Bits and pieces

Let us start with the ISS, orbiting somewhere above us and their most recent commander who did this tour of the station before returning to Earth the month before last.

On a completely different angle here’s an interesting one, a site dedicated to Soviet maps of various places, including Ireland and the UK, drawn up from the 1950s up to the 1990s.

There’s an appendix which lists some of the detailed maps: Irish locations include Dublin (printed 1980, compiled in 1970) and Belfast (printed in 1964 and compiled in 1951). Derry/Londonderry is another. It is difficult to believe that maps so out of date would have been entirely useful in the event of an invasion. But drawn they were. Presumably satellite imagery superseded them, but an interesting question is how they managed to get what are apparently, to read the site, extremely detailed drawings completed.

Can this be true? Discussing those who carry cups of coffee around with them from place to place there’s an anecdote of how at a church service people turned up with Starbuck’s coffee. Does that sound plausible? It’s interesting to think a bit about how food consumption has different meanings, class, gender, social and so on. Arrive at work or a meeting with a box of chicken wings and the significations are radically different, aren’t they? But then there’s an element of conspicuous consumption about cups of coffee ported around in the hand that in truth irks my frugal inclinations. Or perhaps I’m just being mean-spirited.

And what of this? I was in Hodges Figgis in Dublin during the week getting a book as a gift, and what do I spy on the graphic novels shelves, why this… I did not purchase it. Perhaps I will some day.