data consumer

2007-08-24T10:14:00.001-07:00

The ebbing tide of Blue Hair

2006-04-21T05:32:00.000-07:00

End of the Blue rinse

By David Derbyshire, Consumer Affairs Editor telegraph.co.uk

(Filed: 21/04/2006) It was favoured by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, abused by Mrs Slocombe and became synonymous with a brand of Middle England Conservatism. But now, after decades of tireless service to millions of woman certain age, the era of the blue rinse is over. Demand for the hairstyle is so low that Asda yesterday announced that it would no longer be stocking the dye.

I used to be terrified of these ladies with the lavender bouffants and the disaproving air: done right, the look gave the impression that the wearers head was somehow connected to the military, ready to do its part for the country in time of war. Asda (British Walmart) has stopped selling the stuff, but this was never where the hardcore of these ladies went to turn their hair blue. Even so it's the end of an era, althouh there is bound to be a hard-core, blue-rinse underground resistance now. The field is clear though for the ironic/un-ironic, Gen-X and Y revival of the practice. Quentin Crisp pioneered the gay version of the look as hip (at the point of his life when he was calling himself "One of the stately homos of England"), and scores of hip young women are already wearing the cats-eye glasses which go with blue hair.

Wikipedia points out that the "dilute hair dyes used to reduce the yellowed (or translucent, showing scalp colour) appearance of greying hair " ought not to be confused with the use of the term blue-rinse in science fiction where it refers to "an explosive which destroys all living matter, leaving inanimate matter intact"

2006-04-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

Foreign Nationals in the Armed Forces

The Daily Telegraph reports that in the U.K. One in 10 soldiers is recruited overseas: "Ten per cent of soldiers in the Army are foreign nationals, new Government figures show. The number of overseas recruits has risen dramatically in recent years as the Armed Forces struggle to overcome a shortage of home-grown applicants."

This adds up to about 6,000 foreigners in the British services, with Fijians being the single biggest group (with over 2000) and the second Jamaicans. This doesn't take into account the 3000 plus Nepalese who serve in so-called Ghurka regiments.

In the US armed services, foreign recruitment is declining, despite service being a fast track route to citizenship. Perhaps, in part this because of the 174 non-US citizens who have died serving in the US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Foreigners have long served in the US military -- in a nation of immigrants its a quick way to become part of ones new country -- and they're often as not front-line soldiers. Traditionally non-citzens do not serve as officers (in the Civil War the foreign-born in the Union army were sometimes formed into their own regiments "Swiss Rifles (15th Missouri); the Gardes Lafayette (55th New York); the Garibaldi Guard (39th New York); the Martinez Militia (1st New Mexico); and the Polish Legion (58th New York)").

Today even with a falling overseas recruitment, however, there are something like 30,000 non-citizens in the US armed forces.

forlorn

2006-04-13T05:15:00.000-07:00

What do Damien Hirst and Beatrix Potter have in Common?

forlorn
Originally uploaded by moufle, and taken in the University Museum of Zoology at Cambridge:

Odd that the Victorians should evidence their empathy for animals by (often killing them and) stuffing them. Then again this anthropomorphizing of our animal friends probably changed the culture and made dioramas of custom stuffed animals, if nothing else, unfashionable.

Case in point is Walter Potter (scroll down) the Cecil B. DeMille of Victorian stuffed animal corpses. Crowd scenes. Multitudes. Scary.

I think his stuff is inspires fascination because its creepy and hard to look away from, partly because it's such so alien to current mores (one simply cannot kill a roomful of kittens and achieve public acclaim these days), and partly because people think it's cute (although they might not admit to it. But Beatrix Potter--no relation it seems--is as popular as ever, and has more than a little in common with Walter. Little critters dressed up in tiny costumes). There was a exhibition on the Victorians at the V&A a few years ago which featured a few Walter Potter dioramas, and they had big clumps of people staring at them when I visited.

The collection was sold at auction in the summer of 2003, and is now in the hands of various collectors. It's a pity it is not in a public museum somewhere in the UK, both as an awful warning to the young on the perils of grotesque sentimentality, and for it's art-historical significance. Damien Hirst (who, incidently, made an effort to save the collection from being broken up) glides through these very same artistic waters, and Walter Potters work has the whiff of an YBA influence. Or maybe it just possesses a certain Britishness.

2006-04-12T14:01:00.000-07:00

Crystal Palace Looking To Rebuild?:

"Architect Ray Hall dreams of rebuilding the long-lost wonder, and now claims the battle is half won. An undisclosed private donor has promised half of the £60 million required to resurrect the iconic greenhouse."

The Crystal Palace was built for The Great Exhibition of 1851, as celebration of the glories of the British Empire. Not much is left of the building which moved from Hyde Park to Sydenham Hill in 1854, which burned down in the 1936, but you can go visit the foundations. Nothing in the article about where the new palace would go (on top of the old foundations?), but it is said that the structure will only be a quarter of the size of the original, and use a hi-tech glass which will generate enough electricity for 10,000 houses. The tech component is in keeping with the original, which was a extremely innovative structure for it's time, and paved the way for the steel frame architecture of 20th century skyscrapers.

Ukuleles and Space Shoes

2006-04-11T04:22:00.000-07:00

Ukuleles and Space Shoes at 310 West 10th Street
Originally uploaded by niznoz.

"Yeah we're still sitting here,
Waiting for the day the Murray Space Shoe craft
Will come and take us away." Murray Space Shoe by Sonic Uke.

Alan E. Murray, a professional ice skater, invented his Space Shoes in 1939. They were so comfortable that Danny Kaye ruined his reputation as a dandy by wearing them. As well as producing shoes, Murray was an author, writing "The truth about Original Sin & Shoemaking" which no longer seems to be in print, but is advertised on some foot-health websites. After Murray's death, the business moved away from West 10th street, to California. The Space Shoe Stoop is now the scene of uke-i-nannies, night-time jam sessions in which the ukulele community from New York and beyond, gather to pay tribute to the easily carried instrument. NY Uke Fest.

Practical Jokes and Novelties

2006-04-08T15:14:00.000-07:00

jumping beans
Originally uploaded by niznoz.

As a 10-12 year old I was obsessed with a shop much like this which I passed on the bus to school in the mornings with the idea that it would be full of hilarious practical jokes. When I finally went there I found it mainly to be filled with paper decorations, and novelty fans.

I did, finally get hold of a bunch of manufactured practical jokes, which I applied with mixed results.

Stink Bombs: truly stinky -- but if you let them off in the school bogs you set off not a wave of hilarity, but a grim faced inquisition. Result: scary failure.

Disappearing Ink: doesn't disappear fast enough to avoid being kicked for splashing ink on fellow students. Result: ouch.

Snow-from-burning-cigarette pellets: These were little white pills that you put on the end of a burning cigarette at which point a blizzard of white stuff floated around the room. It worked pretty well, but nobody in their right mind would allow a 12 year old boy near a burning cigarette with small white pills, so the practical applications were limited. I did successfully do this with my own cigarette on the top of a double decker bus causing everybody to rush around opening windows and looking for the source of the contaminant. In the confusion nobody told me off for smoking or nicked my cigarettes. Result: partial success.

Exploding Cigarettes: you were supposed to slip these little metal things into the end of a cigarette. But to do so resulted in horrible mangling the cigarettes, which caused far too much suspicion for them to be actually smoked. Still the metal things made some satisfying small explosions when thrown in a bonfire. Result: small success, not worth the money.

Joy Buzzers were a disapointment, but I was never taken in by X-ray Specs.

2006-04-08T14:13:00.000-07:00

Police plea on macabre book find: "Police seek the owner of a 300-year-old ledger, bound in human skin, found in a street in Leeds."

Burglars don't like them, Harvard hopes to avoid them becoming "an object of fascination'", but anthropodermic bibliopegy, or the binding of books in human skin, was, historically, not that unusual. Not unusual,to be sure, but a wee bit kinky all the same. Doctors had books of anatomy bound in the skin of the poor (possibly burked) bastard they'd cut up to advance science. The trial records of particularly gruesome (or perhaps supple) murderers were bound in the skin of the executed felons, particularly in late-eighteenth century France.

2006-04-08T13:48:00.000-07:00

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