ramblings

Monthly Quotes

It’s time again for our monthly round up of recently encountered quotes.

When you’re dead, you don’t know you’re dead. The pain is felt by others. The same thing happens when you’re stupid.
[unknown]

The world is full off horrible things that will eventually get you and everything you care about. Humour and laughter is a universal way to lift your head up and say: “Not today you fuckers”.
[Billy Connolly]

We agreed that the true enemy of man is not man. Our enemy is not outside of us. Our true enemy is the anger, hatred, and discrimination that is found in the hearts and minds of man.
[Thich Nhat Hanh, on his friendship with Martin Luther King]

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
[JRR Tolkien]

The finest clothing made is a person’s skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.
[Mark Twain]

Time to remember the best voting advice I have heard – voting isn’t marriage – it’s public transport. You are not waiting for the one who is absolutely perfect. You are getting the bus. And if there isn’t one going exactly to your destination, you don’t stay at home and sulk you take the one going closest to where you want to be.
[unknown]

I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.
[Isaac Asimov]

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.
[George Orwell]

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
[Blaise Pascal]

Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.
[Richard Feynman]

In capitalism, freedom is 80 brands of circus peanut.
[MK, @qualia.bsky.social]

It’s quite rewarding watching KCs, rather than journalists, go after politicians. They’re much better at it. No need to cultivate contacts, no requirement to ensure balance, no pressure to let them talk so they’ll come on the show again – just cutting right through the bullshit.
[Ian Dunt; https://iandunt.substack.com/p/matt-hancocks-broken-half-formed]

Some men improve the world only by leaving it.
[Oscar Wilde]

We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.
[Jimmy Carter]

Most of us have forgotten that we are nature. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say that we have lost our connection to nature, it means that we have lost our connection to ourselves.
[unknown]

There are places, just as there are people and objects and works of art, whose relationship of parts creates a mystery, an enchantment, which cannot be analysed.
[Paul Nash]

amusements, history

December Quiz Answers

Here are the answers to this month’s five quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.

December Quiz Questions: 17th Century England

  1. Who is celebrated for having failed to blow up the King in 1605? Guy Fawkes
  2. What was given to King Charles II in 1661 and abandoned by the British in 1684? Tangier
  3. Who succeeded Oliver Cromwell? His son Richard Cromwell
  4. For what is Nell Gwyn famous? As an actress and long-time mistress of King Charles II
  5. How many monarchs reigned over England in 17th century? Seven: Elizabeth I, James I, Charles I, Charles II, James II, William & Mary

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2022.

amusements, topographical

On Postcards and Penguins

Where is the southernmost post office in the world? Falkland Islands? Patagonia? South Georgia? French Southern and Antarctic Lands?

Nope. None of those. Go even further south to Port Lockroy in Antarctica.

Yes, Port Lockroy, which is on Goudier Island off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, has a small post office which handles 70,000 pieces of mail every year – despite being inhabited only during the Antarctic summer season.

Port Lockroy

The bay in which Goudier Island sits is a regular stop off for cruise ships, consequently the Post Office is visited by 18,000 people a year. As well as being a post office, Port Lockroy has a small (tourist) shop, and a small museum; the workers (usually just 4 or 5 during the Antarctic summer) also double as scientists, observing and recording the gentoo penguin population for the British Antarctic Survey.

Port Lockroy Shop

The post office and museum are maintained and operated by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT), a charity committed to conserving historic buildings on the Antarctic Peninsula. The funds raised from the sale of souvenirs and postage fees go directly to supporting the conservation of UKAHT’s six historical sites in the area.

The 2022-2023 team made this short video during their stay …

It’s a bit of a cheat but you don’t have to go all the way to Antarctica to send a postcard from there! Earlier this autumn UKAHT were selling postcards that would be sent from Antarctica when this season’s team arrived (and had dug the base out from under last winter’s snow). Each postcard cost £20, could be personalised with your message, and sent to anyone anywhere in the world.

So of course I had to do this. I love esoteric things like this. My card arrived about a week ago – much sooner than expected given it’s somewhat byzantine journey (see this blog post). The postcards, like all the base’s supplies from stock for the shop to food, are shipped from the UK to Port Lockroy – in this case in the team’s luggage rather than on a supply ship.

Once stamped and franked the cards are bagged and surrendered to the next (suitable) visiting ship to travel to Stanley in the Falkland Islands (a trip of at least 5 days). From there they take the twice weekly flight to RAF Brize Norton in UK, where they are consigned to Royal Mail for transit to their destination (which could be anywhere in the world).

Here’s my card, front and back …

Port Lockroy Postcard

If you want a postal curiosity, keep an eye out next August/September as UKAHT may again be selling postcards like this to raise funds. You’ll be supporting British heritage in Antarctica, and valuable wildlife and climate research, but also contributing to a handful of young people getting the opportunity of life-changing experience. I shall certainly do this again if the opportunity arises.