Traditions, going forward.

.

Celebration #7 - Turtlekiss.

Windblownbutterfly (Susan) asked if, as an atheist, I would prefer not to see Christmas at all. This was after I bah-humbugged about Christmas gumph appearing in the shops here mid-November. Separately, Diane asked what traditions I do observe. I have decided to kill the questions of two birds with one…uh…post.

First and foremost, from my reading in psychology, I am a great believer that looking forward to things is a big positive in any person’s life. Depression thrives in looking backwards. So with that in mind, I love traditions and festivals. But I don’t delve deeply into their meaning.

Christmas and Easter are great eat-fests. What we eat for Christmas can vary enormously as the weather here is totally unpredictable in December, anything from 12-38 deg C is on the cards (54-100 degF). Easter is less foody but must have hot cross buns on Good Friday, and only Good Friday, even though they are in the shops on Boxing Day. And chocolate eggs only on Easter Sunday.

So I am more fundamental that many Christians on those ones, Susan!

My gripe with the celebrations is not that they happen, but that the retailers have made them so long they lose their special nature. This gets back to my thesis on the benefits of looking forward to festivals and special occasions. Easter runs for up to four months in the shops; how do you make it special at the correct time? For most people bun-fatigue has set in long before Easter arrives.

Also on our calendar is Halloween, something not celebrated greatly in Australia because it is “an American thing”. Don’t say that to any Celts of your acquaintance though, it long predates the US. But we have our own particular Halloween dinner each year, centring around the dessert: mud, blood & poached brains; made every year by popular request.

January 25th is Burns Day and last year we tracked down a butcher who made Haggis and ate it with all due ceremony (served with neeps and whiskey, accompanied by the reading of Burn’s poem to the Haggis).

The following day is Australia Day and roast lamb is obligatory.

St Patrick’s Day gets a mention too, if only as an excuse to have a Guinness. Bloom’s Day is equally popular, if less intelligible.

Pancake Tuesday will be properly adorned with pancakes, of course.

St Valentines Day is celebrated for itself and because it is our half anniversary. Of course, the anniversary proper is duly celebrated too.

Sundry other celebrations that appear in our calendar include birthdays and such like.

The remaining one, and it is a big one, is every Saturday night, when we are home, I do a three course candle-lit dinner. Tonight is the first time for yonks that there is just the two of us; usually there is a flux of family and friends happy to participate.

So, I have no qualms about celebrating religious festivals and pagan ones too.

Just don’t ask me to buy the story behind them.

Now, time to cook dinner.

...

And that means...what?

.

This is part of an advertisement for a sparkling apple juice in the papers yesterday.

Perhaps it is having 20-ish years of food testing that makes me respond to these things badly but look at the sticker on the apple.

I have no trouble with 'no added sugar' or 'no preservatives'.

But "100% sparkling juice from concentrate"?

What's that supposed to mean?

It sounds almost virtuous, doesn't it?

What it really means is that some cheap apple concentrate (probably imported from a third world country) has been reconstituted to the minimum strength possible and artificially carbonated to boot.

Bah! Put a lid on it.
...

First of the season.

.
It is spring in Melbourne. The vegetable garden is growing apace.

My Granny used to plant and tend her tomatoes, shading them from frosts, early in the season and considered it some achievement if she managed to get tomatoes before Christmas.

I picked my first tomato yesterday.

November 27th.

Four weeks before Christmas.

Just another pointer at the 'non-existent' climate change.
...

Giving thanks.

.

For those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope your your harvest has been bountiful.

Obviously , being in the southern hemisphere, it is spring here and, in the current dry conditions (in our perspective, a spring is not a source of water), it is too early to decide if we have anything to be giving thanks for. Agriculturally speaking. Nor, as a largely non-religious country, do we really have anyone to be giving thanks to.

Which is good news for the turkeys, at least.
...

Chain letters

.

(Not mine, I just took all the unnecessary F words out.)

I'm hoping Margaret's friends don't read my blog. And if some do, I am pretty sure that the ones that I am about to poke fun at don't. Shhh! Not a word, OK?

When we were travelling all our mail came to one gmail account so I had first hand contact with the sorts of emails that were being sent to her.

So many were chain letters. Or chain emails.

You know the sort I mean; they fall into several categories.

1. The 'make a wish' type. Usually cutesy emails full of love and hope and kittens. But the love, hope and kittens will all be callously squashed if you fail to forward the email on yesterday or, preferable, sooner to ten friends, and also to the sender to show that she too is loved, within 5 minutes.

2. The 'small child at risk' type. Where there is some girl in a Bolubian village with five legs and no mouth who will be saved if your immediately forward the email to everyone in your address book. Not only will she be miraculously saved but Microsoft will give 5¢ to the fund for every email forwarded. But they, Microsoft, will only perform this amazing feat of telekinetic generosity if you forward the email in the next two minutes. No it doesn't matter that the email has sat in your in-box for three days, it is the two minutes that matters.

3. The 'horror story' type. Pass this on to 15,067 people in the next 7 minutes or something horrible will happen to you like:

*Bizarre Horror Story #1
Miranda Pinstley was walking home from school on Saturday. She had recently received this letter and ignored it. She then tripped in a crack in the sidewalk, fell into the sewer, was gushed down a drainpipe in a flood of poopie, and went flying out over a waterfall. Not only did she smell nasty, she died. This Could Happen To You!!!

*Bizarre Horror Story #2
Dexter Bipple, a 13 year old boy, got a chain letter in his mail and ignored it. Later that day, he was hit by a car, trampled by a wild pig, pack-raped by a delegation of blind priests (and their guide dogs) and then struck by a meteorite on the way to hospital. He died and went to hell and were cursed to eat adorable kittens every day for eternity. This Could Happen To You Too!!!

Now, some emails and their attachments are funny. I like them.

But don't tell me some horrible misfortune will happen if I just read them and bin them.

I wont be your friend if you do.

And you will get leprosy, shingles, VD and anal warts and spend the next twenty years in the jungle, rubbing your itching, foul and rotting body with elephant dung, in a forlorn hope of a cure.
...

System malfunction

.

A harlot of a language!

.

Yesterday I was writing about the UK councils who want to remove Latin from the language used in council documents because it is difficult for migrants learning English. I would have thought that such people don't look at the origin of the words but just assume that they are English but I do take Peter's point (in comments to the last post) that you adjust the vocabulary to fit your audience. That should be done across the board, not by banning one segment of the language.

That brings me to the whole fascinating area of where the words in English originate from. They come from everywhere. Surely this is welcoming to migrants? A feeling of home, perhaps. A brief dip into some of the hodge podge of the words in use in English comes up with the following linguistic thefts:

Afrikaans (apartheid, commando, slim, trek),

Amoy - A Sino-Tibetan language (ketchup, tea)

Arabic (alcohol, calibre, monsoon, zero)

Avestan - An extinct language spoken in ancient Persia (bronze, magic, paradise)

Basque - A language spoken in Northern Spain and South West France that, remarkably, is unrelated to any other language in the world (anchovy, bizarre, jingo)

Bengali (bungalow, dinghy)

Carib (barbecue, cannibal, maize)

Czech (pistol, polka, robot)

Danish (fog, kidnap, ombudsman)

Dutch (boss, cookie, lottery, yacht)

Gaelic (bard, golf, slogan, whisky)

Gaulish (ambassador, carpenter, lawn, Paris)

Hungarian (coach, goulash, paprika, sabre)

Italian (bankrupt, fascist, opera, umbrella)

Japanese (judo, karate, soy, tycoon)

Marshallese (bikini)

Maya (cigar, shark)

Nahuatl (chocolate, guacamole, Mexico, tomato)

Nepali (Gurkha, panda)

Norse (berserk, husband, reindeer, window)

Phoenician (Bible, gypsum, purple)

Portuguese (breeze, flamingo, marmalade, molasses)

Russian (bistro, cosmonaut, mammoth, vodka)

Sanskrit (candy, orange, sugar)

Serbian (vampire)

Spanish (canyon, guitar, patio, tornado)

Swedish (boulder, mink, smorgasbord, Tungsten)

Tahitian (tattoo)

Taino - A language spoken in the Caribbean (guava, hammock, hurricane, potato)

Tamil (anaconda, curry, mango, pariah)

Tongan (taboo)

Tupi –A language spoken in the Amazon (cashew, maraca, piranha, tapioca)

Ukrainian (balaclava, Cossack)

For more, see here.

Nunc ambrosia!

.

Local authorities in the UK have ordered employees to stop using Latin words and phrases on documents written for public use.

According to The Sunday Telegraph, the ban has annoyed classical scholars who say it is the "linguistic equivalent of ethnic cleansing".

Salisbury Council has asked staff not to use ad hoc, ergo and QED (quod erat demonstrandum), while Fife Council has banned ad hoc as well as ex officio.

Bournemouth Council has listed 19 expressions that it no longer allows. They include bona fide, eg (exempli gratia), prima facie, ad lib or ad libitum, etc or et cetera, ie or id est, inter alia, NB or nota bene, per, per se, pro rata, quid pro quo, vis-a-vis, vice versa and even via.

The council noted to staff: "Not everyone knows Latin. Many readers do not have English as their first language so using Latin can be particularly difficult."

- stv.tv local news.

Nunc ambrosia in turbini est!*

Now, I can understand some of them but so many are common usage anyway: eg: eg, ie, nb, etc, & via.

And what of words derived from Latin?

A brief list includes:
advert, agenda, agitator, album, alias, alibi, animal, apex, aquarium, Aquarius, arbiter, arena, Aries, August, autumn, axis, Britain, calendar, Cancer, captor, cardinal, circus, creator, creditor, curator, curriculum, cursor, Cyprus, data, December, discus, doctor, educator, equinox, February, focus, formula, forum, France, fungus, Gemini, genius, Germany, Greece, habitat, igneous, ignoramus, inch, index, inertia, inferior, innuendo, interior, joke, July, June, junior, Jupiter, Leo, liberator, Libra, London, March, Mars, matrix, maximum, May, medium, memorandum, Mercury, merit, mile, minimum, miracle, momentum, monitor, moratorium, motor, nebula, nectar, Neptune, nimbus, November, nubile, nucleus, obese, occult, October, omen, onus, orbit, pantomime, parent, pastor, peninsula, penis, picture, pirate, Pisces, premium, prohibit, pronoun, quadrant, quarantine, quota, rabid, radius, recipe, referendum, refrigerate, reign, relegate, religion, republic, respect, rostrum, rota, rude, Sagittarius, saliva, salubrious, sandal, sartorial, satellite, scale, segment, senior, September, series, silence, sinister, Spain, species, spectator, spectrum, stadium, stet, stimulus, street, study, stupid, suburb, superior, table, tacit, tandem, tavern, terminus, torpedo, transport, triangle, trident, ulterior, uniform, vacuum, vagina, valour, vehicle, ventriloquist, Venus, versus, veto, via, victim, victor, villa, violator, Virgo, virile.

Should these go too?

*Now the rice pudding's really hit the fan.
...

Just another snippet on the death sentence issue...

.

When Jason Jones was arrested in a fatal shooting in the Bronx in May, he told the police that he had been nowhere near the scene. He said he had left work, ridden the bus with some co-workers and cashed his paycheck, and later had taken a subway to see his girlfriend.

Federal prosecutors charged Mr. Jones and his older brother, Corey, in the shooting, saying they had killed the victim because he had been a government witness in drug and gun cases.

Both men could face the death penalty if the government decides to seek it.

But in recent weeks, the case has taken an extraordinary turn — because of Jason Jones’s MetroCard.

Months after the arrests, a retired detective working for Mr. Jones’s lawyers drove to a city jail located on a barge moored in the East River in the South Bronx, where Mr. Jones had been held after his arrest, and retrieved his wallet. The MetroCard was still inside.

Mr. Jones’s lawyers then asked New York City Transit to use the card to trace his movements the night of the shooting. The results supported his account, showing that the card had been used on a bus, and later on a subway roughly five miles from the shooting, just as he had described.

With that, and a photograph snapped of Mr. Jones, 26, as he cashed his paycheck, his lawyers argued that it was impossible for him to have committed the crime. Both brothers have been released on bond for now, an unusual step in a federal murder case, while prosecutors say they are continuing to investigate.

- New York Times.

Makes you think, no?

Now, it is the nature of prosecutors that once they have made an arrest then they defend that position valiantly, even if it means the death of an innocent person. The term is cognitive dissonance and the thought patterns go along the lines of (1) I am a decent person and (2) No decent person would arrest an innocent man. Therefore, as I am a decent man, the accused must really be guilty after all; we just haven't proved it yet.

Do not be surprised if the prosecutors start arguing that the accused hired a look alike to travel on the transport and collect his paycheck.
...

Phones

Had a service man call around today - the range hood fan had been playing up but, as is the way, it worked perfectly while the service guy was here *sniff* - anyhoo, the service guy took a phone call while he was here and his phone rang like a 'proper' phone. (It was actually an iPhone, so you can see where the call-out fee goes.)

"Ring-ring. Ring-ring. Ring-ring."

My phone, a bottom of the range Nokia but bought in Borneo after my previous bottom of the range Nokia was stolen, is also set to do a basic ring. But it sound much tinnier than the iPhone.

You gets what youse pays for, I guess.

What sort of ring tone does your phone have?
...

Various odd signs

.

Sign in a Laundromat:

Sign in a London department store:
BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS

In an office:
WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY
PLEASE BRING IT BACK
OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN

Outside a farm:
HORSE MANURE 50p PER PRE-PACKED BAG
20p DO-IT-YOURSELF

In an office:
AFTER TEA BREAK STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT AND STAND
UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD

On a church door:
THIS IS THE GATE OF HEAVEN. ENTER YE ALL BY THIS DOOR.
THIS DOOR IS KEPT LOCKED BECAUSE OF THE DRAFT.
(PLEASE USE SIDE DOOR.)

English sign in a German cafe:
MOTHERS, PLEASE WASH YOUR HANS BEFORE EATING

Outside a secondhand shop:
WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING - BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES ETC.
WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?

Sign outside a new town hall which was to be opened by the
Prince of Wales:
THE TOWN HALL IS CLOSED UNTIL OPENING.
IT WILL REMAIN CLOSED AFTER BEING OPENED.
OPEN TOMORROW.

Outside a photographer's studio:
OUT TO LUNCH: IF NOT BACK BY FIVE, OUT FOR DINNER ALSO

Outside a disco:
SMARTS IS THE MOST EXCLUSIVE DISCO IN TOWN.
EVERYONE WELCOME

Sign warning of quicksand:
QUICKSAND. ANY PERSON PASSING THIS POINT WILL BE DROWNED.
BY ORDER OF THE DISTRICT COUNCIL.

Notice sent to residents of a Wiltshire parish:
DUE TO INCREASING PROBLEMS WITH LETTER LOUTS AND VANDALS
WE MUST ASK ANYONE WITH RELATIVES BURIED IN THE GRAVEYARD
TO DO THEIR BEST TO KEEP THEM IN ORDER

Notice in a dry cleaner's window:
ANYONE LEAVING THEIR GARMENTS HERE FOR MORE THAN 30 DAYS
WILL BE DISPOSED OF.

Sign on motorway garage:
PLEASE DO NOT SMOKE NEAR OUR PETROL PUMPS. YOUR LIFE MAY
NOT BE WORTH MUCH BUT OUR PETROL IS

Notice in health food shop window:
CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS

Spotted in a safari park:
ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR

Seen during a conference:
FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN'T KNOW IT,
THERE IS A DAY CARE ON THE FIRST FLOOR

Notice in a field:
THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE,
BUT THE BULL CHARGES

Message on a leaflet:
IF YOU CANNOT READ, THIS LEAFLET WILL TELL YOU HOW TO GET LESSONS

Sign on a repair shop door:
WE CAN REPAIR ANYTHING.
(PLEASE KNOCK HARD ON THE DOOR - THE BELL DOESN'T WORK)

Sign at Norfolk farm gate:
BEWARE! I SHOOT EVERY TENTH TRESPASSER
AND THE NINTH ONE HAS JUST LEFT

Spotted in a toilet in a London office block:
TOILET OUT OF ORDER.
PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW
...

Our greatest hope.

.

Memories in an electronic age

.

I was prompted to write this post after reading a post by Dianne, where she talks about reading text messages from a 'Celtic knight', a former love in her life. They are on her phone and she is loathe to delete them.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in my life, my mother is spending time reading correspondence and diaries from my father. It is time travel, of sorts.

This is where 'real mail' has it hands down over text and even email.

Real mail has feel and texture. It has smells, native and introduced. It contains hairs, rose petals, newspaper clippings and all the smudges and corrections of a letter well considered.

I have some letters written by a character we knew is Scotland, a real character in all senses of the word, Jimmy Douglas. Typed on blue aerograms, they capture so much of Jimmy's character and I regularly enjoy pulling them out and re-reading them.

My mother tells me that, in going through my father's things, she has found every letter that I sent him.

Next time some mindless gastropod uses that belittling and thoughtless designation of 'snail mail' to refer to real mail, do what you should do to any gastropod: hit it with a brick.
...

Six loves

.

J Cosmo Newbery nominated me for a "Kreative Blogger" award. Now, I have a general rule of not accepting these things and I will make no exception for this one. Especially one that can't spell. Ever since I tried a Krispy Kream donut, and found it to be neither crispy nor creamy, I have had my doubts about inexact spelling.

However...

Part of J Cosmo's award required me to publish a list of six loves. Should an award be conditional on me doing stuff? Sounds dodgey to me but it does solve my immediate mental block of what to post having been away up-country for a couple of days.

I will leave out wives, mothers, kids, a dominatrix named Olga, and such like, where any inadvertent omission may land me in hot water.

1. Gardening - I do low impact gardening, coffee-mug gardening, where I wander with a mug of coffee, weeding and pruning here and there as I go on a regular basis. When the coffee runs out, gardening ceases. Beer is an acceptable substitute for coffee. I love seeing the changes in the garden. The vegetable garden is especially good this year as I have modified my watering practices rather than just hoping for rain.

2. Walking in drizzle, watching thunder storms - walking in drizzle is especially good on a deserted beach. Thunderstorms are really good from the safety of the gazebo in the front yard. A beer is a good companion for that, too.

3. Cooking - it's just chemistry, with style.

4. Painting - haven't done much for a while now but it is still one of my loves and a perennial on my to-do list.

5. Clever humour - I grew up listening to BBC radio comedy. It was clever, verbal humour. Too much present-day humour relies of sarcasm, personal put-downs and canned laughter. (Research shows that people like to belong to a group so will laugh when canned laughter is played so as as to not be an 'outsider', even for things they would not normally find funny.) MASH was a good example of the clever use of humour on TV. I do not know of a current TV program that is worth watching; I see the ads and a little voice says 'they will put the best bits in the ads', telling me that the show will be a waste of time. Mind you, I do like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

6. Blogging - is it an addiction? Is it therapy? Jury's out on that one.
...

Armistice Day, 2008

.

Will we ever learn?

"The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem,
it is generally employed only by small children and large nations."

- David Friedman
...

Not justice, vengeance.

.

The three men accused of the Bali Bombing in 2002 were executed by firing squad in Indonesia yesterday.

I don't condone their actions at any level but I am against the death penalty as a punishment.

Who are they punishing?

Not believing in a life, and hence judgement, after death, I find execution does not have the desired affect. A dead person is beyond punishment. Only the living are punished.

1. Death is 'oblivion' to the convicted so they do not live with their crime.
2. It does not help the victims; revenge never does.
3. It is a poor lesson: killing is bad, therefore we will kill you.

The Australian Government did itself, and it's people, no service by not at least trying to intercede. The stand that we are against the death penalty for Australians but will stand by quietly while others are executed is a racist stand, not a moral one.
...

I already knew this!

.

"It is one of the biggest mysteries in science which has baffled scholars for more than 75 years, but now a team of cosmologists believes it has found a way of discovering what the universe is made of. About 85 per cent is neither stars nor planets but some form of mysterious matter. It cannot be seen or detected by conventional scientific instruments, which is why the precise nature of this "dark matter" has eluded the finest minds in science."

- The Independent

When they final get their results, they will find that this mystery matter is:

Lost socks
Lolly/candy wrappers
The spare set of car keys
That library book that you were sure you returned
The last piece of fruit cake

but mostly lost socks.
...

Time delay

There is a fascinating site (View) that has a montage of hundreds of newspaper front pages around the world reflecting the US election result.

The above is the one they display for The Age, my daily newspaper on the morning of November 5th.

Notice the election result? No. Me neither.

Small problem: the polls in the US didn't start closing until 11am Melbourne time on the 5th. Long after the papers had been printed, distributed and the weary sub-editors crawled off to bed.
...

Mother & Child

Some of you, my blog readers with more stamina, may recall this photo (Feb 2007) of a farming friend bottle feeding a joey, a baby kangaroo. Its mother had been shot.

Here is a recent photo of the same kangaroo, with her own joey.
...

A sense of hope.

.

Congratulation to America on the election of Barack Obama to be its 44th President.

He will have many challenges to face and all fair-minded people, both inside and outside the US, will wish him well.

He campaigned heavily on the themes of hope and change and conveyed a sense of proportion, pragmatism and determination. He will need them all.

It appears his themes have struck a chord with many Americans. True, there was a strong black turnout, stronger than predicted early in the campaign, but he needed more than the black vote to win and obviously struck a chord with many levels of Americans.

But we non-Americans are not untouched.

America is unique in its impact on the lives and thoughts of people around the world.

We, too, have a sense of hope for the future.
...

I'm happy!

Happy theme spreads across all four blogs today.
...

Remember, remember, the 5th of November.

In 1605, on November 5th, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the British parliament with 36 barrels of gunpowder.

Until the local parliamentarians banned the public use of fireworks, the day was always celebrated with bonfires and fireworks.

Early on November 5th, 2008, I am hopeful that fireworks will again be the order of the day.
...

A word from the sidelines...

The Melbourne Cup

.

"Viewed" (top) wins the Melbourne Cup by four fifths of two thirds of seven ninths of a nose.

I hope things are not this tight tomorrow, in 'that other two horse race'.

Note that the grey one lost.

...

2008 IgNobel Prizes

Archaeology:
For showing that armadillos can mix up the contents of an archaeological site

Biology:
For discovering that fleas that live on dogs jump higher than fleas that live on cats

Chemistry:
1. For discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, and
2. To another research team for accidentally proving it is not.

Cognitive science:
For discovering that slime molds can solve puzzles.

Economics:
For discovering that exotic dancers earn more when at peak fertility.

Literature:
For the study "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations".

Medicine:
For demonstrating that expensive placebos are more effective than inexpensive placebos.

Nutrition:
For demonstrating that food tastes better when it sounds more appealing.

Peace:
The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology and the citizens of Switzerland, for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity.

Physics:
For proving that heaps of string or hair will inevitably tangle.

...

When things get tough...

What next? Belly-button fluff?
◊◊◊

Better call Joe the plumber...

A bit of toilet humour recently. Apparently a French man dropped his mobile (cell) phone into the toilet on one of the fast, intercity TGV trains.

These toilets work like airline toilets and use a vacuum system to empty. In attempting to retrieve his phone the French man found his arm sucked down into the system (cistern?) and had to call for help. Presumably not with a mobile phone.

All attempts to extricate the poor man failed so he had the indignity of being stretchered off the train with the toilet still attached to his arm.

The reports are silent on whether he got his phone back.
...

Of course, it's just 'natural variation'...

Weather update: Despite the 'non-existence of climate change', Melbourne received only 14.2 mm of rain in October, traditionally its wettest month. The long term average is 66.2 mm.

Actually, the total October rainfall for the last three years combined doesn't add up to one October's average rainfall.
...