It may be sunny out, but you can safely avoid losing that pasty face by staying at your computer and reading this lot instead 
Happy invoicing!
- How One Man Realized His Dream of Visiting Every Country - "Lessons learned from traveling to 196 countries include what old camel meat tastes like and why toilet paper is the best economic indicator." Interview with Albert Podell, who’s literally been everywhere
- The Southall Gasholder - Interesting post on an aviation forum about the reason for certain markings on some London gasometers: ”If you buy a ticket on the world’s most expensive pounds-per-mile train journey, aka the Heathrow Express and you happen to sit on the right hand side of the train on the way to Heathrow, you will pass a large gasholder just after Southall station. On the top of the gasholder are the letters LH and an arrow. What most people don’t realise is that there is some significance in this.”
- Industrial Security Clearance Decisions - It may be the USA Department of Defense rather than the UK, but these adjudications on the granting of security clearance to contractors give a good picture of what those responsible for vetting people are actually concerned about: ”Applicant’s criminal history is lengthy and varied… Some of the incidents involved alcohol, some involved marijuana and LSD… Nothing fazed him, for arrests, convictions, jail, probation, and fines, had no positive impact on him… Clearance is granted.”
- Aqua Tofana: slow-poisoning and husband-killing in 17th century Italy - "Aqua Tofana was credited with what amounted to supernatural powers, and blamed for hundreds of agonising deaths. Which is odd, since it is very far from clear that it ever existed – and, if it did, what it was, where it was invented, where first used, and when and how it got its name." Interesting and detailed study by Mike Dash.
- The Village and The Village - Dan W visits the Netherlands, and Belgium, and the Netherlands again, and so on: ”Baarle-Hertog is an enclave, a chunk of Belgium completely surrounded by the Netherlands… Baarle isn't a simple enclave either. It is a cluster of twenty-two different Belgian land parcels inside the Netherlands. And inside two of the larger Belgian enclaves are seven Dutch counter-enclaves (an enclave within another enclave).”
- 'Bling Ring' Tumblr Shoplifting Community Gets Rocked By Outsiders - ”They go by names like Lift Witch, Klepto Princess and Lifting for Survival… They repost and celebrate each other's victories. They are the young women who spend their time on Tumblr talking about things that they've stolen. On Wednesday, Tumblr user We Unhallowed posted a list of the sites she called "Tumblr's Bling Ring," throwing a delicate community of shoplifters into disarray.”
- 17 People - Taking fandom to newly-specific levels, this site is devoted to the appreciation of one single episode of The West Wing: ”We’re given 45 minutes in which there’s no Mandy, there’s still a Sam, and there’s still (for now) a Landingham. At no point does Bartlet affirm Donna’s folksy economic centrism. At no point does Toby try to “save” Social Security by cutting it… Even the sound editing stands out—listen for the unseen doors closing; the bourbon glasses clinking; the metronome thok of that incessant rubber ball.”
- Am I Imagining That? - Continuing with the TV fan theme, Jason Hazeley has found evidence that the 1980s sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles may have a missing episode that would have altered the entire arc of the series: ”In a most unprepossessing bungalow in Berkshire is an astonishing and underlauded national resource: the BBC Written Archives Centre. Staffed by a modest team brimming with dedication, it contains mountains of microfiched paperwork dating back to 1922… All the studio scripts for Ever Decreasing Circles are there. And they throw up some questions. But none of the production paperwork exists (producers weren’t obliged to keep it), which means that those questions aren’t easily answered.”
- Burned – The White-Hot Deaths of 8 Literary Movements - Patrick Smith on literary movements that came and went, with varying degrees of influence: ”Discussing literary movements can be a lot like conversations about football over beers or organizing the important events in one’s life by decade: arbitrary, often interesting, occasionally enlightening—and never quite as tidy as we’d like.”
- 30 1970s Men’s Fashion Adverts That Cannot Be Unseen - “My eyes! The goggles do nothing!”
Happy invoicing!
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