Daydreams of a Realist 1 - The Deal with Tineola

Having spent three days solid on her carpetry, Mrs Allnixguts had enough.  For three days she had shaken, fumigated, hoovered, vinegar watered, and brushed, the carpets that lay on her floors, the saddlebags that covered her chairs cushions, and the kelims that curtained her four poster bed.

She was battling against the moth menace again, and loosing every fight.  No matter how hard she cleaned, no matter how many strips of moth killer she slipped under her carpets, no matter how many pheromone traps she distributed around the house, the moths were still winning.

She was no longer prepared to tolerate it.

"Helga," she shouted at the top of her voice, "Helga, something has to be done!"

Her daughter lifted her head from a book, and smiled.  "Mother dear," she intoned in her honeyed voice, which she always employed when trying to get out of helping with the housework, "have you tried Transcendental Meditation?"  "You are taking these things entirely too seriously."

"Harrumpph," or something like that, said Mrs Allnixguts.

Then she telephoned the university.

"Put me through to the Biology Department," she demanded. The telephonist recognised her voice from previous calls, and tried to stall.  But Mrs Allnixguts was adamant.  "The Biology Department!" she demanded in that stentorian voice that put the fear of God into anyone it was directed at.

Sighing, the telephonist put her through to the Biology Department.  It took some time before she could transfer the call, since most biologists knew Mrs Allnixguts of old and preferred not to take her calls.

Everyone, that is, except the janitor, who was a secret experimenter and illegally used the laboratory to test his harebrained inventions after opening hours.

He took her call, nodded sagely, occasionally asked a clarifying question, and eventually admitted that he had no idea of how to help her.

"If all else fails go to the Philosophy Department," thought Mrs Allnixguts.

The Philosophy Department consisted of five Professors who liked to use their brains.

"Militant moths," mused Byron.  "Let's analyse the possibilities," opined Dan.  "Above all, we must do no harm," interjected Irving.  "This is definitely multi-departmental," concluded Don.

Mrs Allnixguts was informed that the Philosophers would accept the challenge, and told to return in a week's time.

With her out of the way, the Philosophers brain-stormed the situation.

(1) Do moths have a language?  Ask the biologists and the chemists.
(2) If they do, how can we magnify it so it becomes discernible to humans?  Explore this with the engineers.
(3) What sort of language do they speak?  Explore with the classicists and modern language teachers.
(4) Do moths do deals?  Enlist the help of economists.
(5) What sort of deal can we offer them?  Discuss with Mrs Allnixguts.

The biologists and chemists confirmed that moths did have a language.

The engineers built an electronic magnifier that made it audible.

However, the language experts turned out to be completely useless, and failed to decipher the language of the moths.  That stalled progress for a few days, until Irving went back to first principles, and managed to decode the most frequently used sound bites he heard, with the help of a visiting economist, Isabella Kaputnik, who had a vast experience of moths.

She also helped with the deal-making aspect of the matter.  According to her, the Common Clothes Moth, Tineola bisselliella, had few wants and was easily satisfied, provided it was treated with respect. "They are just as happy eating unwanted left overs as expensive cashmere sweaters," she said.  "Provided you supply them with some sort of food, address them correctly, and don't swat or poison them, they will be quite amicable."

Mrs Allnixguts was confronted with these findings, and asked what sort of deal she would accept.

"Do they eat fluff-bunnies?"  By which she meant, did moths eat the balls of fluff found behind the doors and in the corners of houses owned by persons who don't like dusting - popularly referred to as sluts-wool.

"It is definitely worth asking," said Isabella.  "But you should also offer them other things."  "Old sweaters and wool blankets that I no longer need," said Mrs Allnixguts.  "Cut-offs and left-over crafting supplies," she added.

They set up a meeting with the moths. The moths were happy with all the offered food, but asked for the contents of the hoover bag to be thrown in as well.  This was conceded by Mrs Allnixguts.

Next they discussed the location of the food, and thus the moths.  The moths demanded a warm and dark place.  No garden shed, no outhouse, and no cellar.  Mrs Allnixguts suggested the attic.  "I hardly ever go there, and there is lots of old furniture and such like, where you can build a nest, if you like."  The moths agreed to this location, with the provision that they would be allowed into the house if the attic got too hot or too cold.  This Mrs Allnixguts agreed to, with the proviso that the moths would abstain from eating anything except the dust that collected on her furniture.  The moths were happy with this.

That gave Don an idea.  "If the moths like house-dust, which is mainly fluff, why don't they come down once a week and eat all the dust?  They have an outing, and you don't have to do the dusting!"  This idea was taken up with alacrity by both moths and Mrs Allnixguts.  So they agreed that the moths would be summoned every Saturday morning to come into the house and 'do the dusting'.

There remained one sticking point, however.  Mrs Allnixguts was unhappy about the moths' demand to be addressed in what they considered a respectful manner, and balked at addressing them as 'Their Imperial Mothnesses'.  It seemed excessive to her.  Yet worse, the moths insisted that every Saturday morning, when they entered her parlour, they would be announced and introduced to whoever happened to be present at the time, in the following way:  "Hail and Praise Their Imperial Mothnesses, Rulers of Carpets, Queens of the Fluffballs, Majesties of the Wool-closet!"  They also insisted to be told the name, rank, and relationship to the household, of everyone present.

Mrs Allnixguts resisted.  "Everyone will think me mad," she complained.

"No one would dare," said Irving, who knew her well.

Since Mrs Allnixguts could not ague with that without losing face, she agreed to address the moths in the way they desired.

Thus began a life of bliss and happiness for Mrs Allnixguts, who no longer had to dust and worry about her carpets and woolens, and the moths, who finally received the respect and acceptance from human beings that they had always craved and longed for.

In time Mrs Allnixguts' visitors got used to the moths, and several of them, upon hearing of the Deal, enlisted the Philosophers to arrange something similar for their own home.

And they all lived happily ever after, or until they died.

 I can dream, can't I?       

Annals of the Book-Club - Mongolia (better late than never!)

Why-ever not Mongolia?

A few weeks before the last Book-Club event, the Booksters and I were haunting the club terrace, decanted into deck chairs, sipping Pimms, and wondering what topic to pick next.

After a while one can easily run out of subject matters - I should explain that in this book-club, we choose subjects, not books.  Back in our pioneer days, when one of our number chose a book, and the others were obliged to read it, life had not been quite so pleasant.  To be frank about it, unfortunate choices frequently lead to altercations.  Because we are all very different.  And some of my fellow club members are decidedly scurrilous in their literary tastes.

Discussing the finer points of the Necronomicon, or delving into the secret languages of gut bacteria, or even tackling the fluffier chapters of Barbara Cartland's Autobiography, can have a corrosive effect on the proceedings of even the most even-tempered bookinistas - and we are so not even-tempered.

So we decided that we would chose a topic, rather than a specific book, for our monthly meetings, and that everyone could pick a book that fit within that topic.  During the meeting everyone can discuss their book for half an hour or so, and that way we learn about lots of books we never knew anything about, and also don't fall out over having to read books we don't want to.

I note that while we were running with the one-book-for-all book-club model, some members used considerable deception and trickery to avoid reading an assigned book they didn't like, pleading ever more ludicrous reasons why they couldn't.  The Morrigan was particularly averse to any book I chose, and did this at least three times to my favourite volumes.  Not good Morrigan, very not good!

Anyway.  There we were, ruminating about the next topic, and suddenly someone opined, "Why-ever not Mongolia?"  We pretty much all agreed that Mongolia had no literary value, lacked recent history,  was touristically uninteresting, and probably imaginary.  "It'll be a challenge then," we were admonished.  "I don't even know where Mongolia is," complained Maddy.  "Alright, that's agreed then," I summed up the situation.  The Morrigan glowered.

At lunchtime of the Friday before the meeting, we all received an emergency luncheon invite from The Morrigan.  I wondered what excuse she would use this time to explain her lack of application to the Mongolian subject matter.....

"I can't possibly cope with reading the history of Genghis Khan," she opened the conversation.  We booed and hissed.  "There are other Mongolian-related books," I pointed out.  Everyone else looked pained.  "There so are not," said Joseph.  "There is nothing except history of the period between Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan."  Maddy agreed.  "A bookishly barren landscape, is Mongolia."

I smiled my most superior smile, and pulled out The Bloody White Baron, by James Palmer, a book which recounts the story of Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, who mixed things up a bit in Mongolia in the 1920s.  "What's that then?"  The Morrigan looked at the cover, which featured a portrait of the baron, surrounded by a profusion of skulls (the baron was a bloodthirsty maniac), read the blurb on the back, and dismissed the book out of hand.  "Even worse than Ghengis Khan," she pronounced.  "I have a better plan."

"That's all very well," said Joseph, "but I have spent ten hours I will never get back reading the history of women at the court of Genghis Khan, and I am neither willing nor able to read another book by tomorrow morning!"  "Ditto", added Maddy.  I just looked hurt.

"It takes ten and a half hours to fly to Mongolia," said The Morrigan.  "Here are the tickets.  I checked with your managers, you can all take Monday off.  We leave today after work, arrive early Saturday morning, and leave Monday evening.  Then we go straight back to work."  You see what I mean about using trickery to get out of reading things she doesn't want to?

We obviously all had to agree to spend a long weekend in Mongolia.  Why-ever not?

The Flight to Ulaan Baatar

Luckily I had a few hours to prepare before I had to be at the airport, and I spent it locating some reading matter that might come in handy during the holiday.  My fellow booklovers had brought their Mongolia-themed books along - having already read them, they were averse to forsaking them completely - and it was decided that each of us would have half an hour to introduce their chosen volume during the flight.  

Luckily the plane was practically empty, so our little group dominated the cabin, and none of the other passengers (dared to) complain.  The solitary steward, having completed the emergency drill, glazed over within minutes of our readings.

The Morrigan had a Lonely Planet Travel Guide, from which she read us some interesting statistics.  Maddy entertained us with ‘The Secret History of the Mongol Queens - How the daughters of Genghis Khan rescued his empire’ by Jack Weatherford, Joseph read us the introduction of  ‘Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection’ by John Man, and last went Blondie (who had missed the lunchtime meeting but came along anyway) and extrapolated from the blurb on the back of  'Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire' (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization) by Anne F Broadbridge.

I had decided to go last, knowing from bitter experience that my offerings did not always find favour.  I reasoned that by going last, having listened to everyone else reading from their books, I had earned the right to be listened to in my turn.  It was dark outside, and my fellow travelers had snuggled deep into their blankets, when I introduced my reading matter.  "In consideration of The Morrigan's aversion to my chosen book about von Ungern-Sternberg, I have brought along a few different articles of interest about Mongolia."  Before I settled into my task, I decided to go for a quick trip to the toilet.

When I returned, my friends looked incredibly sleepy, and upon closer inspection I noticed an empty tube of sleeping pills that had rolled under The Morrigan's seat.  Since I knew the way she operated, I surmised that she had utilised my toilet break to peruse my reading matter, shared her knowledge with the alarmed bookinistas, and suggested the sleeping pills as a way of avoiding my impending lecture.

Well, I wasn't that easily thwarted!  Whether they liked it or not, I had a captive audience, albeit asleep, and I was going to read them my chosen article.  Who knows, maybe they would absorb the subject matter in their sleep?  With an even, quiet voice, loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to wake them, I started to read.  

"The lactic acid bacteria in traditionally fermented yak milk products.  In 64 samples of fermented yak milk, 216 strains of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) were identified.  They belonged to six genera and 17 different species.  The distribution of the isolates by genus was as follows:  Leuconostoc (40.8%), Lactobacillus (39.0%), Streptococcus(13.2%), Lactococcus (5.6%), Enterococcus (0.94%), and Weissella (0.46%)."

It took 45 minutes to complete the reading of the entire article, and no one awoke during the reading.  Satisfied with my labours, and full of future plans, I, too, went to sleep.

Adventures in Uulaan Bataar

We awoke shortly before landing.  Maddy looked vaguely suspicious, The Morrigan smug, Joseph thoughtful, and Blondie had a hangover.  We found out later that she had smuggled in a large bottle of gin, which she claimed was similar to having an emotional support animal.  I was nonchalant, and assumed an air of injured innocence - I am rather good at that, and it is quite necessary to be so, on rather too many occasions.

Going through customs, the officer attempted to flirt with Blondie, the most physically attractive member of our little group.  "So what are your plans?  Is there anything in particular you want to see while in Ulaan Bataar?  I can recommend the Toy Museum!"  Her answer puzzled both him and her.  "I should adore to see the Institute for Fermented Yak Butter," she said in a low, husky voice.

Luckily no one aside from me and Joseph heard her....

In the hotel we had a quick wash & brush, and then assembled at the breakfast buffet.  It was unremarkable, being of the sort one usually finds at international hotels, but was augmented by a few national specialties.  To my quiet satisfaction, everyone added some milk or cheese product to their breakfast tray.

The morning was spent touristing about on Chinggis Square, and lunch was obtained from a small local restaurant we discovered in a side street. The Mongolian food pyramid is top heavy with milk products (called white food), so it was quite natural that we all ate various combinations of mutton, cheese, and potatoes.  The tea afterwards was served with a liberal serving of milk (goat, not yak), and the alcoholic beverage Blondie tasted was called Airag and made of fermented horse milk.

We then repaired to the Feminist Club; I am an auxiliary member, of course, and it seemed an easy way to make some connections.  Ulaan Bataar is simply crawling with educated women - they far outnumber educated men.  In Mongolia, the boys take care of the animals while the girls are sent to school.  The unfortunate consequence of this is often that the women, no longer inured to certain unpleasant courtship rituals, remain men-less.  A number of them had formed the Feminist Club, which was part social scene and part special interest group.  They welcomed us with open arms, except for Joseph who had to sit outside in the garden and brood.  The club was ladies only.

However, his isolation did not last long.  Half a dozen club members decided to give us a taste of the town, and soon we all set off for a whirlwind tour of the beauties of Ulaan Bataar.  I am not going to give details, because we went around so quickly that I couldn't remember much, but let it suffice that there was more to see in the Mongolian capital than I had suspected.  The Morrigan took credit for everything, of course, and since she had both our return tickets and the credit card that subsidised us, we did not argue with her.

We finally sank into our bunk beds - The Morrigan had bought the cheapest room going, and it was a common one for all of us.  They all grumbled a little, but finally fell asleep.  I was mightily pleased to have them all in one space again, and decided to continue to read them excerpts of my Mongolian scientific articles (after they had dropped off).

"In another study carried out on the diversity of Mongolian traditional fermented dairy products using pyro-sequencing, it was found that there was a correlation between animal species and the genus Lactobacillus which was found to be the core foundation in Mongolian fermented milks. L. kefiranofaciens, L. helveticus, and L. delbrueckii were the predominant species sequenced using NGS for ethnic Khoormog, Airag, and Tarag fermented samples, respectively."

After I had finished reading them the article, I, too, went to sleep.

Sunday was overcast and rainy, so we decided to spend the day in the Toy Museum, followed by the Mongol Costumes Museum, The Memorial Museum of the Victims of Political Repression, and The Institute for Fermented Yak Butter.  I had expected greater resistance to this last choice, but it seemed that traipsing around town for two days straight had undermined their resistance.  Or perhaps my plan was working?  I was determined to continue my bed time readings that night.

Which I did.  "In a clinical study on this strain, it has been found that LCZ carried an ability to modulate the composition of fecal microbiota in both elderly and adult subjects. The strain exhibited growth-suppressive effect on pathogens such as Acinetobacter and Pseudomonas."

Monday morning was beautifully sunny and put us all in a wonderful mood - our last day in Mongolia had arrived!  The happy mood was unfortunately spoilt over breakfast, when The Morrigan overheard Blondie (the most susceptible member of our group) give a fellow European tourist a little talk on the benefits of fermented yak products.  She was using long words and liberally sprinkled her sermon with Latin words which The Morrigan suspected she did not understand, but which seemed strangely familiar to her.  "Randomized, double-blind clinical trials using L. plantarum showed that there was significant lowering of sepsis and lower respiratory tract infections among infants in rural India," she heard Blondie saying while slurping an extra large serving of Mare's yogurt.

Now The Morrigan, say of her what you will, has an active intellect and an incisive mind.  Her suspicion aroused, she looked around the breakfast table.  All members of the Bookclub were eating super-human sized portions of milk products - all non-Bookclub member tourists had given such products a wide berth, and were tucking into bacon and eggs, and similar western fare.  She glanced at her own plate, which was laden with cheese derived products, and at her glass, normally full of orange juice, now mysteriously full of double-distilled goats milk.  She then turned towards me, not just her face, but her entire body, and said in a cold hard threatening voice: " This is your doing, dastardly DB."

I shrieked and shivered inwardly, but admitted nothing.  "Whatever do you mean, is anything the matter?"  

But she just snorted.  Obviously she was on to me - would all my hard work be undone?

The Trip Home

Back on the plane Monday evening we were all rather tired after our eventful long weekend, especially I, since The Morrigan had forced me to swallow three sleeping pills or "remain in effing Mongolia 'till you rot!"  She had not forgiven me for having tried to brainwash her into liking microorganisms by nefarious means.

Soon we had all dropped off.  The last thing I heard, before losing consciousness, was the sonorous voice of Joseph, loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough to wake us, reading from an article I had entrusted to his care earlier that day, while The Morrigan was searching my bag and confiscated and burned all readable material she found.

"In human intestinal epithelium, the interaction between adjacent cells and cell-basement membranes form a crucial barrier that prevents the translocation of the microbes to the sub-epithelial layer. This adherence is governed by tight junction, gap junction, adherence junction, and desmosomes. The mechanistic role of probiotics reported in various studies associated with the strengthening of mucosal barrier function is mainly directed toward examining the ability of probiotic bacteria to prevent alterations in bridging proteins and ....."

Journal of the Plague Year 15 - Photos of Breakfasts Past

The High Street on a Sunday morning, before all the tourists have descended upon it

Every Sunday morning, other social engagements permitting, I meet my good friend A. at some likely eateria for a gossip & forkful.  A. is an old colleague from my university days, and since she shares my love for hanging out endlessly in cafes while discussing the events of the day, meeting up for breakfast has become a dear habit for us over the last ten years or so.

I like to arrive a little early, so get a chance to glance at the papers - always good to be up-to-date when having a gossip with A.!  She quite often pips me at the post and gets there first - but she doesn't read the papers!  She gets her news from more reliable sources, like one of her numerous friends & acquaintances or even the serving staff.  A. makes friends easily, and invites confidences, and is an excellent source of reliable gossip.  My newspaper gleanings come a poor second in our discussions, but she has a generous spirit and doesn't hold it against me that I am short on university gossip and long on news!

Those breakfast mornings are one of the things I really miss during these cooped-up days at home, and so I was particularly cheered when I discovered some photos I took of Oxford and our then breakfast hang out.  We have moved on since, because this one has become so infested with tourists that locals don't get a look in anymore, but I thought you might enjoy the photos.

Below is the photographic evidence of a typical Sunday morning in Oxford, rainy and gloomy and full of gossip and food!

All Souls College, that has no students and a desirable location right next to church St Mary the Virgin

St Mary the Virgin, official University Church; used to house the library

"Ich halt' es mit dem Gockelhahn" - identify the quote!

And there it is again - the tree in front is a magnolia, which blooms splendidly for a week or two in Spring.

This Buddleia came uninvited, as usual, but blooms for 9 months of the year and never fails to cheer me

Catte Street - between All Souls and St Mary.  Further down to the left is the entrance to St Mary's crypt

View from entrance to the crypt - Radcliffe Camera overlooms the garden

The crypt garden serves as an outdoor cafe annex, and can be very nice in the sunshine.  Notice the tourist group in the background?  This is at 08:30 in the morning.  Four hours later there will be more tourists than landscape.

Entrance to the crypt

Crypt garden, different angle

Inside the crypt

Ditto

Journal of the Plague Year 14 - Daydreams of a Realist

I can't believe I have not posted for 9 days!

It is this strange timeless existence we currently live, where hour blends into hour, and day into day, until it all becomes a blur and time loses all meaning.

I have become incredibly laid back, too.  Yesterday, for example, I was watching a Sherlock Holmes movie on Youtube, and instead of pausing it when the news came on at 22:00 I went right on watching the movie  Yes, you read this right.  Me, a news-addict if ever there was one, just shrugged my shoulders and remained in the 1940s.  After all, what is on the news these days?  Dead people, people who disobey the self isolation rules - ie future dead people.  I care no more.

On the other hand, the arrival of a book last week caused a considerable stir in the DB Dominion.

A long longtime ago, and far far away, there was in the city of Portland, in the state of Oregon, an amazing bookshop called Powell's.  Nowadays of course everyone knows about Powell's, City of Books, biggest bookstore in the galaxy.  But back then it was just a great bookstore downtown Portland, and I visited it as often as finances permitted.  I was then the sort of person who, when faced with a choice between having dinner and buying a book, always chose hunger and erudition.  Kept me thin, too!

I had a little routine back then.  I would arrive at Powell's just before lunch time, when everyone else left the store to re-dedicate themselves to the vulgar pleasures of the restaurant trade - yes, vulgar, and please don't interrupt!  To repeat, I would enter the emptying shop and first go to the cookery section.  Let me tell you, they had a huge cookery section!  I couldn't afford any of the books, of course, them being new and all.  And even if I could have afforded them, I certainly could not have afforded to buy the ingredients expensive cookery books demand!  I did buy a book there once, called "How to eat well on a dollar a day and live to talk about it", and it was a wowzer!  Written by a local student and well worth the 50 cents it cost me.

After the cookery section I would scout out the humour section, where I occasionally managed to unearth a cheap and cheerful pamphlet - "A Guide for Indoor Birdwatchers" comes to mind.  I particularly liked the chapter on How to get rid of him - 'him' referred to a husband.  I was unhappily married at the time, and always eager to pick up helpful hints.  Unfortunately I didn't own a revolver, so had to get a divorce instead - much less dramatic, of course.  The 'indirect method' describes how you shoot over your shoulder using a mirror - wonderful stuff!

After that I would meander into the tall dusty stacks somewhere in the Bowels of Powell's and immerse myself in the foreign language section.  What, I hear you cry, no books on science, on social science, on Bellestristic?  Belletristic is bunk, and the other stuff I could get for free from the university library - and what did I say about being interrupted?  Anyway, science books are out of date as soon as they are published, so I very rarely bought them back then.  I occasionally buy them nowadays, because I am too lazy to get them from the public library (plus their more popular books smell funny!), and the Bodleyan isn't a lending library.

Anyway.  So one days I was perusing the second hand foreign language section of Powell's - why the second hand foreign language section?  Well, firstly because there weren't any new foreign books available in Portland in those days (you couldn't even buy Der Spiegel at the newsagents!), except those irritatingly educational ones (Goethe, Einstein, Zuckmayer) that no one in their right mind reads, except to impress their colleagues - what do you mean, you actually like the German classics?  Stop interrupting me, who is telling this story, you or I?

Where was I?  Oh yes, I was nosing around in the foreign language section of Powell's, sub-section German.  I tended to buy the old ones, because they were usually dirt cheap.  Because, and I will tell you this because it is still true and no one else will ever tell you this, basically because they either don't know (if they aren't German) or won't tell because they want to continue to benefit from the situation (if they are German), because - Fraktur.  Fraktur is the name of the old German script that was used prior to WWII.  It became associated with the Nazis, so was abandoned after WWII.

Because Fraktur is different from the regular script used nowadays (Latin), people take one look at it and move on to another book.  The fact is, it is very simple to read Fraktur. I taught myself when I was small, just by reading the old books I found in my parent's book cupboard, so don't let it stop you from buying a book that interests you.  But because so few people can read Fraktur, the books are usually very cheap.  And back in those days, if a book was cheap I would buy it!

The book that arrived last week was called "Tagtraeume eines Realisten" - Daydreams of a realist,from the early 20th century.  I read it and was utterly fascinated.  So fascinated that I talked about it to someone from Austria, who could read Fraktur, and lend it to her.  And that horrible, despicable, utterly repugnant individual ran off with the book!!!!!!!  May she die a thousand deaths, and suffer even more after that - there is no punishment too great for a book thief.  I do exempt from this the impoverished book lover who is so devoted to a choice volume that s/he steals it from a library - that is not theft, but self defense.

So there I was without my favourite book.  I suffered, I agonised, I tried to buy another copy.  And sadly, no other copy was to be had, even in the greatest book shop in the Galaxy.  The pain grew duller over time, but never really left me.

Back in Europe I continued my search, not helped by my inability to remember the name of the author - I have a terrible memory for names.  I even got my niece, who works in a book shop and is a professional book buyer, to search for the elusive volume, but she, too, drew nothing but blanks.

I brooded over this for decades.  Why couldn't I find the book?  Had it been such a small edition that only a few hundred books had ever been printed, which then all perished in the fires of WWII?  Were all owners so attached to their copies that they refused to let them go, and insisted to be buried with them instead of leaving them to their heirs, who could flog them to the nearest antiquarian book seller?  Or, and this possibility had a morbid fascination for me, had all the copies been eaten by bookworms, attracted by the cheap type of paper that was often used for books in the harsh years after WWI?

A few weeks ago, working short hours, and limited in my activities to the sphere of the Little House, my under-occupied mind went into overdrive.  I was sitting right here, where I am sitting now, in front of my laptop, when inspiration struck - I translated the title into English and began to search for it.

Blank after blank after blank - I found nothing, nada, zero, rien du tout.

But ....

When I repeated the search again, I mis-typed 'daydream'.  It was late, you understand, and I was exhausted and aggravated.  This can happen, even to the best of us - like me.

The search engine, unable to make sense of the word I had types, suggested alternatives - and one alternative was 'fantasies'.  Click clack ping pong dibbedy-dong went my little grey cells, and then, fuelled by an intellectual arrogance rarely experienced - by me, anyway - I typed "Phantasien eines Realisten" - and hit pay dirt!

Yes, dear readers, I had forgotten not only the name of the author, but also the title of the book!

The book, it turned out, was not all that rare.  It had been written by Josef Popper-Lynkeus, an Austrian writer, engineer, and inventor, and uncle of Karl Popper, the philosopher.  He was born in 1838 and died in 1921.  He was also a social reformer - Wikipedia has this to say about it:

Popper-Lynkeus designed his own social system, which ensures that all individuals are provided with goods of primary necessity, and explains it in a series of works beginning from The Right to Live and the Duty to Die (1878) and ending with The Universal Civil Service as a Solution of a Social Problem (1912).

According to Popper-Lynkeus, society has a duty to provide its members with goods of prime necessity – food, clothes, and housing – and also with the services of prime necessity – public health care, upbringing, and education. However, every healthy society member in the framework of labor service would participate in activities that do not require higher or secondary special education and that are related to the creation of material foundations of national economy (e.g. mining, forest exploitation, farm work, construction work). He or she would also be engaged in the manufacturing of goods and providing basic services.

etc etc

Admirable sentiments, I am sure you will agree, and while I knew nothing about Popper-Lynkeus at all when I read his book Fantasies of a Realist, I am pleased to discover that I had not wasted my admiration on someone unworthy.

And the best thing?

I can now use the title Daydreams of a Realist for my own writings, without anyone accusing me of intellectual theft!

Thanks for not interrupting!

Journal of the Plague Years 13 - Photos of the past - Paris

Twin & friends, in front of the museum's copy of the Statue of Liberty

Museum of Arts and Crafts in Paris - Musée des arts et métie

In the last year I didn't write many blog posts, on account of being ill and exhausted.  That doesn't mean I didn't do anything - I did!

Now that I have more time, and am confined to the Little House, I can re-visit some of these 'doings' and post the photos I made back then, but never posted.

Up first is the last visit to Paris last November.  I went with my dear Twin & Triplet to see the As, and we had a great time, as always.  We had wanted to go to the Museum of Arts and Crafts for a long time, and since the weather was not too nice this was the perfect day for it.

In addition to the museum we also did the usual wandering around Paris, lunching, Teaing, and so forth, ending up at Angelina's again, I seem to recall.

Note to the photos - my camera isn't good indoors, and flashes are not allowed in the museum, so I know they aren't great.  No reflection on the museum, which is!

The museum contains all sorts of examples and even prototypes of early inventions, anything from telephones to spinning and weaving equipment, and is totally fascinating.  And sorry, but I don't even remember what most of the machines depicted in the photos are!

https://www.arts-et-metiers.net/musee/visitor-information

Reading the information

 

Angelina's - old photo.

Angelina earlier blog post

Journal of the Plague Year 12 - It is lovely out there!

I have four window boxes in front of my house

I try to take a little walk every day - it is such an antidote to being cooped up at home!

I tried to take some photos, but experienced battery issues very soon, so you will have to make do with these few.  The weather was overcast, not ideal, especially for taking photos.  But still, better than nothing!

Herbish window box - very handy for salads

I do love blue flowers!

Lest you think someone had robbed the contents of my window box - I did it myself.  I needed the thyme for an indoor herb garden, and shall pop a miniature rose into this vacated spot.  Looks a bit odd, but who cares these days of no visitors!

Just around the corner they are still flying the flag.  I live  in a very sensible neighbourhood.  Not upmarket, but full of intellectuals!  Perfect for me. 

There are several parks close by, and this one still had a flowering cherries.  The others had all blossomed themselves out in January, but this one is still going strong.

No, I didn't take the two photos above today, it was too overcast.  But the flowers were there, as beautiful and cheery as ever!  I take great joy in the thought that when Nature has finally finished us off and humanity has become extinct, there will still be flowers, basking in the sunshine, visited by bees.