Cartoon of the Week
Just for a Laugh …
… go and look at the picture here. Remember to swallow your mouthful of coffee first. And don’t depress yourself reading a the inane American comments.
Hairy Mysteries
We are used to the fact that men grow hair on their heads and faces. And that some men even dare to grow hair on their chests — much to the horror, it seems, of most girls.
We also know that male hair growth is in part related to testosterone levels — or at least the testosterone level at some critical point in their development — as well as genetics.
So why is it that even the hairiest of men don’t grow hair round where their shirt collar goes? (There are a few very, very hairy men who do grow hair under their collars, but they are unusual.)
It seems unlikelky that the lack of hair is due to collar abrasion. The area is totally devoid of hair and there is no sign of hair regrowth if collars are not worn. The collar also seems not to affect hair growth in those very hairy men who do grow hair on their necks.
This really does seem to be a genuinely hairless area.
Can anyone explain why this is the case and what evolutionary advantage it might once have had?
Or perphaps to put it another way … why is facial and chest hair selected for, but neck and shoulder hair mostly isn’t?
Lamb's Liver with Fennel and Pasta
Here’s a quick, easy, cheap and wholesome meal. It’s a variation on my usual theme of chuck it all in a pan until done. So I give you …
Lamb’s Liver with Fennel and Pasta
Serves 2-4 (depending on greed)
You will need:
400-500gm Lambs Liver (roughly sliced into 1x1cm goujons about 5-7cm long)
1 Red Onion (thinly sliced)
1 bulb Fennel (thinly sliced)
Garlic (as much as you like; chopped)
4 or so Ripe Fresh Tomatoes (chopped)
Herbs, Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil, White Wine
250gm Pasta (preferably fresh; shape of your choice)
Cook the pasta.
Meanwhile prepare the other ingredients.
When the pasta is (almost) done, sauté the onion, garlic and fennel in some olive oil until the onion is going translucent.
Now add the liver and herbs. Cook for 2-3 minutes stirring occasionally.
Add the tomatoes, salt & pepper to taste, and leave to cook (if possible with a lid on), stirring occasionally, until the liver is just done (probably about 5 minutes).
If the pan looks like it is getting a bit dry add half a glass of white wine.
You might also like to add something to give it some extra zing: lemon juice (instead of wine), a small amount of chilli, large splash of Worcester Sauce — you get the idea.
When the liver is just done, throw in the pasta and toss it all together for a couple of minutes.
Serve with a glass or few of red wine.
Voilà!
Of course, if you prefer you can serve the liver and the pasta separately.
And you could substitute chicken livers for lamb’s liver.
Green Autumn
It’s a warm and green autumn in the UK this year. It is mid-November; the daytime temperature is stills several degrees above average; I’m not aware that we’ve had any frost yet; and the fish in the pond are still feeding (in a normal year they stop feeding for the winter in mid-October).
What’s interesting is that it has highlighted something I’ve known about for some time but which we don’t usually see in action so clearly. That’s the way in which (deciduous) trees lose their leaves.
As I understand it (and I can find nothing to substantiate this) there are two triggers to autumn leave loss: day length and temperature. Some trees start losing leaves when the hours of daylight fall below some critical point. For other trees the trigger is consistently low temperatures.
No I have no idea exactly what the trigger points are in detail, and I would expect them to vary between species. Some trees may also of course have a combined trigger where day length and temperature both have to fall; and again I would expect this to vary greatly by species.
But it is noticeable this year that some trees have lost their leaves according to much their normal schedule (presumably due to changes in day length triggering the process) and others are still green (where presumably the trigger is a drop in temperature).
Coming back from the supermarket this morning I did a quick, fairly unscientific, check and found:
| Trees that have (mostly) lost their leaves |
Trees which are (largely) still green |
| Ash Poplar Hawthorn Horse Chestnut* Beech Cherry Silver Birch London Plane |
Alder Oak |
Can anyone confirm that I am right about the triggers and that the trees I see are acting the way they should?
And can someone please arrange some proper cold weather. I don’t like these warm winters — if only because they tend to be grey and murky. I’d rather have cold and alpine. And besides, as the old saw goes:
A green Christmas means a fat churchyard.
* Horse Chestnut may be a red herring as most of the trees around here are infected with the leaf-mining moth Cameraria ohridella which is affecting these trees progressively across most of the country. This causes early leaf death.
Word of the Week : Defenestrate
Defenestrate.
Defenestration. The action of throwing out of a window.
Hence (as a back-formation) defenestrate. To throw out of a window or to exit through the window.
Quote : Discrimination
It’s just as racist to vote for someone on the basis of his ethnic heritage as it is to vote against him.
Teenagers and Sex …
… go together like, well, err … rutting animals?
Well maybe not so much.
I’ve written several times before (eg. here and here) although not recently.
Regular readers will know that I’ve long advocated the more liberal Dutch approach rather than the American (and British) proscriptively controlling approach. So I was interested to see yet more expert opinion and research supporting this view under the title “What We Can Learn From the Dutch About Teen Sex“. The article is inevitably American, but in my view it is just as applicable to the the Vatican, the UK or indeed any culture.
I’ll leave it to you to read the complete article and, I suggest, some of the linked items therein. What interesting is that Amy Schalet (author of Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens and the Culture of Sex) who is being interviewed has experience of both the Dutch and American systems, and based on that experience is firmly of the Dutch persuasion. Here are a few quotes which struck me.
Teen birth rates are eight times higher in the U.S. than in Holland. Abortion rates are twice as high. The American AIDS rate is three times greater than that of the Dutch. What are they doing right …
[What] I’d noticed with my American friends is that there wasn’t a lot of conversation between parents and teens about sexuality and there was a lot of discomfort around the issue …Coming out of the sexual revolution the Dutch really decoupled sex from marriage, but they didn’t decouple sex from love. If the first piece is that there weren’t these immediate associations of teen sex with danger, the second is that it remained anchored in the concept of steady relationships and young people being in love …
[The Dutch] say ‘We permit so we can control’ and that’s also their attitude toward drugs and prostitution. It’s worth pointing out that US teens are more likely to use drugs than the Dutch, even though there are more liberal policies [in the Netherlands].
That idea of ‘It’s actually a form of control’ is for most people in the US counter-intuitive. But if you expect self-control and give people an opportunity to exercise it, you might get more of it …
Something that did strike me when I came in early ’90s to this country [USA] is that one of the differences in the aftermath of the sexual revolution is that Dutch society became a lot more secular.
What stood out to me was that so often [in the US] people seemed to think you can only have morality and a strong social fabric if you believe in a higher authority, a God that would otherwise punish [people]. There isn’t a belief that people are naturally cooperative, which lots of research suggests they are.
Schalet then goes on to expound her ABCD approach. Here are the one-liners.
A is autonomy. A lot of times people do realize that adolescents are supposed to develop autonomy during that phase of life, but that doesn’t get applied to sex …
B is build good, positive relationships. We need more emphasis on healthy teen relationships …
C is connectedness. It’s possible to really challenge the assumption that teens and parents have to be at loggerheads …
D is diversity. A lot of sex education doesn’t recognize diversity [and] I don’t just mean differences in orientation …
I wish I knew how we could change the prevailing ethos. It would be so much better.
Listography : Gadgets
Gotta get a gadget? OK. That’s easy ‘cos Kate’s Listography this week is all about gadgets. Our top five gadgets ever. So here goes …
Washing Machine. Now there are two types of washing machine: the clothes washer and the dish washer. Both fulfil essentially the same function on different commodities. So I’m going to cheat and choose both!
PC. Well I couldn’t do above 10% of what I currently do without one. How did anyone run a society, let alone a business, using only a pen, a typewriter and a Roneo machine?
Digital Camera. I like looking at things and trying to make pictures. But I cannot draw for toffee and anyway it takes too long. So I’m glad I learnt photography when young. And then someone invented the digital camera so I don’t have to do all that tedious darkroom work.
Spectacles. I’ve worn specs since I was about 14. That’s nearly 50 years (eeek!). They’re a part of me and I mostly don’t even know I’m wearing them — only true specs wearers will understand the surrealism of trying to wipe your eye only to find you’re still wearing your glasses. And I’d be as blind as a at without them.
Biro and Automatic Clutch Pencil. Again I’m going to lump these two together as essential writing implements. I hated the old “dip in the ink-pot pens” as I always ended up with ink everywhere. Fountain pens weren’t a lot better. I can’t abide blunt pencils but could never sharpen a pencil properly, even with a pencil sharpener and certainly not with a penknife. Good biros and good clutch pencils (I use the Sanford/Papermate PhD range which are so comfortable), while they may not have done a lot for handwriting, have made life so much more amenable. Three cheers for László Bíró and the inventors of the automatic pencil (Tokuji Hayakawa and Charles R Keeran).
So there you have it: seven gadgets for the price of five!
Oh! But wait! I’ve forgotten the most important gadget of all … a wife. 🙂
Reasons to be Grateful
This week I’ve been reading Richard Wiseman’s 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot. This is a self-help book but with a big difference. As the book blurb says
Welcome to the new science of rapid change. In 59 Seconds psychologist Richard Wiseman exposes modern-day mind myths promoted by the self-help industry, and outlines quick and quirky techniques that help people to achieve their aims in minutes, not months.
And from New Scientist
This is a self-help book, but with a difference: almost everything in it is underpinned by peer-reviewed and often fascinating research. It could actually help you be a little happier, perform better at interviews, procrastinate less, improve your relationships, reduce your stress levels and be a better parent
And it does exactly what it says on the tin!
In the final chapter Wiseman briefly summarises ten things which he could explain in under a minute (the challenge he set himself at the start of the book) and which could make a difference:
- Develop the gratitude attitude
- Place a picture of a baby in your wallet
- Hang a mirror in your kitchen
- Buy a pot plant for the office
- Touch people lightly on the upper arm
- Wite about your relationship
- Deal with potential liars by closing your eyes and asking for an email
- Praise children’s effort over ability
- Visualise your self doing, not achieving
- Consider your legacy
No they aren’t all inherently obvious. And I’m not going to try to explain them here — you’ll just have to splash out a few quid on the paperback.
Do they work. Well clearly Wiseman thinks they do. I don’t know, although I follow the logic behind most of them. So what I’m going to do is try a little experiment of my own here: and that’s try the first on Wiseman’s list which he summarises as:
Develop the gratitude attitude
Having people list three things that they are grateful for in life, or three events that have gone especially well over the past week, can significantly increase their level of happiness for about a month. This, in turn, can cause them to be more optimistic about the future and improve their physical health.
So each weekend I’ll write a short post about at least three (I’ll aim for five) things which have made me happy or which I’m grateful for over the last week. And I’ll aim to do this trough to at least the end of 2012. There’s no control group so it will be hard to know how well it succeeds, other than maybe my qualitative perceptions — but then that is at least half of what it’s all about. Anthony Powell attributes to his character General Conyers in Books Do Furnish a Room:
The General, speaking one felt with authority, always insisted that, if you bring off adequate preservation of your personal myth, nothing much else in life matters. It is not what happens to people that is significant, but what they think happens to them.
So here are my first five things which have made me happy/grateful over the last week:
- An excellent Anthony Powell Annual Lecture last evening from Prof. Vernon Bogdanor
- Noreen
- A stunning flower on our Hibiscus
- Sunshine
- Beaujolais Nouveau