All things ginger #7: Famous ginger sighting win!

Double post today to celebrate the fact that as I was going into a central London tube station tonight I walked past Dan Wright who made a programme called F*** off, I'm ginger a while back. I was tempted to say hi or something but I'm not sure if merely being a fellow redhead gives you permission to approach ginger people who are vaguely famous without coming across as a weirdo.

Anyhoo, he had a wonderful crop of vibrant hair which he was making no attempt to hide. Good man.

All things ginger #6: The Rise and Fall of the Ginger Lizards

While there are many examples of red-haired creatures in the animal world, the revelation that even dinosaurs could be ginger is something of a surprise.

Ginger and scaly and feathery? I normally stick up for my kind, but that's just weird.

All things ginger #5: Santa loves ya....

Apparently there was an element of doubt as to whether Father Christmas included ginger kids in his list of 'good children'.

Nice of Tescos to clarify things.

All Things Ginger #4: Redhead day hits the mainstream media

It seems that this year's Redhead Day has got a lot more media coverage in the UK than before. I first became aware that it must have made the news when two of my colleagues separately told me about this 'red hair day thing' they'd heard about. I'm not sure whether they believed me when I told them it was my intention to go to the Dutch festival at some point in the future. Today there was a decent length feature on the BBC magazine pages, with some great pictures here. Nice to see 'my people' getting some positive coverage.

I should point out, of course, that Advancing Gingerly was talking about this event last year. About time the press caught up!

Before I sign off, just cos I still find it bloomin' funny, here's Tim Minchin again with what I presume would become the national anthem when the Gingers finally take over:

All Things Ginger #3: Jamaica Ginger Cake

I’m not sure many people associate McVitee's Jamaica Ginger Cake with calculus but I am one of them.

I never knew it existed until I was studying A Level Further Maths. There were several maths classes in my year at college but only a handful of us were nuts enough to do a second A level on the subject. By the time we reached the upper sixth an even smaller number of us remained. We were blessed with a cheerful Geordie teacher who was happy to interrupt our two-hour lessons for a sneaky tea break. If we put 20p in the ‘charity pot’ we were entitled to a cuppa and the chance to help ourselves from the biscuit tin. By the end of the year we had accumulated £76 for Guidedogs for the Blind.

Anyhoo, sometimes the biscuit tin wasn’t called for because there was cake. Specifically, Jamaica Ginger Cake (I never recall any other type of cake being on offer). Definitely a bonus day.

I can’t say it’s the most gingery thing on the planet. In fact, were it not for the label, one might have difficulty identifying the flavour, beyond something vaguely warm and spicy. I mean, we’re not even talking about the still-fairly-tame-but-at-least noticeable levels of ginger in gingernut biscuits. But no matter. It is sticky, claggy, warming and friendly. And makes 3D vectors marginally easier to deal with. Happy days.

All Things Ginger #2: World Carrot Museum

Don't ask me how I found this out, but I recently discovered that there exists on our planet a World Carrot Museum. Seriously. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's an enterprise located in the British Isles, but overseas readers will be delighted to learn that it is, in fact, a virtual museum, and thus they will be able to get just as much out of a visit as I possibly could.

I'm not quite sure how it all began. One can glean that the author is left handed, the names of his cats, and countries he's visited, but no particular statement as to why one would create an online carrot museum. But then, who cares, when you have the opportunity to learn about Carrots in Literature, discover where to attend a Carrot Festival, how to make antifreeze from carrots (useful at the moment), or peruse a list of people interested in collecting carrotabilia. I have to commend the attention to detail and sheer amount of research that has gone into this endeavour. I can assert with some confidence that it is unlikely that I will ever come up with a carrot-related enquiry for which they are unable to provide an answer.

There are also a bewildering collection of links including other unusual museums at the bottom of this page. No mention, though, of the rope museum I've been to, or the pencil museum a friend has visited.

I know it's customary to use hyperbole to make what you do sound more enticing, but I must admit to being somewhat befuddle by the tagline: 'Discover the Power of Carrots'. Perhaps they are the future of alternative energy. Orange gold...

All things ginger #1: Through a Lens

There was an article in today's Guardian magazine about redheads. I've noticed that these kind of articles feature in at least one broadsheet each year, and I certainly didn't glean any new anecdotes or facts from this one, save for learning that there's an exhibition in East London starting next month of photos of gingers.

Not that that's a new idea - it's the third photo project I've been aware of. What with that, and the fact that we're going extinct, am I destined to become a museum piece?