Category Archives: ramblings

personal, ramblings

Meta Dreams

Now that was weird. In my waking dream this morning I dreamt that I was dreaming.

It started off all about dressmaking/tailoring shears! In my inner dream I was thinking about, and I think seeing, some (female) colleagues buying older-style, heavy dressmaking shears, and how the trim on the handles and blades was in various different colours; and why would they be different colours, was there some underlying reason apart from personal choice. The colours involved were gold and a turquoise-green. They were a bit like the ones below, only black enamelled with coloured decoration, much like an old Singer sewing machine.

a pair of large tailors shears

On coming up a level I met some of the same colleagues using said shears, and was telling them about the dream I’d had about them, and the colours of the shears. They didn’t know any reason for the different colours. They seemed to be using their shears to remove pills from woollen fabric.

The dream then went on to me leaving work – finally leaving after having retired and returned as a contractor – and clearing out my desk/cupboards. There were several colleagues involved – some identifiable, some not – and a variety of locations including my childhood home and an office I worked in 30+ years ago. Plus some convoluted nonsense with Payroll/HR.

Like all dreams it was highly convoluted, and many of the details have now escaped.

But I don’t recall ever having had a dream within a dream before. It wasn’t lucid in that I couldn’t control it and didn’t know I was dreaming. Just weird.

environment, ramblings

On Paper Tissues

Having had a filthy cold twice in recent weeks (no, not Covid, either time) I fell to thinking about the resilience of paper tissues and their propensity (or not) to fall apart when wet.

Tissue-type paper (the sort that’s designed for personal use) that we generally encounter seems to come in four basic qualities:

  • Paper Hand Towels (as in many communal toilets)
  • Kitchen Roll
  • Tissues (eg. your bog standard Kleenex)
  • Toilet Roll

Their robustness when wet depends on the quality of the paper, and the length of the fibres from which they’re made. The longer the fibres, the more robust the final product.

While paper can be recycled up to seven times, it can’t be recycled infinitely. Eventually the fibres become too short to cling together and just have to be composted. The shortest fibres go into packaging like corrugated cardboard, egg boxes and toilet roll. Remember, the shorter the fibres the less robust the paper.

You can demonstrate this for yourself next time you have a runny nose. Wipe your nose on a paper hand towel and observe how well it survives – and that this is the same as when you use it to dry your hands. Repeat this in turn with kitchen paper, ordinary tissues and then toilet roll. Observe how when wet each is progressively less robust than those preceding.

paper strength experiment

You can actually do this more scientifically, as shown here and above. Yes, that site is advertising a particular brand, but you can use the method with any papers you choose. It’s a good experiment to do with kids.

This varying strength is deliberate design. You want the hand towel and kitchen paper to hold up: they’re intended for mopping up spills. Tissues a bit less so. Toilet paper, on the other hand is designed to fall apart when wet – if it didn’t the drains would pretty quickly get clogged. By the time your piece of toilet paper is 50 meters down the sewer it is nothing but mush, so it flows easily with the rest of the liquid. Also think about why a sheet of corrugated card packaging left in the road in the rain disintegrates so quickly.

This is why we are always told not to put paper hand towels etc. down the loo: they don’t break down quickly so they cause blockages.

There’s far more goes into paper production than we often realise. Just think of all the different types of paper you come across: from high-end glossy magazines, though artists’ drawing paper and copier paper, right down to egg boxes and loo paper. It is all deliberately designed to have particular characteristics for specific jobs.

ramblings

Monthly Links

So it has come to this … our last monthly collection of links for 2023. So let’s dive in.

Science, Technology, Natural World

Pace Dr Who, is time travel really possible? [LONG READ]

While we’re travelling, what does space smell like, why, and how do we know?

Here’s an old post from our favourite cosmologist, Dr Katie Mack … we should remember we’re not just stardust: we’re older than that!

Down on Earth, volcanoes have been in the news a lot recently and we often hear about supervolcanoes. But what really is a supervolcano?

Changing tack, here are some thoughts on randomness.

We all experience it, but why is it that time passes faster as we get older?

And now to the animal world … American painted lady butterflies, encouraged by climate warming, are now resident on Isles of Scilly.

Two new species of absolutely tiny pygmy squid have been named after Japanese forest fairies.

What happens in a crow’s brain when it uses tools – and how on earth can we find out?

As it’s Christmastide, who knows what frankincense is?

Health, Medicine

We hear a lot about the immune system, but how does it work?

We really shouldn’t be surprised that mRNA vaccines (like some of the Covid vaccines) make unintended proteins – after all they’re designed to make proteins. Researchers have now found a way to prevent this.

Researchers are still delving into the intricacies of our gut microbiomes, and they’re working out why a diverse microbiome is especially good at protecting us against harmful bugs.

On the development of the smallpox vaccine, for which Jenner gets the credit although it is much older.

BBC News Presenter Naga Munchetty is asking women about their periods, in an attempt to get us talking and to unlock much better care for those with dysfunctional menstruation. [LONG READ]

Meanwhile American OB/GYN Dr Jen Gunter explains that the menstrual cycle is not a detox. [LONG READ]

Sexuality

Chastity belts anyone? … Emma Beddington takes a look at some truly awful contraceptives.

Environment

Once upon a time – like 4000 years ago – the East Anglian Fens were covered in yew trees.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

The latest technologies, as well as archaeological finds, mean we are learning more and more about the Neanderthals.

Many researchers have been vilified for showing prehistoric Europeans as dark skinned – but it is genetically accurate.

There’s an ancient megacity in Iraq where archaeologists have discovered a temple linked with Hercules and Alexander the Great.

We all learnt Pythagoras’ Theorem at school, but like so many things he just gets the credit as it’s been found on a clay tablet 1000 years older.

Just as Herodotus claimed, the Ancient Scythians made leather from human skin.

Researchers using DNA analysis have worked out the origins of a mysterious 2000 year-old corpse buried in England.

A ship burial in Norway predates the Vikings and is the oldest known in that country.

FraMauroDetailedMapInverted.jpg

550 years ago a Venetian monk, Fra Mauro, created a magnificent map of the world. Considering it predates Columbus, it is not only surprisingly accurate, but also contains tiny inscriptions explaining the evidence behind the design. [The map, above, has been inverted as Fra Mauro’s map has south at the top.] [££££]

Our favourite medievalist, Dr Eleanor Janega, points out that the title Doctor does actually mean someone with a PhD, and not any old medic.

There’s a lovely Tudor map of London (probably from the reign of Queen Mary Tudor) (below) which shows many details of contemporary life. And now a coloured version has been created. [LONG READ]

Copperplate map Moorfields.jpg

We all thought that plague died out in this country following the Plague of London in 1665. But no, there were pockets of plague, mostly in rural areas, into the early 20th century.

Food, Drink

We all know that the French regulate their language, but I didn’t know the Italians do the same for their cuisine … they’ve now updated the official recipe for Bolognese Sauce.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Can we solve our addiction to consumerism? One family is trying to find out. [LONG READ]

Shock, Horror, Humour, Wow!

And finally, two amusements …

NASA astronauts have finally found a small tomato that was “lost in space” for 8 months.

There’s a whole taxonomy of the Occlupanida (bread bag closures), a genus in the complete Synthetic Taxonomy.

music, personal, ramblings

A Secular Carol

Yesterday morning I happened into BBC Radio 3’s Breakfast show just after 08:30 – well actually I blame the alarm clock! Between two pieces of very mainstream classical music the presenter Petroc Trelawny played what he described as a secular carol. It was rather entrancing, but I didn’t catch what it was. And oh dear, it isn’t listed in the online playlist (it is now!). A quick email to Radio 3 got a very prompt answer …

It turned out to be the Halsway Carol, performed by a group called The Neighbours on their (short) album Winter (2020). The lyrics are by Iain Fisk, melody by Nigel Eaton. And no wonder it was entrancing as Eaton is listed online as “internationally renowned Hurdy Gurdy maestro”. It goes like this:

Lo for the tiding of the long night moon
Let the sunrise call about the morning soon
Short is the biding of the fading light
Sing for the coming of the longest night

North wind tell us what we need to know
When the stars are shining on the midnight snow
All of the branches will be turned to white
Sing for the coming of the longest night

A winter day, the summer grass turned hay
Frost in the field ’til the dawn of May
A summer’s light never shone as clear or as bright
So dance in the shadows of a winter’s night

Lo for the tiding of the long night moon
May the harvest last until the springtime bloom
Home is our comfort at the winter’s height
Sing for the coming of the longest night

All of the colours of the sunrise sky
Shine a light upon us, as the day goes by
Sun-setting shadows fading out of sight
Sing for the coming of the longest night

A winter day, the summer grass turned hay
Frost in the field ’til the dawn of May
A summer’s light never shone as clear or as bright
So dance in the shadows of a winter’s night

The Neighbours’ album Winter is available as a download from Amazon; it’s altogether a rather nice 30 minutes seasonal folk music. However I can find out nothing about the band.

There are quite a number of renditions of the Halsway Carol on YouTube, and I’ve listened to several. After The Neighbours’ version, I prefer this one from Jackie Oates.

And, just for my Godparents, there’s also a version on Northumbrian pipes. There’s also some basic sheet music online.

An unexpected delight! But who can tell me about The Neighbours?

ramblings

Monthly Quotes

It’s time again for our monthly round up of recently encountered quotes.

When you’re dead, you don’t know you’re dead. The pain is felt by others. The same thing happens when you’re stupid.
[unknown]

The world is full off horrible things that will eventually get you and everything you care about. Humour and laughter is a universal way to lift your head up and say: “Not today you fuckers”.
[Billy Connolly]

We agreed that the true enemy of man is not man. Our enemy is not outside of us. Our true enemy is the anger, hatred, and discrimination that is found in the hearts and minds of man.
[Thich Nhat Hanh, on his friendship with Martin Luther King]

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
[JRR Tolkien]

The finest clothing made is a person’s skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.
[Mark Twain]

Time to remember the best voting advice I have heard – voting isn’t marriage – it’s public transport. You are not waiting for the one who is absolutely perfect. You are getting the bus. And if there isn’t one going exactly to your destination, you don’t stay at home and sulk you take the one going closest to where you want to be.
[unknown]

I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.
[Isaac Asimov]

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.
[George Orwell]

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
[Blaise Pascal]

Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.
[Richard Feynman]

In capitalism, freedom is 80 brands of circus peanut.
[MK, @qualia.bsky.social]

It’s quite rewarding watching KCs, rather than journalists, go after politicians. They’re much better at it. No need to cultivate contacts, no requirement to ensure balance, no pressure to let them talk so they’ll come on the show again – just cutting right through the bullshit.
[Ian Dunt; https://iandunt.substack.com/p/matt-hancocks-broken-half-formed]

Some men improve the world only by leaving it.
[Oscar Wilde]

We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.
[Jimmy Carter]

Most of us have forgotten that we are nature. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say that we have lost our connection to nature, it means that we have lost our connection to ourselves.
[unknown]

There are places, just as there are people and objects and works of art, whose relationship of parts creates a mystery, an enchantment, which cannot be analysed.
[Paul Nash]

arts, history, ramblings

Christmas Stamps

Royal Mail have released this year’s Christmas stamps, and yet again we’ve managed to create a perfectly horrible, ever more nauseatingly religious, set of designs – which isn’t helped by this ubiquitous barcode.

UK 2023 Christmas Stamps
This year’s British Christmas stamps
[Click the image for a larger view]

Royal Mail had (at least until recently) a policy of alternating religious and secular themes year-by-year. This seems to have gone by the board as the last five years’ designs have all been religious.

Yes, I know Christmas is supposed to be a religious festival, and this is a nominally Christian country. However it would be really good to (a) have some stamps celebrating the pagan Yule – or Roman Saturnalia which provided much of the Christian festivity – and (b) some decent, simple designs.

We’ve had special Christmas stamps every year since 1966 (thanks to the then Postmaster General, Tony Benn, whose idea it was). But to my mind there have been few really good designs. From all the years, perhaps the one I like best – for their clean simplicity – are the ones from 1980.

UK 1980 Christmas Stamps
1980

With 1969, 1973 and 1993 following on (not necessarily in that order).

UK 1969 Christmas Stamps
1969
UK 1973 Christmas Stamps
1973
UK 1993 Christmas Stamps
1993

As for the rest, they span the range from merely OK to abominably awful.

Not that other countries’ stamps are necessarily any better, although many are.

ramblings

Fediverse Test

I’m testing a way to add this blog to the fediverse, so it becomes visible to services like Mastodon, and can be followed by users from their fediverse server.

If you see this post on a fediverse server, and wish to follow this Zen Mischief blog, then search for @zenmischief.com (to pick up all new posts and pages) or @kcm (to pick up only those posts/pages I create – which is likely to be all of them).

This post is to check if this works; there is no significant content beyond the above.

Here’s an image to see how that works.

test image of a scented geranium

That’s all.