ConDem bad arguments for #indyref

The Tories have produced a buzzfeed-style page for the indyref.

They take their assertion that Scots are better off by £1200 per year each in the UK than we would be if independent (their figures don’t make sense, but frankly the SNP’s arguments that we’d be better off by x amount per year each don’t make sense either) and they’ve done a series of images of the things that £1200 could buy.

Both sides have tried this argument, and both sides made a hash of it, because it is a frankly silly argument. The wealth of the UK is not a cake to be sliced up and everyone given a bit. Even if Scotland were to become actually independent in March 2016, or enter a devomax arrangement set up between the Tories and the SNP as planned in the White Paper, or remains part of the UK as at present, Scotland will still have a very few very rich people, a proportion of wealthy people, and a lot of people who are horrifyingly poor.

Art by food

If you ever wanted your lunch to look too good to eat, bento.

Things That Look Like Other Things

This blogpost is dedicated to The Cake Girl, just because.

The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival falls on 30th September this year: Pat’s Chung Ying on Leith Walk is selling gorgeous boxes of mooncakes. (I didn’t check to see if they also sell the ingredients, but if they do, here’s how to make your own.) There are multiple variations on the basic mooncake, the general theme being a cake to be divided and shared among family while viewing the full moon of autumn. But look: this is an actual thing. Mooncakes that look like mobile phones (via):

Piracy of links

1. A Friday 13th Ghost Story

It’s not widely discussed. Those who have witnessed it firsthand are, for obvious reasons, reluctant to talk about it. You’ll never see them publicly recounting their tales in front of the cameras and the microphones. These aren’t stories they are eager to tell.

But one hears whispers, rumors, stories told by the friends of friends. And those whispers, rumors and stories are too numerous and too eerily similar to be dismissed.

Something is happening. Something, it seems, happens every Friday the 13th, just before midnight.



2. Urban Legends: Friday the 13th (TGIF13)

Still other sources speculate that the number 13 may have been purposely vilified by the founders of patriarchal religions in the early days of western civilization because it represented femininity. Thirteen had been revered in prehistoric goddess-worshiping cultures, we are told, because it corresponded to the number of lunar (menstrual) cycles in a year (13 x 28 = 364 days). The “Earth Mother of Laussel,” for example — a 27,000-year-old carving found near the Lascaux caves in France often cited as an icon of matriarchal spirituality — depicts a female figure holding a crescent-shaped horn bearing 13 notches. As the solar calendar triumphed over the lunar with the rise of male-dominated civilization, it is surmised, so did the “perfect” number 12 over the “imperfect” number 13, thereafter considered anathema.

Because it’s Monday, that’s why: links roundup

• This is both amazing and beautiful: a wind map of the US.
• The Raspberry Pi is a tiny, cheap, programmable computer being made by an American charity and sent all over the world. Fish Pi is what happens when someone decides to develop an Autonomous Marine Surface Vehicle, and have it cross the Atlantic Ocean. Because, why not?
• When what is meant to be the greatest show on earth is on your doorstep, it becomes terrifyingly clear that it presents more of a threat than an occasion to be enjoyed.
• Murdoch dressed as lamb: “So refer case and implication was clear. News Int turn against coalition and AV.”
• Making stupid jokes is not a criminal offense: “Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”

Music and coffee and cake

At Edinburgh Farmer’s Market sunny Saturday morning yesterday…

There was music.

Single Transferable Cake

Single Transferable vote

1. You number the candidates on your ballot that you want to get elected, in order of your preference.
2. If there are candidates you don’t want to get elected AT ALL, you don’t put a number next to them.

How it works at the count

1. All the One votes are counted (first preference).
2. The candidate who got fewest One votes is eliminated. (“You are the weakest link. Goodbye!”)
3. So if you voted for that candidate as One, the counters now count your Two vote.
4. All the One and Two votes are counted.
5. And so on…

In the recent party elections, 1330 cakes were baked. Your choices on the ballot were mostly cake parties – strawberry cake for the Red Party, purple cake for the Heather Party, cherry cake for the Green Party, a bundt cake for the Orange Party, and a chocolate cupcake with yellow icing for the Yellow Party. Also standing were a pint for the Beer Party, an apple for the Apple Party, a lollypop for the Lollypop party, and a pair of scissors as an independent.

Only three choices can win.

When you voted, you chose cherry cake as your first preference, scissors as your second preference, strawberry cake as your third preference, purple cake as your fourth, the chocolate cupcake with yellow icing as your fifth, and the apple as your sixth. You don’t like beer, lollypops, or bundt cake.

The all-night bakery

Years ago, if you were coming home after midnight and the chip shops had shut, there was an all-night bakery lurking behind where Scayles Music Shop is now. The door might be standing open to let the cool air in, or you could just knock: the room you saw was stacked full of baked goods and the ovens were still running – the air was full of the wonderful smell of freshly-baked bread and cake – and they’d sell you literally anything you could think to ask for, brown-bagged, though most people were looking for something to eat right now.

The paving stones outside the all-night bakery on St Patrick’s Square had been pigeon-pecked for the dropped crumbs – there were holes worn in the stone by the pigeon-beaks.

Though I no longer live on the south side of Edinburgh, and so would never likely be walking home late at night past that bakery, I still regret its going.