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Sunday 17 March 2024

Offbeat oddities. Samh

We are reading through Panorama of Saudi Arabia, a badly edited book on, well, Saudi Arabia. Its a mish mash of Islam and poetry and black and white photos of various bits and pieces of Arabian life. There is however a list of plants with Latin names and their corresponding names in Arabic. 

The upshot of this is, well we have a mesemb, Mesembryanthemum Forskahlei (now Cryptanthum or Opophytum Cryptanthum according to my trusty Hartmann pdf.). Along with a few Asclepiads and Glassworts. Its Arabic name is Samh and seems to have some sort of medical potential for ulcer control and a ethnobotanical use for controlling blood sugar. It also seems to be used in cooking as the seed is ground to make flour. I quote 'and samh, a wild seed, is collected in northern Arabia to make coarse bread. 

Mesembryanthemum is now this weird mix of annual and non annual plants now. Can remember the BCSS journal when it proposed that the species Aptenia Phyllobolus and Browannthus were part of it now along with Sceletium which is used for chewing tobacco in South Africa. Opophytum as it was, is one of the weird annuals that nobody grows. I'll probably side with Heidi Hartmann that they are separate from Mesembryanthemum proper, as its an annual and such. But I'm willing to reconsider if we get a big DNA analysis showing familial lines

The book, well the best thing I can say about it is that it needs a bloody good proof read. So that you don't get stuff like this sneaking through on every page. 

 

Sunday 10 March 2024

Necrolog: Toriyama

 This was a complete surprise, Akira Toriyama was, as if he needed any introduction a Mangaka. In fact the Mangaka of the modern age. You ever watched Dragonball  or Dr Slump he did that. You played Dragon Quest or Chrono Trigger, those were his art designs. 



The Dragon Quest's slime, Goku and Piccolo, along with Bulma and Master Roushi, so many great characters. World feels a lot worser with him gone.  


Can remember having a few Dragon Ball memories as a teen, nothing in English, a French Tankobon and a Spanish floppy cover as they had more Manga than us in the 90s. A long forgotten memory of a live action version on MTV also from that time, that no one remembers. And later on assorted Dragonball games and anime on various small channels. The last time  I saw this was Dragonball Super on, I think Pop, in Mallorca last year at 6am.  

The game side was also in Mallorca, seeing the games on import going for 18,000ptas in 93. Oh and an actual Dragonball, ball that I may still have somewhere. Along with a DBZ shirt. Dragon Quest came a lot later. An official DQ8 for PS2 is the first Euroland ever got along with the originals for DS and 3DS.

Chrono Trigger was the first ever ROM that I got a first party PC pad to trigger a multi button input. And outside a limited run for NDS still isn't widely known here. 

Oh and a final thing about Chrono Trigger. Yuji Hori is the only member of the Dream team still alive.

Sunday 3 March 2024

Interbang and stuff.

 I'm pretty sure we've written about Interbang before on here. Part of the old Children's Channel before it was turned into Trouble. For those not invested already, it was an adventure show where two lads had to find mini towers of Pisa hidden throughout the world. Never quite sure of the payoff for this as I've never seen the end, but the whole thing is up on Youtube


Also Pulp Librarian, posted up a bunch of Hardy Boys covers on X, which were mainly from the later mainline entries (100 plus) and the case files series. The strangest thing I took away from this is a scan from a comic book from Gold Key comics.  Apparently a tie in to a Saturday morning cartoon, it comes off as Scooby Doo but a rock band. And yes there are film scans up on Youtube as well.


Saturday 24 February 2024

Smugglers cove

 Another book for you and another one based on the Angus & Robertson hardback editions, so expect there to be no differences in the text.

The boys are framed up for stealing a local businessman's portrait of Simon Bolivar, when they're named as couriers of the aforementioned picture. There are a few side stories as they track some smugglers and poachers in the everglades, before it all comes together in the last 2 chapters, where its found that the smuggling and poaching teams are part of a larger group. 

It's a odd tale this as the stories never really gel together. The beasts that are the target of poaching, the American Alligator is said to endangered, but a quick look on the IUCN red data list shows that the American Alligator is of least concern. Whether it was when it was written is anyone's guess, but they are now said to be increasing in population.

Also for  some strange reason we get to see Florida Man in his natural habitat. In this case some nutter in full wizards get-up performing alchemy out in the swamp. Of course he's being duped by the smuggling gang so they can steal a diamond necklace from him. Palming gold into his crucible of slag, to convince him that he's succeeded. 

Anyway, as I've said before, there is no difference save for the numbering of the books between these two editions.

You can read the UK and US editions here and here

Sunday 18 February 2024

Down the tubes.

So the clown in charge of this city has decided to rebrand the overground rail lines with new names. Personally I never new that the big amorphous orange blob that is the London overground network really needed to be split into several smaller lines to make it easier to navigate. Its just the overground, you don't need any fancy names that make it more confusing. 

We all know why he's doing it, its just a virtue signal so the idiots vote him in again, and overlook the chronic mismanagement and rising crime rate that is characteristic of his term in office. In fact grand dumb vanity projects like this are more like Boris Johnson's term in the mayoral hot seat. But no its fucking labour.

The lines in question are going to be rebranded as such. 

Bus Conductor line (Windrush line) Islington to West Croydon. Which covers all the worst areas of the capital, and is a fitting memorial for the many West Indians who provided vital service as bus conductors back in the day. 

Weaver Line.    Because something something, textile industry. 

Little Line (Liberty Line) Because three fucking stops deserves its own line, obviously. 

The Bobby Moore memorial line (Lioness line) I will also accept the Queens Park Rangers line. As it at least covers the area it concerns (West London). Anything is better than some wimmin wun the euros and deserve their own thing. 

The Minmay line (Mildmay Line)  Covers the actress Lynn Minmay and her efforts to achieve world piece through song.

The Insuffragette line. Because nothing says indulgence like domestic gender terrorists. The line you want is the Lemon line


Sunday 11 February 2024

Dragon Year 2024

 Don't normally write this up as such, but I do enjoy going up town and watching the lion dance at Chinese New Year. I hate fireworks and such but this guy dancing around and the drums pounding is my jam.


The past couple of years I've missed out either due to Covid or missing entirely,  and this year is no exception, we came to early and they weren't set up in time. Havea shot of the Lion dance team that I though look good enough to post. Hope you danced your asses off. 

Sunday 4 February 2024

Dork Web

 It seems we're getting another moral panic over the internet, specifically the dark web in general. Thanks to this article, here, about the murder of Brianna Ghey. Scarlett Jenkinson used the dark web to look at murder and so called red rooms to look up fucked up content online. Although reading this we have no idea what she actually saw.

Apparently its what all the kids are doing nowadays which I'm sure is nothing but scaremongering and bullshit on behalf of the author drumming up views. He's apparently never heard of Liveleak back in the day or any amount of gore trash which I never bothered with back then. 

The fact is watching some Labour twunt chuntering on about regulating the net on Sky news means that the greatest resource we have ever had is being regulated out of existence, along with the double edged sword of Social media, which I'll admit is mostly good when its good and depressing at its worst.

But back to the article and I note he's got some sort of porn site up, most of what you'll see he's describing is actually on the normie web TCG sites, not sure about zombies but all the rest I've seen over the years.

Also given that every .onion address is a string of numbers and letters means you'll have to bookmark and such so browser history unless you're deleting every time. The fact is I've been a few times for of all things Mr Metokurs blog on Poa.st and the Syro album release website*. Apart from that without knowing any addresses and stuff and despite it baked into Brave as its incognito mode, I have fuck all reason to use it.

* This was actually on brand as it detailed every process your computer used to view the page and varied if you used no adblock or privacy blocker software. The cover of Syro famously lists everything expense and process that went into financing / making the album and if you are any way anal retentive makes fascinating reading.