personal, pleasures

Reasons to be Grateful: 54

Well the week started off OK but it has ended crappily as I awoke on Friday morning with a filthy head-cold. Friday was a struggle, Saturday was a no-go area and today I’m feeling about back to where I was on Friday; so hopefully I’ll be a lot better tomorrow after a decent night’s sleep.

So anyway, this is week 54 (so we should finish the first weekend of the new year) of the experiment documenting five things which have made me happy of for which I’m grateful this week.

  1. Sausages. We’ve had two absolutely delicious sets of sausages this week. The first were Park and Black Pudding from Waitrose. The second are the stars, from our favourite butchers, Hiltons in Pinner: they make their own called Pinner Royal. These are award-winning sausages and maybe the best I’ve ever tasted. They’re succulent, densely meaty and very tasty — partly as they contain some pimento and partly because Hiltons use good meat. Hiltons are good because they specialise in organic, free-range and humanely reared meat, so you get something that looks, feels and tastes like proper meat rather than a piece of soggy pink plastic.
  2. Sinex Nasal Spray. I dislike using nasal spray as I know they can wreck nasal membranes. But very occasionally it is necessary, as it was last night in order to be able to breathe and get a decent night’s sleep.
  3. Wednesday’s Sunset. We were coming back from Pinner at sunset on Wednesday, and the sunset was absolutely stunning. Lots of dark peachy-orangey cloud above a bright azure blue sky. I did photograph it, but they really don’t do it justice; the blue just didn’t come through.

    Sunset

  4. Osteopathy. Wednesday’s trip to Pinner was partly for hypnotherapy and osteopathy. On Tuesday I managed to hurt my right wrist (no, not like that!). I’ve done it before and it was hugely painful for a long time, so I knew I needed to get Chris to treat it ASAP. It seems that, as before, I had misaligned one of the small wrist bones — quite commonly done, apparently, pushing open doors. Chris gave it a waggley-twist and wrench. As he was doing the waggley-twist there was this grindy-grindy noise and feeling, followed by a snap putting it back. Now I know some people don’t like this and can’t stand cracking knuckles. But I don’t mind; indeed I quite like that connection with what my body’s doing.
  5. Nice People. Noreen and I have spent two mornings this week at our doctor’s (guess where the head-cold came from?) talking to patients in the hope of getting some interested in joining the Patient Participation Group. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how nice people are. Very very few have said a flat “no, don’t want to know” and the vast majority have at least taken a flyer away and said I’ll read it and consider. What pleased me even more is that many of those most interested are the under-30s, both male and female, and of all ethnic backgrounds; also a good few young mums. We’ve met some interesting people and a few pretty girls; not many pretty boys though.
ramblings, science

The Strangeness of Days

The more I think about it, the more puzzling time becomes. Not just from a scientific point of view — and who knows that’s bad enough! — but from an experiential view.

There are two things which especially puzzle me; confuse me, even; despite that I think we all experience them.

The first is the way in which time is not linear.

OK, we know that time works only in one direction: it marches inexorably forward. As far as we know there is no way in which time can run in reverse; physicists tell us this doesn’t accord with the laws of nature they know about, hence our continuing quest for time machines.

But we all know from experience that time is not linear. There are days when one gets up and follows one’s normal routine — some combination of coffee, shower, shave, hair-do, feed the cat etc. — only to fine one is 15 minutes late leaving for work/school. The next day you’ll do exactly the same and be ready 15 minutes early. Some days the afternoon disappears without you realising; other days it drags and you seem to be checking the clock every few minutes wondering how many hours have passed.

Scientists tell us this is impossible; that time is perfectly linear. Yet we all experience it. And no-one so far can explain it satisfactorily.


The second puzzle, which may be related to the first, is the nature of days. Again no-one to my knowledge has ever satisfactorily explained this.

How is it that on Thursday, I was convinced it was Friday? Yesterday (Friday) morning I thought it was Saturday. And by yesterday evening I thought it was Thursday again. Worse, yesterday evening (what time I was existing in Thursday) Noreen was convinced it was Saturday. And today? Well I have no clue; my head is just too full of cold germs to be sure of anything beyond it’s dark, it’s raining and I’d rather be huddling under the duvet.

Now I can understand how it may be possible to explain the way in which time passes faster as one grows older. The theory is that as one ages there is less new to take in; the brain measures time in notable experiences; hence as there are fewer, time seems to pass faster.

But that doesn’t explain the non-linearity of time at either the level of minutes and hours or at the level of days. I’ve been pondering this for years, and still have no idea what’s going on here. Is it just that all our brains are faulty, or is there some underlying system of local time-warps? Has anyone got any clues?

words

Word: Haruspication

Haruspication

A form of divination from lightning and other natural phenomena, but especially from inspection of the entrails of animal sacrifices

An Etruscan model of a sheep’s liver used for divination

ramblings, thoughts

Wrong!

Crumbs it’s a busy week again, which is why there’s been no blogging. Hopefully I might catch up a bit over the weekend, because next week looks like being busy too.

Meanwhile earlier in the week I came across the best advice I’ve seen in a long time about recovering from mistakes written by Matt Shipman over at SciLogs. It is very simple, though not always easy. It goes like this …

Assuming you are a human, you are going to make mistakes. But [for many of us] those mistakes can be public. And embarrassing. So how do you recover gracefully, or at least with as little damage as possible to your reputation?

Here’s the short answer: admit your mistake as early as possible; never make excuses; and do not make the same mistake again.

The rest of the article is worth a read too.

We’re human. We make mistakes. That’s what we do here; it’s called “life”!

So yes, three golden rules:

  1. Admit you made a mistake — and that includes saying “Sorry!”
  2. Never make an excuse — they cut no ice; it was a genuine error and these things happen.
  3. Log the mistake in your brain so you can guard against it next time.

We all make the best decisions we can, at the time, with the information we have available. That information includes the state of your aberrant brain. Unless we’re mental, we none of us deliberately make mistakes. So yes, we are going to get things wrong sometimes.

When I was at work I expected to make errors, but I knew I could hold my hands up to them and often correct them. I also expected to get a bollocking for it occasionally. And I was fine with my guys as long as they admitted they got things wrong. There’s only a problem when someone keeps making errors — usually the same silly errors — and not learning from them.

Keep calm, admit you got it wrong, and learn from it.

words

Word: Wallah

Wallah or Walla

From the Hindi/Urdu suffix -wālā, which has the sense of ‘pertaining to or connected with’ that preceding, which may be compared with the English suffix -er (as in, for example, baker, walker). Thanks to the Raj, in English it has progressed beyond its Indian roots and has come to mean:

  1. One employed in a particular occupation or activity (eg. kitchen wallah; rickshaw wallah).
  2. An important person in a particular field or organization.
  3. One carrying out a routine administrative job; a civil servant, a bureaucrat.

Thus it is also a component of Indian names, eg. Unwalla (originally a wool worker or merchant).

Other examples of Anglo-Indian usage include:

  • banghy-wallah, a porter who carries loads with a banghy or shoulder-yoke
  • dhobi-wallah, a laundry worker (photo right)
  • punkah-wallah, a servant who works a fan
  • Dillī-wālā, inhabitant of Delhi.
quotes

Quotes

Another toffee-bag of recently encountered quotes. This selection seems to be mostly from the cynical and philosophical jars.

Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
[Oliver Wendell Holmes]

My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what’s really going on to be scared.
[PJ Plauger]

Reality is something you rise above.
[Liza Minnelli]

War is organised murder, and nothing else.
[Harry Patch; last surviving soldier of WWI]

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.
[Voltaire]

Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.
[George Santayana]

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
[Herbert Spencer]

Finally a gob-stopper from the jar of amusements …

Judge: There’s a certain light connotation attached to the word panties. Can we find another name for them?
Prosecution: I never heard my wife call them anything else.
Judge: Mr. Biegler?
Biegler: I’m a bachelor, your Honor.
Judge: That’s a great help. Mr. Dancer?
Dancer: I was overseas during the war, your Honor. I learned a French word. I’m afraid it might be slightly suggestive.
Judge: Most French words are.
[Wendell Holmes, Anatomy of a Murder; with thanks to Barnaby Page]

personal, pleasures

Reasons to be Grateful: 53

Week 53 and we get to the hardest part of the experiment: not just keeping focus and motivation for the last few weeks but also surviving winter. The greyness has really caught up with me in the last 2-3 weeks. Anyway here is this week’s pick of five things which have made me happy of for which I’m grateful this week.

  1. Golden Leaves. Yes we still have lots of rich golden leaves on the trees — although fewer today after a very cold night — and they’ve looked just glorious in the winter …
    Golden Leaves
  2. Sunshine. Yes, sorry I have to repeat myself, especially at this time of year, as I really do appreciate every drop of sunshine we get. Not only do I suffer from SAD but I hate dull, grey, damp days. I’d much rather have bright, cold alpine weather.
  3. Nice Scrabble Words. Scrabble, even played against oneself during sleepless nights, is pretty good at keeping the mind active. And being competitive I always want to beat my own best score. I enjoy being able to play unusual, fun or interesting words too. Like GNEISS or DJINN. Neither scored outrageously high but when I played DJINN a few days ago it resulted in a series of four very high scoring moves.
  4. Wine Deliveries. The wine rack is overflowing. Because we thsi week we had three wine deliveris. What do you mean “Why?”? Because (a) the wine rack was almost empty, (b) it’s approaching Christmas and (c) because it’s time for …
  5. Beaujolais Nouveau. No I’m not someone who is sniffy about Beaujoias Nouveau. Partly because we’ve found Nick Dobson Wines who ship wine from a couple of very small producers who create good wines, even in challenging years like this one.

    Vincent Lacondemine, Beaujolais Villages Nouveau. Light, bright, cool, refreshing berry fruits; ruby red, obviously young but oh so drinkable. If anything it’s even smoother than last year’s despite the awful summer. How did I manage to stop at just one bottle? If that’s what the nouveau is like the vintage should be excellent!

    Phillipe Deschamps, Beaujolais Nouveau. Initially much smoother on the palate than the Lacondemine, but not as characterful, thinner with more low molecular weight esters (amyl acetate comes through). Very drinkable, but so far I prefer the Vincent Lacondemine.

    I drink this stuff because I actually like it. We don’t all like to drink heavy, robust red wine all the time. And isn’t all part of enjoying the year’s rich cycle — along with the SAD.

links, science

More Things You May Have Missed …

Another round in our series bringing you links to items you may have missed and which may amuse. In no special order …

So common sense seems to be filtering into government circles with the announcement that there may (notice only may) be a way to vaccinate badgers against bovine TB rather than slaughtering them.

Just so you’re no longer confused, here’s an interesting article on the non-difference between “skeptic” and “sceptic”.

Seems that a lot of those wonderful medieval stained-glass windows in Canterbury Cathedral are early 20th century fakes. My father — brought up in Canterbury — must be having apoplexy in his grave.

I’ve mentioned the Wellington Arch, at Hyde Park Corner, before (here and here). They currently have an exhibition about Egyptian architecture.

Apparently Australian Fairy-Wren chicks have to sing the right password to get fed by their parents. Even more amazingly the female bird teaches them their specific password before they hatch. Mums, what did you teach your child before birth?

Randall Munroe’s brilliant web comic XKCD which often takes a wacky look at science and logic. This week he has produced a blueprint style explanation of the workings of a space rocket in very simple language even readers of The Sun can understand.

Victoria Moore in the Telegraph asks how discerning drinkers can (still) be drinking Beaujolais Nouveau. Well I’ll tell her: we’re not all wine snobs and some of us actually drink it because we enjoy it; we don’t all like thick heavy red wines all the time.

Some while back we reported that archaeologists had found the remains of some old bras under the floor in a medieval Austrian schloss. The bras have now been dated to the late 15th century. Here’s the low down (or should that be the “prominent points”?) on the investigations so far.

Finally, following on from last week’s report of the investigations into the wildlife of the navel, Rob Dunn’s team are making their whole dataset available online so that others can look to see what they can discover from it. So if you fancy some scientific data mining, and maybe getting your name on a discovery, hare’s your chance. All are welcome.

More anon …

words

Word: Djinn

Djinn or jinn.

In Islamic mythology (including the Quran) an order of spirits lower than the angels which is said to have the power of appearing in human and animal forms and which can to exercise supernatural influence over men. Together, the djinn, humans and angels make up the three sentient creations of God.

In Islamic theology djinn are said to be creatures with free will, made from smokeless fire by Allah just as humans were made of clay etc. This free will allows them to do as they choose thus, like humans, the djinn can be good, evil or neutrally benevolent. They are usually invisible to humans, and humans do not appear clearly to them. They have the power to travel large distances at extreme speeds.

Commonly used as the singular to denote an individual spirit.

Like many words it seems to have it’s origins in English in the latter part of the 17th century, I suppose reflecting the increasing importance of international trade and travel. Due to The Thousand and One Nights, and hence Aladdin and pantomime, they are now best known as genies residing in lamps and bottles.