Our look at some of the significant happenings 100 years ago this month.
3. Died. Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, Nobel Peace Prize recipient (b. 1856)
14. The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR), based in the US state of New York, is renamed International Business Machines (IBM)
21. Born. Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician, 1st President of Zimbabwe (d. 2019)
| Mon 1 | So … Happy New Year to everyone! I don’t want to alarm anyone, but having just been outside everything is the same. We really need something different. Maybe snow? Or sunshine? |
| Tue 2 | At least three power blips late last evening. Literally off and on instantaneously. I think there was a bigger problem elsewhere locally, but I can’t find out. After the first couple of blips I made sure all the computers were OK and then powered them down until this morning. No damage done although one of the servers needed its disks scanning for errors. But curiously one of our neighbour’s lights came on. As she was away N went to investigate this morning and it turned out to be a side lamp which has a touch sensitive switch – presumably this was triggered by the power blip. |
| Wed 3 | Cometh the gardener … to lift more artichokes, before the squirrels find any more of them! |
| Thu 4 | Somehow this day has been like walking through a never-ending swamp of treacle. Made worse by the fact that I can’t wear my hearing aids due to a sore ear where the left one rubs where it meets my glasses. |
| Fri 5 | I’m still doing Postcrossing, in fact today is one year since I joined (although I didn’t send my first card until mid-February), and today I sent off my 100th postcard to a guy in Finland. If I’m very lucky I might receive my 100th card by mid-February – I’m curious to see what it is and where it’s from. |
| Sat 6 | The neighbours directly opposite us seem to have moved out, quite unobtrusively, over Christmas/New Year – having been here for 5 or 6 years. I saw a large van (nowhere near pantechnicon size) there one day but no other sign. But the house now looks empty and none of us saw the going of them. |
| Sun 7 | When you’re awake for the best part of 2 hours in the middle of the night it’s no wonder you feel sub-par the following day. Not up for having to concentrate on a lot, so very glad I didn’t need to. |
| Mon 8 | Snee. Not really any amount worth talking about. It started about lunchtime as some desultory drizzle of small flakes, and quite wet. There was a brief snow shower in early afternoon, when it started to lie, but it didn’t last at all. I’m not sure whether to be pleased or not. |
| Tue 9 | So NASA’s latest shot at the moon isn’t going to get there. Peregrine 1, which was hoping to be the first commercial space probe to make a soft landing on the moon, lost propellant shortly after launch. Good! Now stop wasting money on unnecessary space missions; we’ve been to the moon, why do we need to do it again? There are much better uses for trillions of dollars. |
| Wed 10 | This gets better. Now NASA have postponed the Artemis II and Artemis III lunar missions each by a year. Good. Keep going. Postpone them indefinitely (ie. cancel them). We (collectively as humanity) don’t need to do this and can’t afford it – financially or environmentally. As a scientist I’m all for discovery, but not at any cost, especially if the cost can be better used to rescue our planet. |
| Thu 11 | At lunchtime today I completed my 73100rd circuit of our local star. How? It really doesn’t really feel like more than about 30. But how many more can I do? If my ancestry is anything to go by at least another 10 and maybe even more, but I’m not holding my breath. |
| Fri 12 | Short of sleep again, so feeling fairly wrecked. I wish I understood what drives such variable sleep. |
| Sat 13 | At lunchtime the garden seemed awash with squirrels, although I counted only four. But they were running around hither and yon like things demented. |
| Sun 14 | The usual brain cock-up with knowing what day it is. By Friday afternoon I was, as always, convinced it was Saturday. Yesterday, being Saturday, I was absolutely convinced it was Friday. Today is Sunday and I’ve completely lost the plot. They tell me that tomorrow is Monday, and the gardener cometh. |
| Mon 15 | As predicted, comes the gardener, and does lots of odd jobs – including changing the bathroom light switch, which has been on my agenda for months. But will the cord on the light pull thread through our existing toggle? Not a chance, it’s much too thick, so we have to rescue a thinner cord – but what a faff around. |
| Tue 16 | A day of struggling to keep all the ducks in a row. |
| Wed 17 | Good patient group meeting at lunchtime, with a very helpful presentation about asthma from one of the Practice Nurses. It’s surprisingly common, and like many conditions unless you or someone close has it you tend to not know a lot about it. |
| Thu 18 | Someone please tell me what I did today and where the time went. |
| Fri 19 | They do pick their times, don’t they! N had requested a phone call from her GP, and was told she’d be called between 13:00 and 18:00. Fair enough. Except that they then ring at 11:30 when we’re in the middle of dealing with the supermarket delivery. You just can’t get the staff these days! |
| Sat 20 | There’s water running through our garden down by the pond. It doesn’t appear to be the pond leaking – at least I certainly hope it isn’t; will have to check again tomorrow. It seems to be running down from by the lilac bush which is a few inches higher than the path at pond level; and you can see it running in places. Also parts of next door’s garden are under half an inch of water, including their slightly (4-6 inches) raised area. Have they left their outside tap running again? Do we have the spring, which we think is there, in full flow? Or the backfilled field ditch, which we think runs across the garden at about this point, dammed and in flood? Or is it a problem further up the hill? |
| Sun 21 | The mystery of the water is solved. It appears that next door’s wilful 6-year-old turned the outside tap on and left it. He had a habit of doing this a couple of years ago, but we all thought he’d been cured of it. Seemingly not, the little urchin. Anyway by this morning the flood had disappeared. |
| Mon 22 | As regular readers will know, I’ve been taking part in Postcrossing for almost a year having mailed my first card on 12 February 2023. Having mailed my 100th card earlier this month (see above), today I received my 100th card. It was from a Postcrosser in Germany with a picture of the great Dr Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) – Lutheran minister, theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician, who won the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize. And here’s the pinboard of postcards 51-100. |
| Tue 23 | For many reasons, not least the inability to dry laundry outside in this weather, we’re struggling to keep up with the laundry, especially the bigger stuff like bed linen and towels. So we’re experimenting with laundry services. We’re trying the apparent three front runners. A load off to each of two yesterday, and awaiting thee third to collect this evening. It’ll be interesting to see how they do when stuff starts coming back tomorrow. [PS. No we don’t have a tumble dryer, and aren’t about to get one, if for no other reason that we have nowhere to put it.] |
| Wed 24 | N to the hospital this afternoon, leaving me at home for the laundry deliveries. Finally the hospital did the ultrasound scans of her arms. It turns out she has particularly small veins, like her mother. |
| Thu 25 | Wasting time this afternoon helping N to get her MedicAlert reconstituted online. You can’t join as there is an existing account with this email address: verify the account or login. Verify how? – no clues. We can’t login because we don’t know the password, so try to reset it. You can’t reset the password because the account doesn’t exist. Oh you can enter the membership number – N hunts existing tag – date of birth and postcode. No that account is archived; you have to phone us. And at 16:00 we’ve all gone home. Arrggghhhh!!!!! |
| Fri 26 | N finally managed to talk to MedicAlert and get her membership reinstated. We then spent a happy(?) hour getting the online access sorted and all the details set up. But what a fight! Anyone would think they wanted to take our money. |
| Sat 27 | This is just getting ridiculous! As usual, last evening I was sure it was Saturday. But I awoke in the middle of the night convinced that it was Monday. By teatime I was still convinced it was Monday, despite doing all the Saturday things. Guess I’ll be in the funny farm fairly soon. |
| Sun 28 | Wandering round the garden at lunchtime, I noticed we had the first mauve crocus in flower, and the snowdrops starting to show. |
| Mon 29 | Something must have happened today. Oh I know, I spent most of the day doing work for the patient group, putting together posters for the surgery’s waiting area noticeboards which we’re going to revamp. |
| Tue 30 | I seem to be sleeping really well at the moment, although still struggling to wake up and get going in the morning. But what I have found is that I’m better if I make myself get up at a respectable hour, like 08:30-09:00 rather than allowing myself to sleep away the morning like a teenager. |
| Wed 31 | I spoke too soon about sleeping well. As mentioned before, being awake for two hours in the middle of the night doesn’t do much for the following day. But we survived. And there’s nothing a good sleep tonight won’t fix – and that’s needed as the next two days are going to be busy. |
This is the first of this year’s collections of links to items you may have missed the first time round – and didn’t know you wished you hadn’t!
As usual we’ll start with the harder science stuff and then it’s all downhill.
Science, Technology, Natural World
Let’s start in the middle of nowhere … Poles of Inaccessibility are just that: places furthest from anywhere.
Most know about John Conway’s Game of Life, but there’s been a long-standing puzzle about periodically repeating patterns which has now been solved. [££££]
Still with mathematics, Kit Yates talks about the way in which we are all too often deceived by our training that things are linear.
Changing tack, here are ten odd creatures that washed up on beaches during 2023.
There are times when one wonders where scientists get their research ideas! These guys investigated the vibrations caused by indigenous instruments the bundengan and didgeridoo.
![Didgeridoo and clapstick players performing at Nightcliff, Northern Territory [Wikipedia]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Didgeridu_and_clap_sticks.jpg)
On to a weirdness in the heavens … astronomers have discovered a megastructure which is challenging our understanding of the universe.
Back on our planet, Earth’s wobble creates problems for astronomy, cartography and climate. [££££]
Health, Medicine
Now here’s an interesting approach to understanding anatomy … the body is just bags within bags within bags, all the way down. [££££]
We all know about the placebo effect, but here are half a dozen things you maybe didn’t know about it.
OB/GYN Dr Jen Gunter has written a new book on menstruation: Blood: The Science, Medicine and Mythology of Menstruation; here’s a review.
On the other side of the divide, it seems that sperm counts are falling across the globe and scientists are trying to find out exactly why. [LONG READ] [££££]
In 1889 there was a pandemic caused by Russian flu. Here’s a piece outlining why it is unlikely it was actually due to a coronavirus.
Scientists are worried about permafrost, or rather the increasing lack of it: they’re finding, in melting permafrost, ancient microbes which are still viable, and worry there may be some which could cause a devastating pandemic if they get released.
I’m not sure whether this final item in this section should be here or under history, but here goes … Archaeologists looking at ancient DNA have found the first known ancient case of Turner syndrome, a condition where the subject has just one X chromosome, rather than the normal two.
History, Archaeology, Anthropology
So let’s come on to history proper, and start with ten amazing finds from 2023.
Not included in the above is the 2000-year-old “celestial calendar” which has been found in an ancient Chinese tomb.
Also about 2000 years old is a knife engraved with what are thought to be the oldest known runes in Denmark.
Slightly more recently, the medievals seemed to have this thing about fighting snails – but historians can’t agree why.
Back with ancient artefacts, archaeologists in Switzerland have found an intact medieval gauntlet.
In Scotland, the oldest known tartan, uncovered in a peat bog, has been recreated.
Now we’re almost right up to date … the UK’s intelligence agency, GCHQ, have released previously classified images of the code-breaking compute COLOSSUS to mark its 80th anniversary.
London
Last month we mentioned the lovely Tudor map of London and the coloured version being created by Matt Brown … well here’s Part 2. [££££]
Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs
So how, and why, is it that every coffee shop looks much the same right across the world? [LONG READ]
Shock, Horror, Humour, Wow!
And finally here’s a selection of trailblazing tattooed ladies from earlier times. [LONG READ]
For my recent birthday I tried something I’d not done before and made blackcurrant fool. I don’t do puddings very much due to the need to minimise sugar intake, and I’m not used to mucking about with cream. But I felt like having a go, after all it can’t be hard! Besides we had some blackcurrants taking up much needed space in the freezer. So here it is …
Blackcurrant Fool
Serves: 4-6
Preparation: 15 minutes + cooling + 10 minutes
Cooking: 15 minutes
Ingredients
What to do
Notes
Over the next few months we’ll have a look at some things – things which seem to me to be interesting or curious – which happened during other years ending ..24. Some years are busy; in others nothing much seemed to have happened, so there are some gaps. We’ll do a different year each month, starting at 324.
Notable Events in 324
Unknown Date. Constantine I (below) founds Constantinople and incorporates Byzantium into the new capital. He reorganises the Roman army in smaller units classified into three grades: palatini (imperial escort armies); comitatenses (forces based in frontier provinces) and limitanei (auxiliary border troops).
Here we are with the first of our monthly round-ups of recently encountered quotes for this year.
Sometimes words aren’t enough and that’s why we have middle fingers.
[unknown]
There’s always a story. It’s all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.
[Terry Pratchett, Hat Full of Sky]
If there was an asteroid headed towards earth, [the Republicans] would all get in a room and say y’know what we need? We need tax cuts for the wealthy.
[Barack Obama]
We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.
[Ursula K Le Guin, 1929-2018]
May the long time Sun
Shine upon you
All love surround you
and the pure light within you
Guide your way on.
[Believed (based it seems on no evidence) to be from an old Celtic lyric poem. Used by Mike Heron of Incredible String Band in the lyrics of “A Very Cellular Song”, on their album The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter (1968)]
What we need are garage sales for our souls, to clean out the tattered sweaters of bad memories, the gently used futons of childhood trauma, and the rusty bicycles of unrequited love.
[@EdmondsScanner; https://twitter.com/EdmondsScanner]
Our bodies are like tubes or levers or computers, but they are, above all things, like bags. Bags that are stuffed in other bags, stuffed in still more bags. Our bodies are nesting bag situations like the used bags stuffed under your kitchen sink, with the added bonus of thumbs and anxiety.
[Bethany Brookshire; https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-human-body-is-bags-bags-and-more-bags/]
You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.
[Mahatma Gandhi]
Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.
[Bill Nye]
Religions like all other ideas deserve criticism, satire and fearless questioning.
[Salman Rushdie]
Our society tends to view the big blue expanses on maps as mere liquid filler with fish in it.
[Helen Czerski, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/07/ocean-breathing-climate-crisis-carbon-oxygen-helen-czerski-blue-machine]
What is said is never what was thought, and what is heard is never quite what was said.
[Kevin Powers; The Yellow Birds]
Have spent the last two days writing detailed descriptions of non-human cosplay … you just haven’t lived until you’ve imagined how a worm would wear a wedding gown originally designed for a moose.
[Annalee Newitz; https://wandering.shop/@annaleen/111733412615696439]
Pugwash has two qualities which I believe are present in all of us to some degree: cowardice and greed … It may be that the captain is popular because we all have something in common with him. What would YOU do if you saw a delicious toffee on the nose of a crocodile?
[John Ryan; creator of Pugwash]
I fold my worries into paper planes and turn them into flying fucks.
[unknown]
Here are the answers to this month’s five quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.
Music
Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2023.
This year our Ten Things column each month is concentrating on food. Not necessarily the most common or obvious foods, but hopefully ones everyone will recognise.
Fruit
If you’re going to be weird, be confident about it.