Alfie and Poppy and Michael and Freya

I read a fascinating article yesterday about baby names in England. What do you think was the most popular name for baby boys born in London in 2012?

Not Michael. Not William or Charles or Philip or George.

No -- it was Muhammad. A total of 768 boys were given that name, 102 more than the second-most popular name, Daniel, with 666. And Mohammed, which is only marginally different, was the fourth most popular name, with 611.

That's just in London, but in some other parts of England, including Yorkshire and the West Midlands, Muhammad and Mohammed both rank in the top 10. In all of England and Wales, Muhammad is the 19th most popular boy's name, Mohammed is the 26th, and Mohammad is 60th. If we lumped them together as spelling variations of the same name, they would place higher -- but we would also have to combine other similar names listed separately, like Charlie and Charles, so the list would be rejiggered a bit.

Isn't that interesting? It certainly surprised me. The lists come from the UK Statistics Authority, which reports to Parliament; the data are available here in spreadsheet form.

Harry was the most popular boy's name in all of England and Wales -- there were 7,168 Harrys. The others in the top five were Oliver, Jack, Charlie and Jacob. We are apparently becoming not only a more diverse but also less formal society, because James, Henry and Charles are farther down on the list. David, Nathan, Michael, Matthew and Ryan are all sinking in popularity.

Among girl's names, there is no obvious parallel to Muhammad. When I lived in Morocco I knew lots of girls named Aisha and Khadija, which are common Muslim names, but Aisha charted at number 87 and Khadija didn't make the list. The top girl's name by far in England and Wales, and in every region of the country including London, was Amelia -- with Amelie and Emilia also charting at lower positions. Olivia, Jessica, Emily and Lily round out the top five nationwide.

There are other surprises. I have never heard of naming girls Isla (8 on the list), Poppy (13) or Freya (19). Alfie is surprisingly popular for boys, at seventh place nationwide.

What's it all about, Alfie?

(Photo: Satellite dishes on the Grand Union Canal, last week.)

The Upside

I was with Olga in Kensington Gardens a few days ago when these stormy clouds began gathering to the west. I thought we ought to head for shelter so we made our way toward Queen Caroline's Temple, playing with the Kong toy as we walked. When we got there I threw the Kong, and it flew into a huge thicket of blackberry bushes from which even Olga, in all her enthusiasm, couldn't extract it. I climbed in gingerly, and as passersby gave me (or at least my lower half, which is all that was visible) curious looks, I rooted around for the Kong. (They cost £18 each, so I wasn't about to give it up!) Finally I found it, much to Olga's relief, and then it never rained anyway.

Upside: I got to snack on some blackberries that I found deep inside the thicket. Yum!

Fortunately, there usually is an upside to such arduous tasks. Dave surprised me Saturday morning by announcing, when he woke up, "I'm going to mop the floor today."

I said, "Who are you, and what have you done with Dave?"

It's true that the floor needed it -- a sort of dark urban film covers everything here, especially in areas where we don't walk. He read online that a vinegar/water solution was perfect for cleaning floors, so he went out and bought a pail, some vinegar and some soft cleaning cloths and we got down on our hands and knees and washed the entire floor in the kitchen and living and dining areas.

Upside: It looks a million times better. Kudos to Dave for taking the initiative, because I'm not sure I would have done it any time soon.

Yesterday, I had to go buy socks. I am not a shopper, as a rule, but I got onto the tube and went to the mall in Shepherd's Bush. I found some basic footie socks (or "trainer liners," as they're called here) in Marks & Spencer, and then decided to amble around the mall and see what else was there. I found mostly lots of clothes that I could never imagine myself wearing. And why is everything in the mall so shiny? The floors, the walls, everything is glass and marble and glint and glare.

Anyway, I popped into Banana Republic, which is one of my usual stops when I absolutely have to buy new clothes, and I did find a cool shirt with kind of a purple Indian batik pattern on sale for £15. I bought it. I need new work clothes, right? Upside to exploring the shiny mall!

Monday Randomness

So I did sit yesterday morning, and it felt great. I got back to being my old cranky self in the afternoon, of course, because sitting is never a magical instantaneous cure for anything -- in fact, as I recall, the teachers say you should sit with no objective in mind other than to sit. Still, I'm gad I did, and I plan to continue.

The plywood walls are going up around the neighborhood to protect shrubbery, lawns and storefronts from the upcoming Notting Hill Carnival -- in fact these very walls, which I photographed last year, are up on our housing estate once again. In a possibly unrelated development, our local giraffe graffiti has gained a colorful new shirt.

Dave is going back to work today. I'm still free until next Monday, though, so maybe I'll get out and do something fun on my own. For one thing, I'm going to finish the book I'm reading now, "Rules of the Wild" by Francesca Marciano, which I really like. It's basically a soap opera, but an intelligent one, about expats living in Kenya. It's been so long since I've read a book that's really drawn me in -- so many of my recent reads have been work. I was beginning to doubt my ability to enjoy reading, which was scary. Guess I was just choosing bad books!

Rage on the Stairs

I've been feeling like I need to get back to Buddhism and sitting. I sometimes can't believe how idle my practice has become -- and to think I used to sit every day! It definitely helps me feel less hardened, less hurried, more open, more gentle. Sometimes nowadays I feel downright flinty, without any apparent cause, except my own manufactured sense of urgency. Why, for example, do I feel a need to pull the dog away from sniffing a spot on the sidewalk, so that we can "keep walking." Why not just let her sniff? Why am I in such a hurry?

Why brush past people on the escalator, roll my eyes in annoyance at people wrestling with strollers and suitcases on the sidewalk? The other day I was climbing the stairs out of the tube with Dave, and we were blocked by a young woman looking down at a mobile device, climbing each step at a snail's pace as she texted. "Oh, she's texting," I said quite loudly to Dave as we went around her. "She's oblivious."

I got ridiculously angry. I could taste it. It was like every bit of anger I ever had at the world surged through me -- a feeling akin to road rage. The woman gave no sign that she heard me.

Later, after I'd cooled down, I thought, OK, she shouldn't be texting on the stairs -- but did she deserve to be attacked, albeit indirectly? And would I have said anything out loud if she were a man, more imposing and potentially threatening? I hate to admit it, but I doubt it.

The whole incident made me feel small. It's just one example of the occasional manifestation of my human "beginningless anger," as the Zen Buddhists put it.

Returning to sitting, breathing and focusing, at least occasionally, sounds like a good idea. There's a mindfulness group for staff and faculty at school -- maybe I'll join that. Meanwhile, I am going to go sit right now. Well, as soon as I finish my coffee.

Dave and I watched "Five Easy Pieces" last night, in memory of Karen Black. Only about half an hour into the movie did I realize I'd already seen it. I think I got it from Netflix when I lived in New York. I remembered a couple of the scenes, and one of Rayette's lines, when she's talking about the fate of a favorite cat she left with a friend: "He was squashed flat as a tortilla in front of their mobile home." But I'd forgotten the overall plot, and Dave hadn't seen it, so watching it again was worthwhile.

(Photo: I came across these two women while walking Olga yesterday. On their way to a wedding, perhaps?)

Cabinet, with Buttocks

When I went walking in Islington a couple of weeks ago, I came upon this cabinet sitting at the curb amid some bags of garbage.

It was apparently the project of a street artist who signs his or her work "Art is Trash." I'm guessing he or she came upon the cabinet after it had been put out on the street, and turned it into an artwork. Coincidentally, I saw several pieces by this same artist in Barcelona soon afterwards.

Don't you love that eye? I would have taken this cabinet home, but I had no way to carry it. Maybe someone else rescued it. Or maybe Art really is, ultimately, Trash!

Odds and Ends

Olga and I went back to the canal yesterday, where we came upon this wreck of a shopping cart, apparently recently raised from the depths. It reminded me of Julian Montague's Stray Shopping Cart Project and its classification system for derelict or wandering carts, which I mentioned briefly way back in 2006. (It looks like the original web site is no longer online, but Montague summarizes it here.) I'd say this cart was originally a B/12 "simple vandalism," and has transitioned to B/19 "in or as refuse."

I arranged for a dog walker to begin coming for Olga on August 15, a few days before Dave and I go back to work, so she can get used to the system. It's a huge relief to have those plans in place. I think I'm now ready (more or less) to go back to work, aside from the normal new-job jitters!

The wild blackberries are ripe now. I came upon these along the canal and didn't eat any of them -- my hands weren't clean at the time, having been dog-contaminated. But I did pick some on a walk just before we went to Spain, and those berries were tart little devils. Much more sour than the supermarket variety. I always feel so adventurous picking and eating blackberries in the wild!

-- Can you stand a few more tidbits about Laika, the Russian Space Dog? While researching Laika stamps online for yesterday's post, I came across this photo, showing a man who got a tattoo not only of Laika, but of a Laika stamp!

-- And on a related note, my friend Reya sent me a link to an old Calypso song about Laika. It's pretty fabulous: "Now I am very sorry for the poor little puppy in the Russian satellite." Indeed!

-- Finally, I posted a video online of the monastery at Montserrat, which I wrote about when Dave and I visited a few days ago. I took the video when the monastery's bells were ringing and echoing off the surrounding mountain. It shows the mountain's unusual geology, the monastery and the people on the plaza. There's even a glimpse of the huge line we were in to see La Moreneta!

Olga, Laika, Ugolek and Veterok

A day of post-vacation practicalities, yesterday was -- laundry, grocery shopping, that kind of thing. Before we got to the store, our refrigerator was so sparse we worried we wouldn't have enough even to make peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. (And I'm still putting honey in my coffee because we forgot to buy sugar.)

The kennel delivered Olga yesterday evening, and it's good to have her home again. She seemed overjoyed to be here, leaping immediately onto her Kong toy and eating and drinking like there's no tomorrow. We saw a fox on our morning walk today -- it crossed the street in front of us and then sat on the opposite curb, watching us calmly. Olga strained at her leash and even barked once -- she never barks -- trying to get at that fox.

Speaking of dogs, remember when I mentioned a few posts back that I found a pet store in Barcelona apparently named in honor of Laika, the Russian space dog? Well, that brought to mind a Swedish movie from the mid-1980s, "My Life As A Dog," about a boy who keeps comparing his own troubled life to that of Laika's -- just to keep things in perspective.

Dave and I rented "My Life As A Dog" last night, because he'd never seen it and I hadn't seen it since it came out, probably in 1986 or so. It's still a great movie, I'm happy to report, and if you haven't seen it you should check it out.

I got to thinking about Laika herself. I've mentioned before that I collected stamps as a child, and I was pretty sure that I had a stamp featuring Laika. It took me a while to find it, because I remembered it as Russian and it's actually Polish, but here it is (left). A Moscow street mutt, she became famous all over the world, and a real hero in Russia and the Eastern Bloc -- though of course she paid for that recognition with her life. At least one Soviet scientist later expressed regret about causing her death.

As it turns out, she wasn't the only space dog, either. Russia sent a whole series of dogs into space beginning with Laika, and unlike Laika, many of them came back again. I didn't realize this until I began reading up on Laika herself.

If you're interested in the details, check out this page, which is hopefully accurate since it's on the previously New York Times-owned About.com.

Among my own stamps I found this one (right), which I first thought included Laika. But no -- this is Ugolek and Veterok, two dogs sent into space in February 1966 who orbited the planet for 22 days before returning the following month. There's a video here showing them after their space flight. They seem a bit stupefied, but I guess that's understandable after living in zero gravity for nearly a month (and goodness knows how they managed to eat, drink and everything else).

Anyway, thanks for indulging my little flight of nostalgia for Russian space dogs. We are nothing if not pointlessly curious here at Shadows & Light!

(Top photo: Hints of fall? A yellow leaf on the sidewalk in Notting Hill.)