This year our Ten Things column each month is concentrating on science and scientists.
Where a group is described as “great” or “important” this is not intended to imply these necessarily the greatest or most important, but only that they are up there amongst the top flight.
Important Physics Discoveries
Our monthly look at what happened 100 years ago.
This day, 9 January 1923 saw …
Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.
[Daniel J Boorstin]
Until now I had never read TS Eliot’s The Waste Land. So when Simon Barnes (yes, that Simon Barnes: environmentalist, journalist, author, former Chief Sports Writer of The Times) had a piece recently in The New European I took notice.
I know Barnes slightly; he’s a great fan of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time and gave the 2022 Anthony Powell Society Annual Lecture just a few weeks ago. So of course I took notice – especially as he read English at the University of Bristol, and I know him to be a thinker.
Why had I not read The Waste Land before? Well, I’m not a great reader of poetry; I never have been, partly because, like so much of English Literature, I was put off it by school. It’s not that I dislike poetry but all the
[sic] stuff turns me off, as does most modern so-called poetry that doesn’t scan and doesn’t rhyme – and I’m not even sure how Shakespeare brings off blank verse. So spare me, inter alia, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Longfellow (of the first type) and Allen Ginsberg, Simon Armitage, Carol Ann Duffy (of the second).
But there is poetry I like. Coleridge, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43997/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-text-of-1834. Lewis Carroll, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43909/the-hunting-of-the-snark. TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (see Eliot can write “proper” verse) – I knew the entire 66 lines of Skimbleshanks off by heart when I was about seven or eight. Roger McGough, Summer with Monika. C Day Lewis, Requiem for the Living. John Updike. Christopher Smart, Jubilate Agno.
But I’m sorry, The Waste Land is pretentious garbage – and the Four Quartets are not that far behind. It neither rhymes (OK, there’s the odd couplet) nor scans. For me it is in the same rubbish bin as Ulysses, Finnegan’s Wake, Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, Edith Sitwell’s Façade. None of them make sense, and they’re pretty unreadable. Pseudo-profound bullshit, one suspects written to make money from a clutch of gullible critics. And were they gulled.
No, sorry, you enjoy it if you want to, but it says nothing to me. Just leave me alone to be a Philistine.
Again this year we’re beginning each month with five pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month. They’re not difficult, but it is unlikely everyone will know all the answers, so hopefully you’ll learn something new, as well as have a bit of fun.
January Quiz Questions: Music
Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.
Wishing everyone a Happy New Year.
May you have a successful 2023.
| Thu 1 | Why does one wake up at 05:20? It was clear and starry – well as starry as it gets round here for the light pollution. And why is one still awake at 06:15? I got up, knowing I’d feel smacked on the head later; but knowing if I resumed slumber I’d sleep the morning away and feel smacked on the head anyway. So I figured I’d may as well do something useful. |
| Fri 2 | Two interesting calls with my GP today. Piecing together all sorts of things, she now thinks I didn’t have cellulitis back in October (and of which I still have the remnants), but Erythema Nodosum – which I had as a kid. It all fits, but of course is one of those things which is going to be hard to prove. Luckily she’s actually finding this very interesting – as am I. |
| Sat 3 | Meh! A pretty meh day – grey cold and miserable, so no wonder that’s how I felt. Gave up and retired early to bed to read and try to relax. |
| Sun 4 | Spent the day clearing up the house – and made absolutely no impression on the accumulated silt of 40+ years. Consoled ourselves with roast guinea fowl & roast veg, washed down with a lovely bottle of Greek white, and followed by still warm from the oven apple crumble and cream. |
| Mon 5 | Cometh the gardener. Cometh the pond man to do a winter clean and check over. Remaineth the depression and the work. |
| Tue 6 | Good chat with our lovely GP this morning, mostly about advance care planning, but also checking on my not-cellulitis. But unfortunately (for us) she’s going off on maternity leave next week; she promises to return, but small people do have a habit of changing priorities. |
| Wed 7 | 04:30. Bright silvery full moon behind a veil of gossamer cloud skidding across the sky going south. Really pretty and enjoyed for 5 minutes after a trip to the bathroom. |
| Thu 8 | Wow! What a wonderful hard frost; the first of the year I think. Everything is covered in white, and looks really pretty – especially when followed by a glorious sunny morning. Just a shame it’ll have knocked back all the plants. |
| Fri 9 | Had an excellent bottle of more expensive Domaine Maby Libiamo Tavel with dinner; like a really good, full-bodied, Chablis or Macon with a hint of red summer fruits. It went especially well with prawns & mushroom in tomato sauce with linguine. Followed by alcoholic fruit salad. Hic! |
| Sat 10 | Another lovely moonlit night with a heavy frost, followed by an sunny alpine day. It looks beautiful, but it’s bitterly cold. Mind the sunshine does wonders for the mood. |
| Sun 11 | Blimey! What a wonderful hard frost. Everything covered in rime. And today a nice little fog to go with it – not thick, but enough to hold the temperature down. I probably have seen harder frosts, but this must be up there with them. And it didn’t obviously get above freezing all day.
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| Mon 12 | Snow! Late yesterday evening, suddenly there was a decent covering of snow; not a lot, maybe 2cm at most. Although initially it looked pretty, it’s been above freezing for some of the day so the snow is clearing, and the bird bath wasn’t frozen solid. |
| Tue 13 | Oh the fun of taking 3 cats to the vet for their annual jabs & check-up. Always take them fasting in case the vet wants blood from any of them. “But why can’t we have breakfast? We’re hungry kittens.” And then round them up to basket them; you’ll never make a sheepdog! You can always get one. The second, not so easy as she slips past and is hidden – but found. Meanwhile number 3 has become invisible. The house is searched from top to bottom and she’s eventually found in the depths of the shoe cupboard. After that they all three get a clean bill of health despite putting on weight and the vet removes a rather obese monkey from one’s pocket. |
| Wed 14 | A day of … what exactly? Getting little done and the AP Soc online talk this evening cancelled as the speaker is indisposed. |
| Thu 15 | Another day of doing bits and pieces. They have to be done, but it always feels so unproductive. But at least I did cook tea. Mind the cats have it right; they’ve spent the day nested, like Queen Cat.
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| Fri 16 | No wonder our bedroom has been unusually cold. Noreen realised someone had turned the radiator off. And it wasn’t either of us! Fingers of suspicion are pointing elsewhere. At the same time I discovered the study radiator needs bleeding, but I cannot budge the bleed valve. For that I definitely blame the guy who serviced the heating at the end of May. |
| Sat 17 | Another good Anthony Powell Society social call over Zoom, with a select group from UK and US. What was supposed to be an hour turned into 1¾ hours. Not just an opportunity to chat, but also to raise a glass in Powell’s memory as it’s his birthday in fours days time. |
| Sun 18 | I’ve had a trail camera trained on the garden, timed to work overnight, for the last 3+ years. I unload the memory card most Sundays – it’s usually a sequence of cats and foxes, with the odd squirrel and pigeon at dawn. But for the first time when checking this week’s stills I had 3 shots of a rodent: a rat scurrying across the upper lawn about 2½m from the camera. Luckily there was no cat or fox around at the time. |
| Mon 19 | Rain! We have rain. And wind. And it’s warmer. All the snow is gone, finally. It’s grey; dark; depressing. But we have rain. We need rain. |
| Tue 20 | Started late, but still managed to make leftovers soup in time for lunch. Stock from the end of the lamb casserole and an end of pasta (tomato) sauce. Augmented with onion, garlic, mushrooms and cooking tomatoes. Plus seasoning, sherry and cream. Not fine dining but it went down warmingly well with chunks of bread. |
| Wed 21 | Good to see a couple of friends over the last few days. It’s feeling odd now to have to be worrying about shielding, wearing masks etc., but I’m still at high risk and probably a good candidate for Long Covid – so I’m continuing to be careful. But how I wish it were not thus. |
| Thu 22 | Christmas supermarket delivery this morning, with an earlier slot than our usual which threw out the internal clocks somewhat. Amazingly they got everything right, bar the odd couple of substitutions, and that our Christmas pork and large “free range” chicken both came up on the small side – adequate, but small. Oh and I ordered 1kg of banana shallots, but was sent 2.5kg! I don’t have a problem with this, though it would have been better if I’d not been charged for the extra! But, Duh! |
| Fri 23 | Spent a chunk of the afternoon and evening catching up on writing letters and emails to family and friends. I’m the world’s worst correspondent; if I don’t reply to an email or letter almost immediately it sinks to the bottom of the ocean, never to resurface: I still have one email outstanding from this time last year! The job’s not yet finished, but I’ve broken the back of it, I hope. |
| Sat 24 | A day of odds and sods jobs pre-Christmas – although it doesn’t feel very Christmas-y. I finished all the email writing; just my three “girl” cousins on my mother’s side to go, and that has to be letters, so no point rushing for a few days. I also cooked dinner: the chicken which I spatchcocked and roast with lots of lemon (juice & zest), tarragon, garlic, butter and brandy. Yummy! |
| Sun 25 | Christmas Day. On our own as usual, so we can please ourselves. I was awake and up at a sensible hour (08:30), Noreen surfaced about 90 minutes later. Did nothing until lunch of smoked salmon & cream cheese rolls, washed down with large G&T. Presents in the afternoon included a couple of IOUs for things that hadn’t arrived in the post. Then roast pork, garlic roast potatoes, roast Jerusalem artichokes; sprouts & fennel; stuffing; apple sauce for dinner – this time washed down with a bottle of Champagne. Followed by total lethargy. ZZzzzzz. |
| Mon 26 | Traditional Boxing Day lunch of cold meat, mashed potato, bubble & squeak, pickle. Washed down with a beer. And still we haven’t attacked a Christmas Pudding! |
| Tue 27 | Typical British Bank Holiday weather: cold, grey, windy and damp. So a day largely spent “jellivating”** in between a few odd jobs. |
| Wed 28 | It is November, isn’t it? It’s dark grey, peeing with rain, blowing half a gale, and not very warm. The end of December isn’t usually as dismal as this. Pull up the drawbridge, throw another peasant on the fire, and break open the Christmas Pudding. |
| Thu 29 | This day in 1170 saw the assassination of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, in his own cathedral. Formerly Lord Chancellor, Becket was made archbishop in 1162 despite not already being an ordained priest. Putting the church before the state be became a thorn in the side of Henry II, and spent 6 years exiled in France. He was canonised, as a martyr, in February 1173. Thomas Becket is my patron saint. |
| Fri 30 | There’s a UNICEF advert running on the Smithsonian channel at the moment. It states that a £10 donation could provide live-saving food for a child (by implication in a third world country) for a week. Wouldn’t it be a fucking good idea if we ensured all the kids in this country were properly fed and nourished first? Government: note and action. |
| Sat 31 | The year ends grey, windy and wet. A fitting end, and good riddance, to a fairly crap year. 2023 has to be better, or I suspect the whole country is going to go stark raving squirrelled.^^ |
** Jellivate (v). To sit around like a lump of mindless jelly, doing nothing and with no inclination to do anything; thumb in bum and mind in neutral.
^^ As in that memorable line from Steptoe and Son: “My old man’s a nutter; he’s gone squirrelled”.
Just to demonstrate the versatility of many of my recipes, a few days before Christmas I thought I’d do a savoury version of my Bread Pudding. We had lots of spare “yesterday’s” bread, and this is one of those recipes which will use all the savoury odds and ends in the fridge, as well as all that spare bread. It really is very forgiving.
This is (roughly) what I did, but you can vary the “flavouring” ingredients depending on what you fancy or what you have to hand.
I used…
I did …
Notes …
And so to the final 2022 edition of my monthly links to items you may have missed.
Science, Technology, Natural World
There are quite a few scientific discoveries this month, so let’s start at the bottom and work up …
Scientists have discovered what they think is the world’s longest animal off Western Australia: a 45-metre-long deep-sea siphonophore.
Also found in the deep off Madagascar, scientists have named two new species of rare six-gill sawsharks.
Female sexual anatomy is generally poorly studied in all species, and snakes are no exception. So it’s only now that scientists have discovered that female snakes have a clitoris, or two. Two articles: one from Science News, the other from The Scientist.
So what do you find in a museum cupboard? In this case the thought lost pelt and skeleton of the last Thylacine (aka. Tasmanian Tiger).
Still in Australia, a group of female cowgirls, sorry graziers, have discovered the first intact fossilised skull, and most of the body, of a 100m-year-old plesiosaur.
And still going up, scientists have now found that the Tonga volcano eruption last January was larger and more interesting than previously thought.
Finally for this section, the Guardian had a long article on the epic task of shutting down and cleaning up the Sellafield nuclear facility. [LONG READ]
Health, Medicine
Scientists are beginning to rethink their ideas about what actually causes Alzheimer’s Disease. [VERY LONG READ]
Careful scientific analysis shows that Covid vaccines can temporarily disrupt the menstrual cycle – although Covid itself doesn’t. [£££]
There’s been a huge rise in the number of girls questioning their gender identity, and the professionals don’t really understand why. [LONG READ]
Art, Literature, Language, Music
There’s now brouhaha surrounding the artist and sexual abuser Eric Gill, as Ditchling’s museum effectively chooses to totally ignore their most famous artist. (Just don’t get me started! None of this is new, his abuse has been known about for at least 50 years.)
History, Archaeology, Anthropology
The area around Stonehenge continues to throw up important archaeology. Experts have now figured out that some Neolithic stone axes were much later used as part of a goldsmith’s toolkit.
A group of researchers have discovered over 100 previously unknown designs in Peru’s ancient Nazca plain.
Archaeologists in Rutland have uncovered a barn which was converted into a Roman bathing suite (complete with steam room) for use by the house’s owners.
Yet more archaeologists, this time in Northamptonshire, have uncovered an early medieval burial with a stunning necklace. Two reports from the BBC and The Conversation.
London
The Houses of Parliament are probably hiding a medieval river wall.
Food, Drink
Are sweeteners as harmless as we thought? The jury is still out but it looks doubtful. [LONG READ]
Don’t despise the humble Brussels sprout; they contain as much vitamin C as oranges plus many other health benefits.
And while we’re on healthy food, here are six reasons why, despite popular myth, potatoes are good for you.
So microbiologists have found the ancestor of modern brewing yeast, and then discovered it living under their noses in Ireland.
Finally on food, Ali Ahmed Aslam, the inventor of chicken tikka masala, has died aged 77.
Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs
Yes, I am a nudist, so what?
People
And finally for this year, here are 10 reasons why Richard Feynman was more than just a physicist.
