Tuesday 30 June 2015

M&M: The Flying Scotsman

Dear reader,

yesterday I thought: which movie am I going to review tomorrow?!

Then, unrelated to that, purely because I like Jonny Lee Miller in “Elementary” and wanted to see him him in other roles, I watched “The Flying Scotsman”. All right, I've seen him also in “Trainspotting” and “Hackers” before. So I don't only know him from “Elementary”.

The Flying Scotsman. A flying Scotsman? Oh no, I don't want to watch fantasy like that tonight. Okay, let's see what the movie is about. Aha! Based on the true story of the Scotsman Graeme Obree (Jonny Lee Miller), who loves riding his bike and sets a new world record – with a bike he build on his own! A bike, which consists of parts of a washing machine. Now, that does sound quite interesting. It does have a dark side to it though: Graeme has moments of depression and attempted several suicides.

In the movie Graeme is married to Anne (Laura Fraser) and the two have a child. In “real”life the two are divorced now and in 2011 he had a “coming out” and revealed that he's gay, as The Guardian for example reported: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2011/feb/02/graeme-obree-cycling

As a child, he was bullied by other boys and one Christmas Graeme's parents gave him a bike for a present. He used it to get away from his bullies at first, but he enjoyed riding his bike in later life, too. So it's not very surprising that after he has to close his cycle shop, he starts working as a bicycle courier. While working there, he meets another courier, Malky (Billy Boyd), who's equally enthusiastic about bikes. When Graeme wants to set a new world record, he hires Malky to work as his manager. Because he builds his bike himself, sponsors of expensive bicycle companies fear for their money, so the Union Cycliste Internationale do their best to disqualify Graeme and make life difficult for him. But Graeme is creative and ambitious enough, to give them parole.

The film spares us many an amplified story telling and cliches and shows the enthusiastic biker Graeme Obree and his ambition. That certainly makes a movie well worth watching for other people, who enjoy riding their bike. The only sad bit about the film is that it starts well, and later seems to just rush through Graeme Obree's life. The childhood and beginning with Malky are in part very humorous. Then again he's just sitting there doing nothing at the harbour or at home. Seemingly depressive phases. (Today he's diagnosed as bipolar or manic-depressive.) But then he gets on his bike again and then the film ends. A bit sad for a film with such a good start. Especially worth mentioning for those daring to watch the film with the original audio, is the convincing Scottish accent of Jonny Lee Miller. Jonny Lee Miller was born in Kingston upon Thames, England, so truly a different accent.

The Flying Scotsman, for me, is a film well worth watching, despite the weaknesses towards the end, especially for bicycle fans (and fans of the Scottish accent). Quite worth watching and maybe also motivating for the viewer to get on their own bike a bit more again. We don't have to set a new world record though. Enjoy the ride!

Until next blog,
sarah

Who is “one" anyway?

Dear reader,

years ago we were sitting on the balcony as a family and had a BBQ. My sister told us about last night. I don't remember her exact words, but something along the lines of, “I had a mosquito in my room yesterday. It was flying around and buzzing. And when one turns on the light, it's gone!” To which our mother asked, “Who was the 'one' in your room, who turned on the lights?”
Even today I'm surprised that it was my mother, who jumped on the phrasing. Normally I have quite good ears for such things. In this moment my heart was turned on however, because we all know those nights too well, don't we, where mosquitoes are humming and annoying, when we want to sleep. My father is also fairly good, hearing discrepancies in what was being said and commenting on it. He too hadn't reacted on that that evening.
Who is this unknown, undefined person “one” anyway? You can find them in recipes and other instructions and guidelines, in German, at least. Probably not so common in cooking recipes in English. (Sometimes one has to think hard to come up with good examples in a language that's not their native one.) At least in English it's more common for “you” to take the table spoons. So that's good. I think.
They” can also be charming and very intelligent people. “They say...” Who's doing the research for those people?
They say that lots of stuff on the internet is stupid. Maybe so is this entry. I don't know. I only thought of that evening on the balcony the other day, when I heard a mosquito in my room buzzing around an when I turned on the light, it was gone most of the times. The times I did see it, I was sadly unable to crush it.
Until next blog,
sarah

Thursday 25 June 2015

Organ language

Dear reader,

no, organ language isn't something bad or rude. It's the manner of expression of our organs, to show us that something isn't right. The theory goes that, based on which organ gives us trouble, we could also identify more precisely what kind of problem we have.

That doesn't seem that odd at all, although I have only very barely dealt with that subject. Some of it seems, even without deeper knowledge of organ language, almost intuitively finding expression included in our word-language, too.

The next time when you're thinking very hard about something, maybe also think of this entry and don't be too surprised that you've got a headache. Even though I can't tell you, why precisely you've got a headache from thinking a lot, there's still the phrase of “causing quite a headache”. Alternatively things can “cause somebody an upset stomach”.

Especially woman have fun when cooking, to also prepare the food on a plate in a nice way or enjoy it when someone serves them a meal that's set in a pleasing way, because “you eat with your eyes first”!

When once I was in the hospital for a surgery to correct my nose, many of us had tamponades in our nose and we joked some days after the surgery that we were “fed up” with it. Actually that one doesn't translate very well in English, because in German we say something like having a “full nose” literally.

Maybe you've heard of pheromones before, chemicals that are exchanged between two people and make us and the people next to us react to each other in certain ways. All of it is unconscious, but still there's some truth about the saying of “hating someone's guts”. Again, that one is a bad example in English, because in German we say that someone “smells good”, if we like them or doesn't smell good, if we don't like them. But still works in English with the “gut” as an organ in the saying.

Is it so surprising that some people develop asthma, when we've got the saying that something “takes my breath away” or something is “breathtaking”?

Maybe it's worth looking more into this organ language and what it may mean, especially if you've got problems with one or more organs time and again.

Keep a stiff upper-lip!

Until next blog,
sarah

Tuesday 16 June 2015

The quagga and the woolly mammoth

Dear reader,

did you ever see a quagga or heard of them? Of course not seen it „for real“. They've been extinct since about 1883. Quaggas have been relatives of plain zebras today. Although the quagga wasn't white with black stripes, but light brown with almost no white stripes except on the head and neck. They have lived in South Africa and have been hunted mostly, because they were seen by the Dutch settlers as natural competitors of the cows. Only much later, after the last quagga had died August, 12, 1883 in the Artis-Zoo in Amsterdam, it was realised just how far the hunt had gone. By the way, the quagga (Equus quagga quagga) was not a separate species of zebras, but a subspecies of the plain zebra (equus quagga).

In 1987 The Quagga Project was started. The idea is pretty simple: when two plain zebras with few stripes mate, they (hopefully) get a child with few stripes and eventually the zebras of the project will then have so few stripes that they resemble the quagga. These could then be settled back in South Africa. So a mistake once made over 100 years ago would, at least in part, be put right. One could argue that a zebra, which looks like a quagga, because it has few stripes, doesn't make a real quagga. The people of the Quagga Project actually thought about that, too, and argue against that on the subpage Criticism of the Quagga Project. They say that because the quagga is extinct now, no other specifics other than the reduction of stripes can be made out. Also the grasses the plain zebras eat today are very close to those that existed in quagga times and would. So really it isn't a very strong argument to say that the reduction of stripes alone will not make a real quagga. You are free give your thoughts on that in the comments.

The Quagga Project has a whole bunch of photos with zebras, which already have visibly fewer stripes already. You can check out the photos at the following link: http://www.quaggaproject.org/Quagga-Graphic-Elements/PhotoGallery/PhotoGallery/slide.html

Woolly mammoths were pretty common in America as well as Eurasia before they went extinct. Because they have been living and gone extinct in a cold stage, many remains have been mummified because of the ice and remained relatively preserved. Maybe you can imagine what some scientists think of or are actually more or less working on. Correct, the mammoth would raise from the dead. Similarly to the quagga one attempt is get close to a mammoth through selection of existing elephants. Another thought is to use available DNA from mammoths and use them or even creating the necessary DNA, that is the sperm, to plant it into a living elephant. The cow elephant then would idially give birth to a mammoth baby. The anatomy of elephants and other aspects such as the suspected long gestation period like living elephants today (which is about 21 to 22 months) would make this very difficult and would make this a really long and time-consuming project. To create an artificial egg cell, the chromosome science isn't quite ready yet and the needed specimens of existing cells of mammoth findings are too fragmented.

I could sort of understand to create a quagga. This zebra-quagga would at least live Africa in an environment close to that of the actual quagga. A mammoth however... Where should the mammoth live and what from?

Surely it's an exciting thing, whether it can be possible to recreate animals again. But what for? To have again what isn't anymore and existed once before? To be able to say and show that we could and die make it happen? It would certainly be a sensation and impressive. But I think, it shouldn't be forgotten that the real natural environment of the animals doesn't exist anymore. The so called civilised humans will destroy the world more and more and with it the animals that (still) exist today. Wouldn't it make more sense, instead of recreating extinct animals, to make it so that endangered and critically endangered animals live can live on?

Until next blog,
sarah