by Fern Shaw | Mar 22, 2015 | Health and Hydration, Water
In a previous blog, I spoke about the rather disturbing trend where almost every single day of the year has been tagged as a Day of Something or Other. One seems hard pressed to wheedle out a day that has actual significance or some real meaning or; that is of importance and is worth commemorating.
A day that is worth marking though is World Water Day, which this year, will be held on the 22nd of March 2015. In case you’re wondering why – as you may have all the water that you need and believe that’s all there is to it – here are just a few reasons – from a personal perspective:
- Water is essentially life giving.
- There is no spectrum of our lives that is possible without water – this starts with the fact that our physical make-up is around 70% water.
- Water is a scarce resource and as about only 2.5% of the world’s water is fresh water, it is a resource that needs to be protected and used wisely.
- Short of developments in nuclear fusion, we cannot ‘make’ water, so we need to ensure that the water that we do have is used in a sustainable manner going forward.
The theme for the 2015 World Water Day is Water and Sustainable Development. Some pertinent facts according to the World Water Day website:
- Water is health – Clean hands can save your life.
- Water is nature – Ecosystems lie at the heart of the global water cycle.
- Water is energy – Water and energy are inseparable friends.
- Water is food – To produce two steaks you need 15 000 litres of water.
- Water is equality – Every day women spend 200 million hours carrying water.
- Water is urbanization – Every week, one million people move into cities.
- Water is industry – More water is used to manufacture a car than to fill a swimming pool.
Taking all of these factors into consideration, I think it’s safe to say that the world’s water is of concern for us all and that creating and maintaining a sustainable supply is imperative.
Here at AquAid, a very important part of our ethos is assisting in the creation of a sustainable water supply globally, for those less fortunate, in order for these communities to empower themselves and their future generations.
You can follow this link to see what events are being held where this World Water Day 2015.
by Fern Shaw | Mar 11, 2015 | Water, water cooler
‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.’ Have you ever wondered who comes up with such expressions or idioms? I often do.
Keeping matters pet friendly (aha aha) and water related (because that’s what we’re about – us here at AquAid, dont’chya know) you’ll find quite a few animal / watery idioms around. My task was to establish whether they are all true or where they originated from.
The horse/water idiom might possibly encapsulate the English-speaking people’s mind-set better than any other saying, as it appears to be the oldest English proverb that is still in regular use today. It was recorded as early as 1175 in Old English Homilies:
Hwa is thet mei thet hors wettrien the him self nule drinken
[who can give water to the horse that will not drink of its own accord?]
What’s even more interesting is that this particular proverb or idiom also applies to dogs. Dogs, you ask? Yes, dogs, I reply. It wasn’t until recently that I found out that dogs don’t sweat. They can pant or drink water to cool themselves down but they can’t do both at the same time and even if they’re too hot and you offer them water, they often won’t drink it – ergo you can also lead dogs to water but you can’t make them drink. I haven’t tried this out with cats, but then, they’re cats. Rather don’t go there.
I’m aware that this expression has another meaning, actually pointing at human behaviour, but I quite enjoy the literal sense too.
A fish out of water – Not feeling at home where you are. Okay, that one’s easy.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water – When you’re making a change, save what matters to you and dispose of the rest. Pretty self-explanatory, but were you aware that there’s a bit of bun fight about the literal meaning of this idiom? Apparently, there’s an e-mail doing the rounds about proverbs in the 1500’s and this one meant that as an entire household bathed in the same water, the water would get so murky that it was entirely possible the baby went out with the bathwater. Not true of course.
To drown in a glass of water – To be easily discouraged. I honestly hadn’t heard of this one before. I will suggest though that you don’t take this literally when refilling your glass at the water cooler. Your co-workers may get the wrong idea and label you a bit of a twit.
Blood is thicker than water – Family is more important than anyone or anything else. This idiom has always creeped me out slightly. Still not sure why. Perhaps it comes from watching too many vampire movies?
To pound water in a mortar – Making vain attempts. This I can identify with, except mine involved making a well in flour and pouring water in to make pizza bases. The dam broke, the water flowed out and I was left cleaning up sticky, yeasty, wet flour from every available kitchen surface. Thank you, recipe from Jamie Oliver, not.
by Fern Shaw | Mar 9, 2015 | Water, water cooler
Here’s some bamboozely info. to bandy about at your next network at the office, home or school (hopefully at school, you’re not networking as yet, but just chatting to your mates) water cooler – just what are indigo and violet and is there any difference between the two?
I blame the rainbow for this particular confusion. (As I type this I imagine a lot of ‘he’ men running (or loping) strongly away to avoid any discussion regarding colours other than ‘Oh, that’s blue’).
It was Sir Isaac Newton who discovered that sunlight falling upon a prism could split into its component colours. This process is known as dispersion. Newton named the component colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
Newton, who admitted his eyes were not very critical in distinguishing colours, originally divided the spectrum into five main colours; red, yellow, green, blue and violet. Later he included orange and indigo, giving seven main colours by analogy to the number of notes in a musical scale. Newton chose to divide the visible spectrum into seven colours out of a belief derived from the beliefs of the ancient Greek sophists, who thought there was a connection between the colours, the musical notes, the known objects in the Solar System, and the days of the week. I’ll be elaborating about rainbows, prisms, spectrums in another blog, patience!
According to Isaac Asimov, “It is customary to list indigo as a color lying between blue and violet, but it has never seemed to me that indigo is worth the dignity of being considered a separate color. To my eyes it seems merely deep blue.”
If a heavyweight like Asimov, possibly the greatest science fiction writer and father of ‘hard science fiction’, has an issue with defining the colour indigo, I’m in pretty great company!
Now that we’ve established that there is a difference, my next dilemma always is – which colour do I prefer? Dark blue-ee indigo or purple shock type violet?
I’d like to say that the answer is simple, but, it isn’t. When it comes to me and colours, I go all weak at the knees and dribble saliva a little. It’s very attractive, of course, but nonetheless true. As with many a good thing in life, colours undo me – it’s as if when I was just a newt in my Mum’s tum, she swallowed a paint box of colours and all that colour got into her bloodstream and it got passed on to me in all of its Technicolor glory.
So when it comes to indigo or violet, I’ll take both please, with a healthy dollop of blueberry on the side.
by Fern Shaw | Mar 9, 2015 | Water
Once upon a time there was a family – the dad of who had a dream. The dad in the family had dreamt from when he was a nipper that one day he would have an ocean going yacht.
So that is what the Dad did. He worked hard and scrimped and saved, then he retired and he finally had his yacht built.
Not just any yacht, mind you, this impressive vessel was a 54ft. teak yacht, with 10 berths and just as smart and spanking as anyone could imagine.
The yacht was built in Taiwan and shipped (ha) to Piraeus in Greece.
The Dad and the Mom went on a sailing course. The children did not. Delivery of the yacht was taken by the dad and then on the next trip, the family boarded the yacht in Piraeus and started their great big watery Mediterranean adventure. It was September. Unbeknown to the family, September in the Med is Meltemi season.
According to Sailing Issues, ‘the Meltemi wind results from a high pressure system laying over the Balkan/Hungary area and a relatively low pressure system over Turkey. The Meltemi brings with it harsh sailing conditions and doesn’t necessarily die out at the end of the day and can easily last more than three to six days.’
Which is all fine and fair enough, but hindsight and all that. Suffice to say the family’s adventure turned into more of a trial come survival-of-the-ignorant type outing. When they weren’t crashing into harbour walls; getting their anchor fouled; almost being arrested by various Greek islands police for squishing small boats (not on purpose), the yacht with all crew on board almost sank one horrible night just outside the teensiest island harbour ever because of the Meltemi raging across the bay.
Did I mention that the reason the crew had to stay up all night was to keep watch between two points of light in the tossing waves as the yacht’s anchor dragged back and forth? Or the fact that the reason the anchor was dragging was because the locals knew what the storm would do to a tethered boat in the wrong place? Or that they sent the family across the bay into unprotected waters because the yacht was too big and the Russian fishing vessels needed the space in the teensy harbour? No? Well, fact being stranger than fiction, that’s what happened.
You might not have picked up that this story is related with a tinge of humour, but it was actually very funny – almost like episodes of Carry on in the Med, however, that said, I wouldn’t wish most of these experiences on any ocean sailors. It was, in retrospect, a huge learning curve and all of the mishaps were far outweighed by the most incredible experiences, sights and sounds which stay very firmly rooted in memory.
*Blogista’s postscript – the yacht was first named ‘Shimi’ (Tibetan for ‘cat’) but when another yacht with the same name was found registered with Lloyds, ‘Shimi’ became ‘Mavournin’. (Mavournin is Irish for ‘my darling’).
by Fern Shaw | Mar 9, 2015 | Water
‘You must wait for an hour after eating to go for a swim. If you do not, you could get a stomach cramp and drown.’
Does anyone else remember that old chestnut? Absolute torture for us otters who literally lived in the water from sunup to sundown in the summer months.
Despite this dire warning, it seems that an instance of drowning caused by swimming on a full stomach has never been documented.
Close the door behind you, were you born in a stable?!
Weirdly enough, where I grew up, we did have a stable and even weirder, the door couldn’t close. Take that, parent!
Even more peculiar is that most of the stables I’ve seen – all have split doors and they’re mostly closed to keep the gee gees in.
If you swallow an apple seed, an apple tree will grow in your stomach and you will die.
Almost positive there have been zero reported cases of a tree growing inside of a human.
If you squint your eyes like that, they’ll stay that way.
Ya, well, sucks boo to you matey, I did it plenty and my eyes are just fine, thank you!
Eat your carrots; they’ll make you see in the dark.
In retrospect, I’m not quite sure why I never puzzled this obvious silly out, as we had rabbits at one stage and I don’t ever remember them being particularly ninja-ish and nocturnal, by any stretch of the imagination!
If you go outside with wet hair, you’ll catch a cold.
Outside doesn’t give us colds. People give us colds. But, hey.
by Fern Shaw | Mar 9, 2015 | Water
I cannot, for the life of me, when I think of the word Wasabi, say it as it’s written. I always martial-art-movie the pronunciation. And I do mean always. Say it with me now,’Wa-saaaaaabi!’
I have wondered whether wasabi was a chilli, pepper or mustard, but apparently it’s a horseradish. According to Wiki:
Wasabi is a plant member of the Brassicaceae family, which includes cabbage, horseradish, and mustard. It is also called Japanese horseradish, although horseradish is a different plant (which is often used as a substitute for wasabi). Its stem is used as a condiment and has an extremely strong pungency. Its hotness is more akin to that of a hot mustard than that of the capsaicin in a chilli pepper, producing vapours that stimulate the nasal passages more than the tongue. The plant grows naturally along stream beds in mountain river valleys in Japan. The two main cultivars in the marketplace are E. japonicum ‘Daruma’ and ‘Mazuma’, but there are many others.
So, that’s clarified then. I did always wonder, as I’m okay with a little bit of bite – chilli wise – but I far more appreciate flavour over my digestive tract screaming like a girl and up and running away in fear when I eat something hot.
This is why I’m not so great with is hot mustard. It’s also where I fall spectacularly short in the stiff upper lip category of having the de rigeur hot English mustard with my rare roast beef.
Horseradish I can still do, but the glaring yellow of HEM, no. (The colour alone should be sufficient warning that your mouth will qualify for its very own ‘scorched earth’ tag.)
Then in wanders Wa-saaaaaabi! with its deceptively fresh, pastel-green colour that says, ’Hot, me? Naah, I’m all spring time meadows and buttercups – perfectly harmless.’
Blithely unaware, you mix a blob in with your soy sauce or you (‘you’ being the crazy, no taste-buds at ALL daredevils) smear it commando style onto your sushi and pop a piece into your mouth. Then the fire engine alarms start clanging, your nose receptors scream for mercy and your throat clamps shut.
I read recently that more often than not we’re not really eating real wasabi, and that the real deal isn’t even that hot. Also, the heat from real fresh wasabi, when grated, doesn’t last for more than about 15 minutes.
Genuine wasabi is pretty expensive – apparently a lot of it that we eat is a mixture of dyed mustard and horseradish root – which would explain a lot.
Whatever I’m ingesting, I’ve learnt to keep a jug of water on the table whenever Ojiisan Wasabi is paying a visit. Oh, and I think the winter warmer trick here is obvious. If you eat enough of the stuff, it’ll keep your head warm, your nasal passages clear and your brain all on fire like nobody’s business – you certainly won’t notice the cold.
