Mick's Blog

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Henry Fountain reports in the New York Times that the first use of cacao beans was probably for an alcoholic drink:
The ancient peoples of Mexico and Central America loved to drink chocolate. But their beverage was nothing like the modern one — it was a frothy, bitter brew of fermented, roasted and ground cacao seeds, often spiced with chile peppers, more like mole poblano than Swiss Miss.
Which sounds pretty damn good to me. I like hot chocolate once in a while (and when I was on my lame 3 AM shift always had Milo or Ovaltine before retiring - helped me sleep), but the modern beverage can be rather lame. On the other hand, a chocolate drink with more character - spicy or bitter, something with character - would go down pretty well. Any recommendations?

I've been listening to In Our Time for a while now, and am greatly impressed by the host, Melvin Bragg. Under his guidance, three experts discuss the topic of the week, which ranges from William of Ockham to antimatter to Joan of Arc to Joseph Conrad.
I used to think that Terry Gross was the best interviewer which I had heard, but Melvin Bragg now claims that title. I am amazed at his ability to converse (within the context of In Our Town) intelligently on such a wide range of subjects.
Perhaps one of these days he will do Crowley. Here's hoping.

Curious Expeditions blog has a fine little entry on the history of figureheads. One of the interesting tidbits that he brings up is
The bared breasts of the female figurehead wasn't just for sailor's enjoyment. "An adage dating at least to the time of Pliny the Elder maintained that the waters could be calmed by a woman uncovering her body at sea, and many sailors no doubt hoped that the representation of a bare-breasted woman would stave off foul weather."
So the validity of UFO sightings is difficult to prove one way or the other. "Who cares?" says Greg at UFO Mystic, "they're fun."

Old news, but I just found out. Google Desktop Search is finally available for linux. Here is the link for debian-based distros.

Blog recommendation: The Abbey Today features a series of photographs by Luigi Bertolucci of the current state of the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalu.
The Telegraph has a piece on the recent Templar story that I mentioned a few days ago.

[04/19 - The Abbey Today was last updated in 2006, but is still an excellent resource.]

Some delightful examples of Chinglish (specifically Chinese versions of Engrish) from Language Log. My favourite photo of the post:

I think that it was Foucault's Pendulum that had a lovely quote to the effect that every good conspiracy theory eventually gets back to the Templars. Anyway, I just heard a bit on NPR that will doubtless prove to be conspiracy fodder:
In 1307, the Knights Templar, an order of military monks who had achieved great wealth and power, were ordered by the King of France to be arrested for heresy. They were tried and found guilty. Some members were burned at the stake, and the order was disbanded. The Vatican will soon release newly discovered documents pertaining to the trial of the Knights Templar. Professor Helen Nicholson speaks with Liane Hansen about the group and whether they were really guilty of heresy.
Anyway, listen to the audio.

Dienekes' Anthropology blog notes what looks to be a rather interesting study by Purugganam Saisho on the domestication of barley. Of especial note is the hypothesis that there were
...two domestication events that led to the origin of barley - one in the Fertile Crescent and another further east, possibly at the eastern edge of the Iranian Plateau.