amusements, arts, personal, photography

Rusty, the Danish Bacon Hound


Rusty, the Danish Bacon Hound, originally uploaded by kcm76.

Ladies and Gentlemen! Let me present, at no expense to this august establishment, Rusty, the Danish Bacon Hound.
We must apologise for the state of his coat, he’s in need of a good hose down as he’s clearly been grubbing around the pig pens.
(Made from thin white card after a design by David C Mills.)

[Later] Noreen thinks he should be called Streaky rather than Rusty, this also being a characteristic of the coats of Danish Bacon Hounds.

books

Book Marketing

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Today I got an email. Well actually I probably got well over 100, between work and home. But one stuck out. It was from Abebooks who are marketing 30 Novels Worth Buying For the Cover Alone. It’s an interesting way to sell – and buy – books, and certainly makes for a striking advert. Does it work? Well I guess it must, or at least it stands a good chance, otherwise Abebooks wouldn’t have perpetrated it. Punters? Well, given that he probably can’t read, isn’t this how Joe Average buys books anyway? Of course people like us wouldn’t. Would we?

Oh and just so you know the 30 novels are:

  • Skim, Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
  • Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
  • A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
  • Vacation, Deb Olin Unferth
  • South of the Border, West of the Sun, Haruki Murakami
  • Sharp Teeth, Toby Barlow
  • The Noodle Maker, Ma Jian
  • Everyone’s Pretty, Lydia Millet
  • The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
  • Fruit, Brian Francis
  • The Separation, Christopher Priest
  • The Chess Machine, Robert Lohr
  • The Last Jew, Yoram Kaniuk
  • The Monsters of Templeton, Lauren Groff
  • Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Vol. 1, Elji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki
  • The River Wife, Jonis Agee
  • My Mistress’ Sparrow is Dead, Jeffrey Eugenides
  • Beowulf, Seamus Heaney
  • Strawberry Fields, Marina Lewycka
  • The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson
  • Memorial, Bruce Wagner
  • The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
  • The Archivist, Martha Cooley
  • Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson
  • Arkansas, John Brandon
  • The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon
  • Parasites Like Us, Adam Johnson
  • Hypohypothesis, Heather Folsom
  • Rant, Chuck Palahniuk
  • The Boys in the Trees, Mary Swan

Of which I have heard of just FOUR and read the grand total of … ONE!

current affairs

A Sorry Mess or a Public Scandal?

Like many others, for example Wat Tyler over at Burning Our Money, the writer of the Leader in yesterday’s Times is deeply unimpressed with the ongoing soap opera that is the sorry mess we call a banking system. Specifically yesterday’s Leader Writer is railing against the debacle which is the Lloyds TSB “takeover” of HBOS. These two quotes are quite telling:

Instead of steadying the financial system, the merger has further undermined it.

The episode shows a lack of foresight, competence and financial understanding; at such vast expense for the taxpayer, it is also and increasingly a public scandal.

It grieves me to be right but “I told you so!”, to the extent that as Lloyds TSB shareholders we both voted against the merger and declined to indulge in the recent Lloyds TSB share issue (at a price which was above the market rate at the time of the offer).

Sad, bitter and twisted because I’ve seen my investment go down the tubes? No, actually. We bought a small number TSB shares when it was privatised 20 years or so ago (since transmogrified into Lloyds TSB shares when these two banks merged) and we have since recouped our initial investment several times over in dividend payments. And the current share price is around what it was when we bought those shares – although that is less than 10% of its peak price. Our investment is small and luckily we can afford to lose it: never gamble with more than you can afford to lose! So no, I’m not bitter. Just annoyed at the incompetence and unprofessionalism of it all.

current affairs, science, thoughts

Politicians Out of Their Minds on Drugs

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There’s a thoughtful editorial in this week’s issue of New Scientist. As so often I give you an edited version …

Drugs drive politicians out of their minds

Imagine you are seated at a table with two bowls in front of you. One contains peanuts, the other tablets of the illegal recreational drug MDMA (ecstasy). A stranger joins you, and you have to decide whether to give them a peanut or a pill. Which is safest?

You should give them ecstasy, of course. A much larger percentage of people suffer a fatal acute reaction to peanuts than to MDMA.

This, of course, is only a thought experiment […] But it puts the risks associated with ecstasy in context with others we take for granted. Yes, ecstasy is dangerous and people who take it are putting their lives on the line. But the danger needs to be put in perspective.

Sadly, perspective is something that is generally lacking in the […] debate over illegal drugs […] drug policy should be made on the basis of evidence of harmfulness – to individuals and to society. The British government’s stated line is similar, yet time and again it ignores its own rules and the recommendations of its experts. Most other western governments act in a similar way.

The latest example of doublethink concerns MDMA. […] the UK government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs […] recommend downgrading it, based on evidence of its limited harmfulness […] Yet the government has already rejected the advice.

No doubt this is partly a reaction to the furore over the […] decriminalisation of cannabis in 2004 […] Despite the fact that the move actually reduced the quantity of cannabis being smoked – surely a welcome outcome […]

[…] David Nutt, found himself in hot water last weekend for comparing the harm caused by ecstasy to the harm caused by horse riding […] [his] intention was simply to put ecstasy in context with other sources of harm. But his comments […] caused predictable squeals of outrage […]

This is a worldwide problem. We need a rational debate about the true damage caused by illegal drugs – which pales into insignificance compared with the havoc wreaked by legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco. Until then, we have no chance of developing a rational drug policy.

I don’t pretend to know the answer to any of this. But I would echo the sentiments of the editor of New Scientist in pleading for rational and logical debate and thinking which puts all the arguments and risks into a reasoned perspective.

memes, personal, photography

Valentine's Meme


Valentine’s Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s Flickr Photo Meme is, quite naturally, about Valentine’s Day. As usual here are the questions and my answers:

1. Type in Valentine’s Day and pick your favourite picture!
2. How old were you when you fell in love for the first time? I’m guessing about 11.
3. How many times have you been in love? Properly in love, maybe 3?
4. What is the most romantic moment you’ve experienced? The first time Noreen and I had sex
5. What is your favourite love song? Monteverdi 1610 Vespers. How’s that for eccentricity?
6. What movie has your favourite love scene? Nah, I only do stills; don’t get all this video stuff!
7. Where is the most romantic location/destination in the world? Anywhere, it doesn’t matter where; it’s the other person and the ambience that counts
8. What gift do you think is the most romantic? ,b>Oneself, surely
9. Which do you prefer – Chocolates or Flowers? ,b>Always flowers; I’m not supposed to have chocolates
10. What is the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for you? Say “Yes”
11. Who do you think is the most romantic leading lady or man on film, TV or stage? The young Bo Derek
12. Most romantic book you’ve ever read? Any truly old book will do; books are almost as magic as cats!

1. E’ville Con 2009 logo, 2. Eleven, 3. everyone needs to draw a skull or maybe 3, 4. Angel Wars 3: Choosing sides, 5. Monteverdi Vespers of 1610, 6. Two Months On Flickr…Thank You, 7. Anywhere, 8. ugly_dolls, 9. There are always flowers, 10. She Said Yes To A Single Yellow Rose, 11. bo derek96, 12. Old Books [2]

As always these are not my photos so please follow the links to enjoy the work of the photographers who did take them!

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

current affairs, natural history, science

Hills are Alive with the Sound of Ants

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There was an incredible article in The Times last Friday (6 February) … Scientists have discovered that ants talk to each other, and they now have miniaturised technology to such an extent that they can listen in. You can find the whole article online here; what follows is a very condensed version:

Advances in audio technology have enabled scientists to discover that ants routinely talk to each other in their nests. Most ants have a natural washboard and plectrum built into their abdomens that they can rub together to communicate using sound. Using miniaturised microphones and speakers that can be inserted unobtrusively into nests, researchers established that the queens can issue instructions to their workers.

The astonished researchers, who managed to make the first recordings of queen ants “speaking”, also discovered that other insects can mimic the ants to make them slaves. Research several decades ago had shown that ants were able to make alarm calls using sounds, but only now has it been shown that their vocabulary may be much bigger and that they can “talk” to each other. Improvements in technology had made the discoveries possible because it meant the ants could be recorded and subjected to playbacks without becoming alarmed.

By placing miniature speakers into the nest and playing back sounds made by a queen, the researchers were able to persuade ants to stand to attention […] It remained unclear how much the ants relied on sound for language but he suspected that further analysis would reveal a wider vocabulary than had been seen yet.

The most important discovery is that within the ant colony different sounds can provoke different reactions […] It’s within the power of the ant to play different tunes by changing the rhythm with which they rub […] The detection of the role of sounds provided the “final piece of the jigsaw” to explain how [some species of butterfly] caterpillars survive in ants’ nests and should help to guide conservationists in trying to save the endangered European mountain species.

[The] new work shows that the role of sound in information exchange within ant colonies has been greatly underestimated.