Flowering only very rarely the Corpse Plant is guarenteed to cause a stink in the botanical world whenever it blooms.

However, amongst botany geeks the Corpse Flower appears to be quite a hit; There aren’t many of them to be found outside the plant’s natural habitat, the rainforests of Indonesia, and they rarely flower in the wild, let alone in cultivation, so maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that whenever one of these bizarre organisms blooms in captivity flora-philes come flocking to see the unusual sight, and “experience” its unique scent.

On this occasion it’s the specimen held at the Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) which is due to flower, and such has been the buzz it’s created that not only have the HMNS set up a webcam, & a “Corpse Flower Watch” on their blog, complete with daily updates on the plant’s progress and measurements of its growth, but, with the fragrant flower due to open its petals any time this week, they’re also planning on opening the museum 24hrs a day while it’s in bloom.

The plant, named Lois, has also become a bit of a celebrity on Twitter, so if you’re a would-be botanist, but not based within travelling distance of the HMNS you can still keep up to date with its progress minute to minute.

Lingerie that's attractive and functional? I must admit, I'm dubious.

Other than carrying a putter around, the wearer really is all set and ready to go whenever they fancy some putting action, at least in theory; The fact that doing so would require the wearer to strip down to their pants is, sadly, likely to deter many from using this novelty lingerie outfit to it’s full potential.

The piece looks at the robbery of a French bank security van, the twist being that it appears it was the security firm’s own driver who was responsible for the heist. You’ve got to think that the man has to have balls the size of water melons, be really desperate, or be a few scones short of a picnic to try something so brazen.
Apparently his plan was so audacious (i.e. stupid) that the French police were originally working on the theory that he’d been kidnapped, along with the van, by a gang of robbers, or that someone close to him was being held captive by a gang in order to ensure his co-operation. However, it appears that this isn’t the case, and having visited the chap’s home, to find it pretty much cleaned out, and checked on his bank accounts, which have all been emptied recently, the French Police have come to the conclusion that the driver took off with the van, and the 11 million Euros it contained, of his own free will!

The driver had obviously planned his heist quite carefully, not only had he tied up loose ends, ready to dissappear, but he’d also done his homework well enough to be able to disable the van’s tracking system, and get the money out of the van’s armoured vault; A job which normally requires two people co-operating. Another thing which points at him having accomplises is the sheer amount of money he managed to shift, 11 million in notes has got to make for a fair old stack of paper! Even though the security van was abandoned in a quiet side street you’d still think that someone shifting the contents of a bank securitry van into some other vehicle (maybe he’d planned ahead and arranged van rental?) would draw attention, but as of yet the French Police haven’t mentioned witnesses coming forward.

So is the guy going to get away with it? On one hand it seems like such a stupid plan that it has to fail, but the guy’s obviously planned fairly well. The police don’t appear to have got him yet, despite knowing his identity, & although the French borders are being watched for him, you’d think anyone who had planned such an audacious robbery would have thought about where they were going to go in the longer term, and how they were going to get there.
One thing’s for sure, if the French Police don’t manage to catch this guy pretty soon, they’ll end up looking a little more like Inspector Clouseau than they’d like:

This piece from the BBC looks at a long running legal case over the use of the fungicide dimethyl fumarate on leather sofas made by a number of firms in China, & sold by UK retailers, including big names like, Land of Leather, Walmsleys and Argos. The sofas were apparently treated with the chemical to stop them developing mould while in transport & storage, however many people who bought the affected sofas developed painful skin rashes, as well as chest and eye problems in some cases. The chemical has now been banned by the EU, and the big name retailers who sold the sofas were all quite prompt when it came to issuing recalls & offering refunds.

Sofa so good?

In anycase this is the sort of hidden danger which a consumer can’t reasonably be expected to anticipate by exercising common sense, and which they should be protected from. Ok, so this is a pretty clear cut case, people looking to buy quality sofas have a reasonable right to expect that they shouldn’t be laced with unpleasant toxins. Whereas warnings about not letting heavy furniture fall on children should be pretty redundant, since, to my mind it’s rather obvious advice. Obviously there are grey areas inbetween these two examples, & I suppose those are where the slippery slope towards an over-protective nanny state starts.

Hopefully, this sets the record straight on the view I’m expressing, i.e. that people should be expected (& given the freedom) to exercise personal responsibility where possible, not, that we should live in an unregulated world where unethical manufacturers can endanger the lives of consumers if it means cutting production costs.

*No, I didn’t publish them, I’m fine with people criticising my views, but I’m not going to publish streams of profanity, or waste my time editing such comments to make them work place friendly.

The tendancy for governments to bombard us with more and more safety legislation every year is an insidious creep towards a situation where everybody is assumed to be a moron who should be wrapped in cotton wool for their own safety. Maybe this is a good thing for the “hard of thinking”, the proportion of society who really do need to be protected from themselves, but I firmly believe that, by taking a “one size fits all” approach to looking after these poor unfortunate souls, govts are encouraging everyone to be more cretinous and less likely to think for themselves in situations where some judgement might be advisable; Not to mention that blanket legislation which caters to the lowest common denominator curtails the freedoms of everybody else.

I’m sure the campaigners who get behind these causes do so with the best of intentions. Often I believe it’s because the “danger” which they seek to protect everybody from has effected their lives in some traumatic way, and that’s almost part of the problem; Nobody wants to be the one to tell these poor misguided souls that they’re over-reacting, perfectly understandable if the campaigner in question has lost a relative, but really somebody should, rather than media, and politicians, jumping on the band wagon for the sake of sales, or to gain a few points in the polls.

Someone really should be able to tell these people that sometimes bad stuff happens, and it’s just bad luck, that no-one deserves to be sued as a consequence, & no laws need to be drawn up to protect others from themselves, or cruel twists of fate, especially if those laws would curtail the freedoms of others who are willing to take personal responsibility & aren’t hurting anyone else.

Ok, so you’ve had the rant now but what was it that set me off? Actually it was this piece from an US news site. It details moves in New Jersey to introduce laws which would require manufacturers, of TVs, and furniture, over a certain size, to provide warnings about the potential dangers to children of such heavy objects falling on them, & provide advice about ways to prevent such accidents.

From the article:

The proposed rules would apply to dressers, bookcases, bureaus, armoires or similar furniture that is 42 inches or more in height and designed to store, display, or otherwise place items; televisions with display screens that are 25 inches or more; and all television stands.

Furniture can Kill! No really, it can!

That’s right apparently furniture is a hidden menace lurking in our homes! All this time you thought it was useful stuff you kept around to store things on, or in, but in reality it’s a killer, just waiting to strike!

Don’t get me wrong I don’t intend to make light of anybody dying, let alone children, but we, as a species, have survived around heavy objects for millenia without anyone needing to legislate for our own protection; Why do we suddenly need laws to protect us, & why should a manufacturer be responsible if a consumer lacks the common sense to realise that heavy stuff is dangerous if it falls on you?!? By the logic of this legislation everything we ever buy should be plastered in warnings, just on the off chance that someone might use it in some unintended but potentially lethal manner! What? you mean it’s a bad idea to insert TVs into random bodily orifaces?
I mean, really, come on, where does it all stop?

It wouldn’t be so bad but, honestly, how many people actually read the manuals for their new TVs anyway? This move seems to be purely about protecting manufacturers from the asininely litigious, a section of humanity who thoroughly deserve to be told to shut up & go away, if not locked up for wasting everyone elses time!

Anyway, you’ve been warned, so next time you’re thinking about buying furniture or a new digital TV consider the dangers it poses to others around you, especially if you have small children! Anyway I’m off to post a warning in the article I hosted about sideboards, a couple of months back, before some litigious numpty tries to sue me for not pointing out the incredibly obvious!

In some senses this news shouldn’t come as a surprise; the left side of the brain processes input from the right ear, and is the side of the brain which tends to be focused more on interpreting speech and language, and, apparently, also tends to be more ammenable to requests.

The studies mentioned in the article don’t seem to use the kinds of sample sets one might hope for, in order to produce truly significant results, but the indications do seem to be that if you’re trying to blag a fag in a night club, you’re more likely to get one if you ask people in their right ear.

Anyway, I learned a few things I didn’t know, and was even inspired to do a bit of looking around for myself, to find out more, &, good natured, sharing, soul that I am, I thought I’d write a bit about the symbolic meanings of some of the more common wedding flowers.

Carnations

Carnations: a classic wedding flower

Roses

Roses: a traditional symbol of love and devotion

Orchids

Often an expensive choice, but also a distinctive one. Orchids, in general, symbolise beauty, but also have other associations, such as love & wealth, and in ancient Greek society also alluded to virility.


Whatever flowers you want, and whatever occasion they’re intended for, there are a host of places that they can be ordered online these days, for example the Marks & Spencers Flowers section, this allows one to shop around and find exactly the flowers to suite, not only the event, but also your pocket! Isn’t the internet a wonderful place?

If you’ll remember I managed to dig up some stats on the number of deaths in 2003, involving falls & beds, broken down by country. The stats don’t actually make it clear which deaths are due to people falling out of bed, and which were caused by falls on to beds, or even by being crushed under a falling bed, but the figures are apparently based on actually death certificate entries which recorded that a bed, and falling, were, somehow, involved in the deceased’s demise. They make stark reading!

I mean really who would have thought that something so common, & (usually) comfortable could be so dangerous! I’m surprised the Daily Mail hasn’t picked up on this insidious menace to society & started some kind of campaign to pressure the Govt into banning beds, or at least producing stricter laws about their production and use.

Afterall, according to the stats, Beds killed more people in the UK in 2003 than cannabis, a substance which is apparently dangerous enough to warrant being (re)classified as a “Class B” drug*. So, shouldn’t there be stricter warnings on the dangers of beds?
Having said that we in the UK can sleep relatively safely in our beds, coming, as we do, 42nd in the list of 46 countries for which per capita data is given. The UK only have 0.083 deaths per million people, which, in the grand scheme, amounts to a few really unlucky sods each year.

Bed Jumping: It might look like fun, but it could end in tears, or worse...

*A report prepared, last year, by the The Global Cannabis Commission for this year’s UN drug policy review attributed two reported deaths, ever, worldwide, to Cannabis use (I presume this figure relates to deaths attributed soley to cannabis.)

Fortunately the women did the sensible thing & called the local ranger, who arranged for the creature to be removed to a part of the island more frequented by his own kind, than by tourists. So all’s well that ends well, no harm done to the koala, or to the tourists. That latter might sound like an odd statement, but koalas, for all that they have a reputation as being cute docile creatures, can actually exhibit quite a mean streak when riled, & have pretty wicked claws; Afterall, how else do you think they clamber around in those trees so easily?
Another little known fact about the beasties is that their docile appearance is, at least in part, due to their diet of Eucalyptus which, while toxic to most creatures, apparently just gives the koalas a mild euphoric effect, or, if you prefer, gets them high!
Still, despite those claws, and a potentially nasty temper, if disturbed while going cold turkey, it turns out that, statistically speaking, the koala was far less likely to seriously hurt the trio of tourists then the beds themselves. Despite being genuinely soft and comfortable, beds are apparently far more dangerous than koalas, or so it appears judging by the stats for bed related deaths.

Actually, like many marsupials, koalas are quite interesting creatures, the wiki article isn’t massively comprehensive, but isn’t a bad place to start if you’d like to know more about them.