isn’t.
Unless you want it to be!
★★★★★

OK, so that’s the end of this series of Five Questions. There may be another series later in the year, especially if you all send me some good questions!
Meanwhile, be good!

ramblings, thoughts

Five Questions, Series 7 #4

2 Comments

At last we come to finding an answer to Question 4 of my Five Questions. I have delayed a little, well procrastinated really, because I am a bit at a loss as to how to answer the question. It’s difficult!

★★★★☆

Question 4: Does thought require language?
This is my, fairly unrefined, thinking on the question. I have no idea if scientists and philosophers agree with me or not; that isn’t the point.
Let us assume first that we humans have language and are capable of thought, by which I mean contemplating something which is outside out immediate senses — say a sunny beach while we’re commuting on the London Underground — or something abstract — say a question like “Does thought require language?”
Now it is certainly true that we do think in language. So the main question is, can we think without the use of language?
It is also true that how we think and perceive the world depends on our language and vice versa. For instance many hunter-gatherer languages have no concept of numbers greater than two — their counting system, if they even have one, goes “One, Two, Many” — they have just never needed to count as they don’t engage in commerce.
So our world view, our language system, and hence one would think our thought processes are intimately entwined. But again the question is can (could) we think without using language?

Next we need to ask “What is language?”. Does language include visual representation (pictures in the mind’s eye)? Or juxtapositions of coloured shapes which have word meanings, as a synesthete might have? Does language include the chirrups my cat uses to (try to) communicate with me? Or even musical ideas heard in the brain, as I suspect many composers have?
Do composers think in sound sequences? Do artists think is colour swatches? Can chefs think in tastes? And if so, do these constitute language? Perhaps they do. Maybe language isn’t just words.
And how do babies think, before they have learnt to speak; before they have acqured language? They aren’t just dumb automata, as any parent will tell you!
All pet owners will know that cats and dogs also give the impression of thinking, of working things out. As do squirrels when presented by a challenge to get at some nutritious nuts. Do they do this contemplation in meows, barks and squeaks? Or maybe in images? Or smell? Or maybe they too have some sort of synaesthesia to help them?
It seems to me unlikely that a squirrel can plot a path to its nuts without some form of “visualisation”, even if that is looking at the tree branches and considering whether it can jump a particular gap. It may not do this consciously, but in some way it would appear to be using some, at least rudimentary, method of mental discovery and abstract conceptualisation. And this could, very loosely, be called language. But of course we may never be able to understand exactly what the squirrel’s processes are. Or those of our cats and dogs. Or indeed those of our pre-linguistic babies.
To me it seems intuitive that thought cannot happen unless there is some “medium” to convey it. Whether that is words, pictures, musical sequences, dog barks or dolphin squeaks doesn’t really matter. In a sense they are all language. And while many animals will react instinctively to some stimuli (male moths blindly following the pheromones to a female which turns out to be an insect trap) it would appear logical that animals are incapable of abstract, constructive, thought without their particular language.
So ultimately I think, yes, thought does require language of some form.

ramblings

Stupid People

2015 is lining up to be the year of the Stupid People

So says Diamond Geezer in a post yesterday taking an extremely askance look at the way in which “stupid people” influence the direction the country goes:
stupidpeople

There are Stupid People everywhere … they’re the ones who’ll be voting in the upcoming General Election and letting the wrong lot in. Be very afraid …
[T]hey only see personal truth, and your opinion is wrong QED … You and I can see the flaws in their arguments, but the Stupid People plough on regardless …
And so the soundbites sparkle and the slogans flow because, although you and I don’t need them, they help the Stupid People make their minds up … [and] be temporarily recruited. And once they’ve spoken, however wrongly, the entire country has to put up with their decision.
Hence 2015 will be defined by the thoughts and actions of the Stupid People. May they jump the right way this General Election year, because the rest of us alas have no say in the matter whatsoever.

Gawdelpus!

current affairs, ramblings

2015 Predictions

I thought I’d give my crystal ball a dust off and see if I could come up with a few ideas as to what might happen over the course of this brand new 2015.
What follows is the best I can interpret from the misty images I saw in the aforesaid crystal ball. They are just my ideas of what might happen based solely on hunches and gut feel; I have no inside knowledge and I haven’t been studying the form — so if you base any decision on any of this I will take no responsibility for your idiocy.
Anyway, here are my thoughts on what might transpire this year:
UK

  1. Labour win the General Election — although probably not with an overall majority; they form a government in coalition with the LibDems
  2. As a result of the new government the unions start demanding, and getting, inflation busting wage rises
  3. Theresa May beats off a challenge from Boris Johnson to become leader of the Conservative Party
  4. There is no change in UK interest rates
  5. A major household name (possibly a high street store) calls in the receivers
  6. At least one UK holiday tour operator goes under stranding several hundred holiday-makers abroad
  7. Against expectations UK inflation will be around 4% driven by higher wage settlements and spending by the new government
  8. On 31 December FTSE will close down 10% compared with 1 January
  9. UK will see at least one major plane crash and one major train crash
  10. Duke of Edinburgh dies and is given a state funeral
  11. Queen Elizabeth II becomes Britain’s longest reigning monarch
  12. The UK has a warm winter and a cold wet summer

Overseas

  1. Violence in South Africa between black tribes threatens to turn into civil war and causes a white exodus
  2. Death of President Mugabe of Zimbabwe is followed by further civil war
  3. Major epidemic will affect the developed world — could be Ebola or flu or MERS or something entirely new
  4. Australia will experience an earthquake of at least magnitude 7
  5. The Pope will issue a revolutionary encyclical, possibly on birth control, divorce or the celibate priesthood
  6. A number of international sporting bodies are proven to be driven by massive bribery and fraud
  7. The Islamic world continues to descend into total meltdown with more factional fighting, civil war and coups d’état; the exceptions are Saudi Arabia and UAE which remain relatively stable due to their oil wealth
  8. Russia continues to be belligerent over Ukraine and only their economic woes will prevent World War 3
  9. Brussels finally gets fed up with the UK’s posturing and formally asks us to leave the EU
  10. A major airline goes into liquidation

Personal

  1. I finally have to be put on insulin to control my diabetes
  2. We lose the venerable Harry the Cat (well he is over 17) but he is replaced by two kittens

It will certainly be interesting to see what really does occur. I’d be tempted to put money on none of this happening.
Do you have any good predictions for the year ahead?

personal, ramblings

Happy New Year

Here’s wishing all our friends and followers a
Happy & Prosperous New Year
May your 2015 be better than your 2014!

And welcome to another year of Zen Mischief blogging. We started back in January 2004 and since then have gone through a number of incarnations and design changes. But there are no major changes planned for this year (well at least none that I know about yet) — we’ll be continuing with the usual eccentric and eclectic mix. So please keep checking back to see what we’re up to!
Meanwhile it must be time for another glass of champagne! Hic!

personal, ramblings

My 2014 in Summary

As last year here is a survey to summarise my engagement (or lack of it) with 2014.
BA46231. What did you do that you’d never done before?
Yoga
Have a full body massage
Got hearing aids
Injected myself with drugs (legally!)
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t make New Year resolutions (see here); but I did have some goals most of which I failed to achieve.
3. What would you like to have in 2015 that you lacked in 2014?
£2M
Good health
4. What dates from 2014 will remain etched upon your memory?
None that I can think of.
5. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had an awful respiratory virus which floored me for over a month in February/March and again in October/November.
And then there’s the ongoing diabetes and depression.
6. What was the best thing you bought?
Gin and champagne
7. Where did most of your money go?
As far as I can tell absolutely nowhere, and certainly nowhere very worthwhile (unless you count gin and champagne!).
8. What did you get really, really excited about?
Nothing; I don’t waste effort on excitement or panic.
9. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a. happier or sadder? — sadder, ‘cos I haven’t kicked the depression hard enough in the gonads.
b. thinner or fatter? — fatter, but not by very much.
c. richer or poorer? — poorer, if only due to expensive dental treatment.
10. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Sex
Sit in the garden in the sun
11. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Been stuck to a desk
12. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Survival
13. What was your biggest failure?
Yoga
14. How many one-night stands?
None
15. What was your favourite TV program?
I’ve just not watched anything like enough TV to be able to make any sort of judgement.
16. What was the best book you read?
Two books by Alice Roberts come out top of the heap: Evolution: The Human Story (Dorling Kindersey, 2011) and The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us (Heron Books, 2014)
17. What did you want and get?
An immense amount of help and support, in all sorts of ways, from Noreen, for which I am far more grateful than I think she realises.
18. What did you want and not get?
£2m
Sanity
19. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Choose between better health and a couple of holidays.
20. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2014?
Nude when possible, clothed when necessary.
21. What kept you sane?
Did anything keep me sane?
22. Who did you miss?
I’ve no idea! I’m not conscious of having specifically missed anyone.
23. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2014:
Quality of life is more important than stressing yourself to conform to society’s expectations. But then I failed to live up to it.
24. A quote or song lyric that sums up your year:
It’ll pass, Sir, like other days in the Army.
[Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time]
25. Your hopes for 2015
Society normalises sex and nudity rather than criminalising it
Any office block which is less than half occupied for more than 3 months has to be converted into flats, or demolished and homes built on the site
Drink more champagne
Be painted or photographed nude
Have at least one 2 week holiday
My mother makes her 100th birthday
So how was your 2014? And what are you hoping for in 2015?

amusements, ramblings

The Amusements of 2014

A review of 2014 in things that have amused me during the year.
Product of the Year
In third place we have these magnificent Magical Unicorn Slippers
In second place, is something I find slightly disturbing: Cussons Mum & Me Bump Smooth & Glow Pregnancy Shampoo


But the winner is the Chinese Automatic Sperm Extractor as installed in a Nanjing hospital.

 

Auction Item of the Year (from our local auction house)
In third place we have: a set of 25 antique glass eyes in fitted case.


In second place: A Second World War papier-mâché helmet .
But pride of place must go to: An old French roll of loo paper.

 

Name of the Year
Two names stood out for me this year, and I can’t decide between them:
Rev Nims Obunge — a non-conformist minister from Tottenham.
Patriarch Moran Mor Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, Supreme Head of the Universal Syriac Orthodox Church who died on 21 March this year.

 

Best Named Organisation of the Year goes to the US National Fenestration Rating Council who were mentioned in the 12 April edition of New Scientist.

 

Best Oxymoron
Again we have two contenders.
Finest quality recycled paper, which is the proud boast on the paper towel dispenser in the toilet at my doctors’ surgery.
And the Vegan butcher’s shop which has opened recently in New York.

 

Recipe of the Year
This is one from the archives: Christmas Candle Salad


Just what were they thinking?!??!

 

Book Titles
These are books I’ve come across (don’t ask!) during the year rather than books published during the year. Again there are several contenders, none of which, I hasten to add, have I read:
The Jewish-Japanese Sex & Cook Book and How to Raise Wolves by Jack Douglas (1972)
Rossetti’s Wombat: Pre-Raphaelites and Australian Animals in Victorian London by John Simons (2008)
You’ve Had Worse Things in Your Mouth Cookbook by Billi Gordon (1986)
But the winner has to be:
Harlequin: Prince Cherrytop and the Good Fairy Fuck, a Pantomime by George Augustus Sala (circa 1877)

 

Best Academic Paper Title
There was really only ever going to be one contender here. The prize has to go to a paper about stopping nose-bleeds with bacon, which deservedly won on IgNobel Prize:
Nasal packing with strips of cured pork as treatment for uncontrollable epistaxis in a patient with Glanzmann thrombasthenia which is available on PubMed.

 

Headline
There have been just so many wonderful headlines during the year, but I managed to whittle the list down to these three:
‘Penis soup is something I’ll treasure for ever’: Adventurer Simon Reeve reveals the most stomach-churning dishes he’s encountered, Independent, 2 February
Warwickshire man nose-pushes Brussels sprout up Snowdon, BBC News, 2 August
But by a short head the winner is
Mick Jagger has 19-million-year-old species of ‘long-legged pig’ named after him, Guardian, 11 September

 

Best Named Animal
Magistrate Armhook Squid (Berryteuthis magister)

 

Sport of the Year
Again there are three contenders:
Wheelchair Curling — I still can’t work out how you get curling tongs large enough.
Underwater rugby, BBC News, 24 May
But best of all was Penny farthing bicycle polo, again BBC News, 24 May

 

Best Research Project
What Happens When You Play Music Through A Squid?

 

And finally …
Best Tweet
Yellow snow warning for Wales, @BBCNews on Twitter, 26 December
I guess the culprit must be all those sheep!

 

Let me know your favourite amusements of the year — and don’t forget to start collecting for 2015!

personal, ramblings

Relaxing Christmas

Yes, we’ve had a nice relaxing day of presents, drink and food but without over-indulging.
Had a bit of a lie-in and got up about 9.30. Two mince pies and mug of tea for breakfast.
I rang my mother and had a quick chat with her; she’s in a care home 120 miles away so although we aren’t there she isn’t on her own.
j-jugAbout 11.30 we sat down with an extra large G&T (Noreen had a similarly large Bacardi & Coke) and opened our main presents. As always there was a fair amount of alcohol and quite a few books. But we always manage to find each other something unusual: this year I got Noreen a Jersey milk/cream jug — silver plate, pre-WWII and probably made for the tourist market, but a nice thing nonetheless.
After clearing up a bit we had our traditional Christmas Day lunch of smoked salmon sandwiches at about 1.30 (we have Christmas Dinner in the evening).
At 3-ish Noreen put a large leg of pork in the oven to roast; while I had a nap she went to see the old lady across the road (who is 90+ and on her own) for an hour or so.
Just after 5 we both got to work in the kitchen on the rest of dinner. Somehow we managed to avoid any alcohol in the process!
Dinner at about 7: Roast Pork, sausage, garlic potatoes, roast parsnips, sprouts, chestnut stuffing and apple sauce. Accompanied by a bottle of pink champagne (which also now one of our traditions). No need for starters or pudding; just a good main course.
After dinner we sat and opened presents part two which I accompanied with a glass of an unusual, rather nice and delicate rosé port Noreen had given me. The tradition from my family is to have small presents, from under the tree, in the evening — really just a little something to unwrap like a few chocs or a paperback book.
After that we sat reading for a bit and abhorring the available choices of TV viewing.
And shortly to bed, perhaps to read some more, maybe with another glass of something.
I think we’ll call that a good Christmas!

beliefs, nudism, ramblings

Social Nudity is a State of Mind

Social nudity (often called nudism or naturism) is poorly accepted by a large percentage of the people; something I explore on the On Nudity and Naturism page on my main website, as I have from time to time here.
This poor acceptance of social nudity seems to be because people do not understand social nudity, and curiously that seems to be a philosophical question; one that revolves around one’s mental imagery and state of mind. An interesting, but quite lengthy, article over at Naturist Philosopher looks at this question in detail.


It turns out that the problem is that most people do not have the right schema (mental context/image) to understand because they have no experience of social nudity on which to build this understanding. Their only experience of nudity is generally in a sexual context so this is the image they use to (mis)understand social nudity. And because social sex is (mostly) taboo everyone runs scared of social nudity — and indeed often private nudity within a contained, safe, family setting — thinking it can be nothing but sexual, and therefore “not nice”.
But social nudity isn’t sexual. Or at least no more (actually probably less) sexual than socialising clothed is. And we don’t generally worry about that!
However we aren’t going to change the popular misconceptions without giving people an alternative on which they can build a new schema. So we need some new paradigms and metaphors to explain social nudity to the uninitiated.
One such metaphor might be that clothes are like body armour: providing a barrier to protect me from the environment, the supposed ill-intentions of others and removing any vulnerability I might feel.
All social nudity is doing is removing the barrier — the packaging, if you like — between me and the environment, allowing me to feel the sun and the breeze on my skin and have the freedom I don’t have wearing clothes. And that’s actually fine because in general others don’t stare or make unwanted physical contact, and vulnerability is but a construct of my mind. This surely has to be goodness.
Social nudity is distinct from private nudity (as many of us indulge in at home) in that it emphasises the non-necessity or non-desirability of clothing in normal, everyday, non-sexual human relations. What the naturist movement has to do is to find ways of explaining this paradigm to people. And explaining it in such a way that it starts to give them some semblance of the experience they need to change their mental schema and become more accepting of social nudity.
Maybe, Naturist Philosopher suggests, the key is freedom. After all food free from pesticides is seen as goodness. So why shouldn’t a lifestyle incorporating freedom from clothes be equally desirable?