User:Tithon

Facts about Tithon

This user lives in Scotland.

This user contributes using a Macintosh computer.

This user is a scientist.

This user is a member of the worldwide family of Scouts.

This user enjoys
sailing and boating.

This user is a certified scuba diver.

This user likes their Martinis shaken, not stirred.

Introducing myself

Thinking on what to write here, I suppose I am interested in just about everything (except possibly Soccer and Sociology). The table on the right sums up my provenance and main interests; the table below sums up where I have been — and I need to visit one more country to make the whole thing neat and tidy — any ideas?

Why Tithon?

According to Aesop, the ant worked hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper, thinking that he was a fool, laughed and danced and played the summer away. Come winter, the ant was warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper had no food or shelter and died out in the cold.

So which would you rather be — the long-lived and boring ant or the fast-living, fun-loving grasshopper? In any case, some myths have the grasshopper outliving the ant. Eos, the Goddess of Dawn, took Tithon (Tithonus), son of Laomedon to be her lover. She asked Zeus if Tithonus could be made immortal, but forgot to ask for eternal youthfulness as well. Tithonus lived forever but grew more ancient and wrinkled, eventually turning into a grasshopper.

The other reason for being Tithon is that the first page to which I ever contributed was on the Tithonian.

Countries visited (in chronological order)

Contributions to Wikipedia

Articles that I have started

Edinburgh Geological Society - to be continued
Beinn Ghlas - a Munro in the Lawers Range
To a Mountain Daisy - poem by Robert Burns
Hailes - an ancient game
Alexander Rose - nineteenth century geologist and minearlogist
Gavin Young - British journalist, war correspondent and author
Hung Fa Chai - a hill in Hong Kong
Sharp Peak - a hill in Hong Kong
Tai Mun Shan - a hill in Hong Kong
Lochearnhead - a village at the western end of Loch Earn, Scotland
Axel Firsoff - British (of Swedish descent) amateur astronomer, cosmologist and author
A. R. B. Haldane - Scottish social historian and author
The Woodpeckers - British Rugby union team

Music albums:
Remember When the Music and The Last Protest Singer by Harry Chapin
Land of Light and Cullen Bay by the Tannahill Weavers

Articles where I have made contributions

Charles Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton - added his first school!
Edinburgh Academy - complete revision
Derivation of stage names to stages of the Jurassic system:
Hettangian, Sinemurian, Pliensbachian, Aalenian, Toarcian, Bajocian,
Bathonian, Callovian, Oxfordian, Kimmeridgian, Tithonian