Marvels and Mysteries

As I explained in the last post, my dad is quite generous in his presents. In addition to a free seven-mile run, he bought me a second-hand copy of "Marvels and Mysteries of the Unexplained" by Nigel Blundell and Allan Hall for an estimated 50p.



The back cover explains what the book does:

We do no more than present to you the facts. We give you the evidence. We pose the questions. Only you, the reader, can provide the answers.

Among the many mysteries, the book describes the life of the great seer Mother Shipton, who lived in Knaresborough, only 15 miles from Otley.



She must have been a supreme fortune teller, for not only could she see into the future, she could also see The Past. The French had already lost the Battle of Agincourt 73 years before her birth.

Sometimes the book comes closer to solving mysteries than the authors themselves realise, such as when they search for possible reasons for the Hindenburg disaster.

The vessel had a proud record to live up to ... and the safety standards were of the highest.

What could be the reason for the airship bursting into flames? The picture editor seems to have laid his finger on the problem. His caption below a big picture of the airship explains:

The Hindenburg. It was 245 metres long and contained 198 000 cubic metres of inflammable hydrogen.

More seriously, the authors have picked some genuinely interesting unsolved mysteries, and the cause for the Hindenburg igniting is still debated. They also have included many great pictures and there aren't many factual inaccuracies. There is, however, a lot of suggestion, and a distinct lack of respect for Occam's Razer.

Chevin Chase

My dad didn't skimp on christmas presents this year: he bought the family entry into a seven-mile running race called the Chevin Chase. The race starts in the town of Guiseley, rises to the top of the Chevin, drops to the Otley side, then goes back to the top and down into Guiseley for the finish.

I've never run seven miles before today, so I started cautiously, but at the half-way point I decided that I was feeling quite well, so I sped up a bit. I still finished over five minutes behind my dad, who is pretty quick for a 60-year-old.

Otley 42 - Wharfedale 9

I'm in the small North Yorkshire town of Otley, staying with my parents, who have moved here. The sporting highlight of Otley is the Rugby Union club, who even hosted a Rugby World Cup game between Italy and the USA in 1991.



In the first frame of the clip, you can see the flank of the Chevin to the left of the main stand. Right behind the end where Francescato scored his try is a small farm with hens and pigs. The crowd today was much smaller than in 1991, and the ground looked bare in comparison. Otley ground down their opponents at the end of the first half, pushing for the corner inch by inch. After five minutes of sustained charges and pile-ups, they forced their way over the try-line to take a 14-9 half-time lead, before running in four second-half tries without reply.

Has the Cat Died?

I got dressed in a bit of a hurry last night and accidentally tucked half of my trouser leg into my sock. I only noticed after 20 minutes of walking around with one trouser leg hitched up. This took me back to my school days, where I would have been greeted with the inquiry "Has the cat died?". A trouser leg tucked into a sock is "at half mast", and the mourning was then presumed to be for the family cat. There are lots of phrases for too-short trousers, either from growth spurts or rushed dressing, described here: "half-masts", "budgies", "catsdieds", "noahs".

According to this dictionary, the Germans call them "Flood Trousers", but I've never heard it.

Mills Mess (with an effect of vagueness)

There is a very good explanation of the juggling pattern known as the Mills Mess here. It's in slightly garbled Frenglish, but the advice given is pretty much how I learned this trick. I would recommend just skimming over stage 1, as I think the author does too. Don't be put off by the complicated instructions: the trick is famous for being easier to do than say, and has a lovely rhythm so that it sometimes feels less like a trick, and more like the natural way to juggle.

Trying to be clever, I bought three glowing balls, which alternate between red, green and blue, so that you can see the paths of the three balls, and compare them to the animation. Unless when you take the photo all the balls all happen to be blue.

Thanks to my photographer.

I've walked out on another Ceremony!

My best friend in Bochum just passed his PhD exam. I'm really happy for him, but I just left his PhD party during his Laudatio (the bit where everyone says how good he was). I couldn't be bothered to laugh at the unfunny jokes of his professor. I will join him for a beer in 20 minutes, and shake him heartily by the hand. At the risk of sounding like Holden Caulfield, these official celebrations are all so phoney.

The Rock and Roll Years are Over

I'm in a better mood today, mainly due to the psychotherapy, which has been embarassingly simple so far. We've discussed things that have been worrying me, then agreed a time and a way to solve them. So far I have found my income tax card and told my health insurance, the German Physics Society, my bank, and Amnesty International my new (since February) address.

The only beaurocratic thing I'm really scared of is my tax declaration. I so far refused to fill one out, thinking that it wasn't Rock and Roll. I thought of it as being the saddest and squarest part of German life: all those people running around reclaiming tax. The German tax system is so complicated that people buy computer programs to help fill in their tax declaration. These programs used to be (and maybe still are) tax deductible.

I was going to try to find a citation to back up that last claim, but failed. I can't even write income tax in German. Neither can the Germans. The word for income is Einkommen, and the word for tax is Steuer. If you put them together you get Einkommensteuer, but if you like you can add an extra 's' in the middle to get Einkommenssteuer. I just bought a book which tries to explain this kind of thing, but usually ends up by giving a seemingly arbitrary rule

The middle 's' is added if the first word to be joined contains an even number of Umlauts or the second word begins with three consonants in alphabetical order.

and then includes a table of 200 exceptions.

As the figure below shows (red with one 's', blue with two), the german speaking world is as confused as I am in this matter.


Anyway, I dislike the tax system (I don't mind people taking money off me; I just dislike filling in forms), but I'll try to fill out a form this year. May seems to be a popular date according to the graph. I have a cast-iron tax deductible donation to Amnesty International. Now the clever bit is this: I'll give the tax that I get back this year as a donation next year, in addition to the regular sum. I did a calculation on the back of an envelope, and found that by continually giving the original sum plus all tax returned from the previous year to a charitable organisation I would be able to achieve roughly 30% year-on-year growth in donations until I pay no tax at all. Rock and Roll! I'm not quite sure that this will work, but I'm going to give it a try.

p.s.

It's interesting to see the way the world searches for "income tax". The British seem to have no massive peaks, because most people don't declare taxes. The average employee has tax taken at source and never sees the money. The Americans, in contrast, go income-tax crazy once a year. Still, at least they can fucking spell the word!

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