Does anybody darn socks anymore?

I have too many things.  The problem, though, is that as soon as I get rid of something through a judiciously-chosen self-serving donation to a charitable concern or by throwing it directly into the trash, I immediately need it.

I was faced with just such a dilemma yesterday as I contemplated the stocking darning bulb at the bottom of the sewing box I’d inherited from my stepmother.  I cannot remember the last time I darned a sock, but it is more than half a century.

Surely I could now safely depart with this bulb without fear that I will need it tomorrow?  Does anyone darn socks anymore?  And even, in the highly unlikely event that I actually want to darn a sock, could I not make due with an inverted glass or old bottle?

Of course.  But although I am unlikely to need a darning bulb for its originally intended use, is there not a possibility that I will – the first thing tomorrow morning – think of a novel use for which it would be perfect?  maybe even indispensable?  

And barring that, there is the question of whether I should actually throw away this heirloom.  Perhaps in a generation or two, some great great grandchild might discover it, and wonder at this evidence of Olden Times?  Perhaps I should donate it to a museum.

I found myself unable to grapple successfully with this serious existential problem.

So the darning bulb is still at the bottom of my sewing box.  It will probably be there when I die.  Maybe some great great great grandchild will find it when she inherits the sewing box.

Unfortunately, I seem to live in a house filled with these challenging objects.

Up North

My husband comes from Yorkshire, and since his parents lived there, it is a place I came to know better than most.  Yorkshire is different from London and the south of England.  

Yorkshire people are independent, tough, stubborn, and fiercely loyal.  The Vikings settled there, among others, in the 8th century, and as a result it is a place that never had slaves.  After the industrial revolution, much of the country’s coal was mined there, and life was often hard and brutal.

There is also a special dialect that belongs uniquely to Yorkshire.  It has died out to a large extent, especially the lilting use of “thee” and “thou,” but some phrases linger on and have even infiltrated their way into my own usage.

Recently, I came across a folk song from the North.  The chorus is the welcome to a friend, and it catches, for me, something that I will never forget about the years I spent “up North.”

Chorus:

I’m always glad to see a man like thee

Thou’s as welcome, lad, as welcome as can be

Thou cheerest up the table

Stay as long as thou art able

I’m always glad to see a lad like thee.

Debatable diet claims

Someone who bangs his  head against the wall for an hour will burn 150 calories.  Not quite confident about this statistic.  Where did they get research volunteers?  Are they will compas mentis?

You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.  Every calories-counting website I found says it’s the other way around – assuming one is awake while watching TV.  

Apples are better than caffeine for waking up in the morning.   I don’t believe it.

American Airlines saved $40,00 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first class.   But it won’t work at home.

Yelling for 8 years, 7 months, and 6 days will produce enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.  Now that really is information that everyone needs to live a happy fulfilled life.   Why was I never told this before?

Another mega-worry

We’re not even past the credit crunch and the recession, and we already have at least two more mega-worries.  And of course, there are a plethora of mini-worries for the professional worrier.

Following the announcement last week that the Taleban are within striking distance of Islamabad, the capital of nuclear-armed Pakistan, today we have the announcement that swine flu has been exported from Mexico to countries as far away as New Zealand.  And to at least five U.S.  states.  

Swine flu is a hybrid virus with bits from a bird, a swine, and human virus.  The last time a hybrid like this was hatched, the Spanish flu killed 29 million people following World War I.  Worse, young healthy adults, not the elderly and children, seemed to be the most vulnerable.  And today global travel can spread the virus around the world in less than 24 hours.

On the other hand, at this point swine flu is not as deadly as the Spanish flu.  As of this writing, no one outside of Mexico has died from it.  In fact, most have been only mildly ill.  And the world has a stock of anti-viral drugs to combat swine flu should it turn out to be seriously virulent.

So perhaps this is one mega-worry we will be able to discard.  Experts say we should know just what we are dealing with in no more than a couple of weeks.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a — ball!

Yesterday I noticed what I thought at first was a peony whose schedule had been disoriented by global warming.  But on  closer inspection, I saw that a brightly-coloured ball had quietly make its way into our garden.

Obviously it was accidentally kicked over the six-foot high fence from one of the adjacent properties.  I looked at the ball and considered which fence to throw it back over.  Two the left is a couple in their 80’s.  He is still amazingly active, but a game even of slow-footed soccer seemed unlikely.  Two techies live directly to our right and I thought it unlikely to be theirs either, even if they were not presently at work, which they were.  

So I opted for the property that sits caticorner to ours.  Two girls often climb into their tree house there, but since we share a property line of not more than five feet, we do not have what you might call an “over-the-fence” relationship.

Today I was outside and I heard the two girls playing.  Then one shouted excitedly “Look, they’ve thrown our ball back!”  And then rather more loudly “Thank you!”

Sometimes the small joys of life come with an extra kick because they come as a surprise as well.

A new nuclear threat

The papers yesterday and today covered the news that the Taliban have taken over swathes in Pakistan and are now in control of an area less that 70 miles from the capital Islamabad.

Pakistan has nuclear weapons.  The thought of the Taliban in control of a country with nuclear weapons, and where anti-American feeling is widespread, strikes me as terrifying.

It doesn’t feel all that comfortable sitting in Britain either.

The news also said that the Obama administration was gravely concerned.  I profoundly hope Obama and Co have some better ideas than I do.  My impulse is to run and hide.  Unfortunately, that isn’t, I think, a workable strategy.

I do wish, though, that I at least had some profound thoughts.  But in truth I’m just worried.

Golden fields of – er, uhm…

Many of the fields that stretch out on the farms surrounding Cambridge right now are laid out in carpets of gold.  Well, more prosaically, fields of rape seed flowers which are masses of bright yellow.

Rape seed is used to make rape seed oil which is used both for cooking and for various industrial uses and bio-fuels.

Rape seed oil is called canola oil in the States.  Apparently, when they discovered how healthy it was, marketers said they wouldn’t be able to sell it in America if its name wasn’t changed to something less associative.

While we’re on name changes, aluminium over here got to be called aluminum is the States because of a spelling error by customs on the first shipment arriving from Europe.  The story I read did not specify whether the mistake was made by the English or the Americans.  

I suspect it was the Americans.

Earth Day

Today is Earth Day in most of the world.  It was also the day in which the government here in Britain announced the budget for the coming year.  It sounded pretty cataclysmic.  I won’t overwhelm you with the numbers.

It might be easier to find something that will help reduce pollution than to do anything about our economic meltdown.

I think I’ll give up worrying about money and go back to trying to save the climate.

Using the drip-drip method against torture

Like many others in touch with the news, I have been increasingly concerned about the evidence suggesting that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and critical personnel in the the Department of Justice unambiguously encouraged the use of torture against “terrorist” suspects.  The interrogation techniques unambiguously were torture in everything but the most twisted, legalese these men seem to have manufactured.  

The media here yesterday, for instance, reported that water-boarding was used hundreds of times in a single year on several different suspects, along with illustrations of other stress techniques, sleep deprivation, and  enforced nakedness.

I’ve been quite cynical about the possibility that anyone – no matter how much blood they have on their hands – will ever be made accountable.   Do I strongly suspect Bush, when he was president, authorized these things?  Yes.  But my fear has been the America does not have the will to bring him and other former high officials to account.  My fear has been that people would prefer to have the issue disappear with a vague promise that “it won’t happen again.”

But I stumbled on a article today that gives me hope.  The former federal prosecuting attorney, Elizabeth de la Vega lays out a strong case for moving slowly.  She argues that appointing an independent prosecutor now will give everybody a good feeling, but ultimately will kick the whole issue into the long grass, probably forever.

De la Vega argues that the more effective method is to let as much information about the support and use of torture become public as possible.  Then, she believes, the conditions for serious accountability may emerge.

If she’s right, then the best method for achieving justice is not to clamour for an immediate show of force, but to have the patience to let the evidence be uncovered in a slow, relentless feed.

Okay.  I’ll wait.  It will be worth it to get those arrogant hypocritical deceitful men who thought they were powerful enough to get away with it.

Explanations that endure

“I failed to make the chess team because of my height.”

Woody Allen (b 1935)