Words About Things

Some thieves steal money by placing complicated card skimming devices and miniature cameras on cash points and waiting for unsuspecting victims to reveal their details. Some even try to remove the entire ATM in the hope that they will be able to open it elsewhere. Most just use the old fashioned technique of distraction to grab what they can. Often gangs will tap a person on the shoulder and ask for directions before lunging at the notes or watch them entering their PIN before snatching their card.

This is why everyone seems so paranoid at cash points, looking over their shoulders and eyeing others with suspicion. Someone came up to me recently, whilst I was suing an ATM, to tell me about a gig he thought I might be interested in (because of the t-shirt I was wearing) and I almost ran away!

A pair of thieves in Paris have come up with a cunning new way of distracting their victims in order to get their hands on their cash: using their feminine charms. The unsuspecting victim was entering his PIN when one of the women flashed her breasts at him. The second woman put her hands on the man’s crotch whilst stealing his cash.

beware!

The thieves took 300 euros and left the victim shaken before departing at speed. CCTV from the areas shows two women fleeing the scene of the crime. A French police spokesman has warned the public to be vigilant: “We would advise anyone withdrawing cash from a machine to focus on what they are doing and not allow themselves to be distracted, however attractive the view”.

The women are described as good looking women in their early twenties. French police are now on the look out for an attractive pair hanging around cash points.

A 37 mile longer ‘underwater river’ has been discovered by a team of scientists from the University of Leeds. The current, which is on the bed of the Black Sea, has carved out a channel in the sea bed and is up to 115ft deep. If the as yet unnamed current was on land it would be the world’s sixth largest river in terms of volume of water.

3D radar image of the undersea river

The scientists explored the river using a robotic submarine and found that it has rapids and waterfalls like a normal river. The current contains more salt and carries sediment with it so the water in the ‘river’ is denser than the sea which surrounds it.

“The water in the channels is denser than the surrounding seawater because it has higher salinity and is carrying so much sediment. It flows down the sea shelf and out into the abyssal plain much like a river on land. The abyssal plains of our oceans are like the deserts of the marine world, but these channels can deliver nutrients and ingredients needed for life out over these deserts. This means they could be vitally important, like arteries providing life to the deep ocean.”  – Dr Dan Parsons

The water begins in the Bosphorus Strait in the Mediterranean and flows into the less dense water of the Black Sea. The river has currents 350 times greater than those of the River Thames which have carved a channel with 115 foot high banks. The channel is only just over half a mile wide but carries 22,000 cubic metres of water a second. This is 10 times more than Europe’s largest river the Rhine.

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The Himalayan Balsam doesn’t look like an out-of-control weed, it has pleasant pink flowers and is often referred to ‘kiss me on the mountain’ (“left or right..?”) or ‘Policeman’s Helmet’. It isn’t as harmless as it might first seem however. The flower is not a native of the UK (as its name suggests), it was first grown here in 1839 at Kew Gardens from whence it escaped into the wild.

The flowers of the Balsam are pleasant, it looks somewhat like an Orchid. If you had some of the flowers delivered to your mother she would no doubt be pleased (not knowing that they could take over her entire living room). Unfortunately it is a voracious plant and has a tendency to overwhelm slower growing native species. The Balsam mainly grows on riverbanks where it can very quickly take over large areas preventing other wild flowers from growing in their natural habitat.

The Balsam is increasingly becoming a problem in the Norfolk Broads in Northern England. A weekend of action has been planned by the slightly racist sounding Norfolk Non-Native Species Initiative along with the Norfolk Broads Authority in order to control the growth of the Himalayan Balsam. Volunteers are being sought to report sightings along the banks of the River Bure.

The results of the survey will be collated and plan will be formed by Waterways conservation officer Beth Williams on how best to tackle the problem. She says that people are generally unaware of the dangerous nature of the flower:

“People say it is so pretty and the bees love it, but it is sneaky. It grows quickly and blocks out all sun light. It produces hundreds of seeds per plant and when the seed pods are ripe, if you flick them they pop, which is something kids like to do. Hopefully this weekend of action will help people look at it in a different light. It is about generating awareness.”

One of the most important things we look for when buying flowers is how they smell. While some flowers are scentless those which we cultivate and give as gifts tend to have pleasant odors and this is part of their appeal. The smell is of course an effective way of attracting pollinators like Bees and other insects but it also attracts humans. Flowers which we find pleasant have surely benefited from being cultivated by humans over the years, becoming more prevalent than they might otherwise have been.

The problem is that people like to buy flowers when have yet to open but it is difficult to tell what they will smell like. The boffins at a well known British supermarket have come up with an ingenious solution to this problem: scratch and sniff packaging. The Telegraph explains the process that went into creating the scratch and sniff panels:

Floral fragrance expert Dr Hazel MacTavish-West and natural perfumer Dr John Heffernan were enlisted to assess the fragrance of open lily flowers. Each component of the fragrance was analysed and then recreated as a fragrance in a bottle… The final step was to encapsulate the fragrance into a print varnish, which is applied to a print label as the final step. The varnish is unscented until you brush your finger across the page, breaking open the capsules and allowing the fragrance to escape.

So now you can tell what your flowers will smell like once they have opened, assuming that the synthetic compound is accurate. I wonder if they will accept returns if the flowers don’t match the scratch and sniff?

Related links:

How does scratch and sniff work?
Save 25% on M&S fresh flowers
Why do flowers smell good?