{"id":4408,"date":"2020-05-22T12:19:51","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T12:19:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/?p=4408"},"modified":"2020-05-22T12:19:51","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T12:19:51","slug":"notes-from-my-perch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/?p=4408","title":{"rendered":"Notes from my perch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Occasionally my wanderings on the internet surprise even me. \u00a0Today I found out that James Dick, a successful business man who was born in Kilmarnock and moved to Glasgow, developed the school gym shoe known by various names over the UK. \u00a0He and his brother had experimented with using Gutta-percha<\/a> to cover the soles of existing shoes. \u00a0This extremely useful form of latex, brought over from Malaysia, was responsible for the central Scotland name of gutties, or plimsolls if you were being posh. \u00a0I know that when Elspeth went to teach in Gloucestershire, she found out that they were called daps. \u00a0My research suggests that the shoes were developed by several manufacturers but our man became a wealthy philanthropist, while an institute in his home town bears his brother\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

From Wikipedia:-<\/p>\n

The word gutta-percha<\/i> comes from the plant’s name in Malay<\/a>: getah<\/i> translates as ‘latex<\/a>‘. Percha<\/i> or perca<\/i> is an older name for Sumatra<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In other news, the magnificent Elbow<\/a> continue to release a new live track every Friday at 12 noon, this week it\u2019s Lippy Kids with the backing proved by alumni of Manchester\u2019s Halle Youth Chorus. \u00a0The Halle Orchestra is the band\u2019s first choice for string accompaniment etc. \u00a0Rosemary recalls going to their concerts when she lived in Longton.<\/p>\n

Elbow\u2019s frontman and lyricist Guy Garvey is amongst other things a keen ornithologist, and he would doubtless be the first to spot the link here, which is in Passerines, or perching birds. \u00a0Although the birds referred to in Lippy Kids are crows, I feel sure that sparrows are just at the edge of the picture here.<\/p>\n

The terms “passerine” and “Passeriformes” are derived from the scientific name of the house sparrow, Passer domesticus<\/i>, and ultimately from the \u00a0Latin\u00a0passer<\/i>, which refers to sparrows and similar small birds.<\/p>\n

….and if you think all that is convoluted, wait until you hear about last night\u2019s dreams. \u00a0Here\u2019s a nice osprey\u00a0\u00a0to make everything better.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.woodlandtrust.org.uk\/trees-woods-and-wildlife\/osprey-cam\/<\/p>\n

Lastly, welcome to the family Leo Thomson, a wee brother for Ellie.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Occasionally my wanderings on the internet surprise even me. \u00a0Today I found out that James Dick, a successful business man who was born in Kilmarnock and moved to Glasgow, developed the school gym shoe known by various names over the UK. \u00a0He and his brother had experimented with using Gutta-percha to cover the soles of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds-wildlife","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/banthewasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}