Blue flags (Iris versicolor)

They look beautiful even in a stagnant drainage ditch.

These windshield dots have a function

Explained at the whatdoesthismean subreddit:

Those little black dots on your car’s windshield are called frits. They are printed on the glass using baked-on ceramic paint and serve several important purposes: Secure the Glass: The solid black band and the dots provide a rougher, etched surface for the urethane glue to bond the windshield to the car frame. Protect the Adhesive: The solid black border acts as a shield to block harmful UV rays from degrading the glue and keeping it strong over time. Regulate Heat: The dots decrease in size as they move away from the solid black band. This creates a gradient that absorbs and distributes heat evenly, preventing the glass from warping, cracking, or suffering from optical distortion when it gets hot in the sun. Reduce Glare: They diffuse harsh sunlight so you don't experience intense contrast between the dark frame and clear glass.

Clever bus design

Via Bits and Pieces, where there is always a variety of different and humorous material.

English farms diversifying with side hustles

As reported by Bloomberg:

“This is a working farm,” boasts a sign at Rushett Farm. At first glance, the scene appears to be just that: A tractor is parked by stacks of hay bales while rapeseed grows in a field. It’s a quintessential image of working, rural England, at a spot just inside London’s orbital highway, where the city sprawl dissolves into the countryside.

Yet things aren’t entirely what they seem. A barn is now a Pilates studio; a path leads down to a café hut overlooking the crops; fields are dedicated to glamping stays and occasionally a corporate event tent. An old hangar now houses a gym and wellness classes, including meditative “sound baths.” Rushett offers a different world of adventures to the theme park up the road; whatever it is, it’s not just a working farm. 

Rushett is in fact one of a growing number of English farms diversifying away from agriculture as making a living through traditional means gets harder and more unpredictable. The farming industry has — like that of many other countries — been squeezed by higher input costs in recent years...

More than 70% of England’s farms now top up their earnings through non-conventional activities, up from 50% less than two decades ago, government data show. Those side-hustles range from the fairly traditional — camp sites, Airbnb rentals and farm shops — to solar power installations, ice rinks and facilities for business team-bonding sessions.

More details and discussion at the link.  The best gift I ever gave to a relative was funding an opportunity for a tween-age niece to spend a week on a working farm, camping in a tent at night while doing chores in the daytime, including milking the goats and mucking out the horse stalls.  She absolutely loved it.  If you an find similar opportunities, please consider doing the same.  Good for the children, good for the farms.

I'm glad the teacher graded this with a smiley

Via Miss Cellania.

Reposted from 2024 because I needed a laugh tonight.  And it's interesting on a reread to notice how the errors the girl made actually make some sense.

Found in the hair of a trauma victim...

The patient's wife posted this image in the whatisit subreddit, where I learned that this is a modern xray marker.  I spent 30 years reviewing chest xrays, and back in the previous century the xray markers were less elaborate.  Classically the orientation was indicated with a lead "R" or "L" (or full word "LEFT") -

- sometimes with a movable pellet inside to indicate upright, supine, or decubitus positioning...

Nowadays apparently the standard is to have the xray technician's initials incorporated into the marker, which the technician can (?has to) buy from sites like Etsy -

You learn something every day - even stuff you thought you knew.

Rhinestone jewelry can be valuable

The embedded image shows a demi-parure (matched set of earrings and necklace) created with Aurora Borealis rhinestones, which were popular in the 1950s-60s.  The image was posted in the Vintage Jewelry subreddit, where the discussion thread offers informed commentary.

Erasing Gaza

A series of before-and-after satellite photos document the physical destruction going on in Gaza.  At the link are a set of photos with sliders that allow direct comparison of the baseline with the current condition.  What is shown is not collateral destruction from errant munitions, but a deliberate process to physically erase any evidence of Palestinian history and culture - including the cemeteries...

The Sheikh Mohammed cemetery in the Maan area of Khan Younis has been wiped from the map, and replaced by the tents and armoured vehicles of an Israeli military outpost, according to recently updated satellite imagery added to Google Earth...

The high-resolution pictures, captured on February 25, 2026, expose a landscape where entire neighbourhoods have been reduced to ash, and the surviving population is squeezed into suffocating encampments that spill onto the beaches of the Mediterranean Sea...

For Palestinians, the updated maps provide a devastating, wide-angle view of an ongoing genocide that has killed nearly 73,000 people.

According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Israeli forces have fully or partially destroyed 94 percent of Gaza’s cemeteries, transforming places of memory into military barracks...

US President Joe Biden initially drew a ‘red line’ over the invasion of Rafah in early 2024, but Israel went ahead with its brutal operation. Israel faced no consequences for its actions in Rafah, which has largely been flattened...

The methodical destruction extends to the territory’s educational foundation. UNICEF says more than 97 percent of schools have been damaged or destroyed, leaving 658,000 children without formal learning for more than two years. Universities have either been blown up or transformed into displacement shelters...

The Islamic University of Gaza (IUG), which catered to over 20,000 students, and Al-Azhar University, which enrolled more than 16,000 students, have been razed. Both major campuses, along with Al-Israa University in the south, were completely levelled through controlled military detonations...

In the Shakoush area, Israeli bulldozers have razed greenhouses and confiscated the topsoil, directly exacerbating the man-made starvation of the population...

"Confiscating the topsoil" FFS.  This is ongoing genocide, and no Western countries are doing anything about it.  The destruction of homes and olive groves is what Rachel Corrie died protesting in 2003, when she was run over by a bulldozer while wearing a high-visibility orange vest.  And the U.S. continues to fund the criminal activities of Netanyahu, including his use of white phosphorus in Lebanon.

Addendum: A longread detailed article about the repeated violations of the Gaza "ceasefire" is here.

Israel violated the ceasefire agreement at least 3,005 times from October 10, 2025 to May 27, 2026, through the continuation of attacks by air, artillery and direct shootings, the Government Media Office in Gaza reports...From October 10, 2025 to April 14, 2026, the office said Israel shot at civilians 921 times, raided residential areas beyond the “yellow line” 97 times, bombed and shelled Gaza 1109 times, and demolished people’s properties on 273 occasions...

According to an analysis by Al Jazeera, Israel has attacked Gaza on 211 out of the past 235 days of the ceasefire, meaning there were only 24 days during which no violent attacks, deaths or injuries were reported.

Despite continuing attacks, the US insists that the “ceasefire” is still holding.

Humor for English majors

See also A Cartoon for English Majors.

A cartoon for English majors - updated

This one was "over my head."  I'll post now for other English majors to ponder, and update after the weekend with some relevant details and links.

Addendum: As I was preparing this series of memorial posts about George Booth, one of the library books included some biographical material.  They indicated that Booth did not tend to use "gag writers" to provide the captions accompanying his cartoons, but that when he did encounter a potentially useful phrase, he saved it up until an appropriate cartoon came to mind.  Two examples were cited.

The cartoon above has text based on the play Cymbeline (in Act III, Scene 6 "Wales.  Before the cave of Belarius"), when they spot Imogen (dressed as a boy) in the cave:

BELARIUS

[Looking into the cave]

Stay; come not in.

But that it eats our victuals, I should think

Here were a fairy.

GUIDERIUS

What's the matter, sir?

BELARIUS

By Jupiter, an angel! or, if not,

An earthly paragon! Behold divineness

No elder than a boy! 

Re-enter IMOGEN

IMOGEN

Good masters, harm me not:

Before I enter'd here, I call'd; and thought

To have begg'd or bought what I have took:

good troth,

I have stol'n nought, nor would not, though I had found

Gold strew'd i' the floor. Here's money for my meat...

The scene has been illustrated for various publications of the play, as in this example (a reproduction from the Dallas Museum of Art):

and again here:

and yet again here:

So the scene appears to be well recognized by artists and thespians.  But the phrase "By Jupiter, an angel..." was totally unfamiliar to me (in my defense I would suggest that Cymbeline is one of Shakespeare/deVere's lesser-performed works).  It wasn't until I read the Booth biography and the cartoon at the top was discussed that I was prompted to search Google for the true source of the quotation.

Interestingly, the biography went on to offer one more cartoon based on a quotation from someone.  The caption in this cartoon -

- was credited to "Hank Martin."  I spent a lot of time fruitlessly Googling that name before finally deciding that the reference must be to Henry Martin, who like Booth was a longtime New Yorker cartoonist.

But... to what is the text of the caption referring???  I have been unable to find a primary source for the "lone grape" sentences (searches typically lead to cartoon compilations that include both Booth and Martin).  Perhaps the excitement on the bus was something spoken to Booth by Martin privately, or perhaps it exists in some correspondence or book.  For now it remains a mystery unless some reader of this blog can suss it out.

Related:  Humor for English majors and A jury of English majors.

Resposted from 2022 to accompany a new post about humor for English majors.

When the endgame is defeat - updated

Excerpts from an article in The Atlantic last week:

... Trump’s repeated threats to resume attacks since then have proved to be bluffs. The leaders in Tehran have been calculating for two months that Trump would not launch another attack, and for this reason they have made no concessions despite the damage they suffered from 37 days of relentless strikes. On the contrary, their terms for a settlement are those of a victor: They demand war reparations, no limits on uranium enrichment, recognized control of the strait, and an end to sanctions...

In 30 days, moreover, the new Iranian strait regime may already be firmly in place. As the Institute for the Study of War reports, Iran has been using the cease-fire period to “normalize” its control over the strait by “compelling oil-importing countries” to establish transit agreements with Tehran and charging fees on vessels from nations without such deals. According to Iranian officials, the new strait regime will give Iran’s strategic partners, such as Russia and China, priority and allow nations friendly to Iran, such as India and Pakistan, to negotiate their own transit agreements. Vessels associated with nations that Iran regards as an adversary will be denied access to the strait entirely...

Several nations, including South Korea, Turkey, and Iraq, are reportedly already negotiating at least temporary transit agreements.. Those nations currently allied with the United States and friendly to Israel will feel pressure to distance themselves and make their peace with Iran. The international sanctions against Iran will collapse, and even more money will pour into the country’s accounts as its newly central role in the global economy becomes normalized. By the end of 30 days, most of the world will have a stake in the new arrangement and will oppose any resumption of hostilities, even in the unlikely event that Trump wanted to go back to war.

Trump no doubt hopes that he can slip away without Americans noticing the magnitude of this defeat. The financial markets may stabilize if it is clear that oil will eventually start flowing again through a reopened strait, even if under the new Iran-controlled system. A major strategic setback for the United States need not affect Wall Street. The president may also hope that he can change the subject by launching another military operation, this time against the government in Cuba. And the news media have indeed begun writing more about Cuba than about the unfolding disaster in Iran.

Will Israel go gentle into this good night? That is the wild card that may disrupt the financial markets’ dreams of a new stability in the Gulf. A stronger, richer, more influential Iran will mean new life for Hamas and Hezbollah. It will mean the end of the Abraham Accords, as the Gulf States will have to make their own peace with Tehran so that their economies can survive. Trump says that Netanyahu “will do whatever I want him to do.” But can Israel stand by while Iran replaces the United States as the arbiter of power in the region?

Netanyahu is clearly the wild card, in every sense of the word, because the current memorandum of understanding that I have seen indicates that one of the conditions for opening the Strait is that Israel cease its attacks on Lebanon.

Addendum:  This morning I saw Trump's latest pronoucement re the "deal" he's offering...

Strait opened with no tolls plus magical "destruction" of "Nuclear Dust" by methods that have not yet been invented.  So, let me plug that reply into the Magic 8 Ball and ask what Iran's reply will be...

Well, the Magic 8 Ball skipped its 20 standard answers and instead replied "no fucking way, Jose."

So, what's the next step?  Hostilities resumed (the U.S. has been bombing Iranian missile sites during the cease-fire), or kicking the can down the road ("resume negotiations")???  If someone could check Trump's management of his investments before the market closes this afternoon, that might give the answer...

Rechalking the Cerne Abbas Giant

Readers here will certainly be familiar with the Cerne Giant.  What I had not appreciated from casual reading is the depth to which the chalk is embedded in the hillside.  Makes sense, of course, explaining how the figure came to be buried by natural growth and why it lay "hidden" for so long.  Details re the history here.

Photos in a Guardian article show volunteers "rechalking" the figure.

The custom has been to rechalk the 55-metre-tall giant roughly every seven to 10 years. It was last done in 2019 and before that in 2008... The rechalking technique is being adapted. In 2008 and 2017, it involved packing in dry chalk and tamping it down. “But that’s very difficult because the hill is so steep,” Dawson said.

So this time they are experimenting with mixing chalk (they need 17 tonnes of it) with water to create a paste. Dawson said: “It’s like a putty, which makes it easier to make it stick.”

I'm impressed by the quality of the preservation work being undertaken.

O.K - here's the photo, for those unfamiliar with it.  Now go to the links and read.  And please nobody tell Donald Trump about this; a ballroom/bunker is bad enough.

News re the Strait of Hormuz

From Facebook, so it might not be true...

But what is true is that I listed to an Al Jazeera interview with a fellow from Tehran who mentioned that closure of the Strait of Hormuz was not a new idea.  Apparently Iran has had this strategic maneuver on their list of options for over twenty years.  They have never exercised the capacity to do this because it was decided that doing so would be tantamount to declaring war on their Gulf neighbors.  But once the U.S. and Israel initiated the war, they had justification for the maneuver.  I will bet you a dollar to a doughnut that the old-time senior Pentagon generals who were dismissed by Trump must have been aware of this possibility.  It would have come up in any serious war gaming strategies conducted over the past several decades.

Addendum:  An excellent op-ed of the diplomatic consequences of the war makes note of the fact that closure of the Strait of Hormuz is a "commonplace doomsday scenario" used in non-military settings:

"Fatih Birol, the chief executive of the International Energy Agency, recently disclosed that in job interviews at the IEA, after asking candidates why they are applying for a job at the IEA, the second is: “What would you do if the strait of Hormuz was closed?” It was a commonplace doomsday scenario, yet the US had to improvise a response."

Why was it not considered (or why was it ignored) for this war???

p.s. - yes I know Andy Borowitz is a humor columnist...

Storytime chair (Penzance, Cornwall)

Details of the chair's design elements from local folklore are clarified at the Neatorama via.  I presume the colorful discs by the chair are little sit-upon pads for the children.  

How very cool.  I would be delighted to sit and listen to stories read by someone sitting in this chair.

"Moral panic" over babydoll dresses

Let's start with a definition: 

A babydoll is a short, sleeveless, loose-fitting nightgown or negligee, intended as nightwear for women. It sometimes has formed cups called a bralette for cleavage with an attached, loose-fitting skirt falling in length usually around the upper thigh. The garment is often trimmed with lace, ruffles, appliques, marabou, bows, and ribbons, optionally with spaghetti straps. Sometimes it is made of sheer or translucent fabric such as nylon or chiffon or silk.

And an abbreviated history:

The creation of the super-short nightgown is attributed to the American lingerie designer Sylvia Pedlar, who produced them in 1942 in response to fabric shortages during World War II.  Although her designs became known as "babydolls", Pedlar disliked the name and did not use it... The name was popularized by the 1956 movie Baby Doll, starring Carroll Baker in the title role as a 19-year-old nymphet...

Babydolls became a prominent part of the "kinderwhore" look during the early-to-mid-1990s, due to the popularity of Riot Grrrl and grunge performers such as Courtney Love and Kat Bjelland.

I personally would have some doubts that it was fabric shortages that popularized this look, and "Kinderwhore" might be worth a separate post, but for now I'll focus on the Guardian article that drew my attention away from the war.

Online discourse [about pop stars wearing the style] immediately exploded, with many lodging accusations that she was dressing like a “sexy baby” and promoting “pedo core”, while others defended the singer, stating that she can wear whatever she wants. Among those defenders was Ertay Deger, co-founder of brand Generation78, who told the Guardian: “the babydoll silhouette was never conceived as infantilising. For us, it sits within a long history of fashion references tied to rebellion, performance, romance, and girlhood culture. The look felt knowingly performative rather than regressive”...

Rodrigo isn’t the only pop star embracing the baby doll aesthetic right now. Sabrina Carpenter has worn a sheer version, leaning towards a retro-lingerie aesthetic; Addison Rae posed coyly in an understated, plain white minidress on her Instagram – then there’s gen Z’s favourite indie-sleaze icon Alexa Chung who has worn these dresses for years...

So why all the fuss? Gen Z has often been characterised as notably puritanical compared to other generations. Indeed, we live in an era when the exposed horrors of child sexual exploitation are at the forefront of public consciousness. But this wave of outrage towards a perceived sartorial perversion is arguably a projection that serves to police the status quo of young women’s fashion, rather than a mark of genuine concern. 

You can also read more at Vogue Arabia:

Short, swingy, and deceptively playful, the babydoll dress is suddenly everywhere – from stadium stages to street style feeds. This isn’t just a trend. It’s a shift, and it’s unfolding in real time.... So why this dress, and why now?

According to Nyree Leckenby, founder of My Mum Made It, the label behind Rodrigo’s viral yellow look, the appeal is all about balance. “Babydoll dresses embody the ease and effortlessness we crave in summer,” she says. “The breezy silhouette keeps things light in the heat while still feeling styled and considered. From a design perspective, they strike the perfect mix of comfort and nostalgia without trying too hard. Celebrities love them because they photograph beautifully and carry a sense of romantic ease that still feels fashion–forward and unique.”

The babydoll’s comeback has been bubbling for a while, but Spring/Summer 2025 made it official. Designers like Chloé, Loewe, Valentino, Emilia Wickstead, and Alberta Ferretti sent it down runways with fresh structure and quiet drama.

More photos and design suggestions at the Vogue Arabia link.