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If you arrived here directly, then don't miss Holford Web Home of David's Mental Meanderings If you just want to find out who this strange bloke is, you'll need to go there as well. Your feedback about anything you read here is always welcome. Other blogs I enjoy reading: Doxos St. Stephen's Musings Robert's Cogitations This is Life Paradosis Natalie Solent Mere Comments Little Geneva Antioch Road The Edge of England's Sword flyingchair.net Samizdata Joshua Claybourn Between Heaven and Hell PC Watch Notes From a Hillside Farm Simeon's Hit and Miss of Filosofical Thought George Grant Lileks a conservative blog for peace You can also find me listed at Blogs4God Currently down from the bookshelf: Celtic Christianity in Early Medieval Wales: The Origins of the Welsh Spiritual Tradition by Oliver Davies Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium by Judith Herrin Recently finished: Give Me My Father's Body: The Life of Minik, The New York Eskimo by Kenn Harper John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life by Paul C. Nagel Lancaster & York: The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir Most recent acquisitions: John Major: The Autobiography Retreat from New Jerusalem: British Politics 1951-64 by Kevin Jefferys 
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Saturday, June 07, 2003
Babel-on We have been experiencing a significant increase in vocabulary in the Holford house. Our favourite words are still �Papa� and �Honey� (or �Nunyee� as it comes out), but since we always tell him they are in Texas (so he will get down off the window sill), he can now say �Texas� (or more like a variation thereof that defies transliteration). We seem to be doing well with the �T� words. Quite out of the blue, he�s picked up the word �tasty�. This is no doubt due to my overuse of my David Letterman dumb guy voice when I�m encouraging him to continue eating a food that he had tested and found acceptable for an additional bite. I invariably say, �Them�s a tasty treat!� and �Them�s good eatin�!� I suppose I should avoid overuse of the third person objective possessive pronoun, as it doesn�t actually exist in proper English. Stuck in the Future Past Do you ever get old songs stuck in your head for absolutely no good reason? I think we all do. Lately mine has been the "Cossack Song" by Tommy Coomes and released originally on Love Song�s Final Touch album in 1974. It is Hal Lindsey � or more specifically Chuck Smith -- eschatology from the same era. In part: I wouldn't want to be a Cossack headed for that Palestine Road Yep, the Russians are the baddies and they are going to attack Israel and BAM! God�s gonna get them. The thought pattern goes something like this: The Russians must be the baddies because them�s godless Communists. If there�s anything we knowd, it�s that Amairca is God�s country � next to Isrul, u�course � God loves us more spaisle than them. Heck, they don�t even speak Anglish, so how would they read the King James Version and get saved anyhow? I suppose the fall of Communism has taken the gum erasers to some Bible prophecy charts and graphs, but Russia (or Gog as they like to call it) is still an indicator used in the Rapture Index. The Rapture Index is sort of Dow Jones of �Prophetic Activity�. The higher the number, the more likely the Rapture is to occur. There apparently hasn�t been a lot of activity in Gog lately, so it�s rating has been downgraded by one point. However, there is a lot of activity related to the EU � or the �Beast Government� as it is called (a name I might prefer in a different context), so it is still rated at the maximum five points. In case you haven�t kept up with all this, the EU is the 10-horned restoration of the Roman Empire, because there are 10 countries in the EU. Well, there are a lot more than that, but that doesn�t matter, apparently. Friday, June 06, 2003
Britain�s Greatest Embarrassment That�s the only way to describe him. First he insisted that everyone stop using their cars and start using public transportation and then got in one of his two Jaguars to drive 250 yards to a meeting. It was so his wife�s hair wouldn�t get blown by the wind. Then he punched a heckler on the campaign trail. That�s right, he was out electioneering and socked someone in the face. Last night his latest his response to reporters as he went into a meeting was to show them the �V� sign. No, not the V-for-Victory sign. We aren�t talking about Winston Churchill here. It was the �V� with the fingers facing the other direction. For American readers this is used to send a stronger message when just the middle finger isn�t enough. Is this some sort of uneducated thug? Well, yes, but he is also the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott. His Real Name is Brian Marilyn Manson was on Jonathan Ross tonight and I learn that he is not a Satanist. Instead, noting that he�s girlfriend prefers to wear a particular fabric, he is an admitted satin-ist. It reminded me of something that I read recently on Karl Thiene�s blog. Charlotte Church was also on with Mr Woss, and it was just more confirmation that South Wales is a valuable source of good looking women. Thursday, June 05, 2003
Lyrical Sleight of Hand I was listening to Paul Simon this morning and it finally struck me that even though he says there are fifty ways to leave your lover, he only supports his thesis with three. I�m sure your initial reaction is that I�ve miscounted and that there are five mentioned. But think about it. He encourages Jack to get out the back, Gus to hop on the bus, and Lee to drop off the key. Stan making a new plan isn�t actually an act of leaving a lover, though the plan could involve one of the three or perhaps one of the forty-seven which remain unknown. Encouraging Roy not to be coy is less of a move toward leaving a lover than even Stan�s new plan. In fact, the suggesting that Roy need not be coy appears to be an encouragement by the speaker to listen to the various lover-leaving ways being proposed. Thus we are left we just three ways to leave a lover. Not that I am encouraging having lovers outside of marriage or leaving those lovers within the marital bond. However, for those with lovers outside of marriage, any of these three methods seems indicative of repentance. I can�t speak for the other forty-seven, obviously. Just One Way to Leave the Cabinet In the best news I�ve heard in ages, Derry Irvine is to be shuffled out of the Cabinet. Lord Irvine of Lairg has been Lord Chancellor since Labour came to power in 1997. Some of you will remember him as the subject of one of my Meanderings comparing his moral character to that of US Attorney General John Ashcroft. Lord Irvine got the top job in the judicial system because he gave Tony Blair his first job as a barrister and introduced Tony to another up and coming barrister named Cherie Booth. But even Tony can only take so much of Derry�s complete self-absorption and the student is ready to be loosed from his teacher. Trading Cronies The bad news is that the front runner to take over as either Lord Chancellor or head of a newly-created Ministry of Justice (since Labour has no qualms about washing away perfectly good institutions just because they are rooted in time immemorial) is Charlie Falconer, Tony old college flatmate. Lord Falconer was made a peer of the realm because Tony was determined to have him in a ministerial post. He would have stood for election to the House of Commons in a safe Labour seat, but the selection board refused to let him stand because he sends his children to private school. Those on this side of the Pond will remember Charlie as the Millennium Dome minister, who over saw the pumping of additional hundreds of millions of pounds into the giant white elephant that the Government eventual had to give away. It seems Charlie has done a good job working with Home Secretary David Blunkett to rework the criminal justice system. I don�t know whether it Charlie�s or David�s idea to propose changes in the law so that cottaging (committing homosexual acts in public toilets) will be legal and sunbathing in your back garden behind a privacy fence will be illegal. This is the way that the criminal justice system is being reformed in this country. Wednesday, June 04, 2003
The Dangers of Pollution to Gender Okay this ones almost enough to make me an environmentalist. Pollution emptying into the Firth of Forth has turned 20 percent of the shrimps into hermaphrodites. In an amazing parallel with the human society around them, the results of samples showed that shrimps were maturing later and producing fewer eggs. The leader of the research team said, �I believe there is a relationship between pollution and the number of intersex shrimps. But I don�t know the mechanism involved. There is a parasite which alters a male amphipod�s gender so the amphipods have either been indirectly affected by the polluted area�s increased number of parasites, or directly from the wide variety of industrial chemicals which act like hormones.� Not surprisingly the pollution of sin around us is creating gender-bending changes as well. The only salvation from the polluted water in which we are drowning is the Church. As St Cyprian famously said, �If any one could escape who was outside the ark of Noah, then he also may escape who shall be outside of the Church.� For more one sin and sexuality, Huw Raphael at Doxos has posted some insightful thoughts. Born of a Pretty Special Sheila So says the The Aussie Bible (Well, bits of it anyway!) about Jesus. It will be published Down Under in August. It is a translation into Australian vernacular, though I don�t know if the was from the original Greek. I have my doubts as this is the story of the Good Samaritan: "A bunch of bushrangers attacked him, stole his dough, and left him as good as dead. A big wig from the Temple happened to pass by, took one look at the bloke, crossed the road, and hurried off. Another official who was on the road that day did the same. "Then a really ordinary bloke (a grubby old street sweeper you wouldn't look twice at) passed by and felt really sorry for him. So he used his first-aid kit to patch him up, and then put him on his old nag, took him to the nearest pub and took care of him." But I don�t know the academic qualification of the translator, journalist and Christian radio presenter Kel Richards. Though it has the support of the Australian Bible Society, I am a bit worried about it, since it also has the blessing of the Anglican Church. And we know what the Anglican Church has been blessing lately� Tuesday, June 03, 2003
I haven't had a lot of time to blog, because I've been finishing my latest read, John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life by Paul C. Nagel. This is an excellent book, information from which will appear in my next Meandering. Thus I have now updated information on the left side of your screen concerning my library. Monday, June 02, 2003
Congratulations to HM the Queen on the 50th anniversary of her Coronation. Long may she reign over us. Our Little Jamie Oliver On the domestic front today, we got Aidie a play kitchen. He has a great interest in kitchens, both ours at home and the ones at the playgroup he attends. In fact, at the playgroup, all the boys are interested in the kitchens. Is it a coincidence that all the great chefs are men? On a visit to the Early Learning Centre, a shop with toys for young children, Aidan became inseparable from the play kitchen, except when he would grab a plastic pan in one hand and a plastic utensil in the other and run for the door. The next time he went in there, arriving in his pram, he pulled and tugged to get free to play with it again. Unfortunately the ELC version cost �50. A little over our budget, that. So we got one from that universal purveyor of all things inexpensive, Argos. I was a bit embarrassed carrying it out of Argos because the picture on the front is of a little girl. I didn�t want people thinking I was buying a little girl toy for my little boy (as he was there at the time). And then when we got it home and Mrs Holford started to put it together, it was immediately evident that there is a strong pink motif to the thing. It looks like a girl�s toy. Even Mrs Holford wants to paint it to make it look a bit more neutral. I think we have decided that the pink is going to become green. And speaking of things in the kitchen� Hot Hot Hot We had tacos this evening � not unusual fare for us. Normally we use the Old El Paso taco seasoning, since it comes in a package with the Old El Paso taco shells, the only variety available on our supermarket shelves. However, as the package comes with twelve taco shells and one package of seasoning, it sometimes occurs that we have shells but no seasoning. Not a problem. Mrs Holford just adds her own blend of herbs and spices. Because the meat had been in the freezer for a while and had lost some of its natural savour, she decided to go a little heavier than usual on the chili powder. We like things fairly spicy, but this stuff in our bottle of chili powder is dangerous. Just a little dab will do ya. Things got a little out of control and the taco meat was particularly potent. The question naturally arose over dinner as to what makes chili and other peppers hot. We concurred that this was one of those answers that could no doubt be found on the Internet. And right we were. Have you ever wondered what caused the hotness � how something on your tongue could make your eyes water, your nose run, and perspiration to break out over your whole body? (If you don�t normally eat things that cause this reaction, you don�t know what you are missing � and you�re a wuss.) It a chemical call capsaicin (pronounced cap-SAY-i-sin) a crystalline alkaloid. Facinating stuff really. It actually has no taste. It only acts on the pain receptors in your tongue and mouth. In doing so, it appear to block some of the taste buds from working. If strong at a high enough concentration, it can cause blisters in the mouth. It does not appear to be lethal, however. In lab tests, scientists were only able to kill rodents by virtually drowning them in the stuff. Or by whatever method they are killed to autopsy them, thereby demonstrating that they weren�t killed by the thing with which they were testing them. One study did show, however, that an average-sized human might overdose and become unconscious by consuming half a gallon of Tabasco Sauce. The hotness of various peppers are actually measured scientifically in Scoville heat units. This is determined by the amount of capsaicinoid parts per million. One part per million is equal to 15 Scoville units. To give you an idea of the scale, bell peppers have 0 Scoville units. Jalapenos average between 2,500 and 5,000. Habaneros, the hottest known pepper can be as hot as 300,000 Scoville units. Pure capsaicin have a Scoville score of 16,000,000. Potent stuff. And finally� Reliable Sources Thanks to Josh Claybourn for the link to a Guardian article on why bloggers are dominating the search engine results over the established media. I don�t normally read the Guardian, so it good to see it�s good for something. |