Logbook

Via No right turn, the secret of wealth...
How to play with statistics.
So, have the doctorate, but alas, not male, and in the wrong age bracket (though one of those is curable with time). Sounds as though the Wellington bit may be good and bad...

I'll politely resist the urge to bitchslap the second commenter on the second link though.

Smelting thus takes place not only in a context of rich sexual metaphorizations; it is also surrounded by taboos imposing constraints on mixing the fertility of women with the fertility of the kilm. The blacksmith is prohibited from having sex during the smelting process. The compulsory celibacy for the smelters makes sense against the background of symbolic identification of the furnace as the wife of the smelters and the metaphoric association of smelting with sexual intercourse. Sexual intercourse with "real" women is looked upon as committing adultery towards the metaphoric furnace wife.

At least this is refering to the Fipa people of Tanzania...
(Harland, R., "Technology, transformation and symbolism: Ethnographic perspectives on European Iron Working", Norwegian Archeological Review, 2004, Vol 37, No 1)

I really miss Uni journal access and subscriptions...