Following on from yesterday’s photo of the cyclamen in our garden, here’s a quick linked haiku …
purple flowers
and cyclamen leaves
winter sunshine
Thing-a-Day #20 : Cyclamen
Part of the clump of cyclamen in our garden. It’s been in flower all winter!
Body Comfort & Sex Education
The eponymous author at Oh My God, That Britni’s Shameless wrote an interesting post a day or so ago about sex education. What I like about Britni is that she is not only completely open minded but she has the confidence to say exactly what she thinks. Which doesn’t mean I agree with everything she says; for instance her assertion “It’s just a natural and accepted thing that men are sexual, so they’re going to talk about sex and masturbation and dick size“. Well, no, sorry, at least in my experience, men don’t; they’re too uptight – but that may be different for the younger generation.
Britni’s post, while being largely aimed at sex education (and just as applicable in the UK as in America), adds support to my long-held belief that we would all be better adjusted mentally, have a lower rate of unwanted pregnancies, and be in better health generally, if we were less repressed, better educated and more comfortable with our bodies. As an example the US and UK have the two highest rates of unwanted teenage pregnancy in the western world; compare with the laid-back, free-thinking Dutch who have the lowest. See this Wikipedia article (though some of the date here is quite old) and the diagram in this article from the Independent; see also, inter alia, here, here and here.
If we are to achieve this change of mindset we have to do two things: (a) restructure the brains of our revered leaders (political and religious) giving them a complete paradigm shift in their thinking on all things sexual, and then (b) investing in much better, more open and more caring sex & health education, vide the Dutch. Along the way this, of course, will mean a change in attitudes towards nudity.
But of course the status quo is self-fulfilling and comfortable; change is uncomfortable and no-one much likes being outside their comfort zone. Our leaders are repressed, so the modus operandi follows this, making the (unthinking) populous repressed, and they become or elect our leaders, and so ad infinitum. I don’t know how we break the cycle. All people like me can do is to keep expressing our views in the hope that the message does eventually seep into the cracks in a few brains and start that paradigm shift. So I’m not putting any money on this change happening any time soon, but hope springs eternal.
Thing-a-Day #19 : Supermarket
Today I made a trip to the supermarket for the weekly meat and fruit & veg; here are some of my acquisitions on the way to the car.
Quantum Spin-Drying
Two pieces from the Feedback column in New Scientist of 13 February which especially “amused” me.
The care instructions for the dog kennel John Straede bought advised: “Hand wash in warm water with mild detergent. Do not spin dry.”
Secondly, and probably more worryingly …
FEEDBACK has observed that the word “quantum” often translates to “magic” or “expensive fruitloop magic remedy”. Threatening to put this observation on a sound academic footing, Graham Barrow carried out a pilot literature-survey.
In just 5 minutes a famous web search engine showed him many variants, starting with – of course! – “quantum crystal healing”. Then there was “quantum kinesiology”, which presumably begins with the recipient’s arm in a superposition of floppiness and firmness, and “quantum reflexology”, which could lead to your feet changing position without passing through intervening space – handy for avoiding the cracks in the pavement.
“Quantum homeopathy” is so obvious in retrospect that we’re ashamed we didn’t invent it: the remedy does and does not contain any molecule of the claimed active substance, until you open the bottle.
In “quantum acupuncture” we imagine the needle both punctures the skin and misses it altogether. And would a “quantum massage” involve a hand all over your body at once? But what on earth, or anywhere else, is “quantum reiki”? We fear there may be answers – and more examples.
Like Feedback, my mind boggles slightly over the concept of “quantum reiki”. What’s worse is that in about two minutes I have found “quantum hypnosis”, “quantum dowsing” and “quantum meditation”. I think I might be getting an attack of quantum worry!
Thing-a-Day #18 : Haiku
Following Tuesday’s trip to London’s Docklands area my contribution for today’s Thing-a-Day is a haiku:
high-rise finance
in London Docklands
lashing rain
Quote : Life
Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.
[Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire; Bottiglia]
Thing-a-Day #17 : 62nd Larch in Winter
Today I drew the 62nd Larch Tree in Winter. It took me roughly 60 seconds. 🙂
Tax Advice
Ken over at HMRC is Shite today highlights the apparent possibility of legislation which would ban anyone from giving tax advice which reduced the client’s tax bill. And the way the proposed legislation works this would mean no-one can do any tax work for anyone else. Ken quotes the following clauses from the draft legislation:
“Tax agent
2 (1) A person is a tax agent if the person assists another person (a ‘client’) with the client’s tax affairs.
(2) A person may be a tax agent even if—
(a) the assistance is given free of charge,
(b) the assistance is given otherwise than in the course of business,
(c) the assistance is given indirectly to the client or at the request of someone other than the client, or
(d) the assistance is not given specifically to assist with the client’s tax affairs, but the person giving the assistance knows it will be used, or is likely to be used, for that purpose.
(3) Assistance with a client’s tax affairs includes assistance with any document that is likely to be relied on by HMRC to determine the client’s tax position.
(4) Assistance with a client’s tax affairs also includes—
(a) advising a client in relation to tax, and
(b) acting or purporting to act as agent on behalf of a client in relation to tax.
(5) If a client is assisted by more than one individual in a firm or business, each individual may be regarded as a separate tax agent.”
This is craziness gone loony! It is not just another long step towards a police state; I would put it in the very small class of things which I describe with a word I seldom use: obscene! It would effectively mean that not only can I not discuss any financial matters with my 94 year old mother because even if all I say is “Put your money in an ISA” I am advising that she reduce her tax bill, which would now be an illegal act on my part. Worse it means that I cannot even prepare my mother’s tax return for her even if she is unable to write or has dementia. I’m sure that isn’t what is intended but that is certainly how I (and others; see Ken’s posting) read the words. Now how crazy is that?!?!
WTF are they thinking?!?!?!
Thing-a-Day #16 : Boys on the Tube
Thing-a-Day #16 : Boys on the Tube, originally uploaded by kcm76.
Today we took our friend Sue and her two boys Sam (with book on head) and Harry to the Museum in (London) Docklands. Here’s a montage of two frames I made of the three of them on the London Underground – with Sam and Harry wrecking their copies of Keri Smith’s This is Not a Book.
The Museum in Docklands is well worth visiting; there was much more to see than I’d expected and it was almost all interesting. It charts the history of the Port of London from Roman times to the present and currently has an exhibition on “London, Sugar and Slavery”. Admission is £5 for adults (which entitles you to free entry for a year!); free for under 16s. Follow the link for museum details.
They also have a good café (called 1802) where we had coffee, lunch and afternoon tea with the boys devouring copious quantities of chocolate brownie. And the café does hand-cut, really chunky chips to die for. We all enjoyed the food and I doubt any of us need to eat again this week!
The downside? The Underground ride home was horrible: unstable, wet (it was pouring with rain all day), stuffy, humid, crowded, hot. Yeuch! It was a good reminder of why I hate the Underground and why I used to have panic attacks when I had to use it regularly. But I got to go on the DLR, which somehow I’ve avoided up to now.
But otherwise a good day!