Aarbon blog

Climatic Potential of the Bactrian Camel (Camelanus Bactrianus)

2008-01-30T14:18:00.001-08:00

It isn't as off the wall as it seems - camel trading, that is. The Bactrian camel is the only true one, the two-humper, which I recommend. You don't have to be a celebutante or a total wonker on the party and club scene to be interested. I had a friend who knew a fellow in some pop group or other who owned a camel. It was an accident actually. He was returning from his father's funeral and got rather drunk. He'd been to the crem and was carrying the ashes home - this must have been some time later - and he stopped at the local bar for a quick one. Somehow the conversation turned towards what we dare to do and he finished up snorting his father's ashes. Anyway, after that the bet to buy the camel seemed relatively mild.

Let's be honest, once global warming kicks in, it would be a good bet - not the snorting, the camel I mean. They can go miles without any petrol. And they raise and lower their body temperature at will. My girlfriend used to do that. Turned quite peuce on one occasion. I was petrified. The thing with camels, though, is that they don't sweat, so they retain all the water they drink. They hardly ever go to the loo, as well. Unlike somebody I could mention. Finally, but not least, they eat anything - twigs, shoes and ashes. Did you know, a man in Apex, North Carolina, has finally been rumbled for keeping 60 sheep in his apartment? He could have had room for any number of camels in the same space. That's what I mean about thinking ahead. Climatic potential.

Naked Profiteering

2008-01-30T13:16:00.000-08:00

Did I tell you that competition for no frills flights has reached new heights? Nudist aeroplane trips inspired by Freikorpekultur, or Free Body Culture, are about to have naturists taking off all over. Well, at present only from Erfurt to Usedom on the Baltic, so I'm told. Be advised to bring tea towels or, in Business Class, suitably embossed doilies, to sit on. Passengers can take off once the plane has taken off, if you get my drift. You'll understand that for reasons of health, safety and security, the pilot and cabin crew will keep their kit on, thereby securing all loose tackle for the airline and minimising any distress arising from air pockets or gravity.

Scratch Results

2008-01-11T12:44:00.000-08:00

Which do you want first, the good news or the bad news? I assume you want the good. The good news, so I'm told, is that itch you have could be caused by a gene. The bad news is that it - the itch not the gene - could be linked with a condition such as diabetes, eczema or liver disease. Truly, I'm not talking about your average scratch, but the one brought on by primary localised cutaneous amyloidosis. You've probably guessed by now that the skin gene which has mutated and caused the defect is called oncostatin M receptor-beta.
I thought I'd share this with you. With this news, I'm afraid, I've semi-given away the secret of how we dwellers on England's frigid East Coast spend our long, dark Winter evenings - ploughing through dusty old medical textbooks rescued last summer from the skip outside the rear doors of North East Driffield Public Library.

A Weighty Thought

2008-01-07T14:50:00.000-08:00

Which reminds me. I've come across a touching up therapy which is complementary to Botox, the derivative of botulism, the deadly poison I was never keen to insert into crucial parts of my body, puffing out the cheeks, inflating the lips, introducing smoothness where there were wrinkles. I'm considering a quick trip to Los Angeles, where apparently, you can lose your love handles by lipo-dissolve, a quick injection over the lunch break of PCDC - phosphalidylchloline - a little chemical cocktail which is claimed to dissolve fat. It actually takes 10 minutes - less than the time involved in eating the average ice cream cornet. Uncomfortable? Apparently not, apart from some slight swelling and numbness around the needle. Formerly, incision was the rule. Now I'm in a state of indecision. To be frank, it's not just the cost of the train fare from Yorkshire to Los Angeles. I need to know first of all whether it's a reliable method, ever since hearing about the man who, after a bit of lipo on the side at work, looked down and, Bingo! his penis was turning black. Then I need to know where the fat goes before diving in. Does it drip into the kidneys and thence to the urine, or does it seep into the liver and get metabolised. These are matters which keep me awake in the early hours. I'm all for tackling my little corner of the obesity epidemic, but with clinics springing up quicker than MacDonalds I also need to know how it works before joining the queue at what promises to be the most popular clinic in town.

global warning

2008-01-01T14:18:00.000-08:00

I have to put on record that I'm totally against this global warming. It seems to me quite wrong. It's misdirected energy if you ask me. I've just found out that this highly respected and respectable group of Hindu worshippers have trekked to a remote part of the Himalayas - I'm sorry, I seem to have mislaid the precise details of their route - determined to find the stalactite which is the reincarnation of the God Shiva, only to find a puddle. This in my view is completely unacceptable. Added to which somebody seems to be pulling a fast one on these devout colleagues, because I don't see how stalactites, composed as they are of calcite and aragonite - otherwise known to you and me as salts such as calcium carbonate - which have dissolved and reprecipitated, can melt like icicles. Will the person please own up? Or am I missing some point or other?
Ah, I've just received a message. Apparently they are icicles. Or they were, I should say. Anyway it just goes to show. Whatever.

A Little Testosterone Please, We're British

2007-12-18T15:15:00.000-08:00

In my position, which is often vernacular, sometimes inclined forward and rarely absolutely horizontal, you tend to hear a good deal. Sometimes it's absolutely rivetting, at others moderately yawning, occasionally utterly disgusting. Last week I semi-overheard some locals tucked into an oak panelled corner in one of the several bars of our most respectable and elegant hotel in the main street of North Driffield, talking about a survey for a particularly nameless men's magazine. Apparently, British men are among the greatest enthusiasts for having a sex life and among the 20 countries in the survey, men in the USA are among the least keen, only being pipped to this position by the Malaysians and the Germans. About one Britisher in seven has had an affair, whereas one in four Italians has. At the same time the Italians, apparently, are the least satisfied with their sex lives, whereas the British men are the happiest, sexually, in the world. What does this tell us, apart from the fact that over half the Britons toddle around all day with a dazed smile on their faces not giving a pink floyd about anything? F * * * all, according to my postie.

Grass Up Your Lid in Germany

2007-12-18T15:02:00.000-08:00

Which reminds me. In Germany turf roofs are extremely popular. They seem to be flat roofing every fifth new house and turning the top into lawn. Campaigners in Britain are encouraging householders to do the same. Green mortgages can be taken out. There are rumours that golf can be played across certain city blocks. Take care though. My uncle Silas Aarbon took a swing and mis-hit. That little golf ball fell 17 floors and disembowelled a dachshund being taken for a walk by an elderly spinster who was so distraught at the sight of his chitterlings she had a heart attack in the street. I have heard a more dramatic cautionary tale from campaigners in the other camp. Old roofs don't always support new lawns. After three tons of turf had been placed unstrategically on the roof of the old bakery in Wold Lane North East Driffield, the arrival of an early morning flock of barkpecks proved too much for the timber struts. Timber, turf and barkpecks all fell into the space below, felling twelve bakers and filling the dough mixture for something over 400 loaves with birds of a feather.

Green Solution Feeds Flat Battery

2007-12-18T14:42:00.000-08:00

The good news is that there is a solution to the perennial problem of the car battery going flat just when you're in a hurry, aunt Gemima is in a tizz, the cat has a tick on his whisker, the dog a distemper and young Harry's ear has been gored by the most gigantic earwig.
The solution apparently is urine. I have it on good authority that in the USA they've been pouring human sweat, blood and not tears but urine into a paper-thin battery. It's made of about 90 per cent cellulose. I don't quite know what that is but it sounds like that wafer cone you eat the ice cream out of. They use it in the making of paper, apparently. And they kind of cook it into these tiny batteries, which you can fold, roll and cut up into slices like lasagne. Only, don't pee into the cook pot once you've made the lasagne, because this battery is activated by the urine, just as by sweat and blood. You may have given cook a shock but when you touch the pan, the mixture might give you a shock too. Once the sparks begin to fly, the wee battery starts to become attractive at that moment to car manufacturers. You may even have the people who make those heart pacemakers queueing at your door.

Intelligent Bras To Offer More Support

2007-12-15T12:48:00.000-08:00

This business of intelligent design is baffling. I'm struggling with an unlikely article in the Journal of Biomechanics. This contains the information that scientists at the University of Wollongong, Australia, have designed a brassiere made from intelligent fabric with inbuilt sensors that will fit women more adequately. I'm sure half of you knew that a poorly designed bra is uncomfortable and may even injure you, the wearer that is, not the person alongside her. Apparently, even a bra in the correct size can dig into the skin at the straps and damage the nerves so seriously that the fingers go numb. This is particularly likely when vigorous movement takes place, which can cause the chest to move up and down 70 cm at a time. It comes about partly because the female breast contains no bones or muscles to support it. The rather puzzling bit is that in the experiment a woman aged 30 with a 36D brassiere and another aged 39 with a 38D walked at 4.3 miles (7 kilometres) an hour and jogged at 10 kilometres an hour. The vertical movement on the younger woman was 11 walking and 53mm jogging and on the older woman 25mm walkiing and 68mm jogging. Fascinating. So what? What the researchers are trying to do is use polymer science to enable sensors to be inserted into fabrics to monitor the motion of the breast and how the bra responds to it. Designers will in future be able to use fabric sensors work out how each part of the bra responds to movement.
I admit to scratching my pate about this. How does this help the person wearing the bra? I mean, 'Don't worry love, we know it's hurting. Here's why. We hope one day people won't build bras with buckles and straps. They'll be stick ons. I can promise that whatever sport you indulge in, they won't hold you up.'

The Turkish Angoras of Korea are brighter than ever

2007-12-13T22:57:00.000-08:00

This is to scotch rumours of my electrocution by an ultra violet lamp, which have at the very least been advanced, if not brought forward. I have to acknowledge that I shall be dead eventually, like most, if not all of you, but let's dwell here on the present rather than speculate on the probability of the inevitable. I admit though I can surmise how the UV lamp story about me began to flash round the newsrooms of the world. Indeed, I can almost glimpse the beckoning glamour of celebrity, a temptation that sometimes it's difficult for even me to resist.
The thing is, this UV business is becoming popular. In Gyeongsang National University in South Korea, at which unlike at least several of you I've never studied, scientists have introduced a fluorescent protein gene to the DNA of three cloned Turkish Angoras, which are a breed of cat with extremely fine fur, probably originating in sixteenth century France - the breed that is, not the fur, though if you leave them out in a tropical storm it can become rather matted, the fur that is, not the storm.
Anyway. They put these cats under the UV lamp and they change colour. And guess what, the USA were there first. Kids can have their guinea pigs, hamsters and jerbils glowing like isotopes. Those scientists must have been bored because next they took a butterfly, would you believe it, and added some DNA from a jellyfish to it to genetically modify its whatever. Then they shone the UV lamp up its posterior and Bingo! the internals of the butterfly lit up in the dark. This sounds like the Icarus syndrome to me, because I can imagine that when the butterflies are released and they fly out into the hot summer sun, their jellied wings will soften and they'll flop to the ground in little molten heaps. So much for genetic manipulation. Don't anybody come near me with a jellyfish. I'll stick to my torch battery.

A Waste of Daylight Saving Time

2007-12-09T02:42:00.000-08:00

I am reminded by glancing from the yawning awning over my lounge at Havertrope Hall - part of the wing of this ageing pile which fell into the North Sea in last winter's gales - that dawn rises late and dusk early at this stage in our Earth's annual orbit. Daylight Saving Time (DST) changes to Winter Time (Standard Time) in 70 odd countries at this time of year. I've been ruminating on daylight saving, flattered as I am to be asked to be consultant to the local government of North East Driffield. The Borough Council has spent the past century, on and off, since the introduction of daylight saving to save fuel in England during World War One, investigating the possibility of changing daylight saving to bring the people of this locality of East Yorkshire into line with global climatic changes. Every time Driffield has been on the cusp of making a decision about the town hall clock and the clocks in the public conveniences at the end of the small market square, there's been a delay for some reason. I recall an incursion into the council chamber in 1973 of a particularly large and irritating swarm of bees. There have been other less dramatic but no less effective distractions. During the past decade the pace of debate has increased. The fact is the rest of England doesn't have the fog and gloom which blows down off the wolds into Driffield. Our local debates have acquired global resonance. Rumour has it that various recent changes among the countries which already use daylight saving have been influenced by our deliberations. Venezuela has decided to put the clocks back half an hour. The president has announced that this should encourage the people to work harder because they'll be getting up when it's light. I couldn't claim the dignitaries of Driffield are entirely responsible for this, but they and I may have semi-influenced our South American demi-cousins. I admit to a few moments of hesitation and rather debilitating flatulence when I heard that the local council of North West Driffield have followed the impeccable research by the Korea Development Institute, Korea Energy Economic Institute, the Korean Transportation Institute and the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute, who all conclude that the benefits of daylight saving are hard to prove and that they shouldn't join the rest of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in doing it. I admit also that when Australia adopted daylight saving in 2000 during the Sydney Olympics there was no evidence that electricity use benefited, or athletes moved faster I might add. I further admit to sending the president of Venezuela a message by pigeon post detailing our arguments in North East Driffield for putting back the clocks forty three minutes last year and seventeen minutes this year. Although I can't prove the pigeon ever arrived, I surmise our demi-cousins have spotted the arithmetic average is 30 minutes and gone for it. This is more likely than the scurrilous rumour they've gone for the half hour purely to distinguish themselves from the USA.
The whole business is complicated and takes some remembering when you're a globetrotter, which I somewhat freely admit I'm not. There's been confusion in the USA for literally months about whether they're in or not. The daylight saving arrangements were in during the First World War and out after 1919, in from 1942 to 1945, subject to local State arrangements from 1945 to 1966, till nobody knew what time it was anywhere. Imagine, a coach driver on the 35 miles between Moundsville WV. and Steubenville Ohio had to stop 7 times and make sure every passenger had changed the time on all the watches, in case anyone was taken short and needed to use the local conveniences. Since the 1980s they've somewhat regularised the position and people can go to the toilet without this additional worry. In countries such as Canada, Mexico, Russia and the USA in the Northern Hemisphere, the clocks in public conveniences are put back in late Autumn, whilst in Southern Hemisphere countries such as Australia, Brazil and Chile they're all put forward. I admit to a typo in my message to Venezuela, in which I said we put the clocks forward in the Autumn. The confusion at the president's press conference early in December when he announced the changes can almost certainly be laid at my door. It obviously doesn't weaken the case for North East Driffield appointing a part-time astrologer from the Centre for Error and Repetition at the University of East Yorkshire, to estimate the odds on an asteroid zooming across our Earth's above-mentioned orbit and rendering this entire debate irrelevant. Which is where I come is, as Professor of Irrelevant Studies in that same university, of course. But that's another story.

A Sticky Subject in Rhine and Humber rivers

2007-12-04T23:11:00.000-08:00

Which reminds me of a semi-tacky idea that came to me when trying to seal an envelope which had been lurking in my study so long that the glue had lost its lust for life. I had been reading of the discovery of a Roman helmet near the River Humber with a tea tray firmly stuck to its upper crest, the cristae of which are so often composed of a sticky mixture of ostrich feathers and decidedly public hair, I seem to recall from my local history classes. Very similar, apparently to one found near the Rhine in 2007. The glue, apparently, still works after 2000 years, give or take. There's semi-certainty between archie and the other ologists about most of the ingredients - tallow, bitumen and tree sap - but beyond that they're pretty well foxed about what causes the stuff to cling on after all these centuries. They've been speculating about whether the mystery legionary was walking across the Humber with the makings of tea on his head, so as not to get them wet. He'd be able to brew up at the other side. This strikes me as typical off the wall stuff. The trouble with the ologists is they set their sights too low, with depressing consequences for the ancient Mediterranean working man, woman or eunuch. And typical of them not to remember there weren't tea bags in those days. Much more likely, wages being what they were, he was working part time as a waiter and wanted to keep his goblets sparkling. An extra blob of glue under each should do it, provided on the far side he scraped it off before it dried.
Living in the real world of now, as one does, and naturally being of an enterprising turn of mind, I'm eager to turn historical insights into commercial reality and start manufacturing the gooey stuff. My hand trembles with excitement such that I can hardly grasp the pencil as I write. There's the little acknowledged market of wealthy and bald pilgrims wearing wigs which won't stay on as they traverse a number of extremely windy spots, from the Falkland Islands to Baffinland. I recall the distress of one Texan billionaire when his hairpiece blew off at our little animal park just north of north Driffield and was plucked from the air by a passing polar bear who mistook it for an Arctic skua and ate it forthwith. The bear was constipated for 22 days and was only relieved when the enterprising keeper administered a plateful of mackerel soused in castor oil, from the plant ricinus communis, I am semi-certain. Seven minutes later the bear excreted a stool weighing seven hundredweight which it took four men and a trailer to carry to the garbage tip.
I also have it on good authority from a certain senior citizen who holds a gong from our gracious Queen and balances habitually in a rather lucrative if uncomfortable position in Westminster, that ladies performing ritual dances in Soho will pay a fortune for a glue which will hold sparkly bobbles and triangles of tinsel in place.
Finally, of course, there is Granite, our indefatiguable butler at Havertrope Hall in the tundra-strewn outback of East Yorkshire. It's well known that his false teeth and his social standing have hung by the same thread for decades. On one occasion he coughed at silver service and they had to be fished out of the rissoles and on another he was completely rat-arsed, threw up after a particularly late lunch with a series of liqueurs with whisky chasers, flushed the toilet and there went his dentures. What he wouldn't pay for oral security isn't worth a crested serpent eagle's eyeblink.
These are but a foretaste of the great unexploded marketplace lurking out there, waiting to be stripped bare. Excuse me while I pause for a moment, count to nine and restore my centre of gravity.

Reports of terminal decline of East Yorkshire

2007-11-29T08:56:00.000-08:00

Reports that I am in terminal decline have been semi-exaggerated. They could possibly be mischievous, or simply coincidental. Whatever. What they should have said was that I am living on a definite incline. This is growing more pronounced, I cannot deny. As you may already have gathered, I inhabit a rather remote part of East Yorkshire, though my connections lie with the svelt suburbs of North Driffield in the market town of that name and my further connections with that paradise of metropolitan flatness, Kingston upon Hull. There is nothing wrong with flatness, don't misundertand me. What creates some consternation in the household is the matter of tilt. Tilt is what living in Rotcliffe, this village perched along the cliffs of boulder clay between the Holderness district of East Yorkshire and the North Sea, has given me. Tilt is the ultimate precariousness. When I say perched, I mean swaying over the cliff edge. The main street of Rotcliffe used to run between two rows of cottages and now one row has almost completely crumbled onto the beach thirty feet beneath. These fragile cliffs are being gnawed by the teeth of the odd easterly gale such that the land disappears at about six feet a year. My ancestral home of Havertrope Hall lying due south of the village centre has already lost one wing and now slopes gently seaward, such that wooden chocks are needed under the ageing chesterfield in my sitting room, to prevent me sliding towards the Netherlands. It's not a pretty sight. When one retires to bed, there is the nightly debate about which way to lie on the kingsized four poster. Sloping down, head to toe, up, or transversely. The result of living at a definite angle has been an increase in the medical complaints with which I'm already fairly riddled.
Which reminds me, I'm not asking for sympathy. However, it pains me to admit that I do have a tendency to nuzzle up against the medical tomes in the bookstore, instead of browsing maturely like the pensioners, yuppies and pickpockets among the coffee table books, the 3 for 2 bargains and the remainders offered at once in a lifetime knockdown prices. You can guess why. For some time I've had quite a thing going with the quacks. There are various external lumps, bumps and even larger clumps and dumps of dark goings on in my interior which grab my attention. I tend to ring him at odd hours and plead with the receptionist for just a few minutes between patients. I have to be honest. I think he has quite taken to me. It must be a relief for him to put away all those dreadful symptoms for a short while and attend to my little recitals. My conditions do have two great advantages. First, they're obscure. I'm drawn to those pages towards the end of each chapter of the latest editions of Signs and Symptoms. That's where the most interesting, the rarest afflictions are tucked. Often they get only the briefest mention. It's left to the discerning reader to exercise imaginative faculties and bring them to three-dimensional reality. Second, it pains me to admit, but he's safe with me. So far, none of my worst fears have been realised. Not that I'm crying 'Wolf!' you understand. But the most I have at present are a number of possibly near, incipient, imminent, even immanent conditions. I am in fact in a state of semi-wellness which means I must be as near as dammit semi-ill as well. Making the worst, and the best, of it in both worlds you might say.

Enduring marriage in Hull and Driffield

2007-11-22T03:46:00.000-08:00

I think I may have tripped across something of great moment, though I didn't get all of the details because the bottom was torn off the page of news. It was on a piece of newspaper I picked up with what we call one of each with scraps - a fish, a portion of chips and a shovelful of those crunchy bits of batter and fat they toss out of the fryer - at our local chip shop in North Driffield. I often find the wrapping more enticing than the chips. There's a test, apparently, for finding out early in a marriage whether it will last. Before going further, think about the advantages. You could save quite a lot of expense. Take the anniversary business. What is the point of spending time in the local card store selecting one of those anniversary cards which is so huge you need two hands to hold it? As for presents, I need not labour the point. You're expecting me to give chapter and verse on who came up with the test. I have a slight problem. I can remember they're psychologists somewhere who've discovered this. The chances are they're in the USA. I'd put my money on that. Now there's a country that invests in understanding people. There's a small chance they could be in the north of Canada or the outback of Australia, but I don't think so. It's too cold for couples to split up in the winter in north Canada and in the outback of Australia the people are too spread out away from the towns to get together in the first place. The UK is out. We don't rate psychologists. Wrong of us perhaps, but reality bites.
You're asking me about what the test is. I can remember you sit down at a table and the person, you know, the tester, scores the number of times each of you tells the other a joke or disagrees over a 15 minute period. This apparently enables these experts to reach a view about the quality of your relationship as a couple. Amazing. I'm stopping there. Just thought I might order a joke book off Amazon.

Sea gulls have it in Padstow

2007-11-22T03:23:00.000-08:00

Which reminds me.
In Padstow and Truro, Cornwall, England, the seagulls have started to dive bomb the local people, to try to secure their Cornish pasties at a swoop. They say the gulls are emmetts in disguise. That's the word they use for outsiders. It's sinister enough. I have an idea though. There is an island where the mice have become so large they eat seagulls alive. This is the value of a broad education. Come to think of it, it's also the value of being a lateral thinker. There is a fortune waiting to be made sorting out the seagull problem. I just need to remember the name of the island and put a small but dynamic deposit down on a small boat with space at one end for a large cage and some packs of cheap soap. Apparently one standard bar of soap contains enough nutrients to keep an average sized mouse alive for three months. I think they lather at the mouth though. This could have further spin-offs but I'm still working to translate them, it, us and me into commercial reality.

Memory of Alzheimer's

2007-11-22T03:05:00.000-08:00

I must tell you this while I can remember it. Scientists have demonstrated that regular tea drinking helps to keep your memory in good order and stave off Alzheimer's disease. I'm going for the general memory improvement. I don't think I've Alzheimer's yet, though whenever I hear about a new disease I usually find I have several of the symptoms already. I savour the thought that each gulp of green or black tea blocks a few more of those nasty little brain enzymes that destroy acetylcholin, the neurotransmitter carrying messages between my brain cells. I'm not so sure I'll continue with the black tea much longer. Apparently it's fermented green tea. Nobody ever told me this. I was quite taken aback and held up the queue for a while in the teashop at North Driffield whilst I conducted a small, unrepresentative but emotional survey of the staff behind the counter. All I wanted was to raise awareness. Five to ten cups a day could preserve your acetylcholine. It was unnecessary for them to call out the constabulary. I would never create a disturbance in normal circumstances. There are some discoveries which create a Eureka moment. I admit to culpability on that score. There's life in the old cranium yet.