Dirty looks

This week's entry for the Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats. Also this week's entry for PhotoHunt. The theme for this week is is dirty. It was time to de-flea the cats this week - not exactly the highlight of their social calendar. Their faces show what they thought:

Robyn

Bebe

Ted

And err, Mimi trying but failing to look fierce...

Peace in Northern Ireland brings together more strange bedfellows.

Having seen Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness working together I suppose anything is possible in Northern Ireland these days (although finding out that Martin McGuiness was an avid cricket fan did push the bounds of astonishment to its very limit!). In such a climate it comes as no huge surprise to hear of an artistic collaboration between a former republican prisoner and the son of one of Northern Ireland's best-known loyalist leaders.

Danny Devenny, who began to design murals and posters while serving time as a republican prisoner in the H-block, and Mark Ervine, the son of the late David Ervine, who was head of the Progressive Unionist party ( the political wing of the Ulster Volunteer Force) have already worked together on two spectacular new murals in Belfast. One is a version of the famous Picasso painting Guernica, the other a celebration of the International Brigades who fought against Franco in the Spanish civil war. Now they join a proposal for the painting of a dozen murals based on Beatles' LP covers, to adorn walls in Liverpool to celebrate the city as the 2008 European Capital of Culture.

"I could certainly never have imagined 20 years ago that I would be working with a former republican prisoner on this." He hoped he and Devenny would be able to work with young Liverpudlians and pass on the tradition of the mural to a city that had many links with Belfast. "It's something we feel is important because a lot of people from both communities have been involved in it.”

Devenny said he hoped that the fact the two of them were working together would encourage others to do the same. "He still has his loyalist opinions, which I respect," said Devenny, "and I still have my republican ones, but we found we had so many things in common. We wanted to show people, and particularly young people, that if we could work together anyone could."

Their work was spotted by Peter Morrison and Gregory Brennan, two Liverpudlians who went on the murals tour during a visit to Belfast in 2005. They decided that the murals and the team behind them could make a permanent difference to the Liverpool landscape and approached the two men with the idea for what is now called the Liverpool Mural Project. "What a great example for cross-community relations in Liverpool," said Mr Morrison. "It could lead to so many other things and could be an example for other conflict zones."

The idea was taken to the body handling the plans for Liverpool's year as the city of culture, the Liverpool Culture Company. "They turned it down and told us they didn't think it was 'edgy enough', but we are determined to see it happen," said Mr Morrison. Now a campaign has begun to urge a change of mind. Those involved say the project would be a great way to brighten up Liverpool and would not cost much.

The idea also has the backing of writers and academics in Liverpool and Belfast. Jimmy McGovern, the Liverpool scriptwriter who penned Cracker, Priest, and Hillsborough, is urging the organisers to co-opt the idea. "God knows the Liverpool Culture Company needs a winner or two right now so when something as inspired as the Liverpool Mural Project comes along you'd expect the company to grab it with both hands."

Hope for the baiji?

There are reports in the Chinese media of a sighting of the Baiji, the Yangtze River or White Flag Dolphin. The dolphin was declared to be functionally extinct by scientists just three weeks ago .

According to the Xinhua News Agency a “big white animal” was spotted and filmed by a resident of east China's Anhui Province on 19 August. The animal in the footage was confirmed to be a baiji by the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. However, Wang Ding, also from the Institute of Hydrobiology and a leading authority on the species, said that the sighting could not be confirmed 100% because of the distance, but that it looked and acted like a baiji.

Although the sighting provides a small cause for hope that the creature could survive in the wild, the outlook is not good. In the 1950s there were thousands of Yangtze River dolphins, but numbers have declined drastically due to industrial pollution, heavy river traffic and over-fishing. The last previous sighting of a wild baiji was in 2004. There are none in captivity.

The chances are that the baiji is about to join the likes of the Caribbean Monk Seal as a former resident of this planet.

Bless me father, for I have eco-sinned

Are you wracked by guilt because you have forgotten to recycle or to plant enough trees to offset your carbon footprint? If you are attending the Waveney Greenpeace fair this weekend then spiritual aid will be at hand. Dom Anthony Sutch, (a Benedictine monk and former head of Downside school, one of England’s most prestigious boarding schools, who is now a parish priest in Suffolk) will be present to hear all your eco-confessions.

Apparently he will be dressed in a chasuble made from recycled curtains. The confessional will be constructed of recycled doors. Father Sutch said “It is not, I hope, blasphemous to do this. I do not think it is. It is just an attempt to make people conscious of the way they live. The Church is aware of green issues and of how aware we have to be of how we treat the environment. I know the Pope has now set up his own airline, but I am told the Vatican will be planting trees every time it flies. I do think the way we treat our environment is important. There is a huge amount of greed in the West. We have to be aware of the consequences of how we live.”

Rupert Read, a local Green councillor will be standing by to offer post-confessional advice. “It is a bit of a laugh but there is a serious underlying point. By doing this we hope people will think a bit more about what they might be doing to make their world a better place. I imagine people will be confessing to things like, ‘I have bought a new car even though I didn't need one’, or ‘I flew to Australia last year’. I have come up with some penances, such as making a donation to a green charity or telling ten other people what you have done.”

It’s all harmless stuf - unless of course Dom Sutch is a fire and brimstone type priest (Screaming Dom Sutch?) - then it will be hair shirts (and other cilices) all round. I wonder what his bishop thinks...

Award! Award! part II

Another one: hot on the heels of of the creative blogger, Shaz at Us Danes & our Family has given me an "I Love your Blog" award.



Thanks Shaz. I'm glad you like the Poor Mouth. It came as such a shock that my language was rather intemperate bu my apology was sincere:




So who will I pass this on to? It has to be Elasticwaistbandlady for her humour and her long standing support for this blog.

Hadleigh Castle - Wordless Wednesday

This week's Wordless Wednesday is Hadleigh Castle in Essex. In that background you can see reclaimed marshland, the Thames and Kent.

Sometimes I am surprised by polls. Today’s ICM poll in today’s Guardian concerned public views on punishing criminals. I would have expected that a sizeable majority of respondents would have favoured more prison places and tougher sentences, particularly in the wake of high profiles news stories such as the release of Learco Chindamo (who as a 15 year old in 1995 murdered Philip Lawrence, the headmaster of a secondary school in London) and the recent murder of 11 year old Rhys Jones.

In fact things do not seem to be so clear cut: just over half of respondents (51%) want the government to find other ways to punish criminals and deter crime. Among women only 40% think the government should aim to send more convicted criminals to prison, against 57% who want to see other, non-custodial forms of punishment. It is only among pensioners that there is a majority in favour of expanding the prison population.

There seems to be a general belief that prisons make crime worse. More people agreed with the statement "prison doesn't work, it turns people into professional criminals who then commit more crime" than think "prison punishes crime, keeps criminals off the streets and deters others". Only 42% of all voters, and 39% of women, think prisons are an effective punishment, against 49%, and 52% of women, who say they fail to work. Conservative voters are most likely to back prisons, Liberal Democrats most likely to oppose them. Among Labour voters, 52% do not want to see more prisons built and 46% do. On the other hand this does not mean people are against tough sentencing: 77% of all respondents agreed that that courts should pass tougher sentences.

What does this poll mean, if anything? Unless it is anomalous perhaps people are not quite as swayed by the demagoguery of our tabloid press as the cynics among us would believe. There’s no question that respondents would advocate alternative sanctions for serious offenders but there does seem to be a desire for the government to continue to seek other options. I presume that does not mean reintroducing the birch or stocks! If I was not so tired I would try and say more about crime prevention, diversion and punishment (not that I am an expert). Perhaps another time

Even the hedgehog needs protection

For the first time Hedgehogs and sparrows have been included among the 1,149 vulnerable species of plants and animals listed in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. The list also includes the pine marten, the wild cat, the mountain hare, long-snouted and short-snouted seahorses, blue and porbeagle sharks, sedges, helleborine and marsh orchids. Two threatened species of dandelion are also included

Grahame Madge, of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said that wildlife was under particular threat because of pressure from intensive farming, housing development and manicured gardens. “Wildlife is ebbing away,” he said. “It’s up to everybody who owns land to make a difference. Animals and birds are struggling for food and are at considerable risk. The problem is that for so many years the UK landscape has been under such pressure. Look at our rivers and how our hedgerows are being pulled up and our gardens are now so manicured.”

The 1,149 species of plants and animals and 65 habitats listed for protection compare with 577 species and 49 habitats on the previous conservation list, which was drawn up ten years ago. Joan Ruddock, the Biodiversity Minister, said: But it is not all bad news: other species, previously considered under threat (eg the pipistrelle bat) have increased in numbers and have been removed from the protection list have increased in numbers, and 123 species have been removed.

Mark Avery, RSPB conservation director, said: “Over the past 12 years, the Biodiversity Action Plan has helped everyone to focus attention on priority species. To its credit, we have seen dramatic increases in key species, like bittern, stone curlew, corncrake, nightjar, cirl bunting and woodlark. “However, the fact that the bird list now includes more than a fifth of all of the UK’s regularly occurring birds is a cause of alarm, especially as the list now includes a number of woodland birds and summer visiting birds like the cuckoo. Before we can celebrate the widespread removal of species from the list, we will have to tackle some general environmental problems, including further reforms of agriculture, a faster rate of habitat creation and the need to tackle climate change. We will have to act fast.”

Scientists create out of body experiences

A little late, maybe but better late than never, I suppose. It's utterly fascinating stuff (well fascinating to me anyway). Scientists have found a way to trigger an out-of-body experience (OBE) in volunteers. The experiments seem to offer a scientific explanation for a phenomenon that is experienced by one in 10 people.

Virtual reality goggles were used to con the brain into thinking the body was located elsewhere. The visual illusion plus the feel of their real bodies being touched made volunteers sense that they had moved outside of their physical bodies. Researchers say their findings could have practical applications, such as helping take video games to the next level of virtuality so the players feel as if they are actually inside the game. Clinically (and perhaps more importantly), surgeons may also be able to perform operations on patients thousands of miles away by controlling a robotic virtual self.

The teams, from University College London (UCL) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, believe there is a neurological explanation for OBEs. Their work suggests that a disconnection between the brain circuits that process visual and touch sensory information may be responsible.

In the Swiss experiments, the researchers asked volunteers to stand in front of a camera while wearing video-display goggles. Through the goggles, the volunteers could see a three-dimensional "virtual own body" that appeared to be standing in front of them. When the researchers stroked the back of the volunteer with a pen, the volunteer could see their virtual back being stroked either simultaneously or with a time lag. The volunteers reported that the sensation seemed to be caused by the pen on their virtual back, rather than their real back, making them feel as if the virtual body was their own rather than a hologram.

Dr Henrik Ehrsson, who led the UCL research, used a similar set-up in his tests and found volunteers had a physiological response - increased skin sweating - when they felt their virtual self was being threatened - appearing to be hit with a hammer. Dr Ehrsson said: "This experiment suggests that the first-person visual perspective is critically important for the in-body experience. In other words, we feel that our self is located where the eyes are."

Dr Susan Blackmore, psychologist and visiting lecturer at the University of the West of England, said: "This has at last brought OBEs into the lab and tested one of the main theories of how they occur. Scientists have long suspected that the clue to these extraordinary, and sometimes life-changing, experiences lies in disrupting our normal illusion of being a self behind our eyes, and replacing it with a new viewpoint from above or behind."

Ladybird

A ladybird at rest on a blackcurrant sage leaf at the back of our garden

Kelly Johnson

I was saddened only just to find out that Girlschool's original lead guitarist Kelly Johnson died of spinal cancer last month at the age of 48. I don’t regularly read the music press and I never read the obituaries in the Guardian or the Independent. Otherwise I would have known about her passing earlier.

Girlschool Drummer Denise Dufort has created a tribute page on Myspace . that is well worth visiting.

The Face Behind the Blog

I was tagged by Mousey for The Face Behind the Blog meme started by DAVID AIREY. Since I am slightly less attractive than the gorgon I decided not to use any of the existing photos of myself, choosing instead to take a new one with a specially reinforced lens....


I am not going to tag anyone for this meme right now but if you wish to carry it forward then the rules of this meme are:


1. Post a short blog article that includes a photograph (or a series of photos) showing the face behind your blog. If you already show a photo somewhere on your site (such as in your about page), then make your post more interesting and choose a photo that’s not currently online.

2. Include links to other people that have displayed a photo, or include their photos in your post, adding a reference.

3.Tag as many others as you like to spread the meme.

4. If you link back to David here and drop a comment; he’ll be sure to include links back to you. Each person tagged should create their own post and repeat the process.

Award! Award!

It's always great to be appreciated so I was delighted when Moving Mama , a fellow Wordless Wednesday participant, awarded me with a creative blogger award on the strength of my photos. I don't pretend to be a very good photographer but it does please me that people like them. Thank' very much Moving Mama!



The award ceremony was a simple affair as filmed below:



In reality, however, Father Jack is rather better looking and more coherent than I am....


Who to pass this on to? It has to be Jenn in Holland for her excellent Looking Into photoblog

Next/Au Suivant

Next (au suivant) as performed by the late, great Alex Harvey.



... and as performed by Brel himeslf

The Rosenstrasse Protest (one more time)

Detail of the Rosenstrasse memorial, Berlin

I know this is effectively recycling a couple of old blog posts (one of my very first posts on the Poor Mouth was about this) but I'm tired and it is a fascinating but largely forgotten incident. It may only be a footnote in a war which saw the death of over 50 million people, but it demonstrates the effectiveness of non-violent action in the face of tyranny.

In early 1943 about 1700 Berlin Jews, mainly men married to non-Jewish women, were rounded up and taken to Rosenstrasse 2-4, a welfare office for the Jewish community in central Berlin pending deportation to extermination camps. The wives and relatives, learning of their spouses eventual destination, appeared at Rosenstrasse, first in small numbers but then in ever larger groups.

Despite being unarmed and unorganized the women remained steadfast in their determination to see the release of the men and they faced down the forces of the Third Reich. While Joseph Goebbels (who was also Gauleiter of Berlin) was anxious that Berlin be judenfrei, he was fully aware that shooting the women down in the streets would simply create antipathy to the regime and would almost certainly result in bigger protests. Moreover he was fearful that it would jeopardise the secrecy of the Final Solution, He therefore authorised the release of the Rosenstrasse prisoners and also ordered the return of those already sent to Auschwitz. The great majority of these men lived to see the end of the war. By any standards the Rosenstrasse women had won an astonishing victory.

Rosenstrasse

In 2003 German director Margarethe Von Trotta made a fictional account of the protest. I finally got to see Rosenstrasse late last year. I had been hoping for something of the calibre of Downfall or Sophie Scholl – the Final Days - it wasn't sadly. It wasn't a bad film and did not deserve the panning it got from some critics including the New York Times.


This link from the German website The Topography of Terror provides further information including personal accounts of those taking part and extracts from Goebbels own diary. The photograph above is a detail from "Block der Frauen" the memorial to the Rosenstrasse women. Click here
for more pictures

Robyn and Ted are very happy

This week's entry for the Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats. Also this week's entry for PhotoHunt. The theme for this week is is Happy and what better than show our alpha cat Robyn having his chin rubbed?



Ted is also happy. Well you wouldn't want to see him angy!

Macho, Macho Man

Annoyingly, yet one of the big stories of the past week or so passed me by utterly. It wasn’t until last night’s Mock the Week did I learn that Russian president Vladimir Putin had gotten a Prince Albert and had been photographed in various macho poses while on holiday in Tuva in the far south of Siberia. On further reading I discovered that he had been photographed in various macho poses while on holiday in Tuva WITH Prince Albert of Monaco.

According to the International Herald Tribune the Russian paper Komsomolskaya Pravda published a huge color photo of the bare chested president, under the headline: "Be Like Putin." along with a guide showing exactly what exercises were required to build up a torso like that of the Russian leader.

The photographs have had Kremlin watchers spending long hours trying to work out what sort of political message they might convey. One Russian radio talk show host speculated that the pictures were meant to enhance Putin's personal appeal to voters and thus a signal that he doesn't plan to relinquish power when his current term as president ends next year. Russian gay chat rooms and blogs claimed that Putin, by stripping to his waist, was somehow pleading for more tolerance of homosexuality in Russia — where gays and lesbians are for the most part forced to remain closeted.

The 54-year-old Russian leader has long cultivated an image of machismo and manliness. Well-known as a downhill skier and black belt in judo, Putin has appeared on national television engaging in other manly including a truck, operating a train and copiloting a fighter jet. The new set of photos could thus be another manifestation of his mystique. However, Stanislav Belkovsky, head of the National Strategy Institute think tank, took the view that they were nothing more than an effort to reassure Russians that Putin knows how to relax — and was preparing for retirement.

Personally I think the photos give an absolutely clear message: Putin, tiring of life at the helm of a massive and troubled nation has decided on a new career path and will be joining the Village People once his current term ends.

The only problem is that he can’t seem to make up whether he want’s to be the Cowboy or the Soldier...

Even the Daily Mail couldn’t object to this one

According to a survey commissioned by the campaign to find Madeleine McCann MEPs overwhelmingly support creating an EU-wide sex offenders register.

97% of MEPs agreed there should be an EU-wide sex offenders register; 95% said police should treat serious crimes involving children exactly the same across Europe. An overwhelming majority also supported the introduction of a common EU policy on child abduction cases. Similarly 84% of British MPs believed sex offenders should be tracked as they move across Europe and forced to register with local police. Almost nine in 10 MPs felt that the UK's Child Rescue Alert - an emergency scheme to publicise suspected child abductions within hours - should be extended across the EU.

Gerry McCann, father of from Madeleine who disappeared in the Algarve in May said he and his wife were heartened by the findings of the survey. "We are pleased to see that elected members of both the UK and European parliaments agree that changes to legislation and greater consistency across the European Union are needed.” He said.

Personally I think harmonisation in this area is a no-brainer. It's heartening to see an arch-sceptic paper like the Daily Mail not spitting fury over an issue where the EU can improve things.. Wonders never cease!

More science news, this time early gorillas.

The apparent discovery of a new species of great ape that roamed Africa 10m years ago may force scientists to rethink the earliest steps of human evolution. Fossil hunters working along the Afar rift in central Ethiopia have discovered remnants of teeth they claim belonged to a previously unknown species of gorilla they named Chororapithecus abyssinicus.

If confirmed, the discovery could redraw the evolutionary tree of primates, suggesting that humans and chimpanzees split from their gorilla-like ancestors earlier than thought. Geneticists have previously put the date at which the human and chimpanzee lineage split from gorillas at around 7m years ago, with humans and chimps diverging 5m years ago.

A team led by Gen Suwa at Tokyo University Museum recovered one canine and eight partial molars from rocky sediments that have been dated to about 10m years old. The teeth are believed to come from at least three apes of the same species that lived in what would have been a forested valley at the time. The teeth are close in shape and size to those of modern gorillas, with smaller versions of crests (which help with chewing tough, fibrous material) that are a characteristic of gorilla teeth.

However, Peter Andrews, former head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, said the researchers needed more evidence to be sure they had identified a new great ape species. "They're saying an awful lot from an awful little... These structures appear on at least three independent lineages of apes, including gorillas, and they could relate to a dietary shift rather than indicating a new genetic trait. It is stretching the evidence to base a time scale for the evolution of the great apes on this new fossil,"

So this discovery could be a significant discovery forcing us to rethink our very early origins or it could be it could be a false alarm. Such is the way of scientific discovery. It’s still fascinating stuff, though....

Diamonds are forever or at least a very long time

A clutch of ancient diamonds found in Western Australia have been identified as the oldest remnants of the Earth's crust ever recovered.

The stones, which are over 4bn years old, were found inside rocks lodged in the sediments of a coastal ridge known as the Jack Hills. It is hoped that they will shed light on the earliest period of the Earth's history, the Hadean period (the period between the planet's initial formation and the formation of the first rocks.). The oldest of the diamonds is thought to be 4.25bn years old. This would suggest that the Earth had cooled enough to form a crust of solid rock by that time, earlier than originally thought.

This is definitely in the “fascinating stuff” category. Geology isn’t my area of expertise (try mammalian physiology and microbiology, although university is a long time ago now...)

So bad it's.....oh who am I kidding it's bloody terrible

Easy Livin' by Uriah Heep, one of the worst heavy rock bands ever grace the world. Vocalist David Byron was executed in 1976 for crimes against fashion and hairstyles - no mean feat in the mid 70s...

So bad it's wonderful

Patrick Hernandez and his 1979 hit Born to be alive. What's not to love about it?

Wordless Wednesday - Mountnessing Windmill

This week's Wordless Wednesday entry is an Essex post windmill built in 1807.

70% addicted to blogging

70%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Mingle² - Dating Site

I suppose the other 30% is when I'm asleep...

Hat tip to Chris Paul

Obesity contagious?

According to a new study obesity is not just the result of over-eating and/or under-exercise; it may also be caught like a cold.

Human adenovirus-36 (left), which causes respiratory and eye infections, can also transform adult stem cells into the fat cells of adipose tissue. Scientists found that the virus has a specific gene that appears to control this fatty transformation. A previous study had found a high prevalence of adenovirus in overweight people; some 30 per cent of obese people had Ad-36 compared with 11 per cent of lean people, leading to suggestions that respiratory viruses may play an important role in triggering the tendency towards obesity in susceptible people with the sort of sedentary lifestyle that favours putting on weight.

The idea of obesity being, in some cases, the result of viral infection will be controversial. It does make me think whether an anti obesity vaccine can be too far behind. I’m sure it would be a huge money spinner.

Bad science (or just plain offensive science)

Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science column in the Guardian is essential reading for a Saturday morning. His last Saturday’s column, titled “Evolutionary regression back to 1866” concerned a recent paper on Down ’s syndrome (or just Down, both are correct) in the scientific journal Medical Hypotheses.

Down's Syndrome used to be called mongolism, a term (along with Mongolian idiocy) that was invented by John Langdon Down in 1866, We now know that the disorder is caused by chromosome 21 trisomy (where a person has a an complete or partial third copy of this chromosome) but in his study “Observations on the Ethnic Classification of Idiots" he put stated that the condition was an evolutionary regression to (what he viewed as a) less advanced form of humanity. Mongolism and Mongolian idiocy are, mercifully, now obsolete as descriptive terms having been superseded by the expression Down’s syndrome in the 1960s

Ben Goldacre was thus shocked to come across an article from 2007 entitled “Down subjects and Oriental population share several specific attitudes and characteristics”. Written by Federica Mafrica and Vincenzo Fodale the article puts forwards the idea that the parallels between Down syndrome and "oriental" people are deeper than a vague facial similarity. His Bad Science website publishes the article in full.

The article contains a number of statements that beggar belief in this day and age: -

• "Down subjects adore having several dishes displayed on the table, and have a propensity for food which is rich in monosodium glutamate."
  

• "The tendencies of Down subjects to carry out recreative-rehabilitative activities, such as embroidery, wicker-working, ceramics, book-binding, etc., that is renowned, remind [us of] the Chinese hand-crafts, which need a notable ability, such as Chinese vases, or the use of chopsticks employed for eating by Asiatic populations."

• "Down persons during waiting periods, when they get tired of standing up straight, crouch, squatting down, reminding us of the 'squatting' position ... They remain in this position for several minutes and only to rest themselves.... This position is the same taken by the Vietnamese, the Thai, the Cambodian, and the Chinese, while they are waiting at a bus stop, for instance, or while they are chatting."

• "There is another pose taken by Down subjects while they are sitting on a chair: they sit with their legs crossed while they are eating, writing, watching TV, as the Oriental peoples do."

The article ends:

• “Furthermore, it may be interesting to know the gravity with which the Down’s syndrome occurs in Asiatic population, especially in Chinese population. This study may offer the possibility of to know better the neuropathology mechanisms that are responsible of mental retardation in Down’s syndrome and to open a new diagnostic and therapeutic way for to operate precociously. Perhaps we could even clear Langdon of all blame from the accusation of being a ‘‘racist’’ for having first observed a sort of twinning which could be looked at in more depth in the light of modern knowledge on the heredity of features and on genic expression and inactivation.”

By the same token you could argue that anyone who likes buffet lunches sells at craft fairs, or does yoga must have a similar oriental connection too. I agree with Ben Goldacre’s when he described the article as “so fantastical and so thoughtlessly crass that it's impossible to experience anything like outrage”. Two thoughts also sprang to mind:

• Are Fodale and Mafrica having a laugh? If so it is a pretty bad joke. It was published in the February edition so it wasn’t an April fool’s day thing. Also I don’t think that the article was intended as a homage to Alan Sokal and his hoax paper "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity"

• Where was the peer review? Apparently, the journal http://www.harcourt-international.com/journals/mehy/ Medical Hypotheses is a forum for “radical ideas in medicine and related biomedical sciences”. It does not operate a peer review system - the editor simply chooses to publish what are judged to be the best papers from those submitted.

Vincenzo Fodale appears to be a reputable scientist. He is the “Aggregated Professor of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care” at the University of Messina and has published widely, mainly on anaesthesiology as would be expected, but also on other matters including “the cholinergic system in Down’s Syndrome” (the nerve cells that use Acetylcholine as a neurotransmitter). What the hell is he doing, penning such unscientific and downright offensive nonsense?

Also check Tom Hamilton's excellent post at Lets Be Sensible

Ivy - regeneration

Our garden has never been particularly neat. On the whole, we prefer a slightly wilder look so we let the plants do their own. One of our favourite features was the rich dense ivy growing up a boundary wall. It reached its peak last September (see above).

On 23 September the not-wife came home to find that the ivy had fallen down damaging a lot of well loved plants. It was unlikely to have come down of its own accord. We suspect that the neighbour pushed it down but we can't prove it,


11 months on and it's good to see that the ivy is well on its way to a full recovery. Next year it will be covered in berries again providing an autumnal treat for the local birds safe from our four feline hunters,

The last conviction under the Witchcraft Act 1735 - a correction

Last year I posted a short piece about Helen Duncan in which I stated that, when she was sentenced to Nnine months imprisonment in March 1944, she was the last person to be tried under the Witchcraft Act of 1735*. In fact she was the second last person to be tried and convicted under this act.

In fact the last person was Jane Rebecca Yorke, a medium from Forest Gate in East London. Yorke was arrested in July 1944 following reports that she was defrauding the public through exploiting wartime fears. She was found guilty in September of seven counts against the Act, fined £5 and placed on good behaviour for three years, promising to hold no more séances. The light sentence was due to her age of 72.

* The purpose of the Witchcraft Act of 1735 was to deal with persons pretending to have the power to call up spirits, or foretell the future (It was thus aimed at fraudulent mediums). People convicted under the Act were subject to fines and imprisonment rather than execution. It was superseded by the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951.

Ingatestone Hall

In praise of Essex part 6

When they think of Essex, far too many people automatically think the tired stereotypes: the loud drunken woman with bleached blonde hair and white stilettos; the ill-educated and violent lout in ostentatious clothing. Not everyone is like that (although like any other stereotype it is hard to shake off) and Essex is, of course, a county of many firsts.

One of these firsts (one that makes my chest with a dubious pride as an Essex-boy, born and bred) was the discovery in 2001 of the remains of a medieval woman that showed signs of syphilis.

The origin of the disease in Europe is has been debated for centuries but it had been thought that the disease was introduced after the Columban voyages to the Americas in the late 15^th Century. The bones, which were unearthed in the churchyard of St Mary & All Saints, Rivenhall were dated to between between 1296 and 1445.

Dr Simon Mays, who led the archaeological team, said: "This is very important discovery.This puts the theory that syphilis was not brought to Europe by Columbus on a much firmer footing." Documentary evidence had suggested that epidemics, which raged through Europe in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, could be connected with the return of Columbus from America.

The bones belonged to a woman aged somewhere between 25 and 50 years old. The roughness of the bones and the pitted surface indicate she had syphilis. Archaeologists from English Heritage believe this was the venereal form of the disease, caught through sexual intercourse.

So there you have an Essex first to be proud of. We will never know her identity but she paved the way for many other English pox sufferers in the centuries that followed.....

Seriously, Essex does not deserve its low grade image. Romford (which has been part of Greater London since the 60s) may not be that attractive but it's no different to suburbia elsewhere. The dormitory towns may lack some spirit but is there a dormitory town elsewhere that does? As for the behaviour of the inhabitants is it any different to that of anywhere else? Of course not

Essex may not have the rugged scenery of the Lake District but it does have its own beauty and its fair share of remarkable places and fine people. See here, here, here, here and here for parts 1-5

Gunnera

Gunnera at Ingatestone Hall.

Adriaan Vlok update

Last September I posted an item about Adriaan Vlok who had been a minister of Law and Order during the apartheid era. After the end of apartheid, Vlok became a born again Christian and last year had sought forgiveness of Frank Chikane, former head of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) when it was one of apartheid's fiercest critics. He did so by entering Chikane’s office and washing his feet (emulating Jesus’ act before the last supper).

Vlok was implicated in an attempt to poison Chikane by impregnating his clothes with poison during a trip to the USA in 1989. Yesterday he became the only senior politician from the apartheid era to be convicted after he pleaded guilty to attempted murder. Vlok received a 10-year suspended prison sentence under a plea bargain by admitting he ordered the security police to kill Chikane, Under the terms of the plea bargain Vlok is obliged to assist in any future prosecutions over crimes he knows about. The former police commissioner, Johan van der Merwe, and three other former high-ranking police officers also pleaded guilty and received suspended prison sentences of between five and 10 years.

Frank Chikane, who is now the director of President Thabo Mbeki's office, said that he hoped the guilty pleas would contribute to reconciliation. "I must say I am pleased that this thing is over and we can move forward. I hope that whatever happened today can be used as a way of resolving all the outstanding issues,"

Ashley Mote update

Earlier this year Ashley Scrote , sorry Mote, a former UKIP MEP distinguished himself by seeking to joining the Identity Tradition and Sovereignty Group within the European Parliament. This would have placed him in the company of a far right/national(ist) socialist rabble including Alessandra Mussolini and Vadim Tudor’s Greater Romania Party. Mr Mote has further distinguished himself by being found guilty of deception by falsely claiming benefits.


Mote was found guilty of eight charges of false accounting, eight of obtaining a money transfer by deception, four of evading liability and one of failing to notify a change of circumstances. Mote had run a business until its collapse in 1989. He then began to claim various benefits (as he was perfectly entitled to). However, he failed to notify the benefits agency when he began earning money through various enterprises, including spread betting on currency markets during the period of February 1996 and September 2002, during which period he received £73,000 in benefits.


Mote was elected to the European Parliament in 2004 as a member of UKIP which threw him out when they discovered the charges against him. He has continued to serve as an independent MEP. Responding to the verdict UKIP leader Nigel Farage said in a statement: "We are pleased that finally justice has been done... UKIP and the voters of the south east have been defrauded for three years by Mr Mote."


Mote has not yet been sentenced but something tells me that his career as an MEP will soon be terminated with extreme prejudice

Photo Hunt - Two

The theme of this week's PhotoHunt is Two. I returned to a favourite stamping ground for photographs, the churchyard of St Andrew's in Hornchurch, and noticed that there were a number of war graves with two occupants.


I have no idea who the Farrants were but looking at their age they must have been brothers. They died after the end of hostilities in November 1918. How sad to live through a bloody conflict like the Great War then die just after.

Mr Bruce died during WWI, his wife who also died just after the end of hostilities is buried with him.


The story of the men from Niue who served in the Maori Pioneer battalion is very sad. See this earlier post for more information

Perfidious Albion and the Iranian Squirrel Spies?

Another story in the Strange Days section of the new Fortean Times concerned the recent arrest by Iranian intelligence operatives of over a dozen squirrels found within the nation's borders. According to Iranian security, the rodents were serving as spies for Western powers determined to undermine the Islamic Republic. It’s another story I missed first time around.

"In recent weeks, intelligence operatives have arrested 14 squirrels within Iran's borders," state-sponsored news agency IRNA reported. "The squirrels were carrying spy gear of foreign agencies, and were stopped before they could act, thanks to the alertness of our intelligence
services." Iranian police commander Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqadam confirmed the report, saying that a number of squirrels had been caught bearing foreign spy gear within Iran's borders. "I heard of this but I have no specific knowledge on the subject," he said. He refused to give further details.

The reaction to the report on Tehran’s streets was varied – from disbelief to assigning guilt for the alleged infraction. “No, I had not heard about this, but it does not surprise me, foreign countries are always meddling in Iran,” said Hassan Mohmmadi, a fast-food vendor. Mohammadi asked me if I knew where the squirrels were from, and I told him that I didn’t know. Then he came to his own conclusions. “I bet they were British squirrels, they are the most cunning,” he replied. Meanwhile, an independent journalist, Sepher Sopli, said “I read this story in the papers and though it was very bizarre; what struck me as odd was that in this age of modern technology, people were relying on squirrels to do their spying,”

Well that’s what was reported but there seems to be no trace in the Iranian press. Iranians have a long tradition of blaming the UK (and for good cause in some cases) for most bad things that happen in their nation so the finger of suspicion would probably point our way. On the other hand why is my bullshit detector shrieking an alarm over this story... perhaps our moles were ineffectual

Perfidious Albion and the attack of the Iraqi Killer Badgers

I’m not sure how I missed this story when it broke last month. I only picked it up from the new edition (September) of the Fortean Times where it is the lead item in the Strange Days section. It is another example of the lunatic rubbish that people are prepared to believe (It’s not a trait peculiar to Iraqis by a long chalk).

Take a Western army wearing out its welcome. Add a large, sharp-toothed creature halfway between a bear and the Hound of the Baskervilles and provincial Iraqi newspapers eager to fill newsprint gaps left by vacationing government officials. What do you get....

... Apparently you get Basra residents convinced that the British Army has unleashed a veritable battalion of man- and cattle-eating badgers onto its unsuspecting populace as a final evil gesture before it departs the city later this summer. If that was not bad enough British soldiers have also planted snake eggs in waterways (that grow to 20 foot behemoths) and unleashed bomb-sniffing dogs purposefully infected with rabies.

The rumours seem to have started when a farmer claimed the beasts attacked his cattle. The story then ballooned with reports of at least one badger one killing humans. Things intensified when a video was circulated showing one of the animal captured and surrounded by nervous villagers. The British Army, currently as popular in Basra as a turd in a swimming pool were soon blamed, perhaps aided by the unfortunate coincidence that one of the British Army units serving in the city is named Badger Squadron.

A British military spokesman in Basra, rebutted all animal-related allegations: "Of course we categorically deny that we have released badgers into Basra. "It flies in the face of what we are primarily here to do, which is to set conditions that will enable the Iraqi security forces to have self-determination in their own security matters, which of course sets the conditions for good governance." A spokeswoman for the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office was somewhat more succinct in denying the rumor. "Don't be silly," she said, after sighing.

The culprit is the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratel Ratel or Honey Badger. It is also known as Al-Kirta locally. It has a wide distribution from Africa through to Easter Iran and is thus native to Iraq, although rare near Basra. According to Dr Ghazi Yaqub Azzam, deputy Dean of the Basra veterinary college, the animals were likely brought into contact with the local population as a result of efforts to re-flood marshland to the north of Basra city that had previously been drained by Saddam Hussein as part of his campaign against the Marsh Arabs. "Old people know of the Girta, but the younger generations are not as aware of these animals," according to Mushtaq Abdul-Aziz of Basra's Health Department.

The Honey Badger is a fearsome predator with a reputation for attacking animals much larger than itself, including humans so the stories of attacks are not beyond belief. Unfortunately for the conspiracy nuts in Iraq (and for Jihadists here who would jump on such a story – Why didn’t I read this first on Further Left?) it has a mundane explanation that has nothing to do with the British Army.

It's hard to telll where Robyn ends and Bebe starts

Robyn and Bebe in their favourite position - curled up together. This week's entry for the Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats. More cat photos at Plant pron and pussycats.

Herbsttag (Poppy)

Herbsttag

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense,
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.

Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now will not build one anymore.
Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long time,
will stay up, read, write long letters,
and wander the avenues, up and down,
restlessly, while the leaves are blowing.


Rainer Maria Rilke, Paris, September 21, 1902


I originally posted the poppy photo just a few days ago. I can thank Redwine for drawing this beautiful Rilke to my attention and suggesting that they go nicely together. She's quite right

Snail

I was surprised to see a snail making its way down the living room wall. It must have gotten in through the window.

Morning Bride - Time Delay

I saw Morning Bride play a few weeks agoand I really quite enjoyed their music - a bit of a departure from my usual listening.

Wordless Wednesday - Morning Glory

This week's Wordless Wednesday entry is another result of playing with Nikon Capture.

The Brock/Calvert Project Finally Sees the Light of Day

I have been neglecting my Yahoo groups of late. I missed a post from Voiceprint records on Monday announcing the release of the Brock/Calvert Project CD.

Brock

Dave Brock is the mainstay of Hawkwind and the last founder member still in the band. Robert Calvert (whose image I use as my avatar) was also a member of the band, co writing Silver Machine with Brock and appearing on some of the band’s best albums (Space Ritual, Quark, Strangeness and Charm and Hawklords). He was also a poet and playwright. Calvert died in 1988. I was very fortunate to see him twice at the Hammersmith Clarendon in the year before his death. I never saw him perform with Hawkwind.

Dave Brock had a cassette tape of Calvert’s poems for many years. Rob Ayling, the Managing Director of Voiceprint Records, and asked him to put some music to the poems. The album draws a line under marks the final collaboration between the two artists (I am sure something of the sort would have been done long before had Calvert not died). The album also features musical contributions from Hawkwind drummer Richard Chadwick, keyboardist Jason Stuart, and former bassist Alan Davey.

Calvert

Two of the pieces, Small Boy and Ode to a Timeflower appeared on last year’s sampler album Take Me To Your Future . The album, which is issued as a limited edition of 1,000, is available online via a dedicated website.

I've bought my copy. I would imagine it will sell out pretty quickly.

Phages to be used against MRSA

Scientists are about to test the effectiveness of bacteriophages (phages) against antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains such as MRSA. A cream containing phages specific for MRSA has been developed, clinical trials are planned next year. If these are successful then the cream could be available within three years.

Phages are viruses that are harmful to bacteria but otherwise safe. They work by injecting their own genetic material into target bacteria. The bacteria are then reprogrammed to produce more viruses, which then break out of their host, destroying it in the process. The therapeutic use of phages is not new: they were used in the former Soviet Union and might have been in widespread use in the West but they were superseded by antibiotics.

MRSA is one of an increasing number of microbes that are becoming immune to antibiotics. While it can be carried on the body without any ill effects, it can cause potentially lethal infections, especially in hospitals. There were 3,517 MRSA infections in British hospitals between October 2005 and March 2006. Treating hospital-acquired infections costs the NHS about £1 billion a year.

Nick Housby, chief executive of the Coventry-based biotech company Novolytics, which is carrying out the research, said that the aim was to use the phage cream as a preventative measure. But he added that it could also eliminate infections in affected patients within 24 hours. “We’re extremely optimistic,” he said. We know we can kill, in the laboratory, clinically relevant strains. It’s a question now of putting it into the right cream, in terms of the formulation, to make sure that it works.” Geoff Hanlon, an expert in the viruses at the University of Brighton, said: “We’re now finding antibiotics are becoming less useful. The climate is probably right to revisit bacteriophage therapy.”

Phages are more complicated to use that antibiotics but they can and do destroy bacteria. It may not be the answer for every bacterial infection but they certainly do have a lot of potential to treat a range of diseases.

More bad poetry

Alejandro Cao de Benos de Les y Pérez is the founder and president (or should that be Dear Leader?) of the Korean Friendship Association. He is thus one of North Korea’s main useful idiots (with the emphasis on idiot). Like other Juche groupies he also seems to have a liking for execrable poetry. This one was published in 2004 in a defunct KFA newsletter called Lodestar.

Beyond the Bektusan

The Motherland oppressed for so many centuries
Our beloved Leader transforms the history
The paradise on earth emerges
Korea salutes to the eternal Sun of the Juche

By the streets of Hyangsan
a child question to his father
How it is the life beyond the Bektu?

People kill for money
The egoism is king
There’s no peace neither harmony
just a nightmare, nothing else

Ten years of life are enough to pull a trigger
Ten thousand are needed so that the miracle takes place
What is our fortune?

From the sky came a great warrior
With a heart purer than the diamond
He rescued us from the suffering
Brought the happiness and pride
to this horizon

To live and to die following his steps
There will be no tear lakes that fill the emptiness
But guns and soldiers who will defend his conquest

Hmm this is just too easy. I will make this the last bit of bad poetry to appear here for a while (unless I deign to write some myself of course!)

Lefties ! The Day Has Come

I didn’t realise that today is International Left Handers Day. I suppose the not-wife and my sister should be out and proud and giving displays of manual sinisterity in the operation of scissors and corkscrews. I am mixed up on the issue myself: I started out writing with my right hand, then I fractured my wrist when I was eight and I started to use my left hand . I still use both hands to write but, sadly, my writing is an illegible scrawl whichever hand I use. Most other functions are performed with the left hand.

Interestingly left -handers are on the increase: in 1910 it was thought there that left-handers made up only about 3% of the population; now the figure is about 13%. Also, the days of stigma are over – teachers don’t force children to write with their right hands anymore (I hope they don’t) - but getting hold of some left handed items can be difficult. Oh Ned Flanders come to Romford and bring your Leftorium with you!

Marigold

50 of my favourite albums

I saw a 50 favourite albums list over at Some Random Thoughts and I decided to set out my own hideous choice. The only rules I set myself were no compilations and I must own the album. The list is in no particular order, although Space Ritual and Underwater Moonlight are possibly my two favourite albums

Space Ritual – Hawkwind

Underwater Moonlight – the Soft Boys

Nadir’s Big Chance – Peter Hammill

Seventeen Seconds – the Cure

I Often Dream of Trains – Robyn Hitchcock

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.. – David Bowie

Warehouse: Songs and Stories – Husker Du

Tenement Symphony – Marc Almond

London Calling – the Clash

Kimono My House – Sparks

Ocean Rain – Echo & the Bunnymen

Quark, Strangeness and Charm – Hawkwind

Underwater Moonlight – the Soft Boys

Moving Pictures – Rush

The Burning World – Swans

Daydream Nation – Sonic Youth

The Garden – John Foxx

As Above, So Below – Bedouin

Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters – Roberl Calvert

Horses – Patti Smith

It’s Alive – The Ramones

Iron Maiden – Iron Maiden

Levitation – Hawkwind

Jewels for Sophia – Robyn Hitchcock

Flip Your Wig – Husker Du

Shoot out the Lights – Richard and Linda Thompson

Murder Ballads – Nick Cave

Deadwing – Porcupine Tree

Roky Erickson and the Aliens – Roky Erickson & the Aliens

Key Lime Pie – Camper van Beethoven

Fegmania – Robyn Hitchcock

Hawklords – Hawklords

Sabotage – John Cale

Master of Reality – Black Sabbath

The Stooges – The Stooges

Yemenite Songs – Ofra Haza

Skins and Hearts – The Church

Stoneage Romeos – Hoodoo Gurus

Jehovakill – Julian Cope

Mask - Bauhaus

When I was a Boy – Jane Siberry

Lust for Life - Iggy Pop

Heroes- David Bowie

Ultravox! - Ultravox

Stockholm ’67 - The Electric Prunes

Peggy Suicide – Julian Cope

Abattoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus - Nick Cave

The Holy Bible – Manic Street Preachers

Dolittle – The Pixies

Ah well that killed some time. I'm at home today with a lost voice. The not -wife is delighted...

Stasi shoot to kill order discovered.

A document has been uncovered in Stasi archives in East Germany that proves for the first time that border guards had a clear shoot-to-kill order. The seven-page order, dated October 1, 1973 was found last week in the regional archive office in the eastern city of Magdeburg. It shows that the Ministry for State Security (aka the Stasi) had told guards that they must "stop or liquidate" would-be dissidents."Do not hesitate to use your firearm, not even when the border is breached in the company of women and children, which is a tactic the traitors have often used," it said.

The director of the government office that manages the thousands of Stasi files still in existence said the document offered iron-clad evidence that the top echelon of the regime expected that anyone trying to escape to the West should be killed. "The document is so important because the political leaders of the time continue to deny there was an order to shoot," Marianne Birthler told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

The orders were issued to a special Stasi unit which was posted alongside regular East German border guards in the Magdeburg region. Its job was to stop escape attempts by guards, who sometimes tried to flee with their families. It is believed that more than 2,800 East German soldiers crossed the border into the West. The unit was disbanded in 1985, four years before the Berlin Wall fell.

East Germany had a shoot to kill policy which led to the murder of hundreds (if not thousands) of people. It is inconceivable that an order from on high would not have existed so its discovery comes as no surprise. That doesn’t mean I don’t find it appalling...

Playing with Nikon Capture

Gravestones at St Andrews' in Hornchurch. I have just got Nikon capture and was having a play around. It's easier to use that photoshop but perhaps with rather less functionality.

A little dose of MacGonigall

This poem landed in my inbox this morning, courtesy of MacGonigall online'sGem of the Day service. This piece in praise of North Berwick makes me want to drop everything and go there right away!


BEAUTIFUL NORTH BERWICK
AND ITS SURROUNDINGS
by William McGonagall

North Berwick is a watering-place with golfing links green,
With a fine bathing beach most lovely to be seen;
And there's a large number of handsome villas also,
And often it's called the Scarborough of Scotland, as Portobello.

The greatest attraction is Tantallon Castle, worthy of regard,
About three miles distant to the eastward;
Which in time of war reoeived many a shock,
And it's deemed impregnable and built on a perpendicular rock

The castle was built in times unknown to history,
But 'tis said it belonged to the Douglas family;
And the inside is a labyrinth of broken staircases,
Also ruined chambers and many dismal places.

Then there's the Berwick Law Hill, 612 feet high,
Which no doubt is very attractive to the eye,
And skirted with a wood and a public walk,
Where visitors can enjoy themselves and have a social talk.

The wood is really lovely and enchanting to be seen,
In the spring or summer season when the trees are green;
And as ye listen to the innocent birds singing merrily there,
'Twill help to elevate your spirits and drive away dull care.

Then near by Tantallon is the fishing village of Canty Bay,
Where boats can be hired to the Bass Rock, about two miles away;
And the surrounding scenery is magnificent to see,
And as the tourists view the scene it fills their hearts with glee.

Then away! then away! pleasure-seekers in bands,
And view Gullane with its beautiful sands,
Which stretch along the sandy shores of Fife,
Where the tourist can enjoy himself and be free from strife

An even bigger poll lead

Gordon Brown will surely be pleased to see the opinion poll in today’s Sunday Times which gives Labour a 10-point lead over the Tories, the biggest lead since he took over as prime minister. The YouGov poll puts Labour on 42%, the Conservatives on 32% and the Liberal Democrats on 14%.


The poll indicates that the Brown honeymoon is far from over. Brown’s himself has a net positive rating of 48% ( 65% say he is doing well, 17% believe he is doing badly). This is not bad at all. I must admit that I was worried that the electorate would view Brown's succession as a case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss". It seems that they don't.

Robyn Hitchcock Box sets...

Robyn Hitchcock’s record company Yep Roc has announced that it will be releasing not one but two box sets of his music in the near future. October will see the release of I Wanna Go Backwards which includes expanded versions of his debut solo album Black Snake Diamond Role, I Often Dream of Trains and Eye, plus a two disc collection of outtakes b-sides and demo recordings called While Thatcher Mauled Britain Part 1 & 2.

Eye, Black Snake Diamond Role and I Often Dream of Trains will also be released individually in their expanded editions. The second box, tentatively titled Bad Case of History, is due early 2008. It will feature three Robyn Hitchcock and The Egyptians records: Fegmania, Gotta Let This Hen Out, Element of Light and an alternate/outtake collection called Dynasty.

This is good news for Robyn fans as many of these albums are long deleted. For me it will be a case of buying some of them for a third time, if I buy them of course. I suppose it will depend on what’s on While Thatcher Mauled Britain and Dynasty. I would imagine that Doctor Sticky will finally get its first legitimate CD release.... Oh yes, Yep Roc is also releasing Robyn's second solo album Groovy Decay for download. I will strongly advise avoiding it as it is shite!

My Dog’s got two noses. How does it smell? Very well actually

Explorer Colonel John Blashford-Snell has reported his discovery of a two-nosed dog (named Xingu) in Bolivia. The explorer came across the animal, named the Andean double-nosed tiger hound, while studying a crater on behalf of the Scientific Exploration Society.

Sightings of such dogs have been made before, but when the explorer Colonel Percy Fawcett told people in the UK in 1913 what he had seen nobody believed him. Colonel Blashford-Snell convinced vets in the UK of the dog's existence and a team including vets went back to study it. Tests have proved that it was not a physical malformation but a specific breed of double-nosed dog.


His theory is that the dog – which is unsurprisingly has a great sense of smell – is descended from the Pachon Navarro a breed of hunting dogs found in Spain at the time of the Conquistadors. Blashford-Snell described the dog as "Not a terribly handsome dog, but he's certainly very intelligent."

according to a BBC report the dog’s best friend was a wild pig called Gregory...Please someone tell me that today is 10 August and not 1 April!

Photo Hunt - Rows

The theme of this week's Photo Hunt is rows. This photos was taken in one of the magazines of Tilbury Fort in Essex.

Tilbury Fort was the where Queen Elizabeth delivered the immortal words "I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realms".

The barrels were empty of course....

PhotoHunt

Julian Cope - Beautiful Love

I hadn't played Peggy Suicide in a while but I was prompted to give it a listen by Pisces

Ted utterly disgusted by our untidiness

This week's entry for the Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats. More cat photos at Plant pron and pussycats.

Lucan alive Part 70

There are numerous reports in today's that the fugitive (or more probably dead) murderer Lord Lucan is alive and well and living rough in New Zealand with a cat and a possum for company. The report appeared in the Dominion Post.

Retired Metropolitan Police detective Sidney Ball has been asked to check a claim the claim that Lucan is in the small North Island town of Marton "I can't say more until I've completed my investigation. This man's neighbours are convinced that the guy living rough in an old Land Rover with a cat and a pet possum is Lucan," Mr Ball said. Rangitikei Mayor Bob Buchanan thinks they may be right. "I wouldn't be surprised to learn he is Lucan. There's quite a resemblance. And although he lives only about 10 minutes out of Marton, his mail goes to a PO box in Palmerston North." Neighbours say the man has an upper-class English accent and a military bearing like Lord Lucan, who was educated at Eton before serving in the Coldstream Guards. He is said to have arrived in New Zealand about the time Lucan disappeared and is also understood to be receiving money from property he owns in Britain.


The man himself, Roger Woodgate quickly denied he was hiding a secret identity. He was, he said, a former photographer who once worked for the Ministry of Defence and left the UK five months before Lord Lucan went missing. Mr Woodgate also pointed out he was five inches shorter than Lord Lucan and, at 62, is 10 years younger than the aristocrat would be now.

Shortly after Camilla Parker-Bowles denied she was in fact missing racehorse Shergar. David Cameron, in the hope of garnering a few more votes, hinted that he might in fact be Richey Edwards, the long lost fourth member of the Manic street Preachers.

The Swedish Chemist Sketch

Little things please little minds I know but this short sketch from Not the Nine O Clock News amused me (with apologies to Swedish readers of course!)

The end of the Baiji

Scientists have concluded that the Yangtze River dolphin (aka baiji) is now almost certainly extinct. No trace of the dolphin was found during a recent survey of its habitat

The scientists writing in Biology Letters journal blamed unregulated fishing as the main reason behind their demise. Sam Turvey of the Zoological Society of London, one of the paper's authors, said "The Yangtze river dolphin was a remarkable mammal that separated from all other species over 20 million years ago. This extinction represents the disappearance of a complete branch of the evolutionary tree of life and emphasises that we have yet to take full responsibility in our role as guardians of the planet. While it is conceivable that a couple of surviving individuals were missed by the survey teams, our inability to detect any baiji... indicates that the prospect of finding and translocating them to a reserve has all but vanished."

The scientists added that there were a number of human activities that caused baiji numbers to decline, including construction of dams and boat collisions. However, they concluded that the primary factor was probably unsustainable by-catch in local fisheries. “Unlike most historical-era extinctions of large bodied animals, the baiji was the victim not of active persecution but incidental mortality resulting from massive-scale human environmental impacts - primarily uncontrolled and unselective fishing," the researchers concluded.

The dolphin was the only remaining member of the Lipotidae, an ancient mammal family that from other marine mammals, including over 20 million years ago. The dolphin had a long, narrow beak and low dorsal fin; lived in groups of three or four and fed on fish.

This is not the first man made extinction – other animals have been hunted to extinction (Thylacine, Great Auk, Passenger Pigeon) and it is not going to be the last (Even in Europe one in six species of mammal, including the Iberian lynx and the monk seal, is endangered). I fear we will see many more such extinctions in our lifetimes

Wordless Wednesday - Steps at the Chase

This week's Wordless Wednesday entry was taken at the the Chase in Hornchurch (or rather between Hornchurch and Dagenham)

More Bob Mould - It's Too Late

From his second solo album Black Sheets of Rain -quite a long journey from Husker Du's debut Land Speed Record!

The Fenwick Weavers

I thought the cooperative movement started in the 1840s with the Rochdale Pioneers. I didn’t realise until today that the cooperative movement started off 80 years before in a village in Ayrshire.

On 14 March 1761, a group of 15 self-employed weavers gathered in the village of Fenwick and signed a document that bound them to be "honest and faithfull to one another ... and to make good & sufficient work and exact neither higher nor lower prices than are accustomed". The Fenwick Weavers Society quickly began lending money to needy members and their families – arguably making it the first recorded credit union. In the early 1800’s it set up a subscription library and an "emigration society" to help villagers make new lives in the New World.

"Cooperation has been around since the year dot, but making it official was different," said John McFadzean, who researched the weavers' history with fellow amateur historian John Smith. "....having the ability to set up the infrastructure to run a documented cooperative was quite a feat ... no one has anything like it predating this."

Left with a handful of members, the Fenwick Weavers Society folded in 1873 – in part a victim of its popular emigration society. Fenwick campaigners are now pressing the lottery and the Co-operative Society to help build a heritage centre in the village. The Co-op’s historians acknowledge that Fenwick was the first proven cooperative, as does Rochdale council.

I do like it when I learn something new. None of this diminishes what the Rochdale Pioners did of course.

Sanger's papers to be held at the Wellcome Library

Frederick Sanger is one of just four people to have won two Nobel Prizes . The others are Marie Curie – Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911; Linus Pauling - Chemistry 1954 and Peace in 1962; John Bardeen – Physics 1956 and 1972. Sanger won his first prize in 1958 for his work on protein structures, in particular the structure of insulin. His second award in 1980 (shared with Americans Paul Berg and Walter Gilbert) for work on DNA sequencing.

Sanger is one of Britain’s greatest scientists so it is pleasing to see that his notebooks used by have been saved for the nation. The Wellcome Trust is taking possession of the note books which give crucial insights into his thinking as he carried out work that transformed medical science. The DNA techniques of Sanger are now used by gene sequencers throughout the world. If his books were sold on the open market, they would be worth millions.

'Sanger was the father of genome sequencing,' said Clare Matterson of the Wellcome Trust. 'With his notebooks, we now have a clear record of his influences and thought processes. It would have been tragic if these notebooks had ended up outside Britain.' After collating the entries of the notebooks, the organisation will make them available for study to the public at the Wellcome Library in London. 'This will give insight into the thinking of one of our greatest scientists,' added Matterson.

Whereas other double Nobel prize winners like Marie Curie are rightly venerated, Sanger is virtually unknown in the United Kingdom This is in no small part due to his intense modesty. He is summed up by the biographer Georgina Ferry as 'Small, self-effacing and modest in the extreme, Sanger had determination, perseverance and the scientific equivalent of green fingers for developing new lab techniques and getting them to work. He was the kind of scientist who thinks with his hands.'

Then God Created Corkman

Peoples Republic of Cork is the website for satirical debate on all things relating to the Republic's second city. It also has a successful line in t-shirts. This one would definitely amuse a certain octogenarian. .

BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Temple, Neasden

One of the most beautiful buildings in London is some miles out of the city centre. Located between the new Wembley stadium and an Ikea superstore, the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir was opened in 1995. It was the first purpose built temple in Europe and is cited by the Guinness Book of Records as the largest Hindu temple outside of India.


I visited the temple on Friday with a group of work colleagues. I'm glad I went - I've always meant to visit the temple. Sadly, photography was forbidden inside the Mandir itself so no pics of then inside.

Well it amused me...

Ryle Dwyer included this (probably apocryphal) story was included in his column in yesterday’s Irish Examiner .

Charles Haughey was Taoiseach (Prime Minister, pron. Tea Shock) when the Republic of Ireland team made its first appearance at a World Cup finals in 1990. He went to the Irish dressing room to congratulate the dejected players after their quarter final defeat at the hands of Italy.

Some of the players were eligible to to play through Irish ancestry and were not as au fait with certain issues as perhaps they should have been:

“Who the f*ck is he?” Tony Cascarino asked Niall Quinn.

“For God’s sake,” Quinn replied. “That’s the Taoiseach.”

“Who is it, Cas?” asked Andy Townsend.

“I dunno,” Cascarino replied. “Quinny says he owns a tea shop.”

Well I thought it was funny!

Krasni Elvis

Or something like that anyway. My Russian "O Level" is 28 years in the past. Every once in a while the name Dean Read pops up, this time in a Guardian report about a documentary documentary of his life that opened in German cinemas this week.


Dean Reed was pretty well unknown in the US and Western Europe but he had a huge following in Latin America and then behind the Iron Curtain. Born in Colorado in 1938, he was groomed to be a teen idol by Capitol Records in the late 50’s. While he had some modest success with songs like Our Summer Romance and Whirly Twirly his career never really took off in the United States. However Our Summer Romance was a hit across Latin America. He moved to Argentina where he made numerous albums, movies and even had his own tv show. It was while in Argentina that he became politicised and started to protest against oppression, poverty and US foreign policy. He was deported from Argentina in 1966.



At around the same time his popularity behind the iron curtain began to rise. In 1966 he played an concert in Moscow in 1966, providing the audience with a mixture of folk songs, show tunes and rock and roll. For the next six years he commuted between South America, Western (making a few spaghetti westerns in Italy) and Eastern Europe before settling in East Germany.

The East Germans apparently thought they had scored a massive coup when he came to live there. The government gave him a lakeside residence for which he paid a peppercorn rent, and in return Reed visited schools, factories and workers' clubs where he sang his pro-Marxist protest songs. However, by the 80s his star was well and truly on the wane. His declining popularity apparently made Reed disillusioned with the communist system but this did not stop him from defending the building of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in a 60 Minutes interview for CBS in 1986. Following the interview, Reed received large amounts of hate mail from the US branding him a traitor (surprisingly throughout the whole of his residence in East Germany he filed tax returns with the IRS) and a mediocre talent. Six weeks later, he was found dead in a lake near his home near Berlin. Officially his death was ruled to be an accidental drowning. Suicide now appears to be the real cause of death.

Dean Reed’s popularity behind the Iron Curtain is described by Artemy Troitsky, (who is himself described as the Soviet Union's first and best rock critic) thus: "No living western performer of rock'n' roll ever came to the Soviet Union Dean Reed was young. He played guitar. He was American. Rock 'n' roll meant a lot to absolutely every Soviet kid. It made them feel free and different from their parents. It was also like a door into another way of life, into the west. We didn't care about politics, but we did care about what an awful thing is official Soviet pop music. The west was something good. And Dean Reed wore cowboy boots and he came from the land of the free and the home of the brave and Chuck Berry."

In essence Reed brought escapism to a part of the world starved of western music. On the other hand his popularity appears to have reflected changing moods in Eastern Europe. By the 1980s Reed became identified as part of the establishment (in no small part due to his relentless support of the system). His fall from popular grace was underlined in early 1986 when a benefit concert was held in Moscow for the victims of Chernobyl; Reed showed up but no one asked him to play. Victor Grossman, an American who had defected to East Germany in the early 50s and who was a friend of Reed's, said: "People who were becoming disillusioned with the system didn't like somebody who supported it. Fewer people went to his concerts, and it's not so nice being a star playing in an empty theatre. By the mid-1980s, Dean heard the doors shutting one at a time."

Cut to the chase and Dean Reed’s life seems to have been a typical story of success then waning popularity and an early death (albeit a story without much of the apparent excess of the typical rock star). He nailed his colours to the mast of a despicable system and paid the price. He was not a hero, he was not much of a performer but I suppose he was a curiosity.

Much of this post is culled from the Dean Reed Website and this article in particular. Not forgetting Wikipedia of course!

I'm not sure why it itrritates me but it does...

In my view the Monarchy is an outdated institution – the UK would be far better with an elected head of state (although as a priority the abolition of the monarchy is on par with the compulsory eating of asparagus at breakfast). In addition, I parted company with the Catholic Church over 25 years ago. Why then does it annoy me that a minor royal may have to renounce his right of succession if he marries a catholic?

Peter Philips, the son Of Princess Anne and 10^th in line to the throne has announced his engagement to Autumn Kelly, a Canadian Catholic. If Peter Philips wishes to retain his right of succession (prospect of him ever gaining the throne is remote – Princes Charles, William, Harry, Princes Andrew, Edward their kids and his mum would all have to die before that would happen) he would either have to cancel the marriage or she would have to become a member of the Church of England

The problem lies with the Act of Settlement 1701 which was intended to disbar Catholic descendants of James II (our last Catholic monarch) from the throne. Under the Act of Settlement Anyone becoming a Catholic or even marrying one can never ascend to the throne. Former Tory minister John Gummer (a convert to Catholicism himself), said: "It is inhuman in the 21st century for anyone to demand this." Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the primate of Scotland, told The Tablet (a Catholic newspaper) that he had every sympathy for Mr Phillips, "Whether a person is fortieth or second in line to the throne, it is wrong that they be deprived of that right because they have fallen in love and chosen to marry a Roman Catholic," he said.

The Act was made law in a time when the succession was, let’s say, “hotly debated” and at a time when religious allegiance came with a lot of political baggage. However, those days are dead and gone (when did we last see a Jacobite army pouring out of the Highlands to put a Stewart on the throne?) and the prospect of a minor royal (or even a major one) being a “papist” will not exactly rock the foundations of this country. Had Autumn Kelly been a Methodist, Jew, Muslim, Zoroastrian, Satanist, or Pastafarian there would have been no constitutional problem. A short piece of legislation rectifying this anachronism is in order.

Mimi has been a sick cat

This week's entry for the Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats. More cat photos at Plant pron and pussycats.

Also this week's entry for Photo Hunt. (the subject is funky). Why Funky? well Mimi has been a sick little cat - vomiting and severe diarrhoea. Being disabled, she has poor balance and has fallen over, well you can imagine what happened. As a result she has been a bit smelly, hence funky. Luckily she is on the mend.

First word, three syllables: first syllable is...

It would appear that Orang-utans would be hits at parlour games, well charades anyway. A study indicates that their communication resembles that game.

Researchers from St Andrews University have shown that Orang-utans intentionally modify or repeat their signals to get their messages across. The study involved six orang-utans living in two zoos. Richard Byrne, and an author of the study, said: “When we communicate, we routinely use our knowledge of what our audience knows. We wanted to find out whether the great apes do the same thing."

Researchers set up a situation where six captive orang-utans were presented with a keeper who had treats, such as bananas, and blander food, such as leeks or celery. The animals gestured to attract the keeper's attention so the tasty treat would be passed to them. Once the orang-utans had done this, the keepers did one of three things: they either handed them the treat, handed them the bland food or handed them half the treat. The scientists then recorded their reactions.

"When the keeper gave the orangutan the really nice food, that was the end of it," explained Professor Byrne. "But when the keeper pretended to fail to understand the original gesture and gave the wrong food, the orangutans stopped using the gestures they had used before and started using some different gestures. When the keeper half understood and gave the orangutan part of the treat, they started to repeat the same gestures that they had used, but they would repeat them even more enthusiastically."

Given that orangutans are the most distantly related great ape to humans, the scientists believe that all great apes would prove to have this skill. More evidence that we are just shaved apes?

In my case a bit less shaved than others...

Lembit Opik has no wish to be London Mayor non-story

Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik says he has no intention of standing to be the party's candidate for mayor of London. The MP for Montgomeryshire replied that he was "flattered... Me, Boris and Ken would be a splendid contest". But he later told the BBC that he had decided against entering the race. "It's ever so flattering. If I was a London MP I would stand like a shot. The only issue is my constituency is 205 miles away”

Mr Opik is currently the Lib Dem spokesman on business, has had a long-term interest in the risk to Earth from meteorites. But he has filled many tabloid pages over the past year as a result of the ending of his engagement to weather presenter Sian Lloyd and subsequent relationship with Gabriela Irimia from the Cheeky Girls (not one of Romania's finest cultural exports).

To be honest I have a soft spot for Lembit but not soft enough to vote for him if he stood for mayor..It says a lot about the UK’s fixation on C-list celebrities that he is famous for his choice of girlfriend rather than his track record as an MP. Oh to hell with the po-faced stance. This post was merely an excuse for a gratuitous photo of Opik and the Cheeky Girls. Yes. I’m shallow too...

Mission of Burma - That's When I reach for My Revolver

I was one of those who came across Mission of Burma courtesy of the Moby cover of this song. Ah well better late than never!

Wordless Wednesday - Horses

This week's Wordless Wednesday entry features two of the horses that roam the Chase in Hornchurch (or rather between Hornchurch and Dagenham)