200,000

Someone from Miami became the 200,000th visitor to the Poor Mouth. Haste ye back! There's fresh drivel each and every day (except when there isn't of course)

Cat pee and Macho Mouse

Quite understandably mice are known to be scared by cat odour - if can you smell animal that will make a light meal out of you then it is best to make yourself scarce! However cat odour also seems to act like an aphrodisiac too according to a new study. Apparently the smell makes male mice more macho, helping lure in females.

Unsurprisingly, past studies had found that cat odour typically causes mice to panic or flee. But also it could help male mice lure in females. Chinese researchers exposed mice to cat pee for eight weeks. Unexpectedly, it lead to cowering mice, instead, researchers found it led to aggressive males. These were more than twice as likely fight with other mice than rodents exposed to rabbit urine for the same amount of time. And such combative males smelled delectable to females. When presented with male pee, females that were in heat spent more time exposed to rabbit urine

Before, it was generally believed that the presence of predators always had a negative effect on their prey, "but our findings show that presence of low or moderate predation may be positive to prey," said researcher Jian-Xu Zhang, a pheromone researcher at the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Female mice like aggressive males, and rodents constantly exposed to cat pee may seem like strong males that can survive the constant threat of predators, the researchers suggested. These findings could help improve life for animals in captivity, Zhang said. Zoos could enrich the environments of animals with just a whiff of their predators to stimulate them.

Hmm make of this what you will....

Look! Earn $$$$$$$$$s lying on your back!

This might have been the sort of advert one might see in the “personal services” section of the local paper – the section that advertises “massages” but it is a genuine offer from NASA....

If you are in Houston or can get there NASA may pay you $17,000 to stay in bed for 90 straight days. Seriously the bed-rest experiment, to take place in the Human Test Subject Facility of Johnson Space Centre, is designed to allow scientists to study some of the effects of microgravity on the human body. Participants will spend 90 days lying in bed, (except for limited times for specific tests) with their body slightly tilted downward (head down, feet up). Every day, they will be awake for 16 hours and lights out (asleep) for 8 hours.

Jokes aside, astronauts who've spent lengthy stays in space have suffered serious consequences. Our bodies have evolved to deal with a certain amount of gravitational force but if you reduce g then muscles atrophy and bones lose their density. It can take astronauts/cosmonauts (and soon taikonauts I presume) months to readjust to the Earth's gravitational force.

If you're still interested, you'll have to pass a standard Air Force medical and take a blood test. Apparently you can do what you like to alleviate the boredom but you must stay prone...

Right, now where’s my passport!

Bob Mould - It's too late

Gabrielle

Paul Roland. I'm surprised to find any footage of him on youtube at all.

Sparks - #1 Song in Heaven

Photo Hunt - Battle of Britain Memorial

There is no set subject for this week's Photo Hunt so I have chosen some details of the Batle of Britain memorial on the Victoria Embankment not far from the Houses of Parliament

Why is this man not a superstar?

Petomania alive and well and performed by Mr Methane

Mimi finally goes outdoors

The weather gets warmer and at last Mimi ventures out. This week's entry for Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats.

Five Things Meme

Maddy over at Whitterer on Autism tagged me for this meme. In the hope that some of us would admit to being bag owners (maybe even an action transvestite a la Eddie Izzard!) all of her tagees were chaps.

In my little world manbags tend to be hairy and with minimal capacity. However, I always carry a briefcase to work which is more like a big satchel-cum-crap depot. So here goes with five things in that bag

5 things in my bag

1. i-pod to shut the world out when commuting
2. Book -currently The Caliban Shore the story of
3. Spare contact lens case and comfort drops. I have to wear rigid gas permeable lenses for my keratoconus.
4. Ventolin and voltarol for my asthma and my shoulder which still freezes from time to time.
5. Stain removing wipes. I am a messy eater and drinker so these are essential if I am not to ruin an expensive silk tie.

Oh and a miscellany of receipts, sweet wrappers and other detritus

5 favourite things in my room, This is the living room.

1. A palekh lacquer box I bought in Moscow years ago
2. A large drawing Elahe Heidari sent me as a present last year.
3. A posable Kenneth Williams doll dressed as Julius Caesar in Carry on Cleo. It has 15 phrases including my all time favourite: "Infamy, infamy, infamy. They've all got it in for me!"
4. A nice long sofa to sprawl out on.
5. And of course a selection of furry fiends

And carrying on...5 things that you don’t do any more.

1. Smoke (Well over six years since my last JP Superking)
2. Play football which is just as well because I was an utter thug in football boots.
3. Drink more than a gallon beer during a session at the pub... Or drink anywhere near a gallon for that matter
4. Trying to get that shite novel out of me (I never had any illusions that there was a great one in me!)
5. Eat ludicrously hot corries that ar far hotter on exit than they are on entry

5 Favourite flowers

1. Fuchsias
2. Geranium versicolor
3. Aliums of all shapes and hues
4. Zaluzianskia (Midnight Candy)
5. My beloved Tree Paeony

Now to tag five people I’ll have to come back on that one.... As usual

Scientists decode the platypus genome

The duck-billed platypus is a rum beast and no doubt. In fact when the first skin arrived in England in 1799, the keeper of natural history at the British Museum thought it must be an elaborate hoax; how else to explain an animal with the fur of a mammal and the beak of a bird?

But European naturalists were soon to realise that the hairy, egg-laying creature from Australia which suckles its young and hunts "blind", with its eyes, ears and nostrils all closed while swimming underwater, was very real. Zoologists studying the creature's anatomy and behaviour confirmed that the duck-billed platypus was one of the strangest anomalies in the animal kingdom, and now geneticists have confirmed just how weird it is with the first complete analysis of its fully decoded genome.

Scientists said yesterday that they have now deciphered the entire DNA of the duck-billed platypus in a study involving more than 100 scientists from eight countries. They found that the animal's genes are indeed an unusual amalgam derived from the disparate worlds of reptiles, birds and mammals.The duck-billed platypus is one of just a few living species of mammals that lays eggs rather than giving birth to live young – the other egg layers being the echidnas. It is a member of the monotreme group of mammals.

Scientists were keen to explore its DNA because the platypus represents one of the few living species of mammals forming the monotremes, which split off from the rest of the mammals about 166 million years ago. "It's probably the most eagerly awaited genome since the chimp genome because platypuses are so weird," said Professor Jenny Graves of the Australian National University in Canberra, one of the co-authors of the study published in the journal Nature.

The scientists found that the platypus has about the same number of functional genes as its mammalian cousins but that some of them bear a closer resemblance to the reptiles, particularly the genes involved in producing the venom used by male platypuses to defend their territories. The study found that the toxin delivered by the kicking back claws of irate male platypuses is the result of a duplication in a set of reptilian genes that has undergone the same sort of duplication independently in reptiles to produce snake venom. It also found that the platypus shares about 82 per cent of its genes with other mammals, including the genes involved in lactation although the female platypus breast feeds through her skin rather than through nipples, which she lacks National University. Instead, the sex chromosomes of the platypus share much in common with those of birds, suggesting that the original common ancestor of all mammals, including man, may have also had sex chromosomes more like modern-day birds, he said.

Another surprising discovery was the nature of the chromosomes that determine sex in the platypus. In mammals, just two chromosomes, the X and the Y, are involved in sex determination. "The platypus is exceptional in that females have five different pairs of X chromosomes, and males have five X chromosomes and five Y chromosomes. To our surprise we discovered that the platypus X and Y chromosomes are completely unrelated to the X chromosome of all other mammals," said Dr Paul Waters, of the Australian Scientists unravel the origin of the platypus

Don't call me Reverend Tibbs (and don’t whatever you do fall out with your parishioners)

The Rectory Teigh, Rutland

In the summer of 1940, the sleepy parish of Teigh denounced their vicar as a traitor and a fascist. The Reverend Henry Stanley Tibbs, who had ministered to his 72-strong flock for 15 years, was sent to prison accused of being a foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Semite who promoted Hitler from the Harvest Festival pulpit.

According to newly declassified National Archive his parishioners accused Reverend Tibbs of being a member of the British Union of Fascists who harboured German spies, denounced Churchill and pledged allegiance to the Fuhrer.

The 63-year-old was not only accused of harbouring two Gestapo agents in the parish rectory - and genially introducing one of them to a local farmer - but of helping the spies draw sketches of a bomb silo at nearby Cottesmore Aerodrome. He was said to have described Germany as "our natural friend" and that a local clergyman caught the Reverend telling his children "that Hitler and Goering were the finest men in the world". One witness said he heard him describe Churchill as "a drug addict and a dictator of the vilest kind, in fact the worst dictator in the world and in the pay of the American Jews".

The charges were extraordinary. But were they true? Writing from his cell in Liverpool Prison, Tibbs admitted he had indeed, years before, belonged to the British Union of Fascists. They had an excellent agricultural policy, he said. He admitted that one of his sons, who had also been imprisoned, had joined the party. But he said it was the uniform, rather than the fascism, that appealed to him. He also conceded he had subscribed to the British Union newspaper, Action.

But, under cross-examination during his appeal, he strenuously denied all other accusations. Had he expressed "Nazi views" to his parishioners? He replied: "I never did. I have never talked politics to my parishioners, and I have never preached a political sermon in my life." Did he admire Hitler? "I think he is a very clever man, but I think he is a most horrible person," he said.

In their report, the appeals panel named another clergyman, from nearby Market Overton, "who had at one time been a great friend of Tibbs, but had some time ago had a quarrel with him "Enquiries have been made locally," the panel added. And Mr Tibbs's former friend "appears to be an ill-natured and vindictive type of man, quite capable of bearing tales about, or putting the worst interpretation on the words of anyone against whom he harboured a grudge". Then there was the local gossip among the farmers and down at the village post office about the German spies hiding out in the village rectory.

But in a parish of 72 souls, could he really have harboured two Gestapo agents? And if so, would he have introduced them to his neighbours? According to the farmer's wife who lived opposite him, he could not. She told the panel there had never been two young men living at the rectory. The appeals panel ordered Mr Tibbs to be released, with the proviso that he remained within his parish, and he returned home in December 1940.

"The committee feel that whilst Tibbs' detention was fully justified, a mass of rumour and some exaggerated reports have been built up," they wrote. "Tibbs has now learned his lesson" Eight months later the restrictions were revoked and a Home Office official described him as "harmless." In another letter, the Bishop of Peterborough wrote: "Mr Tibbs is, in my opinion, a foolish, slippery-tongued fellow, but a harmless one."

The current incumbent Reverend James Saunders said: "There were many people in the 1930s who admired Germany and admired Hitler and most of them were sensible enough to keep their heads down when war broke out." But he added: "There's always a possibility for vicars to fall out with members of the congregation.

Tibbs returned to the village a broken man, slipped into obscurity and died shortly afterwards. The parish was declared vacant in 1943. Whatever Tibbs’s sentiments he was no Archibald Maule Ramsay, the Scottish Tory MP, interned for much of WWII for being a rabid Hitler supporter and anti-Semite. I must do a post about Ramsay, now he was a vile piece of human detritus.

Will it be finally Congratulations to Cliff ?

Forty years ago, Cliff Richard is was the hot favourite to win Eurovision. He was young, handsome and godly and his song Congratulations was arguably the finest song to be written in the 60s. His coronation should have been a formality but he had not counted on a terrible act of perfidy which ensured that the Spanish entry won Eurovision for the first and only time.

This terrible stain on the career of a man who is now regarded as a living saint by every religion on the planet (even the Church of Satan) may yet be removed. An investigation in Spain has uncovered skullduggery which, it says, shows the dictator Francisco Franco had the vote rigged, ensuring that the Briton, then a 27-year-old starlet, never had a chance of winning with his song, Congratulations.

According to Montse Fernandez Vila, the director of the film called 1968: I lived the Spanish May, Franco was determined to claim Eurovision glory for his own country. The investigation, which is due to be broadcast shortly, details how El Generalísimo was so keen to improve Spain's international image that he sent corrupt TV executives across Europe to buy goodwill in the run-up to the contest. Their mission was successful and Congratulations was beaten to the top spot by the Spanish singer Massiel with La La La.

"Massiel's win was fixed," Vila said "It's in the public domain that Televisión Española executives travelled around Europe buying series that would never be broadcast and signing concert contracts with odd, unknown groups and singers. These contracts were translated into votes. It was these bought votes that won Eurovision for Massiel. The regime was well aware of the need to improve its image overseas ... When you look at all the parties they organised and how Massiel was transformed into a national heroine, you realise it was rather over the top for a singing competition. It was all intended to boost the regime."

Sir Cliff, who is touring Germany, sounded jubilant at the revelations. "If, like they say, they believe there is evidence that it was I that was the winner, there won't be a happier person on the planet," he said, recalling that fateful evening at the Royal Albert Hall. It's never good to lose, never good to feel a loser. When I went on that night I said to the band: 'Look guys, there will be 400 million people watching, it will be a massive plug for our song.' And it was. I think we sold a million singles. But we really wanted to win."

Being crowned victor would dovetail nicely with his British tour later this year, he said. Although he conceded that opening an official investigation into the rigged vote "might not be worth the trouble", the belated verdict would mean a lot to him."I'd be quite happy to be able to say I won Eurovision '68. It's an impressive date in the calendar these days."

Vindication could, however, still be some way off. Jamie McLoughlin, who runs the Eurovision website Whoops Dragovic, has his doubts over the documentary's claims."La La La was controversial from the start as it was originally to be performed in Catalan, but Franco wouldn't allow it, so the woman who eventually sang it was only brought in at the last minute," he said."The more obvious answer for the landslide of votes from Germany, the penultimate country to vote for Spain, which tipped the result Massiel's way is - rather boringly - she went on a really popular German TV show the week before the contest to perform her song."Still, if it means Blighty can somehow get win number six from all this digging, I certainly won't complain."

Sir Cliff was similarly philosophical yesterday. He clearly doesn't hold Massiel accountable for the vote 40 years ago; and if the adjudication is reversed, he has promised to send her a signed copy of Congratulations

Personally I believe that this dark act is justification for war. Not only should we send a gunboat to Madrid forthwith we should send an army of millions to Spain this summer to occupy their beaches and act as obnoxiously as possible.

WW - goslings

This week's entry for the Tuesday and Wednesday editions of Wordless Wednesday.

Meditations on tea supplies in the post nuclear world

A nuclear attack on the UK in the 1950s (as it would have done at any time) would have left millions dead or horribly mutilated. Disease, starvation and lawlessness would have been rife. Of major concern, however, was the supply of tea. Recently released documents show that Government officials planning food supplies were concerned that the tea situation would be "very serious" after a nuclear war. "It would be wrong to consider that even 1oz per head per week could be ensured," they stated.

The documents said a nuclear conflict would result in the loss of three-quarters of tea stocks.

On a more serious (but unsurprising) note one paper from April 1955 said: "The advent of thermonuclear weapons... has presented us with a new and much more difficult set of food defence problems." The aim was to be "completely ready to maintain supplies of food to the people of these islands, sufficient in volume to keep them in good heart and health from the onset of a thermonuclear attack on this country". "It has become increasingly clear that the severity of the attack which the enemy could launch would produce a catastrophe in the face of which past measures would be fatally deficient," the document added.

Or to put it more sincerely and crudely “If the Bomb drops, we’re screwed......”

War on the clones

The Japanese Knotweed Polygonum cuspidatumis a major pest. Extremely invasive it has been estimated that the total amount of the plant in the Swansea area alone weighs 62,000 tonnes (equivalent to 40 blue whales). Interestingly every specimen in Europe (and some in the USA) is a clone of the same female plant..

So serious is the problem in the UK it is estimated that controlling the plant using ordinary methods, such as pesticide, would cost about £1.6bn. Government scientists have come up with a plan to bring in the plant's natural predators from Japan. If approved. an army of jumping plant lice will be released into Britain in the hope that they can save the countryside from the plant’s ravages. It will be the first time an alien species has been released into the wild to deal with a weed in the UK

Scientists at Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux International (Cabi) believe they will not cause any environmental damage. Other experts urged caution, saying introducing them might have unintended consequences, such as feeding on British relatives of the knotweed. But Dick Shaw, principal investigator at Cabi, said such was the devastating effect of knotweed that it was time to act. "Japanese knotweed has been described as having the biodiversity value of concrete – it just smothers the ground in a mass," he said. "We hope the psyllid will get the plant under control."

Japanese knotweed, which was brought to Europe as an ornamental plant, grows up to 3m in height and sends out a root-like stem system that can reach the same distance below ground. Fresh stem fragments of less than a gram in weight can produce a viable plant in just six days. It can cost several pounds to completely clear the weed from a square metre of ground in the countryside, but on land for development, that can rise to £54,000 because of the need to ensure absolutely nothing is left and dispose of it responsibly.

In an attempt to see if the psyllids would stick to their usual diet, the Cabi scientists have tested the lice on nearly 100 plants and crops that grow in Britain, without finding any problems. There seems little doubt that the arrival of the insects would have a dramatic impact. However When the eucalyptus psyllid was accidentally introduced in Ireland, which started commercial production of the tree in 1993, a report described its effect on the crop as "disastrous".They proved resistant to pesticides, despite more than five applications a season, and a parasitic wasp from Australia has since been introduced in the hope they will see off the lice.

Could this be how Ivar the Boneless got his nickname?

It seems that the Vikings were not just raiders and great seafarers - archaeologists and scientists have revealed that they were also expert fishmongers trading cod across extraordinary distances across Europe, from the Norwegian Arctic to England and the Baltic.

Scientists have perfected a technique of analysing cod bones which was originally developed to track modern fish stocks. It analyses collagen, which carries chemical traces of the water the fish originally swam in. Applied to bones from archaeological sites, it is beginning to show a picture of fish transported remarkable distances from AD950 on, when the quantity of bones shows a huge rise in consumption.

The team, led by archaeologists at Cambridge University, say that when fish were chopped up for processing, matching the results from fish bones and heads shows that in some cases they are separated by thousands of miles. The research, reported in this month's Journal of Archaeological Science, also shows the 1,000-year-old origins of the modern problem of declining fish stocks, as fishing grounds had to supply far more than a local market. The emergence of commercial fishing "may represent the point at which people started to have an impact on marine ecoystems," said James Barrett, of Cambridge University's archaeology department.

More fascinating stuff. It does raise a question in my mind. Could Ivar’s nickname boneless be a testament to his fish filleting rather skills after all....

PLease take time to visit Callum Carr 's blog. His wife needs your support

For a long time now fellow Blogpower member Callum Carr has been struggling to obtain proper NHS treatment for his wife with little success. It horrifies me to read of some how she has been treated. This recent post beggars belief. Please visit his blog and provide him what support you can.

Lesbos for the lesbians

An image of Sappho?

Campaigners on the Greek island of Lesbos are to go to court in an attempt to stop Greek gay rights organisation Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece from using the term "lesbian". If successful then the islanders may then start to fight the word lesbian internationally.

As far as the 250000 islanders are concerned they feel they have more right than gay women to call themselves Lesbians. Spearheading the case is publisher Dimitris Lambrou who claims that international dominance of the word in its sexual context violates the human rights of the islanders, and disgraces them around the world.

In court papers, the plaintiffs allege that the Greek government is so embarrassed by the term Lesbian that it has been forced to rename the island after its capital, Mytilini. An early court date has now been set for judges to decide whether to grant an injunction against the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece and to order it to change its name.

“We are Lesbians and we are proud” said Mr Lambrou “All we want to do is to look anyone in the eye and say we are lesbians without them sniggering.”

The term lesbian originated from the poet Sappho, who was a native of Lesbos. Sappho expressed her love of other women in poetry written during the 7th Century BC. However, according to Mr Lambrou, new historical research by Giyant Haistakis has revealed that Sappho was in fact a large man with a beard who had a greater aptitude for wrestling than poetry.

The real face of Sappho?

Another handkerchief photo

... and a scarf