Langer : the finest word in the Corkonian lexicon

A Langer

While I was bor in sunny Romford both of my parents are from Cork. My father is from the City, my mother is from a village not far from the Kerry border. My father in particular is a Corkonian first and an Irishman a distant second. Despite having left Cork nearly 70 years ago it does not take him long to revert to the glorious sing-song accent that is peculiar to the city.

Cork has its own slang. Perhaps the jewel in the crown is the word langer. It has several meanings:

• It is the rough equivalent of wanker in the sense that it is used to label someone as an idiot

• It is also used as an alternative expression for the membrum virilis

• In the plural it describes being in a state of considerable :”refreshment”

In the past it was also used to describe someone who would jump on to the back of a cart or other vehicle in order to gain cost free transportation

Unfortunately it is also a not uncommon surname which may have originated as a nickname for a tall person (it might also have bee used to describe someone from a langa – a cultivated area).

Whatever the origin, it is a name that will give a smile to any Corkonian!

BIFFO - a fecking huge langer

According to an article in the wonderful website the People’s Republic of Cork. The word is about to enter the Collins English dictionary. Unfortunately it will be described, much to the chagrin of the writer, as Irish rather than Cork slang!


Interestingly the author, Finbarr Barry (Now that is a very Cork name!) states that the actual origin of the expression dates back to the 19th Century when the Munster Fusiliers (the regiment my grandfather served in briefly in WWI before he was take prisoner in August 1914) were posted to India

The soldiers were often plagued by the Langur Monkey in the jungles. The soldiers then used the word ‘langur’ to refer to people they despised when they returned. The wild untameable behaviour of the jungle monkeys was often compared to those monkeys emerging from the pubs of Cork at closing time and also received the name “langur”.

I did not know this. It is a wonderful explanation. I hope that it is true.

langers

The article goes on to describe how the word has gone from being a uniquely Cork expression to one that is gaining ground across the country. It is becoming less of a pejorative term and more of a term of robust endearment in the process.

It is well worth a read, a most interesting and enjoyable article from a much loved website

The cat’s lap – a thing of elegance (naturally!)

My thanks go to Claude who sent me a link to this article in the full knowledge that it would be of interest to me.

According to the Physorg website researchers at MIT, Virginia Tech and Princeton University have analyzed the way domestic and big cats lap and found that felines of all sizes take advantage of a perfect balance between two physical forces.

It was known that when they lap, cats extend their tongues straight down toward the bowl with the tip of the tongue curled backwards like a capital "J" to form a ladle, so that the top surface of the tongue actually touches the liquid first. This is known because of the work of Doc Edgerton, who used strobe lights in photography to stop action, filmed a domestic cat lapping milk in 1940.

Recent high-speed videos made by the team revealed that the top surface of the cat's tongue is the only surface to touch the liquid. Cats, unlike dogs, aren't dipping their tongues into the liquid like ladles after all. Instead, the cat's lapping mechanism is far more subtle and elegant (of course!!). The smooth tip of the tongue barely brushes the surface of the liquid before the cat rapidly draws its tongue back up. As it does so, a column of milk forms between the moving tongue and the liquid's surface. The cat then closes its mouth, pinching off the top of the column for a nice drink, while keeping its chin dry.

The liquid columnis created by a delicate balance between gravity, and inertia. The cat instinctively knows just how quickly to lap in order to balance these two forces, and just when to close its mouth

The domestic cat averages about four laps per second, with each lap bringing in about 0.1 milliliters of liquid, the big cats, such as tigers, know to slow down. They naturally lap more slowly to maintain the balance of gravity and inertia.

The work began three-and-a-half years ago when Stocker, who studies the fluid mechanics of the movements of ocean microbes, was watching his cat lap milk. That cat, eight-year-old Cutta Cutta, stars in the researchers' best videos and still pictures. And like all movie stars (Cutta Cutta means "stars stars" in an Australian aboriginal language), he likes being waited on. With their cameras trained on Cutta Cutta's bowl, Stocker and Reis said they spent hours at the Stocker home waiting on Cutta Cutta … to drink, that is. But the wait didn't dampen their enthusiasm for the project, which very appropriately originated from a sense of curiosity.

"Science allows us to look at natural processes with a different eye and to understand how things work, even if that's figuring out how my cat laps his breakfast," Stocker said. "It's a job, but also a passion, and this project for me was a high point in teamwork and creativity. We did it without any funding, without any graduate students, without much of the usual apparatus that science is done with nowadays."

"Our process in this work was typical, archetypal really, of any new scientific study of a natural phenomenon. You begin with an observation and a broad question, 'How does the cat drink?' and then try to answer it through careful experimentation and mathematical modeling," said Reis, a physicist who works on the mechanics of soft solids. "To us, this study provides further confirmation of how exciting it is to explore the scientific unknown, especially when this unknown is something that's part of our everyday experiences."

It comes as no surprise to this cat lover that mogs have an elegant solution to the problem of drinking. Dogs on the other hand take a hit and hope attitude to the problem.,, It’s a bit like the difference between drinking tea from a china cup (with little finger extended) and quaffing a mug of beer (and largely missing!).

Ach it probably won't be long until the Genus Felidae (and perhaps genus Pantera) develop the opposable thumb from their dew claws.... Then we are truly doomed!

Aother bit of Peter Gabriel

A trip to the doctor (fish)

It seems that the craze for fish pedicures has come to Havering. The spas use a type of fish known as the Doctor Fish (Garra rufa) which is native to the Middle East, particularly Iran, Iraq and Turkey. The fish "nibble" at dead skin leaving healthy skin alone. skin feels softer after and certainly looks better

The fish have been used in Turkey to treat psoriasis for some time. In recent years their use as a spa treatment has started to spread across the world, with the first spas opening in the UK earlier this year.

Here they are used to provide pedicures but one place in Hornchurch, solesensation, has a body immersion bath - it claims to be the first in the UK (I am not sure if this is true or not)

Being a psoriasis sufferer I have been intrigued by the doctor fish treatment ever since I first saw it on tv some years ago, Now that there is a place locally to try out the treatment I have booked a session on Monday (I was quite lucky as only one session is offered a day and the salon was featured on some Essex reality show on ITV which means that it is quite popular).

I am quite looking forward to giving it a try. I am under no illusions that it is a miracle cure - or any real cure at all - but if you are covered in patches of dead, flaky skin which sloughs off in bed and in my clothes as I am, any port in a storm! That and my hair looks like it has dandruff's big, ugly brother despite using methotrexate (an anti cancer drug which is effective in treating skin disieases but takes a while to kick in) and a strong steroid. Vitamin A cream.

So I am intrigued to see if it can relieve some of the worse symptoms and not make me bleed as exfoliation does. One thing is for sure, ther are going to be some Garra rufa who will think that Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter and their birthdays have been rolled into one!

I will report back on Monday.

Sakineh declares herself a sinner in a penitence fest on Iranian tv

Iranian state TV has broadcast a statement from Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani in which she described herself as a "sinner".

She also accused Mina Ahadi, an activist of the German-based International Committee Against Stoning (Icas), of spreading her story around the world.

Ahadi who was instrumental in bringing Mohammadi Ashtiani's case to the world's attention, was as "a communist dissident exiled in Germany", who had taken advantage of the case for her own benefit.

Two German journalists arrested in Iran last year "confessed" during the broadcast that they had received orders from Ahadi.
During the programme,

Mohammadi Ashtiani reiterated her previous televised "confessions" that she was involved in the murder of her husband. "I am a sinner," she said.

Her face was blurred and the interview, conducted in her native Azeri language, was subtitled in Farsi. Previously, Iranian officials have tried to distract attention from the sentence of stoning by portraying Mohammadi Ashtiani as a murderer and not mentioning the charge of adultery over which she has been imprisoned since 2006.

The programme said that Mohammadi Ashtiani's case was promoted around the world by her lawyers, Mohammad Mostafaei, and later Kian, because "they were looking for excuses to claim asylum in western countries". Mostafaei, Mohammadi Ashtiani's first lawyer, was arrested and subsequently forced to leave Iran after giving interviews to foreign press including the Guardian. He is now in Norway.

Kian, a government appointed lawyer for Mohammadi Ashtiani, began to represent her after Mostafaei, but contrary to the government's will, became outspoken and defended her.
Kian, who has been jailed since October, claimed that Mohammadi Ashtiani was beaten and tortured before appearing on TV for the first time.

Qaderzadeh, a bus conductor in Tabriz, said in the programme: "He [Kian] told me to say she [Mohammadi Ashtiani] was tortured … Unfortunately, I listened to him and told lies to the foreign media.

In response to his remarks, Kian said in the programme: "Telling lies to foreign media was my recommendation to Sajjad."

Call me a tad scetpical but I somehow sense that Sakineh was under just a little duress to make these statements… Clearly the scum who run Iran are pissed off that they couldn’t have their stoning.

Meanwhile Ahadi told the Guardian: "They are not just attacking me, they are attacking our committee and everybody who successfully brought her case to the world's attention and, at least for now, managed to stop Iran form stoning her. If it wasn't for the world's attention, Sakineh would have been executed by now, that is what's making them angry."

The two German journalists who appeared on the programme, who were not identified, admitted to their "illegal acts". One of them said: "Mina Ahadi sent me to Iran because she knew she would benefit from my arrest and I'll sue her when I get back to Germany."

Iran's English language TV channel, Press TV, reported on Monday that according to Iran's East Azerbaijan Prosecutor Malek Ajdar Sharifi "the behaviour of the Germans showed they entered Iran as spies and tried to create negative atmosphere against Iran and the East Azerbaijan judiciary."

Well I suppose it makes a change from having spies under British control… For once Uncle Napoleon has a different target.

And now some Ramones

Games without frontiers

Gerry Adams MP TD?

Gerry Adams has announced that he intends to move his base of operations fro the North of Ireland to the South.

In Sunday’s Observer it was reported that he will seek election to the Dail in the Louth constituency at the next general election.

Adams will step down as an MLA (a member of the Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly) he plans to retain his Westminster seat even though he does not attend the House of Commons.

Adams said: "As leader of the only all-Ireland party with an all-island mandate, I have a choice to make whether to stay in West Belfast, a place that I love, or to seek a mandate in another constituency in the south.

"West Belfast is my home. It is where Colette and our family are and where I live. But after thoughtful consideration, and with the support of colleagues, I have decided to put my name forward for Louth. If elected for this constituency I will work and stay here and travel home when possible."

The party has a seat in the Louth constituency but but the current TD, Arthur Morgan, announced he would be stepping down at the next election to concentrate on his business.

However, there is no guarantee that Adams would retain the seat or find himself in a multi-party coalition government. In the most recent Irish general election Adams performed disastrously in a live leaders' debate on RTE television in which he was unable to answer questions on economic policies in the republic.


For what it’s worth I would not welcome Adams’s move to the politics of the Republic (but then I don’t have a vote in the Dail elections). It is not only because of my extreme dislike of Sinn Fein (to be fair I also dislike the DUP with a passion too) the man has become rather a non-entity since the peace process in the 90s


Adams has had the chance to transform himself from the talking head of a terrorist group to an able politician. In my view he has failed. Martin McGuinness on the other hand has been rather a revelation. Much as I dislike him personally McGuinness has shown himself to be quite an able politician. While I would rather not have seen him and Paisley holding the reins of power in Northern Ireland their working relationship was a pleasant surprise.

There will be an election in Ireland next year or in 2012 at the latest. While it it likely that Fianna Fail may face a decimation akin to that meted out on the Tories in 1997, there is little prospect of Sinn Fein being invited to join the next government. They may well increase their representation but as it stands the biggest winner (if not the outright winner) looks to be the Labour Party. A Fine Gael/Labour coalition looks to be the likeliest outcome. This time Labour will probably have a far bigger role in the coalition than it has in the past.

As for Adams he will be a little fish in a rather bigger pond if elected.

A bit of Vonnegut that brings a smile to my face

I posted this excerpt back in 2007 as a wy of marking Vonnegut's passing. A recent comment on that post has brought it back to me and this is why I considered Vonegut to be a UNSECO world heritage site in himself:

The Dancing Fool by Kilgore Trout (as outlined in Breakfast of Champions)

A flying saucer creature named Zog arrives on Earth to explain how wars could be prevented and how cancer could be cured. Zog brings the information from his home planet, Margo, where the natives converse by means of farts and tap dancing.

Zog lands at night in Connecticut. He no sooner touches down than he sees a brush-fire spreading toward a house. He rushes into the house -- farting and tap dancing -- warning the people about the terrible danger they're in. And the head of the house brains Zog with a golfclub.

As I said then we shall not see his likes again

Beer – the origin of civilisation!

Once again the Fortean Times breaking News section contains gold. On Friday it had a link to a Livescience article concerning the role that beer may have played in the rise of civilisation.


Some archaeologists believe that Stone Age farmers domesticated cereals not so much to fill their stomachs but to turn the grains into beer. This is not a new argument but now one archaeologist believes that the evidence is getting stronger.

That people went to great lengths to obtain grains despite the hard work needed to make them edible, plus the knowledge that feasts were important community-building gatherings, support the idea that cereal grains were being turned into beer, said archaeologist Brian Hayden at Simon Fraser University in Canada.

"Beer is sacred stuff in most traditional societies," said Hayden, who is planning to submit research on the origins of beer to the journal Current Anthropology.

The advent of agriculture began in the Neolithic Period of the Stone Age about 11,500 years ago. Once-nomadic groups of people had settled down and were coming into contact with each other more often, spurring the establishment of more complex social customs that set the foundation of more-intricate communities.

Archaeological evidence suggests that until the Neolithic, cereals such as barley and rice constituted only a minor element of diets, most likely because they require so much labor to get anything edible from them — one typically has to gather, winnow, husk and grind them, all very time-consuming tasks.

Hayden said that he had seen that hard work for himself. "In traditional Mayan villages where I've worked, maize is used for tortillas and for chicha, the beer made there. Women spend five hours a day just grinding up the kernels."

However, sites in Syria suggest that people nevertheless went to unusual lengths at times just to procure cereal grains — up to 40 to 60 miles (60 to 100 km). One might speculate, Hayden said, that the labour associated with grains could have made them attractive in feasts in which guests would be offered foods that were difficult or expensive to prepare, and beer could have been a key reason to procure the grains used to make them.

"It's not that drinking and brewing by itself helped start cultivation, it's this context of feasts that links beer and the emergence of complex societies," Hayden said.

"In traditional feasts throughout the world, there are three ingredients that are almost universally present," he said. "One is meat. The second is some kind of cereal grain, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, in the form of breads or porridge or the like. The third is alcohol, and because you need surplus grain to put into it, as well as time and effort, it's produced almost only in traditional societies for special occasions to impress guests, make them happy, and alter their attitudes favourably toward hosts."

The brewing of alcohol seems to have been a very early development linked with initial domestication, seen during Neolithic times in China, the Sudan, the first pottery in Greece and possibly with the first use of maize.

Well this is good enough for me. It is delightful to know that beer, rather than being the cause of society’s ills in fact the cause of society’s creation!

I would raise a glass myself but for the fact that I am not allowed to drink alcohol at present… Bah!