Friday, April 27, 2012
Five factoidalettes
I have commented from time to time on the poor quality of kippers from fishmongers operating out of stalls & vans at markets compared with those from Waitrose, so pleased to report that the fishmonger operating at Kingston market sells kippers described as Manx, which while not as good as those from Waitrose (the flesh was a little damp and soggy, despite being cooked by simmering in just the same way) were a good deal better than those of most of his colleagues. About the same price as Waitrose.
Fired up by all the omega lispid oils in the kippers, BH was moved to make us a Linzer Torte, a move which had the added advantage of eating into our home made jam supplies - it being very easy to make a lot more of the stuff than one uses. Which moved me in turn to check that this was indeed a cake designed by the home town of Hitler. When I also found out that it was also home town to the Nibelungenbrücke, the current version of which bridge over the Danube was built by Hitler to celebrate the passage of the Nibelungs through the area on their way to their fatal visit to the Huns, a thousand years or so previous. It seems that there are quite a number of bridges of this name along the supposed route. According to Wikipedia there were to have been grand statues of the heroic Nibelungs to adorn this bridge but the project ran out of puff before they could be sculpted. See June 29th 2010.
I then got onto the TLS, a magazine which has been a bit thin in recent weeks. Far too much literary about it. This week not much better but I did glean a couple of interesting bits of natural history. First, there is a kind of lobster which lives in the Caribbean which does not like it when the water in which it lives gets churned up in the hurricane season. So they hoof it to deeper water. The interesting bit being that they do it in single file, with the antenna of the one behind resting on the back plate of the one in front, in crocodiles which might extend fifty miles. But how do they know? Second, we now have a name for the odd red spikes we have noticed on leaves on some of the bushes opposite the entrance to Stamford Green School. They are called lime nail galls and are home to the eggs of a certain sort of mite. The gall being both a deviant part of the host plant (a lime tree for choice) and under the control of the mite. A rather interesting variant on the tumour theme.
And I close with a last interesting bit which was a saying of one Anacharsis to the effect that written law - at the time, two and a half thousand years ago, a novelty - would resemble a spider's web; a constraint which ensnares the weak, while the strong burst through it. Prescient chaps these Scythians, although that did not stop this particular one from being executed for trying to introduce an orgiastic form of worship to his home town.
Fired up by all the omega lispid oils in the kippers, BH was moved to make us a Linzer Torte, a move which had the added advantage of eating into our home made jam supplies - it being very easy to make a lot more of the stuff than one uses. Which moved me in turn to check that this was indeed a cake designed by the home town of Hitler. When I also found out that it was also home town to the Nibelungenbrücke, the current version of which bridge over the Danube was built by Hitler to celebrate the passage of the Nibelungs through the area on their way to their fatal visit to the Huns, a thousand years or so previous. It seems that there are quite a number of bridges of this name along the supposed route. According to Wikipedia there were to have been grand statues of the heroic Nibelungs to adorn this bridge but the project ran out of puff before they could be sculpted. See June 29th 2010.
I then got onto the TLS, a magazine which has been a bit thin in recent weeks. Far too much literary about it. This week not much better but I did glean a couple of interesting bits of natural history. First, there is a kind of lobster which lives in the Caribbean which does not like it when the water in which it lives gets churned up in the hurricane season. So they hoof it to deeper water. The interesting bit being that they do it in single file, with the antenna of the one behind resting on the back plate of the one in front, in crocodiles which might extend fifty miles. But how do they know? Second, we now have a name for the odd red spikes we have noticed on leaves on some of the bushes opposite the entrance to Stamford Green School. They are called lime nail galls and are home to the eggs of a certain sort of mite. The gall being both a deviant part of the host plant (a lime tree for choice) and under the control of the mite. A rather interesting variant on the tumour theme.
And I close with a last interesting bit which was a saying of one Anacharsis to the effect that written law - at the time, two and a half thousand years ago, a novelty - would resemble a spider's web; a constraint which ensnares the weak, while the strong burst through it. Prescient chaps these Scythians, although that did not stop this particular one from being executed for trying to introduce an orgiastic form of worship to his home town.
# posted by Jim @ 3:14 AM 
