Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017 - 22:37

The death of Stanislav Petrov this week (who in 1983 averted mutually assured total destruction via nuclear war, when he prevented a retaliation launch of weapons against the USA, when the USSR apparently detected missiles oncoming blah blah.. it was a computer error) got me thinking about that thing I've occasionally wondered about w.r.t. the most significant one human in terms of lives saved or ended. The inventor of penicillin versus the 9/11 hijackers, whoever created GM rice allowing millions of peasants not to starve to death versus Hitler/Stalin/Pol Pot. Throw Alfred Nobel in there, dynamitre versus all the good science and shit motivated by the prizes?

Wierdly, apparently the term succubous is used to describe the way in which the leaves of a liverwort are attached to the stem. If one were to look down from above (dorsal side) on a plant where the leaf attachment is succubous, the lower edge of each leaf would overlap the next lower leaf along the stem. Because of this, the lower edge of each leaf is visible from above, but the edge of the leaf closer to the tip of the stem is obscured by a neighboring leaf. The opposite of succubous is incubous. You know what.. I got this information from Wikipedia and it strikes me as probably unreliable in part, though it appears the references back it up.

I'm a third of the way through 'Hard Man' by Allan Guthrie, which so far has been pretty decent. It's got a bit of a vibe of Chris Brookmyre about it, Scottish folk being a bit inept and violent with each other. Good stuff forsure, certainly very promising but I'm not wholly sure where it'll go. I'd have read more but for the thing I mention below.

Immanence is usually applied in monotheistic, pantheistic, pandeistic, or panentheistic faiths to suggest that the spiritual world permeates the mundane. It is often contrasted with transcendence, in which the divine is seen to be outside the material world.

My left leg is a little achey - I don't know whether this is stress-related or just physiological etc. It's certainly not been helped by me having a good scratch this afternoon, nor the weeping bit sticking to the inside of my jeans. You don't want to know about this, I appreciate. I didn't want to hear about what the four drunk women, who were old enough to know better, were talking about on the train this evening. Fucking daft fucking lush whore piss antisocial pork globs.

In international sport, England beat West Indies in a curtailed (42 over) ODI today, Bairstow's hundred (in reply to a modest 207 from the tourists) taking the hosts to a win. In lady football, The Lionesses opened their WC2019 campaign with a 6-0 win over Russia in Preston, the visitors a woman down after a red card on the half hour. Belgium hit twelve against Moldova.

In GBBO, it was all about caramel this week. Pretty entertaining, even though none of them could make stroop waffles. I like Sophie, she's got an understated nature I find quite delightful, Liam, Kate and Julia too. Tom had a bad day, after two or three good weeks, and left the competition.

The village of Wigratzbad (a hamlet in the Lindau district of Bavaria, Germany) was home to a series of notable Marian apparitions in the early 20th century. The primary visionary was Antonie Rädler, who, while sick during the 1918 flu pandemic, reported a healing apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Later, following the rise of National Socialism, Rädler defied authorities by refusing to replace an image of the Virgin in her father's butcher shop with one of Adolf Hitler; furthermore, she refused to substitute the Bavarian greeting of 'Grüß Gott' with the mandated Heil Hitler. As a result of her noncompliance, she endured several attempts on her life. She was arrested by the Gestapo, but was later released.

An exciting trip to Northamptonshire tomorrow for work. It's going to be absolutely fucking fantastic n'that. Can you drink wee? Of course you fucking can. You can drink any liquid, basically. Most aren't particularly nice or good for you, but that's not my problem. Anton Fig is a South African session drummer.

Some (actually, all) of this evening's League Cup scores:

Aston Villa 0-2 Middlesbrough.

AFC Bournemouth 1-0 Brighton & Hove Albion [AET].

Brentford 1-3 Norwich City.

Bristol City 2-0 Stoke City.

Burnley 2-2 Leeds United [AET] (3-5 pens).

Crystal Palace 1-0 Huddersfield Town.

Leicester City 2-0 Liverpool.

West Ham United 3-0 Bolton Wanderers.

Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-0 Bristol Rovers [AET].

Reading 0-2 Swansea City.

Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 Barnsley.