Saturday Morning Musings - miscellany

Today's Saturday Morning Musings is another round up. In a piece in priceonomics, Zachary Crockett.looks at the evolution of the ubiquitous supermarket shopping trolley. Who would have thought that the inventor would be forced to hire actors to encourage shoppers to use the damn things!

In Syria, the temporary truce seems to have come into effect. President Putin's intervention has been a game changer. Looking back, Western foreign policy since the War on Terror began has been a mess. The problem lies not so much in the concepts, although there have been problems there, but in abject failures in implementation.

A first thy Poet, never let him lacke

A comely cleanly Shirt unto his backe.
Cleane Linnen, is my Mistris, and my Theme
—John Taylor, In Praise of Cleane Linen (1624)

I used to love time travel stories. I still do actually, although the obsession with fantasy that has over-swept science fiction means that they are far fewer on the ground now. One of my problems in going back in time has always been health and hygiene. How, for example, might I clean my teeth?

Now I am not your modern suburbanite. With the exception of a great dislike of peeing or pooing in public, something deeply embedded in my own past, I don't mind getting dirty, I can go without showers, I can sleep on the ground, I quite like smelling of smoke from the fire. Yet in all this, I have always wondered about that voluminous Tudor clothing. It struck me as quite unhygienic that in the absence of baths.

Here I refer you to an interesting piece by Ruth Goodman, Getting Clean, the Tudor Way.

Finally, discussion continues on earlier posts on Australia's refugee policy. I have yet to respond to the latest comments. In the meantime, a challenge for you. These are the latest Australian immigration detention statistics. Can anyone tell me what they mean?.

Postscript

kvd has pointed me to the story of that Elizabethan painting. It's quite fascinating.