Robin Petty

Arts, outdoors, alt. economics. 'Looking after each other' outlook.

[Dr. M.F. Khan @Dr_TheHistories]

Captain Cook loaded 7,860 pounds of sauerkraut onto the HMS Endeavour in 1768. His crew refused to eat it, so he served it exclusively to the officers and made sure they ate it visibly in front of the crew every single day until the sailors decided they wanted some too. Not one man died of scurvy on the entire three-year voyage.

Cook circumnavigated the world on his first voyage without losing a single man to scurvy and the Royal Society of London awarded him the Copley Medal on his return, one of the most prestigious scientific honours in Britain, specifically for his methods of preserving the health of his crew. The achievement was genuinely extraordinary. Scurvy had been killing sailors on long voyages for centuries, with some estimates suggesting it killed more sailors than enemy action, storms and all other causes of death combined. Cook solved it with fermented cabbage and a very specific understanding of human psychology.

A typical daily menu aboard the Endeavour consisted of breakfast with boiled wheat and sugar, a midday dinner of salted beef stew and vegetables, and an evening meal of soup with ship's biscuits so hard they had to be broken up with a marlin spike. The ship carried approximately 5,500 litres of beer, 7,300 litres of spirits, 16 tonnes of bread, 2 tonnes of salted beef and over 3 tonnes of sauerkraut.

The sailors ate approximately 5,000 calories a day to sustain the physical demands of running an 18th century sailing ship. Cook also carried portable broth made from cattle offal, forty bushels of malt, vinegar, mustard and concentrated citrus juice as additional anti-scurvy measures. He was running what was effectively the first controlled nutritional experiment in naval history across three years and 40,000 miles of ocean.

The sauerkraut psychology is the detail that stay with me in this story. Cook noticed that Dutch sailors suffered far less from scurvy than their British counterparts and observed that they carried barrels of sauerkraut. He ordered his ships to do the same but his British sailors refused the unfamiliar foreign food entirely. His solution was to serve it only to the officers while making sure they ate it visibly in front of the crew. Within weeks the sailors were demanding their share, and Cook understood that sailors suspicious of an unfamiliar food would eat it the moment they believed someone of higher status was being given something they were not.

© Eats History

#drthehistories

[CASSE @SteadyStateEcon]

We may have won the battle against DDT in the '70s, but we are losing the war against #pesticides. The obsession with #GDPgrowth is to blame. Read more from @AlixUCASSE and Marwa Ebrahem in this week's Herald. #RachelCarson @RachelCarsonDC @pesticideaction https://t.co/WIi11BJFPs

[Pitchfork @pitchfork]

For this week's Sunday Review, we look back at 10,000 Maniacs' 1993 MTV Unplugged set, a swan song for sensitive bohemians—and the biggest hit they’d ever release

https://t.co/q9c6W8Vj6Q

[threeisthemagicnumber @poemsprayers]

@AndrewMarr9 Bring back the days of a few bulletins of news during the day with journalists given us concrete information and maybe a bit of speculation. This incessant need to have updates every minute for rolling news and X updates is getting ridiculous.

[Andrew Locking @andrewswalks]

Today's walk to see the Rannerdale bluebells, then on to Rannerdale Knotts

[Robin Petty @fetchrobin]

They were short on musicians, so I played guitar at 5.30am, sunrise, for our friend's Morris side as they danced around the maypole for May Day.

[Lancashire Cricket @lancscricket]

Tom Hartley (161) and Charlie Barnard (118*) both hit centuries for the Second XI, who declared on 434-8 against Yorkshire.

View the opening day report/scorecard from @SNBCC.

🌹 #RedRoseTogether

[Robin Petty @fetchrobin]

@pollystarkie04 I had a valuable semester abroad in the late 1990s that I still look back on it fondly. And you can never underestimate the reach of cricket - you might find a game in both locations!

[Jan Rosenow @janrosenow]

In China battery electric trucks and hybrid trucks now outsell diesel trucks for the first time.

[The Sweeper @SweeperPod]

6/6 - Thun 🇨🇭

FC Thun are 11 points clear with six matches left to play and a game in hand on their rivals, as they look to claim the first major trophy in their 128-year history.

What makes it even more amazing is that Thun were only promoted to the Swiss Super League last summer and have taken the division by storm!

[Robin Petty @fetchrobin]

@LBC Would he be quite so critical of the new rules if he was driving for a team that had adapted better and was winning?

[Robin Petty @fetchrobin]

@MannGeorgia I can (and want to) giggle about organists who had amusing names *and* appreciate the clever music they composed. Life is all about embracing such juxtapositions.

[The Rugby Philosopher @rugbyphilosophy]

Rugby League is more marketable than Rugby Union. But it’s not because of scrums.

With all this talk about "depowering" scrums to "save" the game, we need to have an honest conversation about what actually makes rugby marketable.

Let’s be real. Rugby League is objectively more marketable to a global audience. It’s streamlined. It’s high-speed. There is zero nuance. You run, you get tackled, you stand up, you do it 5 more times. You turn the ball over.

A few years back took some American family members to Eden Park to watch the Blues vs the Stormers. If you thought they'd like the tries, the wide passes, the highlight reels, well then you (like me) were wrong.

They spent the entire first half staring at Eben Etzebeth.

They watched two 130kg men grab another 120kg man by the hem of his shorts and launch him into the air to catch a ball. They couldn't believe it. To an outsider, a lineout isn't "dead time" it’s a hook, an attraction, a moment that sets our game apart from the rest.

When it came to scrums, they didn't care about "binding" or "hinging." They didn't even care about the number of resets. They were simply mesmerised by 8 absolute units pushing with all their might against 8 more. Men with thighs the size of an ordinary human's entire body, contorting themselves into some sort of human tank and smashing themselves into the other forward pack.

And finally, my family was baffled by the "hooligan's game played by gentlemen" culture of rugby. They saw 23 guys spend 80 minutes trying to physically destroy each other, only to hug and sit down for a beer afterwards. No trash talk. No "look at me" celebrations. Just a handshake and a "thanks, sir" to the ref.

Rugby shouldn't try to compete with League on "simplicity." We will lose.

Instead, we should market what sets us apart.

Market the fact that we lift giants into the air. Market the 200kg squats. Market the fact that we have 1 tonne of human muscle machine pushing against another tonne. And market the fact when all is said and done, our heros shake hands, drink beer, and hang out with each other's families.

These are the moments that decides the fate of nations. These are the moments that make our game like no other.

[People's Archive of Rural India @PARInetwork]

https://t.co/CH6c2QIgP3

Maloji Chavan’s dreams for his vineyard and farm were savagely drowned by unprecedented rains in Solapur district. A visually disabled farmer, he is struggling to get past it.

Story by @journohardy

[Eleanor Parker @ClerkofOxford]

Shrove Tuesday takes its name from the custom of going to confession, being 'shriven', before Lent. But 'shroving' was also something children did on this day: they'd sing and ask for food, and if they didn't get it they would throw stones and broken pots at people's houses...

[BBC News (UK) @BBCNews]

I inhaled traffic fumes to find out where air pollution goes in my body https://t.co/shMnVOPKls

[Zenaida Machado @zenaidamz]

More than 100 people have died in what could probably be Mozambique’s worst floods in decades. Many more people are missing. River water levels continue to rise and Maputo is isolated from the rest of the country. A new warning for a tropical storm was set this week. More rain - a lot of rain - is expected next week.

[Henry Winter @henrywinter]

Three England fans arrested at the 2018 World Cup. That’s half the number of Fifa officials arrested one day in Zurich in 2015.

[Robin Petty @fetchrobin]

@AlexaCoghlan When choosing an instrument (or a career) had the courtesy of picking something alliterative. Got to admire that.

[BBC News (UK) @BBCNews]

Are fans being turned off multi-club ownership model? https://t.co/6f5VrSGH25