Good on ya, Jasper!

A recent article in the Economist reported a move to outlaw the old Dutch tradition of ZwartePiet (Black Peter), a celebration connected with Saint Nicholas (Santa Claus) and the giving of presents to children. As you would expect, the move originates from the usual pc people, to describe whom I have run out of scathing adjectives.

I like this response in the Letters column of the Economist in the following week:

As attempts are now being made to purge politically incorrect fantasy figures like Zwarte Piet, I would like to blow the whistle on another case of unacceptable exploitation. Each December, a certain chubby children's figure from the Arctic has the habit of exclusively selecting horned cervids for the slave labour of pulling his obese posture around the globe.

As any biologist knows, only female reindeer and some of their infant sons keep their antlers in winter. A thorough UN review into gender and age discrimination seems in order.

Jasper van Soest

Amsterdam

Sauce for the gander?

The following is taken from an article on the BBC website.

Almost half (49%) of state-funded mixed schools in England are "reinforcing gender stereotypes" in terms of the subjects students study at A-level. This is according to a report published on Monday by the Institute of Physics. It says these schools are failing to counter the idea that certain subjects are for girls and others are for boys.The institute is calling on schools to address the issue to avoid inadvertently limiting pupils' options.

The study looked at six A-level subjects - three that have a very female-biased student base and three that are studied by many more boys than girls.They assigned schools a score based on how well they were doing compared to the national average. The analysis involved looking at what proportion of girls and boys from each school went on to study physics, maths and economics, which are traditionally male-biased, and what proportion went of to study the female-biased subjects - English, biology and psychology.

 Key findings

• Four out of five state-funded co-educational schools do no better than the national gender ratios for A-level subject choice. These average ratios are already very imbalanced
• Single sex schools are significantly better at countering these gender imbalances
• Schools with a sixth form have smaller gender imbalances
• Independent co-educational schools perform better than state-funded schools, but there are far fewer of them
• There are differences between regions and local authorities that experts say will require further research to explain.

What I like about this article is that it gives me an opportunity to air two of my most cherished prejudices: [1]single sex schools are better; [2]secondary schools wirh an inegral sixth form are better. You can tell I went to a boys' grammar school!

Look out, there's a snake about!

I recently published a silly piece about crow's calls, A couple of days later I come across this (serious) piece, adapted from an article in Animal Behaviour. How's that for serendipity? Or is it synchronicity?

Great tits use different alarm calls for different predators, according to a scientist in Japan. The researcher analysed the birds’ calls and found they made “jar” sounds for snakes and “chicka” sounds for crows and martens. From his previous observations, the researcher, Dr Toshitaka Suzuki, from the Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Kanagawa, found great tits appeared to be able to discriminate between different predators.To test whether they could also communicate this information, he placed models of three different animals that prey on nestlings – snakes, crows and martens – close to the birds’ nest boxes. He then recorded and analysed the birds’ responses.

“Parents usually make alarm calls when they approach and mob the nest predators,” said Dr Suzuki. “They produced specific ‘jar’ alarm calls for the snakes and the same ‘chicka’ alarm call in response to both the crows and martens.” But a closer analysis of the sounds showed the birds had used different “note combinations” in their crow alarm calls from those they had used for the martens. Dr Suzuki thinks the birds might have evolved what he called a “combinatorial communication system” – combining different notes to produce calls with different meanings.

Since snakes are able to slither into nest boxes, they pose a much greater threat to great tit nestlings than other birds or mammals, so Dr Suzuki says it makes sense that the birds would have a specific snake alarm call. He added: “Human language is based on a combinatorial rule, which allows us to generate an infinite number of expressions (ie words) from a finite set of elements (ie alphabets). Similarly, the tits can make a word ‘crow’ or ‘marten’ by combining different types of notes into an alarm call.”

The article does not specify whether they have calls for CAR and TRUCK.

Jake Thackray - Sophie

A hero of mine as I have said many times. I listened recently to his wonderful song "Last Will and Testament": it will go nicely at my funeral in place of any eulogy.
This song, Sophie, has been running in my head for years. I apologise to any Sophie I have known: it doesn't apply to you, dear. Necessarily.

Doctor Trellis...

Sound advice from my North Wales correspondent:

Dear Nick Clogg, she writes, I don't know how you can eat garlick, nasty foreign stuff. I think you're just pandering to your EU buddies.

Anyway, what's wrong with a good honest Welsh leek I want to know? Wash, peel, chop, boil, wrap in a linen cloth and sleep with it on your pillow and you'll be right as ninepence in no time.

By the way, BLOW, not SNIFF. Or, as Mr Trellis, my late husband, used to say: “Get it out, boyo!”, a lusty cry that would raise a few eyebrows in the village, I can tell you.

Yours medicinally

Blodwen Trellis, Mrs, widow, retd.

Atishoo dammit

Hack, hack, sniff, sniff, splutter splutter. I have a persistent cold with runny nose and ticklish cough. I used to dose myself with Benelyn, but it's rubbish since the Health Gestapo Nannies banned morphine as an ingredient.
 A friend told me to eat lots of organic garlic: chop it up, spoon it on your tongue, swallow with lots of water, chew a slice of bread after. Repeat twice or three times a day. Avoid snogging people you really like.

 So far, no effect, apart from a dead fly lying on its back on the kitchen floor and holding its nose.

Fracked

It's started: the annual mystification when Christmas cards arrive and you have no idea who they're from.

“Fondest love, Megan”, this one says. Megan? I don't know any Megan! Wait a minute, there WAS that funny creature with the bad teeth... No, can't be her, why would she me send a card after the way I stared at her mouth. More likely to send me a letter-bomb... Oh yes, and there was that other Megan, the inexplicably fat vegetarian....no, can't be her, she's most likely gaga by now, given her drink habit. Postmark? No help. The bloody stamp isn't even franked (Note to self: I wonder if I could steam it off and re-use it..).

Oh bugger, here's another one: “All the best, mate. Darrell.” Mate? I've never mated with anyone called Darrell. Maybe he's sent the card to the wrong Old Scrote. Postmark? Same again, looks like I might have TWO free stamps this year.

You see, darlings, what really bothers me is the realisation that somewhere this Christmas, somebody is going to stare at the card I sent them and say “Who the frack is Jake??” Unlike Megan and Darrell, though, I am unforgettable and take it very badly when I'm fracked.