Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
A Dead Good Blog

written and posted by members of Lancashire Dead Good Poets' Society

Monday, 10 February 2025

PS I Love You (no, really I do)

16:45:00 Posted by Steve Rowland , , , , , , , , , , 2 comments
I love you. Three little words.

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with those three little words. And it’s not because I don’t like them or I never use them. Let me explain.

When I was growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, in a very close knit, nurturing family, I’m sure we all loved each other, and we knew we were loved, but, as I recall, the sentiment was very rarely verbalised. Certainly, my brothers and I would never have expressed such a feeling to each other, and even now I think I’ve only ever said it to them in jest, and they’ve done the same to me.

Mum and dad obviously loved each other. It showed in the way they spoke to each other, laughed, joked and bickered, and the way dad would put his arm around mum or place his hand on hers when sitting together. Not long before my dad died mum told me that every time she passed dad on her way out of the room he would grab her hand and give it a little squeeze. There was no doubt that was all part of their love language.

As for us children, we had hugs, kisses and cuddles galore from our mum, and only less from dad because he wasn’t always there first thing in the morning and when we went to bed. He worked long hours to provide for us, there’s love in that too. We didn’t need to question the love between us all. It was just there, an invisible, all enveloping cloud of safety and well being. Those three little words didn’t really need to be said. My generation and those before me very rarely verbalised that feeling.


My husband was the first person to actually tell me he loved me. I think I might have laughed - we were three weeks into a fledgling relationship and I certainly didn’t reciprocate. That came later and I guess we must both have been sincere because we’re still together fifty two years later.

We married and had babies. We told them often that we loved them. They grew up hearing those words and no doubt becoming immune to them, but that didn’t stop us, and like the little sponges they were, they began repeating those three little words back to us. The babies became teenagers, then adults and began to pronounce their love for people far more important at that time than their parents. We never stopped loving each other, it just wasn’t articulated so often.

I gained a son in law, two daughters in law and an ex of each too. I loved them all and they seemed to love me but the ‘I love yous’ were used sparingly. The girls, including my daughter were much more likely to tell each other, than were the males.

So where does this love hate relationship come from?

I think it started a few years ago with the use of the word, ‘hun.’ A word that, try as I might, I could not find rolling off my tongue. I knew it was a form of affection but it just didn’t sit right with me. I cringed as I heard it or saw it in print. I was nobody’s hun and nobody was mine. I was more of a ‘sweetheart/darling/matey’ kind of friend. And I’m sure that made others cringe too.

So... When the ‘I love yous’ started flying around it had a similar effect. They didn’t love me, I didn’t love them. It was just empty words to fill a gap. And those empty words were hugely overused. To me, of the boomer generation, the ‘I love yous,’ were reserved for our partners and our children, and mainly in private.

However, over time I’ve come to accept that I’m going to hear those words wherever I go, not necessarily directed at me but between teenage girls, young mothers, mums and grandmas with their children and babies. It’s what people say. Maybe it’s not always strictly true. Who am I to judge? It does no harm. I find myself articulating it to family members much more frequently these days. I love the grandchildren’s parroted responses. It gives me comfort.

I only ever told my dad I loved him once in his life. It was after a silly argument, a week before he died. I was leaving the house to return to Blackpool when I felt compelled to go back in, give him a hug and tell him I loved him. It was the last time I saw him. These days, on my way to bed, I often give his ashes a little kiss and tell him I love him. Somehow it’s easier when he can’t see me or answer back.

I have a friend who always signs off her messages, ‘Keep sprinkling that love.’ I like that. It’s an instruction, not a declaration.

I can do that.

Mixed Messages

Once, on MSN
Remember that?
Chatting to a man
About an IT problem
When my daughter popped up
All the way from the USA
I had two conversations on the go
IT man trying arrange a visit
Daughter telling me of her adventures
I thought I was an expert in multi tasking
I congratulated myself
On slipping seamlessly between messages

That was
Until I arranged for daughter to visit
next week at 3pm
And told IT man ‘I love you.’

Thanks for reading, Jill.

Saturday, 8 February 2025

Dashboards

22:45:00 Posted by Steve Rowland , , , , , , , , , 6 comments
This could go a number of ways, gentle readers. There are options. 

I could write about instrument panels in cars, trains, boats & planes - let's call that A, the Burt Bacharach option. 

a vintage car dashboard circa 1930s
I could regale you with thrilling tales of my time in the world of computer systems, designing applications using Lotus Symphony, Visual Basic and C++ that mined and aggregated data into high-level information dashboards for busy decision makers tracking performance in Key Result Areas - let's label that B, the Bill Gates scenario.

If you prefer, I could just make up some crazy fictive shit that's wacky and off the top of my head, but way more entertaining. That, logically, is option C - and let's dub it (appropriately) the Arthur C. Clarke variant.

Or I could write at length about why people should trust the graphical statistics published online by e.g. the CBI, GCOS, the ONS, UN and WHO about everything from climate change to coronavirus levels to immigration and industrial growth (or lack of it), rather than falling for the unsubstantiated conspiracy nonsense washing about on TikTok, X and YouTube. That's option D, the Chris Morris 'reality check' alternative.

Very well, there you have them, A, B, C or D, and the decision is yours, so fingers on your special keypads and all make your selections now in time-honoured 'ask the audience' fashion. 

[Here follows a short computational pause...]

the readership vote dashboard with token reader
Blimey! The votes are in and that is not what I was expecting. However, your wish is my command this Saturday night, ladies and gentlemen on the modern equivalent of the Clapham omnibus. Herewith, some crazy fictive shit for your delectation.

Dashboards
Once the science of anti-gravity had been properly understood and its principles embodied into a practical and cost-effective equivalent of the skateboard - only one without wheels or friction, one that moved through the air just inches off the ground using electro-magnetism - people took to these dashboards as they were called in a big way, to travel short distances of a few miles, e.g. to work, to school, to the shops, to the pub. They were so much more convenient than bicycles, scooters and cars for a person on his/her own getting from A to B and were fully GPS-compliant and programmable if so desired.

They were voice-activated, so only workable by the registered users (of which there could be more than one). They were self-balancing which rendered them safe to ride and they featured anti-collision software and an illuminated-strip which turned automatically when ambient light conditions were poor. They could be charged overnight, functioned in all weathers and had a top speed of fifteen miles an hour (approximately three times normal walking speed).

an anti-gravity Dashboard '99'
Naturally they came in different sizes, but even the largest could be carried comfortably under the arm, stowed on a luggage rack on public transport, or in the boot of a car. Very soon designated dashways were laid out along most urban thoroughfares, and in short order, offices, schools, cafes, pubs and shops installed dashslots, vertical racks to hold those ubiquitous dashboards.

Of course there were limitations. All models had weight restrictions, for obvious reasons, and dashboards would not work over rough/uneven terrain. They simply shut down, on principles of safety. They were somewhat unreliable over water too, though they were fine across ice providing the surface was flat, and dashing on ice was quite a popular past-time. In fact, recreational and sporting use of dashboards became quite a thing, and eventually an Olympic sport.

As a mode of transport, they were 'green', and very 'cool'. It was the ambition of the various companies manufacturing dashboards (such as the '99' pictured above) that every home should have one, and it was the dream of most self-respecting and aspirational families to own at least one. And so it came to pass. There was a thriving second-hand market as well.   

Now if all of this sounds too good to be true, then it probably is - just like the light-bulb, the car, radio and tv, contact lenses, microwave ovens, pacemakers, computers, mobile phones and drones once did.

No new poem from me this week, I must be running low on poetic fuel. Instead, here is something rather splendid by Stephen Dunn, a Pulitzer Poetry Prize winning American writer (1939-2021):

The Sacred

After the teacher asked if anyone had
            a sacred place
and the students fidgeted and shrank

in their chairs, the most serious of them all
            said it was his car,
being in it alone, his tape deck playing

things he’d chosen, and others knew the truth
            had been spoken
and began speaking about their rooms,

their hiding places, but the car kept coming up,
            the car in motion,
music filling it, and sometimes one other person

who understood the bright altar of the dashboard
            and how far away
a car could take him from the need

to speak, or to answer, the key
            in having a key
and putting it in, and going.

                                          Stephen Dunn, 2012
                  
Thanks for reading, S ;-)

Wednesday, 5 February 2025

Dashboard

19:45:00 Posted by Steve Rowland , , , , , , , , 1 comment
I have a vague recollection of the dashboard on the first car I bought back in around 1974, it was an Austin Mini, and only remember the gauges showing the speed (not a problem, it was too slow), the fuel (sometimes a problem) and the oil and water temperatures (always a problem). I haven’t had a car for ages so these days when I’m a passenger I am completely baffled by what I’m looking at.

Austin Mini dashboard circa 1966
When I looked up the origin of the word ‘dashboard’ most references were to the wooden or leather boards carriage makers attached to the front of carriages to prevent mud and rocks from being splashed onto drivers and their passengers by the horses that pulled them about. 

When a horse kicks up debris it is also referred to being ‘dashed up’ (although I can only find one reference to this). So the board on the front is to protect from the horses dashing, hence dashboard. Incidentally, in the same article, the author states that the word car is a shortened version of carriage.

carriage with dashboard
Naturally, this form of protection from dirt and mud was used by the Mesopotamians on their chariots back around 3,000 BCE.

So, as I said, in modern cars the dashboards can be baffling. The trouble is that when faced with information overload the tendency is often to zone out and ignore. But how do you know what all these warning lights mean and which ones are critical and which are not? And on top of that the signs must be obvious and understandable around not only this country but anywhere in the world so who designs them and how are they ratified?

Which was the wrong question as after wading through dozens of web sites it became obvious that there is no universal standard. They seem to be based on a picture is worth a thousand words and that’s even if you are one of the few who read the manual. I came across one site that boasted 683 inspirational designs for dashboards.


So how are the individual dashboards designed. According to Actia, one of the companies that does this sort of thing, the effective and ergonomic design of a dashboard starts with a blank piece of paper. Hurrah.

Before starting any manufacturing process, they must develop a design to guide the creation. The design and development stage is crucial for any prototyping. Often, machinists draft a series of CAD models, then go with one that captures how they imagine the end product. Designers of these interfaces have had to learn ‘kinetic typography’ to create interfaces that draw the viewers eye to the most important part of the information at the right time. Oh joy - kinetic typography. No idea.

About the same amount of joy as finding ‘keuomorphic design’ – design that looks similar to the original mechanical items it’s replacing – which was the obvious first step in replicating the interfaces because people need to feel comfortable using these new systems without having too much cognitive load.

Which reminds me of a chat I had with an AA bloke once and he was telling me of his previous call where the customer had reported that his coffee cup holder wouldn’t open.

I started off this blog describing the dashboard of my old mini so I’ll leave with an image of a futuristic display. I presume that all this technology has been proved, or will be proved, to be far safer than back in the day. But from my point of view (literally) it scares the living daylights out of me. I doubt I’d even want to be a passenger in one of the things.

futuristic dashboard
This poem by Dave Kavanagh is very good.

Feet on the dashboard

sleep to the sixty five
jazz cafe sounds
of a voice piped through
a blaupunkt radio

scented smoke
and a sweet briar voice
like fresh cherries
and bitter black chocolate

the drumming sound of rain
hypnotic wipers
and eighteen wheels
eager to be home

seven hundred swedish horses
chewing up Welsh mountains.

mac on the wheel,
wheezing on the citizen band
joking with the snow man
singing songs 'bout the homeland.

and randy sings
a rainy night in georgia
easing me to sleep.
feet on the dash board
head nodding in her storm clouds

                                      Dave Kavanagh

See more of his work, and you’ll enjoy it, on his website ‘Clinging to the Sides’.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

Tuesday, 4 February 2025

Dashboard

19:47:00 Posted by Pam Winning , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 comment

 

It is many years since I crashed my four or five year old face into the shiny dashboard of my father’s Jaguar Mk 2, I think it was. Cars, particularly Jaguars were Dad’s passion at that time and I was still in my ‘Go faster, Daddy!’ phase. No speed limit, no seat belts, and no fear, until he had to slam the brakes on that day. A bumped head, with a growing lump, loud crying from me and worries about ‘What will Mummy say?’ from him as he consoled me. He wasn’t driving fast at that moment. Something happened and he had to brake. It was before I started wearing glasses, luckily. We lived in Lancaster at the time and Sunday afternoons when our pubs closed between 2pm and 7pm, were family gathering times. Our family of licensees across Lancaster and Morecambe, regularly went out for a countryside picnic in a convoy to Crook O’ Lune, Caton or Hornby. Someone’s car would break down on the way home and all the men would be under the bonnet with calls of ‘Try it now!’ and ‘What’s on the dash?’

I took no notice of the dials and switches on the dashboard. All I knew was that some lit up and others didn’t, and there was a button to press to start the engine. It didn’t always work. Sometimes it made a slow, groaning sound and nothing happened until Dad, with much muttering, fixed it.

The dashboard started to make sense when I began driving and learnt basic car care from my dad. My first car was my beloved Austin A40. It was a gift from my dad and after the initial disappointment, which I kept to myself, I loved it to bits. I’d hoped for something more appealing, like a Mini, or a bright green Ford Capri. An Austin A40 didn’t offer much wow factor to a trendy seventeen year old. It was clean and tidy, had low mileage and was very reliable. The plastic dashboard had minimal things on it, very basic, but it had everything I needed.

Dad liked to tinker about with his cars. He wouldn’t get much joy these days with sealed units and computerised dashboards. Our car has all manner of things monitored. It tells us if a tyre has incorrect pressure. Dad would have relied on his eyes and checked them every week with the oil and water.

Dashboards have their place on everything, not just motor vehicles. Computers, mobile phones and household appliances. We had the misfortune to have two items reach the end of their useful lives within a week or two, and around Christmas when they are most needed. Our tumble dryer, after serving us well every winter for twenty-eight years, squeaked for the last time, then the twenty year old dishwasher released a puff of electrical smoke. Both have been replaced recently but what a search to find something suitable. I don’t want anything complicated, just something to do the job, and I don’t need anything connected to a phone app, though the new dryer has that facility, should I change my mind. Both appliances, nice and efficient, I must say, require ‘programming’ to turn them on, by going through the dashboard and clicking this and that. I’m used to simple things that turn on and off. I could choose how many minutes I wanted my old dryer to tumble. Now I have to program the new one, depending on fabric care and hope for the best. 

My Haiku,

The makers include
Instructions and warning lights
On everything now.

So complicated
With far too many features.
I prefer simple.

I don’t need an app,
Just ‘off and on, stop and go’
Suits me perfectly.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

Friday, 31 January 2025

Lancashire Dead Good Poets' February Open Mic Night

21:19:00 Posted by Steve Rowland No comments
Our February event coming soon...


20 open mic slots available. No set theme (though love is in the ether).
Email: deadgoodpoets@hotmail.co.uk to reserve a slot to read and/or to listen in. You don't have to be from Lancashire!

Hope to see you there,
Steve ;-)

Wednesday, 29 January 2025

Jigsaw

14:21:00 Posted by Steve Rowland , , , , 1 comment
I’d always thought that solving a jigsaw puzzle was a solitary occupation done in your living room on a quiet evening on a cleared table and no cats, dogs or humans to spoil your concentration. How wrong can you be.

Much to my surprise there is The World Jigsaw Puzzle Federation which is an association of legal (I don’t know why legal) bodies with an interest in jigsaw puzzles. The Federation’s main objective is to spread speed-puzzling throughout the world, as a means of growing puzzle culture and its advantages on health, education, social cohesion and personal enrichment. Only one organization per country can belong to the WJPF.


Goals of the World Jigsaw Puzzle Federation are:

To achieve the acknowledgment of jigsaw puzzle competitions as a sport.

To establish a standard on regulations for jigsaw puzzle competitions and other issues about their organization to be taken into consideration.

To promote the foundation of National Associations capable of organizing contests and bringing together jigsaw puzzle fans in their country.

To foster friendship among jigsaw puzzle enthusiasts world-wide.

To stimulate innovations in the field of jigsaw puzzles.

Since 2021 the Federation is partner of the Guinness World Records, advising, verifying and endorsing world records in jigsaw puzzles section.

The World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship is an annual event organized by the World Jigsaw Puzzle Federation, supported by multiple national associations such as the United States Jigsaw Puzzle Association and Australian Jigsaw Puzzle Association. The World Championship was started in 2019, and all editions have been held in Valladolid, Spain.

The Championship includes three events: team, pairs and individual. In all events, placement is determined by the fastest completion within the time limit. For competitors who have not finished the assigned puzzle(s) within the time limit, the remaining pieces are counted to determine position.

Team event: Teams of four complete multiple puzzles (1,000, 1,500 or 2,000 pieces) in the time limit.

Pairs event: Two competitors complete a single puzzle (500 or 1,000 pieces) within a time limit.

Individual event: Each individual participant completes a 500-piece puzzle within a time limit.


In the first World Jigsaw Puzzle Championships, only one final round was held in each event. In 2022, semi-finals were introduced in all events. For 2023, due to the increase in the number of participants, another round has also been introduced prior to the semi-finals of the individual event. For 2024, a first round has been introduced prior to the semi-finals of the pairs event.

I would urge you to view this YouTube video of one of the Finals held in Valladolid. Check out the comments below it as well: Video of Jigsaw Puzzle Competition

The UK Jigsaw Puzzle Association has 2,200 members and the UKJP Championship Final will be held at the Woodhouse Grove School, Sports Hall – Apperley Bridge, Calverley, Bradford, UK BD10 0NR on 5th April 2025.


There will be an individual event (200 participants for the 500 piece puzzle) and a Pairs event also for a 500 piece puzzle. There are spectator tickets available.

A decent poem about Jigsaws:

The Puzzle
(for Lewis Mumford)

Two children bow their heads
Over the ruins of what is yet to be:
Sun, sky, and sand, the Pyramids, the Sphinx.

Under their fingers, under their eyes,
Before their minds, enclaves of order
Beginning to appear amid the heaped debris

As they go steadily sorting and rejecting
Turning about and matching, finding the fit
By image, colour, shape, or all at once,

Rebuilding the continuum from its bits,
Until the Sphinx’s head falls into place
Completing the vision of a ruined world

Divided in the crackling glaze of forms,
The seams and fissures of a kind of brain
Thinking what properties must go together

To make, accordant with mosaic law,
The real world match the mindful one, to which
The children bow their heads.

                                                            Howard Nemerov
 
[First published in Poetry, July 1972]








Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

Saturday, 25 January 2025

Chickens

23:05:00 Posted by Steve Rowland , , , , , , , , , 9 comments
Typically around the penultimate week-end in January, we have an avian theme to the Dead Good Blog, to chime in with the RSPB's 'Big Garden Birdwatch' event. But given all the little garden birds have been blown away by thirty-six hours of Storm Éowyn, that only leaves me chickens to write about, and eggs. Let's crack on.

Of course, it's also Burns Night, so the first thing I did before sitting down to write this was to Choogle the Internet so see if there was any connection between the celebrated Scottish poet and these latter-day descendants of the dinosaurs, a poem perhaps, or an interesting fact such as "Robert Burns owned a pet chicken called McNugget to whom he would recite verse each morning in return for a wee egg." Sadly and surprisingly not. The closest I came was to stumble upon his 'Sonnet Upon Sonnets,' a play on the number fourteen. I won't reproduce the whole thing here, just these two salient lines:

              Your hen hath fourteen eggs beneath her wings
              That fourteen chickens to the roost may fly

That made me wonder if Burns knew anything very much about chickens at all, as a clutch of fourteen eggs seems highly improbable. I suppose he must have been more of a haggis man.  I decided to investigate egg laying statistics a bit further on your behalf.

free-rangers in the snow
It would appear that a chicken (or more correctly a hen) can start laying eggs from about eighteen weeks old, depending on the breed. Some start as late as twenty-eight weeks. Peak laying capacity normally occurs around the seventh or eighth month, and a layer's first year is its most productive. The world record for the number of eggs laid by one hen is 371 eggs in 364 days (with time off for Christmas).

After the first prolific year, a hen's productivity gradually tails off by on average 15% per year, so that by the time a hen is six years old, she is unlikely to be laying many eggs. Again, this depends upon breed. Some types can continue producing at eight or nine years old, but they are very much the exception.

Temperature and time of year also influence laying rates. A chicken needs about fifteen hours of daylight to give her enough vitamin D to help metabolise calcium in the body (without which there is no shell). And hens lay best when the temperature is in the range of 12 to 23 degrees. So summer months tend to result in higher yields, though many commercial poultry farms use artificial light and heaters to boost production in winter.

There are hundreds of different breeds of chicken worldwide, and though white and light brown are the main colours for egg shells, there is considerable variety, including cream, dark brown, pale blue, green and speckled, as the box below illustrates. Then inside, yolks can vary from almost white up to a rich orange tone, though shades of yellow are by far the most common. And what nutritious little packages they are, for those not averse to eating them boiled, coddled, poached, scrambled or in an omelette - such as I will be enjoying as soon as I've dispatched this Saturday blog.

the many colours of chickens' eggs
Of course not all chickens are bred for their egg-laying capabilities. (Vegans and vegetarians look away now.) Of the 33 billion chickens in the world, the majority are bred as meat, white meat being healthier than red meat. Chicken is the UK's favourite meat. And in the USA (bizarrely) some restaurants even list chicken as a vegetarian option! I'm happy to eat it, but will always opt for free-range produce if possible. By the way, as of today the world's human population is just over 8 billion (8,201,490,228), so chickens outnumber us by a ratio of 4:1.

Coming back to that throwaway reference I made earlier about chickens being the descendants of dinosaurs, I believe this to be true, in as much as all birds share a common ancestry going back to the theropods of the late Triassic period, saurischian dinosaurs characterised by hollow bones and three claws or toes on each foot. Scientists have even experimented with attaching long tails to chickens in order to model how tyrannosauroids might have moved. It is thought that theropods were carnivorous but appear to have become largely herbivorous and insectivorous through the aeons, and maybe that is how they managed to survive the great extinction, by down-sizing and living off scraps.

All of the hundreds of modern day breeds of chicken can trace their most recent origins back to the bankiva, or red jungle fowl of south east Asia (a close relative of the pheasant). The red jungle fowl became domesticated as recently as about 8,000 years ago and regional varieties have been carefully bred and farmed for millennia to accentuate desired characteristics. Chickens are generally sociable, inquisitive and intelligent birds and often make great pets, which is something I try not to think about at mealtimes.. 

coming home to roost
I decided to Choogle the Internet one last time to verify the provenance of the phrase about chickens coming home to roost, which I've always assumed is a metaphor for karma, in the sense of bad deeds rebounding. There's a strong case to be made for its literary debut being in Chaucer's 'Pardoner's Tale' (printed in 1390):

              And ofte tyme swich cursynge wrongfully retorneth agayn to hym that curseth, 
              as a bryd that retorneth agayn to his owene nest.

though it could well have been in use as a colloquial phrase much earlier than that. Anyway, it's the stepping-off point for my latest poem. 

Farmer's Chickens
A hot-throated wind had been screaming all day,
bending trees low making telegraph wires to ring
and the sky a dark threat, so I wasn't allowed go
to school or play out neither, just fret those hours

through afternoon. Farmer arrives home, so soon
we hear shouts from next door over the whine of
the wind then crashes like something's getting all
bust up in there and pa says it's Farmer's chickens

coming home to roost and ma says Farmer's wife
got every right and I think of that party game: the
farmer wants a wife, we all pat the wife, the wife
wants a dog...I always wanted a dog, not allowed

then those shots and just like that the wind drops
and there's only that awful sobbing that don't stop
even after the cops pull up and I asked if Farmer
done killed his chickens because I never knew he

even had any, then ma hugged me so tight it hurt
and said one day I'd understand. Well that night I
dreamed of blood and feathers everywhere and it
was so quiet when I woke up in a hot sweat. I felt

all alone in the world and the bad stuff was right
close by in the shadows, like the men I sometime
saw visiting at night next door but if Farmer had
chickens, they were maybe just buying his eggs?  

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

Wednesday, 22 January 2025

Chickens

17:01:00 Posted by Steve Rowland , , , , , , 2 comments
When I was at school in Birmingham a few years ago and the snow was real snow then that was the time for an ice slide to be created across the playground. My mates would line up and hurl themselves along said slide. I didn’t. One of those mates called me a chicken. I thought of it as a perfectly reasonable position to take.

I can think of many other situations since then where I have decided it would be barking mad to put myself in a position of some danger. That cliff path near Whitby, a scree slope on Cader Idris, walking the pavement across the Clifton Suspension Bridge etc.

Which brought to mind the daft things done to avoid being chickens. Kids all round the world do some mind bogglingly stupid things, running in front of trains, lying down in the middle of busy roads, dangling from cliffs.

running in front of trains
Grown-ups (I use the word reluctantly) are just as daft. For instance, one game of chicken is any contest with two players where neither one wants to back down or let the other win, even though not backing down can be very dangerous. The classic game of chicken takes place when two people drive cars at very high speeds directly towards each other. Obviously, if neither one turns away, there will be a big crash and both will be harmed. The person that turns first is the chicken. In mathematical game theory....

Mathematical game theory? I came across this term all the time when looking for chickens and it was unexpected to say the least.

A formal version of the game of Chicken has been the subject of serious research in game theory. 

Chicken game
Two versions of the payoff matrix for this game are presented here (Figures 1 and 2). In Figure 1, the outcomes are represented in words, where each player would prefer to win over tying, prefer to tie over losing, and prefer to lose over crashing. Figure 2 presents arbitrarily set numerical payoffs which theoretically conform to this situation. Here, the benefit of winning is 1, the cost of losing is -1, and the cost of crashing is -1000.
fig 1: a pay-off matrix of Chicken


fig. 2: Chicken with numerical pay-offs
I have no idea what the above means so I’ll finish off by choosing a few of the 22 amazing facts about chickens that my friend T sent to me:

1 They can distinguish between 100 different faces.

2 They see more colours than humans.

3 They will make friends and grieve.

4 They have dreams when asleep.

5 They can run at 9 miles an hour.

running at 9 miles an hour
Here is a poem I found relating to chickens and I rather like it.

Passing a Truck Full of Chickens at Night on Highway Eighty

What struck me first was their panic.
Some were pulled by the wind from moving
to the ends of the stacked cages,
some had their heads blown through the bars—
and could not get them in again.
Some hung there like that—dead—
their own feathers blowing, clotting
in their faces. Then
I saw the one that made me slow some—
I lingered there beside her for five miles.
She had pushed her head through the space
between bars—to get a better view.
She had the look of a dog in the back
of a pickup, that eager look of a dog
who knows she's being taken along.
She craned her neck.
She looked around, watched me, then
strained to see over the car—strained
to see what happened beyond.
That is the chicken I want to be.

                                                       Jane Mead

from the Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, 2015

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

Tuesday, 21 January 2025

Chickens

17:13:00 Posted by Pam Winning , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 comments


Years ago, when I worked in an infant school, I was given the task of drawing a large chicken which was to be the centrepiece of a class project and would fill a classroom wall. I may have skills, but freestyle drawing is not one of them and I mumbled such to the teacher, who was very lovely and kind, but spoke to me like I was another of her 4 and 5 year old pupils and suggested that I try my best and might surprise myself. Hilarious, Miss! 

With good grace, and for the sake of the class who were going to make eggs, chicks, wheat and bread to be part of the wall covering, I accepted the challenge. It was difficult but my end result was acceptable in so far as it looked like a chicken, if only through the eyes of a child, and with the work of the class added to it, the scene looked like a fabulous reproduction of the story, The Little Red Hen. 

For anyone who doesn’t know, the hen lives on a farm with other animals. She looks upon these animals as friends. When she finds a grain of wheat and decides to grow it to eventually make bread, she asks for the help of her friends. All refuse. She plants the grain, looks after it, harvests the crop and every step of the progress she asks for help and doesn’t get any. The wheat is milled into flour and she makes bread. The others all want to eat some, but the little red hen refuses to share. She eats it herself with her own chicks. Through the story, the aim was for children learn about sharing tasks, being fair, being helpful and working together. The collage remained on that classroom wall all term. The Little Red Hen, my ‘wonderful’ artwork, for all to admire. Long gone.

Why are cowards or anyone refusing a dare, called ‘chicken’? There is a lot to learn about the origins and some of it is fascinating, but to give a brief outline, chickens, usually called ‘hens’ were considered to be weak, timid creatures and completely the opposite of the male ‘cocks’ which were strong and fearless. Cocky, perhaps. And from Wikipedia, ‘According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest written instance of the word ‘chicken’ in the craven sense comes from William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, circa 1616. “Forthwith they fly, Chickens,” he wrote, describing soldiers fleeing a battlefield.’

Back to the world of childhood for my choice of poems, written by Jack Prelutsky, former U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate.

Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens

Last night I dreamed of chickens,
There were chickens everywhere,
They were standing on my stomach
They were nestling in my hair,
They were pecking at my pillow
They were hopping on my head,
They were ruffling up their feathers
As they raced about my bed.

They were on the chairs and tables,
They were on the chandeliers,
They were roosting in the corners
They were clucking in my ears,
There were chickens, chickens, chickens
For as far I could see…
When I woke up today I noticed
There were eggs on top of me.

                                Jack Prelutsky


Ballad of a Boneless Chicken

I’m a basic boneless chicken,
Yes, I have no bones inside,
I’m without a trace of rib cage,
Yet I hold myself with pride,
Other hens appear offended
By my total lack of bones,
They discuss me impolitely
In derogatory tones.

I am absolutely boneless,
I am boneless through and through,
I have neither neck nor thighbones,
And my back is boneless, too,
And I haven’t got a wishbone,
Not a bone within my breast,
So I rarely care to travel
From the comfort of my nest.

I have feathers fine and fluffy,
I have lovely little wings,
But I lack the superstructure
To support these splendid things.
Since a chicken finds it tricky
To parade on boneless legs,
I stick closely to the hen house,
Laying little scrambled eggs.

                                Jack Prelutsky

Thanks for reading, Pam x

Monday, 20 January 2025

Chickens and Eggs: White vs Brown

18:04:00 Posted by Steve Rowland , , , , , , , , , , , 3 comments
Growing up in the US, white eggs were all I knew and they demanded mandatory refrigeration. At Easter, I loved colouring them. It was a bit challenging at times making holes in the shell and blowing out the innards, however it was worth the effort as there was great satisfaction dipping these small blank canvases into pots of different coloured food dyes and seeing the surprising creative results.

When I moved to the UK in the latter half of the 1990s there was not one white egg to be found. Also, to my initial horror, I discovered that eggs were not refrigerated. I learnt to accept this and thus far, touch wood, have never been stricken with salmonella.

So why white eggs and refrigeration in the States, and brown eggs stacked on open supermarket shelves in the UK? It all comes down to the types of chickens and processing.


Of the estimated thirty-three billion chickens in the world, there are hundreds of different breeds.

In the US, the most popular chickens for meat are a cross breed between Cornish hens and Plymouth Rocks. Hybrid White Leghorns are the most popular breed for egg laying, producing the bright white eggs that I was so familiar with in my early life.

In the UK, chickens raised for meat in factory farm sheds are typically Cobb 500, Ross 308 and the Hubbard Flex – sadly dubbed the ‘Frankenchickens’ because of so many abnormalities like being so fat their legs can’t support their bodies.

Popular UK breeds producing brown eggs include Bovans Brown, ISA Brown, Lohmann Brown and the Novogen.

Until the 1970s, white eggs were popular in the UK, then fell out of fashion. Preferences are attributed to numerous factors including cultural perceptions, marketing and branding, consumer preferences and production practices to name a few.

As the brown egg has been the norm for decades, consumers were again reintroduced to the whites during the pandemic due to stock shortages. Since then, they have been on the rise with many major British retailers supplying them due to changes in poultry management requirements (i.e. beak treatment) and consideration to sustainability (carbon footprint impact). Some of the white egg producing breeds are now more suitable to raise under new legislation. As in the States, the Leghorn is a popular breed.

Production methods are different between the two countries affecting storage requirements. In the States, eggs are washed stripping them of their natural protective coating, the ‘bloom’ or ‘cuticle’. The eggs become porous and thus, it is important to refrigerate them so bacteria can’t grow and penetrate the vulnerable shell.

Also, the current federal rules do not require vaccination of hens against Salmonella (they do require testing). Major retailers have implemented their own mandates on their suppliers in regards to vaccination, however they do vary.

In the UK and most other countries, the washing of eggs is prohibited. Therefore, the coating remains on the shells and eggs are seen as protected from bacteria.


In addition, since 1998 the British Lion Quality mark (shown above) guarantees that eggs have been laid by British hens vaccinated against Salmonella Enteritidis and Salmonella Typhimurium.

Over 90% of eggs sold in the UK carry this mark. Although refrigerating eggs in this part of the world is not critical, storing in a cool place is recommended.

And now to throw in something completely different and a bit of fun regarding chickens. Several years ago I visited the Rubber Chicken Museum in Seattle. Fun fact: It has the world’s largest and smallest rubber chicken.


The Rubber Chicken Museum
at Archee McPhee

will put a smile on your face
a must see and it’s free

rubber chickens galore
in all shapes and sizes

some smartly dressed
in familiar disguises

like Santa Claus suits
although most of them be

naked as jaybirds
with no modesty

some of them squeak
some are printed on towels

they all tell the tale
of this funny old fowl

yes the Rubber Chicken Museum
at Archee McPhee

will put a smile on your face
a must see and it’s free


Thanks for reading.
Kate J

Sources
Archie McPhee, 2025. Rubber Chicken Museum. https://archiemcpheeseattle.com/rubber-chicken-museum/ Accessed 16 January. 

Egg Info, 2025. British Lion Eggs. https://www.egginfo.co.uk/british-lion-eggs Accessed 12 January. 

Humane League, 2025. How many chickens are in the world and the us. https://thehumaneleague.org/article/how-many-chickens-are-in-the-world Accessed 12 January 

Poultry News, 2025. White turn. https://www.poultrynews.co.uk/production/white-turn.html Accessed 12 January 2025. 

Quora, 2025. Poultry: How did brown eggs become a standard market choice over white ones in the UK? https://www.quora.com/Poultry-How-did-brown-eggs-become-a-standard-market-choice-over-white-ones-in-the-UK Accessed 12 January 2025. 

Statista, 2025. Number of chickens worldwide. https://www.statista.com/statistics/263962/number-of-chickens-worldwide-since-1990/#:~:text=How%20many%20chickens%20are%20in,13.9%20billion%20chickens%20in%202000 Accessed 12 January.