*Past, Clicky. I heard it back in my youthful daze… /:O… Released on 7th September? That’s Thoughtful Man’s birthday! I didn’t know that fact when the Song popped into my head… /thinks… sew this means that information about my past was in my future… /grins sheepishly… I can quite see why you get confused…*
*Whoa! Did you see that?!*
*Where?*
*Ha! An English Garden variety? No I… /squint… knot-eyes the Wooley connection to my PPE… Um, it’s knit and… /mind stutter… wear, ware, where?*
*/sighs… Yes, the original Song, for me anyway, Clicky… For this synchronicity…/thinks… doo–ray–me–far–sew–la–T…qui… malarky. That’s the closest word I can think of to describe it…*
*Indeed… Hey! Today I became the 137th follower of a chap on Twitter… he’s a geodeticamong other things… Could be useful… I just had to look that up… Look, I took a selfie…*
*He’s visited the LoLbefore, Clicky… I don’t know why I didn’t follow him on the Y’elloRiver before…*
*Well, to be fair, that LoL post was inspired my crazy dooshund, rather than a wolf…*
*That’s a bit binary, isn’t it Clicky? What about a grey wolf? Still, Princess Ploppy certainly is well fed… Ah! …/slaps forehead… That’s why the Song popped into my head! I remember… first I was in theBlueUniverse… then paid avisitto the, er,Red…*
*Well, you know that, and I know that, Clicky… /lights umpteenth rollie… Methinks this post is a tad too big… /blows smoke… Shall we leave Dear Reader to it and have a Song?*
In July last year, I saw a Shiny Tinman floating by the Bankside…
*Clicky, I walked past him twice; I couldn’t see how he did it… he’s on a hidden seat, supported by the pole and anchored by the base… Leggy explained exactly how it was done on DM but I’m buggered if I can find…
*No, Clicky, DM… Direct Message on Twitter… Although my boss at the time did call me Penfold… I think it was my glasses…*
*Crikey! No, Commish called me Pepper…*
*Yeah, I miss my chats with Commish… Nevermind, what’s done is done…*
*******
The other day Thoughtful Man brought to my attention a post on his FaceArseBook feed: ‘10 Terrifying Toys From the Past‘. Now, if you’re of a nervous disposition, or require a designated ‘safe space’, can I suggest that you refrain from employing Clicky to explore the link, and go find a quiet corner in which to curl up and cry…
So then, creepy and dangerous toys that were given to children by adults. A couple caught my eye, although all of them sync…
*A shambles… /waits… Clicky, I said shambles… Oh for god’s sake! Get over here and dry your eyes…*
*Hmm, I wonder if Mike Myers once got a Hugo for Christmas…*
A live bird automata…
*No, Clicky, that’s a man in a bird suit…*
And, syncing with Red Frank’s latest post on MEROVEE…
*Actually, Clicky, No.10 the guillotine toy is sort of Frankish what with it being inspired by the French Revolution… And it was named after a doctor… /grins… Ha! Did you see the the fall…*
Last night I read a post of Cade’s at Sync Miss For Him. One in which he used his formula, and it got me thinking of Helen Keller and how she was taught to write…
In 1886, Keller’s mother, inspired by an account in Charles Dickens’ American Notes of the successful education of another deaf and blind woman, Laura Bridgman, dispatched young Helen, accompanied by her father, to seek out physician J. Julian Chisolm, an eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist in Baltimore, for advice. Chisholm referred the Kellers to Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell advised them to contact the Perkins Institute for the Blind, the school where Bridgman had been educated, which was then located in South Boston. Michael Anagnos, the school’s director, asked 20-year-old former student Anne Sullivan, herself visually impaired, to become Keller’s instructor. It was the beginning of a 49-year-long relationship during which Sullivan evolved into Keller’s governess and eventually her companion.
Anne Sullivan arrived at Keller’s house in March 1887, and immediately began to teach Helen to communicate by spelling words into her hand, beginning with “d-o-l-l” for the doll that she had brought Keller as a present. Keller was frustrated, at first, because she did not understand that every object had a word uniquely identifying it. In fact, when Sullivan was trying to teach Keller the word for “mug”, Keller became so frustrated she broke the mug.Keller’s big breakthrough in communication came the next month, when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on the palm of her hand, while running cool water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of “water”; she then nearly exhausted Sullivan demanding the names of all the other familiar objects in her world.
And speak…
To communicate. I have no idea if that was Cade’s intention but that’s what it did for…
From the Old Lady of Threadneedle street – the UK has a brand new fiver. It’s still blue 😉 Thoughtful Man got one last night whilst out working, and showed it to me this morning. It’s shiny and can survive a battering…
*What? …/innocent face*
Mrs Reign one side, smoker Winnie on t’other… see-through window…
*Saturn 5… I guess Big Ben does look a bit like a rocket, Clicky…*
“Here,” Thoughtful Man called, “Big Chief Double Chopper has had a makeover. Take a look.”
I peered at his computer screen. Big Chief Double Chopper had been mum’s garden Indian that lived in her front room. After she died, her husband Stan took the opportunity to have him re-homed. I don’t blame him; what man wants to face a double chopper on the way to the kitchen first thing in the morning.
“Aw, it’s nice that they’ve sent an update,” I said.
“A bit garish,” Thoughtful Man opined. “Stan’s got a point, though, are red Indians supposed to be black?”
I smiled, recalling a couple of commentsRedFrank has posted for me on ‘Scatty Sunday’. “Fuck knows,” I replied, giving him my considered opinion.
*Clicky, random…/sigh*
“Hmm,” I said to myself, sitting down and lighting a rollie.
Thoughtful Man swiveled round in his chair. “What?” he said launching a squint in my direction. We’re far too close, I couldn’t dodge it.
“No, it’s just I was reading about the Lost River yesterday. It was weird how I got there. Actually, I was thinking of writing a post about it…” I trailed off.
“Lost River? What do you mean how you got there?” he probed gently. That was unexpected, he normally doesn’t like to talk to me about my posts but then again he’s a bit of an American history buff – he’d probably heard of it on one of his TV programmes.
*Is that Chief or Chef’s office..? /shakes head… Nevermind…*
“Okay then,” I hesitated and marshaled my thoughts. “The journey begins in a pub.”
Thoughtful Man continued looking at me without speaking, so I showed him the tweet that had started it. The source. “Lions and tigers and beers…” I trailed off again. I do a lot of that.
“It was the description of the smoking area,” I continued. Clicky escorted him to the page.
Cleckheaton doesn’t have an Ossett pub, but the Rose & Crown is a newbie with a similar atmosphere. It was more boisterous than my photos imply; lots of £2.60 pints were being carried out to a characterful smoking area. Worryingly the £2.60 pint of choice seemed to be Ellands 6.5% Porter. Their homebrew pale was enough for me (NBSS 3.5).
*Yes, Clicky, any mentions of Roobee and his attention does start to wane… and he’s not a beer drinker, though he is fond of a Lion bar… Anyway, I told him the last line of the article and said to remember it…*
‘Plenty of Bass livery, very little Bass.’
“Is there any chance you might skip to the end?” Thoughtful Man asked politely.
“No. So I looked up the year 1872, of Deep Ruby, and there was this Indian battle of Lost River in the November,” I replied.
‘The Battle of Lost River in November 1872 was the first battle in the Mo Doc War in the northwestern United States. The skirmish, which was fought near the Lost River along the California-Oregon border, was the result of an attempt by the U.S. 1st Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army to force a band of the Modoctribe to relocate back to the Klamath Reservation, which they had left in objection of its conditions.
In the subsequent war, Captain Jack of the Modoc and 53 warriors held off more than 1000 U.S. soldiers for 7 months in the area of the present-day Lava Beds National Monument. Part of this was named Captain Jack’s Stronghold in his honor.’
Thoughtful Man sighed heavily and started to swivel round. “Is that it?”
*A little bit, Clicky… /holds out thumb and index finger…*
“Not quite,” I answered. “You forgot the last line.”
Thoughtful Man wrinkled his brow. “Plenty of bass livery, very little bass?”
“Yes,” I smiled. “They’re all in Lost River.”
A sluggish stream, Lost River offers fishing opportunities for bass, up to 7 lb (3.2 kg), brown bullhead, crappie, yellow perch, and Sacramento perch. Trout are uncommon in this river.
*Oh Clicky, get off! …/splutter… Really!*
*******
*What? Erm… /wipes lips and frowns… Dunno, Clicky, possibly this guy..? Shall we have a Song?*
“What are you laughing at?” Thoughtful Man asked rather grouchily. He was getting dressed for work and I was sat at my computer. He tends to be grouchy when he’s getting ready for work. Or if I’m at the computer.
“Oh, it’s the positioning of these two tweets…” I started to answer but caught his Why-are-you-having-fun-when-I-have-to-work-on-Sunday?-look and stopped. “Nothing.”
*/squint… Clicky, please… /hold finger to lips… I’m talking…*
“I won’t just be sitting here whilst you’re out,” I said, continuing to scroll down my twitter feed. “I have tidying and washing up to do, and the boys’ uniforms to iron.”
“PE tomorrow,” he reminded me, buckling his belt.
“And it’s PE tomorrow, so there’s more of it.”
Thoughtful Man harumphed and went to look for his shoes. Another tweet caught my eye.
For my money, the best story in the press today: Alan Johnson on how Tony Blair almost set up a Ministry of Penis. pic.twitter.com/82H9Mb674c
“What’ll you feed them tonight?” Thoughtful Man had returned, fully dressed and shod, wearing his stop-laughing-when-I-have-to-work-on-Sunday-look.
I composed myself and addressed him seriously. “Whatever’s out there. We’ve got plenty of food in the fridge. What about you?”
I caught it, the fleeting guilty look. “Where will you be eating tonight?”
“Chinese,” Thoughtful Man replied without meeting my eyes. “It’s Al’s last night tonight and we thought we take him for a Chinese.”
“Aw, that’s nice,” I said wearing my why-are-you-moaning-about-going-to-work-when-you’re-having-Chinese?-look. I scooped up Poppy, who was sniffing round our feet. “This is in addition to his leaving drinks you went to on Thursday?”
Thoughtful Man started toward the front door and we followed, me rubbing and patting his shoulders, whilst our demented dachshund wriggled and writhed under my arm.
“Yeah, well Tony couldn’t make it on Thursday so they’re going to dinner tonight,” he explained, opening the door.
“And you’re going along to say goodbye again. You’re a good friend,” I assured him and pecked him on the cheek. Poppy gave him a perfunctory lick. She too could be grouchy when Thoughtful Man was off to work. “Okay then, I see you later. Have fun.”
I closed the door after him, set the dog down and made for the kitchen – washing up first; I had an idea for a post and wanted to get all my chores over with first. I heard the key turn in the lock behind me.
“Here’s twenty quid,” Thoughtful Man said, poking his head round the door and pulling a note from his workbag. “Get something for you and boys from Hong Kong Kitchen later. Better go now. Bye.”
I waved him off. Such a Thoughtful Man!
*******
*Okay Clicky, what? What’s with The Shining interruptions?*
*But they’re all over the place, they’re not making sense… /works out order…*
The universe began13.7 billion years ago, and the CMB dates back to about 400,000 years after the Big Bang. That’s because in the early stages of the universe, when it was just one-hundred-millionth the size it is today, its temperature was extreme: 273 million degrees above absolute zero, according to NASA.
Any atoms present at that time were quickly broken apart into small particles (protons and electrons). The radiation from the CMB in photons (particles representing quantums of light, or other radiation) was scattered off the electrons. “Thus, photons wandered through the early universe, just as optical light wanders through a dense fog,” NASA wrote.
About 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe was cool enough that hydrogen could form. Because the CMB photons are barely affected by hitting hydrogen, the photons travel in straight lines. Cosmologists refer to a “surface of last scattering” when the CMB photons last hit matter; after that, the universe was too big. So when we map the CMB, we are looking back in time to 380,000 years after the Big Bang, just after the universe was opaque to radiation.
*You know, Scatman Crothers also voiced ‘Hong Kong Phooey’, Clicky and starred in Scooby Doo. You could have mentioned that*
*Too late, Clicky, I beat you too it. So, come on… Song and Scat?*
My friend Cade popped by yesterday to post a spider in comets on my Venus Flytrap post…
*I’ve always been scared of spiders, Clicky. It’s a phobia that I’m working hard to dispel… it’s the legs…*
*Not that Legs, Clicky… /rolls eyes*
Funnily enough on the same day I’d made my Venus post, Cade was describing his flies…
*Oh FFS! I can see why you like spending your time over there, Clicky, but do you have to be quite so graphic?*
Today is the birthday of the World Wide Web. This news was brought to me by the Sky Dick, Suck IT…
Four years ago, Tim Berners-Lee featured in the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games. Last night, the 2016 Games Opening Ceremony took place in Rio, Brazil…
*A humongous flop, Clicky, you wouldn’t like that at all… Will and Ken battling it out… actually Kenneth Branagh also featured in the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony*
The musical directors for that one were Underworld…
*No shit, Clicky! /slaps head… Two years ago, when the World Cup was on in Brazil, Merovee Ken and I explored Luis Suarez and the ‘Ritual of Chomp‘…*
Chöd (Tibetan: གཅོད, Wylie: gcod lit. ‘to sever’[1]), is a spiritual practice found primarily in the Nyingma and Kagyu schools of Tibetan Buddhism (where it is classed asAnuttarayoga Tantra).[2] Also known as “Cutting Through the Ego,”,[3] the practices are based on the Prajñāpāramitā or “Perfection of Wisdom” sutras, which expound the “emptiness” concept of Buddhist philosophy.
According to Mahayana Buddhists, emptiness is the ultimate wisdom of understanding that all things lack inherent existence. Chöd combines prajñāpāramitā philosophy with specific meditation methods and tantric ritual. The chod practitioner seeks to tap the power of fear through activities such as rituals set in graveyards, and visualisation of offering their bodies in a tantric feast in order to put their understanding of emptiness to the ultimate test.[4]
*That’s enough for now, Clicky. Would you furnish Dear Reader with a Song?*
Saturday afternoon: Thoughtful Man has gone to work, boys are otherwise engaged and I am throwing a ball for Poppy, our dachshund – a perfect opportunity for some shambling.
Dear Reader, make of it what you will and, hopefully, enjoy.
*Clicky, just links in text for this one, please. I know you like hiding them but constructing a shambles is difficult enough without any tomfoolery*
*Hmm… Okay, go get the rainbow snowflakes…*
*******
On 13th July (13.7 or 137), I had a DM conversation with my friend Legs. I’d been loafing…
*Ha! Trust Leggy to think about the fertilizer, Clicky*
Waldi was the first proper Olympic mascot, for the Munich Games in 1972. The route of the Marathon race was based on the outline shape of Waldi, a dachshund. I’d shambled it before…
‘The considered and precise lines of the petite canine’s form are typical of Aicher’s clean modernist design and were used for the route of the marathon through the city of Munich. The various parts of the hound were represented by different areas of the city with the mouth being in the Nymphenburg Park, the belly — the main downtown street and in true German style, the rear end in the English Garden.’
If the rear (shitting) end was in the English Garden, what about the mouth (eating) end?
The 200-hectare (490-acre) park, once an Italian garden (1671), which was enlarged and rearranged in French style by Dominique Girard, a pupil of Le Notre, was finally redone in the English manner during the early 19th century by Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell, on behalf of prince-elector Charles Theodore. Von Sckell was also the creator of the English Garden in Munich.
Knot to mention, parks are considered Green (breathing) Lungs…
*Clicky…*
It’s got nothing to do with
Vorsprung durch Technik you know
(Parklife)
And it’s not about you joggers
Who go round and round and round
(Parklife)
*/rolls eyes… Okay, good one… running/jogging is movement*
In my youth, Snickers bars were called ‘Marathon‘…
1896, marathon race, from story of Greek hero Pheidippides, who in 490 B.C.E. ran the 26 miles and 385 yards to Athens from the Plains of Marathon to tell of the allied Greek victory there over Persian army. The original story (Herodotus) is that he ran from Athens to Sparta to seek aid, which arrived too late to participate in the battle. Introduced as an athletic event in the 1896 revival of the Olympic Games, based on a later, less likely story, and quickly extended to mean “any very long event or activity.” The place name is literally“fennel-field.” Related: Marathoner (by 1912).
*/Squint… Clicky, it’s now early evening and I have a lot to cover yet. I’m sensitive that this shamble will grow too big…*
*No! And that doesn’t count toward reproduction either… /sniff… I’ll continue, shall I?*
Yesterday was 22nd July (22/7) and I posted a Theorem of sorts on MEROVEE–why bad stuff seems to happen in the real world as a result of our posting online there.
Shortly after, new poster CJ brought news of a shooting incident in Munich… the cause of much running from a man with roots in I Ran…
I discussed it with Legs, later…
*Aww, Clicky, you’ve got me… /eyes widen… No! I don’t mean in the reproductivesense… *
And then it occurred to me, I’d seen 137, π and an 8 somewhere else before… At Evergreen Terrace…
‘The first equation on the board is largely Schiminovich’s work, and it predicts the mass of the Higgs boson, M(H0), an elementary particle that that was first proposed in 1964. The equation is a playful combination of various fundamental parameters, namely the Planck constant, the gravitational constant, and the speed of light. If you look up these numbers and plug them into the equation,1 it predicts a mass of 775 giga-electron-volts (GeV), which is substantially higher than the 125 GeV estimate that emerged when the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012. Nevertheless, 775 GeV was not a bad guess, particularly bearing in mind that Homer is an amateur inventor and he performed this calculation fourteen years before the physicists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, tracked down the elusive particle.’
*Click, you have a one-track mind…*
*Ahh… Very clever, Clicky… /yawn and stretch… That’s enough for now, let’s have a Song…*
Dear Reader – Thoughtful Man is recuperating at home. He’d asked me knot to relay what he told Juju and eye at the hospital on Saturday evening…
*That’s right, Clicky, but that was before today…*
*******
“Someone’s died.”
Thinking and elbows deep in warm, sudsy water, I hadn’t heard Thoughtful Man come downstairs. Startled, I turn to see his gaunt frame hovering in the kitchen doorway.
“Darling, can’t you sleep? Are you okay?”
He held his hand up to the leaky dressing on his throat to stop his Darth Vader breathing. “Someone has died. An old fella.”
I dried my hands and gently gripped his shoulders, guiding him back through to the Library.”What are you talking about? Come and sit down. Who’s died?”
“I don’t who exactly,” Thoughtful Man looked at me solemnly as he eased himself into his chair. “Someone famous, an old man. I woke up feeling someone’s died.”
“Well, we better have a look, see.” I gave him a reassuring smile and sat behind my computer, moving a snoozing Poppy, curled up in my spot. “I’ll google news. Any other clues as to who it might be?”
“No, but I feel it very strongly. A famous old man has died.”
Several taps and a click later, I was startled for the second time. “No shit!” I looked at Thoughtful Man, open mouthed.”Ronnie Corbett has died.”
CLICKY: Status Who?
“I told you.” Thoughtful Man nodded as he sat back in his chair. “I felt it.”
*******
*Joker, famous for his ‘shaggy dog’ stories? Very droll, Clicky… /rolls eyes… *
CLICKY: Monologuing?
*Well, I am fond of a monologue, Click …/wink…But that UN story we read this morning… the one I was thinking about when Thoughtful Man woke up… quite disturbing…*
UN officials say they are investigating “extremely troubling” claims of sexual abuse by peacekeepers in the Central African Republic (CAR).
Last year, there were 69 allegations of child rape and other sexual offences by peacekeepers from 10 missions.
One advocacy group says it has passed on new reports to the UN that a soldier made four girls have sex with a dog.
The UN said it was looking into the “exact number and nature” of the claims.
*It says, ‘…the bestiality claims, dating back to 2014, involved a commander with French forces.’… Clicky, one in French is Un… and as for CAR…*
CLICKY: Other Chair man
*Yes, Clicky… just a very slight difference in height 😀 *
status (n.)1670s, “height” of a situation or condition, later “legal standing of a person” (1791), from Latin status “condition, position, state, manner, attitude” from past participle stem of stare “to stand,” from PIE *ste-tu-, from root *stā- “to stand” (see stet). Sense of “standing in one’s society or profession” is from 1820. Status symbol first recorded 1955; status-seeker from 1956. Status-anxiety is from 1959.
I started posting knot-eyes of a sync over at MEROVEE yesterday. Frank in the Red Universe is having A Quantum Leap of Faith…
CLICK: Dry Bones.
*Yes, Clicky, I stopped it there because you were about to add a Song…*
*/squint… ‘Then somebody hangs up when you answer the phone’. That’s a very personal sync, as you are well aware. Hey, hey, where you going? Clicky?!*
CLICKY: We’re out of milk.
*OK bye, then! I’ll just put this all together myself, SHALL I?! /rolls eyes… I hope I haven’t lost my train of thought… /cracks knuckles…*
*******
A Void posted the other day about mounting Superstitions and a dead Head in ariZOna:
Oh hello! Do I see mention of Brandon Lee? That would be Professor Crowe that Click spotted… “We’re out of milk”. My arse!
And Vann? That syncs with my other Doctor, Shiny Sheldon… NAVigator.
We’ve been to Arizona, Thoughtful Man and I. Back before boys were ever on the scene. We based ourselves in Phoenix at a hotel called The Buttes. Americans love a British accent unless you tell them that you staying in their butts. Then they look on you with disgust. We found that out upon arrival, passing through Immigration.
Enter Legs with news of a really disgusting death.
Yesterday brought news of another dead head. A baby one, a seed. This time in mOZcow:
Oktyabrskoye Pole metro station received its name from Khodynka Field, a nearby locality which was known as October Field during Soviet Rule. Khodynka takes it’s name from a river and was the site of the first Russian powered flight. It became a regular airfield, in use through the late 1980s. The Russian National Air & Space Museum is at Khodynka.
Most recently on MEROVEE, we’ve been syncing underground…
Ah Scotland, policy test bed for so many London-based governments, the geographical head of the United Kingdom. The Romans tried to decapitated it…
…the SNP nearly pulled it off in 2014. No doubt they’ll try again but in the meantime they are developing their own policies for export.
The BASE jumper died by Sy Phon Draw…
syn-
word-forming element meaning “together with, jointly; alike; at the same time,” also sometimes completive or intensive, from Greek syn (prep.) “with, together with, along with, in the company of,” from PIE *ksun-“with” (cognates: Russian so-“with, together,” from Old Russian su(n)-). Assimilated to -l-, reduced to sy- before -s- and -z-, and altered to sym- before -b-, -m- and -p-. Since 1970s also with a sense of “synthetic.”
-phone
word-forming element meaning “voice, sound,” also “speaker of,” from Greek phone“voice, sound,” from PIE root *bha- (2) “to speak, say, tell” (cognates: Latin for, fari“to speak,”fama“talk, report;” see fame (n.)).
Now where was I before Clicky threw a spanner into my works? /taps teeth…
fame (n.) early 13c., “character attributed to someone;” late 13c., “celebrity, renown,” from Old French fame“fame, reputation, renown, rumor” (12c.), from Latinfama“talk, rumor, report; reputation, public opinion; renown, good reputation,” but also “ill-fame, scandal, reproach,” from PIE root *bha- (2) “to speak, tell, say” (cognates: Sanskrit bhanati“speaks;” Latin fari“to say,”fabula“narrative, account, tale, story;” Armenian ban, bay“word, term;” Old Church Slavonic bajati“to talk, tell;” Old English boian“to boast,”ben“prayer, request;” Greek pheme“speech, voice, utterance, a speaking, talk,”phone“voice, sound,”phanai“to speak;” Old Irish bann“law”).
The goddess Famawas the personification of rumor in Roman mythology. The Latin derivative fabulare was the colloquial word for “speak, talk” since the time of Plautus, whence Spanish hablar.
I’ve always been afraid I was going to tap the world on the shoulder for 20 years, and when it finally turned around I was going to forget what I had to say. [Tom Waits, “Playboy” magazine interview, March, 1988]
There was plenty of rumour and speculation leading up this weekend’s Famefestathon, the OZcars… Not only who would win awards but what the host, Chris Rock, was going to say?
CLICKY: Back… I had to go to the Blue Universe…
*You took your time, Click. I’m just getting on to our OZcar win…*
I posted knot-eyes at ‘Quantum Leap of Faith’ in the Red Universe.
*Great movie, Clicky, we should watch it again. Let me make myself a coffee first… /returns with look of disgust… I thought you went off to get some milk…*
Library of Libraries 