Saturday 2 February 2008

Imbolc

Today is Imbolc in the Celtic year. A sort of halfway mark between last year's harvest and this year's. The holy day of the Goddess of fire, fertility and healing, Brigid. The good that comes from cold and its place in the cycle.

My friend Canadian Karen, oops, I nearly typed fiend, was quite insistent that I should blog about our trip to Ikea.
Canadian Karen and I went to Ikea. It was a cold but frantically sunny day. I say frantic because the weather forecast is predicting much rain this week, maybe some sleet, so it's as though the sun had seen a slot and was determined to insert itself.

We went to the cafeteria, because that's what I like to do, I love to have a plate of Ikea's gravad lax - I assume lax means salmon in Swedish since it is similar to the German Lachs - and Karen was needing a lush and very chocolatey brownie.
We had the further enjoyment of queueing on a Saturday afternoon.
The woman in front of us hadn't signed her credit card and refused to do so, thus we then had to wait until a supervisor could come over and void her sale.

I get New Scientist delivered to me from Britain and this costs me $72 for the year. It's a weekly publication. A copy of Scientific American which at most only has to cross the border would cost me $6.99 plus tax from my local newsagent.
So, are NS providing me with some kind of social service because I have been exiled to the colonies, or is SA robbing the public blind?

In the most recent copy that I have received, an article reveals that research has now shown that syphilis, known to the English as the French disease and by the French as the English disease, actually came from America. South America to be precise.
The bacterium that causes syphilis is apparently related to a skin condition called yaws. This disease was once widespread in the tropics, and now exists mainly in Asia, Africa and Guyana in South America.
The strain in Guyana however, looks as though it is an intermediate stage between the older strains of yaws and syphilis which has developed from it.

4 comments:

Sleepy said...

It's 'Lox' in Yiddish.
As in Bagels and Lox.

The Gravad bit has something to do with 'graves' or being put in the ground, which is how this salmon is cured.
Salt, sugar and dill, then buried.

But don't quote me!

Schneewittchen said...

Eeeuuwww, I think I just went off it bleah!

Sleepy said...

Somethings are best NOT known!

Schneewittchen said...

Ok, well it turns out that Yiddish, German and Swedish (unsurprisingly I s'pose) all share the word for salmon. It finally occurred to me to turn the package over and it seems 'lax' is also Swedish.
Of course the more usual meaning for it is LA airport.