Seemingly trivial things that intrigue you

People who comment to the adverts for the Omaze houses on social media. I can never resist reading them to see the comments along the lines of a) it will cost too much to run or b) it’s too big. Do they not realise that if you win a multi-million pound house you’re able to sell it and pocket the money? It also usually comes with several hundred grand in cash. I can understand people being against it on the basis of it being gambling but being against it in case you win is weird.

There’s also always a load of comments along the lines of whether the woman showing the house comes with it. Do they think they’re being original? It reminds me of the Simpsons episode with the model at a car show.

I'm not sure that many people really grasp the odds of winning lotteries like Omaze and the National Lottery and that you could probably get similar odds on a 3 legged horse in the Grand National. It's not for nothing that the latter was described as a tax on stupidity (a tax I can approve of, not least because it's voluntary☺️)

They'd be some bloody good odds mind.

Ummm...

I get that and TBH I've had the odd flutter knowing full well the odds. The stupidity kicks in as you say when people who can't afford it splash (relatively) loads on stuff like that.

That’s the approach I take when I’ve been for a day at the races. It’s some spending money like buying a few beers on a night out. If I take some of it back home that’s great, if I come home with more than I took it’s happy days.

Looks like they were due a cull to be fair.

Not much in the North West. Did we have tougher monks or just fewer monasteries?

I guess that most people know, either through education or experiment, that you can't have a cream & red wine sauce, as the red wine curdles the cream. But it appears you can have a cream and rosé sauce, as that's how I cooked some pork escalopes the other evening, as I didn't have any white wine to hand (being an idiot, as normal).

So, chemists out there, what is it in red wine that causes cream to curdle, and what's the tipping point at which the redness curdles the cream? Must admit that the rosé worked quite nicely in the sauce.

Partly the legacy of the post-Viking medieval wool boom, where they were servicing around 40-50% of North Sea and Baltic wool, if you're interested... Especially around Norfolk.

In general, density wise, there seems to be a fairly obvious "Danelaw" divide in that map...

Yes, I know (from all the massive churches) that Big Wool was big in East Anglia. That was my first thought, but it was also big over the Cotswolds with similarly grand parish churches but far fewer monastic institutions. Not convinced there's a correlation with Danelaw, which included the North West. Also interesting just how much EA has depopulated (if monastic houses can be taken as a proxy for population - which may be wrong as some orders deliberately move away from population centres).

Spin off of Benedictineism isn’t it?

Most of the Cistercian ones were founded in the 1100’s long after Danelaw had gone. So I’m not sure how that fits in with your theory.

I don’t think so as the ones listed on Wikipedia as Cistercian are described as being founded in 1123 or similar. I looked it up because I don’t think any I’ve visited up here in Yorkshire or know of are Benedictine. One my childhood playgrounds was Kirkstall abbey which again is Cistercian, my first job was at Kirkstall forge founded by said monks.

Sure. What I meant is, although they will be founded post-danelaw, Cistercianism (aka Bernardinism) is basically a more literal intepretation of benedictineism, which by the time Bernardinism came around had evolved quite substantially.

So it stands to reason you will get a lot of Bernardines in areas where there already was a culture of benedictinism.

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Definitely a slow news day 🙂