Naked Cyclists

I saw naked cyclists at Covent Garden today and I'm completely unharmed.

The ride was to publicise cycling as a means of transport but it felt much more like a statement about human nakedness. I admire the cyclists stripping off even though it was so cold for June.

Many people feel uncomfortable about nudity - I know I wouldn't want to get my kit off in public - but I'm not sure what damage it's supposed to do. I wonder what makes it such a strong taboo.

Omnivorous trees

There are a lot more amazing pictures of trees eating objects over at Funzug.com. Imagine if trees moved fast enough to eat people...

I'm thinking SF again. (I've been informed that the term "Sci Fi" is so last century. Well how was I to know? I'm so last century myself!)

"Death and Life"

– Charles Carroll Bombaugh, Gleanings for the Curious from the Harvest-Fields of Literature, 1890

While I was Stumbling around online, I found this unusual poem on a blog called Futility Closet. There are a lot of interesting oddities on the blog, not all to do with words.

I rather like this poem. I think it has something to do with the sense I had of solving a puzzle the first time I read it.

Extreme editing

I had an idea for extreme editing where you could remove all the definite and indefinite articles from a piece, together with all the pronouns. Perhaps you could also remove adverbs, I don't know. It would be a quick and easy way to reduce, say, 500 words down to 300. I tried it and it didn't work.

Later on, I came across the draft post where I had outlined the idea and all I saw was the title. This prompted a much more interesting idea. I'm sure you've heard of extreme ironing. Well, how about making editing more exciting by using a similar formula? You could have editing underwater, up Mount Everest and at the North Pole.

If you like the idea, then don't let me hold you back. I don't even need the credit for it. I'll just sit back and watch.

Bookmarks

I love getting bookmarks for presents but I always warn people to give me disposable bookmarks as they tend to get lost. I also use anything to hand as a bookmark because I don't like to dogear my books. So I use train tickets, receipts and advertising flyers as bookmarks, until they disappear.

I'm not sure what happens to them but perhaps they they get left in the books I was reading. I've just found a wonderful article Found in Books from Abebooks, detailing some of the more unusual objects they have found being used as bookmarks. These included dollar bills, a hand-painted handkerchief and a list of scheduled operations at a hospital. The article is well worth a look.

I suppose the moral is: don't use anything as a bookmark that you wouldn't want other people to see.

How did you find me?

I have the feeling that some people who land on this blog might be disappointed. If you had typed the following search terms into Google, would you expect to land here?

desert island cabin record playing search

bad spelling example

put your cup down

or the very odd

squirt with a machina

But saddest of all must be the person who was searching simply for

sex

I don't think they found any in here.

In case anyone is interested, I'm using statcounter to see how many visitors I get and it includes information on what links people clicked to find me. It seems that a lot of you found this blog through other blogs but a few people found their way here via a search engine.

snollǝʌɹɐɯ ƃuıddılɟ

˙"ɹǝʇuǝ puɐ puǝıɹɟ ʞɐǝds" :ʎɹʇ oʇ pǝǝu ı ǝqʎɐɯ os 'dn ʎɐʍ sıɥʇ ɥsıʌlǝ ǝɹoɯ sʞool ʇı ˙ƃɹnqɯɹʎʍ ǝɥʇ uı ƃuılıǝɔ ǝɥʇ ɯoɹɟ ƃuıƃuɐɥ puıʍǝɔuıɹ ǝʞıl 'sʇɥƃnoɥʇ uʍop ǝpısdn ǝʇıɹʍ oʇ pǝǝu ı ǝqʎɐɯ ˙uʍop ǝpısdn ƃuıʇıɹʍ ʎɯ ǝǝs oʇ ǝʞɐɯ llıʍ ʇı ǝɔuǝɹǝɟɟıp ʇɐɥʍ ɹǝpuoʍ ı

I wonder what difference it will make to see my writing upside down. Maybe I need to write upside down thoughts, like Rincewind hanging from the ceiling in the Wyrmburg. It looks more Elvish this way up, so maybe I need to try: "Speak Friend and Enter".

You can flip your own text here: http://www.revfad.com/flip.html

Thanks to Pewari for finding this.