Riddled

As he rolls another number and he counts

2012-02-16T03:07:00.000-08:00

People are complaining that Finance Minister Bill English has no idea how much money will accrue from privatising gubblement assets. Back during the election a figure may well have been promised for the balancing of budgets and the proving of fiscal responsibility... but now “It’s not our best guess, it’s just a guess. It’s just some numbers, and that might mean they look roughly right for forecasting purposes.”

So what is their best guess?HA HA such figures are reserved for subscribers to the Premium Service. You cannot expect English to give them away.

The important thing is that the numbers “look roughly right for forecasting purposes.”

Fill up the kindness cups

2012-02-15T01:56:00.000-08:00

Isn't it always the same? All it takes is a rumour to circulate that the Riddled Amateur Film Society is thinking of remaking Kubrick's Clockwork Orange, and suddenly all the local bars are being redecorated along a Korova Milkbar theme, the publicans hoping that we will use them as locations.

Novelty serving taps are all very well but for some reason I have gone right off moloko with drencrom today.

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On other matters, to commenter wiley, a belated Happy Birthday / typical Antipodean Valentine.

Eggsystential threat.

2012-02-13T22:41:00.000-08:00

What did I say? I said, "I'm going up North to see my aunty and I won't be around for a bit". I may not have actually said "Do not let the pixies get at the Green Ginger and Vinegar ointment" but surely that could be implied from my parting bon mot "Don't let the pixies get at the Green Ginger and Vinegar ointment'. Maybe I am wrong to trust tigris and Smut when I have to go and see Aunt Griselda. A lady whom life has been unkind to what with being turned into a newt, and only getting 1/2 better. She still cannot be beaten in the Across the Pool race for the Over- 60's but this is no real compensation for the eating flies etc.

But while I was gone the Green Ginger and Vinegar ointment was broached and eaten and threats and bellicose shouting occurred and the long and very short of it is the Pixie-Bantam wars of 2012.

Look at the ruined eggs and trampled lettuces already from this conflict. Lord knows what the writing ducks are going to report in the Mudville Times.

Hair of the dog that turned; Hair of the dog

2012-02-13T20:20:00.000-08:00

We know all about the Morgellons:

Imagine having the feeling that tiny bugs are crawling on your body, that you have oozing sores and mysterious fibers sprouting from your skin. [...] Many of these people were in California...

A serial apostrophe abuser has the answer:

The reason the mainstream medical establishment is presenting Morgellon's as a mental illness is because the truth is it is MANMADE self-assembling, self-replicating nanotech that is literally genetically modifying the entire human species. See the work of Clifford Carnicom, for starters.

The Government lied to me! They told me the injections contained midichlorians!

The nano particles responsible for Morgellon's are so pervasive in the environment that it would be impossible not to have this in your system. This is the big coverup and this is why they are trying to make us look crazy.
You people who are not sick and are not seeing fibers are only "well" because your bodies are not rejecting this material, which has been found to be made up of cellulose, polyethylene and silicone among other things.

All is clear now. Morgellons sufferers are the wave of the future, simultaneously mineshaft canaries and Indigo Children, though that is not a colour combination I personally advocate. The silent genes have activated in their genomes in a last-ditch defense against a toxic world, and they are extruding the nano-pollutants through their skin as fibres.

Let's see if we can hasten the genetic activation with the help of the Riddled Evolvamat:
Now my body has purged itself of the chemicals with which the New World Order permeates our systems to keep us obedient. I feel much saner now I am free from the nanotech mind-fog! It all makes sense

-- the chemtrails...

... linked to the HAARP pulses

A sheeple, waking up

...and the ELF, and the aerosols... CONNECT THE DOTS, WAKE UP SHEEPLE.

Not to forget the water fluoridation, invented by the Nazis to keep prisoners sedated and tractable in their concentration camps ON THE MOON. Evangeline van Holsterin would give us beans if that were to be forgotten. It is useful to remember that Riddled Glasscutter Ale is 99% sodium-fluoride-free.

The only remaining mystery is where the Side-Lobe Orbs fit into the picture.

Video Still of Orb

Santa Fe NM Mar 10 2004
SE Sky, Altitude Approx. 30 deg., Approx. 1830
Zoom Approx 50x

It is not known whether or not there is an association between the existence of this object and the concurrent conduct of heavy aerosol operations in the same general area and at the same general time. The appearance of the object and the subsequent video record of this object are simply made available to the public for consideration in light of previous reports that have been made.

Ahemmorage for Mr. Thundra

2012-02-12T12:07:00.000-08:00

The Black Orb appeared on the back lawn at Riddled Manor overnight. Radio spectrum analyses has revealed multiple You Tubers videos playing at the same time and movement sensors tuned to left-foot activity.
We, here at Riddled, are strong believers in the rules of hospitality and giving people all the bean and sparrow soup they can take but we do appreciate some warning of friends of friends just dropping in.

NINJA SKWIRL

2012-02-12T00:09:00.000-08:00

We tried to warn you about the danger of militarised cyber-squirrels, but did anyone listen? Did they bog-roll.
A hazel nut can be a deadly weapon when hurled with prosthetic-limb strength and servo-mechanism precision.

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I hope there are no furries out there who happen to find this picture a turn-on. We will be using the Riddled Dream Machine to monitor our readers' sleep. You dirty dirty people only have yourselves to blame. The Owl of Miniver flies at dusk.

1. Owl of Miniver.

2. Not the Owl of Miniver (just another owl-costumed dream-policing vigilante).

What's that in the sky now ? Flying Teapots that can fly now

2012-02-11T01:07:00.000-08:00

Traditionalists and Bilal fans will insist that Chessboxing is the only biathlon event sufficiently challenging and sufficiently familiar to be an Olympic sport. However, opinions differ:

Substance McGravitas said...

Potential biathlon pairings:
Camel-racing/tiddlywinks
Freestyle swim/pillow fight
Rowing/shotput
Ice dancing/hot-dog eating
Chessboxing

tigris said...

I nominate Substance to be the guy who picks which sports will be included in the Olympics.

Here at Riddled we are saddened by the lack of love for Free-form hot-air ballooning + Pictionary:

Of course the nations to beat at Free-form hot-air ballooning + Pictionary are the Belgians.

Note that the decision was not unanimous, with a minority judgement in favour of Nude Sheep-shearing + Wetsuit Morris Dancing.

UPDATED with bonus Pictionary hints:
(no Janusnodes were injured in the construction of this list)

103. The absence of ants is represented by a hieroglyph of origanum
104. A man at war with another is represented by a scorpion and an crocodile
110. A man dead from sunstroke is represented by a blind beetle
115. A man who has been cured by an oracle is represented by a pigeon holding a laurel leaf
117. A man without bile receiving it from another is represented by a pigeon with its hind parts erect
122. A woman giving suck and nursing her children well is represented by a bat with teeth and breasts
125. A king living in retirement and giving no pity to those at fault is represented by an eagle
130. A man reviled by denunciation and grown sick from it is represented by a basilisk
134. A man prevented from committing suicide is represented by a beaver
135. A man whose heir is a son whom he hates is represented by a monkey with a little monkey behind him
141. A man confronting fearlessly misfortunes which have come upon him is represented by the skin of a hyena
142. A man assailed by his enemies is represented by a wolf without the tip of his tail
144. A man whose anger is chastened by fire is represented by lions and torches
145. A man in fever cured by himself is represented by a lion devouring a monkey
148. A man who kills sheep and goats is represented by animals grazing
153. A strong man sensitive to what is expedient is represented by an elephant
157. A man who has prepared his own tomb is represented by an elephant burying his tusks
161. Foreknowledge of an abundant vintage is represented by an owl
163. A man guarding himself against the plots of his enemies is represented by a crane on watch
168. A man getting rid of his children because of poverty is represented by a pregnant hawk
169. A man who hesitates to move his feet is represented by a camel
170. A shameless man of keen sight is represented by a frog

I never realised how precise and standardised the game becomes at championship levels.

The Elephant hot-air balloon will look less wrinkly when it's finished inflating.

May I have the "surprised" trousers please

2012-02-09T13:56:00.000-08:00

It's out of the blue, I know but it seems that U.S. groups have been shovelling money into New Zealand crackpot organisations so that they can write Letters to the Editors and such. This could be why the merest mention of Global Warming in a New Zild newspaper gets swamped with drooling letters describing the cooling of the earth.

Asked why the coalition did not disclose its funding from Heartland, Mr Leyland said the money came from private donors who "had no interest in climate change".

Is the funny bit. No interest? Well no brains anyway.

If this is not an exercise, could it be a drill?

2012-02-09T13:43:00.000-08:00

Here at Riddled we are all in favour of theatre performances in ~~my pants~~ non-traditional venues so it is gratifying to read of Absurdist Drama in the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo.

They need more rehearsals, though. The actor playing Bérenger has forgotten his lines!!

From a related story:

The fake zebra finally fell to a fake tranquiliser gun.

Also, Helping tigris.

Coming from the land of ice and snow

2012-02-07T11:12:00.000-08:00

Brave Norwegian takes lives into own hands . Joined by a person who happened to be working on the boat when it left, the man who led his former team to their deaths goes back to look for them. That ole viking spirit is alive and well. The fatness of the ~~viking loony~~ adventurer is not recorded.

Silk skin paws Hang by both feet

2012-02-06T22:13:00.000-08:00

"The readers like these tales using animals to illustrate something else," tigris informed us in a totally non-directive way.

"We could put some animals together in an enclosure and record them until they do something Elly Gorical," said Another Kiwi.

"That didn't work so well the time we tried it with the mouse and the lion caught in the net," I pointed out.

"The mouse was supposed to chew through the mesh and liberate the lion," Another Kiwi complained; "not burrow into its abdomen. I am not sure that it was really a mouse."

"It would cut down on our exotic-animal expenses," said tigris, "if you just poked around with the Riddled Dream Machine until you found someone having a suitable nightmare. Perhaps something involving Alzabos and Ed Gein human-skin masks."
One could probably write a story to go with this Ellie Gorical Image, about a global television network trying to recruit the right kind of people to be their journalists and news announcers.

The names of the masks are The Hollower, Gaberlungi, Skogen, Lament, Falkenna, Silvering, Cunhaval, Moondream, Sinisalo and Morndun.

Every creature casts a shadow under the sun's golden finger

2012-02-05T14:01:00.001-08:00

When graphic artists were called upon to personify gear-wheels as a cartoon character for advertisements, traditionally they showed them with expressions that are at best neutral or inexpressive. This went on for centuries. John Ptak remarked on it:

Anthropomorphic images of the Gear have appeared in books in the West for several hundred years, and in almost every case where the Gear has a face, it is usually expressionless, its mouth drawn into a mid-Western farmer/Abe Lincoln horizontal, a tightly drawn nothing. Two thin lips, firmly repulsing all emotion.

You can understand why the gear in the picture is looking pissed off: the gear-cutting technology of 1543 was so rudimentary that it is stuck with teeth that are impractical if they function at all. The eccentric cam to the right is having a quiet snigger.

See the optimal gear teeth below! The profiles are involutes of a circle, which keep the torque and the rotatory movement constant, as Euler showed in the 18th century amid loud Huzzah!s from the mathematicians and a veritable crescendo of The Explaining Voice.

No wonder the wheel is looking less grumpy. It would probably be even happier but it has just been listening to doleful songs from The Handsome Family about Eurydice in the Garden of Eden.

The eccentric cam is still eccentric.

Alternative title: See the Black Sun rise.

The Hake is a Lie

2012-02-05T03:01:00.000-08:00

A fish is equivocal.

A fish is WRONG.
Also I do not think that is a standard Goatse symbol in the upper right corner of the screen.

Happy 107th birthday, Ayn Rand!

2012-02-03T22:30:00.004-08:00

For the fans: "Portrait of Ayn Rand as her readers imagine her".

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Once upon a time there was a wood-mouse, and her name was Mrs. Tittlemouse. She lived in a bank under a hedge. She believed that buildings should be sculpted only to fit their location, material, and purpose elegantly and efficiently.

Such a funny house! There were yards and yards of sandy passages, leading to storerooms and nut-cellars and seed-cellars, all amongst the roots of the hedge.

There was a kitchen, a parlour, a pantry, and a larder.

The other wood-mice wanted houses that conformed to traditional styles but Mrs. Tittlemouse was committed to the integrity of her architectural vision.

She was plagued by moochers, and looters, and second-raters with no creative spark of their own who were content to exploit her individuality. When it wasn't cadgers and parasites like Babbitty Bumble, always coming in at a window and saying Zizz, Bizz, Bizzz...

...it was creativity-draining clients like Mr Jackson, and their complaints that the scale of a house was too small for them.

But Mrs Tittlemouse did not compromise, putting principles before her career. She was forced to dynamite a housing project after a less-talented architect tampered with the blueprints. A jury of her peers found her Not Guilty and acquitted her without a stain on her reputation. Mr. Jackson was invited to the party and came up the bank, but he could not squeeze in at the door.

Special-delivery Fountain-head for Ms Rand!!

Michael Moorcock, ahead of his time

2012-02-03T13:07:00.000-08:00

Thx John Revolta at S,N!:

Discount Gun Sales is proud to team up with the Susan B. Koman Foundation to offer the Walther P-22 Hope Edition in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. A portion of each P-22 Hope Edition will be donated to the Seattle Branch of the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

... you know who else shot himself with a Walther?

The Atomic Theory again

2012-02-02T01:53:00.000-08:00

"Alas," they say in the County Council, "We have not the money in present funds to fill the absences in the macadam surface and iron out the charming irregularities!"

Behold the gross and natural consequence. Incomprehensibly alien life-forms of an unnatural, ultra-mundane physiology ride iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish and get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them.

This is one Elder Thing that will not be getting its deposit back from the bicycle hire company.

FOOTNOTE: It's hard to find a decent image of that painting because the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg has a no-photographs policy which they enforce with Teutonic thoroughness, while the image on their own website is just an inky blot. Here's a version what I stoled from Google Books which shows more detail, but the colour balance is all cattywumpus.

If you could change anything in your life, or lives, what would it be?

2012-02-01T21:04:00.000-08:00

"More color in my dreams."

Dorothea Tanning 1910-2012.

Retail outlet

2012-01-30T20:41:00.000-08:00

"The readers are clamouring for skwirls," I reported, checking the comments. "They are clamid."

"Is that a word?" wondered tigris.

"Candid, humid," said Another Kiwi. "Of course it's a word."

So we sent Little Tim down to the Riddled Library to take out a copy of The Tale of Skwirl Nutkin.

Unfortunately the Library Pixies were in a sportive mood for they were celebrating one of their traditional ethnic holidays, and Little Tim needed rescuing. It was not until after alarums and excursions when we were finally back in the tea-room calming our nerves with a packet of Chocolate Wheaties and a bottle of Juggernaut that we discovered that he'd borrowed not Skwirl Nutkin, but the sequel.

This is where a team of vets and engineers craft a state-of-the-art carbon-fibre prosthetic tail for the hapless skwirl, to replace the flesh-&-blood appendage lost in his owl-related industrial accident. The replacement's engineering elegance makes up for its lack of physical sensation, and reflects badly on the messiness and tawdry inefficiency of Nutkin's other limbs and sense organs. Increasingly dissatisfied, it is only a matter of time before he starts finding excuses to progressively lose other limbs in further owl-related accidents, so that each may be replaced with its own better-than-meat robotic equivalent.

Inevitably, corporate interests and military lobbyists become involved when they see the possible applications of a CybEichhörnchen to further their own ends.* This always happens.

It must be a tradition, or an old charter or something.
* Recall that the Tin Man ends up leading ~~Queen~~ Princess Ozma's army.
** Good review for Antibodies here.

Bonus EXCLUSIVE VIEW of Riddled Library Extension under construction.

UPDATE: Any history of the literary link between prosthetic post-humanism and hard-body militarism would be incomplete without a mention of Limbo, and especially Moderan ("Yes, we look like walking steel shells with flesh piping, in Moderan, and we think of wars and good pounding").

Poke in ham

2012-01-28T20:40:00.000-08:00

Another Kiwi recently touched on the use of shrubbery as concealment. It is an old tradition, or a charter or something, dating back to the time of the Roman Empire.
Of course as pioneers it would be unreasonable to expect the Romans to have ascended straight to the acme of perfection. Still, the shields are a dead giveaway.The worst part of disguised-as-shrubbery reconnaissance work for a Legionary was being widdled on by elephants.

Not Sky-clad

As prescribed in the Calendar of Ceremonies, with Hunky-Dory the foul-mouthed misanthropic Master of Ritual providing a stream of profanity-spiced instructions, Uncle the 77^th Earl of Homeward was roused from his bed on the morn of his 12^th birthday. Ignoring his querulous eye-rubbing demands for explanations, unspeaking servitors ushered him through the north-facing Strait Gate of Homeward, past the mud hut dwellings of the Bright Carvers, and into the forest that cloaked the foothills. "The Heir of Homeward goes sky-clad," they told him when he asked for his comfortable purple dressing-gown. "The Heir of Homeward widdles on the armour in the shrubbery."
A trail of corroded trophies from past enactments of the ceremony stretched far into the distance like a road into the past.

This event, fanning a spark of resentment against the weight of changeless immemorial tradition, laid down the course of Uncle's youth. It inspired the career of rebellion that would one day lead him beyond the walls of Homeward, to Oxford University, where he would steal a bicycle.

I do not believe that there is anyone else writing Gormenghast / Uncle mash-ups, so I have the field to myself. And who is to say that Mervyn Peake did not meet up with Rev. J. P. Martin at a bar one day in the late 1940s and collaborate on a joint manuscript?

Here are some ~~Trigan~~ Roman legionaries spying on the enemy without even a minimal Ikebana-style shrubbery disguise.

CONCEALMENT FAIL. This will not end well.

Hemp nokia

2012-01-28T16:17:00.000-08:00

The Cinnabar moth Tyria jacobaeae is an arctiid moth, from the planet Arctia. It was introduced into New Zealand in 1929-1932 in accordance with the belief at the time that NZ needed more fauna named after mercury ores. That is why we also have the Livingstonite Butterfly but the Moschellandsbergite Moth never really acclimatised to local conditions.

The woolly striped caterpillars can turn cannibalistic. For protection against members of their own species, they have evolved an astonishing ability to disguise themselves as other forms of life.

Finnanigans

2012-01-28T15:11:00.000-08:00

It seems that Riddled enterprises has a palpable hit on it' hands! The new restaurant "Scrumdiddleyumptious" has opened to rave reviews with critics comparing it to "that Thai place downstairs from the video place" High praise indeed.!
But, of course, the centrality of the point at Riddled is the science. Note here, as head waiter Alosa, serves the first ~~subjects~~ customers (click picture to embiggen). The Riddled Gentenics staff, disguised as chefs, are carefully observing the reactions of the lady as she is served by a Transgenic Organism. Are those pink shoes about to be employed in running in terror, while screaming?!?!?

More importantly her idiot boyfriend at the other end of the table is being observed by Smut and I carefully disguised as trees. Heh Heh, I have the brown suit on, the plum role if you like.
The menu has been carefully chosen to reflect the special ambience eg. Fish heads in Yggdrasil custard.
Mrs Miggens has excelled herself with a Tree Fern and carrot terrine marinated in fermented fish gubblies. As the menu says "You don't want to know what fish gubblies are!"
Added bonus: The lyrics to the Andy Griffith Show theme "The Fishin' Hole"

Breakin' sweat for you!

2012-01-26T20:21:00.000-08:00

Uncle Lou articulates the malaise of America after the assassination of Kennedy pretty well, I think. Also it's Friday in the proper half of the world.

Ahem, Pinko

2012-01-26T19:06:00.000-08:00

As it is it written, so shallot beans.

Long live the new flesh

2012-01-25T19:38:00.000-08:00

I will have you know that my manly antibodies are performing perfectly! Not a word of complaint has been said about gel-column failures!

It is uncanny, how the scammers and spammers manage to focus so precisely on the exact insecurities plaguing their targets.

This one needs work, however:
It would work better if there were some mention of the vast fortune in royalties acquired by a strain of HeLa cells, which the cells are unable to transfer out of the laboratory, and which they are willing to share with me if I facilitate the process by providing access to my bank account.

Recipes for Disaster

2012-01-24T14:39:00.000-08:00

I had no idea that the community of randomised culinary research was so fiercely competitive! It seems, though that Substance McGravitas -- hitherto ahead of the field with his Janusnode template -- cannot afford to rest on his bayleaves, for here is a group of brash young newcomers and their "10,000 randomized recipe datasets". Sadly, they do not report having tried any of these ingredient combinations.

Ahn, Ahnert, Bagrow & Barabási also provide a useful Fig 2 to show the molecular associations among no fewer than 381 culinary ingredients, but not including Figs, so no recursion chiz chiz.

The backbone of the flavor network. Each node denotes an ingredient, the node color indicates food category, and node size reflects the ingredient prevalence in recipes. Two ingredients are connected if they share a significant number of flavor compounds, link thickness representing the number of shared compounds between the two ingredients.

This cook only has 10 ingredients in his Flavour Network. No wonder he looks so dejected.

The top Figure looks like something the Pentagon might produce for a Congressional briefing, to dramatise the interconnectedness of terrorist groups.

But what is that in the centre of the spiderweb...

Run for your lives! It's a trap!

Against a Dark Background

2012-01-24T01:51:00.000-08:00

Lowd was the Agrimonie in the Newe Entomologiste last night, with voices raised in unseemlie Dischord.
"Hist!" quoth Another Kiwi. "What means it with these kitsche and stinkardly daubs of underclad Wenches and popular Idolls that bedeck the walls, daubed upon black Cashmere fabrick, so vial in taste as to cast a moraine upon the Kine and to curdle the Eleemosynary Ale in the Mug?"
"Whither away," quoth Smut Clyde, "with the witty portrayts of Hounds playing Shuffleboard and Nine-Mannes-Morris of whych we wot so well?"

"Quoth off," sayeth Evangeline van Holsterin, foremost among serving-wenches, whose word none dare dispute for fear of her wrath with the Banhammer that falleth like Reyne. "You are Elitests quashing the Arte of the People with your High-Browe Æsthetick. Black Vellum Illumination is a Valid Expression of vernacular Taste."

They picked me up and they put me in the back seat

2012-01-21T02:26:00.000-08:00

Not naming any names, but certain people at The Old Entomologist had nothing but sc0rn for the concept of a "Wacky Races" live-action remake. Harsh words were spoken along the lines of "You are all loonies". Haters gotta hate.
They are just jealous because I have dibs on the role of Muttley.

There is some molecule exchange going on between the behooved fauns and the tarmac of the road, and judging by the fronds sprouting from his scalp, Greenish Hugh has walked into too many trees.

UPDATED: Bonus product placement. If the shapes of the vehicles have a nagging sense of almost-legibility, that's because the original plan had been to conceal inspirational slogans within them (not to mention the sponsors' names and logos).

Due to mistakes being made and the work being outsourced to a company in Bangalore, the designs came back with the names and slogans in Devanāgarī script. Buggrit.

What in the world is Smut Clyde eating now?

2012-01-20T21:41:00.000-08:00

Sherlock Holmes had no doubt about the toxicity of the Lion's Mane:
It is especially toxic if still attached to the lion at the time you're trying to eat it.

However, other sources maintain that the Lion's Mane Hericium coralloides (alias the Icicle fungus) is not only edible, but delicious, with cognitive-enhancing and anti-tumour side effects. Obviously it behooves me to try!

left: behooved

right: not behooved

We clean our fungal friend, then mince it.

Then it becomes part of baked-potato stuffing. TASTY. Would go well with some crab or lobster or tuna.

Did my family join me in the experiment? DID THEY BOGROLL. There was plenty left over for scrambled eggs the next morning.

Artist's impression of the Clyde dinner table.

Next week's episode of Riddled Mycological Cuisine will be "New Ways with Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus)". Alternative title: "Dinner at Deviant's Phallus".

UPDATED with Bonus Lion's Mane. I think it is growing on the paper. The wood fibres must be decaying.

'He is forging a head,' Keats said

2012-01-19T17:58:00.000-08:00

It came as a great surprise that so many people would turn up to the auditions for the Riddled Amateur Dramatic Society adaption of Brain Dead (1990), willing to have their facial integument stretched over an ellipse in the service of the thespian art.

In other news, it turns out that people have consistent expectations about how politicians should look, depending on their position on the Left-Right continuum:

The most noticeable difference is in the mouth region: the Hyper Labour MP has a broader smile with strong dimples. Both MPs show their teeth, but the Hyper Conservative has a less pronounced smile. The Hyper Labour MP also has a rounder, softer face, the bridge of his nose is shorter and the region under his eyebrows is lighter.

Obviously candidates for political office need corrective surgery if they have the bad fortune to have a facial appearance that clashes with their party allegiance... the wrong eyebrows, say, or the absence of a rictus grin. Sadly, the New Zealand health system does not class this as an urgently-needed operation so they will have to start at the back of the queue. Instead it is elective surgery.

Left: Either the Labour spokesman for the environment, or a still from the 1541 version of Zardoz.

Cross-pollination: Not just a country of irate parrots

2012-01-19T01:00:00.000-08:00

Behold the not-at-all-snooty orchid Simpliglottis cornuta. It has evolved the appearance of tongue studs in order to attract its pollinator, the largest of New Zealand's native reptiles, the Giant French-Kissing Hipster Skink.

This horny little orchid with ears like Odie is Orthoceras novae-zeelandiae. It has evolved to transfer its pollen from flower to flower by attracting bloggers who hold it up while they photograph it.

For 'spider orchids' of the genus Nematoceras to pollinate successfully, the male must distract the female with a --

No, wait, let's save that story for some time when Jennifer isn't expecting it.

Staving off the Darkness

2012-01-16T19:40:00.000-08:00

Thundra tells me that Wikipedia is going off line for to protest about the U.S. government not liking the internet. Or some such.
Thus grasping the bull between a rock, Riddled will begin it's own compendium of useful information, much as the Irish monks copying out manuscripts in them olden days before there was cell phones.
1) The highest capital in the world is the H in the Hollywood sign. It fell from heaven's gate on any given Sunday in a galaxy far, far away.
2) Many parts of the world are joined together. This appears to have been badly planned what with the history of some of these places, e.g. France and Germany, Russia and everybody and Alaska and Canada. Some countries of the world are surly holdouts and not connected to others. I blame their parents.
3) T.E Lawrence was in a movie with camels. The Sopwith Camel was a World War One fighter plane. Lawrence and the Sopwith Camel are both no longer in production or dead. Coincidence???
4) Cats do not care too much for agriculture. Many cats are unmoved by explanations as to why it would be better, if they are going to catch birds, it was Blackbirds they caught not Thrushes. Yes the Thrush is a silly bird but it eats snails, Blackbirds kick mulch ~~from arsehole to breakfast~~ around.
5) One of the least combustible elements is water. No one ever called their funk/rock band. Earth Wind Fire and Water. Yes they just stopped at Fire. This does not explain Toad the Wet Sprocket.

Phew, time for a break. This preventing the dark Ages is hard work

Night-time flowers, Evening roses #2

2012-01-15T21:05:00.000-08:00

Ho! you exclaim. Who is this person moving so swiftly through the tangled undergrowth of the New Zealand native bush, clad all in black, deterred neither by bush-lawyer nor by supplejack, led hither and thither by the erratic path of a bat on the end of a leash? Have no fear, ill-prepared tramper: he is merely a Riddled woodroser, gathering the stinking Dactylanthus taylorii flowers with which to brew this year's batch of Juggernaut Heavy. His chiropteran companion is a Short-tailed bat, which is why it sometimes flits and sometimes scrabbles across the leaf-litter, almost as nimble on the ground as in the air.

Another Kiwi boils the wort

The ancestral recipe for the Juggernaut calls for mistletoe, but that is tailored for European botanicals. We have adjusted the ingredient list to reflect local availability. Fusion cuisine blah blah locavory blah blah blah. And Dactylanthus -- the wood-rose or Hades flower -- is related to mistletoe, both belonging to order Santalales, though in the families Balanophoraceae and Santalaceae respectively. Also the wood-rose is a more extreme parasite than mistletoe, growing entirely underground except for the flowers. A traditional antipodean Christmas would not be the same without the ritual of "kissing above the wood-rose".

So the short-tailed bat -- which is the flowers' natural pollinator -- is there to sniff them out. The scent is sometimes described as "musky", sometimes as "Squalene plus an entire Owsley-laboratory's worth of organic congenors". The Wikipedia entry compares it to "mammalian sweat". But do not be alarmed gentle traveller that your perspiration will attract a mob of pheromone-maddened bats a-licking at your armpits and a-driving you off cliffs, for (1) the comparison is not made by any of the source documents; and (2) bats have no reason to evolve an attraction to sweat, for bats do not sweat. As any fule kno.

Left: Wood-roses

Right: Snow flowers

What's that? We should try using Dactylanthus nectar in a perfume, by analogy with other noxious scents like ambergris and musk? Well we are way ahead of you there, and you will find our 'Woolshed' and 'Milking Shed' perfumes among the merchandise in the Riddled gift-shop (turn left on the way out). Though if you insist on looking like a cheapskate, feel free to shell out on cheaper products like the amusingly-shaped keyring.

Research on basing a perfume on Rafflesia nectar continues, undeterred by the complaints from the neighbours and the visits from the police.

Taxonomy Domine

2012-01-14T21:40:00.000-08:00

Ronald Searle was dead chiz chiz. Pater is so overcome he burst out blubbing.

2012-01-14T02:47:00.000-08:00

Presumably this means that my hoped-for edition of "Empire of the Sun" with Searle illustrations will never eventuate.

Personaly i do not care a d. whether Marley was dead or not it is just that there is something about the xmas Carol which makes paters and grown-ups read with grate XPRESION, and this is very embarassing for all. It is all right for the first part they just roll the r’s a lot but wate till they come to scrooge’s nephew. When he sa Mery Christmas uncle it is like an H-bomb xplosion and so it go on until you get to Tiny Tim chiz chiz chiz he is a weed. When Tiny Tim sa God bless us every one your pater is so overcome he burst out blubbing. By this time boys hav bitten through their ropes and make good their escape so 9000000000 boos to bob cratchit.

Unfortunate names #82: 'Al Dente'

2012-01-12T16:08:00.000-08:00

Antanas came from a Baltic port,
and earned a job making macaroni.
In the pasta machine his hand was caught...
they buried him as Riga Tony.

"...an external neural plexus, an inflatable brain as it were, that he can pump up to whatever size the situation calls for."

2012-01-12T14:04:00.000-08:00

These people's tongues have turned into brains. Your argument is NaN.

Think of 'cerebriform tongue' not so much as an uncommon mutation from using the Riddled Evolvamat, and more as a useful adaptive feature -- a kind of tyre tread that increases traction in ~~furry panties~~ moist slippery conditions.

Also there are probably other explanations for the outbreak. Have the complainants been consuming Mrs Miggin's "Vox Angelica" organ-meat pies?

The search terms are coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE THE FUTURE

2012-01-12T13:39:00.000-08:00

When life gives you disturbing search terms, make blog posts.

Haircut hysteria

2012-01-11T13:51:00.000-08:00

Snap coiffure inspection! Here is a typical scene from 1893, after newspaper reports that tightly-bound hair-styles are a risk factor for getting stuck in spiderwebs. The Guardian of the Belgian Revolution -- a state-sanctioned vigilante defender of public morality -- is checking the young ladies' chignons. A summary scalp-shaving awaits if any are found to be too tight.

But the haircut hysteria did not stop there, for other researchers claimed that loose hair was just as dangerous, with the risk of snagging in the twigs of bare trees in snowy symbolist landscapes.

The moral panic continued, peaking in 1908, when an authoritative meta-analysis of all the available data showed that any hair-style was equally associated with spiderweb-related injuries.* The furore died down swiftly and no further media attention was paid to coiffure hazards, as if it had never happened.

* H/t to Rachel.

UPDATE: tigris brings a Bonus Case study of loose hair snagging in a growing tree. This is why you should pay attention while the industrial-safety cautionary movie is screening rather than doodle on your folder!

Wave that Glad, possums!

2012-01-11T02:14:00.000-08:00

A spray of what, we ask? Antiperspirant? Deodorant? Matt varnish? Check the can carefully, we warn, in case it is old stockpiled CFC aerosol and the Prime Minister is hoping to discredit the activists with photographs of them damaging the ozone layer.

More charitably, perhaps it was a "lovely spray of pink and peach gladioli" which "will express your loving sentiments in a most generous way."

Artist's reconstruction.

Freedom's just another word that scores 13 points, not counting double-letter squares

2012-01-09T08:02:00.000-08:00

If there is one thing I have learned from considering her ways, it is that ants cannot be trusted in a Scrabble game for they are inveterate cheats. Evangeline van Holsterin carelessly left her idiot boyfriend in charge of her tiles for one round while she nipped back into the bar. But sure as eggs and entropy and various other things beginning with 'e', he has dozed off, perhaps believing himself to be a swain in a bucolic Poussin landscape or a Virgilian pastoral eclogue, in which swains are always aslumber beneath the leafy boskage, unless they are plighting their troth. This has to be done several times a day in hot weather or else the troths go off and are no use to man nor beast.
While we wait for him to make his move Another Kiwi and I are passing the time testing the new novelty backpack from the Riddled merchandise shop, and Greenish Hugh is showing how to construct an ocarina from everyday household items. But notice how the ants have swapped their spare 'A' for the 'G' that Evangeline was saving. She is back now with a packet of crisps and a slice of Mrs Miggins' jellyfish pizza, and she is not well-pleased. I do not think he will get lucky tonight.

My suspicion is that the ants were planning to use their 'Z' by extending 'WAY' into 'WAYZGOOSE', which would put them well in the lead, what with the triple-word square and all.

Questions that keep one awake at night, #172: Who is the Muse of jump-rope?

2012-01-08T20:05:00.000-08:00

Competitive Double-Dutch Skipping is hard enough with the ropes. It does not become any easier when someone... not naming names... but it was obviously someone's turn to bring the ropes while the practice session is so far notable for its pronounced state of ropelessness. Again.
You'd think that with half-a-dozen divinities and allegorical figures comprising the team they would be a little more organised, if only as an example to mortals. But there's C feeling half-way guilty and trying to distract everyone else by blaming A; A in turn has suddenly realised that the babby is all that matters so don't bother her about ropes at a moment like this; G is all holier-than-thou; while E is lighting her farts again.

With an even littler eye

2012-01-08T18:33:00.000-08:00

You know how it is when you're a pipsqueak country on the edge of the world, a country like, oh I don't know. NEW ZEALAND!!!! Such country is largely hoping not to be noticed all that much except for tourism (huge tracts of scenery). Certainly when people want a holiday in a place where many of the locals speak a form of Unglush and are largely not so harmful, you might say "What about that New Zild? We can take our own sausages wrapped in Choc-chip pancakes if they do not have them". And right you would be, aside from roads lining with glaring peasants and bureaucrats that Margaret Thatcher would be scared of, there is not much going to go wrong here (offer valid until December 1961).
And how might you find out about such a scenic wonderland that is nothing like East Germany!! Why you might find out from travel agents who in turn find out from tourism industry workers. Because we are a fly speck on the window pane of the glorious Earth we have some government intervention in said tourism and such concerning ~~damn furriners~~ our friends from over the briny.
This sort of help for tourism in the hope getting them in here for ~~a damn good fleecing~~ the experience of a lifetime may be in jeopardy (incidentally a leopard would certainly place one in jeopard, would it not) due to the careful ministrations of the anti-gubblement government (vote for us, we'll dissolve before your very eyes)

MFAT (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade) says it plans to improve its efficiency by forming a smaller ministry with about 200 fewer roles.
It will also introduce a new business model, simpler systems and improved technology.

Ah ha! Great plan we're going to destroy the workforce and give the shell-shocked survivors, Blackberrys.

Some whiners have their doubts about the re-gooding (Womack. J, 1985) but they are just stick-in-the-mud public service association (PSA) types

the PSA was promised no front-line jobs would be lost, but it is no longer convinced this is the case.

Now, MFAT is the home of those most secretest of the secret, the Security Intelligence Service of New Zild. Yes, devil-may-care, raffish and international persons of mystery, the spies. While this gubblement is verrrrrry keen on slashing the Public Service Communist party to the bone, I wonder if the spies will have to cut back on their luxury apartments and Aston Martin DB9s. Who knows, it could be a stirred martini with a teeny tiny tini and you'll damn well like it!

Will no one think of the fish?

2012-01-06T14:11:00.000-08:00

Mrs Kiwi and I were shopping in the Slash 'n' Burn supramarket this morning and saw the following product.

Misshappen Battered Fish Pieces

Of course they were inna freezer, for the safety of the customers. Next to them was Misshappen Crumbed Fish Pieces.
Sorry they are no pictures to corroborate the story but the flash powder fell into the freezer.

Old dead guys can be funny

2012-01-06T12:05:00.000-08:00

According to google it's Charles Addams' 100th birthday.

Seed money

2012-01-05T14:18:00.000-08:00

Will no one rid us of this jumped-up creep? You know, find him a real job?

Destiny Church is understood to have acquired a 10-acre block of land in South Auckland to builid* its own community.

*Oooh the newspaper speeled build wrong!?!?!.

But, anyway, this fecking man, who is shyster of the first water, is putting the squeeze on the gullible who fill his fecking self-aggrandisement wankfest.

Tamaki is now understood to be calling for donations from his congregation.

And, as is the way with these people, it all comes down to secks.

"Much of your seed is going to go toward the foundations of an offering toward our promised land, and that beginning is not going to come without a fruitful start financially," he said at the service.

Really, people can believe any old tosh they want as far as I care, but surely they can see through this creeparse and his decimation of their wallets whilst he rides around on a Harley.

Weather (or not)

2012-01-05T13:52:00.000-08:00

Today's weather map needs a bit of explanation. Start in the top left-hand square called the character square. Here you decide what character you will be when assessing the weather. Recently the character of Oswaldo the Rat has been popular but for beginners we recommend "Simple minded Humphrey". More advanced weather observers may want to try Sine Wave Syd or even Empty Half Moon Edwina.
But once your character is chosen move to the micro-organism lattice to decide which microbe humours will influence your final result. Leptospiras have been popular in New Zild due to their presence in cow's urine. Whilst the presence of vibrio parahaemolyticus in spoiled seafood makes the comma shaped bacteria very popular in Australia.
Now the weather observer moves down to the Wind square, named with no regard to fart jokes, to choose the strength of the ~~farts~~ wind. A strength of 6 is usually chosen here. The choice of "b" flicks the dial around to "Random" and can result in flatulence.
Finally the weather observer can combine the readings to see what kind of weather will be experienced in their area from reading the final panel, the "Weather Shapes" panel.
The weather shape determines the mollycular weather shape and may not correspond to the weather experienced. If it comes down to it, Boysenberry weather is easier to deal with than Star Anise weather.

A Time Had by All

2012-01-05T13:22:00.000-08:00

What a time there was here at Riddled for the festive season. The Staff Christmas party was the usual laughter filled bout of drunken bitterness and queries over expense accounts. Here you can see the problems that arose from putting Little Tim in charge of the pizza oven. see how the roof has gone a bit runny? Note the staff cowering in the bower as the creaks and groans from the oven get more and more alarming. Still, eh, the Avacado, Anchovies and Artichoke pizzas have never been ...cooked, quite so much.

Then the bleedin' "Repository" people wrote to us about " patterns of such new articles as you put out" and asking where were they and would we like a visit from Messrs Smudger and Chalky, their financial supervisors. Hurriedly we repaired to the time machine to work for the previous week on the project and sent it off tomorrow. Of course there was some time leakage and there is a head on the desk in the oval below the McNasty tartan. Hopefully no one will notice.

Still the serious work of the Riddled institute continues and earlier and earlier examples of speech bubbles in comics turn up. Here we have the classic "you say medieval agrarian land reform, I say
murder and mayhem" joke with the mistress of the manor watching her husband barter for the lives of the family while the process is subverted by "Drunkyn Lout wythe knyfe"
And what of the Christmas Ale? I hear you ask?
Well, it made the universe go a bit funny but luckily the safety word came through

Present from Daughter kiwi

2012-01-03T10:39:00.001-08:00

Go to google search and type in "let it Snow".
She's so clever!

Any others?

Trend watch

2012-01-03T01:41:00.000-08:00

"So what are the hip trendy websites blogging about so far this year?" Another Kiwi wanted to know. He had managed to wrest the official Riddled Editorial Hat from tigris after a brief tussle -- the battered gray fedora, with the PRESS badge tucked into the brim that dispensed whisky from a concealed spigot -- which made him Acting Editor Pro-tem Locum Honsec.

"Apparently titles referring to Blue Öyster Cult lyrics are fashionable," I vouchsafed.

"Excellent! Make a note of that!"

"B-Flat," said tigris.

"What else have they mentioned? Not that we would stoop to stealing ideas."

"Sex shops are the topic of choice," I continued:

One thing led to another, as it will, and we decided that her idea of a second-hand bookshop/café, whilst excellent in itself, was perhaps not sufficient, and thoughts quickly turned to complementary activities, like a sex shop as an annexe. You would, I admit, have to pick your books fairly carefully, and make it clear somehow that this particular area was not necessarily family-friendly.

Whatever, we got quite enthused with the idea after the second glass, and started brainstorming, for a good name is very important in commerce. All about brand recognition, apparently. "Becks & Bryan: Purveyor's of Quality Refurbished and Second-Hand Sex Toy's Since 2011" says it all but is a bit of a mouthful, and does rather encourage grocer's apostrophe: "Vibrators R'Us" is snappier. Or, quite simply, and kind of sums it up in a nutshell, "Dildo & Co.". The feedback so far has been positive, always an encouraging thing. (We'll try to forget about my Bryan's suggestion of "The Cock Shop", shall we?)

AK's eyebrows rose and harrowed his forehead into a veritable ploughed field of furrows. "Isn't that encroaching on the topic of the reconditioned vibrator trade, such as been covered by our colleague mikey on a number of occasions?"

" I do vaguely recall that self-same subject receiving some attention in a Sadly,No! comment thread a few years ago," I admitted:

It has belatedly occurred to me that if I were the one running a vibrator-repair service, I would call it Œstrus. Then people would ask how it was pronounced, giving me the chance to explain that “The O is silent”.
Plan B would be to have a side-line of repairing watches and changing batteries and things, so the shop could be called “The 13 Clocks and the Wonderful O”.

"Why are you speaking in that robotic monotone?" tigris wanted to know.

"I thought that's what you wanted," I said.

Needless insults

2012-01-02T16:18:00.000-08:00

Riddled may certainly have devoted more space to Morgellons than to other factitious diseases, but there is no call for insults like this:

Is Morgellons a mutant immortal fungus they gave us in their efforts to stop an edible ugly growth called Smut, on corn that God gave us?

SHA'N'T BE BACK.

We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence in the course of bicycle delivery

2012-01-02T02:39:00.000-08:00

Rest assured, dear customer, that whatever adverse conditions may be thrown up in their path, the Riddled delivery staff are steadfast and stalwart and trained for every circumstance, and your bicycle will be delivered.

A little rain? Floods, mud? Bridges washed out and slippery tree-trunks the only way over the raging torrent? Biko man is always intense.

The forces of anti-bicyclism may be strong in these lawless days, but the Riddled delivery staff are stronger. They are ruthless. They are heavily armed, and they are not afraid of weird colours in the sky. They realise that a sacred charge is in their care, for you, the customer, are waiting for that bicycle.
Depending on the state of the county roads and the operations of the Mollycule theory, you may find that the bicycle upon receipt contains 10% or more of atoms from the delivery rider, who is conversely 10% or more bicycle. This contingency is covered by clause 16 of the ~~rider~~ codicil of the purchase contract, where the helpful Table II lays out the available options for different proportions of atomic interchange.

Do not attempt mollycule interchange with Table II, however helpful it becomes.

Must credit Ptak Books, albeit in vanishingly small print.

What say you, liver?

2012-01-01T02:28:00.000-08:00

Moar akvavit?

Doctors are recommending it!

Pushing the Envelope

2011-12-30T23:13:00.000-08:00

I realise that anyone buying stamps these days rather than e-mailing or Twaddling or Facepalming is probably of a certain get-off-my-lawn vintage. So it makes perfect business sense for the New Zealand Post Office to target that generation and their rose-tinted-hindsight nostalgia for the better days of the past, with special stamp issues commemorating television programs of four or five decades ago.

I also realise that there were not many programs available to commemorate. The options being further limited by the fact that you can't issue special Dr Who stamps, which the prospective customers cannot buy while they are trying to hide behind anything in the Post Office that looks like a sofa. Even so, some TV programs really don't deserve the coverage; there are reasons why they only lasted for two episodes.
In particular, "The Adventures of Scott the Repo Skeleton". It may have been cutting-edge marionette technology for the day but the characters were completely implausible.

I am COMPLETELY NOT BITTER that the NZPO ignored my suggestion about enhancing the nostalgia value of the stamps by coating the backs with special Fanta- and Topsy Iceblock-flavoured mucilage (recipe available for licensing from Riddled Research Laboratory).

How much wood would a woodcut cut, if a woodcut could cut wood?

2011-12-29T18:28:00.000-08:00

(1) This month's Riddled cutaway diagram shows the working of one of the old-fashioned labour-intensive 'spigots'.

In 1791 when Obadiah Peasemold Tree (one of the Essex Trees, in Braintree*) invented the reciprocating transpiration linkage that would make possible the functioning of today's mechanised 'trees', few people could have possibly imagined how the products of his tinkering would one day come to dominate the world. People scoffed at Tree and the crude wrought-iron models constructed for him by a sympathetic blacksmith, until 1803 when Nathaniel Habakkuk Forest patented his xylem governor mechanism, and suddenly the writing was on the wall for the cottage-industry 'spigots' as they used to be called. "Crips," was the writing, and also "Yah boo sucks bottoms poo".

(2) This is the worst gym EVAH. I should never have allowed certain family members talk me into joining. "A New Year Resolution," they wheedled. "A resolution?" I said. "She goes back to him; the killer is revealed; then the dough boiling in oil suddenly shot out of kitchen pots."

Here at the Patience Gymnasium... the elliptical trainer seems to be missing something... the litotes trainer is not very good... and the hyperbolic trainer is WORSE THAN HITLER.

(3) Further excerpts from the Memoirs of Tiresias, Couples Counsellor to the Gods.
"Don't give yourself such a hernia, Asklepios," I told him. "Lots of surgeons fantasise about sex with their patients."

"I don't think I can stop at just fantasising," he said. "You have to help me bring it to fruition."

I shrugged. "Still not such a big deal. Against the ethical code, of course, but then who wrote the ethics code? You, I think."

It was a test of my broadmindedness when Asklepios pointed out that he was a tree surgeon, and the centre of his affections was a particularly seductive smooth-limbed eucalyptus, yet another of Zeus' arboreal transformations. I tried not to be judgemental, not even of a sicko woodpecker. "That's the thing about being mythological. Different standards. Remember when Daedalus constructed that hollow cow, to help Pasiphaë consummate her unnatural lust for the sacred bull of Poseidon? I think the same strategy will work here."

Of course it never occurred to us that there would be a child.

(4) None of the above.

* UPDATED with moar lynx and Bonus Braintree.

Anschluss

2011-12-29T02:29:00.000-08:00

“Every barrel of oil that comes out of those sands in Canada is a barrel of oil that we don’t have to buy from a foreign source,” Mr. Perry said in Clarinda, earning a loud round of enthusiastic applause.

North Texan residents should get used to placenames like 'Amarillo Cuchillo' rather than 'Yellowknife'.

The literary precedents also suggest an investment in a powered exoskeleton.

I can smell Zebra, and I can hear Zebra, assuming that Zebra squeals like a pig

2011-12-28T14:58:00.000-08:00

The upper entrance to Deliverance. Evidently New Zealanders do not like skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; or rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim.
Ideally the sign would have warned against "tree-trunks all 'sclusively speckled and sprottled and spottled, dotted and splashed and slashed and hatched and cross-hatched with shadows". At least it's not in Papyrus.

Privacy is theft

2011-12-26T15:20:00.000-08:00

The identical appearance of the paparazzi is presumably because there are no mamarazzi so they reproduce by cloning.
The sister-in-law will not be well-pleased when she opens the paper and finds woodcuts of me trying to sneak down to the shops and trade in that exercise machine she so flatteringly thought I needed.

Christmas Spam: All the scars are on the inside

2011-12-25T01:41:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again when the invitations to plastic-surgery congresses appear in the Inbox. This one's more disturbingly titled than usual.

The mouse-over text bubbles keep referring to "techniques from the opposite sides of the spectrum". If your spectrum has two sides then you are doin it rong.*

I'm gonna assume that the porny nude photograph is the Before image. They forgot the After image.
Strangely, Dr Adder is not listed on the Organising Committee.

* I do not rate for Cepstral analysis.

Economy-sized Walt Whitman, now with self-contradictory action (multitudes not included)

2011-12-23T12:07:00.000-08:00

Now when I were a lad there were no support groups and role models for multiple-personality wannabees. Come adolescence, when realisation dawned that the concept of a unified, consistent single-threaded personality was a convenient social fiction, the only way we had to dramatise it was to read Steppenwolf. WE HAD IT TOUGH. Was there any transduction serum then, or any Riddled Evolvamat if one wanted to reify each facet of one's personality and catch up with a post-human world of "plural, median, multiple, otherkin, gateway, or anything related"? WAS THERE BOG-ROLL.

But now multiplicity is the new Emo, and Scanner Darkly scramble suits are the new black. The things people do to be sure that their parents don't understand them. So far the movement is lacking a figurehead band with a multiple-personality lead singer prone to switching alters in mid-song and becoming an emergency back-up bassist, but it can only be a matter of time.

Sorry, shouldn't say *lt*r. The preferred term for the parallel personalities sharing a body is now "headmates" after a leading brand of marine flush toilet. I am a crazy uncle and these solecisms are to be expected. Also my Cruiskeen Lawn, get off it, and give me back my ear-trumpet.

One question remains: why have these multiplicity activists chosen the manta ray as their totemic animal? What is wrong with the time-honoured Bruegel cod-fish?

The Man with the X-Ray Eyes

2011-12-22T11:07:00.000-08:00

Here at Riddled we hope you are all enjoying the gift-buying season.

If anyone wants to be really generous, one thing I could do with is a replacement operating manual for these Tleilaxu eyes. They seem to be stuck on the wrong setting and I can't work out how to change pupils.

In the meantime, a Merry Gristlemouse to all our readers from Skeletonickolas and all his little helpers!

Just in case people were expecting a Bauhaus video, here's Björk instead, from way back before the Sugarcube days:

Christmas Cards

2011-12-21T14:17:00.000-08:00

Pirate Santa knows if you've been naughty or nice. Nice children receive rum, sodomy, and the lash, with the emphasis on the rum. Naughty children also get rum, sodomy, and the lash, but the emphasis is no longer on the rum.

Piece 8 in a series! Collect the set!

Last: Rosina Leckermaul! "To Serve Children..." it's a cookbook!
Next: The Doppelgänger Bread Man! Imagine running into yourself as a horrifying but delicious treat! You can't catch him, but if you ever meet who's to say who will find whom tastier?

Nota bene on the font: I was pushing for Logger and AK for Baptismal, but Smut INSISTED on this.

Oh, I forgot to mention milk and cookies are victuals only fit for lubbers and children. Pirate Santa expects rum and hardtack, and would not say no to a plate of limes for his eight scurvy reindeer.

The Great Sun Jester

2011-12-19T13:17:00.000-08:00

Holy 8-Tesla superconducting crank magnetism, Batman! Apparently it is not enough for maverick Professor Oliver Manuel to invent his own Outsider Astrophysics, in which the solar system originated as a supernova, and the sun is the supernova remnant -- a huge iron sphere with a neutron-star core and an atmosphere of superheated hydrogen, wracked by storms through which we glimpse the cooler iron surface.

Tempted perhaps by the funding and publicity available to the AGW-denialist camp, Prof. Manuel threw in his lot with them and added a supplementary hypothesis -- that changes in Earth's climate are in fact under the control of fluctuations in the solar corona (an idea that had rested in merciful desuetude since 1974).

His overtures were accepted! The denialists are hugging Manuel close to their unwarmed little hearts. A search for "Iron Sun" returns page after page of Ghits for this ~~Citizen Astrophysicist~~ drongo's crackpottery, much to the disappointment of certain Riddled staff who only want to look up pictures of a Scottish percussionist without receiving merciless mockery from tigris. Also the Charlie Stross novel would have provided plausible deniability.

The theory demands that a neutron star is not stable as the physicists thought -- evidently there is no such thing as a pulsar -- but instead is a repository of titanic stores of energy which it releases over billions of years in slow decay, providing 2/3 of the solar output.* The other 1/3 comes from newly-invented pathways of plasma fusion in the corona.

In fact the theory also applies to every star with a planetary system. The galaxy is evidently full of supernova remnants, and where are the pre-supernova stars? It is a mystery... like the origins of new birds-nests:

It is an extraordinary but indisputable fact that whereas an enormous number of these birds built nests last year, practically none have built nests this year.

To investigate this possibility, here at Riddled Research Laboratory we are dusting off old plans for a permanent solar station that will hover on the edge of a sunspot. Certain technical problems remain with the anti-grav, the refrigeration and the muirium-extraction apparatus, but we have Harness' word that it is possible. Of course these stations aren't cheap:

Personally I blame music lyrics for inspiring Manuel:

Into the whirlpool, where matter vanishes
Degenerate star, arm of Orion
An iron sun, the forbidden circle
It’s a mountain, it’s a black horizon

Some people might argue that BÖC were in turn inspired by Adrian Berry's forward-looking plan to create a galaxy-spanning network of hyperdrive wormholes involving artificial black holes, but this hardly gets them off the hook.

One might expect a clash between the AGW-denial claim that the Earth's atmosphere is not warming (meteorologists having faked all the evidence) and the professor's claim that the Earth is warming (under the influence of the solar chromosphere). But 'consistency' is not a priority in the Deniosphere, and those bloggers who were loudest about the fraudulence of climate scientists are also the biggest boosters for Manuel. The bat-signal goes out and they descend en masse on comment threads whenever the Iron Sun is mentioned. Perhaps they will come here! What fun!

If AGW-denialists think their case is strengthed by the support of someone best-known for raping his own children, go for it.

* Manuel also has developed his own Outsider school of nuclear physics, and is prone to popping up in discussions of alternative-energy sources to argue that the Earth's energy problems could be solved by mastering the mechanisms of neutron repulsion.

Inside every comment is a blog-post struggling to escape

2011-12-19T03:34:00.000-08:00

Here's Jonah Goldberg:

If, however, you think these are crazy and extraordinary times, then perhaps they call for a crazy, extraordinary — very high-risk, very high-reward — figure like Gingrich.

Goldberg is of course plagiarising my second-favourite William Tenn story:

By the time the Conservative Republicans met in convention assembled, the danger of loss by landslide was already apparent. They changed their tactics, tried to meet the attack head-on and imaginatively.

They nominated a hunchback for the presidency. This man suffered from the additional disability of being a distinguished professor of law in a leading university; he had married with no issue and divorced with much publicity; and finally, he had once admitted to a congressional investigating committee that he had written and published surrealist poetry. Posters depicting him leering horribly, his hump twice life-size, were smeared across the country over the slogan: “An Abnormal Man for an Abnormal World!”

Thx Substance and Wiley!

MDICK project to secure America's borders with cutting-edge white-whale-related technology [updated]

2011-12-18T02:42:00.000-08:00

Not a dead dingo's dick

The consensus around the Riddled office is that no-one gives two tugs on a dead dingo's dick about CYC these days. Also that it is immature to reap so much amusement from the mismatch between the ambitions and promises of Artificial Intelligence researchers vs. their actual accomplishments. But I maintain that the story of Douglas Lenat and his three-decade-long quest to perfect CYC -- a software expert system with common sense and natural-language capabilities -- is the Great American Monomyth, Ahab-&-the-~~Maltese-falcon~~-white-whale updated for today.

CYC's genesis was in 1984, and comparisons were rife with HAL-9000, though without the slight flaw in HAL's character. Lenat wrote a glowing account of CYC's prospects in 1995:

CYC: a large-scale investment in knowledge infrastructure

Not a chain of logic

Here is a droll account of evaluating CYC's performance a year earlier . By then CYC could draw on a database of 500,000 logical propositions (up from the previous 2,000,000 propositions) to concatenate into whatever chain or cross-linked fractal mesh of geometrical logic was needed to address a given question. Ambitions for CYC's possibilities had grown to searching a 20-image database of verbal captions, for suitable illustrations. The evaluator's list of natural-language questions went quickly by the board.

Lenat was much-run-after in the 1990s by technotopian magazines, as a reliable source of wide-eyed wonder:

I think it's conscious now [...] In the coming year, CYC will be out on Macintoshes and 486s.

HAL was a general artificial intelligence, and Cyc is the closest thing that exists in the world to that kind of general artificial intelligence [...] I believe [speech input and output] will be a small number of years -- possibly two years, which would be nice because then it would actually be during 2001.

The obsessive quest and the need for corporate / government research money continued into the mid-2000s, with 'CYC' becoming 'Cyc', though without perceptible change in its progress reports and objectives. Presenting questions to the oracle still required human interpreters. Reflecting the Zeitschmerz or the Weltgeist or whatever, Lenat's rhetoric put more emphasis on "citizen scientists" and the "blue-collar philosophers" programming Cyc with common sense rather than pointy-headed ivory-tower stuff. He became an inspirational speaker for Singularity conferences:

Cyc’s success could trigger the Singularity, so that’s a topic to which he’s given some serious thought, which he will share with us in this session.

"So where is CYC now?" people ask. Let's pretend people do ask that, instead of "Why are you all loonies?" and "Where is the Jesus tentacle porn we were promised?"
Here it is:
Ah, National Security and the GWOT. Is there any discredited dead-end technology it can't pour money into? It is only a matter of time before Captain Ahab receives a $2.10⁶ grant from the Department of Homeland Security for MDICK.

In other news, the current project for Riddled Research Laboratories is 'BuyCYC-l': a common-sense Expert System that can determine whether a given Expert System is a waste of money, brains and time, and whether the chief software architect is a delusive dingbat. Sadly, recent bilateral agreements with Australia prevent us using the acronym wombat, for fear of the offense that would cause for our marsupial-loving friends across the Tasman. In return they have promised not to use "Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu" as an acronym for anything.

BONUS 1994 explanation from Lenat:
"We're not interested in what botanists know about plants, but what chemists and musicians know. That's common sense."

This worked so well for English history.

when prophecy fails succeeds \ the falling notion

2011-12-15T16:59:00.000-08:00

Tigris calls it!

tigris said...
Jesus tentacle rape is sure to brings in the Google hits!

You like day-ta, I like dah-ta, let's call the whole thing off

2011-12-15T14:26:00.000-08:00

Complaints about service in the Riddled library are neither common nor wise. There can be discouraging consequences. Feral books are rumoured to have escaped into the Reference Section at inconvenient times for library users with a record of discontent. Not to mention chocolate digestive biscuits in the tea room that are so digestive they really belong in a D&D adventure.
Best not to speculate that important documents are sometimes tardy to reach the research staff because the library pixies have been hanging onto them and savouring that new-data smell, in the half-size fractal shelving they occupy between the second and third digits of Dewey classification. I accept the pixies' explanation that there must have been an obstruction or stricture along the series of tubes between the US and here.

Anyway, here is WIRED, only 3-½ years old, practically recent! What nostalgia the article evokes for those far-off halcyon days when the world was still fresh and Google still placed higher priority on web indexing than on social media!

The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete

Apparently Google provides the role-model for Science to follow [it is fairly clear where the author hoped to seek employment next]: "What can science learn from Google?" Scientists should be looking for correlations rather than causality, and stop worrying their pretty little heads about 'meaning' or 'explanation'. Explanatory theories are so much harder these days than the ones the author remembers from school, so obviously they will only become harder still.

I'm not sure quite how this post-theory science in the Laboratory of Babel will work. Evidently the sheer accumulation of data in "the Petabyte Age" -- orders of magnitude more data than in any library ever imagined, shut up Mr Borges -- will lead to some sort of Teilhard-du-Chardin noötic phase transition. Science will crystallise out of the supersaturated solution of Facts without human agency.

Then lightning bolts strike from a cloudless sky to fuse the power switch permanently on, and nuclear warheads detonate in their solos. This always happens. It must be an old tradition, or a charter or something.

This is all vaguely familiar from some old parable:

"Pugg meanwhile sat propped up against the barrel and read, as that diamond pen which the Demon employed to record everything it learned from the oscillating atoms squeaked on and on, and he read about how exactly Harlebardonian wrigglers wriggle, and that the daughter of King Petrolius of Labondia is named Humpinella, and what Frederick the Second, one of the paleface kings, had for lunch before he declared war against the Gwendoliths, and how many electron shells an atom of thermionolium would have, if such an element existed, and what is the cloacal diameter of a small bird called the tufted twit, which is painted by the Wabian Marchpanes on their sacrificial urns, and also of the tripartite taste of the oceanic ooze on Polypelagid Diaphana, and of the flower Dybbulyk, that beats the Lower Malfundican hunters black and blue whenever they waken it at dawn, and how to obtain the angle of the base of an irregular icosahedron, and who was the jeweler of Gufus, the left-handed butcher of the Bovants, and the number of volumes on philately to be published in the year seventy thousand on Marinautica, and where to find the tomb of Cybrinda the Red-toed, who was nailed to her bed by a certain Clamonder in a drunken fit, and how to tell the difference between a bindlesnurk and an ordinary trundlespiff, and also who has the smallest lateral wumpet in the Universe, and why fan-tailed fleas won't eat moss, and how to play the game of Fratcher-My-Pliss and win, and how many snapdragon seeds there were in the turd into which Abroquian Phylminides stepped, when he stumbled on the Great Albongean Road eight miles outside the Valley of Symphic Sighs—and little by little his hundred eyes began to swim, and it dawned on him that all this information, entirely true and meaningful in every particular, was absolutely useless, producing such an ungodly confusion that his head ached terribly and his legs trembled. [...]

"And it grew dark before his hundred eyes, and he cried out in a mighty voice that he'd had enough, but Information had so swathed and swaddled him in its three hundred thousand tangled paper miles, that he couldn't move and had to read on about how Kipling would have written the beginning to his Second Jungle Book if he had had indigestion just then, and what thoughts come to unmarried whales getting on in years, and all about the courtship of the carrion fly, and how to mend an old gunny sack, and what a sprothouse is, and why we don't capitalize paris in plaster of paris or turkish in turkish bath, and how many bruises one can have at a single time. And then a long list of the differences between fiddle and faddle, not to be confused with twiddle and twaddle or tittle and tattle, then all the words that rhyme with "spinach," and what were the insults which Pope Urn of Pendora heaped upon Antipope Mlum of Porking, and who plays the eight-tone autocomb."

This parable is not news to the Google programmers.

Hang on, there's a message from the Library; the book I ordered is ready to collect. BRB.

UPDATED!
Left: high-density information access

Right: Hidden costs of data mining

The Sound of Thunder,

2011-12-14T15:50:00.000-08:00

Thunder said the challenge was down. Here is Mrs Cat asleep in the guarding position for the special pine flavoured water bowl we got for her.
Tread warily, citizen.
Catupdate:

C.O.U.S.

2011-12-14T12:58:00.000-08:00

I have told Mrs Spat not to wear stripes, they are so unflattering, but she pays me no heed.

Poledancer-gram!

2011-12-12T15:00:00.000-08:00

Original here

The dude on the cross looks to be enjoying the show but he'd rather the disciples had spent the money on bribing a gaoler instead.

Turn your attention to the guys at the left and right. The convention in Renaissance painting was to show Dismas and Gestas (the two co-stars at the crucifixion) in less dignified poses. Usually they are bound to their crosses without nails, arms draped over the cross-piece, elbows and knees all akimbo. Perhaps they had been Spartans, or rope-makers by occupation rather than carpenters.

This is all very well until religious fanatics read Luke 23:39-43, and overcome by fervour they attire themselves in emulation of one or other thief and tie themselves to crosses in similar poses. Then they find they cannot free themselves, and their skeletons are discovered much later.

What has Skelesanta brought in his sack for the good boys and girls of the world?

"Steenkin' badges, education and thought control." "I'll take 'things we don't need no' for $200, Alex."

2011-12-11T02:59:00.000-08:00

The story to fit this headline has not turned up yet. I blame fish.

Sasquatch, it's realer than you thought.

2011-12-10T17:14:00.001-08:00

Cheeses! There we were discussing Ghost Deer, the beast of Bodmin Moor, Smut Clyde's wallet and other cryptids when Bunty Lhabcote shut the place down by vouchsafing a story that curdled the foam on the "Special Spiced Parsnip Scrumpy (99 44/100% badger-free)".

Bunty is a reliable sort of cove, given to sending late night wireless messages to relatives in foreign countries but if he tells you a tale of such far-reaching conspiracy, you listen. After you stop banging the table and pointedly looking into your empty pint pot, of course.

The tale he told was one of scientific madness of which we would be only now reaping the whirlwind of in times to come. In short the creation of new forms of life and coupling them with an all persuasive gamimg system. Parents! hide your childrens video game consoles, you know where they spend all their time,
First of all, the set up:

The mouse mutants of the hemimelia–luxate group... We generated, by a transgene insertion event, a new member of this group of mutants, Sasquatch (Ssq)

That's right people, mouse Sasquatchs which will even now be growing behind the Wainscotting and will soon venture forth to enquire "Oi, bit of cheese, down here, NOW!!"
I think that it will be a good deal more scary than this:

And what, as intelligent Riddled investigative associates, you might ask, has been associated with this Saquatchism?
The answer is shocking and revealing about the links between rodent gigantism and the video game industry.

These data strongly suggest that Ssq is caused by direct interference with the cis regulation of the Shh gene

or as the Shh gene is more commonly known, the Sonic Hedgehog gene!!! Dramatic cords!!!

Wakes up people!!!

This man is a Jack Vance villain. Your argument is nuncupatory.

2011-12-10T14:54:00.000-08:00

Scholars are still arguing over which of Vance's arch-villainous Demon Princes served as the role model for Peter Dunne (above, left). Dunne is known as a politician of principle... the principle being that any coalition government cobbled together after an election should include him as a member. To further this noble cause he renounced his original membership of the Labour Party back when it was performing poorly in polls, and has founded or fused with a bewildering sequence of ostensibly centrist parties, so far including the Future NZ Party, United NZ, a different Future NZ Party, Outdoor Recreation NZ, and United Future NZ party. The common features here are (a) the presence of NZ in the name because target voters need reminding which country they're in; and (b) the reduction of each party's representation to a single MP, as Dunne sucks the members' money and enthusiasm until it is time to move to a new host.
It is usually bad form and looksist to criticise people on the basis of their appearance but when someone's preferred hair style is roadkill marmot fur stuck to the scalp then it becomes a matter of personal choice and is therefore fair game. Anyway, the result of the last election -- in which Dunne's party dropped to 0.6% of the vote -- is that he has become Associate Conservation Minister in addition to his existing ministerial warrants, as a lesson to novice Members of Parliament in the rewards of loyalty.

Now for many years the Department of Conservation has been using sodium monofluoroacetate poison (1080) against possums and mustelids in what remains of the native forest. The Sarkoy Master Venefice who was consulted for this policy advised that 1080 is better-suited to the purpose than mervan, twitus, furux, tox meratis or even cluthe.* The Harkennon Master of Assassins concurred, as did a trio of sinister cloak-wrapped alligators.

But the vermin killed by each distribution of 1080 in National Parks include feral deer and goats and pigs -- a recreational resource for hunters. More crucially, they are a financial source for people who guide and organise hunting trips for overseas tourists, and 1080 is seen as a threat. So there is a campaign to have it stopped. The campaigners present themselves as purely concerned for the interests of native birds, a subject on which they are better-informed than those effete office-bound scientists. Focus groups found that their original argument -- that New Zealand would be a better place if every kiwi were ground into patties and used to fatten deer -- failed to resonate with the public.

Hunting trophy #1

Hunting trophy #2
Now it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a lobby group in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a politician with flexible morals. In this case the politician is Dunne, who has been figureheading the anti-1080 campaign for yonks, and his ascension to the Conservation Department portfolio has raised eyebrows. My old mate Paul Callaghan was on the radio the other day, pointing out that the only animals Dunne seems to care about conserving are stoats and weasels.

Of course his motivation need not be financial. It may simply be a matter of professional courtesy.

-----------------------------------------

* Cluthe "acts within seconds to paralyze and minutes to kill by means of muscle contractions (including contractile paralysis of the respiratory muscles)".

Left: Victim of cluthe poisoning resorts to self-administered cardiac massage to maintain circulation until medical assistance arrives

The doors of his face, the lamp of his mouth, oops wrong orifice

2011-12-10T12:47:00.000-08:00

It's that cheery time of year again when everyone flocks to Riddled searching for "worst advent calendar online". Perhaps they have mistaken us for the House of Substance, where the psychic wounds left by Mr McGravitas' special calendar with the Goatse-themed doorways have not yet entirely healed.

Speaking of wounds, you would not believe how much fuss patients make when they enter hospital near Mithrasmas for "a routine test" and wake up strapped to the bed with their torsos tattooed with lots of numbered doors.* Or so I hear from a friend.

Celebrations are more subdued at the Old Entomologist where Head barmaid Evangeline von Holsteren has a minimalist approach to decor. There is an Advent Calendar but we have been advised to "find the doors yourself, you shower of lazy no-hopers".

It helps to have some experience in Opening of the Way.

Right: The Lady Door can open things

There is ABSOLUTELY NO TRUTH in the rumour that the Wellington City Gallery is closed over December because the city's wealthy elite have hired it as a special Advent present for their families.
* Doorway tattoo FAIL.

I'm on the lamb but I ain't no sheep (Veterinarian of the Psychic Wars)

2011-12-08T12:59:00.000-08:00

Castrating sheep with teeth: not a good idea

Any sensible person castrates animals before they grow teeth, so they can't bite back.

Ovine castration-avoidance strategies. 1. Tails

2. Shrubbery imitation

AK demonstrates new anti-bite equipment from Riddled Research Laboratories

I am shocked, shocked to find that casual racism is going on in the British tabloid press

2011-12-07T14:52:00.001-08:00

Equally shocked to find the Com-Post (Wellington's newspaper of note) reprinting made-up stuff without noticing the bullshit or the crappy writing.

In other news, by tradition French pastry chefs whose cakes fail are traditionally bound to traditionally impale themselves on a traditional baguette.

There is no pineapple

2011-12-07T03:13:00.000-08:00

Few people know that French artist Arman...

... had a day job as a curator at the Grant Museum of Zoology.

Newspaper headline's nails it!

2011-12-06T23:56:00.001-08:00

This headline cannot be improved upon. Imagine the horror of being stunned by a giant white snail. Your mind reeling from misfortune of stumbling onto a Ken Russell movie scant days before his death. Your dissapointment at not seeing Amanda Donohoe sauntering out from behind a tree in very little clothing. AND THEN A GIANT WHITE SNAIL STUNS YOU!!!

Here it is cunningly disguised as white chocolate which all New Zild hikers, or tramping persons (or lost as they are most commonly known) carry. Of course your average kiwi tramper when chancing upon a giant block of Milky Bar chocolate would immediately suspect that a) something was up and b) it was a commercial being filmed.
Thus the attempted stunning by the savagely transformed snail/chocolate would be unsuccessful due to the Kiwis being on their cellphones to their agents and therefore being protected by the invisible force field which protects that man on the bus who has arguments with his spouse via mobilephone on the way into work on the bus."I don't know what kind of dog it is. A brown dog, how the f.... etc etc etc"
However lettuce (snail food) not be accused of currying or even oreganuming for favour note that this is not a Powelliphanta augusta which are deuced uncommon in December anyway (having moved to Maine) but neither is it
a locomotive
he said knowingly.

Eloi, eloi, Lemme see botany

2011-12-06T02:21:00.000-08:00

Teh Leek Orchid, Prasophyllum colensoi.

Of course the over-the-top garishness of the leek orchid might be too much for people of a fastidious disposition. Fortunately the Onion orchid Microtis unifolia is not so showy.

Run around in the radiation, Run around in the acid rain

2011-12-04T22:52:00.000-08:00

Mailbox, flooded

In the wake of our scholarly coverage of melanin and vertebrate photosynthesis, the Riddled mailbag has been flooded with letters about melanistic fungi that photosynthesise with gamma rays.* This is not as bad as a literal flood of the mailbox (which only happened once, that time we foolishly did business with the Mail-Order Goldfish of the Month Club) but it is still not a desirable situation. Some replies are in order.

First of all, if a mold (Cryptococcus neoformans) that has adapted to an environment with a high γ-ray flux shows more metabolic activity than a non-adapted mold when exposed to radiation, this could mean that it is using its protective melanin granules to obtain useful energy from the Compton-scattered γ photons, but it could also mean that it is better-adapted to that environment. Another study in the same feckin' paper found that the same mold's growth was also encouraged by ultraviolet, visible and infrared wavelengths. No-one could possibly have predicted that warmth would encourage metabolism.

No, Mr Gruntfuttock of Hoxton, here in the Riddled Research Laboratory we do not think that the presence of C. neoformans as an opportunistic lung infection in immunocompromised patients is a sign of evolution towards a new human species that can thrive in the fallout of the post-apocalyptic future. It sounds like a plot device for a J. G. Ballard story. You could try selling the idea to Zombie Ballard, except he has been stealing my Dildo Akvavit again and is currently passed out in the staffroom freezer, covered by the frozen peas and the tray of chops that AK won in last Wednesday's meat raffle at the Old Entomologist.

Nor can we encourage correspondent C. B. Throdwalloper's cunning scheme of growing a symbiotic spacesuit, based on genetic-engineered fungus mycelia, that can wrap around human explorers in hostile environments and protect them from the radiation flux while using the energy to provide the user with oxygen and temperature control. Such suits hybridise with alien life-forms and tear themselves away, leaving the owner to perish miserably. This always happens. It must be a tradition or an old charter or something.

This picture is in fact a still from our cinematic adaption of Philip Dick's Eye in the Sky. E-for-brick is a bistable melanin superconducting switch modeled on one in the Smithsonian. I forget how the monks come into the story (AK wrote that part of the script) but they are certainly not wearing protective fungusuits which they are recharging with the sun's eye-beams so rest assured that no intellectual property has been stolen.

Notice how I have woven in some plot devices from The Third Policeman on account of the similarities between that story and Eye in the Sky. In the foreground, Policeman MacCruiskeen is explaining how it all works by Omnium.

* A single flawed study, hyped energetically by people who cannot always tell the difference between γ- and β-rays.

The Common Copper: Not just a comic character in Edwardian detective novels

2011-12-04T21:50:00.000-08:00

Other people have all the colourful butterflies. We have the Common Copper (Lycaena salustius).
Male (notice double veins on all wings):

Female (notice single veins on the fore-wings, and the blue eyespots):

The caterpillars eat Muehlenbeckia complexa a.k.a. pohuehue, a.k.a. mattress vine which is the local member of the buckwheat / dock family... but unlike docks & sorrels & rhubarb it has no oxalic acid in the leaves and is no good at all in salads.

Liberated from its native environment, Muehlenbeckia has turned invasive and even now is swallowing San Francisco beneath its straggly tendrils:

Since 1995 or earlier, it has been a problematic invasive species in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area including Lands End, San Francisco and the Presidio of San Francisco and eradication requires 3–5 years monitoring and maintenance.

These people have a harrowing tale of struggle against the Vine from Hell. They seem to be winning but one thing I learned from Deathworld is that human hatred will only stimulate the plant's psychic defenses and cause it to mutate faster than we can fight it.

San Franciscans, you must learn to integrate with your ecosystem rather than wage war against it. Either that or import some Lycaena salustius caterpillars.

Search term scandal!!!

2011-12-04T17:43:00.001-08:00

I'm just saying, people that the reason that Thundera thinks that the standards of this blog are abysmal is that Google misleads people as to our content.

Search Keywords for today:

atalanta fugiens

aids condom spider

blueprints face

drug spiders

human anatomy

jan gossaert -

rhinogrades

thin penis

tribal sex

unique black and white pattern

If it were not our tyreless work in tracking down the aids condom spider, lord knows what might have happened to the world population of condom spiders but it gets stuck into such salacious company as drug spiders, thin penis and tribal sex.

By Any Other Name

2011-12-03T00:56:00.001-08:00

I am by no means a traditionalist but I felt, from the start, that tigris' idea of adding a "jaunty nautical air " to the RADS "A Midsummer's Night Dream" would not go well. I was also unaware of the part of Benjamin Bunny being in the play but Smut showed me the script that he downlowed onto his Krinkle. Technology eh?
It did get quite political with the whale harpooning section and we usually try to avoid that stuff but having the whale and the whalers join together against the evil Dr. Prospero got over that.

Hah hah, cop that Prospero and Adrian the wicked sprite!
Finally as the play says "All's well that ends well" although there is touch of sadness at the death of First Mate Mr. Hamlet, killed by a rabid penguin.

Roger the cabin boy and his best friend Eric serenade the lords and ladies who signed up for the 3 hour cruise.
I hope it works out.

We are the children of the sun, and this is our inheritance

2011-12-02T16:38:00.001-08:00

You might think from reading science fiction that creating a photosynthetic human subspecies fueled by the energy of Sol Invictus instead of food is no big deal... perhaps following the lead of corals and giant clams, with symbiotic algae in the skin. Gene Wolfe, I'm looking at you.

Mrs Spat will break your nice things

Sadly, our experiments with the Riddled Evolvamat have not been crowned with success so much as dunce-capped with abject failure. Subject #1 (Mrs Spat) did at least turn green but she was not well-pleased and the office fainting couch bore the brunt of her ire.
Subject #2 (Greenish Hugh) turned into a newt (he got better).

Wrong track

It now emerges that we were on the wrong track. Rather than chlorophyll as the photosynthetic pigment, we should have set the Evolvamat controls for ~~the heart of the sun~~ melanin. Apparently melanin can convert photons into metabolic activity. It was published in Medical Hypotheses so it must be true.

We learn that birds harvest the sun's bounty with the melanin in the pecten -- a special organ in their eyeballs.* Humans do it with their skin. So our inspiration all along should have been Tostig Amaral, from the Lévi-Strauss-themed planet of Amazonas Triste:

Two corollaries follow.
1. If humanoids adapted to survival in a hostile environment can disguise their auxiliary solar-absorption surfaces as layers of black clothing, then check any architects you know.

2. With his murderous temperament and his pheromonal exudations, Tostig Amaral fits into the "Parfumiers are all serial killers" profile.

------------------------------------------------

* Our pectens are degenerate.

So much for your vaunted 'Ghost Deer' *

2011-12-02T02:52:00.000-08:00

This elephant's head serves beer. YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID.

Sadly the Mouse and Elephant has since closed.

-----------------

* Ghost Deer here:

This idiosyncratic ale combines the 3 things that we are most passionate about: craft beer, art and taxidermy.

It would certainly add to the gaiety of nations if this tradition were to take off in New Zealand, but I shudder to think which parts of the animal would be required to serve Lion Red Draught.

Ken Russell commemoration

2011-12-01T02:28:00.000-08:00

All around New Zealand, fans of the cineaste are planning events to mark his demise.
Budgetary limitations meant that Russell had to curtail his original plans for the closing scenes of Lisztomania and only stage them like this:

Here the Pahiatua Extreme Wagner Society are preparing for their reconstruction of Russell's original intentions.

I have made a vow to saint Nicolas this day that my nose shall not be touched*

2011-11-28T12:10:00.000-08:00

You see how hard it is to get anything done at the Riddled Comparative Folklore Working Group. Here we have convened in the cloister bar at the Old Entomologist to discuss "The Cautionary Nose-Job: Where should it go in the Aarne-Thompson Classification?" Is everyone listening intently? No, already tigris is having a wee lie down in the courtyard after two pints of Special Spiced Parsnip Scrumpy (99 44/100% badger-free). The dogs are there for the next item on the agenda, "Eyeball-size metaphors in The Tinderbox".

Also someone whose initials may or may not have been AK seems to have replaced the 15-minute hourglass with a 10-minute one, forcing me to cut short my carefully-prepared and scrupulously-thorough presentation and leaving no time for questions afterwards. And whose idea was the joke geyser ink-well on the table?

Like any folktale with cross-cultural resonance, "The Cautionary Nose-Job" is told in different ways, but in the usual version the protagonists are Sigmund Freud and his one-time mentor Wilhelm Fleiss. Any fule kno that Freud-&-Fleiss stories comprise an entire genre of ribald Teutonic humour though they lose a lot on translation into English.

To enshorterise the story: Freud diagnosed his patient Emma Eckstein's malaise as a neurosis. Led astray by a perfectly reasonable misunderstanding of the lyrics of "Windmills of Your Mind", Fliess managed to persuade him that the easiest way to cure her would be to operate on her nose and remove her left middle turbinate bone. After all he had previously obtained short-lived lifts in his patients' moods by numbing the interiors of their noses with a recently-discovered anaesthetic called "cocaine". Also too any neurosis is invariably sexual in nature, and Fliess' conviction that the nose is a sex organ is a recurring theme in the F-&-F genre.

The sexual aspect is less overt in a second version of the story:
But Eckstein's surgery

was a disaster. She suffered from terrible infections for some time, and profuse bleeding. Freud called in a specialist, his old school friend, Dr Ignaz Rosanes, who removed a mass of surgical gauze that Fliess had not removed. Eckstein's nasal passages were so damaged that she was left permanently disfigured.

Fliess went off his trolley big time and invented the Biorhythms theory, which is currently keeping a low profile among professional quackery circles but enjoys periodic revivals (older readers may recall it from Martin Gardner's column in July 1966). Siggy Freud descended even further into intellectual squalor and invented psychotherapy. Emma Eckmann, ruined face and all, trained as a psychotherapist. Sadly, there is no record that she supplied herself with a variety of prosthetic noses for use in different social occasions.

Buggrit, someone else has independently noticed the parallel.

* Nose-related comments are from Slawkenbergius' Tale. They also work as alternative lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody. Not many people know that.

What a nose ! -- 'tis as long, said the trumpeter's wife, as a trumpet

2011-11-28T01:08:00.000-08:00

Riddled is a family blog so we must tread carefully and maintain the proper delicacy when we discuss Wilhelm Fliess (1858-1928), and in particular his "idiosyncratic theories, such as reflex nasal neuroses, postulating a connection between the nose and the genitals". The last time we alluded in passing to semen constituents as nasal sprays, the Comments thread soon spiralled down into a shameful slough of moral turpitude. This is why we can't have nice things.

Freud referred occasional patients to [Fliess] for treatment of their neurosis through anaesthetization of the nasal mucosa with cocaine, and through nasal surgery. [...] Emma Eckstein (1865-1924) had a particularly disastrous experience when Freud referred the then 27-year-old patient to Fliess for surgery to remove the turbinate bone from her nose, ostensibly to cure her of premenstrual depression.

The "nose = sex organ" theory is not dead, however. People have linked the nasal congestion of honeymoon rhinitis with the engorgement of internal erectile tissue. And here is an ACTUAL PUBLISHED PAPER:

Over at Bad Science, one commenter points out that he already receives a sufficiently hostile reception when he's on the train or at work and deals with nasal congestion by blowing his nose.

If only someone had informed me earlier in life that this is supposed to happen every time.

Post election analysis with AK

2011-11-26T12:35:00.001-08:00

Good evening citizens, from the blasted heath that is the New Zild poltical landscape we bring you up-to-date political analysis with Peter Schmeichel, former Manchester United goalkeeper, in his show "Dominating the Area". Over to you, Schmeickers!
(dead air)
Sorry, over to you Herr Schmeichel,
PS: Thank you. This evening we are privileged to have quite near the studio, respected political analyst Another Kiwi
(CRASH)
Ah he is on the studio floor now, How now, Herr Kiwi?
AK: What is wrong with the doors in this place???
PS: Yes, ha ha it is the doors. What can you tell us about the election and the performance of the "Riddled" party?
AK: I have two words for you Minky, Cheese muffins! Inna bowl! I don't think that is a professional look for a radio station.
PS: Who is Minky?
AK: You
PS: My name is Peter.
AK: I could have sworn it was Michael, so I was making a joke hahahah.
PS: I have always been Peter. What about the election and your party?
AK: Well Peter, a week is a long time in politics and support can shift in that time.
PS: This newspaper article from the 21st of November says "We will wipe the floorr with them," Does floor have two "R's" I think not. And in that week your support halved from 8 to four, people that is.
AK: Well there were voting irregularities discovered in that week relating to cats and dogs are not allowed to vote. Who knew? But I would say that the true believers in the "Riddled" party are the real winners on the night.
PS: How so
AK: Because they are, Peitro.
(dead air)
Sorry Peter.
PS: Some of your more controversial policies, involving lifetime peerages, Christmas Ale and Miss Busty magazine, may have cost you votes?
AK: Focus groups found that particular policies were very popular with sections of the party, Peter and that maybe we should have made a better case for them, with people about who would be getting those hard-earned rewards.
PS: So the voters did not understand, it was their failing?
AK: It is not easy communicating your vision to the masses Peter when it involves Miss Busty magazine, especially. But in terms of garnering election funding this campaign has been a great success.
PS: What an outrage! Your dreadful party should not receive any money from Soccer millionaire's taxes. This is not good.
AK: Don't try and stand in the way of democracy Pedro, you will come off second
(dead air)
(Scuffling)
Someone: Freedom and democracy, free...
(CRASH)
(Theme music plays out.)
Well another scintillating programme from "Both Ends of the Field" now we listen to a radio debate on the quality of Top 40 music. Earplugs are advised.

Rubber baby buggy bumpers

2011-11-26T12:00:00.000-08:00

The familiar houseplant Poinsettia is related to the rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis. Both are members of the Euphorbia family, the spurges. Not many people know that. Also the teak tree is one of the Lamiaceae, the sages and mints. While the carrot family, the Umbelliferae or Apiaceae includes SHUT UP SMUT

Right: Set-pointia

Left: Poinsettia

Tragic effects of giant catmint

Sadly, our attempts at Riddled Research Laboratory to graft a teak seedling onto catmint rootstock and produce the world's largest feline narcotic have not yet met with success.

~~Teh Wikiweedia~~ Further intensive inquiries reveal that the fortunes of the Poinsettia as a familiar house-plant are tied to one family. Its invasion of the window-sills of North America began in earnest in the 1920s and 1930s under a second-generation Ecke with his innovating grafting techniques, then rose sharply in the 1970s when a grandson in the dynasty brought in greenhouses and industrial-scale distribution. This would make a great TV mini-series if only there was more family feuding.

Don't eat the Poinsettia, Jenny!

But Poinsettia latex contains no end of toxins and allergenic proteins, and its rise to ~~world~~ windowsill domination correlates PERFECTLY with the rise in diagnoses of autism over the decades.* Nevertheless, it would be silly to accuse Poinsettia allergies of causing autism.**

However, one dingbat blames rubber latex allergies instead for the Autism Epidemic, in combination with childhood vaccination. The author has clearly watched too many films noir and read too many Tintin stories in which sinister kidnappers fill their hypodermic syringes from multi-use ampoules (so the victim receives a dose of latex molecules picked up from the rubber seal on the ampoule, to add to the insult of abduction). He is oblivious to Reality, in which the medical world has largely phased out multi-use latex-capped bottles, while would-be abducters these days merely stun their victims with an iPhone installed with a Kidnapplet.

But he has a Book! And an article published in Medical Hypotheses!***

"Careful what you say about the Latex lobby," Another Kiwi vouchsafed. "Their minions are everywhere, and they are well-funded, and they will not scruple to crush Riddled underfoot like a Coprinellus micaceus mushroom if we call attention to their nefarious machinations."

Plastic Mac Man: Minion of Big Latex

"But what of our integrity, and our journalistic duty to serve the Truth?" I protested.

"Also the name 'Big Latex' is liable to leave our readers all excited and flustered and in need of a cold shower."

"Good point," I conceded.

* Statement not intended to be factual.
** Also any jokes about "A Spurge's Syndrome" will lead to banning WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.
*** This is a version of 'Annals of Improbable Research' but with a better-concealed sense of humour. Any random issue contains papers targetted at winning an IgNobel Prize. What a boon to lazy bloggers!

Certainly a time-saving device

2011-11-26T01:53:00.000-08:00

A beermug that drinks its own contents is kind of missing the purpose of why I might acquire a beermug.

UPDATE: Bonus mugs.

I suppose one should be relieved by the absence of any Mugses in the museum.

La femme 100 4 têtes

2011-11-24T22:34:00.001-08:00

Owning a range of heads for different social occasions is perfectly normal in Oz...
... And in 17th-century Spain.

New Zealand is such a BACKWARD COUNTRY.

Skull-blogging: A Warning to the Carious

2011-11-24T17:38:00.000-08:00

M.R. James was not in favour of bone-related optical devices:

Lawrence was up in the bedroom one day, and picked up a little mask covered with black velvet, and put it on in fun and went to look at himself in the glass. He hadn’t time for a proper look, for old Baxter shouted out to him from the bed: “Put it down, you fool! Do you want to look through a dead man’s eyes?” and it startled him so that he did put it down, and then he asked Baxter what he meant. And Baxter insisted on him handing it over, and said the man he bought it from was dead, or some such nonsense. But Lawrence felt it as he handed it over, and he declared he was sure it was made out of the front of a skull.

Wayne Belger's pin-hole camera project will not end well.

Stereo-camera version here.

At my back I always hear Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near OH FECK THAT'S NOT A CHARIOT¹

2011-11-22T00:46:00.000-08:00

Survival is not easy for a species named after a variety of red-haired double-hearted skinwalking Romanian vampire. So Sirocco the parrophiliac Kākāpō was sent on an ambassadorial mission to the human race, most recently to Wellington... to grant exclusive audiences to a stream of visitors and impress them with the feathered loveability of his kind and maybe hump a few heads when he had the chance. The theory was that the charismatic-megafauna status of Kākāpō would increase as people realise -- with first-hand experience of his proclivities dripping down the back of the neck-- that as well as flightlessness and binocular vision and a dance-floor mating culture, his species and ours also share a tendency to develop strange fetishes.
Now Sirocco is en route home to Maud Island, where the only outlets for his lust will be members of his own kind. He will turn bored and bitey.² But never fear, an animal behaviourist hopes to ~~pray away the gay~~ redirect his urges to a plushy owl using macadamia-nut-related bribery. PROGRESS!

Were the psittacine sexual-reorientation therapist an American,³ one would wonder whether she was masking more-or-less successfully suppressed head-humping urges of her own.

¹ Also wingèd and hurrying and not a chariot.
² Like Byron, Sirocco is on "Maud, bored and dangerous to gnaw".
³ She is, but NEVER MIND.

---------------------------------------------

UPDATE I forgot the sponsorship deal:
Smut Clyde drinks Aalborg Dildo Vodka while writing puerile and borderline-misogynist blogposts.

AALBORG DILD Akvavit, er stadig en ren og frisk dildoplevelse, men såvel råvarerne som fremstillingsprocessen er yderligere forfinet, så den fremstår endnu mere elegant end tidligere -- that's what it says on the label, and who am I to disagree?

An Extremely Stolen Idea.

2011-11-21T01:31:00.001-08:00

1) What are you reading at the moment? Peter Green. "The Greco-Persian Wars" .300 was such bollocks, the real story is way better.
2) As a child, what did you read under the covers? I don't remember ever doing this. Probably "William" books would have been addictive enough for me to do it.
3) Has a book ever made you cry, and if so which one? No I don't think so. English writer Alan Coren has made me cry with laughter, however.
4) You are about to be put into solitary confinement for a year and allowed to take three books. What would you choose? One of Shelby Footes History of the American Civil war, Michael King's History of New Zealand and Don Quixote
5) Which literary character would you most like to sleep with? Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher. Never a dull moment and plenty of Champagne
6) If you could write a self-help book, what would you call it? _Procrastinate your way to somewhere or other_
7) Which book, which play, and which poem would you make compulsory reading in high school English classes?
Book: Riddley Walker
Play: Henry IV part one
Poem: The Turnip Snedder- Seamus Heaney
8) Which party from literature would you most like to have attended? All's Well That Ends Well" party
9) What would you title your memoirs? "What I really meant was..."
10) If you were an actor, which literary character do you dream of playing? Sebastian Flyte from Brideshead,

And you?

Still easier than animating Callista

2011-11-20T19:50:00.000-08:00

Shooting for the stars

2011-11-20T00:35:00.001-08:00

Ha ha, that jolly old Mikhail Lhaws brings his shootin' boots to the party. This sort of crazed bullshit is dangerous. I realise that I am an over-sensitive humourless liberal but that is just dangerous shit. A radio person shouldn't make jokes about shooting journalists because, even though some of them are a waste of time, some of them are not. Some have families and shit and they will, if of a young age, possibly be upset when Mum or Dad is shot at work.
Of course I should realise that Micturation Lhaws is a shock jock and makes a living out of his cheeky in-your-face-take no prisoners-piss liberals off-whore his arse out for ratings-style.
I just have that picture in my mind of an office after a shooting rampage with blood smeared all over the place and people screaming and I think, you know, are 2 ratings points worth it?
I guess sociopaths see the world differently than I do.
UPDATE: Laws off radio yesterday and today.

Revive the living dream Forgive their begging scream

2011-11-19T13:05:00.000-08:00

One of these policy prescriptions for reducing expenses in the education system comes from a Charles Dickens character who combines venality, stupidity and self-justification to the point of absurdity.

"I’ve tried for years to have a very simple model,” he said. “Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”

The other philosopher is a US presidential contender, currently in favour with a plurality of voters aligned with the Republican party.

We go upon the practical mode of teaching, Nickleby; the regular education system. C-l-e-a-n, clean, verb active, to make bright, to scour. W-i-n, win, d-e-r, der, winder, a casement. When the boy knows this out of book, he goes and does it.

See if you can tell which is which!

----------------------------------

I can hardly wait to see which caricatured Dickens character will provide Newt Gingrich with his next policy pronouncement. Perhaps at some point in a debate he will describe himself as a very umble person, the umblest person going, who lives in a numble abode.

Newt Gingrich: Artist's Impression

Free Bird

2011-11-18T16:20:00.000-08:00

Nestor meridionalis.
NOT A NUMBER.

And it's semi-detached in a world of stone

2011-11-18T12:32:00.000-08:00

Symptoms of Gorgon syndrome may include acephaly.
Transplant surgery is an option but the replacement is seldom satisfactory.
The agony of Gorgonism is accompanied in some cases by a transformation into Michael Goodliffe as the disease progresses.
Fortunately, advances in medical science have provided a form of preventative immunisation against Gorgonism.
However, there is still room for improvement in anti-Gorgon techniques.

The stone implant undergoes progressive changes that reduce its effectiveness so it must be replaced periodically.

No, wait -- that's not an implanted statue. That's my dead calcified soul.

Any decline on the Third World, do I hear unreconstructed wasteland...?

2011-11-17T18:22:00.001-08:00

“My proposal would allow any individual to elect to pay zero income tax in exchange for receiving virtually no Government services
It is not surprising that New Zilders are picking up on loonytunes from the right blogosphere. The area in which this Genilmin is standing is known for persons who are, not to put too fine a point upon on it, rolling in the mazoollas.
Could it be rich person's greed?
We report, you wonder where the loud bang came from.