Abracadabra

"Abra-abracadabra
I wanna reach out and grab ya"

That damn song by the Steve Miller Band. An earworm that started immediately I saw the word for this week’s blog. In all sorts of ways, how did they get away with lyrics like that? It almost turned into a brainworm, if there is such a word, when I started to look up the origins of the song and how Eminem got involved in 2024.

But I went for a cup of tea and when I got back it was to the second century CE and the first known mention of the word in a book called Liber Medicinalis (sometimes known as De Medicina Praecepta Saluberrima) by Serenus Sammonicus, physician to the Roman emperor Caracalla, who in chapter 52 prescribed that malaria sufferers wear an amulet containing Abracadabra written in the form of a triangle that acted like a funnel and drove the sickness out of the body.

It’s considered unlikely that Sammonicus came up with the word himself and it could be from a phrase in Aramaic that means "I create like the word". The historian Don Skemer suggests that it might originate from the Hebrew phrase ha brachah dabarah (name of the blessed), said to be a magical phrase. There are quite a few other theories as to the word’s origin however, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, ‘no documentation has been found to support any of the various conjectures’.

Abracadabra was still used as a cure into the 18th century, for there is a book by Daniel Defoe entitled 'Journal of the Plague Year', which lamented the use of such charms:

People deceiv’d; and this was in wearing Charms, Philters, Exorcisms, Amulets, and I know not what Preparations, to fortify the Body with them against the Plague; as if the Plague was but a kind of a Possession of an evil Spirit; and that it was to be kept off with Crossings, Signs of the Zodiac, Papers tied up with so many Knots; and certain Words, or Figures written on them, as particularly the Word Abracadabra, form’d in Triangle, or Pyramid…

And nowadays, or at least from the early 19th century, the word has been used by magicians of the show business type. The exact origins are unclear, but the use of the word Abracadabra likely started in the early 1800s. Some early references point to the first theatrical usage in a performance in 1812 in Rochester, NY, by dramatist and author William Thomas Moncrieff. This was a stage play written by Moncrieff, where the word was used as an example of a word magicians would utter.

Apparently magicians misdirect audience attention in two basic ways. One leads the audience to look away for a fleeting moment, so that they don't detect some sleight or move.

The other approach re-frames the audience's perception, distracting them into thinking that an extraneous factor has much to do with the accomplishment of the feat when it really has no bearing on the effect at all. Such as shouting Abracadabra at a crucial moment in the trick.

I’ve been to quite a few magic performances over the years and it seems to me that the use of such words as abracadabra have died away. Contemporary professional magicians consider the word too cheesy or clichéd for serious performances. When the word does appear today, it is typically reserved for children's entertainment, self-aware comedy, or pop-culture references rather than serious modern magic acts.

I told my friend
that I was writing a poem
just for her
she asked what it was called
I said

ABRACADABRA

and she disappeared

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Speed

I’ve just checked Planefinder as there’s a plane going over Preston at the moment and I’ve looked to check where it’s going and how fast it’s going. It’s on its way to Toronto and it’s going at a speed of 487 kts. As in knots which is a unit of speed, equal to exactly one nautical mile (nm) per hour. Which doesn’t really help. Let me go back a bit.

I was a sucker for Long John Silver and voyages to far-away places like the Coral Island but there was a down side to these long journeys in real life because sailors could soon lose track of where they were and many died due to scurvy and lack of fresh water. Unless they knew their speed they could end up miles away from where they thought they were.

Camila Caballero, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explains thus:
‘With no landmarks to gauge their progress across the open sea, sailors couldn’t tell how fast or how far they were travelling,’ But when the nautical mile — 1.852 kilometres — was introduced in the 15th century, they had a handy standard against which to measure speed and created out of necessity the log, the world’s first maritime speedometer. ‘They used materials they had on hand, she explains. ‘A wedge-shaped piece of wood, a small glass timer, and a really long rope.’ The rope was knotted at intervals of 47 feet and 3 inches.

measuring a ship's speed

John Prescott, Cutty Sark volunteer, tells us:
To determine distance, early navigators recorded the ship’s speed regularly, once every half an hour or more. To do this, they dropped a measuring device known as a log into the sea from the stern of the ship. All ships, including Cutty Sark, used a similar method until more advanced mechanical instruments were introduced in the twentieth century.

The log is made up of a wooden, weighted, triangular drag device that stays stationary in the sea, known as the ‘ship’ or ‘chip’, and a line on a spool that is unwound as the ship sails away from the chip. The officer of the watch, with sandglass in hand, times the log as the line runs out and shouts ‘Belay!’ at a specified interval.

‘Hand the log!’ is then shouted and the sailors start hauling the log in. The line is divided by evenly spaced knots which act as markers. On hearing the order, the seaman watching at the stern checks how many knots in the rope have passed into the sea in the given time, thereby providing a reading of the ship’s speed in knots.

If the speed measured by logline is 9 knots and the wind has stayed constant in strength and direction for the half hour since the log was last streamed to measure the speed, then, as 1 knot is equal to 1 nm/hour, the distance travelled in that time is 4.5 nm.

constituent parts of the 'log'

Speed is equal to distance divided by time. If you know the distance travelled (by measuring the amount of logline that has been dropped into the sea) and the time elapsed (from the officer of the watch’s sandglass), the calculation is relatively easy.

The top recorded speed of Cutty Sark, for instance, was more than 17 knots a speed many power-driven merchant ships today cannot achieve (although remember, Cutty Sark needed a favourable and constant breeze to sail at that speed, such as the Trade winds).

To convert use this: 1 knot = 1.15078 miles per hour

Interestingly the knot is an almost universal term, with identical or similar sounding words in many languages, such as knoten (German), nudo (Spanish) and notto (Japanese).

I do have a poem that mentions knots.

Au Revoir
(for Julie)

I’ve waited until
the tracker tells me
you’re over Moulin Huet Bay
09.27hrs
278.9 knots
32,520 feet
17,108 kilometres
to go home

but far too cloudy today
to see last Thursday
strolling its Bailiwick heart
down Ruettes Tranquilles
grateful for the shade
you gliding your hand
along moss ridden walls
telling me they’re capillaries
furred with curiosity
slowing us down

down to a Tea Room
that deserves its capital letters
where a tuna salad took you
less time to demolish
than a wave crashing on rocks
from our perfect view
of Renoir’s blues browns greens
and Guernsey’s sparse white clouds
without a single contrail
to break the spell.

First published in the French Literary Review, March 2019

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Picnic Time For Teddy Bears

Back in December 2024 I wrote about the film ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ as my contribution to the ‘Disappearing Act’ theme. I mostly remembered the atmosphere it conjured up when I first saw it back in around 1976. Here’s the link: Disappearing Act

And today is the 10th July 2026 and I was surprised and very delighted to find that when I looked up information to get a start on this week’s theme of Picnic I found that it is actually ‘National Teddy Bear Picnic Day’. Apparently it is celebrated all round the world and especially in the woods near you and me.

The Teddy Bears' Picnic

I’m going off on a bit of a tangent here but if I asked you what sound would the BBC Radio Engineers have used in 1932 to test equipment? Well, they used a sound produced by a Henry Hall recording of especially good quality with a large tonal range. It was used for more than 30 years by BBC audio engineers (up until the early 1960s) to aurally assess the frequency response of audio equipment.

Well done to anyone who answers ‘The Teddy Bear’s Picnic’. I didn’t know.

But why are they Teddy Bears? It turns out that when U.S. President, Theodore Roosevelt, was on a hunting trip in 1902 he refused to shoot a bear cub that had been tied up for him, deeming it unsportsmanlike. This act of compassion was widely publicized and inspired toy makers to create our first toy bears, naming them 'Teddy's bears' in his honour.

'Teddy' Roosevelt spares the bear

Anyway, back to the picnic bit. Not long after the above, in 1907, ‘The Teddy Bears' Picnic’ was composed as a melody by composer John Walter Bratton, and then lyrics were added in 1932 by songwriter Jimmy Kennedy. Kennedy lived at Staplegrove Elm and is buried in Staplegrove Church, in Taunton, Somerset. Local folklore has it that the small wooded area between the church and Staplegrove Scout Hut was the inspiration for his lyrics.

You would not believe the number of artists who have recorded both the melodic version and the vocal version. That first vocal version had Val Rosing singing Kennedy's lyrics. The song has been subsequently recorded by Bing Crosby, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Rosemary Clooney, Jerry Garcia, John Inman, Anne Murray, Bad Manners and Drastic Measures.

And that’s without references to it in popular culture. It appears briefly in the musical score by Robert Israel to accompany Buster Keaton's 1926 silent film The General, used as background music in the Looney Tunes cartoons, the song appears in the movie adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The song can be briefly heard in the 1968 Doctor Who episode The Invasion, Dad's Army uses the song in an episode from 1970 called The Big Parade. The Henry Hall version was featured in the Dennis Potter’s The Singing Detective from 1986. It features in Peter Greenaway's 1986 film A Zed & Two Noughts and it is mentioned in Peaky Blinders.

Enough of lists.

I’ve had my bear since I don’t know when, his name is Stephen. He has just given me a bit of a rocket for suggesting earlier that he is a toy.

Not much of a choice for the poem of the week.

Jimmy Kennedy

The Teddy Bears’ Picnic

If you go down to the woods today
You're sure of a big surprise.
If you go down to the woods today
You'd better go in disguise.
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain,
Because today's the day
The teddy bears have their picnic.

Picnic time for teddy bears,
The little teddy bears
Are having a lovely time today.
Watch them, catch them unawares
And see them picnic on their holiday.
See them gaily gad about,
They love to play and shout,
They never have any cares.
At six o'clock their mummies and daddies
Will take them home to bed,
Because they're tired little teddy bears.

If you go down to the woods today
You'd better not go alone.
It's lovely down in the woods today
But safer to stay at home.
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain,
Because today's the day
The teddy bears have their picnic.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q (and Stephen).

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Moustaches

It was during the Covid lockdown when I began to question why on earth I was shaving when I wasn’t going anywhere other than along the river path in the early morning and late at night. I’d had a beard for most of my life but ten years before had been encouraged by my girlfriend at the time to get rid of it. Fair enough.

Anyway, I decided to let it grow again as shaving is/was a nuisance. What I’m trying to say is do one thing or the other but growing a moustache is completely bonkers. You have the inconvenience of shaving but still need to control what’s left.

But from the records we can see that moustaches have been fashionable from way back to the Ancient Egypt old kingdom era 2649–2130 BCE.

One of the earliest documents of the usage of moustaches can be traced to Iron Age Celts. According to Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian wrote that: ‘.... the nobles shave their cheeks but they let the moustache grow until it covers the mouth.’

In early medieval art the Sutton Hoo helmet, an elaborately decorated helmet sporting a faceplate depicts the style on its upper lip.

I could go on about the various fashions for the moustache and the reasons for them and the people who had them but there would be no point as there is only really one moustache that has counted since 1920 when it appeared for the first time in The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

At this time, Hercule Poirot was a refugee, newly arrived from Belgium and nearly penniless, so had not much money to create his incredible moustache. Indeed, it was described as ‘very stiff and military.’

However as his fame as a detective grew so did his bank balance and by the early 1930s it had evolved from being stiff and military into a magnificent, luxurious asset which gained much comment from himself, narrators and other characters within each story. Throughout Christie’s stories, his moustache was described as ‘gigantic’, ‘immense’ and ‘amazing’, pointing to the importance of this physical asset. By 1934 Poirot himself was described as ‘a little man with enormous moustaches’ in Murder on the Orient Express.

Here are a few other references:

“If only, Hastings, you would part your hair in the middle instead of at the side! What a difference it would make to the symmetry of your appearance. And your moustache. If you must have a moustache, let it be a real moustache– a thing of beauty such as mine.”

- Peril at End House 1932 (UK)

“I assure you, I am really a very humble person.”

I laughed.

“You– humble!”

“It is so. Except– I confess it– that I am a little proud of my moustaches. Nowhere in London have I observed anything to compare with them.”

“You are quite safe,” I said dryly, “you won’t.”
- Lord Edgware Dies 1933

While the Lovely Young Thing made a suitable reply, Poirot allowed himself a good study of the hirsute adornment on Mr. Shaitana’s upper lip.

A fine moustache– a very fine moustache– the only moustache in London, perhaps, that could compete with that of M. Hercule Poirot.

“But it is not so luxuriant,” he murmured to himself. “No, decidedly it is inferior in every respect. Tout de meme, it catches the eye.”

-Cards on the Table

What was even more humiliating was that he had no real ideas, even now, as to what had actually happened. It was ignominious. And tomorrow he must return to London defeated. His ego was seriously deflated– even his moustaches drooped.

-Dead Man’s Folly

“There’s no doubt at all about what the man’s profession has been. He’s a retired hairdresser. Look at that moustache of his.” 

- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

One of the benefits of becoming a famous detective was that with every case, Poirot became more affluent. As the years went by, Poirot earnt a large fortune from his detective work; which he invested a significant portion into the care and maintenance of his favourite personal feature. In The ABC Murders, Poirot reveals that he frequently visits an expensive hairdresser and in Murder on the Orient Express we learn that he uses a little pair of curling tongs on his moustache to give it the ‘upward-curled’ shape. Poirot’s groomed moustache leads Dr. Sheppard to assume that he’s a retired hairdresser, exclaiming “look at that moustache of his” to his sister.

Poirot’s moustache is his trademark. It’s often the first thing people notice about him, and it’s his pride and joy. Poirot takes great care with his appearance from the tip of his shoes to the top of his egg-shaped head, and his moustache is no exception. He believes he has both the finest moustache and the finest brain in Britain – a claim many of his fans around the world would no doubt agree with. Throughout the six decades that his mysteries were documented by Agatha Christie, Poirot’s moustache was described in a number of ways, and was often the focus defining his appearance…

“A little man with enormous moustaches” 

– Murder on the Orient Express

The more Poirot became an established private detective, the bigger his trademark moustache became. By the early 1930s his famous facial hair had evolved from being stiff and military into a magnificent, luxurious asset which gained much comment from himself, narrators and other characters within each story. Throughout Christie’s stories, his moustache was described as ‘gigantic’, ‘immense’ and ‘amazing’, pointing to the importance of this physical asset. By 1934 Poirot himself was described as ‘a little man with enormous moustaches’ in Murder on the Orient Express. By this point and beyond it was clearly his greatest physical attribute, being described as ‘an immense moustache’ in The Labours of Hercules in 1947.

I had to use a few little grey cells myself to get a poem about moustaches. I couldn’t find any decent poems so decided to choose poets with a moustache and it came to a choice between Rudyard Kipling and Edgar Allan Poe. I’ve gone with Kipling as my friend C showed me his house in Rottingdean and the poem was written there as part of An Almanac of Twelve Sports. Each month has its own sport and poem. July is about Archery (apparently).

The child of the Nineties considers with laughter
The maid whom his Sire in the Sixties ran after,
While careering himself in pursuit of a girl whom
The Twenties will dub a "last century heir-loom.”

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Dad Jokes

I went on a day trip to Dumfries last week and hurt my ankle. I went to the hospital and asked for help. I was told “Wee sleket cowerin’ timrous beastie/O, what a panic is in thy breastie.” I’d gone to the Burns Unit.

That was a joke (though I was in Dumfries last week) but is it a dad joke? What is a dad joke? I’m not a dad but the idea is that the above should have induced a groan and/or rolling of the eyes. Why should dads have all the fun?

Come to that why shouldn’t mums have fun as well. Just checked the wonderful mumsnet site and there is this:

Why did the pirate walk the plank? - Because he didn't have a dog.

At which point I began to wonder if there wasn’t a bit more to this than first meets the eye. I went on various sites and the following is a sort of summary of them:

‘I wonder also if it's got anything to do with the typical views of parenting, where dad is the "fun parent" since mum is the one doing the everyday work of childcare and is therefore seen as boring, stuffy, unfun, etc.’

‘In addition...I think this is just a symptom of the "women can't be funny" stereotype.’

‘Quite a strong societal stereotype about moms versus dads. It's not so much a stereotype that dads are funnier, but that they're fun and more of an additional kid then another parent and that somehow is okay.’

‘This is what I think! Once I was cooking for my two roommates and two mutual friends while three of them were playing a game and not helping me at all. The fourth just walked in, stood next to me and I complained, "Well I guess I know why they call me the mum now." He said "Oh yeah totally and I'm the dad."

As the fool I am, I thought that meant I had an ally. Asked if he thought he could get them to help or if maybe I should set a boundary and refuse to cook. He laughed and said "No, I'm the dad, the fun parent!" and went to go play games with them.’.

I thought the British Psychological Society might help and here is Marc Hye-Knudsen in 2023:

‘What, moreover, are we to make of the association of dad jokes with dads? Are fathers indeed more prone to telling dad jokes, and if so, why? It might seem tempting to simply dismiss dad jokes as bad jokes, at the same time accusing dads of just having a bad sense of humour, but that would be a mistake.

When considered properly, dad jokes are an intricately multi-layered and fascinating phenomenon that reveals a lot not just about how humour and joke-telling work but also about fathers' psychology and their relationships with their children.’

And that’s as far as I’m going as it gets a bit technical after that.

I’ve read a lot of jokes while doing this and I thought I’d got immune to the ‘simple joke that is not particularly funny or original, often using puns considered typical of jokes made by older men, sometimes intentionally to annoy their children’ (Cambridge Dictionary) but this still got a chuckle. Think of it as the poem for the week:

A Duck walks into a Bar

“Got any bread?”
“No”
“Got any bread?”
“No”
“Got any bread?”
“No”
“Got any bread?”
“No, and if you ask me again, I’ll nail your beak to the bar”
“Got any nails?”
“No”
“Got any bread?”

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Imprinting

When I glanced at the word imprinting as a topic I was very enthusiastic. I could look into various types of publishing and/or printing and it so happens that yesterday my friend and I were shown how to make a small notebook using paper that had a watermark and finding out about those would be so interesting as well.

Unfortunately, when I started looking into what imprinting is I soon discovered that imprinting is different to an imprint. I’ll take the Chambers definition:

Imprinting: a learning process in young animals in which their social preferences become restricted to their own species or a substitute for this.

‘Imprinting according to the Wildlife Centre of Virginia is a form of learning in which an animal gains its sense of species identification. Birds do not automatically know what they are when they hatch – they imprint on their parents during a critical period of development. After imprinting, they will identify with that species for life. (A bit like football teams?)

imprinting i

Imprinting for wild birds is crucial to their immediate and long-term survival. For example, precocial (word of the week) baby birds (such as ducks, geese, and turkeys) begin the process of imprinting shortly after hatching so that they follow the appropriate adult, providing them with safety.

Imprinting allows baby birds to understand appropriate behaviours and vocalizations for their species, and helps them visually identify with other members of their species so they choose appropriate mates later in life.

The timing of the imprinting stage varies from species to species, and some species of birds are more susceptible to imprinting inappropriately on human caregivers for reasons not fully understood.’

It was first reported in domestic chickens, by Sir Thomas More in 1516 as described in his treatise Utopia, 350 years earlier than by the 19th-century amateur biologist Douglas Spalding. It was rediscovered by ethologist Oskar Heinroth, and studied extensively and popularized by Konrad Lorenz working with greylag geese.

Lorenz demonstrated how incubator-hatched geese would imprint on the first suitable moving stimulus they saw within what he called a "critical period" between 13 and 16 hours shortly after hatching. For example, the goslings would imprint on Lorenz himself (to be more specific, on his wading boots), and he is often depicted being followed by a gaggle of geese who had imprinted on him. Lorenz also found that the geese could imprint on inanimate objects. In one notable experiment, they followed a box placed on a model train in circles around the track.

imprinting ii

In human–computer interaction, baby duck syndrome denotes the tendency for computer users to ‘imprint’ on the first system they learn, then judge other systems by their similarity to that first system. The result is that ‘users generally prefer systems similar to those they learned on and dislike unfamiliar systems’. The issue may present itself relatively early in a computer user's experience, and it has been observed to impede education of students in new software systems or user interfaces.

I love the name of this syndrome.

I can’t find an appropriate poem to fit the bill and I do like the following by one of my heroes Walt Whitman.

ONCE I pass'd through a populous city, imprinting my brain, for

         future use, with its shows, architecture, customs, and

         traditions;

Yet now, of all that city, I remember only a woman I casually met

         there, who detain'd me for love of me;

Day by day and night by night we were together,--All else has long

         been forgotten by me;

I remember, I say, only that woman who passionately clung to me;

Again we wander--we love--we separate again;

Again she holds me by the hand--I must not go!

I see her close beside me, with silent lips, sad and tremulous.

From the 1860 edition of  'Leaves of Grass '.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Celebrity

I think that the most famous celebrity I’ve ever met was Seamus Heaney. He was coming out of a newsagent in Hay-on-Wye as I was going in. He said “Good Morning” and I said “It is” and we went our different ways. I like to think that was an important milestone in our careers.

But how do you measure celebrity? I’m fairly sure that if I went into Madame Tussaud’s then I would not see a model of Heaney or any other famous poet. Actually I have no idea who I would see in the establishment. Let’s take a look at the place.

She was born as Marie Grosholtz in 1761 in Strasbourg and she was taught wax modelling whilst a child. She moved to Paris and created her first wax sculpture, of Voltaire, in 1777. At 17 she became art tutor to the sister of King Louis XVI. During the Revolution, she made models of many prominent victims.

For the 33 years she travelled Europe with her wax collection until she married François Tussaud in 1795, took his surname, and renamed her show as Madame Tussaud's. In 1802, she accepted an invitation from lantern and phantasmagoria pioneer Paul Philidor to exhibit her work alongside his show at the Lyceum Theatre, London.

Madame Tussaud (the original)

Complaining that Philidor failed to promote her, Tussaud then decided to go into business alone. Unable to return to France because of the Napoleonic Wars, she travelled throughout Great Britain and Ireland exhibiting her collection and made her home in London.

By 1835, Marie Tussaud had settled down in Baker Street and opened a museum. Londoners flocked to see the likes of Nelson and Sir Walter Scott, but the highlight was undoubtedly the Chamber of Horrors, where Tussaud displayed models of murderers.

Charles Dickens hailed the museum as one of London's most popular entertainments, writing in All the Year Round: "Madame Tussaud's is something more than an exhibition, it is an institution". A waxwork of Dickens appeared at the museum in 1873, three years after his death.

Some sculptures still exist that were made by Marie Tussaud herself. The gallery originally contained some 400 different figures, but fire damage in 1925 coupled with bombs during the Blitz on London in 1941, severely damaged most of such older models. The casts themselves have survived, allowing the historical waxworks to be remade, and these can be seen in the museum's history exhibit.

the Planetarium and Madame Tussaud's in Baker Street

In 1978, Madame Tussaud’s was acquired by S. Pearson and Son and since then has been sold and resold a number of times in financial ways that completely baffle me.

It has also been massively expanded. There are exhibitions in twenty cities all around the world. Including Blackpool. There are about 80 models there compared to over 150 in London, mind you, the queues I’ve seen outside the Baker Street site are usually enormous.

Adult tickets to Madame Tussauds London start at £27 when booked online in advance, while walk-up tickets cost £39. To get the best deal, it is highly recommended to pre-book your timed entry, as same-day tickets are significantly more expensive and subject to availability.

There are actually a few poets scattered around those cities. Bertolt Brecht and Günter Grass at Madame Tussaud’s Berlin. Banjo Paterson & Henry Lawson in the history zone at Madame Tussauds Sydney. And, of course, William Shakespeare just about everywhere. But have you seen the model?

The poem "At Madame Tussaud's" by Canadian poet Frederick George Scott was published in 1888. It originally appeared as part of his early collection titled 'The Soul's Quest, and Other Poems '.

At Madame Tussaud's

I stood in that strange show, the other day,
On Baker Street, where all the famous men,
Fair dames, and murderers come to life again,
With clockwork breast and face of mimic clay,
To scare the young. Thrice in the long display,

Blundering, I thought wax flesh, then, with surprise
At being deceived, I turned with cautious eyes
And took for wax all those that thronged my way.
So in this age, methinks, when in the light
Of fuller knowledge, forms that men have reared

And worshipped turn to dust, too hasty youths,
Shunning the whirlpool jaws of credulous sight,
Rush towards a Scylla far more to be feared,
And take for shadows all too living truths.

                                                Frederick George Scott

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Barnacles

What with celebrating some significant birthdays (including mine) and the opening of a new bridge then time has been a bit of a problem this week. Especially when it came to examining the topic of Barnacles. I know nothing about barnacles except that they stick to the bottom of boats and the skin of whales.

barnacles

With that in mind I’m making no apologies (well, a small one) for taking the following information virtually direct from a web site called AskNature. It states that:

‘We exist to encourage everyone, everywhere to have a direct experience with nature that is founded on respect and curiosity. We have designed this tool to provide guidance to students, educators, engineers, scientists, designers, artists, naturalists, and those from yet to be defined disciplines. Our hope is that this is a homecoming for anyone on a journey to make the future better for all of our planetary neighbours. This page was produced in part with the assistance of AI, which is allowing us to greatly expand the volume of content available on AskNature. All of the content has been reviewed for accuracy and appropriateness by human editors. To provide feedback or to get involved with the project, contact us. Last Updated January 30, 2025’

Introduction:
Barnacle larvae, the juvenile stage of these familiar marine crustaceans, exhibit a remarkable ability to permanently adhere to underwater surfaces. Found in oceans worldwide, barnacles attach to rocks, ship hulls, and other structures, often forming dense colonies. Their adhesive is one of nature’s most durable underwater glues, capable of withstanding harsh conditions like strong currents and waves. The mechanism behind this adhesion lies in a sophisticated interplay between lipids (fat-like molecules) and proteins, creating a permanent bond that is strong and versatile.

The Strategy:
Barnacle larvae use their adhesive to secure themselves to surfaces when they settle into a permanent home. This process begins with the secretion of a complex mixture of biological materials including proteins, which form the structural framework of the glue, and lipids, which play a supportive but equally essential role.

barnacle adhesion

The proteins in the adhesive are responsible for forming strong bonds with the surface and with each other. These molecules have unique properties that allow them to stick even in wet environments, where water typically weakens adhesives. The lipids serve to create a waterproof barrier on the surface, helping the proteins adhere by repelling water and ensuring that the glue remains intact over time. Together, these components work synergistically to produce a bond that is both strong and highly resistant to environmental wear.

The barnacles’ strategy is especially effective because the adhesive is self-organizing. As the larvae secrete the adhesive, the lipids and proteins automatically arrange themselves into layers, with lipids coating the surface first, followed by proteins that solidify the bond. This layered structure maximizes durability and adhesion while maintaining flexibility to adapt to different surface textures.

The Potential:
The barnacle larvae’s adhesive offers inspiration for developing advanced, environmentally friendly glues that work in wet conditions or underwater. Such adhesives could revolutionize industries like construction, medicine, and marine technology. For example, medical adhesives inspired by this strategy have been used to expedite wound healing, providing strong, biocompatible bonds under varied conditions.

Well, I found that really interesting. The above is about the future so for the poem I’ll go to the past with this poem by Sidney Lanier.

Barnacles

My soul is sailing through the sea,
But the Past is heavy and hindereth me.
The Past hath crusted cumbrous shells
That hold the flesh of cold sea-mells
About my soul.
The huge waves wash, the high waves roll,
Each barnacle clingeth and worketh dole
And hindereth me from sailing!

Old Past let go, and drop i' the sea
Till fathomless waters cover thee!
For I am living but thou art dead;
Thou drawest back, I strive ahead
The Day to find.
Thy shells unbind! Night comes behind,
I needs must hurry with the wind
And trim me best for sailing.

                                    Sidney Lanier, 1867

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Ancient Cities

Two of the problems when it comes to writing about ancient cities are a) what is ancient and b) what is a city. I was reading an article the other day that kept referring to Ancient Rome. Ok, Rome is definitely a city but the ancient part of it is debatable when you consider that the Rome being referred to was 2,000 years ago whilst the earliest cities (and we’ll come to them) are considered to have existed 3,000 years before that i.e. 5,000 years ago.

artist's impression of Uruk, circa 4500 BCE

Incidentally, Rome at the height of its power had over one million people in it before it collapsed in around 400 CE. The next city to have over a million in its population was London in the 19th century.

So what is ancient? Well, for the purposes of this article, as it relates to cities, I’m taking a time period where we have physical evidence and texts that the places exist.

Much of the following is taken from the World History Encyclopaedia by Joshua J. Mark published on 05 April 2014:
In the study of the ancient world a City is generally defined as a large populated urban centre of commerce and administration with a system of laws and, usually, regulated means of sanitation. This is only one definition, however, and the designation `City' can be based on such factors as the:
population of the settlement
height of buildings
density of buildings/population
presence of some kind of sewer system
level of administrative government
presence of walls and/or fortifications
geographical area of the settlement
or whether a `settlement' was called a `city' in antiquity and fits at least one of the above qualifications.

the fertile crescent

Professor George Modelski, of the University of Washington, encourages a definition based on the work of the historian Tertius Chandler (in his book Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth) which defines a city, as distinct from a village, based upon population. Modelski writes:

Adopting Chandler's means of definition, then, settlements such as Tell Brak in modern-day Syria (first founded in c. 6000 BCE) cannot be considered cities.

The city of Uruk, today considered the oldest in the world, was first settled in c. 4500 BCE and walled cities, for defence, were common by 2900 BCE throughout the region. The city of Eridu, close to Uruk, was considered the first city in the world by the Sumerians while other cities which lay claim to the title of `first city' are Byblos, Jericho, Damascus, Aleppo, Jerusalem, Sidon, Luoyang, Athens, Argos, and Varasani.

All of these cities are certainly ancient and are located in regions which have been populated from a very early date. Modelski cites the population of Uruk at 14,000 in the year 3700 BCE but 80,000 by the year 2800 BCE. I was a bit surprised by the figure of 80,000 as when I was checking I found that Carlisle has much the same population now and that seems, to me, a fairly large city.

the ruins of Uruk today

I wanted to use a poem that actually praises the city, from the ancient to the present day, as a place to live. There is a reason why people have wanted to live in them but I can’t find one that really suits my purpose so I’m going to make use of this chance which sort of works.

Ever since my school days I’ve disliked Robert Browning purely on the basis of one poem. This is a short section with a corrected title:

Up the City – Down the Villa

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;

Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least!
There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast;
While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.

Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull
Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's skull,
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull!
--I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool.

But the city, oh the city--the square with the houses! Why?
They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something to take the eye!
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry;
You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by;
Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high;
And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.

Down the Villa

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Transport

This morning I strolled along the river path to the newsagent to pick up my newspapers. Exactly the same mode of transport that I would have used 5,000 years or more in the past but without the annoyance of having to read the things.

Admittedly, I could have used the river to get there. The first prehistoric boats are presumed to have been dugout canoes which were developed independently by various Stone Age populations around 10,000 years ago, but that is another article as I want to stick with land based transport.

Skipping forward though time my method of travelling would have changed with technological innovations. Let’s consider the wheel. The earliest known depictions of wheeled vehicles are on the Bronocice pot, found in a Neolithic village in Poland. 3,635 -3,370 BC and several clay tablets found in Uruk in Mesopotamia. Both illustrate 4 wheeled vehicles dated to around 3300-3100 BC probably in response to the domestication of horses and the widespread development of road infrastructure and pathways.

Bronocice Pot

The wheel changed everything, from trade and transport to agriculture and technology. Wheels allowed people to transport goods and materials farther and faster than ever before. Carts, ploughs, and other wheel-based tools made agriculture more efficient. Wheels turned long journeys into manageable trips, making trade and exploration easier. Chariots and war carts changed warfare, while carts and rollers made construction of large structures easier.

So are wheels the most important development in transport?

I’m leaping forward at the speed of a bullet train to 1830 CE and the invention of the railways. I’m not going to go over the engineering history but look at how the railways changed UK society.

Social
The railways broke down stereotypes and mixed cultures because people from different regions were able to mix more.
Time became standardised for the first time because trains had to run to a set timetable across the country.
Railways encouraged people to travel further and this meant people could move to different areas to find work.
People were able to take short holidays and day trips to the beach.
Many sports became regulated because national competitions could be set up for rugby, football and cricket.
National newspapers could now be delivered.

Political
Political movements spread around the country because they could travel around the country.
Political newspapers, pamphlets and newsletters could be delivered by train.

Economic
The transport of heavy materials became much cheaper.
Perishable food could be moved quickly, so foods such as vegetables and dairy products could now reach the market while they were still fresh.

There are other innovations in transport leading to the bicycle, motor car and plane but basically they just increase some of the three developments mentioned above.

Various web sites give different answers to the question of what was the most important invention in transport but I suppose it depends on what one is measuring. My feeling is that the wheel opened up the world for individuals but the train opened it to everyone.

Night Mail Train

Well, that seems to lead on to this poem:

The Night Mail 

This is the Night Mail crossing the border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner and the girl next door.
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient's against her, but she's on time.

Through sparse counties she rampages,
Her driver's eye upon the gauges.
Panting up past lonely farms
Fed by the fireman's restless arms.
Striding forward along the rails
Through southern uplands with northern mails.

Winding up the valley to the watershed,
Through the heather and the weather and the dawn overhead.
Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder
Shoveling white steam over her shoulder,
Snorting noisily as she passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.

Birds turn their heads as she approaches,
Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches.
Sheepdogs cannot turn her course;
They slumber on with paws across.
In the farm she passes no one wakes,
But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes.

Dawn freshens, the climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends
Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes,
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All Scotland waits for her:

In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs
Men long for news.

Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from the girl and the boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or visit relations,
And applications for situations
And timid lovers' declarations
And gossip, gossip from all the nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,
Letters with faces scrawled in the margin,
Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,
Letters to Scotland from the South of France,
Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands
Notes from overseas to Hebrides
Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring,
The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.

Thousands are still asleep
Dreaming of terrifying monsters,
Or of friendly tea beside the band at Cranston's or Crawford's:
Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,
Asleep in granite Aberdeen,
They continue their dreams,
And shall wake soon and long for letters,
And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

                                                           W.H. Auden

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Tax

For me one of the more irritating phrases used in the media is Tax Burden. I’m with the American Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr who stated "I like to pay taxes; with them, I buy civilization”.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr

That was back in 1927 (or earlier by some accounts) and I’m not sure whether he would get away with that phrase today given the current state of affairs in America. Or here in the UK come to that. Unfortunately, the last few years have seen the austerity of neoliberal economic theory and therefore civilisation crumbling. And the Labour Party continues it, unbelievably.

When I think of Nordic countries I think of high taxes coupled with a reputation for excellent public services and high standards of living. Although some of those are showing signs of succumbing.

As an aside I’ve always admired those Nordic countries for their tax transparency. With the exception of Denmark, the countries openly publish tax records. Norway has published tax records since 1863, while Finland shares the names of the country’s 10,000 biggest earners each year. I have no idea what tax I paid this year and couldn’t care less if someone wanted to find out by ringing the tax office.

A quick run through the history of taxes:

The earliest record of taxation is from Egypt around 3000 BCE. Initially every two years, and then every year, the pharaoh and his advisors would tour the kingdom, assess the value of livestock, and then collect a tax on the ownership of that livestock. At the time, Egypt lacked coined money, so grain represented a tangible store of value that could easily be collected, traded, and redistributed throughout society.

Taxes are also referenced in Mesopotamia, where scribes used cuneiform clay tablets to keep records of what was owed to local temples. I rather like this story from the area about 4,500 years ago: A king imposed a toll tax on the bridge that his citizens used daily to cross the river to farm their lands on the other side. To avoid the toll, the locals began to swim across the river. KPK Law say that this was the first manifestation of tax planning. The king was not amused and responded with a rule that made swimming across the river an offence subject to severe sanctions, such as decapitation.

Here are some of the weirder forms of taxation:

Urine tax
This tax was introduced in Ancient Rome. Back then, human urine was viewed as a valuable commodity. It had many uses: tanning, laundering, and even teeth brushing. It’s widely believed that this led to the popular Latin phrase Pecunia non olet, i.e. ‘money does not stink’.

Being a coward tax
From around 1100, English medieval knights could opt out of fighting a war by paying for the privilege. It’s official name was ‘Scutage’ but was commonly known as ‘cowardice tax’.

Beard tax
In 1698 Emperor Peter I of Russia created the beard tax. It was thought to be a move that would help westernise the appearance of Russian society, as he deemed it an old-fashioned fashion choice.

Window tax
This tax was first introduced in England in 1696. It was intended to be quite a liberal tax as those with smaller houses would pay less or be exempt. Households reduced it by blocking out windows. The negative effects of the lack of natural light and ventilation led to a growing movement which stopped the tax in 1851.

windows blanked out to reduce window tax

Hat tax

A hat tax was introduced in 1784 and was aimed at raising revenue for the government in a way that would mostly correspond to a person’s wealth.

Playing cards tax
This was in force from as early as the 16th century. Furthermore, in 1710, the English government increased the tax on playing cards and dice. Inevitably, this led to mass forgeries of playing cards. The tax was not removed until 1960.

Wallpaper tax
Brought out in 1712, Britain taxed anyone who bought patterned, painted or printed wallpaper. This led to people finding creative ways to avoid the tax, such as – using plain paper and then having painted after applying. The tax was abolished in 1836.

Clock tax
Introduced to tax the wealthy. In 1797, the British Clock Tax was applied to all timepieces, such as watches and clocks. The annual tax rate was two shillings and sixpence for a standard watch, and up to ten shillings for a gold watch. Clocks costing more than twenty shillings were rated at five shillings.

extensions to clock tax?

Poems about tax are not usually sympathetic but I did come across this by Edward Guest who was born in Birmingham in 1881 and moved to Michigan USA as a young child and where he was educated. He was popular in the first half of the 20th century and became known as the People's Poet.

Taxes

When they become due I don’t like them at all.
Taxes look large be they ever so small
Taxes are debts which I venture to say,
No man or no woman is happy to pay.
I grumble about them, as most of us do.
For it seems that with taxes I never am through.

But when I reflect on the city I love,
With its sewers below and its pavements above,
And its schools and its parks where children may play
I can see what I get for the money I pay.
And I say to myself: “Little joy would we know

If we kept all our money and spent it alone.”

I couldn’t build streets and I couldn’t fight fire
Policemen to guard us I never could hire.
A water department I couldn’t maintain.
Instead of a city we’d still have a plain
Then I look at the bill for the taxes they charge,
And I say to myself: “Well, that isn’t so large.”

I walk through a hospital thronged with the ill
And I find that it shrivels the size of my bill.
As in beauty and splendor my home city grows,
It is easy to see where my tax money goes
And I say to myself: “if we lived hit and miss
And gave up our taxes, we couldn’t do this.”

Edward Guest 1881-1959

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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