Don’t stare at the Angel of Death, honey
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Stoaty, how can you NOT be blogging the great liberal train wreck that is Obamacare?” I’ve soaked up every article I can find this week, I promise. I’ve enjoyed — I have so totally enjoyed — my Schadenfreude McNuggets Happy Meal.
But brain simply refuses to absorb the scope of what I’m looking at. Popular culture during and just after the Black Death (the Big One, 1348) is surprisingly free of references to the Black Death.
“Holy shit, dude — what just happened to us?” “Shhhh, dude. Shhhhhh.”
I mean, I’d enjoy this fustercluck a lot more if I could see how a healthy medical service will come out the other side.
Oh, I know what else you’re thinking. “Stoaty,” you’re thinking, “you’re covered by the NHS now. What do you care?”
Well. Yes. I’m covered. The NHS isn’t truly awful, though it is awful in parts. Perhaps some day you’d like me to expand on that. But it’s just not…
Okay, for example — by law, a doctor’s appointment is ten minutes long here. If you think you have an especially thorny medical problem, you can book yourself for twenty.
Well, the British Medical Association’s GP negotiating team has just renegotiated that bit. In case your doctor thinks you really only need five minutes.
Good weekend, folks!
November 16, 2013 — 12:00 am
Comments: 15
Never forget
I ain’t even made this picture myself. I nicked it off Imgur.
Yeah, our giant megahellstorm was a bit of a fizzle. It was a pretty good blow — and heavier up toward London, where there were a few fatalities — but for these parts, it wasn’t even the worst storm of 2013.
Poor, poor journalists — they had a cool name picked out and everything. The St Jude’s Day storm! See, today was the feast day of St Jude, who is the patron of lost causes. Awesome, amirite?
The overreaction and consequent razzing are all down the to the Great Storm of 1987, which was the most powerful storm to land here in centuries (which had hurricane force winds but was not technically a hurricane, as those bastards are tropical). The size of the storm caught everyone by surprise and the Met Office has overreacted ever since (same thing happened in Rhode Island after the Blizzard of ’78).
There were casualties and disruption, but the main thing people remember is the trees. Brits like their trees, and millions and millions of them were lost in the storm. Including ancient and wonderful trees, like six of the seven oaks in Sevenoaks.
I hear people bring up that storm all the time. But mostly, I hear them bring up Michael Fish, who gave this forecast before the storm. He’s never lived it down. It’s one of Britain’s favorite memes.
I know, I know. A completely unremarkable moment, even in light of the storm, but you have to understand: the English.
October 28, 2013 — 9:21 pm
Comments: 24
Grandpa!
That there’s a sculptural reconstruction of Oetzi the Iceman. ‘Member him?
I did not realize they’d fully sequenced his DNA in 2008 and published it a couple of years back. Turns out, he’s genetically more of a Southern Italian, if not a Middle Easterner.
It reveals that he had brown eyes, “O” blood type, was lactose intolerant, and was predisposed to heart disease. They also show him to be the first documented case of infection by a Lyme disease bacterium.
Lyme disease? Holy shit, that one had a slow fuse!
Anyway, it turns out Oetzi had a particular genetic mutation that is traceable. So researchers from the Institute of Legal Medicine at Innsbruck Medical University tested samples of all male blood donations that came through Tyrol (apparently, a different procedure would be needed for female blood samples). Of 3,700 samples, 19 modern men turn out to be related to Oetzi.
They did this without permission, which I think is a bit unethical. And they haven’t told the 19 men who their grandpa is, which I think is very uncool. I’d sure as hell want to know. But, well…I just thought that was a thing worth knowing. And now you do.
G’night! Have a good weekend!
October 11, 2013 — 11:05 pm
Comments: 23
Shiny
A hundred and one years ago, workmen demolishing Wakefield House in Cheapside, London swung a pickaxe into the cellar floor and heard it thump against a wooden box. Inside, they found almost 500 rings, broaches, gems, watches and other awesome examples of the jeweler’s art. They stuffed their hats, pockets and hankies and ran to everyone’s favorite local fence, Stoney Jack.
Fortunately for history, Stoney Jack wasn’t a thug, but a respectable antique dealer named G.F. Lawrence — also head of acquisitions for the brand new London Museum. Which, you’ll be astonished to learn, ended up with 99% of the collection.
Among the jewels was a broach engraved for the first Viscount Stafford, which neatly dates the collection after 1640 when he took the title but before the Great Fire of London in 1666. Why the hoard was buried and never retrieved, no one knows but, as a jeweler’s working stock, it proved priceless to historians. If you’re at all interested, do hit the links (especially the first one; that’s the best article I read).
The hoard is (finally!) going on display in the Museum of London this Friday. Why they didn’t have it ready for the 100th anniversary, I do not know.
That thing in the picture, by the way, is a tiny watch…inside a single enormous hollowed-out emerald. A Google image search is highly recommended.
October 8, 2013 — 10:13 pm
Comments: 7
Maybe own a bit of history, kind of
That up there is the Wesley Tree in beautiful Winchelsea, the ash tree under which John Wesley preached his last ever outdoor sermon, 223 years ago today (spooky — I didn’t realize it when I started writing this post, but the date was October 7, 1790).
Actually, it’s not really. Tourists (or the devout, if you prefer) picked bits off of the original tree until a strong wind came along in 1927 and blew down what was left. This substantial tree was grown from a sapling taken from a cutting. So it’s kind of the historic tree.
Anyway, sadly, we’re having a serious ash die back over here, caused by a fungus, Chalara fraxinea. It turned up in Poland in 1992, ripped across Europe (Denmark lost 60-90% of their ash trees) and arrived in the UK in 2012, in a shipment of young trees from the Netherlands. There’s a lot of ash here, so this isn’t good.
So when the Wesley Tree looked unwell, everyone feared the worst. Well, it turns out the bugger has an altogether different fungus, the Hairy Bracket fungus. Which may or may not go along with an even eviller fungus, White Rot.
Damn, this tree hugging is complicated.
So what they’re doing up there is lopping off the affected limbs and hoping for the best. They’re also appealing for locals to take cuttings and seeds and grow backup trees, in the event of a bad outcome.
I was going to say, if any of my readers are Methodist arborculturists, you should totally ask for a cutting. And then I realized that might import ash dieback to the US.
So, bad idea. Forget I said anything.
October 7, 2013 — 10:55 pm
Comments: 26
JK;LOL
This is the message you get when you go to www.nasa.gov (among other sites). And the awesome thing about this is, it’s pure spite. There’s no earthly reason to shut down an existing, fully functional website. It’s not like anyone pays hosting fees day-by-day.
If you click through to the list of stuff that isn’t happening due to the ‘shutdown'(LOL), you get a bunch of hilarious drama queenery. The very first bullet point is:
Vital services that ensure seniors and young children have access to healthy food and meals may not have sufficient Federal funds to serve all beneficiaries in an extended lapse.
Translation: Meals on Wheels and Head Start have will run out of money in a few weeks if this keeps up. ZOMG!
The BEST, though, was the veterans thing. Even though most monuments in DC aren’t actually staffed and even though the Park Police are an essential service and still on the job, some bright spark decided to pay people to put up barricades on the Mall. Pure theater.
A group of elderly veterans from Mississippi turned up to see the WWII monument and (with an assist from their Congressman) — dramatic pause — stepped around the barriers and did it anyway. Park Police wisely stood aside and let them.
Anyway, there’s still time for this all to go horribly wrong, but so far Obamacare sucks and the ‘shutdown'(LOL) doesn’t suck. Such timing.
October 1, 2013 — 8:43 pm
Comments: 32
I can too accessorize…!
Here’s something I discovered through my friends at the Steadfast Trust: this knife. It’s called a seax. It was common throughout Northwestern Europe. In Britain, a seax was carried by men and women alike, and was widely recognized as emblematic of their status as freeborn Englishfolk. (Not every Englishman was freeborn. At the time of the Domesday Book (1086), 10% of England’s population was slaves. There’s something I didn’t know until recently).
The seax is a single-edged blade with a thick, sometimes bent, spine, a narrow tang (the metal bit that extends into the handle) and a natural wood, bone or leather handle. The blade ranged from a few inches, used for eating and kitchen tasks, to a proper short sword almost two feet long. The seax was usually worn in a scabbard hanging from the belt, sharp side up, in front of the body.
Also, covered in runes. Check out the Seax of Beagnoth, fished out of the Thames in 1857 and now in the British Museum. “Beagnoth” was inscribed on it (probably either the smith or the owner) along with the only known complete inscription of the twenty-eight letter Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet. Because writing is magic.
Seax is the origin of the word Saxon. Also Middlesex, Wessex, Essex and Sussex. From the online OED:
Saxon (n.) c.1200, from Late Latin Saxonem (nominative Saxo; also source of French Saxon, Spanish Sajon, Italian Sassone), usually found in plural Saxones, from a Germanic source (cf. Old English Seaxe, Old High German Sahsun, German Sachse “Saxon”), with a possible literal sense of “swordsmen” (cf. Old English seax, Old Frisian, Old Norse sax “knife, short sword, dagger,” Old High German Saxnot, name of a war-god), from Proto-Germanic *sahsam “knife,” from PIE *sek- “to cut” (see section (n.)).
Also from the same entry:
Accordingly they all met at the time and place appointed, and began to treat of peace; and when a fit opportunity offered for executing his villany, Hengist cried out, “Nemet oure Saxas,” and the same instant seized Vortigern, and held him by his cloak. The Saxons, upon the signal given, drew their daggers, and falling upon the princes, who little suspected any such design, assassinated them to the number of four hundred and sixty barons and consuls ….
Um. We’re sorry? Say, that woke up some old braincells. I bet they don’t teach Hengist and Horsa in Middle School history any more.
Google Images is chock full of seax porn. There are tons of independent makers. Ooo, this is a nice one.
This is a lovely example, too. When Chrome translated that page from Polish to English, it informed me that “the vagina is no longer an accurate reconstruction.” So, ummm…I guess we know something about the Polish word for “sheath” now.
Anyway, I have to have one. No, a seax, you fool!
Remember: here. Tomorrow. Six sharp. Dead Pool Round 53!
August 22, 2013 — 10:51 pm
Comments: 23
Slappy Bumday, Spilliam Wooner!
What’s that you say? Royal behbeh? No, no, no…much more important: today is the 169th birthday of the man who gave a name to getting your murds wixed.
Reverend William Archibald Spooner was born in London in 1844. He was an albino. That doesn’t have anything to do with anything, but I bet you’re thinking, “holy shit — Reverend Spooner was an albino!” So I led with that. I aim to please.
Spooner was an Anglican priest and a lecturer at Oxford for 60 years. So, a clever man. Which is probably why when he misspoke he didn’t speak gibberish, like you and me. He made a horrible, twisted kind of sense. Like, “it is kisstomary to cuss the bride”. Although the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations contends there is only one confirmed Spoonerism and the rest were made up by his students.
Stupid Oxford Dictionaries. Forever shitting in my oatmeal. Screw ’em, here’s some of my favorites (whoever really said them):
■ A toast to “our queer old dean” instead of “our dear old Queen”
■ He also supposedly informed her majesty that he had in his bosom a “half-warmed fish” for which he meant “half-formed wish”
■ Calling farmers “ye noble tons of soil”
■ “A well-boiled icicle” for “well-oiled bicycle”
■ “Blushing crow” for “crushing blow”
■ And then there’s this: “Mardon me padom, you are occupewing my pie. May I sew you to another sheet?”
Oh, and the title graphic? Our Lord is a loving shepherd.
Also, you can talk about that other obscure British birthday if you want.
July 22, 2013 — 9:50 pm
Comments: 34
Royalty, then and now
Not trying to make any profound point here, I just happened to see these two pictures within the hour.
The bottom shows our lords and masters at the G8 summit today, looking every inch the shabby mediocrities we know them to be.
The top shows nine inbred show ponies gathered for the funeral of Edward VII in 1910. Standing, King Haakon VII of Norway, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, King Manoel of Portugal, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George I of Greece, King Albert of the Belgians. Seated: King Alfonso XIII of Spain, King George V, King Frederik VIII of Denmark. They probably share more genetic material than Stepford wives.
Not sure I have a preference. On the one hand, if you’re going to lord it over me, it helps if you treat me to a little theater. Shiny boots, awesome whiskers. On the other hand, no. No, I want to take each of these swaggering hams by the back of the neck and slam his or her face repeatedly into a giant pile of mashed potatoes while chanting You. Are. Not. Special.
Whoo-pah! I think I might be a republican.
June 19, 2013 — 10:34 pm
Comments: 33
Hillary Rodham Herp-de-derp
Mon dieu, it looks like Napoleon was right: the Benghazi hearings are turning up lots of incompetence and absolutely no plot ideas for an interesting, complicated spy novel.
I haven’t followed the hearings, I’ve been getting my information in chunklets from all around the web. I should have kept track of where exactly so I could link them in this post, but I didn’t. That’s why I regard myself not so much as a journalist but more of a mouthy old cow with a full, legal copy of Photoshop.
Anyway, it looks like Stevens was in Benghazi at Hillary’s explicit request because she intended to build an enduring diplomat presence in that city. And she deliberately turned down requests for more security there because she thought muscling up would look bad to the locals. Foamy Muslim nutburgers respond so well to displays of goodwill and military weakness, don’tcha know.
As to why requests for backup on the night of the attack were turned down…well, I don’t think we’ve gotten to the bottom of it. But it’s a good bet she probably still thought the situation could be salvaged if we didn’t escalate it by…no, geez, that is so retarded.
And the stupid video story? Well, if the whole thing blew up over a spontaneous protest, nobody (Hillary) could be blamed for not seeing in coming and preparing. Barack was cool with that (okay, this is me talking) because if he has a choice between blaming a bad thing on a Muslim and blaming it on America’s founding principles, the Land of the Free is going to lose every damn time.
I’m coming around to the idea these bozos really, genuinely think the Arab Spring is a force for good, and it loves the Obama Administration.
Right. Let’s talk about something more cheerful, like Death. Here. Tomorrow. Six sharp Weasel Blog Time. Dead Pool Round Fifty.
May 9, 2013 — 10:42 pm
Comments: 41