A tiger and an eagle

We are familiar, to a degree, with the Koran and the Bible, but less so with The Analects. It's a collection of sayings attributed to Confucius. Not a sacred text, since Confucianism is not a religion, but as close as we can get to the principles of that philosophy.

Qufu cave is where Confucius is said to have been born. lonelyplanet.com tells us he was "frighteningly ugly" and "abandoned and cared for by a tiger and an eagle". The cave is on Mount Ni in Shandong province, China.

According to the Book Of Han, a history of the Former Han dynasty - the second imperial dynasty of China - The Analects arose from conversations with Confucius by various of his disciples. I thought I'd mention a few of the sayings, starting with an enigmatic one.

“He Who Knows And Knows That He Knows Is A Wise Man - Follow Him; He Who Knows Not And Knows Not That He Knows Not Is A Fool - Shun Him”

"He who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions."

“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”

“When you see a good person, think of becoming like her/him. When you see someone not so good, reflect on your own weak points.”

“Attack the evil that is within yourself, rather than attacking the evil that is in others.”

“What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.”

“The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat.”

I'm not sure how useful these are for your next pub quiz.

Confucianism is characterised by a focus on innate human goodness and the importance of interpersonal human relationships. Those relationships, however, are structured as "a strict hierarchy, with each relation acknowledging and exercising their dominance or submission. There are five key relations under which all social interaction falls: the ruler to the subject, the parent to the child, the husband to the wife, the older brother to the younger brother, and the friend to the friend. Even within friendship, a hierarchy must exist to ensure continuous harmony. Dominant parties should treat the submissive parties with kindness and gentleness, and submissive parties should treat the dominant with reverence and respect. For example, children should only speak when spoken to." [McKenzie Perkins, learnreligions.com]

In my research I discovered the existence of Confucius Institutes, which exist to foster the study of Chinese language and culture. In our post-modern, Sinophobic world, many see this as propaganda. Maybe there are some who think the same of the British Council. The Danes, Hungarians and Latvians, among many others, have cultural institutes with branches in different countries. Western nations perceive the Confucius Institutes, though, as representing malign influencers of a malign, authoritarian government. According to the National Association of Scholars (NAS) of the USA, a conservative group that has advocated the closure of CIs, only around 30 will remain in the United States by the end of 2021, down from 110 in 44 states in 2017.

There are something like 500 Confucius Institutes around the world. The UK has 29. Liexu Cai, of the University of Glasgow School of Education, wrote an article "A comparative study of the Confucius Institute in the United Kingdom and the British Council in China". In it she notes that "the activities of the British Council in China also became popular as one of the central paradigms for educational communication between China and the United Kingdom". You can see an abstract at researchgate.net and even request the whole article if you wish.

I'm not in any position to make judgements on this; I merely offer their existence as something readers may care to examine for themselves.

Charlie Watts or Abba?

More Asda Radio trivia. Calmly and quietly eating my breakfast today, reading the paper, minding my own business, I was assaulted by the Rolling Stones shouting at me. Maybe the compiler of today's playlist was celebrating the life of Charlie Watts, the Stones' drummer who died yesterday at the age of 80. Is it disrespectful to question that he died 'peacefully'? That seems very un-Stones. Respect intended.

Later I was cheered up by Abba. I tapped my feet and cheered up.

None of this stopped me trawling some book ideas from various articles and comment pieces in today's Times. I share with Son #2 a love of books and, to an extent, the same kinds of books. We often jointly purchase books that we can share in hard copy, which is cheaper than each of us buying a Kindle edition. It's probably not very good for climate change but excellent for our minds. Today I found these, which may be purchased in the near future:

Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World by Ashraf Ghani [this is the Afghan President who fled the country last week but I'm not holding that against him; he could be someone who has an informed view of these issues]

Red Knight: The Unauthorised Biography of Sir Keir Starmer by Michael Ashcroft [Conservative party donor and ex Deputy Chairman, tax exile who previously invested in Watford Football Club, saving them from going into administration; I'm not holding any of that against him because he researches and writes well]

Friday is the New Saturday: How a Four-day Working Week Will Save the Economy by Pedro Gomes [never heard of him but I'm not holding that against him]

Sharing options available for any who wish to join Dan and me!

Anyway, today is a big day for three friends. All of us active or retired croquet players

who used to meet once a month for a pub lunch. Our aim was to visit a different pub each month, particularly those none of us had previously frequented. Not always possible but we did it for 108 months from June 2009. Tony is 90, new hip, still occasional croquet player; Ian I think 75, heart implant of some kind, possibly retired player (I'll ask him today); I am Nigel, 77, sore knees, definitely retired player. We haven't met for almost exactly a year for obvious reasons but today will patronise the Britannia Inn in St Austell, which has lots of outdoor tables and decent food and drink.

Chevrons

Regular motorway drivers will be familiar with the grammatically ungainly "Keep apart 2 chevrons" notice seen occasionally in conjunction with some arrows painted on the carriageway.

A chevron is a shallow V-shaped (arrowhead) symbol, seen in heraldry and in military rank insignia, often one chevron for the lowest NCO (non commissioned officer), two for say a corporal and three for a sergeant. The chevron can be point up

(US army sergeant)

or down

(RAF Corporal).

The motorway usage is based on the Highway Code advice "allow at least a two-second gap between you and the vehicle in front on roads carrying faster-moving traffic". At 70 mph, the recommended overall stopping distance is 96 metres; the chevrons are painted 40 metres apart and you need to see two chevrons. One of the obvious problems with this is that traffic speed probably varies in different motorway lanes. It might be 60mph in the inside lane and can easily be an illegal 75mph in the outside lane. Additionally, and perhaps more crucially, road/weather conditions are likely to have major influences on safe stopping distances. If it's snowing, the stopping distances are obviously lower; but you wouldn't be able to see the chevrons through the snow, so maybe that doesn't matter. Does this make the chevrons unreliable and even potentially dangerous?

According to trafficsignsandmeanings.co.uk:

Research carried out by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) has shown that sections of motorway that have chevrons have shown significant reductions in the number of accidents caused by "close following." The benefits have also been shown to continue for a further 18km beyond a chevron marked stretch.

TRL claims from its research that when chevrons are used on a section of motorway there is a reduction in accidents on the same stretch of road by 56 per cent compared to the same stretch of road before the chevrons were installed.

If this is the case, why not have them on every inch of every motorway? The whole chevron thing is dealt with in section 11.6 Vehicle separation markings of the UK Governments's Traffic Signs Manual chapter 5 of 2018. It tells us "The distance between successive series of chevrons should generally be between 40 km and 55 km." But if you take the above TRL research, shouldn't that be 18km? Unless there has been a later update, it seems that the chevrons are still used on motorways, although in circumstances not stated.

I'd have thought that, if they work, reducing accidents and potentially saving lives, you might just bung them everywhere, at least on motorways. You'd imagine that it's not beyond designers of modern technology to invent a lorry which drives along a motorway lane, painting chevrons every 40 metres. The above Manual says "Road markings are applied using thermoplastic, cold plastic, preformed material or paint." If were up to me, I'd just plonk a 3D printer on the back of a lorry and off we go. You could cover the whole motorway network in a couple of months. Simples.

Ladybird travels 365 miles?

I did one of my occasional walks to Charlestown Harbour today. Regular readers of this blog will know that it is one of the most picturesque places within walking distance of my house in St. Austell, Cornwall. I always confess to driving a little of the way because the walk back to my house is up a steep hill and ... well, I'm 77 years old with sore knees, so I don't feel the need to apologise for that.

The roundabout walk which I undertake involves an early sit down for a few minutes, a walk around the newly renovated inner harbour pathway, past a few tempting snack shacks and bars, back up to a coffee shop where I purchase an iced skinny caramel latte, down to the outer harbour wall for another sit down, watching the tide coming in and visitor families parading noisily, then a walk halfway back to another brief sit, during which I watched a ladybird - more of that later - and finally back to my car where, of course, the windscreen sun shade has fallen down and the vehicle is baking hot (I forgot to mention that it turned out to be a hot day and I was unprepared and thus wearing heavy jeans and shoes rather than shorts and sandals). What with all the sit downs, the circular route of about one mile stretches out to an hour and half. Fine, relaxing and not terribly energetic.

I don't believe that this degree of casual strolling will help me to lose weight; mouthsofmums.com.au tells me I would need to walk 10,000 steps a day to "easily lose between 500g to 1kg a week". They tell me that the average person "walks between 900 and 3,000 steps per day", which frankly seems a wide definition of average - I'm not one of those nerdy types with fitbits and smart watches, whatever they are, so I have no idea how many steps I've walked today, although I imagine it's nearer the low end - so I might have to be ten times average for two weeks to lose a measly kilo. I could probably do that by fasting for a day. There might be a small argument that a bit of a walk might make a marginal increase in my heart health, which is obviously not a bad thing but the occasional walk thing is, for me, primarily for mental health and wellbeing. Getting out of the house, saying "hi there, dude" to strangers, seeing families with young kids having fun, eyeing up the pub gardens, giving in to a culinary temptation or two, window shopping, watching boats, getting away from the computer, TV and gardening; it's relaxing and life-affirming.

It occurred to me that, if I walked one mile every day I would traverse 365 miles a year, which is roughly the distance from St. Austell to Blackpool. Or Leeds. Or, if you were willing to swim a little of the way, Calais. I've been to all those places and I'm not sufficiently attracted to any of them to attempt the walk this year.

Anyway, back to my ladybird.

This little thing was scuttling along at a rate which, given its size, I would guess was the equivalent of a human's brisk walk, even verging on a trot. Did it have somewhere to go or was it, like me, strolling idly about? And why walk when you've got wings? I genuinely don't understand that, although pigeons have wings and they do a lot of hopping about - although not purposeful scuttling à la ladybird. I found a lot of waffle about the origins of their name but, surprisingly, none referencing the gender-specificity of it. Also no references to gentlemanbirds so the poor males have to share the feminine naming. 

As for their wings, journals.plos.org told me that a study found that "most ladybirds were found between ∼150 and 500 m [high], and had a mean displacement [speed] of 30 km/h. Average flight time was estimated, using tethered flight experiments, to be 36.5 minutes, but flights of up to two hours were observed. Ladybirds are therefore potentially able to travel 18 km in a 'typical' high-altitude flight, but up to 120 km if flying at higher altitudes". Wow. If I'd known that I'd have looked upon my new coccinellid friend with newfound admiration. Although still baffled at scuttling rather than winging.

That's another positive thing about casual, purposeless perambulation: you never know what you might learn. Maybe I should get a smart watch.

953,000

UK job vacancies in the three months to July 2021: 953,000

Number of 'illegal migrants' crossing the Channel from 1 Jan to 2 Jun 2021: 3,500

Number of Afghans working as translators for private contractors and bodies such as the British Council on behalf of the UK and not covered by the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy: not known but very small ('dozens' according to the Guardian).

Seems like someone could fit these numbers together, yes?

Somerset villages

Driving from Cornwall to Kent recently, I noted a couple of interesting place names. Both are Somerset villages.

Queen Camel is a strange name. ancestry.co,uk gives us this which, IMO, verges on gibberish:

Camel Name Meaning

English and French: from the word denoting the animal, Norman French came(i)l, Latin camelus, classical Greek kamelos. The surname may have arisen from a nickname denoting a clumsy or ill-tempered person. It may also be a habitational name for someone who lived at a house with a sign depicting a camel. English: from an assimilated pronunciation of Campbell. English: possibly a habitational name from Queen Camel and West Camel in Somerset, Camel(le) in Domesday Book (1086), possibly a Celtic name from canto- ‘border’, ‘district’ and mel ‘bare hill’. Probably an Americanized spelling of Kamel.

King Henry III's wife Eleanor of Provence apparently owned land in the area in the 13th century and perhaps she's the Queen in the name. If so, why not Queen's Camel? Or Camel Queen?

John Leland, a renowned 16th century English historian, apparently believed that the village was the site of King Arthur's final battle. Wasn't Arthur a legend? Could this be the origin of fake news? However, it appears that the village is in the electoral ward of Camelot. Who knew? I passed quickly by, in case I met any ill-tempered people. Or camels.

Compton Paucefoot is even more odd. The only thing I found about Pauncefoot was Wikipedia telling us of "a Norman knight called Pauncefote ('Fat-bellied')" but there's nothing I could discover to corroborate that. There is also a Bentley Pauncefoot in Worcestershire so maybe quite a few fat-bellied knights roamed the English countryside in medieval times. A Compton is thought to refer to a farmstead in a narrow valley and it seems there are lots of those in this part of the world: Compton Martin, Compton Dundon, Compton Dando and Compton Bishop are all in Somerset.

I grew up reading about and following the exploits of the great Middlesex and England cricketer Denis Compton. Anyone as old as me will remember his exuberant, dashing and fleet-footed batting. He was the Mikhail Baryshnikov of cricket. He scored 5,807 runs (18 centuries) in 78 Test matches for England at an average of 50.1. In all first class matches he scored 38,942 runs (123 centuries) at an average of 51.0. Anyone with a knowledge of cricket will know that these are outstanding figures. He was also a very serviceable left arm spinner, available as an option when the regular bowlers were struggling to take wickets. As was common in the 1930s and 1940s, many full-time cricketers played cricket in the summer and football in the winter. Compton did so and won a League title and FA Cup winners medal with Arsenal. Argentina has a reasonable cricket team so maybe you'll see Lionel Messi turning out for them in between belting in goals for his new club.

Compton was a Player. That seems an odd thing to say but, until 1962, there were two categories of cricketer in England. The Players were the professionals and their names were shown on the scorecards with their initials following their surname, e.g  Compton D.C.S. The Gentlemen were amateurs and their initials preceded their surname, as in M.J.K. Smith (himself a double international for England at cricket and rugby union).

Denis had a brother, Leslie, who also played for Middlesex (although not for England) at cricket and Arsenal at football - with two caps for England. As I recall, he was what is known these days as a "no nonsense" centre half. Meaning basically "you might get the ball past me; you might get yourself past me, but certainly not both".

Those were the days.

Speaking of strange place names, any guesses at the origins of Cuckoo-Down-Lane, a footpath in Whitstable in Kent? I walked along it and saw no cuckoos, down or otherwise.