She has worms. Or she’s a witch.
Must be the change of seasons; the cat is going through one of her periodic Ravening Pig phases. (Hm. Note to self: worming pills).
We call her Grizzel Greedigutt when she does this, from this charming woodcut of the Witchfinder General. Yes, yes…I know it looks like it says Griozzdl Greedigutt, but it’s given as Grizzel in the text.
The text! That’s right, you can read Hopkins’ The Discovery of Witches for free! On your Kindle! Knowing that Matthew Hopkins would have had you hanged as a witch if he caught you doing such a thing!
Mmmm. You know, I realize there was a deeply nasty hysteria in the air, and lots of perfectly innocent ugly old crones and unpopular people with funny looking moles got whacked. But surely some of the people accused of witches were so because they believed themselves to be witches. I mean, this cuts both ways. People believed in witchcraft. Believed it could accomplish all sorts of wonderful things. Who wouldn’t be tempted?
I’m not talking the modern hippie notion of wise women and herbalists. From what I can tell, spells of the time were disease cures, love philtres, aphrodisiacs, money callers and getting back at your enemies. Basically, all the shit for sale that landed in your spam filter today.
We’re still the same old shaved monkeys, aren’t we?
March 7, 2013 — 12:07 am
Comments: 16
Gnarly Mummy Head!
Gnarly mummy head! It isn’t even my title – it’s Discovery’s title: Gnarly Mummy Head Reveals Medieval Science.
Neat story. This is the oldest surviving European anatomical dissection. It’s a proper, prepared anatomical specimen, too — the anatomist ran wax into the arteries for preservation and everything. Carbon dating puts its origins round about 1200 AD.
Yup, during the Middle Ages. When things like autopsies were supposedly verboten.
I’ve read for some time that the Dark Ages were unfairly tagged with that moniker. I mean, that’s been a trend in history books for my whole lifetime: rehabilitating that long stretch between the Romans and the Renaissance.
Until I read the article, though, I didn’t put that together in my head with Protestantism. That newly minted Protestants talked a lot of crap about the state of science before their time, as a sort kind of anti-Church thing. “Oh, boohoo — the Pope didn’t let us cut up dead people!” Which was not, apparently, true.
Worth a read, anyway.
Oh, speaking of dead people! I’m delighted to acknowledge that Hugo Chavez is officially dead. I’m even more delighted to point out that his official date of death is today, Tuesday, March 5. Which means he falls between Dead Pools and I don’t owe dick.
Sorry, Hutch. I suspect you wuz robbed.
March 5, 2013 — 11:30 pm
Comments: 37
When in doubt, go with the willy joke
I bet you thought Canterbury was all cathedrals and Chaucer and dignified shit like that. Well, it turns out all the naughty seaside postcards confiscated by the police in Kent ended up in the University Library. They’re on display in Canterbury at the moment.
I’ve written about the tradition of naughty postcards before. For a brief period in the Fifties, Britain got a huge case of the vapors (or ‘vapours’ I suppose) about it and confiscated the ones they considered over the line. Donald McGill, the most famous maker-of-rude-postcards, even got hauled into court and had to swear on a bzillion Bibles that he didn’t get the joke and certainly didn’t intend any rude double meanings in his illustrations.
Poor old Canterbury (changing the subject). It’s just inside our traveling distance for a day trip, but I find it a sad place to visit.
Hitler bombed it flat, quite on purpose, along with any other historic towns he could reach. They’re called the Baedecker raids, because it’s believed der Führer picked up a Baedecker guidebook to Britain and ordered explosives dropped on every place with a three star rating.
This probably makes me a horrible person, but thinking about that makes me feel sicker than all the WWII carnage and human misery we see endlessly on the History Channel.
Anyway, he somehow missed the honking huge cathedral in the middle of the town. And the Roman wall. The rest of it, pretty much blowed up or burned out. It’s kind of like a big shopping mall now. Every once in a while, you’ll turn a corner and see a 15th Century pub between the greeting card shops and book stores and get a glimpse of what the place must have looked like seventy years ago.
March 4, 2013 — 11:56 pm
Comments: 27
The Judgement of Weasel
Well. I’m calling the Dead Pool for fawn, who had Bonnie Franklin (pancreatic cancer…ugh). Fawn, you know what to do.
I’m pretty sure Hutch wuz robbed. If I had to take a guess, I’d say Chavez fell off the perch this week. Whether they’re literally keeping him breathing or he’s dead as a doornail and keeping it quiet or he’s not QUITE dead, we do not know. We may never know.
So. If it turns out Chavez died before Franklin (that is, if we get official confirmation of this fact from the Venezuelan government), fawn keeps the title for Round 46, but Hutch gets a consolation dick. I just love, love, LOVE saying “consolation dick.” If he dies after Franklin but before Round 47, nobody gets anything.
If you choose him in the pool next Friday and it is announced that he died after March 8, you (unnamed participant) will win the dick. But if they make the announcement after March 8, but confess that he died before March 1, then Hutch gets your dick. You don’t want Hutch to get your dick, do you? Or if they declare he died in the lacuna, nobody gets dick. So, really, Chavez is a mug’s pick next round, unless you’re Hutch.
But. Whatever. I’m not going to tell you how to play Dead Pool.
It is not perfect, but that is my judgment. So let it be written, so let it be done.
Good weekend, everyone!
March 1, 2013 — 8:47 pm
Comments: 50
Miracles of Cuban medicine
So, I’m guessing they have Hugo Chavez hooked up to the latest modern machinery. While I suspect they will soon reach the limits of potato-based medicine, I’m not comfy calling the Dead Pool until we get an official death notice. That could take Some Time.
(On an unrelated note, did you see where Ariel Sharon is showing significant brain activity hooked up to a Functional MRI? Brrrrr).
No new Dead Pool tomorrow, even in the unlikely event they call him out before six WBT. So, tough luck, Hutch…for now.
February 28, 2013 — 10:34 pm
Comments: 24
*burp*
Uncle B had to go to London today, so the livestock and I have been on our own, whoopin’ it up big time.
Oh, there were chickens and banjos, two pork sammiches and a candy bar. There was Judge Judy and a movie. There were underpants! It was pandemonium.
It was underpantsdemonium!
Okay, that was lame, but it’s late and I haven’t posted anything and he’s home now.
I got most of the stains out of the carpets and the hall rug covers the rest, so…just…don’t say anything, okay?
— 12:31 am
Comments: 38
Scots go potty for Krispy Kreme
“The first few days were utterly chaotic, horrendous, and I know that police were called.”
The Krispy Kreme in Edinburgh has applied for special permission to stay open all night. On account of insatiable local demand. For some reason. Really, are there enough R’s in all the world for a drunken Scot to say “Krispy Kreme”?
Life insists on screwing with my cultural stereotypes.
You’ll be relieved to know the picture isn’t from the Edinburgh Krispy Kreme, it’s from a page about their stores in the Middle East. They have eighty.
No reason not to sell donuts in the Middle East, I just…that image of Keffiyeh Man holding up a glazed donut messes with my norms in the worst way (also, if they were going to use t-shirt guy twice, did they think we wouldn’t notice they flipped the picture and the 2 on his shirt is backwards?)
KK is, of course, an artifact of the Deep South (or the South, anyway…I think the first one was in North Carolina). Fond memory of childhood. Teen years, actually. Krispy Kreme was the only place a seriously impaired weasel could get a cup of coffee at three in the morning. As I recall, our local in Nashville was across from the Old Colony Cleaners (some wag always stole the “y”).
The whole back wall was glass, and we could watch as the donuts moved down a conveyor past the various Stations of the Cross. Most fascinating thing that the aforementioned seriously impaired weasel ever saw.
They give a pretty good feel for the experience here. Watch it a few dozen times, seriously impaired.
February 26, 2013 — 11:37 pm
Comments: 46
Prize winners
I mentioned this earlier — this is Vita’s sister (same farm, same flock, same breed, same year, same batch of eggs) winning it all. Needless to say, they look a lot alike. They’re chickens. But Vita has a darker beak, and a permanent look of rising terror.
Bottom of the pecking order, poor thing.
That would be my cue to spoil her rotten, but she’s even scareder of me than she is of the other chickens. She makes baby-chick peeping noises and runs from me, despite being a big, blowsy bird. For a bantam.
Today, she tried to lay an egg in the driveway and she let me scoop her up and carry her off to a proper nest. The Power of Estrogen.
Eh, sorry to fob you off with such weak sauce. I’m feeling vaguely and indescribably but very distinctly unwell today. Dunno what it is. I might have picked up a bug. Or, you know, I might have eaten something that was bumping around in the back of the car for two weeks. Maybe.
February 25, 2013 — 10:15 pm
Comments: 22
SQUEEEE!
Hello, we’re new!
There’s one particular flock that is *always* the first to lamb (farmers control these things pretty closely). We swung by today on our way to lunch, and lookit! They’re old enough to have their ear tags and numbers sprayed on (this is 44 and his brother, 44)…but only just, I reckon. We first spotted a little pile of black lambs, which are so cute it hurts (probably the novelty; they don’t raise many around here), but they had dispersed before we got the camera.
And, guess what? It’s snowing tonight! Poor little baa-baas.
Okay, y’all. Back here. Tomorrow. Six WBT. We’re going to do it again.
Dead Pool Round Forty Six!
February 21, 2013 — 10:38 pm
Comments: 19
Nice going, socialists
That’s the front window of a little music shop in Shropshire. The manager, on his way out, paid a sign writer to decorate it thusly.
That’s a great wickedness of the local system of government — the power and incompetence of county councils. It was a Tory government, unfortunately, that decided to cut costs by combining councils into larger and fewer bodies. The upshot is, our local services are controlled by people who live far away, who are apt to see us more as cash cows than a constituency.
At one time — so I’m told — councils were run by local businessmen on a voluntary (or at least modestly remunerated) basis. Now, of course, it’s run by our global professional ruling class (read: smug, self-important lefties) on eye-watering salaries. And those lefties in turn hire scores of other lefties, in the form of Lesbian Outreach Managers and Pet Hair Recycling Wardens.
But, hey, if there’s anything socialist dimbulbs know how to do, it’s make money, right? Cut essential services and raise taxes! Pff! Easy peasy. It’s not like raising prices ever changes buying behavior.
Down here in the sunny South, most towns still have a charming high street (read: Main Street) full of interesting little shops and pubs and cafes. We do as much buying as we can in these places. You pay a bit more, but you get undeniably better goods and help keep the heart of the town beating.
We’ve watched as high streets all over our shopping territory visibly shrink, thanks to…well, read the sign.
— 1:42 pm
Comments: 21