Six years here and a bit more besides

11.57pm local time (19 Aug 2014), 27°C (82°F), fine

Dear all

I’ve been in pain. Physical pain.

My kneecaps and pretty much most of my left side are creaking like a pair of rusted-up pliers, which explains why I’ve gone AWOL for three or four weeks now.

I blame it on the weather: the soupy heat of Hong Kong summers and I have never really gotten on too well.

In other news…

Four years

 

TO THINK that it’s been only four years to the day that I was let off crutches — a highly memorable ordeal for me that lasted 37 months and taught me a few things about the people of my town.

I rarely reblog the work of others and don’t like to repost my own stuff, but I should think some people needed reminding on a variety of things for a variety of reasons.

This post originally appeared on 15 July 2012, now updated with very slight editing touches to align with the demands of today’s over-(in)sensitive souls.

(Image via International Boarding & Pet Services)

‘Old Copper Nicky’

TO those who are still living in yesterday, today (19 Feb) is the 540th birthday of Nicolaus Copernicus.

No special reason for writing about “Old Copper Nicky” — just that if it was good enough for a Google Doodle to be put up in his honour, then it’s good enough for me.

Besides, I’ve nothing interesting to write about.

*

OFFICIAL MUGSHOT (via Wikipedia)

Nicolaus Copernicus

a.k.a. Mikołaj Kopernik (Polish), Nikolaus Kopernikus (German)

19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543 (aged 70)

Astronomer, mathematician, military commander of Kraków

The Episcopal Church (USA) honours Copernicus (together with astronomer Johannes Kepler) with a feast day on 23 May.

(via Wikipedia)

Copernicus wasn’t the first person to say the Earth revolved around the Sun. But his book De Revolutionibus Orbium Cœlestium (‘On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres,’ 1543) was the first comprehensive heliocentric (sun-centred) model to supersede Ptolemy’s geocentric system that had been widely used since ancient times.

(via Wikipedia)

I remembered Mr Stuart, my history schoolmaster, telling us that lots of seafarers even in ancient times worked it out that the Sun couldn’t have revolved around Earth based on the relative movements of the Sun and the Moon in the day and night skies.

*

But to tell the truth, the whole reason for this post was that I just wanted to show you these two photos:—

Forensic reconstruction of Copernicus’ face
A broken nose and a scar above the left eye
(via m4f)

He had a broken nose and a scar above the left eye. After all, he was a combat commander in the Siege of Allenstein (now Olsztyn, Poland) in January–February 1521 during the Polish–Teutonic War (1519–21).

Who’s the lookalike?

Copernicus vs. American actor James Cromwell
(via m4f)

Interestingly, there is an highly rated luxury hotel by the name of Hotel Copernicus Kraków (Ulica Kanonicza 16, Kraków 31-002, Poland, www.copernicus.hotel.com.pl), apparently on the site or not far from Copernicus’ headquarters when he was commander of Kraków.

(via m4f: click for larger size)

“If giant 500-foot aliens ever invade Earth,
grab a knife, any climbing gear you have and head straight for
their booty-holes. Get all up in there and f*ck it up.
Ain’t no aliens going to mess with a planet of
7 billion anus irritators for long.”

_____

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© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2013. (B13067)