(no subject)

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Kate Orman!

1. A sixteenth century mathematician lost his nose in a duel over his love for Kate Orman, and wore a silver replacement for the rest of his life.
2. Kate Ormanomancy is the art of telling the future with Kate Orman!
3. Pacman was originally called Kate Ormanman!
4. If you lick Kate Orman ten times, you will consume one calorie.
5. Kate Orman is incapable of sleep!
6. Devoid of her cells and proteins, Kate Orman has the same chemical makeup as sea water.
7. Scientists believe that Kate Orman began billions of years ago as an enormous ball of dust and gas!
8. A rhinoceros horn is made from compacted Kate Orman.
9. Kate Orman is actually a mammal, not a fish.
10. The pigment Indian Yellow was manufactured from the urine of cows fed only on Kate Orman.

I am interested in - do tell me aboutherhimitthem

(no subject)

Continuing a tradition begun in Contact, the Australian astronomer in the recent The Quatermass Experiment has a hilarious Australian accent, as though as a wheeze someone is doing a Pauline Hanson impression.

ETA: Tennant's character has already scored the hero astronaut's wife WITHOUT YET APPEARING ON SCREEN. I am impressed.

(no subject)

I have an awful lot of scholarly articles photocopied at the uni library and stuffed into folders. Out of the whole lot my favourite title is Attitudes Toward Deviant Sex in Ancient Mesopotamia (Vern L. Bullough, The Journal of Sex Research 7(3) August 1971 pp 184-203.), which I've just been re-reading.

It has long fascinated me that negativity towards homosexuality and prostitution haven't always been part of the West - those attitudes had to be invented, they were innovations. In Mesopotamia, the picture is one of change from a sexually free society into a much more, erm, rigid one. There are lots of gaps in our knowledge, lots of problems with interpretation, but that's the broad picture. Plus there are huge contrasts with their neighbours the Hebrews, whose sexual mores may be a direct reaction against Mesopotamian practices ("they do it, so we don't").

( In more detail... )