Monday 11 July 2011

Back to Jerusalem


Back to Friday's trip around Jerusalem.

Below is the Wailing Wall, where more magic occurs, but this time of the Jewish variety. Messages on scraps of paper are pushed into the cracks in the wall and God somehow reads them. Seems a bit pointless if you are able to merely pray.


Here we have the Garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives, where a bloke will sell you what are meant to be tiny sprigs of the olive trees there. If the sprigs were indeed from the (quite small) Garden of Gethsemane, then given the number of visitors, the place would be stripped bare in a month. This particular olive tree is said to date from the time of Jesus, which is eminently possible given the great age to which olive trees can grow.


As for people's belief in magic - experiments with humans have demonstrated time-after-time that, providing enough emotional investment has been expended in its pursuit, there is nothing a human is not prepared to believe.

An observation from the coach; you know those black dots that are used on glass to prevent the glare of the sun coming through? Well, the black absorbs the sun's energy and re-radiates it into you car, coach, or whatever. Why don't they use white dots so as to reflect both the heat and the light? I'm sure some physicist can illuminate me.


4 comments:

Ms Scarlet said...

Magic is also more believable when it costs a lot. Like magic knickers for example.
Sx

Alan Burnett said...

How strange, I thought the Wailing Wall was in Wapping. You learn something every day when you read TTOCB

Chairman Bill said...

MS: And magic markers.

Alan: You're confusing it with the Graffiti Wall.

Chairman Bill said...

Ken: But if the white dots allow less light into the cockpit in the first place (and they must, as they obscure the incoming light), there will be less light - full-stop, which is the desire effect?