Monday Links from the Bench vol. CCCLXXIX

Even stranger, currency that’s known to be counterfeit is nonetheless accepted as a valid means of exchange, apparently in the absence of anything better

Pound coins spring to mind

Mary Berry it ain’t: ”It all started with a fatal combination of a slightly perverse sense of humour, a keenly scientific mind, and touch of the thrush. Waking up on Saturday with the familiar itchy burny fanny, I giggled to myself “maybe I could make bread with that”. And that ticked into, “well, I’ve always wanted to try making my own sourdough anyway” and then a “****, would that even work?” and then I got curious and the next thing that happened was I was scraping white goop off of a dildo into a bowl of flour mixed with water.”

Lovely day out there. You can probably find a webcam somewhere if you want to see what that looks like, before settling back to living your life vicariously through the Internet

Get Lost in Mega-Tunnels Dug by South American Megafauna - When huge creatures roamed the earth, they dug huge burrows: ”It wasn’t until 2015 that Amilcar Adamy of the CPRM had an opportunity to return to that strange cave in Rondonia… The main shafts – since enlarged by erosion – were originally more than six feet tall and three to five feet wide; an estimated 4,000 metric tons of dirt and rock were dug out of the hillside to create the burrow.”
The Trouble with Innocence - The American legal system at work: ”For almost forty years, Kerry Max Cook did everything to clear his name after being convicted of a horrifying murder in Tyler. So when he was finally exonerated, why did he ask for his conviction back?"
Why Japan’s Rail Workers Can’t Stop Pointing at Things - "It is hard to miss when taking the train in Tokyo. White-gloved employees in crisp uniforms pointing smartly down the platform and calling out—seemingly to no one—as trains glide in and out of the station. Onboard is much the same, with drivers and conductors performing almost ritual-like movements as they tend to an array of dials, buttons and screens.” Elf’n’Safety, innit
The Four-Letter Code to Selling Just About Anything - The life of Raymond Loewy, who had a massive influence on industrial design in the twentieth century: ”His firm designed mid-century icons like the Exxon logo, the Lucky Strike pack, and the Greyhound bus. He designed International Harvester tractors that farmed the Great Plains, merchandise racks at Lucky Stores supermarkets that displayed produce, Frigidaire ovens that cooked meals, and Singer vacuum cleaners that ingested the crumbs of dinner… After complaining to his friend, a White House aide, that the commander in chief’s airplane looked ‘gaudy,’ he spent several hours on the floor of the Oval Office cutting up blue-colored paper shapes with President Kennedy before settling on the design that still adorns [Air Force One].”
People simply empty out - "In 1969, publisher John Martin offered to pay Charles Bukowski $100 each and every month for the rest of his life, on one condition: that he quit his job at the post office and become a full-time writer… 15 years later, Bukowski wrote a letter to Martin and spoke of his joy at having escaped full-time employment.” “Down with jobs” has always been my feeling on the matter, too
Orphaned currency, the odd case of Somali shillings - "When Somalia collapsed into civil war in January 1991, the doors of the Central Bank of Somalia were blown apart, its safes were blasted, and all cash and valuables were looted. But something odd happened—Somali shilling banknotes continued to circulate among Somalians. To this day orphaned paper shillings are used in small transactions, despite the absence of any sort of central monetary authority. The strange case of circulating Somali shillings forces us to ask some fundamental questions about money." Even stranger, currency that’s known to be counterfeit is nonetheless accepted as a valid means of exchange, apparently in the absence of anything better
The extraordinary story of the Welsh LSD ring that supplied the world - Forty years on, a look back at Operation Julie: ”It involved 800 officers drawn from 11 police forces who went undercover for more than a year to break an LSD ring that spread through 100 countries, provided 60% of global supply and was worth – in today’s money – half a billion pounds.” Warning: annoying autoplay video; the radio interview mentioned is still available on BBC iPlayer for a few more weeks: When Acid Reigned.
How Paris Became the City of Light - "Paris was an embarrassment to Louis XIV. The criminal lieutenant of the police Jacques Tardieu had been murdered, and Civil Lieutenant François Dreux d’Aubray lay dead under suspicious circumstances as well. The king knew that a ruler who was unable to control his capital could be perceived as inefficient or, worse, weak. He charged Jean-Baptiste Colbert, his trusted minister and controller-general of finance, with the gargantuan task of reforming the police." The ability to impose draconian punishments apparently helped.
Mary Berry it ain’t: ”It all started with a fatal combination of a slightly perverse sense of humour, a keenly scientific mind, and touch of the thrush. Waking up on Saturday with the familiar itchy burny fanny, I giggled to myself “maybe I could make bread with that”. And that ticked into, “well, I’ve always wanted to try making my own sourdough anyway” and then a “****, would that even work?” and then I got curious and the next thing that happened was I was scraping white goop off of a dildo into a bowl of flour mixed with water.”
10 of the most parodied artworks of all time - As Grant Wood’s American Gothic goes on display in the UK for the first time, Annabel Sheen looks back at the most-parodied works of art: ”Sometimes, of course, it’s an artist remaking the work; revisiting past masters is what art history is made of. But there’s also the Photoshopper, the political cartoonist, the Simpsons storyboard artist. It’s those jokers mischievously swiping the work from its art context and putting it in another one to say something new.”

Sea is for Cookie, Sonny Malhotra, 2013.