It’s only recently that I’ve been allowed to use a chainsaw. Although I longed for one for years and had many brochures on different models it was forbidden; but then I inherited one from my late father-in-law and so it became a fait accompli. Last winter I read an Australian book about chainsaws; it had four chapters explaining “kickback”, how to stop different parts of your body from being cut off, how to avoid trees falling on you or rolling on you and the best directions for running away. Of course it said I should always wear a helmet, but then I already always wear a helmet and goggles outside. This spring, I practiced cutting off things around the garden, branches mostly. This weekend I cut down about a dozen spruce and birch trees, some of them very close to our cabin, and I managed to do it without demolishing any of the buildings built by my father-in-law.
In fact, they all fell exactly where I wanted them to.
Here are a couple of pictures of the main house:
It’s kind of rambling. My father-in-law built it in stages, starting with one room, during the holidays over a period of fifty years (he loved building things).
A Bad Guide 
If I see right, in the first picture you’re using a chainsaw while buck-nekkid from the waist up. Is that approved Australian practice ?
Last year Ralf explained to me how dangerous chainsaws are. You have to get a licence here before you can use one, otherwise your health insurance gets off scot-free (or you are tossed into the fosse commune). I don’t long to destroy things with chainsaws, but on the other hand I had no idea they can be dangerous. Good thing I never chanced to lay my hands on one.
Yes, although I have special gloves that supposedly stop the chain before it cuts my flesh, and special boots, the lumberjack’s outfit I bought at vast expense didn’t include a shirt and it is very warm in those padded dungarees. Chainsaws are extremely dangerous tools, I rarely use one indoors except to carve the nut cutlets, but it was good to get rid of those trees.
Jamessal can use a chainsaw.
Couldn’t you rent a chainmail shirt ? That would be even more sexy, I bet.
Ralf can handle one as well. I see I’m going to have to learn, so as to keep up with the boys.
Then we could all have a competition sometime, to see who can cut the most jokes.
It may be better to buy a plastic imitation chainsaw and pay someone else to cut down your trees. The chainmail sounds good though.
I’m terrified of the things.
My brother-in-law, normally a very intelligent person, once used a chainsaw to cut off a tree limb, while standing on a ladder that was leaning against the part of the limb that was being removed. He fell to the ground. but he didn’t dismember himself at all.
Some other friends of mine once felled a large tree next to their house. They thought they knew what they were doing and were pleased with themselves for saving the cost of paying a professional tree-feller — until the tree fell heavily on the neighbors’ house.
In the first picture you look like an alien with an orange head (and no gloves!)
I am an alien with an orange head, but it was too hot for gloves.
My forbidden boy’s toy is a ride-on lawnmower, although we have some 3500 sq.m. to cut. SHMBO (see Rumpole of the Bailey) says the only exercise I get is walking behind the (at least power) mower.
Which is correct.
I have electric chainsaws because (a) we’ve got lots of cable and (b) I’ve never been friendly with two-stroke engines, in fact I find them a bitch to start. There are now four-strokes which do start easily, but then the prices start way up the ladder too.
A friend of mine once cut off a tree limb while standing on a ladder that was leaning against the part of the limb that was not being removed. On removal of the outer part of the limb, the inner part, relieved of a burden, relaxed upwards, leaving the ladder unsupported by the tree. My friend was taken to hospital. Mirabile dictu, when he had to lecture some physical science to undergraduates on the Monday, they already knew the story and expressed their appreciation of it.
Mine is electric. I think they’re safer.
I just bought a battery-driven mower; it’s fantastically light to push up our hilly site and has a push-button starter, I love it.
I really want to buy a big tractor that I can drive down the middle of the road.
I’ve never been friendly with two-stroke engines
Until 1990 the only cars available to the purse of a young boy in Hungary were East German two-stroke models, Trabant and Wartburg. They were excellent if you were willing to spend a certain part of your driving time by repairing, which also created a certain bond of intimacy between you and the engine. Then for several years I had boring normal four-stroke cars, and when in 1997 we moved into the forest where we live now, I bought a two-stroke chainshaw. Since then each time when I use it I smell with nostalgia the typical two-stroke fuel stink of my first Trabant, and feel myself twenty years younger.
dearieme’s story is hilarious !!
Your new toy is also very nice, Crown.
Thank you.
Can you drive a 2-stroke chainsaw, I wonder?
It’s true that everyone laughs at those who injure themselves falling off a ladder; you get more sympathy by claiming you were hit by falling rocks.
Men!
::shakes head::
“… you get more sympathy by claiming you were hit by falling rocks.”
Or falling goats.
It’s true that everyone laughs at those who injure themselves falling off a ladder; you get more sympathy by claiming you were hit by falling rocks.
I feel a sociolinguistic mini-tract coming on. I claim that in English locutions in which 1) a person falls, culpability is assumed and laughter or mockery seem appropriate. When 2) a thing falls on a person, sympathy and regret are the expected reactions.
In group 1) you have “pratfall”, “pride goeth before a fall”, “fall on a banana peel”. Even “falling in love” can excite mild mockery, just like “fall out of bed” (is this a German locution only ? it’s a jocular explanation for why someone is surprisingly early at his workplace).
In group 2) you have “falling rocks”, “falling stocks”, “the sky is falling”, “it befell him that …”, “fall (autumn)” etc. These are things which cannot be prevented.
“Fall ill” and “fall deaf” may seem to be exceptions. But in Erewhon, Butler has people being thrown into jail for becoming sick, because it is assumed that people are responsible for keeping themselves healthy. People who commit crimes are regretted, petted and therapized until they recover. I think the reason for this last policy is as assumption that crimes are due to bad influences while growing up, for which people cannot be held responsible – but I don’t remember whether this explanation is in the book, I may have made it up.
In any case, isn’t it remarkable that fitness exercises, marathons etc., as well as criminal rehabilitation programs run privately or by the state, are nowadays such a prominent feature of America and other Western countries such as Germany ? Advertisements urge us to “keep fit” by buying the latest products. Insurance companies are trying to obtain genetic information so that they can refuse to insure or insure only for extravagant premiums, those who carry certain genes and dispositions – i.e. punish them for being what they are.
I imagine that most accidents befalling people on ladders involve the ladder falling over or falling down. The person may or may not remain on the ladder throughout, but either way “falling off a ladder” is not a very accurate description of the accident. Yet that’s the phrase that comes to mind. This happened to me a few weeks ago (both the fall and the phrase).
To avoid any imputation of culpable negligence, the person involved could say “the ladder fell all over me, there’s no accounting for tastes”.
But it sounds like you’re willing to punish business for being what it is.
Insurers run an odds-related business not unlike bookies (if you want something that’s completely dictated by chance you need look no further than the stock markets). It’s the moral function of the state to look after the sick. Businesses might help, when it’s in the state’s interest for them to do so, but if you’re expecting business (or any other group) to be self-regulatory and do anything that’s not in its own interest then you can expect to be disappointed.
Even those at the bottom of the ladder look down on social climbers unless, in Disraeli’s phrase, it’s someone climbing the greasy pole (of politics) in which case it’s okay. Perhaps because it’s greasy and hard to do.
But I said nothing to the effect that “business” should be punished, or self-regulatory !? All I wrote was that insurance companies are doing what they are doing, and that this is a prominent feature of the countries mentioned.
My own views on this matter, now that I air them for the first time, are that insurance companies should be concerned with distributing their liability over long periods of time without regard to individual events (involving individuals). That was its original purpose, and still is – except when short-term profit gluttony takes over. Actuaries, physicians, epidemiologists etc. can examine in great detail the various factors involved in sicknesses and health dispositions, without any obligation to shift cost-responsibility to small groups of people identified as associated with those factors. Indeed, I feel that governmental regulation is absolutely necessary to prevent this, since self-regulation will never happen.
In the case of genomes and generic diseases, I would make absolutely no concession to those who would single out affected persons for higher premiums. It has always been possible to spread costs over time, why is that supposed to be no longer possible or profitable ? I think the rising costs of our ever-growing ability to (expensively) treat conditions that simply led to death in earlier times, is what is tempting insurance companies to derogate from their time-honored working practices. There are going to have to be dramatic changes in the general public and political attitudes to sickness, therapy and death that I can hardly begin to imagine. All I believe is, increasing short-term profit is not a satisfactory single principle for resolving these issues.
The Big Ladder in the Sky is going to fall on all of us unless we relearn to look beyond the moment.
That should be “genetic diseases”, not “generic diseases”.
Stu, I seem to recall that an earlier tract or query of yours, here or elsewhere, involved “falling on deaf ears” and/or a similar Ger. loc..
empty, yes, that was on Jan. 1 here in Falling on Deaf Ears. Among other things, I reported my having finally found out what Hörsturz is in English: “sudden deafness”. In the meantime I have read the novel and liked it.
What I’m trying to say is that it’s up to the company to decide how long it wants to wait for a profit and it’s up to the state to make sure everyone is provided with medical treatment.
I agree, you have my vote. When will you be announcing your candidature ? CEO or Prime Minister ?
No thanks, I’m just a patient.
Are these matters topics of heated public debate in Norway too ? I suppose so. What is the general trend, if there is one ?
I don’t think there’s much thought about drastically changing the existing system. Here you pay the first 180 euros or so of your annual drugs & treatment, and after that everything’s free. I think most doctors make between 60, 000 and 120, 000 euros and nurses are decently paid. There is a private sector, but it’s very small & I don’t know anything about it. It’s maybe only possible to get the Norwegian health system to work well because the state is rich — or so everyone abroad says. Of course the other countries could just stop spending all their taxes on warfare and then they’d have more money left over, but that’s another discussion.
nurses are decently paid
Not so in Germany, unfortunately.
Not so most places.
I got very good treatment in Germany when I lived there, I can’t remember how I paid.
You possibly didn’t pay at all, being insured through your job (or as a student ?). In those days of wine and Gräfin, there was no extra charge per prescription, per quarterly visit to a doctor etc.
What’s Angela Merckel like as chancellor, does everyone either love or loathe her like with Mrs Thatcher or is she just boring as hell like Helmut Cabbage?
Boringly competent. She doesn’t even have that “c” in her name with which you are attempting to confer distinction. She’s a bit of a pussy (which should not surprise us) when it comes to dealing with big finance. But since no single person could deal with that, I shouldn’t be too severe.
There just aren’t any personally convincing German politicians any longer to give the bad guys what-for. I very much like Obama’s forthrightness, and think that he does a good job given the resistance he encounters.
Mrs T. – those were the days ! All the world a Rumpole, and Mrs T. SWMBO. A lot of people, including myself, sigh for Helmut Schmidt, though he wasn’t a corncob.
What’s being a corncob, does it have anything to do with Gen. MacArthur?
No, a corncob is a person with an abrasive personality. The object doing metaphorical duty here is the familiar ear of corn, stripped of its edible covering and proverbially recycled as a rustic buttwipe.
In the second picture the tree looks to be falling very close to the house…
Yeah: “Men!” I bet you guys also like 1) cutting wood and making huge bonfires and 2) peeing outdoors. Russian men love to pee outdoors. It’s, like, the best.
And to continue with my ridiculous sex-determined comments: Mr Crown, do you have any photos that show the magnificent dark gray walls and deep red window frames? I do see that cutting things with a dangerous and noisy saw is great fun, but I’m terribly interested in the decor.
BTW, in the silly movie GI Jane, the (female) doctor asks GI Jane why she wants to be a Navy Seal. GI Jane bristles: Do you ask the men that? Doctor: Yes, I do. Jane: What do they say? Doctor: They get to blow sh*t up.
It’s a guy thing.
Well the stump is only about four feet from the house, but it fell diagonally, with the top of it midway between the two buildings. I really ought to have fastened ropes to it, to prevent a disaster, but I was too lazy; that’s just one of the differences between me and a professional tree-feller.
By the way, very nice to see you here, et. Are you et as in et tu, Brute?, or ET as in Steven Spielberg?
mab, there’s a passage in the film Dreamcatcher where “Men!” get their dangerous and (shortly thereafter) noisy comeuppance for peeing in the woods. To be more precise, in the snow.
Are you so riled because of the proximity of other dachas harboring peeverts ?
You’re right about the peeing outdoors, mab. Not that I do it very often, but we’ve had men at our house actually go outside to pee rather than use the bathroom; apparently it makes them feel like they’re in the country — which is good, because that means they aren’t doing it in the city (not these men, anyway).
I’ll look for some pictures of the decor — we do like colors & fabrics and we’re interested blowing shit up — though I don’t think it’s anything to compare with your wonderful dacha.
Our neighbors have bored a hole, a couple of hundred metres down towards the center of the earth, to heat their house with bubbling orange volcanic lava. Or something, I’m hazy on the details, but that’s my kind of project.
Did I sound riled, Grumbly? No. Not riled. A mixture of condescending and envious. It’s hard for girls to pee outside. Once I got stuck in one of those 2-hour-turn-off-the-engine traffic jams, and after about an hour the side of the road was blocked by 100 men, backs to the highway, chatting happily as they peed. (Or should that be “peeed”? ) I always suspect there’s something seriously territorial going on, despite the happy chatter.
The bubbling lava heating system does sound neat.
Our female dog marks territory by peeing, just not as compulsively as our male dog; it seems like more of a calling card with her.
Tell me about doggie calling cards! I couldn’t spay my pooch this summer because no one would do it with such high temperatures. But the high temps seem to have made her go into heat early. I spent a week driving her to the field so she wouldn’t leave a tantalizing trail through the settlement — and so I wouldn’t wake up one morning to find every male dog in the district on our porch. But I finally gave up and moved back to the city. Which has been hellish. Even though it’s cooler with some nice breezes at night, apparently my one-meter walls are so hot that they radiate heat and warm the cooler air coming in the windows. And still no rain. And still dreadfully polluted air that is mostly carbon monoxide.
Okay. Rant over. Back to peeing and digging and mowing and blowing shit up.
It’s hard for girls to pee outside.
Dunno, maybe a bit embarassing, but it’s up to the ladies to stop being sissies about it. The first experience in my life (that I can remember) of being rendered speechless must have been when I was about 10, playing around the treehouse in the back yard, along with my sister, one late evening. She is two years younger than me. At one point I did the “Men!” thing, then mocked her because as a girl she couldn’t pee outside. She replied “Oh, yeah ?”, spread her legs (she was wearing a dress) and had a pee standing up. My reaction was “boy, I have one cool sister !”.
Of course techniques have improved since then, and the crouching position has been recognized as more advantageous.
the crouching position has been recognized as more advantageous
… but also more cumbersome if one is wearing pants. Here in Russia the technique is to pull over on the side of the road, open both the back and front doors on the passenger side, and crouch between them. I invaribaly pee on my foot.
I should also say that Russians do not suffer from body modesty the way Americans do. So another technique is to march off into the field or woods, women in a group and men in a group, and do a group squat-and-pee (or stand-and-pee). I remember visiting a friend’s parents at their dacha, and at night they said I could use the outhouse or , if I wished, “every shrub beckons.”
I invariably pee on my foot.
Ah, if it were only that, and only the foot ! I remember difficulties in Paris in the early ’70s, because even in quite decent restaurants etc. one was confronted in the restrooms (in the basement) with a hole in the ground, and no visible means of support. That’s probably one reason why I don’t go to France more often. I just haven’t learned the techniques.
I suspect the ladies may find all that easier to adjust to. They don’t have little bits hanging in the way. Globalization has a long way to go – or rather, tourists have a long steep learning curve to climb.
“Yeah: “Men!” I bet you guys also like… peeing outdoors.” Only on the compost heap. Or France.
I should also say that Russians do not suffer from body modesty the way Americans do.
I must be a non-American at bottom. I have always found utterly ridiculous that shame-facèdness about such banal, repetitive and unavoidable operations. What happens when Americans are trapped for days under rubble after an earthquake ? Do they require special therapeutic sessions later to recover from the experience of not being able to search out a bathroom when their bodies searched relief ?
Although I suspect that experience of having your body immobilized for a long period of time, with unavoidable results, is hard for most people, not just Americans. Such things and more go through my mind when I see reports of earthquakes on TV. I am always trying to imagine more concretely what people must have gone through, and how they deal with it.
Knowing that others have had to go through the same ordeal makes things tolerable. Being able to earmark the fictional experiences in relation one’s own life seems to be what makes a good novel too.
They don’t have little bits hanging in the way. Ah, but you forget about skirts and pantyhose. You pull one set of clothing to the back with one hand, the other set to the front with the other, which leaves no hand for support. In countries where people grow up with those kinds of toilets, they seem to have developed skills that we westerners don’t have. My personal theory is that it all depends on the ability to squat low and comfortably.
My, I seem to have brought down the tone of this post.
Looking on the bright side, if it’s really a problem of impractical clothing rather than of anatomy, it ought to be possible to resolve with zippers, tailoring and or velcro.
I’ve added a couple of house pictures.
it ought to be possible to resolve with zippers, tailoring and or velcro.
Now there’s a serious marketing opportunity. Think of all the tourists who would buy the Crown SitSet ! I imagine it as a kind of velcro-ed girdle with short lengths of cord having velcro on the ends. You wrap the cords around the hanging bits, pull them out of the way and fasten the cords to the girdle. Little pull-to-fold-out structures in front and back would hold the draping bits of garment away from the body.
This has become quite a riveting discussion! I can only agree that peeing outdoors is great (for men), and E-Z-P garments are a serious marketing opportunity.
That’s a much better product name, Hat. The ethical question now arises: should we look for venture capital, or give the idea to the world for free on Wikileaks?
” E-Z-P garments” is no way to refer to a kilt.
I’m convinced that my own urge to pee outdoors has a territorial basis. I do it frequently when we’re in the country.
In the book “Never Cry Wolf” Farley Mowatt tells of finding that it very hard to keep up with the canines at the territorial-marking game.
In the city (well, suburb) I peed outside once — for rational, but peculiar reasons. That was the time the lovely moss on the bricks in the back yard had had a die-off in one area and somebody recommended urine treatment. But I did not follow through, for fear of offending the neighbors.
It figures: the Scottish Enlightenment got there first.
I wanted to immediately comment on the lovely colors of the cabin, but then I got to Grumbly’s post and I spent a lot of time laughing and trying to imagine all the hoists and hanging body parts and flapping clothing. E-Z-P is a wonderful name. Go for venture capital.
Or could call the product Look, No Hands.
It could have a ripcord to make it explode like an ejection seat in emergencies. I like the idea of exploding underwear, as long as it’s clean.
Here’s an even simpler product idea: inflatable, disposable hole-seats. They would inflate by the same means as an airbag in a car. Crown gave me the idea with his ejection seats. But these new things would be called dejection seats:
.
The word “dejection” might encounter the resistance of our name designer, because it sounds negative. Could that effect be countered by calling the product “Happy Dejection Seat” ?
My wife usually tells me I’m killing the plants when I pee outside. I wonder how right she might be.
(PS – Has the introduction of male v/s female emiction in this post anything to do with its title? “Look, No Hands.”)
Merdre ! Empty has just beaten me on the line! (2:59 p.m.)
I like the idea of exploding underwear
See? Men like to blow shit up. Even if it’s shitless.
Sig, you’re absolutely right, I didn’t notice. I have gotten myself entangled in a feminist post ! Soon they’ll be insisting we sit down as well.
Bougon, in any case that’s what I do
when I swim with the sharks.Yes, it’s all my fault. I started it. But… as a result of my post, we see that men — of various nationalities, ages, and professions — like to pee outside, although some maintain it’s for utilitarian purposes.
As I half-expected when I did a Google search, exploding underpants is not a totally new idea.
although some maintain it’s for utilitarian purposes
mab, it’s actually the opposite of utilitarian, as women have long known. For a while here I was surprised at all the free-spirit enthusiasm about outdoor emiction. Myself, I don’t see any difference between outdoors and indoors. My spirit rebels only at the idea of being obliged to sit down – which is just too much goddamn trouble, ya know ? But possibly we have now identified the reason for all this outdoor enthusiasm: the gentlemen in question have been groaning for years under the wifely injunction to sit down, shape up or ship out.
I have to admit, though, that the ladies are onto something. In my last apartment, which I occupied for 10 years, I discovered when moving out that the tiled walls enclosing my small toilet were, well … crystalline. So my current attitude is: “let them choose between Ajax and sitting down”.
Good heavens, Grumbly! Is there some kind of world-wide movement to oblige men to sit? I had no idea!
In Germany the worst has come to pass. All of my IT colleagues caved in long ago. Many of them have told me it all started in the ’80s, when they lived together with women in WGs = Wohngemeinschaften [apartment-sharing communities ?]. That was a period when feminists were particularly feeling their oats. Actually I blame the men, not the women. Although that’s not really ture: the women were probably playing put-out for sit-down, which is all fair in Nature.
Russia is sounding like an ever more attractive proposition.
Meanwhile, back up a tree with chainsaw, I am reminded of the fabled instruction manual which started with the chilling simplicity of:
Warning, Accidents with chainsaws are seldom trivial.
So elegant
Simplicity, yes. But to me “are seldom trivial” is too mealy-mouthed to be chilling. “… are usually fatal” would be nice and frissony.
Don’t you find, o males, that if you pee sitting down, unfortunately sometimes the angle turns out to be such that the stream of urine passes neatly between the ceramic and the seat, to form a puddle on the loo floor. Or, indeed, instead to soak your trousers (if you have not had the forsight to wear your kilt).
I don’t understand this sub-thread… You, males, have ONE advantage in this sacred creation: the ability to pee standing up. Why, O why, spoil it?
I hate to be the one to break the news, O fellow-sufferer, but my finding is that this is associated with the onset of age. The root of the angle retreats into its cunning lair, and cannot see to pee.
Julia, I’m with you.
Wow. I had no idea that sitting to pee was a feminist demand. I never got beyond “please put the seat down.” See what happens when you move abroad in your 20s? Huge swaths of human development pass you by while you’re peeing under a bush at a dacha.
Oh no, Stu. Do you mean that the greying of the population will be accompanied by the yellowing of the loo floors? Is there an architectural solution, Crown?
In Germany the worst has come to pass.
And, as usual, they have a word for it: Sitzpinkler.
Thank you, mab.
Wonderful, Hat ( le mot juste, always)
Perhaps now is the time to mention that we have an outdoor toilet at the cabin above. It used to be common, but no longer. As a concession to me, we are getting hooked up to the local sewerage system; my wife grew up with the outhouse — quite literally — and she says that part of the fun of going to the mountains is getting back to the traditional ways of Norwegian country life or to put it another way, the Vikings didn’t sit down to pee.
PK thanks for trying to return to the topic of chainsaws but I can see there was a need for this Outlet — something people weren’t getting discussing Russian literature and goats, even though goats … well, and I’m sure Russian literature has famous peeing incidents. Actually goats pee squatting low to the ground, perhaps they don’t want to get their wool wet.
Amazing that Sitzpinkler (a masc. noun?) is in the Urban Dictionary without anyone here knowing about it (besides Language).
What is “He’s a total Sitzpinkler”? Can I say Er ist ein Gesamtsitzpinkler, sort of like “a total work of art”?
Options, of approximately equal force:
Er ist ein richtiger Sitzpinkler
Er ist ein totaler Sitzpinkler
Er ist ein hundertprozentiger Sitzpinkler
Er ist ein Sitzpinkler, durch und durch
or, for the more advanced, a Grumbly continuation such as
Ich dagegen bin ein Spritzpinkler [Whereas I am a spray-pee(e)r]
When you tire of that, you can play the variations in the key of Warmduscher [person who takes warm showers].
Finally people are coming to understand the greatness of German culture !
goats pee squatting low to the ground
That’s interesting, cats sort of squat, don’t they ? Is that true of lions ? What does it all mean ?
It means that people who flog high-rimmed toilet bowls have more influence on their fellow persons than do the millions of years of evolution that would put them in quite another position.
I’ve noticed that Norwegian advertisers use pictures of squirrels to sell toilet paper. I may have mentioned this here already — my family will vouch for the fact that I mention it every time we pass down that aisle in the supermarket — there’s the t.p. brand with pictures of squirrels and then there’s the other brand with pictures of rabbits: you choose. Rabbits I can understand, they have soft fur and softness is a selling point, but are squirrels used to sell toilet paper in other countries? What is the metaphor?
Squirrels plan ahead for eventualities and don’t waste a thing. They are anal-retentive.
That’s not encouraging people to use lots more toilet paper.
Do squirrels sell toilet paper in Germany?
“That’s not encouraging people to use lots more toilet paper.”
I was thinking exactly the same, but I didn’t know how to say it!
(In Argentina they use puppets to sell toilet paper… but I think it’s just the logo of a certain mark)
That’s not encouraging people to use lots more toilet paper
The aim is not for customers to “use lots more”, but to buy from one manufacturer instead of another. The manufacturers want to offer brands that appeal to each type of personality – the thrifty squirrel and the reckless rabbit, the pellet-person and the soft-pile person. Think of baby clothes: they are available in pink, and in blue.
In Germany toilet paper packaging usually just has some flowers printed on it. But that doesn’t mean the squirrel and the rabbit lay down side by side. The manufacturers try to distinguish themselves by offering more and more luxurious layers for rabbits (currently max 4, I think), or fewer but eco-friendly recycled gray abrasive layers for squirrels.
To clarify: the squirrel personality uses just as many rolls as the rabbit, even though less paper is wiped out (so to speak) on each occasion. The important thing is to cover as much demand as possible. You may prefer to aim for ever-higher turnovers on one kind of demand only, but at some point the demand is saturated.
Are they glove puppets? No, that’s too disgusting. They must be marionettes.
Yes, we have grayish toilet paper here too, but they don’t need to use animals to sell it, it’s for people who have rejected every other kind and have no other choice. Sort of punishment toilet paper.
I mean “the demand stagnates”.
This whole thread is really about marketing strategies and customer profiling, not emiction and emucktion.
I like saturated better.
The E-Z-P is not just about marketing. If you’ll pardon the expression, it’s filling a niche.
Mr Crown, is “outdoor toilet” a polite way of saying “outhouse,” or does “outdoor toilet” mean “every bush beckons”?
I don’t know about squirrels and rabbits, but I did buy some biodegradable dog poop bags (made from corn, they tell me) that are manufactured in Norway. From which I inferred that you were all very sophisticated in the poop and pee department. Ahead of the pack. Cutting edge. So I’m confused about the outdoor toilet.
But then I’m still reeling from Sitzpinkler, concept and word. I’m going to call everyone a Sitzpinkler from now on.
Oh no, I meant outhouse. But any outbuilding in Norwegian (like where we have our studio, at home) is et uthus, and I think I may have stopped using that word in English to mean toilet.
I didn’t know the dog poop bags biodegraded. I don’t use them — or rather, our dogs don’t — for that very reason. I’d no idea that Norway exported them. Something to be proud of. Are they black? I guess I’ll have to start doing it, if they’re biodegradable .
In Gaelic, a “tigh beg” is literally a little house, and is therefore also a euphemism for the outdoor cludgie.
Is it pronounced as it looks?
Like Crown, I have the same thought pretty much every time I buy toilet paper. But in my case it’s nothing to do with squirrels or advertising strategies; it’s about the brand name Cottonelle; it sounds sufficiently like the way some Americans say “continental” that I always find myself yearning for a good opportunity to make a pun: Cottonelle breakfast or something.
And I do love the word “cludgie”!
jajajaaja or hahaha: “puppets” ! What a fool!
I meant puppies.
You know– my dreadful English, sorry!
softness is a selling point
Who can forget squeezably soft Charmin?
“Is it pronounced as it looks?” Nope. Tee beg.
(Of course, there are jokes e.g. a Tigh beg is what you make a cuppa from in Morningside.)
According to Wikipedia, Morningside is the “famously genteel” Edinburgh neighbourhood where J.K. Rowling once lived along with Murial Spark’s Jean Brodie. Current residents include Alexander McCall Smith and Ian Rankin. It has a street called Cuddy Lane — Cuddy being an old Scottish word for horse.
“Is it pronounced as it looks?” Nope. Tee beg.
In my Connemara brand of Irish, it sounds more like “tsee be(w)g,” where the /e/ vowel gets rounded as the mouth moves to the /g/ position.
Cuddy being an old Scottish word for horse.
Donkey, actually; the OED calls it “a word of the same homely status in Scotch as donkey is in English, for which written evidence begins only in the 18th c. It has been plausibly conjectured to be the same word as Cuddy, a familiar diminutive of Cuthbert in some parts of the north. Cf. the analogous application of Neddy, Dicky, to an ass; but unlike these, cuddy has, now at least, no conscious connexion with the proper name, being, like donkey, simply a common noun.”
In case you’re wondering about “Scotch” and the other antiquated language of that quote, the etymology in question is unchanged from its original publication in 1893, and it was doubtless written well before that.
Very interesting. So was “Scotch” more common than “Scottish” in the nineteenth century? Trevor-Roper implies it was:
(That would be William Robertson and Alicia or Alison Cockburn, I think.)
The ridiculous aversion to “Scotch” has always sounded to me as if it might be a product of that preposterous 19th century schoolmaster-nationalism that did so much damage across Europe. As for “According to Wikipedia, Morningside is the “famously genteel” Edinburgh neighbourhood where J.K. Rowling once lived along with Murial Spark’s Jean Brodie. Current residents include Alexander McCall Smith and Ian Rankin.” Bah. Those literati live/lived in Merchiston, not Morningside. (I, you’ll understand, have lived in both. And very nice too. Merchiston abuts Morningside at Holy Corner.)
“Cuddy” is indeed “donkey” but is thereby used as a dismissive for “horse”. Referring to the Grand National as “the donkey loupin'” is a joke I remember with great pleasure from childhood (and I speak as a fan of the Grand National).
Dearie, in which of the M-places does Isabel Dalhousie do her stuff ? I just read The Lost Art of Gratitude. McCall Smith has a nice line in unobtrusive Christian homiletic, though I say so myself.
If I moved to Edinburgh, would I have to wear a kilt, even if only on special days ? Or is there a Dispensation for Americans of a certain age ?
Stu, my daughter’s first complete and interesting sentence was “Daddy’s too fat for his kilt”. But I’d left Edinburgh by then.
Ms Dalhousie bides in Merchiston. This means that when she walks into town her daunder will take her across Bruntsfield Links and The Meadows. Do these sound attractive? They are.
Here’s the sort of view she could enjoy as she strolled.
Stu, I think you could wear what you like, within reason. Edinburgh is a small city with a small-town feel but not exactly small-minded, is my impression.
I’m relieved to hear that McCall Smith does not live in an overly genteel neighborhood.
Once or twice in the early ’70s, I visited with friends in Penicuik around the time of the festivals. I spent most of my time in Edinburgh of course, with one fabled trip to Stirling. It is McCall Smith’s novels that are recalling atmosphere and place, although they are about people who move in circles in which I wouldn’t, and much must have changed since 1973.
empty, I didn’t know you had been in Edinburgh. My friends are Bob and Anne Boyer from Austin. Bob was in the AI business with the University, in particular automatic theorem-proving.
Dearie, why are Bruntsfield Links studded with lampposts ? Is that the Scottish Enlightenment again ? Do folks play golf at night ??
New York has firemen in kilts, but only on St Patrick’s Day. Maybe I’ll move to Edinburgh, it looks great.
Dearie, what’s the story with the SNP? Good or bad? Why have I never, to my knowledge, met an SNP supporter, and meanwhile they’re running Scotland?
“Dearie, why are Bruntsfield Links studded with lampposts ?” It’s a public park criss-crossed with paths. The citizenry get about by walking along them and therefore value lighting. In addition it has a pitch-and-putt golf course. It’s free, of course; if by some oversight you are clubs-and-ball- deficient, you can hire same from one of the pubs. Pottering around on the links with an iron, a putter and a pint is an agreeable distraction of a summer evening.
“Do folks play golf at night ??” Well, in late June you just about could, especially if you use one of those fluorescent balls that people use on gloomy winter afternoons. But teeing off at midnight is more an Orkney thing than an Edinburgh thing. Finishing ’round midnight might be OK in Edinburgh.
“Dearie, what’s the story with the SNP? Good or bad?” I’d left long before the new Parliament was instituted, so it’s hard to say. Still, anyone who’s agin’ Labour can’t be all bad. The Scottish Labour Party at its most liberal cleaves to the views of Peron; at its least, to Stalin’s. They have the propensity to corruption of Irish politicians, but none of the charm.
My first, very brief, look at Edinburgh was in the early 80s. Because I am partly of Scottish ancestry, my wife insisted that I buy a kilt while we were there. There are shops on the Royal Mile that regularly cater to tourists on that same silly errand. Part of the process is that in order to work out which tartan you need they have to decide, in an arbitrary and phony way if necessary, which clan you belong to, based on your family name. Other than that, we loved it — so much so that we returned for six months when I had a sabbatical a few years later.
That marriage came to an end; in fact, it had begun to fizzle out just before the six-month period in question. Other than that (!), we both enjoyed the six months there. In fact, she enjoyed it so much that she basically never came back. My ex-wife has now lived near Edinburgh for many years.
I have been to Scotland twice since then for a week or two at a time with my family. My current (i.e. final) wife loves the place and sometimes (especially when the political or cultural climate of the US is getting to her) fantasizes about us emigrating there.
The last time we were in Edinburgh we stayed at a B&B in the New Town. The owners had a daughter named Velocity.
What was Velocity’s angle ? Did she like to go off on tangents, or did she seek the center of attention ?
A well known Scottish football manager was approached by a TV reporter, who held out his microphone and said “Can I just have a quick word, Gordon?”
The manager replied “velocity”.
She ran off with Speedy Gonzalez.
If she did both simultaneously, she would spend her life turning in aimless circles.
She struck me as a having both direction and magnitude.
as having
“She struck me in direction and magnitude” would also have made sense, in terms of physics. Even more so if it’s your wife, of course – she set you on a steady course in the right direction.
I am coming round to the traditional view that only women can civilize men. This was a hard point for me to admit. Initially I thought little green feminists were manipulating me from the moon.
Of course this doesn’t mean that wild mustangs will die out. There are even conservation programs.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will civilize the women?
That’s no problem – women decide what counts as civilized. That’s what my married friends tell me, anyway.
The cats.
I can understand why men are drawn to this regimen. All decisions are made for them. So long as they are allowed to blow things up occasionally, they don’t mind having to be home for dinner at 7 P.M.
Dearie’s right, it’s the cats who want you home by seven (or dogs).
I’ve always lived with women, and only very occasionally with men. There’s quite a lot of variation in how civilised women are. Some are quite messy, for example (as am I).
All I meant to say was that I now realize there is a biological component in there. I used to wonder why more people didn’t think neutrally, objectively about women, as I do.
Looks like I scared off the punters with my last semi-jokey comment, although I thought the message was fairly obvious, and frankly was highly pleased with myself for getting such a subtle point into two punchline sentences. I just forgot that I was not speaking at the Annual Philosophers’ Comedy Congress.
“biological” and “women” were mere feeders. The point is this: “neutral” and “objective” are merely two specific kinds of thinking with a specific applicability. Their very purpose is to exclude from consideration such things as emotions, sexo-biological dispositions, aesthetic phenomena (architecture) and so on. This is usually understood as implying that these things are conceptually second-rate, because one cannot be “neutral” and “objective”about them.
But this is not true, as we all know from everyday life. Of course you can think about, analyze, compare, etc. etc. these things. But these are different kinds of thinking. There is a de jure tyranny exerted by “neutral” and “objective” thinking, which we de facto ignore. This doesn’t mean we are being sloppy – it suggests instead that we are at least trying to use the best tools for each kind of job.
There is more than one way to skin a cat. Cats should keep that in mind before starting to whine about their dinner.
How amazing that you think this way about women, Grumbly, given the Sitzpinkler movement. You’d definitely like Russia. Here both the men and women essentially think that men are useless and women rule the world. And they do, but they do it in such a way that most of the time the men don’t know it. They also have dinner on the table every night, make sure the apartment/house is clean and clothes are washed, take care of the kids, and dress to the nines. They grumble about all this, but not enough to change things. However, they do demand various forms of adoration in return: flowers, baubles, Words of Love.
I’m only joking a little.
Sorry I’m not paying attention, I had to watch a three-hour video last night and now it’s not raining, so I’m outside — except the battery is charging on my electric lawnmower, so I’m inside.
If you guys had only told me earlier, I could have done more posts on chainsaws. I hadn’t realised what a mine — or minefield — of untapped comments I had in my garden shed*.
I’m not sure aesthetic phenomena (architecture) are usually thought to be non-neutral or non-objective; many people find artworks & buildings wholly rational. Myself, I think there are rational and irrational bits and I don’t have a problem with that.
dinner on the table every night, make sure the apartment/house is clean and clothes are washed, take care of the kids, and dress to the nines
Grumbly may not have had much personal experience of this phenomenon.
*A mixed metaphor? I think not.
Grumbly may not have had much personal experience of this phenomenon.
I was not found under a cabbage leaf, I believe. Of course I have personal experience ! Just not in the past 45 years within my own four walls. I remember that once it occurred to me what-all my mother must have gone through raising 6 kids. Even though I don’t get along with her, the thought made me feel this small including the hat (Ger.loc.).
mab possibly has not picked up on the fact that I am gay. But this condition is a price one sometimes pays for entertaining advanced views on women. (Joke). In fact all men are the same, as I’ve claimed before. I’m basically just a male chauvinist pig in pink instead of blue. I get to blow shit up all the time, and can make my dinner whenever I want.
The well-advised woman will not trust her hairdresser more than her husband. Jes’ sayin’.
“Normally as genial a soul as ever broke biscuit, this aunt, when stirred, can become the haughtiest of grandes dames before whose wrath the stoutest quail, and she doesn’t, like some, have to use a lorgnette to reduce the citizenry to pulp, she does it all with the naked eye.”
P.G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the offing (Barrie & Jenkins, 1960)
I think it only really works if you have blue eyes. My pet Gräfin in Germany could do that.
the stoutest quail
It took a moment to figure out that wasn’t a noun.
Grumbly, I’m not so sure the younger generation of men (those under about thirty) are chauvinist pigs. They may be, I’m certain yet. I’m interested because I have a daughter & I don’t want her doing anyone’s dishes.
“the stoutest quail” would be a good name for a pub.
I get to blow shit up all the time, and can make my dinner whenever I want.
And you get to iron your own shirts according to rigorously correct principles that you worked out all by yourself.
Stu, may I ask how you store your broom? Bristles up or down?
How do you store your broom, Emp?
We “store” ours bristles down, in theory. Actually it’s just lying on the ground outside the front door. We sometimes worry we’re hillbillies, but then we go to the dump.
You know who really gets to blow shit up, possibly, is Siganus Sutor & Trond. They’re structural engineers.
I believe that most people around the world stand their brooms on their bristles, but in our family we don’t because we don’t like to bend the straws. I believe that my wife worked this out all by herself, just as Stu taught himself the ideal sequence for ironing a shirt by thinking hard about it. This is the sort of thing that you would think would be passed down from parent to child (traditionally from mother to daughter, so that a son might miss out on it and need to compensate by mustering Stu-like resourcefulness). It’s possible that the broom thing is a genuine innovation.
Anyway, I wanted to work “bristles up” and “Stu” into the same utterance.
(sorry, editing error: please delete “of a Stu”)
I’ve deleted it. I learnt to iron a shirt from my mother, who learnt it on a sheep station in Australia. Very smart sheep, in those days.
We store our brooms bristles-up so that we can distinguish them instantly among all the other garden tools. The forks, spade and hoes usually have handles, or shaft lengths, that make them distinguishable easily. We store the rakes business end up too.
Stu, may I ask how you store your broom? Bristles up or down?
empty, you have made me realize something astonishing. I had forgotten the very existence of brooms. I don’t own one, and nobody I know does. I can’t remember when the last time was that I saw an old-timey American straw broom in the Rheinland, except occasionally in a store or in the country, say in a barn. In their houses and apartments, people tend to use a kind of long-handled brush with soft synthetic-fiber bristles to sweep up housedust. Of course many people have carpeted floors that they vacuum, and need a broom only for the bathroom and kitchen.
Here is a picture of the lower part of one. It’s called a Besen or Zimmerbesen [room broom]. I have one of these, which I store business-end down. I own no other handled thing I would need to distinguish from the broom. The bristles are soft anyway, and somehow pick up that fibrous housedust (Wollmäuse == wooly mice) much better than a straw broom (as I faintly recall). Should the bristles splay too much, you just buy a replacement and screw it on the handle. Every supermarket carries them, even the smallest ones. I’ve never used one so often that I would need to buy a replacement …
The next step after dust removal is to get down on your hands and knees, and give the floor a sturdy wipe (possibly preceeded by a scrub) with a bucket of water and a moderately-sized absorbent cloth (Aufnehmer [absorber], also available at every store), which you repeatedly wring out in the bucket. I think mops are disgusting and inefficent, they just spread dust around as a hyper-thin, invisible mud. Haven’t used one for decades.
Wollmäuse
Like dust bunnies. Those are what you get when long-neglected dust accumulates in such quantities, under a bed perhaps, that it forms balls. Some such process on a larger scale may have led to the formation of the Earth and the other planets.
I have read that most house dust consists mainly of tiny particles of skin, which we shed while dressing or undressing.
Now that I think of it, I recently had a different “which end” question in regard to a traditional straw broom: we had a bat in our bedroom and I was asking it which end of the stick it would like to grab onto so that I could carry it out of the house. It finally chose the bare stick, but not before giving me some terrible looks and peevish chittering remarks.
long-neglected dust … Some such process on a larger scale may have led to the formation of the Earth and the other planets.
That would make good sense. Life-supporting dust bunnies are likely to form only in a neglected corner of the universe, where kerchiefed supernovas seldom ply their gamma-ray brooms.
As to bits of skins, I have a blood-curdling anecdote to tell. Back in 1986, my boyfriend Walther from the ’70s was dying of Aids, and I had taken him out of the hospital into my apartment to take care of him (topology Walter and Anne had both met him earlier, empty). The Hausmeister where I lived also developed Aids. I knew him only by sight, he was a youngish guy who lived in the apartment above me. He had had psoriasis for most of his life, as I found out later, it was severely aggravated by the Aids, and he was pretty depressed. Walther himself developed brain abscesses, Kaposi, thrush, pneumocystis pneumonia etc. etc. This year was full of the most horrific experiences I have ever had.
Anyway, one day Walther and I noticed that we hadn’t seen the Hausmeister for a few days, so I went up to his apartment. When he finally answered the door and let me in, I couldn’t believe what I saw. The psoriasis had taken over his entire body. He was literally, completely covered with thick white scaly skin, even into his ears and nose – sort of like a Creature From The White Lagoon. Scattered around the wooden floor of the apartment were wide piles of sloughed-off skin, each about 5 centimeters high – nothing like dust bunnies. The guy was scared and pretty out of it, and hadn’t dared to leave his apartment. I could smell a carton of soured milk, the smell of which to this day I associate with this scene.
So I cleaned up his entire apartment, calmed him down and talked him into letting me apply his skin medication. He was too ashamed at first, but he finally gave in to Grumbly hard-nosed sweettalk. As I remember, he didn’t want to go to the hospital, because they couldn’t do anything for him. I think one of his friends took him in over the next few days.
In case anyone wonders why I relate such a thing – it’s because I think it’s interesting. Gross, but interesting. I just have too few nice stories to tell about horsies and vacations on Corfu. It’s not even important that I myself experienced these things. When I think back, it’s like some gothic novel I read long ago.
If it all seems like Too Much Information, you can always imagine that I’m making it up. In the internet no one ever knows when someone is telling fibs, do they ?
Hvem sier strømmaster må være stygge? I believe this may be the only time a Boston free weekly has quoted a Norwegian newspaper in an architecture-related story.
Oh dear, Grumbly. After reading your post, I thought my thoughts on brooms were no longer appropriate.
Hm. If you’re gay, Russia might not be the greatest place for you. There are a lot of Russians who are really awful about gays, although I’ve noticed that people who think “homosexuality is wrong” also have a close gay friend, whom they defend to the death. But in general, here it’s 1970 or so as far as homosexuality goes. You might have read that the gay community has been trying to have a gay pride parade in Moscow for about a decade, but the mayor won’t allow such — wait for it — “satanic” processions in the capital.
Sigh.
No no, mab, thoughts on brooms are always appropriate. It was empty’s harmless surmise about where dust bunnies come from that inspired my gothic post. It was not a soul-baring cry from the heart, and since I don’t drink I even was sober when I wrote it (the worse for you, Grumbly !). Just subject-hoppin’.
It’s odd how you get used to the different ways of a different country. I had forgotten about brooms, and water fountains in every building, and sash windows … and reading the funnies in the Sunday morning paper !
I felt the same way as mab, Grumbly. It’s an interesting story that would make a great movie scene, but I’m very sorry you had to experience that time.
Thank you for that, M.
My wife, who works with public art projects, was particularly interested. We hadn’t seen it.
Crown, do you know the American TV series Scrubs ? That’s a kind of humor I like – sentimentality and unflappableness, stirred together in a blender, that you often encounter in medical people.
I haven’t seen that. Our tv hospital series is called House.
I saw an X of that once, not bad. I keep forgetting the English word for X (Folge). Episode.
Russian ADORE House. I thought it would be too American-centric and obscure, but no, they love Dr. House.
Well, then, brooms: real Russian brooms are hand-made from twigs and you have to bend over to use them. They take forever to break in, but if they are well-made, they are pretty good. Now we just buy incredibly overpriced European brooms. I have a nifty broom rack thing that has plastic loops held together by a kind of spring system. You stick the broom in between the loops. So neither top nor bottom touches the ground.
As far as sash windows go — that was my big apartment remodelling obsession. I sprung for American windows (the company had opened an office here and was selling them, mostly to new townhouse construction). My contractor sneered at them at first, but came to love them.
I’ll tell my daughter that Russians love House. She watches it for medical information, although, since she’s planning to be a vet, I’m not sure it’s perfect.
It’s odd that sash windows only seem to exist in the US & Britain, I’ve never understood that. Were they invented by Thos. Jefferson? They seem like his kind of thing.
No, according to Wikipedia: the design of the sash window is attributed to the English scientist and inventor, Robert Hooke. I suspected it was someone famous.
I can think of only 2.5 kinds of window in housing. There are shutter windows (?) with one or two sections that open out horizontally. There are sash windows that slide open vertically. And there are the German kind, a modification of a large one-part window that can be tilted open at the top – you turn a handle so that the vertical hinges are released and horizontal ones at the bottom slide into place.
The German ones are called Drehkippfenster [swing and tilt windows], and are the standard.
The shutter kind are called casement windows.
I like the swing & tilt, they’re the best functionally (the easiest to clean from indoors), but insulated glass doesn’t accept mullions (muntins) very easily, so they’re not very nice on (some) old buildings.
“I like the swing & tilt, they’re the best functionally (the easiest to clean from indoors)”: forgive me for being parochial, but the sash windows in Georgian flats in Edinburgh are easy to clean, because they have a Cunning Plan that lets you swing them inboard for cleaning. Or, strictly, you swing in the lower half, leaving you room to clean the upper half in place.
Wow, I’ve never seen that, Dearie. I can’t imagine how it would work with the counterweights, but it sounds great. Perhaps that’s what mab got.
Yes, that’s exactly what I got. Each window has a kind of lock, and when you release it, the window pane swings down into the room.
In Russia there are the “new” tilting windows, ones that open into the room, and (usually in houses) ones that open outward. I hated the ones that opened into the room because they were wider than the sill, and so you couldn’t both open the window and close the curtains.
You could stuff the curtains through the opening. It would look nice from the street.
Not quite. The windows were…. hm… like mini-french doors with one little pane at the top that also opened. When opened, they extended over the sill into the room by about 10 inches. You could, with great fiddling (usually at night, when you just want to go to bed), scootch the cutain into the center and let the windows be opened on the sides of them. But because the windows were so high, and the curtains flush to the wall right above them, that fiddling at the top was nearly impossible.
Hm. I haven’t explained that well. Just imagine curtains hung above a French door, and then trying to open the doors but keep the curtain in the middle where they are opened.
“I can’t imagine how it would work with the counterweights”. You undo the brass screws (they’ve got crossbars so you do it by hand) that hold in place the vertical batten that forms the indoors side of the right guide for the window, and put the batten aside. You raise the lower window a few inches, then you swing out the folded hinges on the left of the window frame, then lower the window until the screwheads it’s equipped with engage with the slots on the hinges. You now take the strain on the rope that holds the right counterweight, and you swing the right side of the window inboard by a few inches. You next remove from its recess in the lower window’s side the cap that the non-counterweight end of the rope is attached to and, using either a ratchet or a temporary knot in the rope, you can release the rope. Now you swing the window fully inboard and raise or lower the top window to a convenient position to let you clean it. Then push the top window up out of the way, clean the bottom window and reverse all the steps. It’s a delightful masterpiece of 18th century practicality. (I say “18th century” because the Edinburgh New Town is 18th century: whether it’s also used in the Old Town I don’t know – I’ve never lived there.)
P.S. I don’t know whether Hooke really invented the sash window, but they work far too well to have been an invention of that botcher Jefferson.
Wow, dearie. Now that is something. Mine are from Minnesota and all you do is push a little piece of plastic down the slot (that the windows go up and down on), and it pushes the locking device that goes from the window to the sash. (This is at the top of the pane; the bottom bolt-like thing that holds the window in the sash stays put.) Then the window pivots forward on the bottom bolt-like thing.
I have a feeling that “slot” “sash” “bolt-like thing” and other terminology is not correct. Sorry.
It must be part of the Scottish Enlightenment, Dearie. Thanks for the explanation.
Don’t they show you that sort of thing at architectural college, Crown? Inwn? Surely an architect’s education should be dominated by studying Edinburgh and Bath?
Goats from All Over:
During my two hours on the train from Warsaw I saw horses, several angry geese, and a dignified-looking goat, but only one person, a young man with bottles of beer on the roof of a barn.
(I say “18th century” because the Edinburgh New Town is 18th century: whether it’s also used in the Old Town I don’t know – I’ve never lived there.)
That statement delights me in several ways. I wrote that Edinburgh has a small-town feel, but of course there are towns within th town, all of them “old” from an American point of view. Recall that Velocity lived in the good old New Town, too.
The only casement windows I’ve ever come across that are capable of a special maneuver for cleaning are the windows in our, what shall I call it, little house in the country (the place where squirrels came the chimney and an osprey panicked on the screen porch). Made by the Pella Window Company. We had them for years before we noticed this feature.
It’s all relative.
And sometimes it’s the relatives. Poor cousins, uncles who are no longer mentioned, Erbtanten (aunts to which one looks for a legacy), ne’er-do-well nephews, sisters-in-law no better than they should be
On first reading I thought that almost all the passengers on the train were farm animals.
An architectural education usually emphasises Glasgow, although there’s a famous book of city plan analysis that has, of course, Bath & Edinburgh. It’s known as “Bacon”, after the author, who — I found out — is the father of the film… star? actor?… Kevin Bacon.
On first reading I thought that almost all the passengers on the train were farm animals.
You may have thought correctly. The passengers could be en route to the barn. To see that, prolong the sentence by: ” who was waiting to quail them with a good stout”.
“there are towns within the town”: the part of the city with the finest name is, to my taste, “Goldenacre”.
The brief Wiki article on Goldenacre concludes with a proportionately brief paragraph on the neighborhood’s Wildlife, written by someone who loves the place.
Wood pigeons, seagulls and many other birds are frequently evident. A red fox can often be spotted making its way between the current building site, the Rose Park cul-de-sac and the Ferry Road cycle path, especially (though not exclusively) in the early morning hours. During this latter period it is frequently possible to hear the fox and its young at play. Finally, a badger is occasionally to be seen crossing Inverleith Row at the Playing Fields before or after making its way along Inverleith Place Lane.
That is lovely. Thanks for sharing it with us before it gets deleted for being POV and Unreferenced.
I was thinking the same thing.
I’m amused to learn that there is now a bus direct from Goldenacre to Little France. What more could you want?
From this morning’s bacn: Big Sign – Little Building looks cool, though I imagine only our host has a chance of seeing it. The curatorial text is just a bit over the top. Absolutely its best statement on aesthetics and reality, though, is, “The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication printed by the time of the exhibition closing in Oslo.” We’ve all been there.
Thanks, I’ll have to go. I see that Tim Clark is also lecturing, he gives great lectures.
We rely on MMcM to tell us what’s going on in Norway; for some reason it all seems to get announced first in Boston.
Little France is a suburb of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It is on the A7.
Thanks for the bus info, Dearie.
And here I was starting to be afraid that the subject of blowing shit up had been exhausted!
Two of the nicer Edinburgh suburbs are Cramond and Inveresk. Once they they were Roman, you know. I dare say that they felled trees for their building work.
Don’t feel obliged to include the tree-felling, dearie. Edinburgh is a massive subject, and we would all benefit from learning more about it.
I may do another post soon — although I hesitate, because it seems to end the conversation.
Do go off and start another post, Crown. That won’t stop us from continuing this discussion behind your back. As a good cocktail party host, your task is to prime conversations and then move right along, like a migratory bird after excreting a previously ingested plant seed. It’s different at a dinner party, where everyone is in fixed positions around a table. There you must stay in your chair and preside.
:-)
Excellent simile, Stu.
Okay, maybe I’ll do something tonight, if there’s time.
Preside like a momma bird over her fledglings.
mama bird
So much fun to read the entire comment thread I have missed!
Hello! You deserve a (small) medal. Have you been in Berkeley all this time or did you go to France as well?
P. G. Wodehouse on the duties of a host.
I was on or near the West Coast of North America. Mentioning only the places where I have spent at least one night, during the last two months I have been to: Seattle, WA; Eugene, OR; Arcata, CA; Berkeley, CA (the longest); Vancouver, BC; Surrey, BC; New Aiyansh, BC; Terrace, BC; then back to Vancouver for the flight to Halifax, NS, where I live. I have taken planes, trains, buses and cars. That’s enough travel for a while.
That sounds tiring but terrific fun, m-l. Welcome home!
You know who really gets to blow shit up, possibly, is Siganus Sutor & Trond. They’re structural engineers.
Hey, nobody told me that. I’ve been working day and night for weeks trying to convince a control engineer that I know how to keep a building standing.
the design of the sash window is attributed to the English scientist and inventor, Robert Hooke
The window Hooke? Isn’t that a misnomer?