beliefs, medical, personal, quotes, science, sexuality

Quotes of the Week

Another weekly selection of esoterica …

Anyone who tells you that your body is anything other than the beautiful, glorious MIRACLE that it is is, as they say in “Princess Bride”, probably selling something.
[Emily Nagoski at ]

[E]ach of us has the job of finding the beliefs we’re not interested in carrying with us any more, uprooting them, and finding something new and healthier to take their place. This process is neither easy nor painless. But it is a path to the confidence and joy I advocate everyone bring to bed with them every night.
[Emily Nagoski at ]

Men always fall into the absurdity of endeavouring to develop the mind, to push it violently forward in this direction or in that. The mind should be receptive, a harp waiting to catch the winds, a pool ready to be ruffled, not a bustling busybody, for ever trotting about on the pavement looking for a new bun shop.
[Robert Hichens, The Green Carnation, 1894]

Sex ought to be a wholly satisfying link between two affectionate people from which they emerge unanxious, rewarded, and ready for more.
[Alex Comfort]

The debate [in 1907 American Medicine about the weight of the soul] went on from the May issue all the way through December, whereupon I lost the thread, my eye having strayed across the page to “A Few Points in the Ancient History of Medicine and Surgery,” by Harry H Grigg, MD. It is with thanks to Harry H Grigg that I can now hold forth at cocktail parties on the history of haemorrhoids, gonorrhoea, circumcision, and the speculum.
[Mary Roach; Stiff, The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers]

Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant.
[Henry Miller]

A promiscuous person is someone who is getting more sex than you are.
[Victor Lownes]

We do not remember. A certain group of our little people do this for us. They live in that part of the brain which has become known as the ‘fold of Broca’ … There may be twelve or fifteen shifts that change about and are on duty at different times like men in a factory … Therefore it seems likely that remembering a thing is all a matter of getting in touch with the shift that was on duty when the recording was done.
[Thomas Edison; Diaries]

memes, personal

Ten Things – March

Number 3 in a monthly series of “Ten Things” for 2011. Each month I list one thing from each of ten categories which will remain the same for each month of 2011. So at the end of the year you have ten lists of twelve things.

  1. Something I Like: Steam Trains
  2. Something I Won’t Do: Ballroom Dancing
  3. Something I Want To Do: Expand my Family History
  4. A Blog I Like: The Magistrates Blog
  5. A Book I Like: Mary Roach, Stiff
  6. Some Music I Like: Yes, Close to the Edge
  7. A Food I Like: Sausages
  8. A Food or Drink I Dislike: Sweetcorn
  9. A Word I Like: Merkin
  10. A Quote I Like: The purpose of our lives is to be happy. [Dalai Lama]
books, memes, personal

Silly Book Meme

2 Comments

OK, just for fun … this is what you do …

  1. Grab the book closest to you right now. No, don’t choose, pick up the closest book.
  2. Open it at page 56 and choose the fifth sentence.
  3. Write the sentence in comments below and don’t forget to tell us what the book is.
  4. Then copy these rules to your blog or Facebook status.
beliefs, current affairs, pleasures, ramblings, topographical

Public Holidays

Diamond Geezer posted an interesting analysis yesterday about the UK’s public holidays. In it he shows why we will never get St George’s Day adopted as a public holiday. Basically this is because it concentrates too many public holidays in the period from late March to late May, especially given that Easter most usually falls in April and this we would get Easter, St George’s Day and May Day holidays all within a period of 3-4 weeks. Well yes, that’s just like this year when Easter is exceptionally late (it can fall anywhere between 22 March and 25 April) when we also have the extra bank holiday for the royal wedding knees-up.

Diamond Geezer also makes the point that we’re essentially stuck with this scheme as we can’t move Easter because it’s fixed by the church. Err … why not? We moved the late May holiday away from Whitsun which is also fixed by the church. And we don’t actually celebrate May Day but pick the first Monday in May. So why can we not move (or ignore) Easter?

I suggest an alternative scheme for our public holidays, viz:

  • New Years Day (1 January)
  • Spring Equinox (21 March)
  • St George’s Day (23 April)
  • May Day (1 May)
  • Summer Solstice (21 June)
  • August Holiday (last Monday in August)
  • Autumn Equinox (21 September)
  • Christmas Day (25 December)
  • Boxing Day (26 December)

Note that I propose we keep the actual days and not the nearest Monday, although obviously where any of these falls on a weekend they would be moved to the next available working day. Note too that I have not stooped to include red letter days from ethnic minority traditions.

In the provinces of the UK St George’s Day could be replaced by their “national day”: St David in Wales (1 March), St Andrew in Scotland (30 November), St Patrick in Northern Ireland (17 March).

This has, to my mind, several advantages. It spreads out our holidays a bit better. We get one extra day bringing us more into line with western Europe and other English speaking countries where the average is more like 10 or 12 public holidays annually. It also takes the calendar away from the religious focus and returns it to the actual solar cycle without making it too overtly pagan.

It also presents some other options:

  • We could keep Good Friday, if desired which would generally slot in between the Spring Equinox and St George’s Day. I see no logic, sacred or secular, for retaining Easter Monday, although this could be retained in preference to Good Friday.
  • If desired the late August holiday might move back to the first Monday in August (as it still is in Scotland) from where it was moved in 1965, thus better harmonising the UK’s public holidays.
  • To be logical Christmas should relocate to the Winter Solstice (21 December). However given how entrenched Christmas now is in the collective psyche I can see this not being acceptable. Maybe we should scrap Boxing Day and move that to the Winter Solstice? No, that’s a really bad idea because it will give us three separate holidays within 2 weeks (Solstice, Christmas Day and New Years Day) thus we risk everything shutting down completely for two weeks rather than the current week. So Christmas has to be retained as is, which also helps the balance of holidays between sacred and secular.

I still see one problem with this scheme though. There is still a long (3 month) gap between the autumn Equinox and Christmas, at a time when we arguable need a break. Trafalgar Day (21 October) has been mooted as a possible public holiday. I personally don’t like this as I feel we ought to stay clear of celebrating the military and I’d rule out Armistice Day (11 November) for the same reason (see also my dislike of Remembrance Day). Equally Guy Fawkes Day risks being interpreted as celebrating terrorism rather that its defeat. Halloween I would also rule out as it would inevitably perpetuate that annoying American import: trick or treat. Perhaps we ought to celebrate Harvest Festival (which need not, of course, be religious but remind us where our food comes from) in mid- to late-October?

Anyone got any better ideas?

photography, pleasures

Sunday Cat Porn

Just to prove, as we had always suspected, that we do have a second cat …

Sunday Morning Lay-in
… Sally, having breakfasted on tuna, decided to have a Sunday morning lay-in …

Sunday Morning Lay-in
Currently she seems to be spending something over half her life snuggled into our duvet …

Sunday Morning Lay-in
… Well it is duck and goose down, so who blames her – we like it too!

pleasures

More Cat Porn

Yet again this morning Harry the Cat is sleeping on my desk. He seems to want to be there if I’m there. And of course we insist on having the sun lamp on! But we try to rouse ourselves and look suspicious as son as I get the camera out …

… but soon return to our slumbers, having made sure we occupy all the desk space!

amusements, beliefs, pleasures, quotes, science, sexuality, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

This week’s selection of the good, the bad and the ugly …

Relationships are like a card game where you start with two hearts and a diamond, but end up needing a club and spade.
[Tony Green on Facebook]

Every concept the mind can create includes its opposite. No thought is ultimate because each idea depends on every other idea it might possibly contrast with for its apparent self existence. Our own existence as individuals is dependent upon all of creation. This does not negate our individual existence. It is an attempt to see our individual existence in a different light.
[Brad Warner at http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com]

When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not passing time with me rather than I with her?
[Montaigne]

Urethane treatment is standard on all products (with exceptions)
[Amtico Flooring Brochure]

Comedians really aren’t that different from scientists. They look at the world and question why things are as they are and try to find an answer. It’s just that scientists do it with far more rigour and the possibility that humanity will be much improved by their discoveries. Perhaps comedians are just lazy scientists. Very, very lazy, stupid scientists.
[Robin Ince, The Times Eureka Supplement; March 2011]

And finally, dreadful joke of the week …

Why did the scarecrow win a Nobel prize?
Because he was out standing in his field.
[The Times Eureka Supplement; March 2011]

Bring back Basil Brush, all is forgiven!

memes, natural history, personal, photography

[9/52] Forsythia


[9/52] Forsythia, originally uploaded by kcm76.

Week 9 entry for 52 weeks challenge.

The Forsythia in our hedge has been in flower for several days now, although there isn’t much of it as the hedge gets too regularly trimmed. This piece is in the hedge archway over our front gate, so will hopefully delight passers by. This is a bit early as it really shouldn’t be in flower for another couple of weeks. Our Fuji Cherry (Prunus incisa ‘Kojo-no-mai’; the picture below is not our tree) has it’s first few flowers open as well, and that is also early. So despite that the weather has turned cold again, it looks as if Spring might well be on the way. Yipee!!

medical, photography, pleasures, science

Pussy Porn


The Sleep of the Just, originally uploaded by kcm76.

Another for all you pussy fans out there …

Harry the cat sleeping the sleep of the just on my desk this afternoon, under my desk lamp – again! And who should blame him when it is throwing it down with rain outside. He was spark out; he didn’t twitch a whisker at having the camera stuck 4 inches from his nose clicking away.

As Garfield once remarked: “Eat and sleep. Eat and sleep. There must be more to life but I do hope not.”

personal, thoughts

What's in Your Drawers?

1 Comment

I blame Katyboo! She started this. And even a half answer as to what’s in my drawers is too long for a comment to Katy’s post. So here goes … What is in my drawers?

Well first of all I interpret this as meaning “desk drawers”. Drawers in dressing tables or the like are boring — they contain sox and knickers. Well and detritus (like old spectacles) too, but not so much, at least in my case.

My “desk drawers” tough are numerous and full. To start with “desk” is a misnomer: I have a piece of kitchen worktop the length of one wall (8-9 feet of it!). On it is the usual desk stuff: pot of pens etc., phone, desk lamps, filing trays, jotter, Post-Its, monocular; plus my PC, screen, keyboard, printer etc. And literary society binders/work in progress. And currently a sleeping cat!

This is about half of my desktop (complete with cat) and showing one of the filing cabinets

The shelves over my “desk” have more desk and PC stuff (photo/label printers, speakers), a few teddy bears & friends, wifi router, postal scales and above that the most used reference books. Under the “desk” I have two “2-drawer” sized filing cabinets, each with one large drawer and three shallower ones. I also have a computer table (as a desk extension with another printer and scanner on it) and use the pull-out keyboard shelf as a desk drawer with A4 paper box lids as organisers. So …

Keyboard shelf
Contains standard office stationery like various sizes of envelope, compliments slips, business cards, postcards, rubber stamps, airmail stickers.

Left-hand Filing cabinet
Large bottom Drawer: various PC bits, spare wifi routers, spare analog phone, photo printer paper, multiple boxes of label sheets (a label size for everything!), PC cables.
Bottom shallow Drawer: More of the same: mostly boxes of adapters for PC and phones. And other PC odds and sods.
Middle Shallow Drawer: This is Anthony Powell Society drawer 2. Various AP Soc spares (till rolls for credit card terminal, coin bags, other banking spares). And the society’s “In Tray”.
Top Shallow Drawer: AP Soc drawer 1. Office stationery including compliments slips of various types, receipt book, supply of bookmarks, membership leaflets, postcards, etc.

Right-hand Filing Cabinet
Large Bottom Drawer: Household filing: bank statements, utility bills, tax, insurance, blah, blah, blah. Postcards and a few greetings cards. A supply of Trebor Extra Strong Mints. It’s so full that I can’t get any more in so there is a large overflow “awaiting filing” pile on th study floor along with more boxes of PC stuff, videos awaiting transcription etc.
Bottom Shallow Drawer: Pads of A4 paper, ring binder bags, coloured plastic files, odds & sods reusable envelopes.
Middle Shallow Drawer: Crammed with miscellaneous techie toot. Mobile phone chargers, camera battery chargers, earphones, dictaphone. Spare rechargeable batteries, camera spares, memory cards, memory sticks. Spare stocks of pencils, pencil leads, biros, marker pens. Several unused HP iPAQ and Palm handhelds. Spares for this and that. Boxes of business cards. Rolls of Dymo printer labels. Boxes of old keys. Spare wallet. Blah, blah, blah.
Top Shallow Drawer: Everyday desk stuff: pens, rulers, stapler, scissors, ball of elastic bands, ball of recycled string, lanyards, roller ruler, small screwdrivers and Allen keys, glue, sellotape. Spare batteries and fuses. Bank books etc. Odds and sods of foreign coinage and keys. Glasses cloth. Calculators.

And all that is without four printer paper boxes of stationery/office spares, and a lot more spare PC stuff in crates under my desk; and the old spare hifi stack; and boxes of printer paper, AP books for disposal/sale, paper recycling bin, shredder. No room for feet under the desk!!

OMG.

Dare you tell us what’s in your (desk) drawers?