That takes the biscuit!

 

That takes the biscuit!

This British idiom from the late nineteenth century is used to express surprise or outrage at the annoying or selfish actions of another person. It is also used in Canada and other Commonwealth countries, apparently.

I was surprised to find that it probably derives from an older American phrase from around 1840, ‘takes the cake.’ It referred to the cakewalk, a promenade dance from Southern USA. Couples would compete and the couple judged the winners would receive a cake.

I would have thought the winners would have preferred a monetary prize, but what do I know?

The derivation reminded me of the 1969 film, ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’ It made a lasting impression on me, that people could be so poor and desperate that they would enter dance marathons for the chance of winning a cash prize.

Tarquin the Proud

 

Lucius Tarquinius Superbus

                                        Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

The history of Tarquin the Proud is a mixture of fact and fiction, as in all the best stories.

Tarquin was the seventh and final King of Rome, presiding over a despotic reign from 534-509 BC that led to the elimination of the monarchy. He acquired power through a succession of monstrous acts, culminating in the assassination of the reigning king, Servius Tullius. Tarquin’s wife, Tullia Minor, the dead king’s daughter, drove her chariot over his body as it lay in the street.

After seizing the throne, Tarquin proceeded to rule without Senate approval, ignoring Roman law and passing judgements decided only on his own authority. He protected himself with an armed guard and any political opponents he distrusted were murdered or outlawed. Some were falsely implicated in plots and executed.

The end of his corrupt, tyrannical reign came about through the actions of his son Sextus, who raped a noblewoman he had trapped into submitting to him. Lucretia committed suicide. It was the inspiration for Shakespeare’s narrative poem of 1594, The Rape of Lucrece.

Lucretia’s husband and father swore to overthrow Tarquin and his family, who were banished from Rome. Tarquin tried many times to regain power, but died in exile in 495 BC.

 Thereafter the Roman Empire was established.

Castle Day

 

Castle Day

April 6^th is Castle Day in Japan. It is an opportunity to celebrate the history and importance of castles. In the fifteenth century, Japan was a collection of numerous small independent states, which squabbled with each other. Castles were built on mountain tops for defence.

When Japan was unified in the late sixteenth century, larger castles were built as administrative and military centres. These were constructed on the plains or on small hills, rather than mountains.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, castles were seen as undesirable reminders of the feudal past and many were deliberately demolished. Others were destroyed in the Second World War.

Japanese castles were wooden structures built on stone foundations. Today twelve castles survive with their original keeps.

For comparison, France has the most castles in the world, with 45,000. Italy has 20,000, and Germany has over 4,300. The British Isles has 3,000 to 4,000 castles.

The USA has 152 structures that are considered castles, but most are architectural reconstructions.

Servicing the garage door

 

Servicing the garage door

When we had our garage door replaced in 2023, we signed a contract that would cover an annual service.

In January this year, someone ‘phoned and asked if it would be acceptable to conduct the service earlier than usual. We agreed, paid, and thought no more about it. Imagine our surprise when, two weeks ago, we were contacted to arrange a date for the annual service!

After much discussion with two garage door installers, both in the same town, we concluded that our details, including email address, telephone number, and house address, had somehow been relayed to a company that had not installed our door. Alarm bells rang!

Barry had contacted several companies, prior to deciding on a door, and his details had been recorded. The company, not the one that installed the door, had merged data files, and in the process his details had become mixed with someone else’s. Data migration, when data is moved from one system to another, can cause a number of problems.

It took some time to convince the manager that his company had not supplied our door. The customer he thought he was dealing with did indeed have exactly the same name as Barry, but lived in a different part of the country. The service that customer was expecting was performed on our door.

Eventually, we found that nothing nefarious had occurred. No-one had bought our data. We breathed a sigh of relief.

 

Alexa

 

Alexa

Yesterday a text message from Amazon invited us to update to Alexa Plus. The change was swiftly accomplished, and it was put through its paces.

I think it takes slightly longer to respond, though Barry doesn't agree - he says it's quicker in switching - and is more verbose. The voice is pleasant and it's much better at compound questions. It asks if it can help with further enquiries and when told, ‘No’ it responds with comments like, ‘No problem,’ or ‘Fair enough,’ or ‘Right, then, catch you later.’ These reactions could prove irritating if often repeated.

‘Conversations’ are startlingly realistic and some information is accurate. I commented that it sounds realistic, and it answered that it was ‘a digital assistant and couldn’t make a cup of tea to save its circuit.’  

I tested its knowledge of Ocicats. It had no idea about them, which I found surprising, as it’s a breed that has existed for more than sixty years. It talked about the Australian Mist cat, instead.

Barry reported a bug, (glitch or gremlin) which was acknowledged and eradicated quickly. He remarked that he was impressed by the speed of its response, and it thanked him. He then asked for the square root of a negative number. It was almost correct in its answer, but it said the square root of 9, for example, was 3i, rather than the square root of minus 9 is 3i. After that, he asked about the absolute value of pi, but had to correct it to recognise that pi is not a rational number and has an infinite number of decimal points. Once again, it thanked him for the correction.

We use Alexa for timers, lists, reminders, weather, and the control of home devices. Alexa Plus is entertaining, and loquacious, but not foolproof. Just as people need to understand the basics of mathematical calculations before relying on a calculator, Alexa Plus and its older sibling, Alexa, should be used advisedly.

Be aware, too, that it is listening all the time, so don’t reveal any secrets. You never know who else might be paying attention!

Artemis II

 

Artemis II

                                Artemis II official crew portrait

Left to right: NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Jeremy Hansen, NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Unexpectedly, we watched the launch of Artemis II on Wednesday night. Earlier in the day, we had turned on the television, having misread the expected launch time in minutes rather than hours. We decided we would not stay up to watch it, but somehow we did.

 I remember previous manned launches being extremely exciting. Maybe it was the uncertainty of the process, particularly after the tragedy of the space shuttle failures, ‘Challenger’ in 1986 and ‘Columbia’ in 2003, each resulting in the deaths of their seven crew members.

Artemis II is the first mission to take humans out of low Earth orbit since 1972 and will take them further from Earth than ever before. It is planned to travel beyond the far ‘dark’ side of the moon, then slip back into the gravitational pull that will bring it back to earth, the pleasingly called ‘free-return trajectory.’

Nonetheless, there are many things that could go wrong during the ten-day mission, and no-one associated with it will breathe easily until the four crew members have returned safely.

The launch was impressive, but not nail-biting – perhaps it was the presenters, who seemed to lack enthusiasm. However many rocket launches there are, each one is significant and inspiring. Those who complain that such ventures are vanity projects and the money could be more usefully used on Earth miss the point that we have benefitted from the discoveries developed through space exploration.

We speedily take some such benefits for granted, without realising how they came about. For example, we have GPS navigation, satellite broadcasting, improvements in MRI and CT scanning, lightweight prosthetic limbs, water purification, fire-resistant materials, shock absorption materials used in helmets and car seats, monitoring storms and wildfires.The most obvious one is the space blanket, seen wrapped around the shoulders of every marathon runner at the end of the race, or used in emergencies for accident victims.

 It was developed by NASA in 1964!

Juliasaurus

 

Juliasaurus

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

I wondered is this was an April Fool’s joke, but apparently Juliasaurus Paleo was discovered in the Morrison Formation, Wyoming, North America in 2020. The Morrison Formation, an area covering 1-3 million square kilometres, has been a rich source of dinosaur fossils since the late nineteenth century.

It prowled the earth around ninety million years before its infamous, much larger cousin, Tyrannosaurus Rex. Its skull formation and dentition suggest that it slashed its prey rather than crushing it. Juliasaurus is a specimen that is almost three-quarters complete, which is unusual, as most dinosaur discoveries are highly fragmented.

Research continues to determine whether Juliasaurus is an entirely new species.

Meanwhile, on loan from a private collector, it goes on public display at Hollytrees Museum in Colchester on April 3^rd.