Funny Friday

Looking through some pics to locate the photo of my mother that was used in Bytes a few days ago, I came across a couple of other 2008 photos of interest.  

My son Thomas, who works in my office (and who has now completed his law course, graduation in July, WD) had carried out some tasks for John, an elderly, eccentric Scottish client.  John took a liking to Thomas and would often pass on bits of advice, tell him some stories and so on. 

Not long after Thomas had completed the tasks mentioned above, he received a letter from John in the office mail.

The letter said that:

• the item enclosed was for good luck and should be worn around the neck;

• John’s father had been an ace poacher in Scotland and had never been caught;

• his father had told him to wear one but he, John, hadn’t and he was nicked in 1942;

• there was an extra one for a friend.

Inside the envelope was a wrapped parcel which smelt horrible. Tom opened it and found two rabbit’s feet…

John died a couple of years ago.  We never did find out whether he was serious or if it was a joke.  I suspect that he was serious.

So a couple of rabbit jokes for Friday (one of them a re-post but a goodie), plus an item about colonoscopies for my dad in law.  

A priest has been reassigned to a new church and wants to see how seriously the attendees take Easter. He approaches a one person and asks the meaning of Easter. She replies that Easter is when a giant bunny brings candy for children. Ok, how about another, so the priest asks someone else. He says Easter is when all the children color eggs, and the adults hide the Easter eggs and let the children participate in an egg hunt. Ok, how about another, so the priest finds a conservative looking person praying quietly, and he hopes she appreciates the meaning of Easter. She describes how Jesus carried the cross and then was crucified, and then his body was put in a cave with a rock at the entrance. Good so far thought the priest but then, Easter Sunday, the boulder magically rolled away from the cave, Jesus was resurrected ... and stepped out of the cave and saw his shadow, and he knew there would be 6 more weeks of winter.

A precious little girl walks into a pet shop and asks in the sweetest little lisp, "Excuthe me, mithter, do you keep widdle wabbits?"

As the shopkeeper's heart melts, he gets down on his knees, so that he's on her level, and asks, "Do you want a widdle white wabbit or a thoft and fuwwy bwack wabbit or maybe one like that cute widdle bwown wabbit over there?"

She, in turn blushes, puts her hands on her knees, leans forward and says in a quiet voice,"I don't think my python weally givth a thit"

Years ago while lying in my hammock and drinking JD from the bottle I noticed my dog dragging something under the fence. Upon inspection, to my dismay, I realised it was the next door neighbour`s 10 year old daughter`s rabbit.

For years I had watched her come home from school and head straight out to its cage, free it and play with it in the yard. I knew today would be no different and fearing for our dog, I had to think fast. The rabbit was quite dirty, as if it had put up quite a struggle, so I washed it off with the hose, combed it with the dog brush and blew it dry with the leaf blower. Upon finishing it`s grooming I jumped the fence and placed it back in its cage hoping its death would be written off as "natural causes".

Back to the hammock and JD. Within the hour the neighbour’s Volvo pulled in as usual and out popped the little girl, and as usual she headed straight for the cage. Only this time she stopped about six feet away and screamed: "DDDDDAAAADDDDDDDYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!"

Her father, panic stricken, stood looking at the cage. Being the good neighbour that I am I rushed to fence and asked if there was anything I could do.

Her father less than calmly blurted, "What kind of sick individual would dig up a little girl`s dead rabbit and put it back in its cage?"

For Noel. . . 

Colonoscopies are no joke, but these comments during the exam were quite humorous..... A physician claimed that the following are actual comments made by his patients (predominately male) while he was performing their colonoscopies: 

1. 'Take it easy, Doc. You're boldly going where no man has gone before!

2. 'Find Amelia Earhart yet?'

3. 'Can you hear me NOW?' 

4. 'Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?' 

5. 'You know, in Arkansas, we're now legally married.' 

6. 'Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?' 

7. 'You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out...' 

8. 'Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!' 

9. 'If your hand doesn't fit, you must quit! 

10. 'Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.' 

11. 'You used to be an executive at Enron, didn't you?' 

12. 'God, now I know why I am not gay.' 

And the best one of all: 

13. 'Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is not up there?'

Limerick Corner:

A preoccupied vegan named Hugh

Picked up the wrong sandwich to chew.

He took a big bite

before spitting, in fright,

"OMG, WTF, BBQ!"

Facts

“Now, what I want is, facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!”

- Charles Dickens, Hard Times

Words spoken by Mr Thomas Gradgrind.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

Hard Times was Dickens’ tenth novel, his shortest, and is set in a fictitious Northern mill town, Coketown. It sought to highlight the social and economic pressures of the times and the negative effects of industrialisation. It has been criticised for its pessimism. The novel was originally published as a weekly series in the magazine The Household Words, and was intended to boost sales of the failing magazine, a task in which it was successful.

The words above are spoken by Mr Gradgrind, the school headmaster, who has 5 children of his own and who runs a school where children are treated as empty vessels to be filled to the full with facts. It is his philosophy that facts enable people to further their own interests but, despite his stated belief that children’s minds are fertile fields in which facts can be sowed, he treats the children like machines. Eventually he comes to realise that emotions and feelings are important when his daughter Louisa has an emotional breakdown.

The name of Thomas Gradgrind is today sometimes applied generally to a person or persons who are hard and only concerned with cold facts and numbers. 

One of Dickens’ purposes in writing Hard Times was to satirise the views of the Utilatarians, founded by James Mill (the father of political theorist John Stuart Mill) and Jeremy Bentham, a school of thought that held that individuals and society in general should ensure that their actions always produce the largest amount of happiness among the greatest number of people. It was their view that such an application would address the the vast social, economic, and cultural problems caused by the Industrial Revolution and its consequences on the British society.

James  Mill (1773-1836)

Dickens saw Utilitarianism as selfish and divisive. He was appalled to see Utilitarian principles used in schools, believing that this created young adults lacking in imagination and feelings.

Interestingly, James Mill raised his own children in the same manner as advocated by Thomas Gradgrind, emphasising analysis and mathematics above, and instead of, anything else. Like Louisa in Hard Times, his son John Stuart Mill had a nervous breakdown as a result of the pressure to avoid feeling and emotion, Dickens incorporating that in Hard Times.

You Had One Job!

There is a website called You Had One Job! As the name implies, it is a collection of Fails, depicted by way of photographs. Some are understandable, some are beyond understanding.

From time time I will post You Had One Job! pics that will probably raise a wry smile and some head scratching. Some are from that site, others from various locations.

And my favourite. . .

Reader Comment

An email from Byter Dianne, a friend of many years who now lives in her native Holland: 

Hi Otto  

Loved your article on the Dutch Shop.  

The Dutch are very house proud and homes like your mother`s house are still very popular, not so much with the younger generation but mine looks like it. I promised myself that after moving in 2007 I would not fill it up so much again but slowly it does happen. 

We call that "gezellig" which means cosy and most leave the curtains open with lampshades and candles everywhere so that people can look in and admire the cosy look and the beautiful art, clocks or whatever their taste is that is on display.  

The Dutch are also known for their beautiful curtains and open windows and I find myself gaping at the lovely items they have inside, which is very rude according to how I was brought up but it’s so interesting. When I go to Amsterdam for the day they have the narrow streets and houses placed next to the footpath. No garden in between and there are some beautiful items in those old lovely houses.  

Thanks for the interesting Bytes.  

Take care  

Dianne 

Now that Diane has mentioned it, I remember the word being used by my parents during childhood. It is pronounced with that throaty Germanic and Dutch guttural “heh / ch” sound that English speakers seem to be unable to make or pronounce. The word gezellig is pronounced heh-sell-ick. 

According to Wikipedia: 

Gezelligheid is a Dutch abstract noun (adjective form gezellig) which, depending on context, can be translated as convivial, cosy, fun, quaint or nice atmosphere, but can also connote belonging, time spent with loved ones, the fact of seeing a friend after a long absence, or general togetherness. The word is considered to be an example of untranslatability, and is one of the hardest words to translate to English. Some consider the word to encompass the heart of Dutch culture. 

The adjective gezellig can be used in a wide variety of situations. 

For example:
A room can be gezellig. (meaning cosy or inviting)
A person can be gezellig. (meaning entertaining or pleasant)
A party can be gezellig. (meaning fun)
A visit to ones grandparents can be gezellig. (meaning togetherness)
A set of curtains can be gezellig. (meaning pretty or nice). 

My mother in 2008 in her gezellig Dutch style home. It wasn't just this corner that looked like this, it was the entire house.  

Monday Pics

Some recent pics sent to me by mobile phone by my son Thomas . . .

- Richard Dawkins quote

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because of the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few who won the lottery of birth, against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state, from which the vast majority has never stirred?"

Bonus Notes and Extras:

As regards the Loneliest Whale:

• The whale is known as the 52-Hertz whale.

• What is unique about this whale is the relatively high frequency range of its calls. Different species of whales call within their own range of frequencies – giant blue whales at 10-20 hz; the next biggest, fin whales, at about 20 hz, and sperm whales (the ones often heard on recordings) at 30-8 hz. This whale calls at 52 hz, comparatively high for whales. 

• The whale’s call was first heard in 1989 and it has been tracked since 1992. 

• No one has seen it and there is speculation that it could be a malformed or hybrid of a blue whale and another species. There have been suggestions that it could be the last member of an unknown species. 

• It is also believed to have matured since 1992 in that its voice has deepened slightly since then. 

• Its migrations and travels are unlike those of other whales, its movements being similar to those of blue whales but the timing being more like that of fin whales. 

• It is not definitively known whether the whales has a mate, has friends, or is really the loneliest whale in the world. Researchers have reported that the sounds seem to come from a single animal with no other whales present. 

• Whatever the answers, the whale keeps singing a song that only it knows and that only it hears.

As regards correlation not implying causation:

Pulitzer and World Press Pics of the Year: 1960 and 1961

Continuing the list of the winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Photography, from inception in 1942; and the World Press Photograph of the Year, from inception in 1955. 

Year:    

1960 

Award:   

Pulitzer Prize for Photography 

Photographer:   

Andrew Lopez of United Press International 

Photograph:    

 

A series of four photographs of a corporal, formerly of Dictator Fulgencio Batista’s's army, who was executed by a Fidel Castro firing squad, the principal picture showing the condemned man receiving last rites. 

Comments: 

Andrew Lopez was born May 10, 1910, in Spain and came to the United States when he was 4. 

In 1947 Lopez was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest award that can be bestowed on a citizen, for helping rescue several soldiers who had been caught in a German trap in World War II. General Dwight D. Eisenhower gave Lopez the award. 

Lopez, who taught himself how to take pictures with a box camera, worked as a war correspondent in Europe during World War II and his assignments included Italy, Normandy and Germany. 

The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro’s and his Barbudos (“Bearded Ones”) guerillas against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was ousted on 1 January 1959 and was replaced by Castro's revolutionary government. This government later reformed along communist lines, becoming the present Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965. 

Lopez was present in Cuba in 1959 to record Castro’s rise to power On 17 January of that year he photographed a Batista loyalist kneeling and holding a crucifix as a priest blessed him and gunmen waited to execute him. 

The Batista loyalist who was to be executed was army corporal Jose Rodriguez, known as “Pepe Caliente” (“Hot Pete”). Pepe had been tried in a war crimes trial where hundreds had gathered to testify as to his brutality. 

According to photographer Lopez “The entire trial took two hours, (but it took only) one minute for three tribunal judges to condemn Pepe to death.” 

Pepe was taken to a courtyard where he dropped to his knees as a priest administered last rites. The prosecutor, rebel major Willy Galvez, screamed at Lopez to stop taking pictures. “I was standing there arguing with him, and in the background I could see eight or nine Barbudos waiting for all this to end so they could get on with their business and shoot this guy.” The prosecutor demanded that Lopez surrender his film and Lopez handed over a roll. “I kept the one with Pepe on it," he said. 

Lopez died in 1986 of cancer, having remained with UPI until 1983. 

Year: 

1960 

Award: 

World Press Photograph of the Year 

Photographer: 

Yashusi Nagao 

Photograph: 

“Tokyo Stabbing” 

Comments: 

12 October, 1960 and 3,000 people are crammed into Tokyo’s Hibiya Hall to hear socialist party chairman Inejiro Asanuma debate Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda on the US-Japan Security Treaty. 

Asanuma was head of the Japanese Socialist Party and a supporter of the Chinese Communist Party, a stance which drew criticism from both the right and his own colleagues. 

During the 1960 debate, Asanuma criticised the government for its mutual defence treaty with the United States. Right-wing students in the audience began to heckle and throw pieces of paper. Police rushed in and most of the press photographic contingent followed that melee, hoping to get some good crowd shots. 

Nagao chose to remain on the stage. One student, the 17-year-old son of a Self-Defence Force Colonel, Otoya Yamaguchi, ran out of the police cordon carrying a samurai sword. Before anyone could stop him, he plunged his sword into Asanuma, pulled it out and speared Asanuma again through the heart. Less than three weeks after the assassination, while being held in a juvenile detention facility, Yamaguchi used his bedsheet to hang himself. More people attended his funeral than the state service for Asanuma. 

Photographer Yashusi Nagao had frantically refocused his camera, by instinct, as Yamaguchi ran forward. Yamaguchi’s first strike had caused both to come out from behind the podium. As Yamaguchi prepared to thrust his blade into Asanuma a second time, Nagao took his award winning photograph using the last shot in his film pack. 

Nagao’s photograph was published worldwide. It was awarded not only the prize for World Press Photograph of the Year, it also won the Pulitzer Prize for Photography in 1961 

With the award Nagao was able to travel freely around the world, something that was difficult for Japanese citizens at the time. He died of natural causes on May 2, 2009. 

1961 Pulitzer Prize for Photography: Nagao’s Tokyo Stabbing, as above. 

1961 World Press Photograph of the Year: No award given

Clogs

I love watching Antique Roadshow. That’s the program where a bunch of experts go to different historic locations in England and the local populations bring their antiques and knick knacks for assessment and appraisal. In one such show recently an old lady brought some porcelain clogs. The expert said that they were Dutch clogs, not Lancashire clogs and that they didn’t have irons. It started me wondering what that meant.

I was born in Holland and have walked in the bulky Dutch clogs, they are remarkably comfortable and not at all difficult once you get used to them. For anyone interested in a Sunday drive, there is a fascinating shop in Smithfield known as the Dutch Shop that sells all sorts of Dutch stuff – clogs, foods, furniture, rugs, knick knacks etc – and it also does coffees and a sitdown lunch. It is at 85 Market Street, Smithfield and well worth a visit. Read about it at: 

http://www.notquitenigella.com/2009/09/11/the-dutch-shop-smithfield-how-the-carrot-got-its-orange-colour/

This is what my mother's house looked like, including carpets used as tablecloths and not a spare bit of space on the walls or floor.

In my naivete, I assumed that the use of clogs was confined to the Dutch. Not so. 

Some information and trivia about clogs: 

• Traditional clogs are shoes or sandals made predominantly out of wood, and are associated with the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Lithuania and Sweden. 

• Clogs can also be a type of heavy boot or shoe with sides and uppers and with thick wooden soles. They may have steel toecaps and/or steel reinforcing inserts in the undersides of the soles. 

• Dutch clogs form part of the national dress. Whilst mostly now promoted as souvenirs, quite a few Dutch persons still swear by them for gardening, foot protection, comfort and as best for foot health. 

• Clogs were not only cheaper than leather, they were safer against penetration and less likely to be adversely affected by snow, moisture and mud. They were long lasting and comfortable. 

• Clogs were also the everyday footwear of working people in England until the turn of the century. Unlike the Dutch clogs, which are made by carving wood into shoes, the Lancashire clogs have a leather upper and lace up like ordinary shoes. They have pieces of iron or steel underneath the wooden sole, like a horseshoe, to stop wear. Lancashire clogs are still worn as an industrial safety shoe in some industries, however, modern boots with man made soles have made them less common. 

Lancashire clogs, leather uppers and wooden soles reinforced with clog irons.

Some more Lancashire clogs with irons, the irons being known as "caulkers":

 

• The Industrial Revolution gave rise to the popularity of clogs in Britain, with workers in the mills, mines, iron, steel, and chemical works, workshops and factories needing strong, cheap footwear. The heyday of the clog in Britain was between 1840s and 1920s. Although traditionally associated with Lancashire, they were worn all over England, not just in the industrial North of England. 

• The Industrial Revolution likewise inspired the wearing of clogs in France, the French word for clog or wooden she being sabot. One explanation for the derivation of the word sabotage is that disgruntled workers allegedly threw their shoes into the machinery. 

• In England, the wearing of clogs gave rise to a popular activity of clog dancing, a form of dancing that eventually developed into tap dancing. It has been suggested that clog dancing originated with workers synchronising foot tapping with the rhythmic sounds made by the loom shuttles. The predominant style of Lancashire clog dancing was termed 'heel and toe.' Many of the steps emulate the sound of the shuttle and other parts of the cotton spinning and weaving machinery. 

• Clog dancing was a cheap form of popular entertainment. Not only was clog dancing common, it was danced on street corners, there were professional clog dancers and competitions, and proficient clog dancers could improve their situation by dancing professionally in music halls. Stan Laurel and Charlie Chaplin began their careers as cloggers. 

• Dancing clogs were termed 'neet' clogs, they did not have irons or rubbers on the soles and were lighter than the heavier working clogs. The uppers were usually highly tooled (decorated) and often coloured. 

• See a video of traditional clog dancing at: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xfHY8q3tpA

Note the similarities to traditional Irish dancing. 

• Dutch clog dancing has both similarities and differences to Lancashire clog dancing, see: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0ScLgkXGt0

• One final note on Lancashire clogs. Men who wished to settle differences frequently did so by squaring off against each other by “clog fighting”. In Lancashire it was curiously known as “purring”, with a contemporary account as follows: 

It is all up and down fighting here. They fought quite naked, excepting their clogs. When one has the other down on the ground he first endeavors to choke him by squeezing his throat, then he kicks him on the head with his clogs. Sometimes they are very severely injured. 

       —Chris Brady