The Magic Otter

Eaten by a Giant Clam

'The English naturalist Charles Waterton would often startle guests to his Yorkshire manor, Walton Hall, by hiding behind the front door and biting them as they entered. (His pretentions to being a dog were no idle fancy - he was perfectly capable, even when well past sixty, of scratching the back of an ear with his big toe). '
From Eaten by a Giant Clam by Joseph Cummings

Attenborough's Madagascar

Brush-tailed Possums

[edited 16/02/2011]
Here's some snaps I took of a gorgeous brush tail possum mother and another cute, smaller individual while on holiday at Broulee, NSW, Australia. While the brushie - as they are affectionately known - is commonplace Australiawide including in the city, it's only here that I've taken the opportunity to snap some shots of them. They are Australia's equivalent to an opossum or small monkey in terms of size, habitat, adaptability to developed environments, being nocturnal and diet.


A little curious.


Very curious. A particularly large and bold individual not unlike a tom cat in both respects.


Ready for her close up, she is the picture of health.
That moist pink nosicle is too much! ;)


Brushies are very cuddly looking. Note to overseas readers: Do not cuddle a brushie! They've got claws as sharp as a cat and they never retract.


We only noticed she was a mum after seeing her bulging pouch. After getting aquainted with us we gave her a bit of space to do her thing.


Mama Possum sat and her pouch slowly dilated.


She allowed the joey to emerge, gave it a solid grooming before popping back it in and going on her way.



[edit]

Mama Possum and bub. Taken about a week later when she returned and the joey was on her back for a while.

Young 'Snaggletooth' out and about. This one is much smaller than Mama Possum. He was first discovered by J, sleeping on a blanket in the downstairs bedroom cupboard on our arrival. His presence has since been confirmed by myself, as temporary resident of said cupboard. It was part of my daily ritual to quietly slide open the cupboard door to check on him. He must have an alternative sleeping spot because he wasn't there everytime I checked on him. It's just as well because we had to block his entry into the cupboard!

He's a very gentle, shy, sweet possum. I know this from having fed him some fruit scraps. He was very careful not to scratch me with his claws, daintily taking the food in his mouth and gently holding onto my finger for balance. Mama Possum did scratch me slightly and grabbed onto my fingers very firmly even though with both possums I didn't offer my fingers to be held! He is at the bottom of the pecking order as far as other local possums go. Mama Possum hissed him off, while the another chased him off. He's had a hard life, and that little bit of missing lip revealing his teeth was probably the result of a close encounter with another possum's sharp claws.

Not sure what to title this one!

'Having spent the first five years of my academic life studying great ape social cognition, I’ve seen more simian penises than I care to mention. I once spent a summer with a 450-pound silverback gorilla that was hung like a wasp (great guy, though) and baby-sat a lascivious young orangutan that liked to insert his penis in just about anything with a hole, which unfortunately one day included my ear.'

Jesse Bering, Secrets of the Phallus: Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?, Scientific American, April 2009

Adel Rootstein mannequins of the 1980s

I was chucking out my unused resource files when I came across these old Adel Rootstein mannequin promotional sheets. They were too funny not to share before condemning to recycling. Enjoy!


Ah, the 1980s: when men were effeminate and women were drag queens.


Ms Tracy Leigh is actually modelled on Ms Tracy Leigh. Adel Rootstein have a history of modelling their mannequins on real people, in particular famous people.


The very model of chillaxment apparently. I reckon he's frowning too much to be considered laid back but maybe that's just me.


We are the goon squad and we're coming to town.

Beep, beep!

Posing! Posing like a swan. Posing! Posing for a portrait ... Posing a threat!
Some rather contrived poses on the reverse page of the Runway ladies. I put some modesty patches over their 'bits' so it should be safe for work!

Smoked Salmon and Mushroom Salad

I came up with this recipe while on my evening walk. I had a packet of salmon close to its use by date, and was brainstorming a lean, healthy way to use it. I had all of the other ingredients.

This was so delicious I thought I'd better write it down and share it :) Keep in mind that sambal oelek is a crushed chilli paste so those of the faint palette may wish to reduce the quantity of it. Chilli is good for speeding up your metabolism.

Smoked Salmon and Mushroom Salad
4 or 5 leaves of red oak leaf lettuce (to cover a dinner plate), whole or sliced as you prefer
4 or 5 button mushrooms (about a handful), sliced
2 or 3 slices of smoked salmon
2 tsp capers, rinsed
1 tsp sambal oelek
1 clove of garlic, crushed
a splash of olive oil
a splash of lemon juice

Spread the lettuce over a dinner plate.
Chop or rip up the smoked salmon. Distribute it over the lettuce. Keep plate in fridge until ready to serve.
Warm the oil in a small frying pan, saute the garlic.
Add capers and crush them with a wooden spoon. Heat through.
Add sambal oelek and stir through.
Add mushrooms. Stir through then cover. Fry until soft.
Stir through a splash of lemon juice to moisten, then allow to evaporate a little.
Distribute over the salmon and lettuce.
Serve immediately.

Serves 1.

Serving suggestions

Has anyone EVER eaten the serving size quoted in the nutritional contents panel on the packet of anything that comes in more than a single serve?
eg on a packet of water cracker dipping biscuits: serving size 15g, 6 biscuits.

I do feel a bit devil-may-care, naughty for always eating more than the nutritionally described serving size. Sometimes I'll eat the whole packet in one go!

How do they decide how much a serving is? Perhaps the manufacturer is legally obliged to recommend moderate consumption of what is often a processed and therefore unhealthy snack food. For me it always seems a unrealistically small serving and not very useful as dietary information. That's why, if I want to understand and compare the nutritional content I look at the per 100g information and think of that in percentages.

MasterChef...

At work, two middle aged ladies are looking for a gift for a bloke they know.
"Ah MasterChef aprons! They have MasterChef aprons. You could get him a MasterChef apron. Do you think he would like that?"
"I think he would be insulted [low chuckle]!".

The first moving images of the new life forms from NASA!!!

The first moving images of the new life forms from NASA!!!*













* aka Shipoids in the Night from Malcolm Sutherland on Vimeo.

Gold

On the train from Footscray into the city we pass a temple under construction. It features a golden statue almost as tall as the temple itself. There is a group of jovial Maoris behind me.
On seeing the statue one bloke says "Whoah... What is that - gold?"
His mate "Cheese."

An analogy about veganism

'Vegans are to meat what Christians are to sex. The best way to control people is through shame, and attaching shame to a natural part of being human is hugely powerful.'

'Wolter' commenting on this article.

2 @ Wunderkammer

Flight of the Crayfish
print from a paper collage
21 x 29

2 @ Wunderkammer is the second exhibition of art by Patricia Denis
at Wunderkammer featuring her latest two dimensional works in collage.
An array of unique, full colour paper butterflies will flutter up the wall while the Spam Tales collage series continues.

2

@

Wunderkammer
by Patricia Denis
Wunderkammer
Nov 25 - Dec 9, 2010
Open: Mon to Fri 10-6, Sat 10-4
439 Lonsdale Street,
Melbourne, 3000 Victoria, Australia
info@wunderkammer.com.au
Phone: +61 3 9642 4694

Join the Facebook group,
Art by Patricia Denis
to keep up to date with events and news.

Egalitarian cuisine or disrespectful to the fish?

I learnt today that having a taste for salmon doesn't mean you know how to pronounce the word. I'm not sure if this makes salmon sushi handrolls an egalitarian cuisine or disrespectful to the very tasty fish. If it were a foreign word it would be less of a thought curio.
At a sushi shop in Melbourne CBD,
"Yeah we want two sushi rolls. One of them sal-mon..."

The windmills of your pink paté.

'But how you get a rainbow activity map, or any other useful figure, out of a 2.2 lb lump of pink paté -- that's a part of the story they rarely tell. The truth is, brain tissue looks blah. It's boring. Sliced brain is about as pretty as a thinly chopped white mushroom; you can see only a few obvious structures, and those structures only grossly correlate with brain function. '
Jessica Palmer @ Bioephemera.

Pushed too far, one fine day: RIP James Freud

RIP James Freud

Freerange eggs and pork.

I saw this ad appealing for free range pigs on the tram to work recently. 'You are Our Hope' is a campaign funded by Animals Australia*. You would need a heart of stone not to be at least a little moved and think a bit more about the welfare of your food sources. Bred freerange pork products are currently so hard to find. Chicken and eggs on the other hand is fairly easy. Hopefully this campaign will raise enough awareness to create demand and lead to happier Aussie piggies. Coles has committed to making its fresh pork products sow stall free. Use this link to appeal to the other major food retailers to do the same.

Admittedly you do have to be selective/educated about which freerange eggs you buy. I owe it to the Epicure section from The Age earlier this year for my knowledge:

Some are actually barn laid with access to outdoors through an opening too small to allow but a few chooks through in a day. Others have their beaks trimmed whether they need it or not, and in some cases this is done so severely that other farmers have described it as debeaking. Beak trimming is only acceptable where other measures to deal with pecking order issues are unsuccessful, and even then it must be professionally done.

Further reading:
http://www.greenwashreport.org/node/74

I hadn't previously been successful finding them, because the Epicure print article didn't have the logo included but now I know what to look for:
http://www.freerangefarmers.com.au/

*yes they are a vegan promoting bunch but listen to what they have to say in this campaign, if nothing else.

Tiramisu

I made this :)



Recipe from here. Dusted with Dutch cocoa powder.
To create strawberry garnish:

1. Wash and dry fresh strawberries, preferably more than what you think you will need so you can practice. For best results, select berries of a uniform size and shape.
2. Use a sharp paring (small, smooth blade, pointed) knife to carefully slice strawberry from tip to hull into four or five slices, but not all the way through. You need the hull to hold the slices together.
3. Gently fan out the slices.

'The Art of Tidying', for girls in 1886,

A room that needs tidying.

‘One of the few anecdotes intended to prove a warning to my heedless youth, which I can now remember, related to the homely subject of tidying up. It was to this effect, and was short and sour. Miss Smith had long been engaged to be married to Mr Jones. That gentleman was invited to sleep a night at Mr Smith’s house, and coming down to breakfast he passed his intended wife’s bed-room, from which she had gone down, leaving the door wide open. There he saw such a scene of confusion that he felt sure his home would not be a comfortable one under Miss Smith’s management, and so he broke off the match.
“Mean man!” all you girls cry in chorus; and I am not the least commending Mr Jones’s behavior; I am merely telling you what effect on his conduct the sight of that untidy bed-room had.
My own view of untidiness is that it is an indication of a very inferior mind – a mind lacking in imagination, lacking in the sense of the appropriate, lacking in will-power.
…
It sees that the armchair cannot be used to sit on because a skirt lies across it; the floor cannot conveniently be trodden on because a wrap would trip up the feet; the sunshade must be removed before the smaller chair can be taken from the wall; and the children may catch their heedless little heads against the corners of the open drawers.
…
By acting thus the untidy girl shows herself lacking in the sense of the appropriate. I strongly suspect she is the kind of girl I meet with a fur cape on her shoulders in July, and thin summer shoes on her feet in December. In common language, she never knows “what’s what”.
…
Let it be every woman’s ambition to lead a perfectly beautiful life, and to do that she must try to cultivate a very beautiful mind; for surely we know that the outward is only a picture of the inward, and that a little drop of water can contain a miniature picture of the world; therefore all great results can be accomplished in a very small space, and every little life, in any humble sphere, be so exquisitely lived that it would be a fit subject for a poet’s verse, a painter’s picture of home-life, or a heart-refreshing biography from the pen of a loving friend.’

Image and extract from: Power, Helen, ‘The Art of Tidying’, Cassell’s Family Magazine (annual), 1886, p172-173

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