Posts
Totally daft factoids...
1) The average healthy human being has one hundred trillion bacteria in their digestive system, weighing around one and a half kilos altogether.
Got that from BBC News.
2) The average woman in the developed world eats a kilo of lipstick in the course of her adult life.
Ugh.
Got that from a less reliable source, who shall remain nameless, so it may be Just One Of Those Rumours; I certainly hope so.
And one good fact...
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, have succeeded in collecting and storing seed from 10% of the world's vascular plants in the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst Place. The official announcement is tomorrow, apparently, so I am a Very Bad Girl in mentioning it today (although Associated Press beat me to it). This was the MSB's initial goal when it opened in 2000, and they've made it on schedule.
Now all they need is the funding to go on.
Showing posts with label silly news item. Show all posts
Showing posts with label silly news item. Show all posts
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Friday, 23 January 2009
End of the week already...
It's Friday again. Good grief.
Last night I did no writing. I ate pizza. I drank rum and apple juice. I watched tv. In short, instead of feeding my soul and unleashing my creativity I took time out to do s*d all. Is this the same as procrastination? I don't think so - but then, I wouldn't, would I?. Seriously, there is, I am sure, a big difference between taking a break and never doing anything in the first place. One has to let the cistern refill, if you'll pardon the metaphor (note to self: must see if I can think of a more poetic phrase than that).
It's a sticky issue - on the one hand, one must make that total, Calaf-like comittment, but on the other hand one must stay alive, and although "man does not live by bread alone", man does not live by paint alone, either; nor by words, nor by sitting in the lab staring into the electron microscope until one's eyes bug out... (Please don't shriek at me for putting "man"; I'm just continuing the phraseology of the quotation for tidyness' sake. I have noticed I'm not a man [even if some men haven't!]).
There's a wonderful line in one of Ursula Le Guin's essays; I don't think I can remember the exact wording, but it is something like this.
"Apollo, god of the sun, of light, reason, music and the arts, blinds those who press too close in worship. Don't stare at the sun. Go into a dark bar with Dionysos occasionally."
The ancient Greeks understood this; they wouldn't have had a god of reason, light, music and the arts and a god of excess, of letting your hair down, festive release and drink, and the theatre, if they hadn't seen that these are not opposed but complementary forces. One cannot have order without chaos, or light without darkness. Or work without rest. Complexity is all; only connect.
On a totally different note, here's a funny news item;
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20090123/ten-italian-job-cliffhanger-conundrum-so-a56114e.html
Have a good weekend.
Last night I did no writing. I ate pizza. I drank rum and apple juice. I watched tv. In short, instead of feeding my soul and unleashing my creativity I took time out to do s*d all. Is this the same as procrastination? I don't think so - but then, I wouldn't, would I?. Seriously, there is, I am sure, a big difference between taking a break and never doing anything in the first place. One has to let the cistern refill, if you'll pardon the metaphor (note to self: must see if I can think of a more poetic phrase than that).
It's a sticky issue - on the one hand, one must make that total, Calaf-like comittment, but on the other hand one must stay alive, and although "man does not live by bread alone", man does not live by paint alone, either; nor by words, nor by sitting in the lab staring into the electron microscope until one's eyes bug out... (Please don't shriek at me for putting "man"; I'm just continuing the phraseology of the quotation for tidyness' sake. I have noticed I'm not a man [even if some men haven't!]).
There's a wonderful line in one of Ursula Le Guin's essays; I don't think I can remember the exact wording, but it is something like this.
"Apollo, god of the sun, of light, reason, music and the arts, blinds those who press too close in worship. Don't stare at the sun. Go into a dark bar with Dionysos occasionally."
The ancient Greeks understood this; they wouldn't have had a god of reason, light, music and the arts and a god of excess, of letting your hair down, festive release and drink, and the theatre, if they hadn't seen that these are not opposed but complementary forces. One cannot have order without chaos, or light without darkness. Or work without rest. Complexity is all; only connect.
On a totally different note, here's a funny news item;
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20090123/ten-italian-job-cliffhanger-conundrum-so-a56114e.html
Have a good weekend.
Thursday, 18 December 2008
Daft news item...
Courtesy of the Grauniad online...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/dec/17/medicalresearch-humanbehaviour
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/dec/17/medicalresearch-humanbehaviour
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)