Naoko's news, views and shoes thread

[beachbum1958]

The Pelicans and the mosquitoes are about the same size and color.

Large doses of B12 are also good at dissuading the swarms from landing. I have no idea where to even start looking for Greek catnip oil. In any case, if you ever saw a full grown bobcat you might rethink catnip. Not to mention the occasional Black Panthers that show up every now and then.

I thought you were spinning a yarn about the Black panthers, that it was another 'drop-bears/carnivorous wombats/killer kangaroos' story put about to screw with tourists' heads, but I checked, and whaddya know...

There are supposed to be many odd things roaming around the swamps and bayou backwoods; Lori swears on a stack of bibles she and her cousins saw the Rougarou swamp creature in the woods around Lost Lake when they were on a fishing trip out that way back in the 70's; she was about 10, they all got so frightened her big cousin, Jean-Bastiénne had to take them all back to Bayou Petit Gaillou immediately, and she had nightmares for days afterwards.

So I apologise for doubting you, it won't happen again (until the next time...)

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Now there's a thought for re-cycling at the local graveyard. . . .

Not to joke, HP, but there's pretty solid inferential evidence that many Egyptian mummies ended up as "potash" fertilizer for Canadian gardeners in the 19th Century. I'll tell you more sometime if you're interested.

I thought you were spinning a yarn about the Black panthers, that it was another 'drop-bears/carnivorous wombats/killer kangaroos' story put about to screw with tourists' heads, but I checked, and whaddya know...

There are supposed to be many odd things roaming around the swamps and bayou backwoods; Lori swears on a stack of bibles she and her cousins saw the Rougarou swamp creature in the woods around Lost Lake when they were on a fishing trip out that way back in the 70's; she was about 10, they all got so frightened her big cousin, Jean-Bastiénne had to take them all back to Bayou Petit Gaillou immediately, and she had nightmares for days afterwards.

So I apologise for doubting you, it won't happen again (until the next time...)

Seems to be related to the "loup-garou." or werewolf. On the reality side of it, i'd wonder if it weren't related to the Florida Panther.

 

[Hypoxia]

We read off-the-tracks guidebooks before our first drive from California to the Yucatan. (That's the peninsula sticking out into the Caribbean to form the Gulf of Mexico.) The guidebooks advised that local cuisine included "swamp creatures", species unidentified. But we mostly were fed fish, chicken, and pork. I think. With enough salsa verde, who can tell?

We did manage to avoid the local specialty in Tehuantepec: broiled armadillo. Somehow it just didn't seem right. But that reminds me of Texas jokes:

Q: How many Texans does it take to eat an armadillo?
A: Three. One to gobble, and two to block traffic.

Q: How does a Texan count armadillos?
A: One diller, two dillers, and another diller, and another...

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Armadillos: Natural Selection at work?

Armadillos are low enough to the ground that most cars could pass over them. However, their normal defensive response doesn't serve them well in traffic. When frightened or threatened, an armadillo will jump up as high as two feet (60 cm), and then curl into an armored ball as it falls back to the ground. Works pretty well for coyotes and the like, but it puts them at prime height for the grill of an oncoming car. Perhaps we'll see a shift in adaptive behaviour if some of the beasts fail to jump and thus survive to reproduce.

 

[R. Richard]

Armadillos are suspected to be the carriers of Mycobacterium leprae (a bacterium responsible for causing leprosy), its undercooked meat can lead to infection in humans.

 

[NaokoSmith]

Good morning. Up with a sick munchkin.

Baby is better now, I hope?


HP and Sam, you are becoming the Burke and Hare of the thread! LOL@the 'boner' crack, TX.

As for the armadillos, I shall never eat one again!

What a long day. I was cream-crackered after teaching online last night. My colleague's broadbrand suddenly got narrow and he kept dropping in and out, so I had to deliver the class by myself. Of course it was the biggest turnout since the start of the module!

Piglet volunteered to do a special national maths test today!!! When I think of how her teachers used to tell me she was a very nice social member of the class, but not that bright - and here she is scoring super high marks in science tests, getting extra praise from the geography teacher and doing after school clubs in computer coding - and volunteering to go and take a maths test!!!

I should definitely patent my parenting method and sell it in bottles which I've thrown the snake oil out of.

 

[Handley_Page]

Not to joke, HP, but there's pretty solid inferential evidence that many Egyptian mummies ended up as "potash" fertilizer for Canadian gardeners in the 19th Century. I'll tell you more sometime if you're interested.

There are tales of loads of mummies being ground up for fertiliser in Victorian times.
Ghastly.

Baby is better now, I hope?


HP and Sam, you are becoming the Burke and Hare of the thread! LOL@the 'boner' crack, TX.

As for the armadillos, I shall never eat one again!

I've never eaten Armadillo. I thought them rather cute.

Good for Piglet.

 

[oggbashan]

Not to joke, HP, but there's pretty solid inferential evidence that many Egyptian mummies ended up as "potash" fertilizer for Canadian gardeners in the 19th Century. I'll tell you more sometime if you're interested.
...

They were also used to make paint for artists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_brown

 

[beachbum1958]

They were also used to make paint for artists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_brown

Mummies were also used to harvest the preservative resin traditionally believed to have healing and restorative properties, it was known as 'mumia', and the demand in medieval times led to wholesale destruction of thousands of ancient Egyptian burials, with the dried corpses usually ground up to bulk-out the mumia resin residue still present. Belief in the resin as a medicament persisted until relatively recent times; I remember seeing 'Mumia' listed in a Merck catalogue in the medical library at University College, London and wondering what it was; no-one I asked actually knew what it was, they mostly thought it was some quaint Victorian name for a commonplace herbal extract or cordial (great ones for all-powerful healing cordials, the Victorians) until one of the curators told me about the 'mummy dust' medicine touted throughout Europe in the middle ages.

 

[beachbum1958]

We read off-the-tracks guidebooks before our first drive from California to the Yucatan. (That's the peninsula sticking out into the Caribbean to form the Gulf of Mexico.) The guidebooks advised that local cuisine included "swamp creatures", species unidentified. But we mostly were fed fish, chicken, and pork. I think. With enough salsa verde, who can tell?

We did manage to avoid the local specialty in Tehuantepec: broiled armadillo. Somehow it just didn't seem right. But that reminds me of Texas jokes:

Q: How many Texans does it take to eat an armadillo?
A: Three. One to gobble, and two to block traffic.

Q: How does a Texan count armadillos?
A: One diller, two dillers, and another diller, and another...

Reminds me of the way Terry Pratchett had trolls counting: one, two, many; many many, lots...

 

[Hypoxia]

Reminds me of the way Terry Pratchett had trolls counting: one, two, many; many many, lots...

It started out as a Newfie (Newfoundlander) fish-counting joke.

 

[NotWise]

It started out as a Newfie (Newfoundlander) fish-counting joke.

The beer glass beside me is decorated with a map of Newfoundland and the inscription "LA FIN DU MONDE."

 

[Tio_Narratore]

The beer glass beside me is decorated with a map of Newfoundland and the inscription "LA FIN DU MONDE."

It's a Québec beer, NotWise, from Unibroue. They brew quite a variety of ale on lees, all with interesting names. By the way, the map is of the Ungava Peninsula, now officially called "Nouveau Québec." Labrador forms its east coast, and Newfoundland lies offshore.

Here's a page of images from the brewery's offerings:Unibroue

As for the mummies, human ones were used for medicine, but Britain imported boatloads of cat mummies. The wrappings were used for paper making (rag content paper is still the finest quality, and even more was in vogue before the pulp process was developed in the late 19th Century. The older the rag the better. And the bones? Calcined bone is the temper in bone china, and naturally calcinated, through aging, is better than fire calcinated.

So, Og's bookshelves are likely full of mummy wrappings and his table is likely set with Egyptian cat skeletons.

 

[Hypoxia]

Og's bookshelves are likely full of mummy wrappings and his table is likely set with Egyptian cat skeletons.

I own a copy of Daniel DeFoe's A SYSTEM OF MAGIC printed in 1712. Is it likely mummylicious?

 

[NaokoSmith]

Og's bookshelves are likely full of mummy wrappings and his table is likely set with Egyptian cat skeletons.

Give back my wrap and don't even think of drinking your tea out of my skull in some horrid Viking way.

I own a copy of Daniel DeFoe's A SYSTEM OF MAGIC printed in 1712. Is it likely mummylicious?

Magic and mummylicious, like me.

Hey, guys, here is a classic example of Wombat behaviour. Basturd Line Manager also has this habit of leaping like an armadillo two feet in the air, straight into the path of my juggernaut intelligence. Then he sits around rubbing his head and blaming me that he is not feeling quite the thing. Perhaps we could call him a Wombadildo. If only he were as useful and entertaining as that sounds.

The Wombadildo emailed us all to say that numbers for our module in October are up on last year . Great rejoicing, as this means I will still have paid work over Christmas instead of having to sell my wrappings or the cats so Piglet and I can survive. However, he added that a Faculty policy had been enacted to say that if there were extra students then new tutors should be advertised for, we need not expect a second tutor group and he invited us to let him know what we thought about that.

I let him know that I thought this might be problematic, if numbers went down the next year and then we would all be at risk of being booted off the teaching because the new recruit would be on the same footing as all of us who have worked hard this year to keep it going.

The Wombadildo replied to say, Oh he had got it wrong. The projections for numbers he was looking at were for a different module, but numbers were up, and by the way the policy was not a new Faculty policy but the longstanding University policy.

I emailed to ask under what circumstances anyone did get a second tutor group, then. The Wombadildo said: "The simple answer to your question is that under current rules there are no circumstances in which I could simply give anybody a second group. As the answer to the FAQ below makes clear we “must advertise all AL vacancies”."

I said, Yes, but how do people get a second group?

The Wombadildo said he had answered my question and was feeling tired now, and he gave me a link to a generic site with instructions about applying for new teaching contracts.

Now, answers on a post(card) please. Remember that the Wombadildo is always doing this kind of smoke and mirrors thing, and it quite often seems to lead to him giving some extra work to somebody who did not really merit getting it but whom he favours. (I have just heard that he was hauled up before senior management and questioned about his most recent effort at doing this.) Is the Wombadildo:

A) just a bit mentally disturbed, can't help stirring the sh!t and making life difficult for everyone, so when he had a good bit of news to give: "Student numbers are up, it looks like you will all keep your jobs in October," he couldn't help adding something mean: "but don't think that will mean you get an extra tutor group, back you mangy curs! back."

B) a conniving devious swine who sets these situations up craftily in order that in October he can slide in someone of his choosing, and say he had told us there would be no second tutor group for anyone - no matter how much they are struggling financially and deserve a bit more work. (Who me? Pass that tin of baked beans, will you.)

Ah, academia - the peace and tranquillity of a life devoted to knowledge, just sitting in the ivory towers surrounded by books and occasionally emerging to dispense wisdom to nubile young students.

 

[NaokoSmith]

I also can't help adding a pangolin story to this store of armadillo knowledge.

The scaly pangolin is famous in Anthropological circles (Tio will already know whose book I'm going to talk about here). In 1966, a woman anthropologist called Mary Douglas, who had been told not to bother being an academic but focus on housework, wrote a book called Purity and Danger. Later in life she would laugh and say, perhaps it was all about housework.

Its central argument was about 'dirt'. Douglas argues that 'dirt' is in the eye of the beholder. If dirt comes off your wellington boots in the house, then you have to clean it up immediately before I catch you ... I mean, it's 'dirt'. Whereas the same 'dirt' lying about in the vegetable patch is useful 'soil'. In its proper place it's 'soil'. Only when it's out of context does it become 'dirt'.

Douglas went on to point out that when things cross taxonomic boundaries they become pollutant and profane. For example, the pig has a cloven hoof but does not chew the cud. Douglas suggests that this may be part of the reason pork is regarded as dirty food in many cultures.

On the other hand, things which cross taxonomic boundaries may also become highly sacred. For the Lele of Kasai (central Africa), the scaly pangolin is sacred. (This doesn't mean they won't eat it but that they do so with great ceremony. Hopefully they cook it properly as per R.Richard's warnings.) The scaly pangolin is an animal which has scales like a reptile but is also warm-blooded.

 

[Handley_Page]

. . . .
Is the Wombadildo:

A) just a bit mentally disturbed, can't help stirring the sh!t and making life difficult for everyone, so when he had a good bit of news to give: "Student numbers are up, it looks like you will all keep your jobs in October," he couldn't help adding something mean: "but don't think that will mean you get an extra tutor group, back you mangy curs! back."

B) a conniving devious swine who sets these situations up craftily in order that in October he can slide in someone of his choosing, and say he had told us there would be no second tutor group for anyone - no matter how much they are struggling financially and deserve a bit more work. (Who me? Pass that tin of baked beans, will you.)

Ah, academia - the peace and tranquillity of a life devoted to knowledge, just sitting in the ivory towers surrounded by books and occasionally emerging to dispense wisdom to nubile young students.

From the sound of it, I'd suspect he's an uncaring idiot.
Academia: shades of Morse. . .

 

[oggbashan]

From the sound of it, I'd suspect he's an uncaring idiot.
Academia: shades of Morse. . .

Reminds me more of Tom Sharpe's Wilt series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Sharpe

I think that th Wombat's tutors need to join a trade union and send Naoko as their representative to beat up the whole management system.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I own a copy of Daniel DeFoe's A SYSTEM OF MAGIC printed in 1712. Is it likely mummylicious?

It depends on the quality of the edition. Mummy wrap was used for the finest papers, particularly for watercolours and for hand-tinted illustrations in books and for finer editions of print books. Others used papers made from recently collected rags. Og has a collection of fine old books, so he's sure to have some mummy-based editions. Perhaps he can advise you on the quality of your Defoe.

Give back my wrap and don't even think of drinking your tea out of my skull in some horrid Viking way.

Here's a pic of my departmental tea infuser:

infuser

And here's the tea service we've requested the facilities department order:

tea set

(For a heartier brew, my department depends on Boneshaker India Ale).

 

[oggbashan]

I own a copy of Daniel DeFoe's A SYSTEM OF MAGIC printed in 1712. Is it likely mummylicious?

The 1840 edition (a volume of the collected works) is worth about $200.

Earlier editions? Value depends on the state of the book.

 

[Handley_Page]

Reminds me more of Tom Sharpe's Wilt series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Sharpe

I think that the Wombat's tutors need to join a trade union and send Naoko as their representative to beat up the whole management system.

Good thinking, Ogg.
Just one snag, as I see it.
She prefers teaching. . . . .

 

[Hypoxia]

The 1840 edition (a volume of the collected works) is worth about $200.

Earlier editions? Value depends on the state of the book.

Our copy is in pretty good condition but the cash value doesn't much matter; it ain't going nowhere. Pry it from our cold, dead hands, but there's no rush. I merely wondered if it might contain mummybits.

Hmmm, I seem to recall a past discussion on owning elderly objects. That DeFoe is our oldest book but the most ancient made object in our house is a clay Cahokia Moundbuilder flask ca. 950 CE, de-accessioned from a museum collection so its provenance is firm.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Our copy is in pretty good condition but the cash value doesn't much matter; it ain't going nowhere. Pry it from our cold, dead hands, but there's no rush. I merely wondered if it might contain mummybits.

Hmmm, I seem to recall a past discussion on owning elderly objects. That DeFoe is our oldest book but the most ancient made object in our house is a clay Cahokia Moundbuilder flask ca. 950 CE, de-accessioned from a museum collection so its provenance is firm.

Which museum, if I may ask. I'm not aware of any provenanced material from Cahokia itself being sold.

(And, just for a bit of fun...Some years ago, before Google Maps, I tried to get driving directions to Cahokia from Québec from Map Quest. It insisted there was no way to drive there. Finding that unbelievable, I plumbed the depths of Map Quest to find why not. Eventually it yielded the answer: for some reason I couldn't get from my home to Illinois because there was no ferry able to transport automobiles from Barcelona to Majorca. Thank goddesses for paper maps!)

I do have native North American artifacts dating from the 1950s on back to 8000 BCE, but that's quite understandable; it's part of my job.

 

[Hypoxia]

Which museum, if I may ask.

I must dig through a sheaf of archived receipts to answer that. Not today, sorry.

I do have native North American artifacts dating from the 1950s on back to 8000 BCE, but that's quite understandable; it's part of my job.

I am envious. Most of our collection is post-1880. Not a job, merely an obsession.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I must dig through a sheaf of archived receipts to answer that. Not today, sorry.

I am envious. Most of our collection is post-1880. Not a job, merely an obsession.

No need to go out of your way on the flask provenance; if you do come across it at any time, I'd appreciate the information.

Don't be too envious: our collection is diverse in time and space but very modest in quantity.