Category Archives: topographical

beliefs, books, current affairs, history, people, thoughts, topographical

Quotes of the Week

Another good selection this week as I’ve been catching up on all sorts of bits of reading.

Tax is imposed by parliament, people and corporations do not pay it voluntarily. The state coerces as much money as possible in the form of tribute to pay for the services and goods the state feels that it requires.
[brianist in a comment at http://www.badscience.net/2011/04/anarchy-for-the-uk-ish/]

The [fifth] duke [of Portland (1800-1879)], a notable eccentric landlord, gave each of his workmen a donkey and an umbrella, so they could travel to work in all weathers. He insisted that they should not salute or show him the slightest deference, and had a roller-skating rink especially constructed for their recreation.
[Mike Pentelow & Marsha Rowe; Characters of Fitzrovia; Pimlico Books (2001)]

Divorced, unemployed, and pissed
I aimed low in life – and missed.
[Prof. Ray Lees quoted in Mike Pentelow & Marsha Rowe; Characters of Fitzrovia]

Then we got softer clay and both of us turned out some quite nice little bowls and pots. It’s fearfully exciting when you do get it centred and the stuff begins to come up between your fingers. V[anessa Bell] never would make her penises long enough, which I thought very odd. Don’t you?
[Roger Fry to Duncan Grant quoted in Mike Pentelow & Marsha Rowe; Characters of Fitzrovia]

My dear, could you advance me a quid? There’s the most beautiful Gl passed out stone cold and naked as a duck in my kitchen.
[Nina Hamnett quoted in Mike Pentelow & Marsha Rowe; Characters of Fitzrovia. The image on the right is a torso of Nina Hamnett by sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska now in the Tate Gallery; Modigliani is supposed to have said (and Nina Hamnett oft repeated) that she had “the best tits in Europe”.]

Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.
[Will Rogers]

Relax. There are no gods and you are not going to burn in hell.
[Atheist in America at www.flamewarrior.com]

Each age finds in its favourite crimes images of what it would most love/hate to do. Our own generation of overworked, guilty, child-dominated couples makes of child-abduction the ultimate horror, perhaps because with a dark part of themselves they wish their children dead. The favourite Edwardian murder was undoubtedly centred upon adultery in the suburbs.
[AN Wilson, After the Victorians]

If any demonstration was needed that the battles of Ypres, Mons, Verdun, the Somme had been lunatic, it was provided in summer 1917 at Passchendaele, when Sir Douglas Haig launched an attack against the Messines Ridge south of Ypres. It was a repeat performance of the other acts of mass-slaughter: 240,000 British casualties, 70,000 dead, with German losses around 200,000. By a second attack, in November 1917, on Cambrai, Haig took the Germans by surprise and gained about four miles of mud. Ten days later the German counter-attack regained all their lost ground. If ever there was an object lesson in the folly of war, the sheer pointlessness, here it was shown in all its bloodiness.
[AN Wilson, After the Victorians]

arts, current affairs, history, memes, personal, photography, topographical

[13/52] Magnolia

[13/52] Magnolia
Week 13 entry for 52 weeks challenge.

This is the magnificent magnolia in the churchyard outside St James’s, Piccadilly, London. Taken against the backdrop of the church, which was designed by Sir Christopher Wren but much restored.

The church also contains a small memorial to the poet, artist and mystic William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) who was baptised there on 11 December 1757.

The churchyard of St James’s hosts an Antiques Market on Tuesdays and an Arts & Crafts Market on Wednesday to Saturday. I’ve not been to the former, but the latter is definitely worth a visit if you’re present hunting and especially in the run-up to Christmas. There is also a coffee shop and the church itself is almost always open.

history, topographical

Coffee Houses

Now we all know the importance of coffee houses in the history of our society – Lloyds of London (the insurance market-makers) was started in a coffee house in 1774. By this time the coffee house had been in existence for well over 100 years having been started in London in 1652. Slightly surprisingly the Commonwealth government were in favour of coffee houses as they didn’t provide intoxicating liquor.

But like all good British institutions they had their rabbleous side. I came across this last evening:

There was a rabble going hither and thither, reminding me of a swarm of rats in a ruinous cheese-store. Some came, others went; some were scribbling, others were talking; some were drinking [coffee], some smoking, and some arguing; the whole place stank of tobacco like the cabin of a barge. On the corner of a long table, close by the armchair, was lying a Bible. Beside it were earthenware pitchers, long clay pipes, a little fire on the hearth, and over it the high coffee pot. Beneath a small bookshelf, on which were bottles, cups, and an advertisement for a beautifier to improve the complexion, was hanging a parliamentary ordinance against drinking and the use of bad language. The walls were decorated with gilt frames, much as a smithy is decorated with horseshoes. In the frames were rarities; phials of a yellowish elixir, favourite pills and hair tonics, packets of snuff, tooth powder made from coffee grounds, caramels and cough lozenges.

This is by one Ned Ward writing in the 1690s and quoted in Jonathan Bastable, Voices from the World of Samuel Pepys. Not so much different from your average Starbuck’s really.

food+drink, medical, memes, personal, photography, science, topographical

[12/52] Delirium

[12/52] Delirium

Week 12 entry for 52 weeks challenge.

This was a grab shot from the car while waiting at traffic lights at Greenford Broadway last weekend. I was attracted by the wonderfully colourful primulas (they must be Primula locus-concilium they are such a favourite of local authority Parks & Gardens Departments) in the Spring sunshine.

This wobbly processed form is about how I saw the picture at the time as I was just starting a high fever from some nasty flu-cum-bronchitis-bug-thingy that seems to be doing the rounds here at present. This bug is nasty. Noreen is now four weeks into it and is still not 100%. I thought I’d got away with it (just had a bit of malaise for a few days when Noreen was first down with it). But no, it mugged me and I have spent a large part of the last week snuggled under the duvet trying to get rid of a fever and graveyard cough and feeling like … well let’s not go there. I now feel bodily coldy; still totally depleted of everything both mental and physical; still with a cough, although that is going slowly; but today almost no voice.

But then I have just put away a hearty salad of pulled lamb, lamb’s lettuce, tomato and avocado with a couple of large glasses of white Burgundy (first alcohol in over a week!) which does somewhat restore the soul if not the body.

amusements, environment, memes, quotes, topographical

Facts of the Week

This is the first in what will probably be an occasional series highlighting unexpected, unusual or just amazing facts I come across. It is really for curiosity value rather than a resource of those who take part in pub quizzes. Wherever possible I will, as always, provide a source for the information. So here is the first selection of factlets …

Each year, an estimated 10,000 shipping containers fall off container ships at sea.
Between five and six million containers are in transit at any given moment.
[]

The Sendai earthquake shifted the earth’s figure axis by about 17 cm and moved the main island of Japan [Honshu] around 2.4 metres.
[US Geological Survey]

The Sendai earthquake also shortened our day by about 1.8 milliseconds (thousands of a second).
[NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]

The original Polynesian and South Pacific origin of the word ‘tabu’ actually refers to that which is sacred: the application of a taboo actually designating that which is holy.
[OED]

science, topographical

A Refreshing Perspective

1 Comment

This BBC analysis article by Prof. David Spiegelhalter, Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge University puts the radiation risks from the Japanese nuclear situation into perspective. I commend it to everyone as a balanced piece of scientific reporting. Let’s not lose our heads just because those around us are running about being unnecessarily demented. Let’s keep a sense of perspective. And please let’s put an end to all the hysteria!

[Hat-tip Brad Warner at Hardcore Zen]

beliefs, current affairs, freedom of speech, pleasures, quotes, science, sexuality, thoughts, topographical

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]

environment, topographical

More Thoughts on Japan

I continue to watch the news coming out of Japan, especially that about the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi neuclear plant.

I’m astounded at the lack of assistance the nuclear plant authorities are getting. They have now been struggling with (and losing) the battle to stabilise their reactors after the tsunami took out their backup cooling system on Friday.

I have to wonder (a) why they didn’t shout for outside back-up much earlier on Friday, (b) where the Japanese military are and (c) what priority is being given to getting grid power restored to the Fukushima plant. Why have the Japanese government not flooded the power plant with regiments of Engineers and Logistics experts. And why haven’t they deployed every available military pumping unit and bowser to the site, to help shift water (if only seawater).

Before anyone says it, I know they’ll need bowsers to deliver water to refugees, but I would have thought the nuclear plant needs to take priority, and their water companies should have bowsers too. Moreover the military will have bowsers which may be usable (for seawater) but not for drinking water. And pumping units are, I would have thought, not going to achieve a lot at present in the disaster area (there’s much else to do without worrying about pumping water away) and in any event, again, I would think the nuclear plant should take priority. Clearly too they would need a secure supply of fuel and other supplies – but that’s what logistics is all about.

Yes, I know the military won’t be skilled at managing and operating a nuclear plant. No-one would expect them to be. But their equipment, logistics skills and manpower should be invaluable. We proved in this country how valuable military logistics skills are during the foot-and-mouth epidemic in 2001, where the military were eventually called in and sorted out the problem very quickly. Good senior officers cut through obstructions and get things done quickly and efficiently; they’re trained to do just this; trained in logistics; and trained to deal with horrors like this in warfare.

Should we be exposing soldiers to such an undoubtedly dangerous environment? It’s a tricky ethical problem. But at times of national emergency such as this I would tend to the view that this is part of the military’s role; and indeed the military would expect such a role. After all we expect soldiers to go into battle, kill people, possibly get killed themselves and be exposed to depleted Uranium shells and worse. And they will have NBC suits; although they are by no means a comfortable environment to work in they’re available.

Would any of this have averted where we are now? We can never know. But it seems to me that it probably should have been given a shot. Maybe it has been and we just haven’t been told. We just don’t know.

All we can do is watch, hope and pray.