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blog: do it like aristotle
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Whilst it's nice to see the middle-classes aren't letting their educations go to waste, why is there always the plasticky-sheen of "I-Think-I'm-Roughing-It-But-I'm-Really-Not" abstracting their lives? Speaking as a man who spends a great deal of his time actually cutting, chopping and burning wood (and, to a lesser extent, cutting, drying and burning turf Peat - yes kids, we still do this in Ireland), my whole life this time of year revolves around my wee wood burning stove, as I have no other source of heat (ruling out electrics, as that's just a ridiculous waste as everyone knows).
So, in my world (where the wood itself is not bought, it's prepared), there's a few extra calculations which get worked into the equation - such as the price of chainsaw blades (<x> needed per-season), the price of petrol and 2-stroke necessary for the maintenance and running of said chainsaws, the man-hours necessary in actually felling the appropriate trees, calories expended chopping/splitting/stacking the wood, all the alternate accoutrements needed for maintaining woodsman-saws, etc, trading off the storage-space needed to house and dry this year's unseasoned-fuel for next year - and so on and so on and so on. Real life! For example, most people have no conception of how long it takes for 1 person to effectively fell, haul, cut, split and stack a simple 50-foot conifer tree by hand. (The answer is: "longer than the middle-classes think it would".
)
What's even more fun is that here in the 18th-century I do all the work based on my estimations of the land-owner's wood-consumption levels, which is dependant upon everything from average nightly-temperatures to how much time they "might" spend away on the Riviera, thus saving me the effort of a few cords here or there.
So, while the middle-classes are all very proud of their scientific computations before picking up the phone to order this or that fuel-supply, I'd just like to raise the flag for the little-guy who actually does this shite! He calculates the water-content of a piece of wood by actually holding it in his hand and experience tells him how long it will take by weight to season and dry before achieving practical burning potential. He knows the humidity levels of the air by season because he can feel it in his bones, his knees, his skin - and that tells him how many daylight hours there are to trade-off in the constant search for firewood before Spring doth come.
So I'll see your white-collar Kilowatt-hours and linear-releationship graphs and all that highfalutin scientific mumbo-jumbo, and I'll raise you a proper axe in hand, and we'll see which of us survives the medieval landscapes of our Breugellian worlds!
(And no, I don't think "Breugellian" is a proper adjectification either, but the life in art should be allowed a few nuances here and there. And no, I don't think "adjectification" is a real word either, but he who holds the sharpest axe gets to decide the grammar of day.
)
So, in my world (where the wood itself is not bought, it's prepared), there's a few extra calculations which get worked into the equation - such as the price of chainsaw blades (<x> needed per-season), the price of petrol and 2-stroke necessary for the maintenance and running of said chainsaws, the man-hours necessary in actually felling the appropriate trees, calories expended chopping/splitting/stacking the wood, all the alternate accoutrements needed for maintaining woodsman-saws, etc, trading off the storage-space needed to house and dry this year's unseasoned-fuel for next year - and so on and so on and so on. Real life! For example, most people have no conception of how long it takes for 1 person to effectively fell, haul, cut, split and stack a simple 50-foot conifer tree by hand. (The answer is: "longer than the middle-classes think it would".
)What's even more fun is that here in the 18th-century I do all the work based on my estimations of the land-owner's wood-consumption levels, which is dependant upon everything from average nightly-temperatures to how much time they "might" spend away on the Riviera, thus saving me the effort of a few cords here or there.
So, while the middle-classes are all very proud of their scientific computations before picking up the phone to order this or that fuel-supply, I'd just like to raise the flag for the little-guy who actually does this shite! He calculates the water-content of a piece of wood by actually holding it in his hand and experience tells him how long it will take by weight to season and dry before achieving practical burning potential. He knows the humidity levels of the air by season because he can feel it in his bones, his knees, his skin - and that tells him how many daylight hours there are to trade-off in the constant search for firewood before Spring doth come.
So I'll see your white-collar Kilowatt-hours and linear-releationship graphs and all that highfalutin scientific mumbo-jumbo, and I'll raise you a proper axe in hand, and we'll see which of us survives the medieval landscapes of our Breugellian worlds!
(And no, I don't think "Breugellian" is a proper adjectification either, but the life in art should be allowed a few nuances here and there. And no, I don't think "adjectification" is a real word either, but he who holds the sharpest axe gets to decide the grammar of day.
)chainsaw? i thought you were a real man!?
I have also switched to a wood stove, for no other reason than to raise the finger to the loan-shark-driven political scene and their stoopid petrol taxes. Apart from the minor inconvenience of bringing in (and occasionally splitting) the wood, it is great for heating and brings a cosy 19th century atmosphere to our house
I have also switched to a wood stove, for no other reason than to raise the finger to the loan-shark-driven political scene and their stoopid petrol taxes. Apart from the minor inconvenience of bringing in (and occasionally splitting) the wood, it is great for heating and brings a cosy 19th century atmosphere to our house
You ever tried to use a bushman's or a crosscut saw on anything over 8 inches? There are some concessions I make to this 21st-century of yours, and this is one of them.nikos wrote:chainsaw? i thought you were a real man!?
Besides, what do Greeks know about winter weather? There was a reason your ancestors fought in skirts! (And it wasn't because they were real tough-guys like Scotsmen, who are just freaks of nature when it comes to tolerating the cold.)
We have money? Where? Let me guess, the Troika have been spamming you with propaganda again and you choose to believe it. 
Apparently you missed Nikos' other blog on the way in (just replace Greece with Ireland and we're game)...
I have no doubt that there's a similar term used in Deutsch (probably "lovingly" reserved for Russians) which would help you in forging an alliance between "friends".
Apparently you missed Nikos' other blog on the way in (just replace Greece with Ireland and we're game)...See the "friends" part in quotes? That's called being sardonic. Not just ironic or sarcastic, but sardonic. (Which has less to do with sardines than you might initially think, though one's choice of tinned-food is, at least, one grace we're still allowed by the "friends". See there? I did it again! This time, I even added a definite article ("the") which connotes a slightly "alienated" stressing of the distance between the literal and the familiar.)nikos wrote:...is going backwards in all sorts of departments thanks to the financial crisis and our "friends".
I have no doubt that there's a similar term used in Deutsch (probably "lovingly" reserved for Russians) which would help you in forging an alliance between "friends".
