Week 20 entry for 52 weeks challenge.
“The Spinnaker” at Portsmouth, taken from The Hard. Having now seen it in the flesh, as it were, I’m still not sure I like it. And it is certainly pretentious, standing proud above the waterfront area. 🙂
Perhaps this should be in celebration of May being Masturbation Month?
Just in time for your next pub quiz night I came across this curious list of odd sexual facts. Amongst the gems are:
80% of men living in the USA have been circumcised.
Which I find at best sad but not surprising.
During sexual intercourse, in addition to the genitals and breasts, the inner nose also swells.
Weird! But why?
A teaspoon of semen contains approximately 5 calories.
So it ain’t going to do too much damage to your diet!
During an average man’s lifetime, he will ejaculate approximately 17 litres of semen.
Good grief, that’s almost two buckets! Although at an average 5ml a pop it is only one ejaculation a week between the ages of 16 and 81. Are you really getting enough?! Especially knowing that …
It’s possible to relieve depression through masturbation.
Now that sounds like the best excuse ever for a bit of Onanism!
All taken from www.lustability.com/facts.php
This week a selection of links about that perennially fascinating subject: sex! And no, there’s nothing here your teenage daughter shouldn’t to read, and it is all essentially safe for work: no nasty pictures!
Emily at Emily Nagoski : Sex Nerd has an interesting perspective on the events of last weekend. Everything from the Royal Wedding to the death of Osama bin Laden, it’s all to do with sex.
Bish! is a UK-based information site about sex and relationships for young people (like teenagers). They recently posted a weblog item about Talking about Sex with Teens. Now I’m not a parent, but the article (and indeed the whole site) strikes me as extremely useful. They also publish information packs and there’s a section on the site specifically for parents and carers.
Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal so far forgot itself as to run an article on Researching the Health Benefits of Sex. Yes, it is about doing the research, but it also contains lots of information about how sexual response works etc. It’s worth a read.
Finally something to bring a smile to your face (and elsewhere!). Apparently May is Masturbation Month. No, I wouldn’t have known either but for Cory Silverberg pointing it out over at About.com.
A mixed bag of quotes this week …
When the British government set up the loss-making groundnut scheme in Africa in 1947, a law was passed which contained a paragraph that read: ‘In the Nuts (unground) (other than ground-nuts) Order, the expression nuts shall have reference to such nuts, other than ground-nuts, as would but for this amending Order not qualify as nuts (unground) (other than ground-nuts) by reason of their being nuts (unground).’
[Nigel Cawthorne; The Strange Laws of Old England]
We can reject everything else: religion, ideology, all received wisdom. But we cannot escape the necessity of love and compassion … This, then, is my true religion, my simple faith. In this sense, there is no need for temple or church, for mosque or synagogue, no need for complicated philosophy, doctrine or dogma. Our own heart, our own mind, is the temple. The doctrine is compassion. Love for others and respect for their rights and dignity, no matter who or what they are: ultimately these are all we need. So long as we practice these in our daily lives, then no matter if we are learned or unlearned, whether we believe in Buddha or God, or follow some other religion or none at all, as long as we have compassion for others and conduct ourselves with restraint out of a sense of responsibility, there is no doubt we will be happy.
[Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama]
If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.
[Voltaire]
‘A long time ago.’
‘I didn’t have white hair in those days,’ said Granny. ‘Everything was a different colour in those days.’
‘That’s true.’
‘It didn’t rain so much in the summer time.’
‘The sunsets were redder.’
‘There were more old people. The world was full of them,’ said the wizard.
‘Yes, I know. And now it’s full of young people. Funny, really.’
[Terry Pratchett; Equal Rites]
[S]he was opposed to books on strict moral grounds, since she had heard that many of them were written by dead people and therefore it stood to reason reading them would be as bad as necromancy.
[Terry Pratchett; Equal Rites]
Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.
[WC Fields]
I screwed in the first one. I realised how hot it really was that day. I screwed in the second one. Now I was sweltering, and my wrist ached like I’d manually pleasured a rugby team.
[Antonia at http://yetanotherbloomingblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-darlings.html]
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.
A huge selection this week, even with ignoring the royal wedding.
To most Christians, the Bible is like a software licence. Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll to the bottom and click “I agree”.
[Unknown]
Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquillizing agent as a sunny spring day.
[W Earl Hall]
Hey you! Yes, you, stop being unhappy with yourself, you are perfect. Stop wishing you looked like someone else or wishing people liked you as much as they like someone else, stop trying to get attention from those who hurt you. Stop hating your body, your face, your personality, your quirks, love them, without those things you wouldn’t be you, and why would you want to be anyone else? Be confident with who you are. Smile, it’ll draw people in, if anyone hates on you because you are happy with yourself then you stick your middle finger in the air and say screw it, my happiness will not depend on others any more. I’m happy because I love who I am. I love my flaws, I love my imperfections, they make me me. And ‘me’ is pretty amazing.
[Unknown]
Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of 80 and gradually approach 18.
[Mark Twain]
A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it.
[Unknown]
A fortune teller told me: Every place is a goldmine. You have only to give yourself time, sit in a tea-house watching the passers-by, stand in a corner of the market, go for a haircut. You pick up a thread — a word, a meeting, a friend of a friend of someone you just met — and soon the most insipid, most insignificant place becomes a mirror of the world, a window on life, a theatre of humanity. The goldmine is exactly over there where you are.
[Tiziano Terzani]
Why am I an atheist? I ask you: Why is anybody not an atheist? Everyone starts out being an atheist. No one is born with belief in anything. Infants are atheists until they are indoctrinated, I resent anyone pushing their religion on me. I don’t push my atheism on anybody else. Live and let live. Not many people practice that when it comes to religion.
[Andy Rooney]
Go now and live. Experience. Dream. Risk. Close your eyes and jump, enjoy the free-fall. Choose exhilaration over comfort. Choose magic over predictability. Choose potential over safety. Wake up to the magic of everyday life. Make friends with your intuition. Trust your gut. Discover the beauty of uncertainty. Know yourself fully before you make promises to another. Make millions of mistakes so that you will know how to choose what you really need. Know when to hold on and when to let go. Love hard and often and without reservation. Seek knowledge. Open yourself to possibility. Keep your heart open, your head high and your spirit free. Embrace your darkness along with your light. Be wrong every once in a while, and don’t be afraid to admit it. Awaken to the brilliance in ordinary moments. Tell the truth about yourself no matter what the cost. Own your reality without apology. See goodness in the world. Be Bold. Be Fierce. Be Grateful. Be Wild, crazy and gloriously free. Be you. Go now, and live.
[Unknown]
Every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
[Evelyn Waugh]
But adults aren’t rational. I’m unsure why we expect adolescents to be.
[Prof. Kate Clancey]
War is a series of catastrophes that result in a victory.
[Georges Clemenceau]
A rumour without a leg to stand on will get around some other way.
[John Tudor]
Life is a comedy to those who think, A tragedy to those who feel, And an incomprehensible to those who think they feel.
[Graffito found on a university door when I was a student, circa 1973]
The written word sings in silence through the caverns of the mind.
[Victor Stok]
Her breasts were two lovely promontories. Wherever one looked one discovered soft open spaces, alluring estuaries, pleasant glades, hillocks, mounds, where pilgrims could have lingered in prayer, where they could have quenched their thirst at cooling springs.
[Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle]
[I]n all her splendour, with the rich abundance of her lovely milk-white flesh, her bold sweeping contours, her magnificent projections of poop and prow … a frightful incarnation of lewdness, a satanic vision, convulsed and writhing in the shameful pleasures of guilty love.
[Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle]
It must be strange being Prince William or Prince Harry on a stag night, shoving pictures of your gran into a lap-dancer’s bra.
[Origin Unknown]
The first in new occasional series.
Tolerance and knowledge are the preconditions for candour.
[Susie Bright, Full Exposure]
