Thank you Temperance, and of course I join LiR and Nielsen, who said it that better than I can.

Kind regards, dear Temperance, from Paul.

Christmas comes a bit earlier here; I have forgotten whether we are 13 hours or 11 hours ahead of Britain, but either way more or less half a day. Still a few days to go but since people are wishing each other Merry Christmas now, I will join in. My husband and I are celebrating it on our own this year, as two of our sons are in Britain, and the other one and his family are coming down on Boxing Day. We do have a smallish turkey for the day. I said dessert could be just strawberries and cherries; I made a Xmas cake with the help of a carer, and my husband has iced it.

Caro, I wish you all the best. And have a nice Christmas evening with your husband.

Kind regards from Paul.

I am also wishing each and everyone, including the families, a Very Merry Christmas.
Enjoy the meals and goodies.

Dirk Marinus wrote:

a Very Merry Christmas

I'll echo that to the tune of War Is Over and in the inimitable style of Yoko Ono - " a Velly Melly Klissmas!"

Merry Christmas Res-His'ers.

Is it too early to crack open the Christmas ale or have a wee port?

Not for me, it's not.



Happy Christmas also to everyone here. The mince pies are on the house (keeps them fresh for longer).

Who has left these mouldy mince pies on the roof of Res His? Are we supposed to consume them tomorrow at midnight?

Happy 2020, tout le monde!

PS I have got a new moggy! The naming process begins...

Your new cat might appreciate the mouldy mince pies, Temp, especially if you tell it they have real meat mince in them. As for naming, I am very interested in names though mostly for humans. I saw yesterday that Bella is the most popular name for dogs (I presume female ones), so it might be best avoided, in case it gives it a complex. Everything seems to give complexes these days.

Happy 2020 to everyone - the lutefisk leftovers from yesterday are on the same roof, for anyone interested.

Naming cats isn't quite the same thing as naming dogs - they don't give a cuss what you call them, as far as I can see, nature's instinctive little stoics that they are. Depending on its origin one could therefore choose one from three eminent and obvious names in that regard:

Marcus Aurelius (if a pedigree plays a part in its origin)
Epictetus (if rescued from dire circumstances)
Seneca (if it displays something of a dark sense of humour)

However there is one particular Stoic who we tend to forget these days and who might actually tick all the feline boxes. Not averse to wandering off whenever he wanted to (he was a proud peripatetic), and even obstinately refusing to wander when Vespasian threw a hissy fit and banished all philosophers from Rome, he also enthusiastically advocated three essential ingredients for a happy life - adequate food, warm surroundings, and a particular (in fact slightly obsessive) interest in domestic furniture. What's more he sported a name any cat would die for: Gaius Musonius Rufus.

Gaius Musonius Rufus is good, or continuing the classical feline theme there's Quintus Lutatius Catulus, or Lucius Sergius Catilina, or Marcus Antonius Felix ... but Temp hasn't yet told us whether it's a girl cat or a boy cat, so maybe Bast or Bastet, after the Egyptian cat-headed goddess of the hearth and home.

My cats have had plebeian names over the years.  My Mum thought of calling one of our cats Nefertiti back in the day because the cat despite being a domestic tabby and white had a snooty way of looking down on the world but she (the cat not Mum) ended up as "Puss".  One of the cats I was told needed rehoming (but then he didn't) was called "Greedy".  I had an email from Cats Protection saying they thought that in respect of my age (entered my 70s in what is now last year) I might be better with an old cat - or rather what happened (in case that sounds rude) I had suggested I might be better with an older cat and the lady from CP agreed with me so I suppose it's a case of awaiting them contacting me to (a) inspect my humble abode (b) if they deem my home to pass muster to put me in touch with an age-appropriate cat.

nordmann wrote:

Marcus Aurelius (if a pedigree plays a part in its origin)
Epictetus (if rescued from dire circumstances)
Seneca (if it displays something of a dark sense of humour.)

However there is one particular Stoic who we tend to forget these days and who might actually tick all the feline boxes. Not averse to wandering off whenever he wanted to (he was a proud peripatetic), and even obstinately refusing to wander when Vespasian threw a hissy fit and banished all philosophers from Rome, he also enthusiastically advocated three essential ingredients for a happy life - adequate food, warm surroundings, and a particular (in fact slightly obsessive) interest in domestic furniture. What's more he sported a name any cat would die for: Gaius Musonius Rufus.

Gosh, what posh names for a British moggy of dubious descent - he would soon be beaten up by the other farm cats around here if he went around claiming the right to any such distinguished appellation. Classical anthroponomastics (sp?) are not appreciated much in the rural depths of the South West. Bosworth suffered enough, but being named after a Roman emperor and/or philosopher is asking for trouble.

In the event, it doesn't matter because, like LiR, I've been let down and the promised moggy is going elsewhere...

PS Actually I was considering a Biblical name - Hezekiah is the current favourite, Hezza for short. Hezekiah was a good fighter and had a tunnel named after him, which most moggies would appreciate - and be impressed by - I think.

To be fair, Temperance, I was only really technically let down once - the one that looked like Pebbles.  The guy said he would bring her over one Sunday and I had made sure I had the right amount of cash to pay him and also reimburse his petrol.  I think they had probably grown fond of the cat and didn't want to part with her which is fair enough but I wish they had let me know and not just left me in the lurch.  They didn't answer any of my attempted phone calls.  "Greedy" was a cat a lady from sign language mentioned but when she contacted her friend, the friend's son and family had decided the cat wasn't a danger to their newborn after all.  I hadn't actually been categorically promised "Greedy".  If "Greedy" had come off, because he was black I was thinking of Niger to rhyme with tiger (NOT to rhyme with tigger) only with a soft 'g'.

I suppose we could always look to the Russians and/or the Greeks for help, although I have always found Russian patronymics baffling. I could have a Bosworthovich, I suppose, or a Bosworthovna - or perhaps just a nice Greek epithet like, "the fleet of paw" or "scourge of the nocturnal nibblers".

Three cats live nearby - pedigree animals called Cleo, Smokey and Morris - unfriendly, posh cats with conventional names. These felines would no doubt look askance at some young newcomer patrolling their territories - even more so a rough newcomer with a high falutin' Roman name - one who had been rescued from the Cats' Protection League.

But enough talk of moggy monikers, or, indeed, any other moggy matters here - we have strayed yet again from our designated thread.

Some of my cats (or the family cats when I was younger) had nicknames.  One called Blackie (who lasted 14 years; he died the spring/summer after the autumn my mother died) was called sometimes "the mini black panther" or "Bats' Ears" - for his ability to hear anything that he deemed might be food being handled (even if it wasn't) from a goodly distance.

Temperance wrote:

Hezekiah is the current favourite, Hezza for short.

For Sandringham tom cats then there are Billy and Hazza, or for queens Kath and Meg (or should that be don't wanna be queens).

Then for fans of pizza there are:



Has anyone seen the Frankie and Benny show on Netflix?



Spoiler alert - in it Benny promises Frankie that he (Benny) will remain 'hidden from the world'.  

Good one, Vizzer, good one.

I had the secret hope to see a good cartoon, but with this I am also pleased And the Church isn"t anymore what it was...even in the face of cartoons...as in comparison with other comparable ones nowadays...
OOPS now I see...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/movies/the-two-popes-review.html

I thought it was about the two popes and the celibate priests...


https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/surprise-benedict-openly-defends-clerical-celibacy-francis-considers-married-priests

Did a quick research and not yet a good cartoon...too early?

And who said two popes? Even three...
https://www.britannica.com/event/Avignon-papacy
https://www.britannica.com/event/Western-Schism

And who was now the true pope?

Kind regards, Paul.

Vizzer,




Kind regards, Paul.

Caro wrote:

strawberries and cherries

Here's a question about fruit - if anyone knows the answer. Can fruits in a fruit-bowl have their flavour affected by other fruits in the bowl? I know, for instance, that bananas in a bowl with other fruit will ripen much quicker than if they're in a bowl of their own. But can, say, sweet oranges become tart if stored next to lemons? The reason I ask is that I had some oranges in a bowl some of which I squeezed to make delicious orange juice on Saturday morning. That afternoon I bought some lemons and limes which I added to the bowl with the remaining oranges. Sunday morning I again squeezed some oranges but this time the juice seemed much tarter. Had the sharpness of the lemons and limes rubbed off onto the oranges overnight? Mrs V says she thinks I'm imagining things - but can this happen?    

Vizzer, I did some research on internet with several combinations of words (some half an hour) only to say that I didn't find if Mrs is right. But I found out that in the ripening process the taste can be influenced by molecules in the neighbourhood...

But as an aside I found a study of the university of Leuven (Louvain) (Belgium) about instruments to replace the human tongue, as that human tongue is good but the results are expensive and after some hundred tests the human tasting get tired...
For instance the "electronic tongue" and ATR-FTIR see the abstract...

[url=file:///C:/Users/Paul/Downloads/doctoraat (1).pdf]file:///C:/Users/Paul/Downloads/doctoraat%20(1).pdf[/url]
The file don't work, here another entry:
https://www.kuleuven.be/doctoraatsverdediging/fiches/3E04/3E041113.htm

Perhaps it is a new technique for the wine tasting too...in the time my colleague in our French factory with whom I had many friendly encounters during meetings, was from studies a "wine engineer". And he had many times during his studies to do the wine tasting. He said how difficult it was to taste wine...in a grey painted room and concentrating to be not distracted from the sole action of tasting...

Kind regards from Paul.

Thanks for that Paul. It seems that there’s not enuff evidence so far either way on the question of citrus fruits reacting with each other. What we really need is scientific research. An acid test, as it were, which should be rigorously carried out until the pips squeak. That would lend zest to the data which could then be presented in a pithily written report. In the meantime, however, it remains just a hypothesis. I’ll call it the St Clement’s campanalog hypodulcitudenal juxtacrine transjunction hypothesis.

Vizzer wrote:

Thanks for that Paul. It seems that there’s not enuff evidence so far either way on the question of citrus fruits reacting with each other. What we really need is scientific research. An acid test, as it were, which should be rigorously carried out until the pips squeak. That would lend zest to the data which could then be presented in a pithily written report. In the meantime, however, it remains just a hypothesis. I’ll call it the St Clement’s campanalog hypodulcitudenal juxtacrine transjunction hypothesis.

Vizzer, thanks for your comments and yes somewhere in your sentence I saw "enuff"

Kind regards from Paul.

Just arriving on the forum after a an "elaborated" (I see that dear Temperance arrived again some minutes ago. Welcome sweet sister T) message about the empteenth time that the discussion appeared about: No Renaissance without Islam.  This time about the Syrian translators in the House of Wisdom, being Christians and not part therefore of the arab culture (a famous discussion in France in 2008 which split the whole French academic world) and nevertheless some try and try again...

I wanted to comment this evening something I saw today in the news about Idlib, the Turcs, Assad, the war by proxy between Russia and the US implicating even the Nato and Europe including the UK. About the one sided propaganda on our screens. I saw an interesting message from a contributor on the small forum where Nielsen also attends. But perhaps this is too political for this "open" forum...

Kind regards to all from Paul.

LiR, Nielsen, MM and Vizzer as I expect a lot of salvation from your side "to keep the boat afloat" during my "staying" abroad in the, I hope, sunny South...only for a fortnight...



Kind regards, Paul.

The south where, Paul?  The board is quiet at present but maybe it will pick up again.

Deleted, because of bad taste.

With ten regulars online together at 11:45 GMT we must almost have a quorum.

What with museums, galleries, bars, cinemas, theatres, historic buildings etc all shut and a lot of the population of Europe confined to their homes, French news has reported that alongside a surge in social media, there's also been a marked number of hits for things like the Louvre's collections website and for virtual tours of historic chateaux etc. I wonder if Res His is seeing a boost in clicks from people stuck at home and keen to chat or be diverted. Perhaps we might even get some more members. I'll drink to that ... or I would if I had any booze in the house. Perhaps LiR hasn't yet turned her cheap gin into hand sanitiser.

This appeared on twitter:

Ha ha Trike, you have been laying somewhat low of late.  I mentioned on another thread I'd bought some cheap (well the cheapest I could buy) gin to have a bash at making some homemade sanitiser.  MM thought it was a waste and that I ought to drink it - as this is the bar I guess I should err on the side of drinking at least on this thread.

Meles meles wrote:

With ten regulars online together at 11:45 GMT we must almost have a quorum.

What with museums, galleries, bars, cinemas, theatres, historic buildings etc all shut and a lot of the population of Europe confined to their homes, French news has reported that alongside a surge in social media, there's also been a marked number of hits for things like the Louvre's collections website and for virtual tours of historic chateaux etc. I wonder if Res His is seeing a boost in clicks from people stuck at home and keen to chat or be diverted. Perhaps we might even get some more members. I'll drink to that ... or I would if I had any booze in the house. Perhaps LiR hasn't yet turned her cheap gin into hand sanitiser.

 Yes, Meles, but it seems we must now wash our hands after visiting the Louvre.

And has it occurred to anyone that this was all caused by somebody going over the top while singing the Magpie song (One for Sorrow, two for joy...) and when they got to 19 Corvids it went viral?

And here's another old lag coming out of the woodwork  ...
Welcome back Bren, you've been missed. How have you been, and what's all your news?

Meles meles wrote:

And here's another old lag coming out of the woodwork  ...
Welcome back Bren, you've been missed. How have you been, and what's all your news?

 
I join MM. I have a vague rememberance that you were also on another small forum, Brenogler, in 2012. Or was it Arwe Reghed?

Glad to see you back and kind regards from Paul.

brenogler wrote:

 Yes, Meles, but it seems we must now wash our hands after visiting the Louvre.

Tout à fait, et j'espère que tu te laves toujours les mains après être allé au Louvre, mais rappelles-toi que ce ne sont pas les Français qui sont sales, mais 'les visiteurs':

Welcome back, Bren.

I'll watch this one later:

Movie Quote
Dr. Ellis Cheever: But right now, our best defense has been social distancing. No hand-shaking, staying home when you're sick washing your hands frequently.

An interesting film to watch while Covid-19 is running wild.

To ramp up the fear factor, the Contagion in the film proves to have a mortality rate of 25-30%, which is a good higher than C-19.

The film begins on Day 2, with Gwyneth Paltrow in an airport lounge. We don't find out about Day 1 until the end of the film, the origin eerily similar to a suggested source for C-19.

On a lighter note, Ladybird's new book:

Remember to move your time pieces forward one hour tonight for the start of BST:

If I move my  time piece forward  it will fall off the shelf.

Last night's film was Terminator 2:



tonight's film will be Mad Max 2:

Here's something to keep you amused while stuck at home. The Getty museum in Los Angeles has launched a challenge to its Twitter followers:

@GettyMuseum
We challenge you to recreate a work of art with objects (and people) in your home.

Choose your favorite artwork
Find three things lying around your house⠀
Recreate the artwork with those items








The Guardian - Be your own Italian masterpiece: how people are recreating classic artworks in coronavirus quarantine, although why The Guardian chose to accompany that particular headline with Jan Vermeer's 'The girl with the pearl' is beyond me.

Love that Madonna and Bulldog, MM!

Or is it a pug?

No. It's a pearl. Deffo.

The things you find on twitter.

The latest Ed Sheeran album:



btw Gil, what's happened to the Album Covers thread?????

The latest dinosaur lockdown adventure. Barbers are all shut, so brains decides to do his own hair cutting. There were only beard trimmers left in the supermarket, got a cheap one and started cutting.
Everything looked OK to begin with, but on checking the back and sides, there were cut patches and uncut patches. Ended up doing what, to be honest, I expected to do in the first place, crop the hair down as much as possible, lather the scalp and shave it Shaving your head is more difficult than I imagined, however, after only 5 minor cuts and 1 major cut, applied aftershave to stop the bleeding, the job was finished.
And it has actually turned out OK. Might just keep it like this, certainly for the time being, as it is now easily maintained. Plus I can go into full Lex Luthor/Ernst Stavro Blofeld mode and sit planning world domination.

Triceratops wrote:

... got a cheap one and started cutting. Everything looked OK to begin with ...

Nowhere Arthur Mullard and Barbara Windsor haven't been before ....

Vinicunca, Peru's Rainbow Mountain.

Only revealed by the retreat of ice and snow, the mineralogical makeup of the mountain makes for a spectacular sight:



wiki:

According to the investigation of the Cultural Landscape Office of the Decentralization of the City of Cusco, the colorations of the mountain of the 7 colours are due to the mineralogical composition that it has: the pink color is for the red clay, fangolitas (mud) and arilitas (sand). The whitish colouring is because of the quartzose, sandstone and marls, rich in calcium carbonate. The red one made up of the claystones (iron) and clays belonging to the upper tertiary. The green is due to the compound of phyllites and clays rich in ferro magnesian. The earthy brown is a product of fanglomerate composed of rock with magnesium belonging to the Quaternary era. And the mustard yellow colour for the calcareous sandstones rich in sulphurous minerals.

Valle de la Luna, in neighbouring Bolivia:

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