Cool nerdy stuff and some gooseberries

There exists such a thing as knapping (yes, with k) , and it has been around for more than one million years. It is shaping a stone, making it into a tool by chipping or flaking it. When you scan the brains of a person knapping today it shows that the active area is close to overlap with the area which represents speech.  So a million+ years ago humans created the handaxe and maybe at the same time developed speech.
This is truly interesting, and my Quest#1 reading " A History of The World in 100 Objects" is turning into a treat! I must admit that I set out on this Quest#1 deciding that it would do me some good reading a World history, since One should probably do that at some point in life. But I must also admit that I had not imagined that it would be this exiting. Neil MacGregor, who is the director at the British Museum, wrote this book after having been set the challenge by Chanel 4 to choose 100 things in his museum which would tell our entire history. 20 chapters with 5 objects in each - where would you even begin to make an unbiased tale of human history? What would you for instance choose from the 20th century?
Among the objects chosen to tell our earliest history was the handaxe. It could be used for drilling, cutting of wood and meat,  and scraping of skin and bark and with such a versatile tool man spread north out of Africa into Europe and Asia, - even reached England. A handaxe such as this one has been found near Heathrow airport.
Now I have to see if I can properly work this tool of a blog programme and inset a beautiful photo of a handaxe, so that you can actually see what I am talking about. (Till I figure that out, check out this link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pwn7p )

Re Quest#2 it is on track beautifully, if anyone wondered. I made clafoutis yesterday - 2 of them.  And being short of a cherry tree I made a beautiful one with black currants and a lovely one with gooseberries. I went berry picking recently so I am fortunate to have ample supply! ( Once a hobbit...) Now, I feel it is in it place to take a stand for gooseberries. They get far too little attention and have undeservedly become quite extinct! Danes have taken to eating ants lately - and won awards for it - but have entirely forgotten the genuine flavour of childhood summers: that of the gooseberry. I am sure that were HC Andersen still among us he would have narrated a fine little Ode to the Gooseberry. They  grow on such a small scrawny bush with flimsy leaves and long thorns and only the children see the red hairy berries hiding away. The finest beds in the fruit garden are taken up by the proud raspberries and the snobbish blackberries, not to mention the arrogant currants! The currants know that even though they are rarely anyone's favourite, like the raspberries, they are irreplaceable for jam making. But what is the place of the gooseberry? Does it have a remarkable quality... hardly. Except, naturally, that no child will ever forget that sense of the sun-warmed furry gooseberry, mildly sweet and forever tasting of one more berry.

Quest #3 is in the making... Trip being planned for this first coming weekend. Watch this space.

The Ease of August