Tag Archives: blog

memes

May Quiz Questions

Each month we’re posing six pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month. As always, they’re designed to be difficult, but it is unlikely everyone will know all the answers – so have a bit of fun.

General Knowledge (2)

  1. What is a grimoire?
  2. Which British coin was introduced in February 1971 and withdrawn from circulation in December 1984?
  3. The wood of a cricket bat is traditionally from which type of tree?
  4. In the United States, who is second in presidential line of succession after the Vice President?
  5. Which film concerns the declaration of war by Freedonia against neighbouring Sylvania?
  6. The velocipede was a nineteenth-century prototype of what?

Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.

history

May 1925

2 Comments

Our look at some of the significant happenings 100 years ago this month.

1. Cyprus became a British crown colony.

2. A US Navy seaplane set a new record by staying airborne for 28-and-a-half hours.

5. Born. Charles Chaplin, Jr, actor, in Beverly Hills, California (d.1968)

7. Died. William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, British industrialist, philanthropist and politician (b.1851)

12. Paul von Hindenburg was sworn in as president of Germany. His inaugural address emphasised the need to place unity and mutual progress ahead of political partisanship.

12. Born. Yogi Berra, baseball player, in St Louis, Missouri (d.2015)

13. The Gold Standard Act was passed in Britain, officially returning the country to the gold standard.

14. Died. H Rider Haggard, English novelist (b.1856)

16. The first modern performance of Claudio Monteverdi’s opera Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (1639/40) takes place in ParisUlysses

19. Born. Malcolm X, African-American civil rights activist (d.1965)

19. Born. Pol Pot, Cambodian Stalinist dictator and leader of the Khmer Rouge (d.1998)

22. Died. John French, 1st Earl of Ypres, British World War I field marshal (b.1852)

28. Born. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone singer and conductor, in Berlin (d.2012)

amusements, personal

Unblogged April

Being my usual round up of things what I done this month but didn’t previously write about.

Tuesday 1
It’s literary society year end. As I do the memberships, I bring in most of the money, so my finances have to be reconciled. And all the subscriptions are due, so there’s a mountain of that to process. It’s going to be manic for the rest of this week, at least.

Thursday 3
N has now been going to the hospital 3 times a week for almost a year, and today was the first time that her hospital transport got royally buggered up. Apparently someone cancelled it; they hadn’t; there was a name confusion. The upshot was that instead of being picked up about 12:00 for a 13:00 clinic, she finally left home just before 15:00. This well screwed everything for both of us.

Friday 4
This evening, a variant on our infinitely adaptable “all in one” salad; and even more variable as I did us separate bowls of salad because N is having to be more careful about diet. We had the end of last weekend’s roast chicken: not a lot; and it needed recooking. So I chucked the pieces in a frying pan and sizzled them until crisp. Put together with some steamed early English asparagus, croutons, cherry tomatoes and red chiccory. A tasty quick dinner.salad in a bowl

Sunday 6
I don’t believe it! We already have a few flowers on one of our small (eating) apple trees; it shouldn’t really be out for another 3-4 weeks! There’s also flowers on the ornamental crab, but that’s less surprising as it is always early. And the columnar crab isn’t very far behind.

Monday 7
Why are ears such a pain? Not content with having wax in my right ear, I woke this morning with both ears bunged solid and unable to hear anything. It cleared a bit after a hot shower, but it was even so just not worth wearing my hearing aids, partly due to the discomfort and partly as they weren’t going to do a lot of good. And of course, it’s miserable. It’s not as if I don’t put olive oil in my ears regularly to keep the wax soft, as medically advised.

Wednesday 9
It’s all good fun. So they tell me anyway. I finally got fed up with trying to clear my ears and, after much searching, found a sensible place to get them vacuumed. Private, of course; trying to get it done on the NHS with any speed is a lost cause. So I book for tomorrow, although inconvenient. And afterwards find I’ve booked the same young lady that did my ears about 18 months ago, somewhere totally different.
No sooner had I done that than my most nuisanceful crown came off! So I now also have a dentist appointment on Friday morning. If this doesn’t end up with an extraction I’ll be very lucky – we know here’s not a lot of tooth left to fix a crown to. Well that buggered up any plans for the rest of the week. It never rains but there’s a flood.

Thursday 10
Blimey! Talk about efficient. I went for my ear hoovering this morning. 11:30 appointment. I arrived at 11:10. Seen straight away and out in 10 minutes. Job done. Home by midday having waited 20 minutes to be picked up. It isn’t half nice to be able to hear properly again, and not have uncomfortable ears.
And it’s been a lovely sunny day; all the trees are bursting into leaf, so everywhere is splodges of bright green new leaves – and apple blossom.

Friday 11
Trip to the dentist to see about my crown. And exactly as expected, young miss dentist says there’s nothing more she can do with it as there’s not enough tooth left to fix a crown to. So the tooth has to come out. And that means a referral to a specialist as (apart from being an awkward back tooth) it has at least one curved root which could cause problems. That’ll be a lot more ouch of the wallet, unless we can swing it as surgical and claim it on the medical insurance. Fun here, innit!

Saturday 12
And now all our apple trees are in full bloom, all at the same time which is most unusual (but what should happen). However there’s not a pollinator in sight; they should be buzzing with bees, flies, wasps. So it looks like it’s going to be a bad year. It’s not really surprising there are few insects around after last year’s poor summer and a very wet winter.

Sunday 13
During last week the guy next door to me had the fence between us replaced, which is fine as the deeds say it’s his fence. They were said to be putting in concrete posts and gravel-boards and it would take 2½ days. Knowing his propensity for employing cheap cowboy workmen I wasn’t hopeful. They started on Thursday morning and broke the back of the job by mid-afternoon; it was finished before lunch on Friday. They appeared to know what they were doing, and I know my neighbour is as well aware of the law on boundaries as I am. So I decided to leave them alone, not interfere, and trust them. This seems to have paid off. They look to have done a good job and respected the boundary line. Very pleasing.

Tuesday 15
Over the last two days council contractors have been resurfacing our road. So, I’m sure much to the annoyance of our neighbours, the road has been closed during the day. It’s been intermittently noisy, of course. I’m not knowledgeable enough to know how good a job they’ve done, but they do seem to have done the right things. When we were told this was going to happen, I was sceptical. I thought: “the council will do it cheaply and they’ll just have the contractor put 2cm of black-top on what’s already there, despite that the kerbs, manhole covers etc. will need resetting”. But no, they spent all of yesterday taking the top (maybe 4-5cm) layer of old tarmac off; and today they’ve laid the new. I don’t know if they’ve finished it all – apart from they’ll have to come back to replace the speed bumps and road marking. I wonder how long that will take?

Wednesday 16
The surreal sight of a small flatbed truck proceeding up the road with 8 stands of temporary traffic lights (upright) on the back. What a shame they weren’t also working!

Thursday 17
Lo and behold! The guys have finished the road. Bumps and white lines all replaced. Unexpectedly speedy!

Friday 18
As yesterday was Saturday, is today Saturday, Sunday or Noneday?

Wednesday 23
St George’s Day and we should all be out celebrating – not that we English do that. Instead of which it’s wet most of the day, although there were a couple of bits of sunshine. But the good news is that we have our first roses out: on Lady Hillingdon, of course.

Thursday 24
N appears by me this morning and says: “By the way I just found a large dead rat on the hall floor; I put it out by the gate so the fox can retrieve it”. Judging by the size she indicated it was getting on for 20cm in the body; certainly a decent size. Curiously none of the cats confessed to owning said rodent.

Friday 25
Last weekend I got the renewal for the house insurance. Bloody Hell! How can they justify raising the annual premium from £535 to £912? So during the week I’ve had a quick look around and found quotes in the £700 region – but it is impossible to compare like for like as every policy is (not so) subtly different. So I called my current insurers. Yes, says the young lady, the underwriters have increased all the premiums and everyone is complaining! What can we do to reduce the premium? Not a lot except increase the excess we pay if we claim (which to be honest is much lower than I thought it was). We do that and at least get the premium down to £776 – which is better, even if not good. The alternative is to start a new policy, probably with less good terms, and frankly I can’t be bothered to go through all the hassle. So this afternoon I paid up. At least it will get us a good dollop of points on the credit card which will get turned into gift vouchers.

Saturday 26
The Pope died last Monday, and his funeral was this morning. So, as much as any are, he’s an important world leader, but is that really an excuse for showing hours of the funeral live on prime TV? It’s not as if we’re a Catholic country. Will the BBC do the same for the Dalai Lama? I bet they don’t.

Monday 28
Three cats to the V-E-T this morning for their annual check-up and jabs. Luckily our black cabbie friend was available as that’s the easiest way to carry all three cats in their individual carriers; they’ll all stand on the floor – it’s almost impossible in a saloon car. Anyway …

  • Boy is good and has put back the weight he lost last year; he’s now back to 5.5kg.
  • Rosie is also good but is now 6.2kg and getting decidedly rotund, although the vet is unconcerned. However she does needs her teeth cleaning.
  • Tilly has lost weight and is down to 3.9kg from her previous 4.55kg 2 years ago. So the vet took some blood; results this afternoon indicate elevated liver function, so the tests need repeating in a couple of weeks.

All that made a nice big dent in the credit card, with more to come! And we’re totally exhausted!

Tuesday 29
The buggers! Someone has knocked the nestbox out of the oak tree this afternoon; it’s on the garden path. Very annoying as I know the blue tits were using it. It was on the trunk and quite high up, so almost certainly out of the reach of cats. So one suspects either magpie or squirrel; although parakeet is just possible – or I suppose crow (unlikely with the magpies always around in the adjacent silver birch) or woodpecker (even less likely as I rarely see one). Nothing one can do, alas!

Wednesday 30
Yes, confirming that the magpies do have a nest in the silver birch. It is well hidden from our view by all the ivy and rose cambering through the tree. But at lunchtime I saw one go into the nest, and apparently settle down; then a couple of minutes later the second came along. What was interesting is that they have their own private track through the boscage; they both used exactly the same hops from branch to branch over the last metre or so to the nest.

environment, history, links, medical, science, sexuality

Monthly Links for April

This month’s links to items you maybe didn’t want to miss …

Science, Technology, Natural World

It’s fairly superficial, but here are 15 common science myths debunked. [LONG READ]

Robin McKie reflects on over 40 years as the Observer‘s science editor. [LONG READ]

Pharmaceutical chemist Derek Lowe takes issue with the idea that we could kill off all disease within 10 years.

Meanwhile Corey S Powell discusses why it is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence … [LONG READ]

… And Prof. Seirian Sumner outlines the how we might best create a more nature-literate society.

Somewhere hiding in Britain the government has a collection of deadly fungi.

The tiny and mysterious hominin Paranthropus lived alongside early members of our Homo genus. [££££]

After which it is maybe no great surprise that intelligence evolved at least twice in vertebrates. [LONG READ]

No wonder scientists have recently created the largest mammalian brain map to date. [££££]

Going back down the size scale … just how do insects and the smallest animals survive in Antarctica.

Still with insects, it turns out that flies are masters of migration, travelling huge distances.

Back up in size, a group claims to have de-extincted the Dire Wolf, but have they? Two articles (amongst the many in recent weeks): a blog post from Bethany Brookshire [LONG READ] and an op-ed from Michael Le Page in New Scientist [££££]. Spoiler: No they haven’t.

And now for something completely different … new work is finding that astronomers were wrong about Uranus and it resolves some mysteries.

Much more interestingly, astronomers are trying to work out what’s happening inside Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io.

Health, Medicine

Researchers are now beginning to understand the actual role of carbon dioxide in airborne disease transmission, and this should be a key to safer indoor spaces.

Professor of Mathematical Biology, Kit Yates, asks whether the risks of brain injury in contact sports is being overstated. [LONG READ]

Drinking urine is an ancient practice to improve health, but are the risks worth it?

Sexuality & Relationships

Dani Faith Leonard writes a review of the medical discovery of the clitoris, and takes a sideswipe at DOGE incels in the process.

Here’s a history of (not just pubic) hair removal through the ages. [LONG READ]

And then there’s a pictorial history of the “full bush”. [LONG READ]

Meanwhile a different sex writer talks about her approach to “self-pleasure”.

Now over to you boys … First off, just what is the relation of penis size to monogamy?

And when you’ve got over that shock … apparently you need to wake up to your declining fertility. [££££]

All together now … Here are some thoughts on why some marriages last while others fail.

Which brings us to various ways to improve a sexless marriage.

Social Sciences, Business, Law, Politics

Following which, this seems an opportune time to consider nine ways to spot falsehoods on the loose.

Art, Literature, Language, Music

So from a linguistics point of view apparently “she” is a very weird word. [LONG READ]

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Archaeologists have uncovered a huge horad of Iron Age metal work; everything from cauldrons to horse harness fittings.

If you’re a Roman, how do you get a lion from Africa to York? Because a skeleton (presumably of a gladiator) in a Roman York cemetery has bite marks made by a lion and is the first physical evidence of gladiators (well people) fighting lions as sport.

History is sometimes hard to understand and interpret, but it seems Christopher Marlowe tackled the problematic Edward II.

Archaeologists in Barcelona have uncovered the remains of a wrecked medieval boat.

Mercury and weasel balls … medieval treatments so often make one doubt the sanity of ancient medicine.

Newly discovered wall paintings show off the tastes of wealthy Tudors.

And finally for this month … there’s a brouhaha over the display of a book bound in the skin of a 19th-century Suffolk murderer.

personal, photography, ramblings

World Pinhole Photography Day

1 Comment

Bah! Humbug! to the London Marathon. Much more interestingly today is World Pinhole Photography Day – always the last Sunday in April.

Before we had lenses for cameras, and indeed before we had photographic film, it was possible to view a scene, and project it onto a wall, using a tiny aperture. This was the camera obscura used by artists since ancient times.

Pinhole Dandelion
(Click all the images for a larger view.)

Once cameras and the photographic process were available, it became possible to do this trick with a tiny pinhole instead of a lens. Needless to say the results are not sharp, as they would be with a lens, and because of the tiny aperture exposure times are much longer than we’re used to these days. But the smaller the pinhole, the sharper the image and the longer the exposure needed.

Nevertheless it is a fun, and often instructive, technique to try – and these days it’s very easy with (digital) SLR cameras. All one needs is a pinhole – and you can make that yourself! (If you hunt online there are people who will make a pinhole for your camera; or even sell you a bespoke pinhole camera.)

Pinhole Red Deadnettle

There are a number of “how to” sites on the internet. Basically you need only a spare camera body cap and bits and pieces you will already have lying around, like an empty drinks can.

A couple of years ago I made a pinhole for my Canon dSLR following the instructions on wikiHow. It was a bit tricky for me, with my ten left thumbs, but after three or four attempts at making the actual pinhole (in a piece of drinks can) I made something which works adequately if not brilliantly.

Pinhole Lilac Bush (from below)

Setting up and taking pictures is easy enough. Fit the pinhole (body cap) to the camera and mount the camera on a tripod.
Set the camera to manual and ISO 100 (or slower). You can’t adjust the aperture of the pinhole, which will be tiny, so you then have to experiment with exposure times of 10-30 seconds (compared with the normal 1/100th or faster) in good light; longer in poor light or night. Use a remote control (or the camera’s timer delay). Now experiment.

So today I found my pinhole, and had a wander round the garden to see what looked likely to make a decent photograph. The images here are the best results (slightly colour enhanced). For comparison the following final two images are of the garden with a pinhole and with a normal lens on the camera – I reckon for a piece of crude homemade old technology the pinhole doesn’t do a bad job.

Pinhole View of Our Hairy Garden
The same view of our garden with a proper camera lens!

Of those four pinhole images, I think the first, the dandelion, has worked the best. What does anyone else think?

history

What Happened in 525, 625, 725

Here’s our next instalment of things that happened in ..25 years of yore.

Some Notable Events in 525

Unknown Date. King Theodoric the Great sends Pope John I to Constantinople, to negotiate a withdrawal of Byzantine emperor Justin’s edict against Arian Christianity.

Unknown Date. The Daisan river floods Edessa. The Shroud of Turin is allegedly discovered during the rebuilding of the city.

Unknown Date. Cosmas Inidicopleustes, Alexandrian explorer-geographer, travels up the Nile. He will venture as far to the east as Ceylon, become a monk, and write “Topographia Christiana” to vindicate the biblical account of the world.

Unknown Date. Dionysius Exiguus, Scythian theologian-mathematician, inaugurates the practice of using AD (Anno Domini) in Rome for calendar dates after the birth of Jesus Christ. Dionysius also produces his tables for computing the date of Cyclus Paschalis (Easter Tables).

Some Notable Events in 625

25 October. Died. Pope Boniface V dies at Rome after a 6 year reign. He is succeeded by Honorius I as the 70th pope.

Unknown Date. King Edwin of Northumbria marries Æthelburga of Kent. As a Christian, she brings her personal chaplain, Paulinus, and encourages her husband to convert to Christianity.

Unknown Date. Born. Hasan ibn Ali, grandson of Muhammad (d.670).

Some Notable Events in 725

23 April. King Wihtred of Kent dies after a 35 year reign. The kingdom is divided between his three sons: Æthelbert II as overking, Eadbert I in West Kent and Alric.

Unknown Date. Muslim forces under Anbasa ibn Suhaym al-Kalbi capture Carcassonne, which has been under Siege, as well as Nimes.

Unknown Date. Vi Xing, Chinese Buddhist monk and astronomer, applies a clockwork escapement mechanism, to provide rotating motion to his astronomical armillary sphere.

Unknown Date. Bede, Northumbrian monk-historian, writes The Reckoning of Time (De temporum ratione), explaining how to calculate medieval Easter.Manuscript Bede on Easter

natural history, science

Nature’s Legs

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A few days ago I spotted a mosquito on the bathroom wall. Now we’ve all seen mosquitos before but on this occasion I was fascinated by it’s size and anatomy – especially its incredible legs; thin as the finest silk thread.

Culex mosquito
Culex mosquito

How does Nature make such structures – and make them functional? Scientist though I am, it baffles my brain and I can quite see why some people believe in “intelligent design”.

Surely those legs cannot be anything more than stiff supports. Insects have an exoskeleton in contrast to our endoskeleton. The legs need nerves, muscles and circulation to make then more than fixed supports. Legs can move, allowing their owner to walk, clean itself, and even jump. The muscles have to attach to the inside of the exoskeleton, and there have to be nerves – and a method of supplying energy – to trigger them into action.

Insect circulation doesn’t work the way ours does as they do not have hearts: basically they use haemolymph which can diffuse around their small bodies, or be pumped by, for instance, muscular membranes. Some insects use this as a system of hydraulics, in combination with the muscles, to move legs etc. – apparently muscles to move a joint one way, and hydraulics for the reverse. All of which must be under some form of nerve control – and they don’t have that many nerves running from their tiny brains.

Even more weirdly, some insects (eg. jumping spiders, plant hoppers) have a system of gears which work their legs. Crazy or what?

two rice brown plant hoppers
Rice brown planthopper

Just how can these structures be created? You would think they’re so tiny they cannot be even one cell thick – but they have to be many, many cells thick. Which just goes to show how tiny our cells are.

I know evolution has had billions of years to achieve its designs, but I still struggle with how any living thing works or has evolved. Yes, I know the theories, and I can understand it as abstract pieces of mechanics and chemistry. However I really struggle coming to terms with how it all evolved, how it all works – together – and the sheer complexity of living organisms. When you think about it, it really shouldn’t be possible.

quotes

Monthly Quotes for April

Here is this month’s selection of recently encountered quotes …

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
[JRR Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring]

Intricacies of social life make English habits unyielding to simplification, while understatement and irony – in which all classes of this island converse – upset the normal emphasis of reported speech.
[Anthony Powell; The Acceptance World]

There were a lot of fools at that conference – pompous fools – and pompous fools drive me up the wall. Ordinary fools are alright; you can talk to them, and try to help them out.
[Richard Feynman]

What’s the difference between prose and poetry? The most parsimonious explanation is this: a poet dictates where the lines end.
[Simon Barnes; Anthony Powell Society Newsletter; Spring 2025]

A Naturist is simply a human being without “Artificial Additives”.
[Leah Crowley]

I should think there would be more chance of your child choking to death on a chocolate bar than of becoming seriously ill from a measles immunization. So what on earth are you worrying about? It really is almost a crime to allow your child to go unimmunized.
[Roald Dahl]

Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles.
[Fyodor Dostoevsky]

Politicians sometimes have trouble believing in the reality of things that can’t be intimidated, co-opted, or bought off. Fools, as I say.
[Derek Lowe, Science.org]

I hate small talks. I wanna talk about atoms, death, aliens, sex, magic, intellect, the meaning of life, faraway galaxies, the lies you’ve told, your flaws, your favourite scents, your childhood, what keeps you up at night, your insecurity and fears. I like people with depth, who speak with emotion, a twisted mind. I don’t want to know “what’s up”.
[unknown]

What if plants are actually farming us, giving us oxygen until we expire and turn into manure (their food) which they can consume?
[unknown]

If a man will stand up and assert, and repeat, and re-assert, that two and two do not make four, I know nothing in the power of argument that can stop him.
[Abraham Lincoln]

By the numbers, the tariffs are less an expression of economic theory and more a Dadaist art piece about the meaninglessness of expertise.
[Derek Thompson; The Atlantic; 03/04/2025]

To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful.
[Edward R Murrow]

memes, science

April Quiz Answers

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

Geography

  1. In what country would you find Mount Kilimanjaro? Tanzania
  2. What is the largest desert in Asia? Gobi Desert
  3. Which river flows through the Grand Canyon? Colorado River
  4. Which country bordering India measures it’s success in terms of “gross national happiness”? Bhutan
  5. Which country makes up more than half the western coastline of South America? Chile
  6. There’s a town in the Peloponnese region of Greece with a namesake food item known for its purple colour and smooth meaty texture. What is this fruit? Kalamata Olive

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2024.