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31 December Harry Pottered
21 December Chocolate and SexChocolate and sex help boost the brain
A University lecturer says sex and dark chocolate boost your brain. Plenty of dark chocolate and protein for breakfast gives the brain the good start to the day while sex produces chemicals in your brain which help you think. Doing a business degree, reading out loud, cuddling a baby and doing your homework with someone else were also pinpointed as good for brain power but those wanting to improve their mental performance need to stay clear of soap operas, smoking cannabis, people who moan and avoid fat-free diets. For decades we have thought that the cognitive capacity of our brains is genetically determined, whereas it's now clear that it's in part a lifestyle choice. What we eat and drink, how we learn at school and the moods we have and the things we do can help or hinder the way we think. People can make lifestyle choices that will not only prevent what used to be seen as an inevitable decline in cognitive ability after the age of 17, but can constantly increase our cognitive capacity throughout our adult lives. It claims sex has a positive impact, listing seven chemical reactions the brain undergoes during intercourse which improve its functioning ability. For instance, raised levels of oxytocin - the ‘trust’ hormone - increase a person's readiness to think of novel or risky solutions to a problem. Elements in dark chocolate are beneficial. Magnesium and theobromine increase the supply of oxygen to the brain and reduce the chances of brain damage through a stroke. The book recommends readers should seek not happiness, but BLISS - Body-based pleasure, Laughter, Involvement, Satisfaction and Sex - which all enable the mind to perform well. Mix with people who make you laugh, have a good sense of humour or who share the same interests as you. Avoid people who whinge, whine and complain, as people who are negative will make you depressed, which will impair your ability to think. 19 December Bad eggs...Curates Egg
This week, A.Word.A.Day is doing not words but 2-word phrases of the pattern X's Y. Today's phrase was curate's egg, which is based on an 1895 cartoon from Punch magazine. A.W.A.D's email didn't include the cartoon, but Wikipedia's entry for "curate's egg" did, so I provide them both here:
18 November Greed!
I'm forever blowing bubbles Murray Rothbard addressed the strange greed-causes-the-business-cycle "theory" in several places, always with the same straightforward question: Why should we believe that greed waxes and wanes in rhythm with booms and busts? You can't take a constant human vice (assuming you can define greed precisely and consistently enough to call it a human vice) and use it to explain anything cyclical.
What's frustrating about so many of these (generally left-wing) accounts of the "ugly engine of capitalism" is that they are not entirely wrong — not even mostly wrong. In fact, they're mostly right, except for the all-important fact that a vague and emotional concept of "capitalism" (or even "the free market") is blamed for the ill effects of the very same politically privileged system that advocates of free-market capitalism so strongly oppose. 05 November Blind to the realities of supply and demandRobin, the supply and demand? 14th-century price fixing:
03 November Junior School Children Writing about the Sea. PricelessWalls have ears!!
1) This is a picture of an octopus. It has eight testicles. (Kelly age 6) 2) Oysters' balls are called pearls. (James age 6) 3) If you are surrounded by sea you are an island. If you don't have sea all around you, you are incontinent. (Wayne age 7) 4) Sharks are ugly and mean, and have big teeth, just like Emily Richardson. She's not my friend no more. (kylie age 6) 5) A dolphin breaths through an arsehole on the top of its head. (Billy age 8) 6) My uncle goes out in his boat with pots, and comes back with crabs. (Millie age 6) 7) When ships had sails, they used to use the trade winds to cross the ocean. Sometimes, when the wind didn't blow, the sailors would whistle to make the wind come. My brother said they would be better off eating beans. (William age 7) 8) I like mermaids. They are beautiful, and I like their shiny tails. How do mermaids get pregnant? (Helen age 6) 9) I'm not going to write about the sea. My baby brother is always screaming and being sick, my dad keeps shouting at my mum, and my big sister has just got pregnant, so I can't think what to write. (Amy age 6) 10) Some fish are dangerous. Jellyfish can sting. Electric eels can give you a shock. They have to live in caves under the sea where I think they have to plug themselves into chargers. (Christopher age 7) 11) When you go swimming in the sea, it is very cold, and it make my willy small. (Kevin age 6) 12) Divers have to be safe whey they go under the water. Two divers can't go down alone, so they have to go down on each other. (Becky age 8) 13) On holiday my mum went water skiing. She fell off when she was going very fast. She says she won't do it again because water shot up her fanny. (Julie age 7) 23 October Real or Unreal
The belief in Astrology for guidance in living ones life is nonsensical. The generalised statements can be attributed to many functions of everyday living, whether that is relationships with immediate family or a pet.
You are The ChariotTriumph, Victory, Overcoming Obstacles. The chariot is one of the most complex cards to define. On its most basic level, it implies war, a struggle, and an eventual, hard-won victory. Either over enemies, obstacles, nature, the beasts inside you, or to just get what you want. But there is a great deal more to it. The charioteer wears emblems of the sun, yet the sign behind this card is the moon. The chariot is all about motion, and yet it is often shown as stationary. It is a union of opposites, like the black and white steeds. They pull in different directions, but must be (and can be!) made to go together in one direction. Control is required over opposing emotions, wants, needs, people, circumstances; bring them together and give them a single direction, your direction. Confidence is also needed and, most especially, motivation. The card can, in fact, indicate new motivation or inspiration, which gets a stagnant situation moving again. What Tarot Card are You?
The original chariot was a two-wheeled conveyance usually drawn by two horses. In ancient Rome and other ancient Mediterranean countries a biga was a two-horse chariot, a triga utilized three horses and a quadriga was drawn by four horses abreast. The word "chariot" comes from Latin carrus, car. The chariot was used for ancient warfare during the Bronze and Iron Ages, and continued to be used for travel, processions and in games and races after it had been superseded militarily. The critical invention that allowed the construction of light, horse-drawn chariots for use in battle was the spoked wheel. Most horses at the time could not support the weight of a man in battle. As horses were gradually bred to be larger and stronger, chariotry (the part of a military force that fought from chariots) gave way to cavalry. The earliest spoke-wheeled chariots date to ca. 2000 BC and their usage peaked around 1300 BC (see Battle of Kadesh). Chariots ceased to have military importance in the 4th century BC, but Chariot races continued to be popular in Constantinople until the 6th century AD.
If chariorts are Carrus (Car) then I would rather be considered a Lamborghini!
18 October Regurgitating HistoryThe ill effects of regurgitation a lesson learnt?
History is nothing more than the behind of the present. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
The horrible truth about the War between the States is that it ended with many more individuals enslaved than when it began. Before the war, most Americans were free. They owned their own lives. But by the time it ended, everybody was the property of the state. Men were nothing but replaceable parts in the machinery of war. Women were nothing but factories to replace them. And the government could take your life -- or anything else it wanted -- any time it wanted, for any reason it cared to offer. L. Neil Smith, Empire of Lies
If you study the domestic policies of the Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Administrations, and compare them with the policies of Adolf Hitler and his mentor, Benito Mussolini, you will eventually come -- however reluctantly -- to the conclusion that World War II was not a conflict between fascism and something else, as advertised, but a conflict between competing brands of fascism. L. Neil Smith, Empire of Lies
I did learn to see through government lies -- "as through a glass darkly" --by taking the number of American B52 bombers the North Vietnamese claimed they had shot down every month, and the smaller number the American government admitted to, and averaging them. After the war, it turned out that my method was correct, within one or two percent. L. Neil Smith, Empire of Lies
What is history? History is a selective recreation of the events of the past, according to a historian's premises regarding what is important and his judgment concerning the nature of causality in human action. This selectivity is a most important aspect of history, and it is this alone which prevents history from becoming a random chronicling of events. And since this selectivity is necessary to history, the only remaining question is whether or not such judgments will be made explicitly or implicitly, with full knowledge of what one considers to be important and why, or without such awareness. Roy Childs, "Big Business and the Rise of American Statism"
A popular philosophical doctrine holds that the methodology of history is entirely different from the methodology of other sciences. Yet fundamentally the methodology of all sciences is the same -- logic. Roy Childs, "Big Business and the Rise of American Statism"
Under the Nuremburg standards, Lincoln would have been executed as a war criminal.
Zorroastrologism was founded by Zorro. This was a duelist religion. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote in hydraulics. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of huge triangular cubes. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
Solomom had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
The Boston Tea Party was held at Pearl Harbor. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
Christianity was just another mystery cult until Jesus was born. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
During the Dark Ages it was mostly dark. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
Spartacus led a slave rebellion in ancient Rome and then appeared in a movie about it later. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
Satan Husane invaided Kiwi and Sandy Arabia. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
Judyism had one big God named Yahoo. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
Plato invented reality. He was teacher to Harris Tottle, author of The Republicans. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
Under the constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him.... After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Dribbleglass.com: Revisionist History
Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what has worked with what sounded good. In area after area -- crime, education, housing, race relations -- the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them.
The tale of moneyThe Tale of Offa and the Arabic CoinI’m still in the eighth century. Struggling valiantly (and slowly) toward the ninth. Here’s my favorite story of the week. Once upon a time, a king named Offa ruled in the English kingdom of Mercia. Offa, who reigned c. 757-796, had a (relatively) huge empire, big enough so that Charlemagne treated him as an honored colleague. (Not as an equal, but then Charlemagne didn’t treat anyone as an equal. Their friendship endured until Offa suggested that his son and heir marry one of Charlemagne’s daughters, at which point Charlemagne was highly offended and broke off contact. But that’s another story). Here’s Offa’s empire.
And here’s Offa (he was rich and powerful enough to mint his own coins, some of which have survived with his portrait on them).
Late in Offa’s reign, one of his money-makers designed him a new coin. On one side, it says “Offa Rex.” And on the other, it says, “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.” How did this happen? Well, the Muslim empire at this point was ruled by the Abbasids, a family of caliphs which controlled roughly this much land.
A few decades before Offa’s coin, the caliph managed to make a semi-peace with his enemies to the north, the Khazars, who controlled the land just west of the Caspian Sea.
This meant that it suddenly became safer for Arab merchants to travel up north, through the Caspian Gates (that’s the pass just west of the Caspian Sea, where you can get through the mountains from the Middle East up into southeastern Europe–right around the city of Derbent, on the map above), up the Volga River. The merchants took with them, of course, their coins, which had “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet” written on them in Arabic.
One of these merchants, with one of these coins, got up far to the north–as far as the settlements of Scandinavian traders, who had crossed the Baltic sea and built little trading posts along the coast and southward along the rivers that reach down into Europe. (On the map below, those settlements lay mostly in the purple and dark orange areas.)
One of these traders took the Arab merchant’s coin. And then, some time later, he paid the coin to a British merchant, who took it home. Here it fell into the hands of Offa’s silversmith, who liked the pretty tracings on the back and copied them onto the reverse of the next coin he designed.
He had, of course, no idea what the pretty tracings meant. We know this because, while the words “Offa Rex” are right side up, the Arabic lettering is upside down. Unless you do world history, it never occurs to you that the king of Mercia and the caliph of the Abbasid even existed in the same universe. But their coins reveal that they most certainly did. 25 September Origins of Bluetooth?
04 September Ricky MartinRicky Martin: She Bangs
Talk to me
Tell me your name You blow me off like it's all the same You lit a fuse and now I'm ticking away Like a bomb Yeah, Baby Talk to me
Tell me your sign You're switching sides like a Gemini You're playing games and now you're hittin' my heart Like a drum Yeah, Baby Well if Lady Luck gets on my side
We're gonna rock this town alive I'll let her rough me up Till she knocks me out She walks like she talks, And she talks like she walks And she bangs, she bangs
Oh baby When she moves, she moves I go crazy 'Cause she looks like a flower but she stings like a bee Like every girl in history She bangs, she bangs I'm wasted by the way she moves
No one ever looked so fine She reminds me that a woman only got one thing on her mind Talk to me
Tell me your name I'm just a link in your daisy chain Your rap sounds like a diamond Map to the stars Yeah, Baby Talk to me
Tell me the news You wear me out like a pair of shoes We'll dance until the band goes home Then you're gone Yeah, Baby Well if it looks like love should be a crime
You'd better lock me up for life I'll do the time with a smile on my face Thinking of her in her leather and lace Well if Lady Luck gets on my side We're gonna rock this town alive I'll let her rough me up Till she knocks me out She walks like she talks, And she talks like she walks 03 September Titzling: Feminist apparel through history
A Titzling or not a Titzling? Restricting the liberty of the sisterhood! The bra was invented by an engineer of German extraction called Onto Titzling in 1912. He was living in a New York boarding house, and one of his neighbours, a voluptuous opera singer called Swanhilda Olafson, complained that she needed a garment to hoist her vast bosom aloft every evening — so Titzling obliged, using some cotton, elastic and metal struts. Unfortunately, he failed to patent the device and, in the early 1930s, a Frenchman named Philippe de Brassière began making a suspiciously similar object. Titzling took him to court, but the unscrupulous Frenchman won the day. And that's why the garment all the ladies are wearing is called a brassiere, not a titzling. Bette Midler sang about this court case in the film Beaches, so obviously it's true, isn't it? Don't be ridiculous. It's a total fabrication, based on a spoof 1971 history by Wallace Reyburn, and is just one of a thousand tales and myths that punctuate the history of the small double-dome of cloth that encases the female chest. The bra is a thing of wondrous variety. It has been called the Hemispheres of Paradise and, less flatteringly, the Over-the-Shoulder Boulder Holder. Its function has been, paradoxically, both modest concealment and brazen revelation. It has been praised as a revolutionary garment that freed women from constriction, and has been (allegedly) burnt in public as an emblem of oppression. It's available in a riot of forms, including lacy, push-up, sporty, plunge-line, strapless, pointy, Cross Your Heart, conical, and Wonder. It's a billion-pound industry in the UK, and a $15bn mega-industry in America. No other garment has so closely shadowed the history of the status of women. No other garment has had the power to reduce intelligent, rational men to drooling boys and awestruck slaves. Exactly a hundred years ago, in 1907, the word "brassiere" was used in Vogue for the first time. But its evolution goes back three millennia. Historians have found that, while Roman women sometimes wore a band of cloth over their breasts, to restrict their growth or conceal them, the Greeks favoured a less uptight approach. Some enterprising designer realised that such a belt worn under the breasts might accentuate them, to pleasing effect. (In the hierarchy of ideas that have made the world a better place, this is up there with light bulbs and indoor plumbing.) The brazen Minoans were streets ahead of the Greeks, however: women in Crete wore material that both supported and revealed their bare breasts, in emulation of the snake goddess – 3,000 years before the invention of glamour modelling. While the French Revolution freed women from the corset (it was outlawed because of its fatal association with the aristocracy), elsewhere its rule continued. The big change came in the early 20th century, as women played more sport, and the corset divided into the girdle and the "bust bodice" , like a really scary bikini. Early feminist organisations, such as the National Dress Reform Association in America, had warned against the health risks of corset-wearing and called for "emancipation garments". By 1900, several proto-bra experiments had been conducted. Henry Lesher of Brooklyn offered ladies a rigid metallic structure, like a dustbin, to hold their bits in place. Clara P Clark's "improved corset" came up with shoulder straps in 1874. Olivia P Flynt's "bust supporter" offered to hold each breast in a "fabric pocket" supported by wide straps. In 1885, Charles Moorhouse romanced lady customers with his "inflatable breast-enlarging garment", with its rubber straps and cups. And in 1889, Herminie Cadolle invented the "soutien-gorge" (the name meant "throat-support") as part of a two-piece undergarment, patented her idea and showed it off at the Great Exhibition. It was 1905 before she thought of selling the upper section separately. The word "brassiere" was once a military term meaning "arm protector" (le bras being French for arm), and, by extension, " breastplate". It was first used in the sense we understand it during the 1890s. Manufacturers used it in 1904, but it took a mention in the pages of Vogue in 1907 to make it a milestone in fashion history. It first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1911. In that year, Britain's new king, George V, visited France with his queen, Mary. Because of her small stature beside the king, she was known to hilarious Parisians as " La Soutien-George". Credit for the first brassiere usually goes to Mary Phelps Jacob, a 19-year-old girl-about-Manhattan who, in 1910, bought a sheer evening gown for a party. The whalebone corset that was supposed to define her figure actually poked out of the plunging fabric. What was a girl to do? She and her maid dug two silk hankies out of a drawer, sewed them on to a length of pink ribbon, added some string and tucked her breasts in place. Girlfriends asked if she would make a similar device for them. Then somebody paid her a dollar to do so, and she took the hint. The "backless brassiere" was patented on 3 November, 1914. Ms Phelps Jacob (who later married Harry Crosby, founder of the Black Sun Press, which published works by D H Lawrence, Joyce, Hemingway and Pound) didn't do well out of her invention. Disappointed by sales, she flogged the patent to the Warner Bros Corset Company for a measly $1,500. It was later valued at $15m. The First World War saw more and more women abandoning corsets, as they found themselves, for the first time, in uniform and factory garb. The bra began to take off – not that the fashions of the time gave it much to work with. The flat-chested "flapper" look required breasts to be flattened and bound rather than lifted and defined. The next bra revolution was the Maidenform breakthrough in 1922. In a New York shop called Enid Frocks, a seamstress, Ida Rosenthal, spotted that women with the same chest size didn't necessarily look right in the same bra, because the breasts were different shapes; and so cup size was born. In accentuating and lifting the bosom, rather than trying to flatten it, they bade farewell to the flapper, and paved the way for the future glamourpuss. In the next two decades, a combination of Hollywood starriness, ever-bolder advertising, and the lure of department stores saw a colossal boom in women's products; and the bra was, so to speak, at the forefront. Maidenform was joined by Gossard, Triumph, Spirella and Teilfit, manufacturers who fought tooth and nail to invent refinements: better fabrics, patterns, straps, cups, fibres, padded sections. As the technology became more abstruse, the garment's name was simplified, in the 1930s, to "bra" . The Second World War helped, with the Forces' insistence that low-rank military women should wear bras and girdles "for protection" – especially the ludicrously conical "Torpedo" or "Bullet" bras. Step, or rather wiggle, forward the Sweater Girl, whose tight jumper was meant to show off the artificial jut of her breasts, like twin artillery shells. The Fifties saw the pointy bra give way to a more shapely, maternal look (probably helped by the huge post-war baby boom), and the market rose exponentially, with ever-greater choices of bra, new styles, paddings, even functions: the zip-up nursing bra was born, and the 24-hour "Sweet Dreams" model. The Sixties saw the biggest upset in the history of the garment, when Germaine Greer declared, "Bras are a ludicrous invention", and her sister feminists insisted that they reduced women to sex objects. The key moment was the 1968 demonstration by 400 women against the Miss America beauty show at Atlantic City Convention Hall. Somebody put a "Freedom Trash Can" on the ground and encouraged protesters to throw into it girdles, nylons, bras, curlers, high-heeled shoes and other emblems of enslavement. When the can was full, someone suggested setting fire to it, but no one could obtain a permit, and the plan was, rather weedily, dropped. But the idea of "bra-burning feminists" remained a potent image in the public mind – on a level with students burning their draft cards in protest against the Vietnam War. In the late 1960s, the head of the Canadian Lady Corset company died and his son, Larry Nadler, a Harvard-educated MBA, conducted some intense market research. Women, he discovered, didn't hate their bras as symbols of oppression. Rather, they considered them a means to looking beautiful. Nadler targeted the bra market with something new: it would be seamless, sexy and flattering, and would appeal to teenage girls. His invention was called the "Dici (by Wonderbra)" – of the two names, the former was later ditched, and the latter went on to change the world. In underwear history, the Wonderbra was the Great Liberator. Bras would no longer lurk unseen behind a lady's blouse. They would no longer be " unmentionable", nor be a defence against prying male eyes. On the contrary, they'd be the main attraction. Rather than "lift and separate" (the Playtex tag line), the Wonderbra would yank the breasts together and shove them in your face. Rather than a purely functional garment, they would be seen as a means of attraction, marketed as a luxury item. In 1974, its TV commercials took the unprecedented step of showing a woman's torso wearing only a Wonderbra, with the tag line, "We care about the shape you're in". By 1980, sales in Canada alone hit $30m. In 1991, Gossard took on the brand under licence and hit a wave of popular uplift. British women in the early Nineties became fixated by plunging lines and spilling cleavages. Vogue carried articles on the return of the padded bra, Vivienne Westwood brought out a range of outrageous corsetry, and Jean Paul Gaultier began his cheeky experiments with lingerie worn as outerwear – a trend that reached its apogee with the conical breastplate worn by Madonna on her Blond Ambition tour. The Wonderbra, now owned by Sara Lee, the parent company behind Playtex, scored a bull's-eye with its 1994 poster campaign showing the model Eva Herzigova gazing at her pushed-together breasts, and the words "Hello Boys". In major conurbations across the UK, cars mounted the pavement or crashed into bollards as motorists tried – and failed – to drag their eyes away from Ms Herzigova's perky frontage. The image was later voted No 10 in a "Poster of the Century" contest. Rigby & Peller, corsetière to the Queen since 1960, opened its flagship store in London in 1994. It is prized by its well-heeled clients for its expert fitting service – it claims that 80 per cent of women who walk through its door are wearing the wrong size and fit of boulder-holder (and need constant refittings, every six months or so). The company has had a huge influence by insisting that a bra is far from a one-size-fits-all clothing item – that it's something unique to the individual, like a second skin. In the 2000s, the market has expanded (ahem) to bursting point. The arrival over here of Continental brands such as Lejaby and La Perla, and newer brands such as Under Cover and Elle Macpherson Intimates have established bras as a self-indulgently luxury purchase, while the Agent Provocateur and Myla houses have opened up a lucrative market in sexy products for women who like to remind themselves of the wanton seductress that lurks beneath their sensible business suits. The top-of-the-range modern bra is a semi-visible item, heralded by a pretty, pastel-coloured shoulder strap that hints, a little saucily, at the colour of its wearer's matching bra and pants down below. It's a long way from the days when underwear was about concealment, flattening and the furtive "structuring" of female breasts. While sales of functional Marks & Spencer cotton bras are still high – and the world bestseller remains the sturdy Triumph Doreen, as worn by millions of ladies over 50 – many women are happy to spend £100 on a pure-silk number as a caressing indulgence. It has to be silk, though – not cotton, or lace, or nylon or polyester. Strangely similar, in fact, to the twin silk handkerchiefs sewn together with some pink ribbon by Mary Phelps Jacob's enterprising maid, a whole century ago. **** Me and my bra Interviews by Julia Stuart Amy Alexandra (ex-Big Brother glamour model) I think bras indicate your sexuality and mood. You might be having a girly day, and then go on a date and wear a more sexy one in black or red. I'm size 32DD, and being a model I have a personal relationship with bras. They are a massive part of my work and help me create a different look with every shoot and enhance what I have. Laura Bailey Bras can be both liberating and mood-enhancing. Textile technology means they can now be totally invisible, or designed to be admired in its own right. M&S fit the best and I can find everything I need there for sport, work, and fun. I did get quite attached to my Elle Macpherson Intimates maternity bras in my all-too-short-lived voluptuous pregnant days. Tracey Emin I wear a bra because I would never not be able to: my bust is a 32FF. Even though I'm known for flaunting my cleavage I actually try to disguise my breasts to make them look smaller. I was totally flat-chested until I was 13. Once I was put on the pill at 14, they just grew totally out of control. My grandmother had a 46-inch chest and it's something that runs in the family. Joan Bakewell I never burnt my bra. That was a very minor activity, which became a cliché. I buy bras with great care. I like them to look attractive. When I was a teenager they were pink and shiny, and no one knew how to fit them. There's been a miracle of styling and development. I go to Rigby & Peller, where great trouble is taken to get your correct size. Clarissa Dickson Wright I don't wear a bra unless I'm dressing up. At my 50th birthday party I was boogieing away and suddenly felt this terrifying pain in my chest. I thought: "That's it, I'm having a heart attack." Then I thought: " Don't stop now, what a way to go!" The pain got more and more intense. I staggered off and discovered I'd broken my underwired bra. Mary Killen It's important to get the correct size. Not only do you get cramp in your neck if you're not being supported, you also get "banana bosom" when you lose elasticity. Girls don't realise it's terribly bad to run. If your bosom is any size, when you're walking along you are conscious of it moving around. If you've got it constrained, you're not. It's a bit of a nuisance bobbing around otherwise. **** An A to Z of bras By Simon Usborne Anna Kournikova In 2000, the toned tennis star had van drivers swerving all over the road when her scantily clad form appeared on billboards advertising Berlei's " shock absorber" range of sports bras. The slogan: "Only the ball should bounce."
Bra-less More than 90 per cent of women are thought to wear bras, but a dedicated minority prefer the freedom of an unbolstered bosom. Several studies have cast into doubt the belief that bras prevent sagging; almost all 250 participants in one French study, in which the women agreed not to wear a bra for a year, showed signs of improved firmness and elevation.
Cup size According to the 2001-02 government-sponsored National Sizing Survey, the average bust size for females in the UK is 38.5 inches (compared to 36 inches in 1951). Other surveys have put the average UK bra size at 36C.
Dudou The Chinese silk dudou ("stomach cover") was employed as a bust-flattening undergarment during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and has appeared more recently on high streets as a kind of oriental boob-tube.
Etymology Bra comes from the French brassière (child's vest), a derivation of the Old French word bracière, which was an arm protector in military uniforms and, later, a chest plate and a type of women's corset. The word "bra" appeared in Vogue in 1907 and in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1911.
Feminists The popular image of feminists burning brassieres is an urban myth. During a protest against the 1968 Miss America beauty pageant, a group of women filled a "freedom trash can" with bras, high heels and girdles, but they never set fire to it. The phrase "bra burning" was the invention of a New York Post reporter. G-cup About 70 per cent of women wear ill-fitting brassieres. Good fits are calculated thus: measure around the chest directly under the breasts and add four inches to the number if it is even and five inches if it is odd. This is the bra size. To determine cup size, subtract the bra size from the bust size (around the fullest part of the bosom). Differences of 0-3 inches equate to, respectively, cup sizes A to D, while 10 inches give you a G-cup.
Howard Hughes In breaks from designing aircraft, the Hollywood tycoon Hughes moonlighted as a lingerie designer. For his 1943 film The Outlaw, he created a steel underwire push-up bra for leading lady Jane Russell (above). The star reportedly failed to wear the garment because of a poor fit.
Injury In 2002, the British Journal of Plastic Surgery reported that a 27-year-old man required surgery after catching his finger in his girlfriend's bra strap. In response, a team at St George's Hospital, south London, led by Dr Andrew Fleming, said: "[We] advocate patient self-education (during the adolescent years) on the mechanism of external female mammary support, and postulate that it may be important in reducing the incidence of other such injuries."
Jean Paul Gaultier The enfant terrible of French fashion hit the headlines in 1990 when pop queen Madonna (right) thrust her bust into his iconic conical bra during her Blond Ambition tour. The black satin brassiere was snapped up by a Chilean textiles museum for five times its asking price at a Christie's auction in 2001.
Klum, Heidi In 2003, the 34-year-old German supermodel posed in the world's most expensive bra. Comprising more than 2,500 carats of diamonds and sapphires, the Victoria's Secret Fantasy bra, designed by the jewellers Mouawad, took more than 370 man-hours to make and was valued at $10m (about £5m).
Lesher, Henry The New Yorker Henry Lesher invented a bra-style garment in 1859. His patent for "combined breast pads and armpit shields" detailed how the inflatable rubber and cloth device, which never caught on, would " prevent the arm-pits of [ladies'] dresses from becoming saturated and stained by perspiration, give a symmetrical rotundity to their breasts and a more comfortable and graceful support to the skirts of their dresses than heretofore".
Men's brassieres The American company Enell is one of many online firms offering custom-fitted "male support vests" designed to "minimise bounce" for men with overdeveloped chests, or "moobs". In one survey of more than 5,000 men at misterpoll.com, a surprising 97 per cent of respondents admitted to a desire to wear a bra.
Northumbrian Water In June, engineers at Northumbrian Water retrieved a bra from a sewage pipe in a village near Darlington. Heavy rain, together with a build-up of grease behind the offending article (at least a 36C), had caused a pipe to burst and a road to collapse, costing the water company £15,000 in repairs. The owner's identity remains a mystery.
Outlaw, The Howard Hughes's seamless cantilevered bra designed for his leading lady in the 1943 western The Outlaw never appeared in the film, but its invention, as well as the regular appearance of Lana Turner's cone-shaped " projectiles" in films such as They Won't Forget and Ziegfeld Girl, heralded the heyday of the push-up "bullet bras".
Portuguese The Portuguese for bra is sutiã, while the Spanish say sugetador (from sujetar, to hold). The French prefer soutien-gorge (throat-support) and the Germans, Swedes, Danes and Dutch all use "BH" from, respectively, büstenhalter, bysthållare, brysteholdere and bustehouder (bust-holder). In Esperanto, the bra is called a mamzono (breast-belt).
The Queen Since 1960, the London corsetieres Rigby & Peller have had the honour of lifting and separating the royal bust. The Queen has never revealed the size of her bosom, but celebrity bra-size websites put it at an above-average 36B, which puts HRH in the same league as Carly Simon, Claire Danes and Doris Day.
Rosenthal, Ida The inventor of the uplifting Maidenform was a canny businesswoman. With her husband William and partner Enid, she became a management and marketing genius, managing the company's finances and sales and building the brand name with racy ads featuring photos of women in bras. The "I dreamed... in my Maidenform bra" campaign ran for 20 years.
Slang Considering the abundance of colloquial terms for breasts, alternatives for " bra" are surprisingly rare. Some cockney rhyming slang dictionaries list " Master McGrath", the name of a champion 19th-century Irish greyhound, while the online Urban Dictionary offers only "over-shoulder boulder-holder" and "upper-decker flopper-stopper".
Tit tape First spotted on celebrity breasts belonging to Geri Halliwell and Jennifer Lopez in 2000, tit tape quickly became a discreet alternative to bras. First employed by Donatella Versace, the double-sided adhesive has become a must-have accessory for those seeking to prevent Janet Jackson-style wardrobe malfunctions.
Ultimo The cleavage that threatened to upstage Julia Roberts in the 2000 film Erin Brockovich (below) owed much to the supporting role played by a gel-filled push-up bra. Launched in 1999, the Ultimo bra made its creator Michelle Mone a multimillionaire and has also reportedly graced the bust of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.
Vogel, Thomas The Guinness world record for the most bras unhooked in one minute using one hand is 56, a feat achieved by the German Thomas Vogel in Cologne on 9 September 2006. A YouTube video featuring a bearded and bespectacled Vogel wearing a white coat offers a step-by-step guide for speedy unfastening.
Wonderbra In an internet poll hosted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Wonderbra (advertisement above) ranked fifth in the 50 greatest Canadian inventions, losing out to insulin and the light bulb but beating the pacemaker and the electron microscope.
XXXL The largest off-the-shelf brassiere (sold only in America) is thought to be a 54LL, but the Japanese branch of lingerie firm Triumph International holds the Guinness world record for the largest bra ever produced, with an underbust measurement of 24 metres (78ft 8in) and a bust measurement of 28 metres (91ft 10in).
Year According to official statistics, every year the UK imports more than 100 million bras. A 2006 survey by the market analysts Mintel showed that we spend £1.2bn on bras and pants every year. Out front on the high street is Marks & Spencer, which claimed a 38 per cent share of the underwear trade in 2005.
Zwart, Piet In 2005, the designer Wendy Rameckers unveiled a wall of breasts as part of her design for a lingerie shop in Rotterdam. Rather than comparing wives' or girlfriends' busts to those of embarrassed staff, clueless men would ponder different-sized fake silicon breasts. Rameckers said: "Men know all about their car, but never seem to know their wife's bra size."
29 August ME ME ME ME and More ME!!Life and times of an 11 year old child While rummaging through several items of paper, I found this horrendously heinous photograph! Yes, I admit this is me aged 11, wearing glasses, sporting the most outrageous designer haircut. Those wonderfully relaxed days are behind me, I no longer wear glasses or contact lenses. Thank heaven, my hairdresser doesn’t wish to style my hair in the same way..
Scary!!
The tale of the fair and the lillyFairy Verses Lilly
Absinthe is highly aromatic and yellowish-green in color. When mixed with water, the liquor changes to cloudy white. The drink is often served with ice and water and used as a flavoring in mixed drinks. The classic absinthe drink is served in a special glass, where water is poured over a sugar cube on a slotted spoon. The sweetened water then drips into a glass containing absinthe. The liquor enjoyed popularity in the 1800s. Absinthe, known as the "Green Fairy", was muse to artists and madmen alike and was sipped by many famous people. It is said that Vincent Van Gogh cut off his ear while infused with absinthe. Oscar Wilde wrote of absinthe that "After the first glass, you see things as they are. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world." The artist Henri de Toulouse Lautrec apparently drank it to the point that he was placed in an asylum. Several sensational murders were blamed on absinthe drinkers while under the spell of the Green Fairy. By the end of the century, absinthe had gained a poor reputation due to its hallucinogenic properties. Absinthe was eventually prohibited in the early 20th century in most countries, including the US in 1912, due to its hallucinogenic effects. Canada never officially banned absinthe, however, it could not be purchased in the country until recently. Versinthe, now available in Canada, has 1.5 parts thujone per million. The US, reversing its earlier ban, has a version of the drink which has 3.5 parts thujone per million. These versions are much weaker than the absinthe available at the end of the 19th century, which had about 2,000 parts thujone per million.
The Blue Lily (Nymphaea nouchali var. caerulea) has been known since ancient times by the following synonyms: Blue Lotus, Egyptian Lotus, Sacred Blue Lily of the Nile, Sacred Narcotic Lily of the Nile, Blue Water Lily, Egyptian Lotus, Lady of the Nile, Ninfa, Ouetzalaxochiacatl, Blue Water Lily, Frog's Pulpit, Blou Plomb, iZubu (Z) and Blue Lotus in Egypt and Sacred Blue Lily of the Nile. The Blue Lily is often confused with Nelumbo nucifera (Sacred Lotus). Both species are commonly referred to as "Blue Lotus."
26 August EclipsesEclipses
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The liquor absinthe is believed to have been created in 1792 by Pierre Ordinaire, a French doctor. Henry-Louis Pernod of Pontarlier in France first commercially produced absinthe in 1797. The name absinthe is derived from the Latin absinthium and from the Greek apsinthion, both words meaning wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), which is the drink's chief ingredient. Also made with angelica root, aniseed, fennel, hyssop, licorice and star aniseed, the liquor has a high alcohol content and a harsh taste. Thujone, which is present in wormwood, is the chemical that is responsible for the hallucinogenic effects of the liquor.
The Blue Lily flower finds its place in history as far back as the time of the Ancient Egyptians. In Egypt, the Blue Lily flower was considered to be a magical, sacred flower and as such, appears as a common motif in numerous ancient Egyptian paintings. Many Blue Lily paintings suggest that the flower was used in shamanic rituals as a narcotic, often by priests, priestesses and Monarchs to reach ecstatic, meditative states of consciousness. When the Pharaoh Tutankhamen's tomb was opened in 1922, his body was covered with Blue Lily flowers. Until not too long ago it was believed that the flower's importance was symbolic. It is now known that the Lotus was held sacred because of its alluring fragrance and mystical intoxicating properties, which are said to induce a blissful state of dreamy euphoria. The flower was worshipped as a visionary plant and was a symbol for the origin of life. The Blue Lily is indigenous to Egypt, Tanzanita & Kenya, where it thrives along rivers and lakes in wet soil. 
The Blue Lily was traditionally used to relieve pain, increase memory, increase circulation, promote sexual desire, and create feelings of well-being, euphoria and ecstasy, without the use of narcotics. The Lotus is believed to contain aporphine and nuciferine, natural alkaloids. It finds use as a Hypnotic, sedative, euphoric and anti-spasmodic. By itself, Lotus produces an opiate-like intoxication. Traditionally, Nymphaea caerulea was drunk after being soaked in warm water or wine, while the dried flowers were also smoked. About 5 grams of dried petals steeped in small amount of alcohol for a few hours to a week is said to have a synergistic effect with the Lotus, producing a sedated MDMA-like euphoria. The overall effect of this combination is a narcotic empathogenic experience. According to recent studies, Blue Lily was found to be loaded with health-giving phytosterols and bioflavonoids. It turned out to be one of the greatest daily health tonics ever found. 
Eclipses, which occur whenever the moon is directly aligned with the sun and the earth, happen with some frequency. Lunar eclipses (when the moon passes through the shadow of the earth) happen several times a year, and solar eclipses (when the moon blocks the light of the sun) happen with some regularity. |
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