amusements, people, photography

Photographs

As long-time readers will know, in between anything else happening I enjoy a bit of people watching. In the last week or so I’ve seen these.

Click the images for larger views
blokes
Blokes, Plotting
Pinner; July 2016
3_Witches
Three Nubile witches
South Ealing; July 2016
visions1
Visions of Babushka
Northfields, Ealing; July 2016

medical, ramblings, science

Piloerection

Piloerection — more commonly known as goosebumps …
We all get goosebumps.
But I have recemtly found out two things about this common phenomenon — one is general and the other seemingly specific to me.


Firstly piloerection (hairs standing up) is interesting because it is a demonstration of evolution not happening. We are all familiar with the cat with its fur fluffed out and tail bushed, usually when confronted with an aggressor. We’re all also familiar with the robin, or pigeon, fluffed up in the winter against the cold. Both these are the original uses of what we still have as goosebumps.
The way this works is that the tiny muscles around the hair follicles (or equivalent for feathers) react to cold or to adrenalin (produced in response to fear, or excitement). In contracting these tiny muscles pull the hair into a more erect state and cause the little bumps around the hair follicle. Humans have lost (most of) their fur, but we’ve not lost the response mechanisms to cold or which stimulate production of adrenalin. So we still get goosebumps, although they apparently confer no advantage on us. There is no cost, the reactions aren’t deleterious, so there has been no evolutionary pressure to remove the reaction. This is one of a number of traits which (some of) us exhibit and which are evolutionary remnants; others include our tails, widom teeth and appendix.
Like everyone I get goosebumps, and the tingling sensation of the skin that usually goes along with them. And, also like most, this is strongest on the forearms. But what I’ve noticed recently is that this is more marked on the right side of my body than the left. Sometimes it is only on my right side. Sometimes both sides but the right predominates. Whether it has always been like this I don’t know, but I think it probably has. I find this strange and I can neither find, nor conjure up, a satisfactory explanation. Does anyone have any clues?

quotes

Quotes

Lots of quotes in this month’s selection …
The handicap under which most beginning writers struggle is that they don’t know how to write. I was no exception to this rule. Worse bilge than mine may have been submitted to the editors of London in 1901 and 1902, but I should think it very unlikely. I was sorry for myself at the time, when the stamped and addressed envelopes came homing back to me, but my sympathy now is for the men who had to read my contributions. I can imagine nothing more depressing than being an editor and coming to the office on a rainy morning in February with a nail in one shoe and damp trouser legs and finding oneself confronted with an early Wodehouse – written, to make it more difficult, in longhand.
[PG Wodehouse on his early writing career]
It is best to accept the real conditions of contemporary life as soon as possible. One has got to put up with them for better or worse, and the only hope of changing them is in facing them, not in living in a dream of the old world. But I am tired of saying what is so obvious to me.
[Stephen Spender, letter to Isaiah Berlin, 1932]
It is such a rest to be folded after all my wandering … I have the most entire faith in the healing qualities of sunshine and sun warmth.
[Aubrey Beardsley, letter to John Gray, 3 April 1897]
In principle I agree with bringing in an appropriate set of book shelves. However, I view the acquisition of another mirror as superfluous.
[Hermann Broch, letter to Armand Broch, Spring 1928]
A story — a good story — writes itself; that is, it develops spontaneously under the pen. One incident entails another, as in life, and the denouement, as in life, is beyond control. Remember, I am speaking of good stories; bad ones can be written on preconceived lines, but I don’t care to write bad stories; at least I don’t care to publish them with a waste-basket within easy reach.
[Ambrose Bierce, letter to John O’Hara Cosgrave, 19 November 1905]
I sent an American acquaintance three pages of typescript & asked “Is the American slang authentic?” Weeks passed. Now I have back 50 pages on Embassy paper giving the opinions of three public relations officers.
[Evelyn Waugh, letter to Nancy Mitford, 22 November 1954]
I sometimes fear that people think that Fascism arrives in fancy dress worn by grotesques and monsters as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis. Fascism arrives as your friend. It will restore your honour, make you feel proud, protect your house, give you a job, clean up the neighbourhood, remind you of how great you once were, clear out the venal and the corrupt, remove anything you feel is unlike you … it doesn’t walk in saying, our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution.
[Michael Rosen]
Knowledge is always provisional. It’s easy to forget that. It’s easy to get caught up in a futile search for some kind of ultimate knowledge. It ain’t gonna happen.
[Brad Warner at http://hardcorezen.info/but-what-if-were-wrong/4584]
Being natural & matter-of-fact about nudity prevents children from developing an attitude of shame or disgust about the human body.
[Dr Lee Salk]
When considered rationally, there is no justification for believing that anything happens to anyone upon the moment of his or her death. There is no reasonable counter to the prospect of nothingness. Any anecdotal story about ‘floating toward a white light’ or Shirley MacLaine’s past life on Atlantis or the details in Heaven Is for Real are automatically (and justifiably) dismissed by any secular intellectual. Yet this wholly logical position discounts the overwhelming likelihood that we currently don’t know something critical about the experience of life, much less the ultimate conclusion to that experience. There are so many things we don’t know about energy, or the way energy is transferred, or why energy (which can’ t be created or destroyed) exists at all. We can’t truly conceive the conditions of a multidimensional reality, even though we’re (probably) already living inside one. We have a limited understanding of consciousness. We have a limited understanding of time, and of the perception of time, and of the possibility that all time is happening at once. So while it seems unrealistic to seriously consider the prospect of life after death, it seems equally naïve to assume that our contemporary understanding of this phenomenon is remotely complete …
… We must start from the premise that — in all likelihood — we are already wrong. And not ‘wrong’ in the sense that we are examining questions and coming to incorrect conclusions, because most of our conclusions are reasoned and coherent. The problem is with the questions themselves.
[Chuck Klosterman; But What If We’re Wrong?]
You know how cats are attracted to the people who give them the least attention? Teenagers are basically cats (children aged four to 10 are Labradors, obviously, and the under-fours are the product of some unholy union of howler monkey and honey badger).
[Emma Beddington at https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jun/25/why-your-teenager-thinks-youre-an-idiot]
The raven is about rebirth, recovery, renewal, recycling, reflection and healing. He signifies moving through transitions smoothly by casting light into the darkness.
[unknown author]
There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another.
[Emma Goldman, social activist (1869-1940)]
there is … enormous moral and political confusion that mixes together the desperation of those who know they are losing, the opportunism of those ready to change sides, the guilelessness of those who haven’t understood anything, and even the desire for revenge in those who are about to arrive.
[Carlo Lucarelli]
“A great illusion is that government is carried on by an infallible, incorruptible machine,” Pennistone said. “Officials — all officials, of all governments — are just as capable of behaving in an irregular manner as anyone else. In fact they have the additional advantage of being able to assuage their own conscience, if they happen to have one, by assuring themselves it’s all for the country’s good.”
[Anthony Powell, The Military Philosophers]
To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
[Oscar Wilde]
The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.
[Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948]
In a poll, we ask people what they think when they don’t think. It would be more interesting to ask what they think after they had a chance to think.
[James Fishkin, Political Scientist]
Find your strengths. In your allegiance, what are you best at? Your unique sweet spot (the place where you can make the most difference) is determined not by what you want to do, but where your skills meet a community need.
[Kat Craig; Guardian; 20 June 2016]
As Gove doesn’t rate experts, I presume his policy advisors will be made up of clairvoyants, astrologers and Coco the clown.
[Robert Talbut, Chaiman, EFG Asset Management; Times; 2 July 2016]
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
[Samuel Johnson]
Boris Johnson, who in the judgment of naturalists is the only leading politician bred directly from Highland cattle, had been expected to declare himself a candidate for the Tory leadership. Boris, after all, was a booming voice in the Leave campaign, and he has long been both a marshal and a mascot of the right. He also enjoys a profile as high as anyone in the land; friend and foe alike refer to him by his first name — a distinction that he shares with Britney, Whitney, Dolly, Rihanna, and Oprah. The brand recognition is secure.
[Anthony Lane, New Yorker]
If democracy ever dies, it won’t be the Red Army; it’ll be the media that destroy democracy: by denying people the voice so they can tell the government what they want.
[Tony Benn]
How insulting to God is the arrogance of mankind, when we take it upon ourselves to cover and hide His creation and claim that it is an improvement?
[unknown author]
The world is increasingly designed to depress us. Happiness isn’t very good for the economy. If we were happy with what we had, why would we need more? How do you sell an anti-ageing moisturiser? You make someone worry about ageing. How do you get people to vote for a political party? You make them worry about immigration. How do you get them to buy insurance? By making them worry about everything . How do you get them to have plastic surgery? By highlighting their physical flaws. How do you get them to watch a TV show? By making them worry about missing out . How do you get them to buy a new smartphone? By making them feel like they are being left behind.
To be calm becomes a kind of revolutionary act. To be happy with your own non-upgraded existence. To be comfortable with our messy, human selves, would not be good for business.
[Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive]

current affairs, ramblings

Astute or Stupid?

So Theresa May is now Prime Minister. And one of her first decisions must have taken quite a lot of balls to pull off.
She has named Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary.


I’m not sure if this is a very stupid, or a very astute, move.
If Boris continues to be a complete clown, regularly tactless and a loose cannon, it could well turn out to be a very stupid move. In such circumstances would you want him dealing with Russia, or China, or Iraq? Or “owning” MI6 or the Diplomatic Corps?
On the other hand there is an argument that if you have a trouble-maker or a loose cannon, you keep them out of mischief by giving them a big job. One where they have to do some work, to behave, to think, to be tactful and diplomatic. And a job where they are close to you, where you can keep them on a short leash and keep a beady eye on what they’re doing. If that’s how this works out it is a very astute move.
But even better than this, it could be Boris’s comeuppance. Maybe someone has finally been able to call his bluff. Because as Foreign Secretary he is going to have to be involved in the Brexit negotiations. And he’ll have to be dealing with his counterparts in Europe, who know full well he is the clown who largely got us into this almighty mess. He could get a very rough ride, especially if he starts being the pillock we know he can be. He might just finally have had his balls nailed to the mast.
I would like to think this is a very astute move by Mistress May. If it is, and if she carries on in this vein, we should expect quite a few more egos having their balls broken. And that could be quite a good thing.
Interesting times we live in!

history, sexuality

The Oldest Profession

Despite its reviled status today prostitution has a long and honourable tradition in many countries. From the Ancient Near East to the Incas and Aztecs. In India and Japan; Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. To the Middles Ages and modern Europe. And a history in which is has more often been legal, and encouraged, than illegal — contrary to our modern western (largely Christian) expectations.


So I was interested to find this in the description of the above miniature in Flavio Febbraro’s How to Read Erotic Art which I reviewed yesterday:

In the late Middle Ages, so-called stuphae — baths or saunas — were present in almost every city across Central and North Europe. In addition to offering hot baths, they provided premises for sexual encounters with obliging women. On the other hand, prostitution — despite the Church’s official intransigence in regard to sexual activity — was tolerated, if not encouraged, by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. It was seen as a lesser evil that served to channel masculine aggression and ensure public order. Consequently there were authorized ‘brothels’, managed according to standards defined by the municipal authorities, that enlisted women mainly from the countryside. These women enjoyed the acceptance of the community in which they lived. Houses of tolerance and stuphae were located in the centre of town, often in respectable buildings, demonstrating that, his activity took place openly, with no particular negative judgement attached to those who frequented them.

So why the problem now?
It makes no sense to me.