Saturday, February 25, 2017

Swimming and Cooking by Rock Pools

“God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh” – Voltaire


French waitress drags huge lizard out of Australian restaurant Telegraph

TripAdvisor reveals Australia's best beaches

 Male models in ‘right place at the right time’ to pull teens to safety from frozen Central Park pond


Photo: Great gray owl goes hunting TreeHugger


We think we know all about the world. But we don't. That's why it's pretty surprising to learn that there may be a new continent underneath New Zealand


This in a letter to her editor at Macmillan, Richard Garnett,

'It worried me terribly when you told me I was only an amateur writer and I asked myself, how many books do you have to write and how many semi-colons do you have to discard before you lose your amateur status?'

and this to Richard Ollard her editor at Collins, where Penelope Fitzgerald had moved with her subsequent Booker winning novel Offshore after feeling unwanted at Duckworth..

'The TLS was also very kind to The Bookshop and said it was a novella in the tradition of Henry James, not a selling point perhaps.'


How A Writer Can Be Harrowing Without Giving Her Soul Away



Finding essays outside one’s personal experience “would be work that was harrowing in another sense of the word, which originally referred to preparing fields for planting by breaking up the soil. A true harrowing essay would dig deeper, ultimately performing a generative function.”





MALE PRIVILEGE: Women’s life expectancy on track to hit 90 in some nations. “The men who could look forward to the longest lives in 2015 were in Switzerland, Iceland and Australia — all within a few decimal points of an 81 year lifespan.” Women eat more butter ...
Cooking with butter may be more heart-healthy than vegetable oil: Study

An algae that survived two years in outer space may hold the secret to growing food on Mars and Maroubra Mahon pool ...








This week’s music is “I’m Gonna Live Forever (If it Kills Me)” by William Tyler

SEXLESS MARRIAGES: A threat to the planet


HMM: Men, Is Exercise Putting a Damper on Your Sex Life? Note that the exercise here — “running, cycling, and triathlon” — all involves lengthy cardio.


  Churchill essay on the possibility of alien life discovered in US college

Opal card data turns up surprise for Sydneysiders wanting 30-minute commute

Rolling Down the River C'mon back to the raft with Huck and Jim




Astronomers discover 60 new planets including ‘super Earth’

NATURAL ANTIOXIDANT could prevent liver disease. I’ve been taking PQQ for a couple of months for its reported cardiac benefits. This is a plus. It’s cheap. I take it with NAC, and, of course, CoQ10. The CoQ10, by the way, is the supplement that seems to have the biggest impact. Everyone I’ve gotten to try it, from the Insta-Wife and Insta-Daughter to my younger brother says they have noticeably better energy levels with it. 


 “This glass fits around your nose so you can smell wine as you drink it.”  NB: the link serves up some noise to you.

 “The state’s manual for execution procedures, which was revised last month, says attorneys of death row inmates, or others acting on their behalf, can obtain pentobarbital or sodium Pentothal and give them to the state to ensure a smooth execution.”  Link here, that is Arizona






Eating up to ten portions of fruit and vegetables a day may reduce disease, early death risk