Sunday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

April 15, 2018 • 6:30 am

by Grania

It’s the birthday of actresses Emma Thompson (1959), Maisie Williams (1997) and Emma Watson (1990). Artist Leonardo da Vinci also claims today as his birthday (1452).

Today was a day of disasters as well, most notably the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, with only 710 people surviving and over 1500 dying. The horrendous loss of life led to investigations into safety issues, and new guidelines regarding lifeboats were brought about as a result.

In 1989, a tragic human crush at the Hillsborough Stadium came to be known as the Hillsborough Disaster. 96 people were killed and 766 people injured when police allowed overcrowding to occur in the standing terraces.

In the felid section this morning we have both Leon and Hili pronouncing on profound life issues.

Leon: I have a feeling that in my next incarnation I’ll be a forester.

Cyrus: What to do after such a beautiful start to the day?
Hili: Catch a mouse.

In Polish:

Cyrus: Co począć z tak pięknie rozpoczętym dniem?
Hili: Złapać mysz.

On Twitter this morning:

An old Soviet propaganda poster.

https://twitter.com/moodvintage/status/985152358345781248

How to get diabetes in one easy step

Two foxes playing

And a reminder that humans never really change.

Early Skype:

https://twitter.com/oldpicsarchive/status/985421974225776640

And something to give to friends and family on Facebook when they rabbit on about their new health diet.

13 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)”

  1. Titanic–an unfortunate name to have when the next word is disaster. If they’d named the ship Small, it could have been called a “Small disaster.”

    Glen Davidson

  2. The cartoon about the low life expectancy is mistaken. That low life expectancy is mainly due to a horrendous child mortality (and violence, tribal warfare, infections and infectious disease), but it is pertinently misleading to state that when a life expectancy is in the thirties or forties ‘nobody’ lives past thirty (or forty). In fact, if as a hunter-gatherer you reach your thirties, your life expectancy is well into the seventies.
    We know that with the advent of agriculture, life expectancy as well as stature and some other parameters dropped (but it allowed for higher numbers). It is only in the last Century or so that we’ve overtaken the hunter-gatherers again, mainly due to reduced child mortality, and things like sanitation, vaccination, etc.

  3. The drawing of Vitruvian Man is on page 154 of Walter Isaacson’s book on Da Vinci and is described on 7 or 8 pages of the book. A very well done book if you are interested in knowing more.

    In the introduction is mentioned that at age 30 Leonardo was writing a resume to the ruler of Milan touting all of his assets and only in the 10th paragraph does he add that he is also an artist.

  4. Re: early Skype.

    That reminds me of one of my favorite Dilbert cartoons. Dilbert buys a video phone and tells Dogbert, “Now we wait for someone to buy a compatible video phone and call us.” Dogbert comments, “The amazing thing is that society couldn’t advance without people like you.” 😀

  5. “How to get diabetes in one easy step”

    I know it was a joke….but this joke trades on what is (I understand) to be a common misconception about diabetes – that eating sugar causes diabetes. That link (again, from what I’ve read) has not been made.

    (Sort of similar to the urban myth that sugar causes kids to go nuts, e.g. where parents think the wild behavior of kids at birthday parties is due to ingesting lots of junk food especially sugar. Where it’s more likely the social environment and situation is responsible for the excitement of the kids).

    1. I saw a British experiment a few years ago designed to get parents out of the myth that sugar made kids go nuts.

      The kids were taken to supervised birthday parties a week apart. At the first the food was all healthy stuff – sandwiches, fruit, veges, water etc. The kids played games where they ran around, got excited, and generally were hyped up.

      The following week, the kids ate sweets, cakes, fizzy drinks etc. However, they were kept calm by doing things like listening to stories, guessing games, board games etc.

      Almost without exception, the parents, judging by behaviour, thought it was the first week that kids got all the refined sugar.

  6. Unfortunately, the “Diplomacy, the American way” poster is all too true. Of course, it would be just as true if it was “Diplomacy, the Soviet way” and the diplomat transfigured into a Russian soldier.

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