Bindlestiff
A hobo, especially one who carries a bedroll.
This week’s photograph is a recent, simple one: flowers on the Horse Chestnut trees by A406 at Ealing Common. It was taken from the car while at traffic lights.
A couple of months ago I acquired from a friend four tastevin (or tasse de dégustation, tasse du vin, wine cups, depending on your predilection). My friend had bought them in northern France and cleaned them up before passing them on to me in exchange for a few drinking tokens.
They are all of the same standard design with bowls 75mm in diameter and have the crest of Bouchard Aîné & Fils, a recognised Beaune wine house. All appear to be white metal plating over a yellow metal base, the latter showing through where the white plating is rubbed. The base metal is therefore likely to be brass (or possibly some form of pewter).
Interesting items seem to be coming thick and fast at the moment, so here’s another instalment of links to items you may have missed. And not so much boring science stuff this time!
Apocalypse? So what would happen if all our satellites fell from the sky? Yep, apocalypse may not be far off the mark!
Do you wear glasses? Or lenses? Ever wondered whether you could see without them? You can. Here’s how. And it really does work!
The strange story of a tetragametic woman — that’s someone made from four gametes (two eggs, two sperm) rather than the usual two. This is a form of chimerism and as chimeras are normally detected only because of external abnormalities (for example differently coloured eyes) we don’t really know how common it is.
We know the phases of the moon influence the behaviour of many creatures from big cats to owls, but how much does the moon affect human behaviour?
These final two items may not be safe for those of a pathetically puritanical mind; they are included here in the interests of normalising our attitudes to sex and sexuality.Another culinary triumph from our kitchens. At first sight it sounds fairly ordinary, but the little touches made it really yummy …
Zen Salmon Wellington
This serves two, generously.
You need:
2 100g salmon fillets
4 scallops (with coral)
1 pack chilled puff pastry
juice ½ lemon
butter
fresh black pepper and dill herb (optional)
egg or milk to glaze
Not a cartoon as such, but just something which amused me earlier in the week …
Sam Kean
The Disappearing Spoon and Other True Tales from the Periodic Table
Black Swan, 2011
This is a science book for the interested layman. Its premise is to tell interesting stories about the elements, their discoveries and their properties.
Each of the 19 chapters follows the fortunes (or otherwise) of several, not obviously related, elements — who discovered them and how; why they are interesting and idiosyncratic. Kean is certainly able to tell the stories well and keep the reader engaged; as the cover quote from New Scientist says:
Kean has Bill Bryson’s comic touch … a lively history of the elements and the characters behind their discovery.
I found the book easy, but engaging, reading and quite hard to put down to the extent that I had to ration myself to a couple of chapters a night rather than stay up reading all night.
It is an interesting read although for a trained chemist it doesn’t really go deep enough. There are almost no pictures, diagrams or chemical formulae. That’s fine as it does make it accessible to the intelligent layman and means the book can be printed cheaply in monochrome on poor quality paper. But as a trained scientist I found I wanted more explanatory images and formulae. To that extent I was disappointed.
Overall a book I enjoyed and which should appeal to those with a scientific interest, although I would have liked something deeper.
Overall Rating: ★★★★☆
The world’s shortest escalator is located in the basement of More’s Department store in Kawasaki, Japan. It has only five steps and is 32.8 inches (833 mm) high.
From Daily Telegraph.
Another in our series of interesting, thought-provoking or humorous quotes recently encountered.
Don’t feel stupid if you don’t like what everyone else pretends to love.
[Emma Watson]
Goodness knows what may have changed since then. Worlds have turned, parallel universes have made and unmade themselves. People have been born. People have died. Stars have winked in and out of existence like the breath of God, leaving a transient mist on a universal car window where the Holy Spirit has drawn a giant knob with his finger.
[Katy Wheatley at katyboo1.wordpress.com]
In order for you to insult me I would first have to value your opinion.
[Unknown]
We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible. To have real conversations with people may seem like such a simple, obvious suggestion, but it involves courage and risk.
[Thomas Moore]
Our lionisation of size zero, our aversion to pubic hair, even an increasing trend towards vaginaplasties are all symptomatic of a desire to take the female body back to its pre-pubescent state. The full Brazilian is a look that is borrowed from pornography — can there be a more damning style endorsement?
[Helen Walsh, So older women don’t have sex?, Observer, 13 April 2014]
Sacred cows make great hamburgers.
[Robert Reisner]
In the end only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.
[Buddha’s Little Instruction Book]
What we find in a soulmate is not something wild to tame, but something wild to run with.
[Robert Brault]
When I free my body from its clothes, from all their buttons, belts, and laces, it seems to me that my soul takes a deeper, freer breath.
[benudetoday.tumblr.com]
I will always remember what it felt like to have a little mermaid swimming in my belly.
[Leone Dawson]
Alcohol is the anaesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.
[George Bernard Shaw]
And finally …
Don’t forget: Jesus died for your sins in advance, so make sure you get your money’s worth.
[Girl on the Net; @girlonthenet]
This week another photograph I took some years ago on a day trip to Dublin. These two young lady Garda officers were on duty outside the iconic O’Connell Street Post Office. No doubt they were keeping a weather eye out for the untoward but they seemed more intent on chatting.
