Oysters; orgasmic obsession...

"...they may change sex one or more times during their life span. The gonads, organs responsible for producing both eggs and sperm, surround the digestive organs and are made up of sex cells, branching tubules and connective tissue...", of course - Oysters!

"The oyster's a confusing suitor

It's masc., and fem., and even neuter.

But whether husband, pal or wife

It leads a painless sort of life.

I'd like to be an oyster, say,

In August, June, July or May"

Ogden Nash (1931)

There's a good site from Ilene Polansky, owner of Maestro S.V.P., Seafood Bistro and Oyster Bar, Montreal, Quebec; the site provided the interesting description above the poem, much more here.

Oysters are not only delicious, (OK,OK!...like Marmite...love or hate?) but they're also one of the most nutritionally well balanced of foods, containing protein, carbohydrates, lipids and many vitamins and minerals. Although they are seen as an expensive food for the rich they have a long history of being consumed by hoi polloi. Interestingly - and not widely known - are the oyster beds within the UK; the town of Whitstable in Kent is noted for oyster farming from beds on the Kentish Flats that have been used since Roman times. In the early nineteenth century, oysters were very cheap and were mainly eaten by the working classes - disease, pollution and hence non-availability were the reasons for the change in 'clientele'.

For centuries, men have believed that oysters and other shellfish are natural aphrodisiacs. But, until now, there has been little, if any, scientific evidence to support that claim. A new study, however, shows that oysters, clams, mussels and scallops all have chemical compounds that release sex hormones such as testosterone and estrogen....HOORAY!

[...Span's pervy O sidetrack: talking of hormones, oxytocin. This differs from natural sex steroid hormones, testosterone etc, that are generally synthesized from cholesterol in the gonads and adrenal glands: oxytocin is a peptide (chain of amino-acids) and is released during orgasm by both sexes...guess which one this link concentrates on... ]

Back to the research..."The findings are certainly interesting, but we still have a way to go before saying that there is scientific evidence that clams, oysters and scallops boost libido," he said....BOOO!

Only last year Anahad O'Connor, New York Times, May. 24, 2005, wrote:

"…after all these centuries, the science behind the claim remains murky. Oysters are high in zinc, and a number of studies over the years have linked zinc deficiencies to impotence and delayed sexual development. But no major study has examined whether eating an oyster has any direct impact on arousal."

But Samantha Heller, a nutritionist at New York University Medical Center, said the oyster effect might be mostly psychological."If you tell someone that something is an aphrodisiac," she said, "a lot of times they'll get aroused just thinking about it."…yep, I agree entirely Sam, but how can I avoid the embarrassment in public places?

Finally... best recipes...there are too many to mention although no dressing (steady!) or just a squeeze of juice (I said STEADY - you've been reading the oxytocin and juices link haven't you!) do it for me...there's the famous Oysters Rockerfeller from New Orleans (also in the picture) or 'Old' Orleans, Ontario's Oregano Oysters....a veritable 'O' fest!

S.O.

P.S. Gavin...the Odour post is 'in progress' but I keep getting sidetracked - as you can see!

P.P.S. There is a sex toy called The Oyster...apparently. I am not going to add the link, what do you think I am! DON'T answer that! ;-)

Oysters; orgasmic obsession...

"...they may change sex one or more times during their life span. The gonads, organs responsible for producing both eggs and sperm, surround the digestive organs and are made up of sex cells, branching tubules and connective tissue...", of course - Oysters!

"The oyster's a confusing suitor

It's masc., and fem., and even neuter.

But whether husband, pal or wife

It leads a painless sort of life.

I'd like to be an oyster, say,

In August, June, July or May"

Ogden Nash (1931)

There's a good site from Ilene Polansky, owner of Maestro S.V.P., Seafood Bistro and Oyster Bar, Montreal, Quebec; the site provided the interesting description above the poem, much more here.

Oysters are not only delicious, (OK,OK!...like Marmite...love or hate?) but they're also one of the most nutritionally well balanced of foods, containing protein, carbohydrates, lipids and many vitamins and minerals. Although they are seen as an expensive food for the rich they have a long history of being consumed by hoi polloi. Interestingly - and not widely known - are the oyster beds within the UK; the town of Whitstable in Kent is noted for oyster farming from beds on the Kentish Flats that have been used since Roman times. In the early nineteenth century, oysters were very cheap and were mainly eaten by the working classes - disease, pollution and hence non-availability were the reasons for the change in 'clientele'.

For centuries, men have believed that oysters and other shellfish are natural aphrodisiacs. But, until now, there has been little, if any, scientific evidence to support that claim. A new study, however, shows that oysters, clams, mussels and scallops all have chemical compounds that release sex hormones such as testosterone and estrogen....HOORAY!

[...Span's pervy O sidetrack: talking of hormones, oxytocin. This differs from natural sex steroid hormones, testosterone etc, that are generally synthesized from cholesterol in the gonads and adrenal glands: oxytocin is a peptide (chain of amino-acids) and is released during orgasm by both sexes...guess which one this link concentrates on... ]

Back to the research..."The findings are certainly interesting, but we still have a way to go before saying that there is scientific evidence that clams, oysters and scallops boost libido," he said....BOOO!

Only last year Anahad O'Connor, New York Times, May. 24, 2005, wrote:

"…after all these centuries, the science behind the claim remains murky. Oysters are high in zinc, and a number of studies over the years have linked zinc deficiencies to impotence and delayed sexual development. But no major study has examined whether eating an oyster has any direct impact on arousal."

But Samantha Heller, a nutritionist at New York University Medical Center, said the oyster effect might be mostly psychological."If you tell someone that something is an aphrodisiac," she said, "a lot of times they'll get aroused just thinking about it."…yep, I agree entirely Sam, but how can I avoid the embarrassment in public places?

Finally... best recipes...there are too many to mention although no dressing (steady!) or just a squeeze of juice (I said STEADY - you've been reading the oxytocin and juices link haven't you!) do it for me...there's the famous Oysters Rockerfeller from New Orleans (also in the picture) or 'Old' Orleans, Ontario's Oregano Oysters....a veritable 'O' fest!

S.O.

P.S. Gavin...the Odour post is 'in progress' but I keep getting sidetracked - as you can see!

P.P.S. There is a sex toy called The Oyster...apparently. I am not going to add the link, what do you think I am! DON'T answer that! ;-)

Occident, orient or...

Popped into a NZ blog the other day with links to an interesting project. I have to thank Judy (Tui's World at Blogspot) from whom I filched it!...but I did tell her/them I would: go to Douwe Osinga's site here.

Just follow the link and scroll down a bit then click on all the countries you've visited; press the 'go' button after the list of countries and it produces code for your very own map; I thought I was well travelled but I don't even get 20% of the whole world - lots to see still... :-) I originally posted my map in this post but it's too wide (yeah, yeah!) and boobs up my blog template so I took it off. I may look into a way of reducing it...Gav?

Some of the comments after the list of countries (there's hundreds of them; some are hilarious, some others are just dumb) and worth a read...if you've got an hour!

S.O.

Occident, orient or...

Popped into a NZ blog the other day with links to an interesting project. I have to thank Judy (Tui's World at Blogspot) from whom I filched it!...but I did tell her/them I would: go to Douwe Osinga's site here.

Just follow the link and scroll down a bit then click on all the countries you've visited; press the 'go' button after the list of countries and it produces code for your very own map; I thought I was well travelled but I don't even get 20% of the whole world - lots to see still... :-) I originally posted my map in this post but it's too wide (yeah, yeah!) and boobs up my blog template so I took it off. I may look into a way of reducing it...Gav?

Some of the comments after the list of countries (there's hundreds of them; some are hilarious, some others are just dumb) and worth a read...if you've got an hour!

S.O.

Only one ounce...

An ounce (of truth, of intelligence, of….) is one of the UK’s traditional units of weight. The word ounce is from the Latin uncia, meaning a 1/12 part, because the Roman pound was divided into 12 ounces. The Old English word ynce, "inch," meaning 1/12 foot, has the same root.

The symbol oz is from the Old Italian word onza (now spelled oncia) for an ounce. Having 'gone metric' they of course no longer use the oncia but it traditionally it equaled 1/12 libra. Oncia, onza, onça and once are the traditional names for the ounce unit in Romance languages: the Portuguese onça and Spanish onza equal 1/16 libra; the French once equals 1/16 livre)…it may all sound the same but this latter was actually about 2 grams (OK, it's metric!) heavier than the onza/ onça and 3 grams heavier than the oncia! I’m not even going to try to explain all the differences but the Dictionary of Units of Measurement, here (on the site by Russ Rowlett, the Director of the Center for Mathematics and Science Education at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) would be very useful if you wanted to dig further.

In actual fact it was the ‘grain’ that was the original unit of weight: the grain was the legal foundation of traditional English weight systems, with various pounds (and hence ounces) being defined as a specified number of grains. Originally the grain was defined in England as the weight of a barleycorn. This made the English grain larger than the corresponding grain units of France and other nations of the Continent (bigger and better? We’ve always known that…) because those units were based on the weight of the smaller wheat grain.

Anyway, back to the ounce: the 'normal' ounce is called the avoirdupois ounce; avoirdupois weights were the common system of weights in all the English-speaking countries. Until quite recently, almost all weights were stated in avoirdupois units, with only precious metals and pharmaceuticals being measured by troy weights (see below). The name of the system comes from the Old French phrase avoir du pois or aveir de pois, "goods of weight," indicating simply that the goods were being sold by weight rather than by volume or per article. The avoirdupois system was introduced in England around 1300, replacing an older commercial system based on a "mercantile pound" (libra mercatoria) It is thought that the avoirdupois pound was originally devised by wool merchants taking as their base the pound of 16 ounces used in Florence, Italy, which at the time was an important buyer of English wool. The avoirdupois weights quickly became the standard weights of trade and commerce.

Then there’s a 2nd traditional unit of mass or weight: the troy ounce, an older English weight system, believed to have been in use since long before the Norman conquest of 1066. The system is believed to be named for the French market town of Troyes, where English merchants traded at least as early as the time of Charlemagne. It is used today only in pharmacy, gold and other precious metals, and jewellery – here you can be led off to pennyweights, drams, scruples etc; in particular, the prices of gold and silver quoted in financial markets are the prices per troy ounce. You think that’s it?...they're all here in Russ' labyrinthine dictionary.

There’s the fluid ounce (unit of liquid volume), an ounce force (a unit of force, equal to the force experienced at the earth's surface by a mass of one ounce), ounce mole (oz mol) a unit of amount of substance (molecular and atomic weights), ounce per gallon (oz/gal) a unit of mass concentration, ounce per square foot (oz/ft2) a traditional unit of density (still used widely in the U.S. for stating the density of coatings and many other applications) and the ounce weight (sounds like the normal ounce but this one is a unit for measuring the density -incorrectly called the "weight".

My favourites, and as yet unmentioned, however, are the ounces that in medieval times were used sometimes as a unit of distance equal to 1/12 yard or 3 inches, or used for a unit of time (TIME!!) equal to 1/12 moment, (this is great stuff! A moment is a medieval unit of time equal to 1/40 hour or 1.5 minutes. The moment was divided into 12 ounces of 7.5 seconds each. Also worth a mention here for another O, the ostent, a medieval name for the time unit now called the minute (just to confuse you -in medieval times a minute was actually equal to 1/10 hour, or 6 modern minutes); the ostent was equal to 8 ounces or 1 modern minute.

Continuing this digression, Gavin Corder has commented on the Ox-man and his goad (a pole in length) but there is also the Oxgang. This was an old English unit of land area equal roughly to 15 acres (6 hectares), or to 1/8 hide; you see how easy it is to become immersed in all this…a hide, very old English unit of land area, was considered the area a farmer could plough with a team of 8 oxen, so an oxgang was the area he could plough with a single ox (of course two oxen could be a span...and a span of an arc/ bridge...OK I'll shut up.) ; dating from perhaps the seventh century, the hide was the amount of land that could be cultivated by a single ploughman and thus the amount of land necessary to support a family. Depending on the type of land/conditions/hills etc this could be as little as 60 acres or as much as 180 acres; the hide was more or less standardized as 120 acres after the Norman conquest of 1066.

S.O.

Just in case you were thinking that this is an out of character post (intelligent, researched, not childish at all...) I add the pussy in this link...
:-)

Only one ounce...

An ounce (of truth, of intelligence, of….) is one of the UK’s traditional units of weight. The word ounce is from the Latin uncia, meaning a 1/12 part, because the Roman pound was divided into 12 ounces. The Old English word ynce, "inch," meaning 1/12 foot, has the same root.

The symbol oz is from the Old Italian word onza (now spelled oncia) for an ounce. Having 'gone metric' they of course no longer use the oncia but it traditionally it equaled 1/12 libra. Oncia, onza, onça and once are the traditional names for the ounce unit in Romance languages: the Portuguese onça and Spanish onza equal 1/16 libra; the French once equals 1/16 livre)…it may all sound the same but this latter was actually about 2 grams (OK, it's metric!) heavier than the onza/ onça and 3 grams heavier than the oncia! I’m not even going to try to explain all the differences but the Dictionary of Units of Measurement, here (on the site by Russ Rowlett, the Director of the Center for Mathematics and Science Education at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) would be very useful if you wanted to dig further.

In actual fact it was the ‘grain’ that was the original unit of weight: the grain was the legal foundation of traditional English weight systems, with various pounds (and hence ounces) being defined as a specified number of grains. Originally the grain was defined in England as the weight of a barleycorn. This made the English grain larger than the corresponding grain units of France and other nations of the Continent (bigger and better? We’ve always known that…) because those units were based on the weight of the smaller wheat grain.

Anyway, back to the ounce: the 'normal' ounce is called the avoirdupois ounce; avoirdupois weights were the common system of weights in all the English-speaking countries. Until quite recently, almost all weights were stated in avoirdupois units, with only precious metals and pharmaceuticals being measured by troy weights (see below). The name of the system comes from the Old French phrase avoir du pois or aveir de pois, "goods of weight," indicating simply that the goods were being sold by weight rather than by volume or per article. The avoirdupois system was introduced in England around 1300, replacing an older commercial system based on a "mercantile pound" (libra mercatoria) It is thought that the avoirdupois pound was originally devised by wool merchants taking as their base the pound of 16 ounces used in Florence, Italy, which at the time was an important buyer of English wool. The avoirdupois weights quickly became the standard weights of trade and commerce.

Then there’s a 2nd traditional unit of mass or weight: the troy ounce, an older English weight system, believed to have been in use since long before the Norman conquest of 1066. The system is believed to be named for the French market town of Troyes, where English merchants traded at least as early as the time of Charlemagne. It is used today only in pharmacy, gold and other precious metals, and jewelry – here you can be led off to pennyweights, drams, scruples etc; in particular, the prices of gold and silver quoted in financial markets are the prices per troy ounce. You think that’s it?...they're all here in Russ' labyrinthine dictionary.

There’s the fluid ounce (unit of liquid volume), an ounce force (a unit of force, equal to the force experienced at the earth's surface by a mass of one ounce), ounce mole (oz mol) a unit of amount of substance (molecular and atomic weights), ounce per gallon (oz/gal) a unit of mass concentration, ounce per square foot (oz/ft2) a traditional unit of density (still used widely in the U.S. for stating the density of coatings and many other applications) and the ounce weight (sounds like the normal ounce but this one is a unit for measuring the density -incorrectly called the "weight".

My favourites, and as yet unmentioned, however, are the ounces that in medieval times were used sometimes as a unit of distance equal to 1/12 yard or 3 inches, or used for a unit of time (TIME!!) equal to 1/12 moment, (this is great stuff! A moment is a medieval unit of time equal to 1/40 hour or 1.5 minutes. The moment was divided into 12 ounces of 7.5 seconds each. Also worth a mention here for another O, the ostent, a medieval name for the time unit now called the minute (just to confuse you -in medieval times a minute was actually equal to 1/10 hour, or 6 modern minutes); the ostent was equal to 8 ounces or 1 modern minute.

Continuing this digression, Gavin Corder has commented on the Ox-man and his goad (a pole in length) but there is also the Oxgang. This was an old English unit of land area equal roughly to 15 acres (6 hectares), or to 1/8 hide; you see how easy it is to become immersed in all this…a hide, very old English unit of land area, was considered the area a farmer could plough with a team of 8 oxen, so an oxgang was the area he could plough with a single ox (of course two oxen could be a span...and a span of an arc/ bridge...OK I'll shut up.) ; dating from perhaps the seventh century, the hide was the amount of land that could be cultivated by a single ploughman and thus the amount of land necessary to support a family. Depending on the type of land/conditions/hills etc this could be as little as 60 acres or as much as 180 acres; the hide was more or less standardized as 120 acres after the Norman conquest of 1066.

S.O.

Just in case you were thinking that this is an out of character post (intelligent, researched, not childish at all...) I add the pussy in this link...
:-)

Only one offspring...

The BBC has an article on 'Only children', named "The One and Only" (is one enough?), or 'Little Emperors': this term was given to those children born in China where they had a 'policy' of having only one child per family. Personality Reasearch says, "Stereotypes of Only Children. The only child is automatically stigmatized. When asked to describe personality characteristics of an only child, many people will respond negatively, indicating the presupposition that 'only children' are spoiled brats. In China, couples are encouraged to have only one child in order to help curb population growth. These children, or "little emperors," as they have been called, are generally seen as spoiled monsters. However, research conducted by Falbo (Brophy, 1989), a psychologist known for work in the area of birth order, indicates otherwise. Falbo found that Chinese only children fared no worse in personality or achievement than their counterparts with siblings. However, only children are also often seen as high-achieving, motivated, and successful (Brophy, 1989, p.56)."....and there certainly seems to be numerous famous 'only children'.

The websites with advice, chat, help etc are many: ....org....com...that tell us the reasons for having only one are many - women choosing to have children later, the one child option as a lifestyle choice, marriage breakdown. May be now is the time to get beyond the stereotyped image of the spoilt brat and become curious about the actual experience of growing up as the ‘only child'.

...any 'onlys' out there reading this who care to comment? - or anyone agree that they seem spoilt or maybe that we should be worried by "Beanpole families"?... those with fewer [one] children and multiple generations of older people - are leading to profound social changes, the Office for National Statistics said. Fewer brothers and sisters in one generation leads to fewer aunts and uncles in the next...and longer, thinner patterns of family relationships (Guardian 30.1.03).

Only one offspring...

The BBC has an article on 'Only children', named "The One and Only" (is one enough?), or 'Little Emperors': this term was given to those children born in China where they had a 'policy' of having only one child per family. Personality Reasearch says, "Stereotypes of Only Children. The only child is automatically stigmatized. When asked to describe personality characteristics of an only child, many people will respond negatively, indicating the presupposition that 'only children' are spoiled brats. In China, couples are encouraged to have only one child in order to help curb population growth. These children, or "little emperors," as they have been called, are generally seen as spoiled monsters. However, research conducted by Falbo (Brophy, 1989), a psychologist known for work in the area of birth order, indicates otherwise. Falbo found that Chinese only children fared no worse in personality or achievement than their counterparts with siblings. However, only children are also often seen as high-achieving, motivated, and successful (Brophy, 1989, p.56)."....and there certainly seems to be numerous famous 'only children'.

The websites with advice, chat, help etc are many: ....org....com...that tell us the reasons for having only one are many - women choosing to have children later, the one child option as a lifestyle choice, marriage breakdown. May be now is the time to get beyond the stereotyped image of the spoilt brat and become curious about the actual experience of growing up as the ‘only child'.

...any 'onlys' out there reading this who care to comment? - or anyone agree that they seem spoilt or maybe that we should be worried by "Beanpole families"?... those with fewer [one] children and multiple generations of older people - are leading to profound social changes, the Office for National Statistics said. Fewer brothers and sisters in one generation leads to fewer aunts and uncles in the next...and longer, thinner patterns of family relationships (Guardian 30.1.03).