Trivia

Race and Class

No doubt this cartoon — and countless more like it — will amuse and tickle the fancy of many un-thinking people.

Barack Obama is not working class — and it's class which divides whole societies, not colour.

Colour is used to distract working people, and keep us from identifying — and turning upon — our real enemy which is the upper class controlled, profit-motivated system that would make slaves of all of us, black and white.

Soon the American people will realise the colour of one's skin is no guide to the content of their character.

The history of the middle finger

Isn't history more fun when you know something about it?

Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, anticipating victory over the English the French proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English soldiers.

Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore they would be incapable of fighting in the future.

This famous English longbow was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew" or "pluck yew".

Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, "See, we can still pluck yew! "

Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodentals fricative F, and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one finger salute!

It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows used with the longbow that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird."

It is still an appropriate salute to the French today!

And yew thought yew knew every plucking thing.

The Weather

I would rather talk about anything but the weather, but it really is changing, and not necessarily for the better.

Winter 2008 was long and unbearably cold, and the following summer very brief but unbearably hot with horrible consequences here in Victoria.

I hope to God this is not the new normal.

Test your eyes

If your eyes follow the movement of the rotating pink dot, the dots will remain pink.

However if you stare at the black + in the centre, the moving dot turns to green.

Concentrate on the + and after a short period all the pink dots will slowly disappear and you will see only a single green rotating dot.

In fact there really is no green dot, and the pink ones really don't disappear.

Proof enough, the eyes don't always see what we think they do.

And maybe the ears don't hear what we think they do, either.

The Banana Test

Sometimes a sunset is so stunning.
Taken through the glass on a 4th floor window in Dandenong.

And sometimes my garden is actually green.
But sadly, these days not very often.

• Lion = you're dull
• Chimpanzee = you're dense
• Giraffe = you're a complete moron
• Squirrel = you're hopeless.