Under the title No wonder Britain’s alcohol guidelines are so extreme — just look at who drafted them Christopher Snowdon at Spectator Health lifts the lid on the way in which the new alcohol guidelines were arrived at.
If true, and I have no reason to suspect Snowdon isn’t being truthful, this is a disgraceful abuse of power by the Chief Medical Officer, and others, to arrive at conclusions which suit their personal predilections in the face of major conflicting evidence.
Given the academic stature of many of those involved, they really should know better. The fact that they appear not to, should be sufficient to disqualify them from their roles and they deserve to be summarily sacked.
Quote: Expecting
Haruki Murakami; Kafka on the Shore
RoboLit
There was a brilliant piece in last Monday’s Guardian in which Stephen Moss asks what robots might learn from our literature. I give you a sample:
[A] new generation of robots combining artificial intelligence with great physical power may not … wipe us out after all. We can be friends, united in a common appreciation of Middlemarch. But a less sunny outlook is suggested by … the Shepton Mallet School of Advanced Hermeneutics [who] fed the entire world’s literature into a robot (called HOMER16) fitted with a high-powered computer; preliminary results are worrying.
Here are some extracts from the HOMER16’s initial readings.
Hamlet: Dithering prince with unhinged girlfriend demonstrates how dangerous it is not to act decisively. Interminable and convoluted plot obstructs the central message that your enemies should be dispatched quickly, brutally and mercilessly. Cannot compute the meaning of the strange “To be or not to be” speech. In what sense is that the question?
A Clockwork Orange: Frightening study that shows the extent to which a love of classical music can damage the human brain. The works of Beethoven seem to be especially dangerous. Fail to understand why this material is still played, even on radio stations that very few people listen to.
The New Testament: Ludicrous set of stories in which the sick are miraculously healed, fishes and loaves materialise from nowhere, and a young man comes back to life after being executed. The telling by four narrators is interestingly postmodern, but the plot is too ludicrous to hold the attention. Could not compute the long introduction called The Old Testament, which seemed very dull and repetitious.
À la Recherche du Temps Perdu: A book in need of an editor about a protagonist in need of a psychiatrist. Good on the dangerous consequences of eating cake.
[With thanks to Julian Miller.]
Something for the Weekend
Clever New Yorker cartoon I spotted a week or so ago …
Something for the Weekend
Oddity of the Week: Egyptian Pigments
William Perkin is credited with with making the first synthetic organic dye (using chemists’ meaning of organic, ie. carbon-based molecules) when he accidentally discovered aniline purple, aka. mauveine, in 1856 while trying to make quinine. (Incidentally Perkin set up his factory to manufacture mauveine on the banks of the Grand Union Canal just half a mile from my home in Greenford.)
However Perkin was probably beaten to the first organic synthetic dye by the Egyptians, possibly as early as 3000BC. By heating a mixture of sand, ash, calcium carbonate (from shells?) and a copper ore to temperatures of over 800°C they manufactured blue calcium copper silicate, otherwise known as Egyptian Blue. This was then used in glazes to produce a stunning range of hues — as in this votive cup with cartouche of Amenhotep III (c.1391–1350BC).
There’s more on modern chemistry firsts which were known in ancient times including chromium plating, concrete and nanotubes.
Quotes
OK, so here goes with our monthly (mid-month) round-up of the amusing and thought-provoking wisdom of the world recently encountered. In no special order …
Clutter is not just physical stuff. It’s old ideas, toxic relationships and bad habits. Clutter is anything that does not support your better self.
[Eleanor Brownn]
One awesome thing about Eeyore is that even though he is basically clinically depressed, he still gets invited to participate in adventures and shenanigans with all of his friends. And they never expect him to pretend to feel happy, they just love him anyway, and they never leave him behind or ask him to change.
[David Wolfe]
The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds.
[Dalai Lama]
Life is not about how fast you run or how high you climb but how well you bounce.
[Vivian Komori]
Every man identifies with Hamlet, it has been said, since every man imagines himself a disinherited monarch; every woman identifies with Alice, since every woman sees herself as the sole sane person in a world filled with lunatics who imagine themselves disinherited monarchs.
[Adam Gopnik]
Whether the British ruling class are wicked or merely stupid is one of the most difficult questions of our time, and at certain moments a very important question.
[George Orwell]
We had a sermon a while back from our pastor talking about how shaming someone is to go against everything Christian. Yet children are natural nudists. The only way to keep them dressed is to teach them shame. “Don’t pull up your dress &,dash; someone will see your panties.” “Don’t go outside naked — someone will see your penis.” This occurs again and again until there is a wall of shame. Is nudity a dangerous path? I believe shame is far worse.
[“Jon” quoted in Naturist Life International]
“Consensual sex” is just sex. To say that implies that there is such a thing as “non consensual sex”, which there isn’t. That’s rape. That is what it needs to be called. There is only sex or rape. Do not teach people that rape is just another type of sex. They are two very separate events. You wouldn’t say “breathing swimming” and “non-breathing swimming”, you say swimming and drowning.
One of the best things about getting older: knowing that someone is an arsehole before they even speak.
Man is the sole animal whose nudities offend his own companions, and who, in his natural actions, withdraws & hides himself from his own kind.
If God declared our unclothed naked bodies to be VERY GOOD on day 6th day of creation. THEN THEY MUST BE SO.
A fellow who I helped write two books about psychology and psychiatry was a renowned psychiatrist in London called Robin Skynner said something very interesting to me. He said, “If people can’t control their own emotions, then they have to start trying to control other people’s behaviour.” And when you’re around super-sensitive people, you cannot relax and be spontaneous because you have no idea what’s going to upset them next. And that’s why I’ve been warned recently don’t to go to most university campuses because the political correctness has been taken from being a good idea, which is let’s not be mean in particular to people who are not able to look after themselves very well — that’s a good idea — to the point where any kind of criticism or any individual or group could be labelled cruel.
[John Cleese]
Christianity. The popular belief that a celestial Jewish baby who is also his own father, born from a virgin mother, died for three days so that he could ascend to heaven on a cloud and then make you live forever only if you symbolically eat his flesh, drink his blood and telepathically tell him you accept him as your lord & master so he can remove an evil force from your spiritual being that is present in all humanity because an immoral woman made from a man’s rib was hoodwinked by a talking reptile possessed by an malicious angel to secretly eat forbidden fruit from a magical tree.
He who would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
[Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer, 1737-1809. With thanks to John Monaghan]
Weekly Photograph
This week, something different in the way of photographic subject …
This is a fly. Actually it was quite a chunky fly and I’m reliably informed it is a common flesh fly (Sarcophaga carnaria). It’s called a flesh fly because it feeds on carrion and other similar undesirables.
When you look at insects, like this, they are amazingly complex anatomically — just look at the feet, the hairs, and the veins in the wings of this beastie. And they are also often surprisingly beautiful. This chappie was quite large, 10-15mm.
Large Chequered Fly
Norwich; August 2008
Click the image for larger views on Flickr
Alcohol: Hidden Truths
Christopher Snowdon, Head of Lifestyle Economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs, talked recently at the Spectator annual health debate 2016. He talked about the new government guidelines on alcohol consumption — and he still found them deceitful, but nonetheless could see why they may have been cast the way they are. [Spoiler: because the medical profession don’t trust us to be truthful, they’re not truthful to us.]
Read the summary of Snowdon’s talk here; it is actually interesting.
Auction Oddments
Another in our occasional series highlighting some of the strange things, and combinations of things, which pass through our local auction house. Here’s a selection from the latest sale. I’ve highlighted some of the more eccentric items.
A Parker pen with black lacquered body and gilt lid. A silk handkerchief printed with the Maginot line, a quantity of silk flags, some badges and a 1937 Coronation tin, an American propelling pencil commemorating The Loyal-Order-of-Moose incorporating a calendar made by Ritepoint, another pencil, four netsuke and a small religious book.
An mid 20th century Tudor gents wristwatch, five other wristwatches, a pair of silver cufflinks, a single 9 carat gold cufflink, old spectacles, a silver and mother of pearl fruit knife, old hat pins, two cork screws, a nut cracker, etc.
A decorative pipe bowl styled as a bearded Cavalier on a perspex stand.
Why would the Cavalier have been on a perspex stand? And then why model the perspex stand?
A lepidopterist’s collection of mounted butterflies in six cases, one pair with roundels containing approximately fifteen butterflies in each with neatly typed name labels, one display of butterflies of Malaya, etc.
Eighteen packs of old bus tickets, seven crowns, other coins including a Victorian florin and a Victorian half crown, a pretty marcasite necklace, a small quantity of decorative jewellery, three first day covers and some mint stamps.
A 1970s leather cased decanter set on wooden tray — sherry, whisky and gin with wooden lids, a large amethyst glass with clear twist glass stem, two glass paperweights, a musical beefeater, a pair of wooden candlesticks and a pair of brass similar, a quantity of horse brasses, a wooden pierced easel mirror encased by folding doors with foliate decoration etc.
An extensive suite of glassware across two shelves to include red and white whine [sic] glasses …
A taxidermy figure of a Kestrel.
A spelter figure of a lady carrying fruit signed by Morau and an oriental style table lamp.
Why had Morau signed the fruit? I need to know.
A set of six Babysham glasses, two Victorian wooden truncheons, a Japanese 19th century yellow ground brush pot, a small quantity of Wade whimsies, a folding vanity mirror, Woods & Co Verona pattern part fruit service, two ebony dressing table pots and covers, Japanese metal box and cover and a Guinness book of Records.
A quantity of stoneware tureens with covers, vases and lids, a small Doulton Lambeth vase, a Colclough part dinner service including dinner plates, side plates, cereal bowls, etc. a black glazed two handled vase, a small quantity of glassware and a model of a caravan structured as a light.
A quantity of pressed and other glassware including fruit bowls and comports, a part tea service, a vintage McDougal flower canister, a small quantity of cameras including Pacemaker, Konika and Kodak Brownie Twin 20, Aquascope 200, mother of pearl inlaid writing box, musical jewellery box, a circular ice bucket, a quantity of games including draughts, chess and dominoes, a pair of Oreset Rosa 39/8 dress making scissors, a green glass fishing float, gramophone needles, etc.
A pair of large Satsuma vases decorated with Geishas and a similar blue ground vase, a pair of flow blue tureens, a set of three graduated flying bird wall plaques, a Victoria china part tea service, a small amount of Royal Albert Old Country Roses tea ware including teapot, three glass decanters and stoppers, a Cottage ware butter dish and stand, a quantity of children’s annuals from the 1960s and 70s including Thunderbirds and a Laurel and Hardy Bumper book plus a Swinger two polaroid camera boxed.
A good collection of vintage metal wicker and wooden wares to include a large metal pan, a toaster, heat master teapots, sugar sifters, silver plated bowl, tray, two Victorian coal irons, wicker picnic basket, wooden trays, pretty Edwardian brass framed fire screen, a wooden chopping board converted to hanging rack with decorative spoons, etc.
A mahogany Canterbury with drawer and two wicker picnic baskets …
Why would a Canterbury be made with two wicker baskets?
A remarkable tribal carved coconut head wearing a vintage leather flying helmet with SLM goggles dated 1942, together with an early leather watch strap for wearing a fob watch on the wrist, and two possibly Sudanese native daggers with leather scabbards
A 19th century naval sword with cast brass guard and fragmentary scabbard, an Indian sabre and swordstick, two bugles, a Milbro 12 bore cleaning kit, and a hand bell
A charming musical poodle by Merrythought with wind up tail and matching hat and fleece outfit in navy blue.
Two shelves of assorted men’s boots and shoes, including Stone Creek, NPS and Reebok, also a box of modern bed linen, still in packets, two sewing baskets and contents and a book @The History of the Self-winding watch
A large box of flint rocks, some carved in the form of seated people, a quantity of enamel teapots, an old telephone, old stoneware storage jars, etc.
Six children’s violins, in cases and a cased Singer sewing machine.
A quantity of DVDs including Annie Get Your Gun and westerns, Australian rules football ball, stainless steel cooking pans, two picnic baskets and a leather briefcase