Each month I offer you something to think about to get the brain working. This month …
An origami flower is fake vegetation made from real vegetation.
Monthly Collected Quotes
And so it came to pass that we reached the appointed date for the delivery of this month’s (fairly short) collection of quotes.
I don’t know how to save the world. I don’t have the answer. I hold no secret knowledge, as to how to fix the mistakes of generations past and present. I only know that without compassion and respect for all of Earth’s inhabitants, none of us will survive – nor will we deserve to.
[Leonard Peltier]
Our world is not divided by race, colour, gender or religion. Our world is divided into wise people and fools. And fools divide themselves by race, colour, gender or religion.
[Nelson Mandela]
The natural sole purpose of beauty is to admire it.
[John Ruskin]
Having a calm and compassionate mind enables us to use our natural intelligence more effectively.
[Dalai Lama]
It’s absurd that common sense has become so uncommon.
Sleep at night.
Eat real foods (enough to offset your energy needs).
Don’t starve yourself.
Move your body, sometimes hard.
Don’t drink too much.
Don’t smoke or vape.
Connect with other people, in person.
Spend time outdoors.
[Brad Stulberg]
Personally I have never been to a lap dancing club and have no intention of going, but it annoys me intensely that Councils seem to see it as their divine right to stick their noses into such things.
If there are men who are silly enough to want to waste all their money in such places and women who are happy to earn quite substantial money by jiggling their lady bits at a bunch of drunken half-wits, then where is the harm?
I know, objectifies women blah, blah, blah, promotes an unhealthy view of women amongst men blah, blah, blah, but that’s just nonsense.
Our entire society objectifies women, so it’s a bit hard to just pick on these clubs, and these chaps have probably always had an emotionally stunted outlook, and the clubs are unlikely to change that much.
[Rudi Gunn; http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/apr/21/lap-dancing-clubs-human-rights]
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes, in seeing the universe with the eyes of another, of hundreds of others, in seeing the hundreds of universes that each of them sees.
[Marcel Proust]
July Quiz Answers
Here are the answers to this month’s six quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.
General History
- In what year did the Battle of Waterloo occur? 1815
- Which ancient civilization built the city of Machu Picchu? Inca
- Which famous historical document begins with the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident”? The Declaration of Independence
- The Aztecs even used cocoa beans as what? Currency
- In what year did the Berlin Wall fall? 1989
- What event marked the beginning of World War I? The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2025.
This Month’s Poem
Ariel’s Song From The Tempest (Act 5, Scene 1)
William Shakespeare
Where the bee sucks there suck I:
In a cowslips bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry,
On the bat’s back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
Find this poem online at Shakespeare Network
July Self-Portrait
[Click the image for a larger view]
Ten Things
This year our Ten Things column will present a selection of words (of five or more letters) with a different ending each month. This month …
Words Ending in -ene
- buckminsterfullerene
- contravene
- damascene
- gangrene
- hygiene
- limonene
- obscene
- reconvene
- supervene
- xanthene
So how many of those words did you know? And how many do you use?
This Month’s Quote
Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately
be explained by incompetence.
Napoleon Bonaparte
July Quiz Questions
Each month we’re posing six pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month.
As always, they’re designed to be tricky but not impossible, so it’s unlikely everyone will know all the answers – just have a bit of fun.
General History
- In what year did the Battle of Waterloo occur?
- Which ancient civilization built the city of Machu Picchu?
- Which famous historical document begins with the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident”?
- The Aztecs even used cocoa beans as what?
- In what year did the Berlin Wall fall?
- What event marked the beginning of World War I?
Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.
July 1926
Our look at some of the significant happenings 100 years ago this month.
1. Birth. Hans Werner Henze, German composer (d.2012)
9. In Portugal, General Óscar Carmona takes power in a military coup.
10. A bolt of lightning strikes Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey; the resulting fire causes several million pounds of explosives to blow up in the next 2-3 days.
Unblogged June
Some things, and thoughts, from June which I didn’t otherwise write about.
Monday 1
Looking at the trail camera shots for the last week I noticed that one of our (at least three) foxes has a striped tail. It was very noticeable side on at a distance, but less so when I saw the fox walking away from the camera. Sadly no useful image as it was low light and a low-res camera.
Tuesday 2
This afternoon we had not one, but two big thunderstorms. The first (about 14:30) was the larger and longer with some really torrential rain. It then drizzled on and off all afternoon until the second storm arrived about 17:00. Then it cleared to leave a nice sunny evening.
Thursday 4
A couple of evenings ago, there was a wonderful fire-breathing dragon in the western sky.
Not a brilliant photo as it was a grab shot, through the window with my phone – and a few minutes earlier the cloud had been less linear and more dragon-like.
Sunday 7
What a dismal day. Grey, windy and should have been raining. Inside I felt completely drained, stressed and depressed. Everything enlivened slightly by an evening meal of steak and chips with a bottle of Champagne.
Monday 8
Phew! We’re solvent again this month.
Friday 12
Spent the last few days fighting off an attack of vertigo. Not the worst attack I’ve had, but enough to stop me doing much.
Monday 15
Still trying to get rid of the last vestiges of the vertigo; it’s left me really drained. Meanwhile Boy Cat had the right idea this morning lying in a sunbeam.
Thursday 18
So yesterday I felt fine; vertigo gone away. Awoke this morning with it back with a vengeance; much worse than last week and ended up horizontal for the majority of the day. So now have a call out with the doctors.
Friday 19
Head feeling a bit better. Weather feeling uncomfortably hot and sticky.
Sunday 21
I’m surprised we haven’t got local Ice Cream Van Wars. We have at least three which seem to tour the locality, each with a more irritating jingle than the last. But they never seem to coincide; maybe they have a rota worked out. (Unless, of course, it is one van with three different jingles.)
Monday 22
So Starmer has chickened out of being PM. Idiot. See my blog post for more thoughts.
Tuesday 23
Blimey, I was woken just after 3 this morning by an epic thunderstorm. Lots of very bright lightening, and massive rolls of thunder, although none right overhead. This went on for at least an hour as I dropped off to sleep again about 4. Heaven knows how much rain we had with it. And then today has been relentlessly hot and humid; so uncomfortable.
Wednesday 24
Record breaking temperatures: the UK’s hottest ever June day. Unbearable.
Thursday 25
It hasn’t felt quite so unbearably hot today, possibly because there’s been a nice breeze all day. It’s just as humid and sticky though. And again record breaking temperatures.
Friday 26
The supermarket have cancelled our weekly delivery today. They say they’ve had “system problems”, whatever that means. I’ve put the order in again for Sunday morning, but had to do an expensive “top up” delivery from the local store – which took them forever to organise. And it all wasted the whole morning. Still at least the supermarket have had the grace to give us £10 off our next order; 20% would have been better compensation.
Saturday 27
The buddleia is in full bloom for several days – so early! – and not a butterfly in sight.
Sunday 28
Phew! Well at least today has been significantly cooler – it’s still warm, but just comfortably summer hot, rather than desert hot. And there’s been a good “seaside” breeze for most of the day. Actually not a bad day to play cricket, although some bowlers wouldn’t have relished the breeze.
In other news, customer services at the supermarket got a fairly snotty email today (not that it will do any good). Our rebooked delivery was scheduled for 11:00-12:00 and finally arrived something after 13:00 with a driver who couldn’t have been less interested and engaged with his job. They’ve not had an impressive weekend.
Monday 29
Out yonder we have a small mulberry bush in a tub and today, for the first time after several years, we had a handful of small black mulberries. There really weren’t enough to do anything with, so I put them in a mixed fruit salad with some raspberries and blueberries (plus a little sugar and a tot of peach schnapps). They worked well and added a little something to the other fruit, although I’d be had pressed to describe the actual taste of the mulberries. Mind you, they don’t half stain; it’s taken several good washes to even start getting the purple dye off the fingers.
Tuesday 30
Yesterday I found myself wearing a pair of shorts almost all day. Yeah, so what? Well it was the first time for a week that I have worn any clothes at all because it has been so hot – except for a couple of hours on Saturday and Sunday when I knew I was likely to have to go to the door. At most times I had a pair of shorts to hand in case the doorbell rang. It’s summer, it’s hot, and I’m always warm (I have a good covering of blubber!), and our house is naturally warm. So why wear clothes? Why not be like this all the time? Oh wait, I do; even in the depths of winter I seldom wear more than a pair of legs and a t-shirt around the house and at this time of year it is at most a pair of shorts. As regular readers will know I can’t be doing with all this fuss about nudity and the like. We all know what’s under each other’s t-shirt and jeans, so really where is the problem. There is no legal prohibition on nudity, either in private or in public, unless one is deliberately causing someone else harassment, alarm or distress, or performing a sexual act – all of which is enshrined in Police and CPS guidance. So be comfortable. Go attired or not as you wish.