In an article about the best sort of music to listen to in a good or bad mood…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22553467
…the titles of the ‘country and western’ songs have to be seen to be believed.
They’ve missed my two favourites though:
‘You’re the reason our kids are ugly’
and
‘Mama get the hammer, there’s a fly on papa’s head’
…which I think sounds quite a jaunty title.
Any other good ones, fill in the space below:
Many years ago when I had a housemate or two who could cook, I was left on my own for the Summer holidays. There was such worry about my inability to fend for myself that the last one out the door left a recipe for ‘white sauce’ stuck to the fridge. This caused the happy accident of neatly dividing my academic department into two very telling camps: “What do you mean you don’t know how to make a white sauce?” and “Why would you ever need to make a white sauce?”
This “everyone knows / no one needs to know” attitude came to mind when I spotted this as a link from a new story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/search
I recommend van Dyck.
I could (and will) spend many happy hours looking up otherwise distant paintings, reminiscing about pictures seen and planning journeys to see more. I can see that it’s not everyone’s idea of enjoyment. I know people who wouldn’t understand how people wouldn’t spend every waking moment in a gallery. But the important thing above all that is to have the opportunity to do it at all!
And while my cooking hasn’t entirely improved, I’ve never been malnourished!
A round up of some of today’s April Fool’s jokes:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2013/apr/01/april-fools-jokes-2013-the-best-on-the-web
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/01/world/april-fools-2013/?hpt=hp_c4
The real April Fools are in smallprint along the side:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21993582
I squeaked and bounced a lot while exploring google maps’ pirate map addition.
And I have a special interest in this one:
http://www.thelocal.se/46930/20130401/#.UVnwozcTRCi
But something that is not an April Fool was the end of the Classic FM top 300 countdown. It was controversial, there were tweets either way, but it was a vote and the results were pieces of classical music performed by symphony orchestras. Number 1 was Rachmaninoff yet again, which I can see is good but which I don’t think is as good as Number 2 ‘The Lark Ascending’. But numbers 5 and 3 were the theme from Skyrim and ‘Erith’s theme’ from Final Fantasy, both videogames. Number 5 could only be described as ‘epic’ and as the presenter noted, twenty years ago the inclusion of film soundtracks was controversial. Time moves on: Mozart wrote from the public and today this is what the public want.
Number 5 was greeted in our kitchen with approval and the words ‘WHAT is that?!’ Guesses included Lord of the Rings, Les Misérables (opening scene), anything by Hans Zimmer… so here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-_g8NZr1tA
In January I attended a conference in which there was a wonderful lecture about the reconstruction of medieval dentistry through experimental archaeology.
Just consider that for a moment.
Who exactly do you get to volunteer…?
In context though it was a comparison, undertaken by a suitably qualified medical man, of the medieval method and how effective it was, given our modern understanding.
On the face of it, it would appear to Joe Public that the surgeon was superstitious, believing in monsters when we now know there aren’t any. He believed in the ‘toothworm’, a little creature that lived in the gums causing decay and pain by burrowing upwards. Depictions show the worm at work.
But the trained modern eye can see that a ‘superstition’ can be grounded in reality. The medieval surgeon says that the only way to stop the pain is to remove the worm. To do that, and to prove he’s done it, there must be a real worm. And there is. The ‘toothworm’ is the slender white nerve that runs through the root of the tooth.
Well, I have a post-script.
Having just had some dental surgery, I had the dubious pleasure of stitches in my mouth for the first time. These were done neatly with a white thread. They’ve just come out, by themselves, as they were meant to. They had been hidden away but sore, so when I finally spat the last ones out and the pain stopped, I was holding my very own ‘toothworm’.
While sitting in a pub yesterday the new Pope was announced. We did note a certain similarity between him and Jim Bowen, quizmaster of Bullseye, a TV show that everyone of a certain age grew up seeing at Grandma’s on a weekend. But there was another similarity that I couldn’t quite put my finger on…
Then I realised: he looks like the actor Jonathan Pryce!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21789029
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000596/
The irony of this being that I can’t see Pryce without thinking of the TV movie that I saw at school during sixth form: the life story of Martin Luther, with Pryce in the title role!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0451115/
It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow.
In heady celebration, Argos have launched a mini catalogue. The front page is dominated by a heart and the reminder that it’s Valentine’s Day. Next to it they have their special offer: £100 off hoovers.
I’m sure she’s gonna love that.
Nearly as good at Moonpig’s offer for fresh Valentine’s Roses ending in January.
A book I heartily recommend is ‘The Unadulterated Cat‘ by Terry Pratchett and Gray Jolliffe. It outlines the campaign and criteria for the ‘Real Cat’.
At the weekend I met a Proper Cat, a cat that didn’t get much realer. With a permanent scowl and look of malevolence, this longhaired tortoiseshell is a magnificent specimen.
I knew it was my kind of cat when I heard that it took four grown men to get it into the catbox to leave the cat home.
