I have been meaning to dig out my old autograph book for a while. It came to mind at a family funeral I attended back in January, and at another one earlier this month. Two weeks ago today I was travelling to Ireland by train and boat for the second of these funerals, as recorded… Continue reading Word of the week: autograph
A work in progress, begun 24 July 2019 If you are a keen Scrabble player, you may already know that the 7 letters that produce most anagrams in English are AEINRST. They form the word “Retains”, and all of the following words, which are acceptable in the game of Scrabble here in the UK: Anestri,… Continue reading 9-letter anagrams: Retains + 2 letters
Last month I wrote about how many World Cups there are these days. On each of the last three Sundays we have been able to see different World Cup Finals broadcast on regular (non-subscription) TV here in the UK. Yesterday it was the Netball World Cup, New Zealand’s women beating the holders Australia. Two weeks… Continue reading Word of the week: Super-Over
Every now and then I post an update about how many words there are on this Blog. The last such piece was in January 2018, when the word count for all Blog Posts and Menu Items had just passed 300,000. Thanks to some additions made yesterday to this piece about ITV quiz show “Tenable”, the… Continue reading Another milestone: 500,000 words
Do you recall the early days of mobile phone technology, back in the 1980s? The way I remember it, a disproportionate number of calls began with the caller (usually a man in a suit) exclaiming, “I’m on a train!” It became a cliché, but there was a practical purpose to it. As soon as the… Continue reading Word of the week: decompression
In recent weeks, repeats of the quiz show “Tenable” have been shown on ITV on weekday afternoons. Episodes from Series 3 were being shown until earlier this week: S3Ep50 (Series 3 Episode 50) was shown on Monday 8 July 2019. Since then episodes from the start of Series 2 have been broadcast, beginning with S2Ep1… Continue reading “Tenable” Series 2, repeated July 2019
At various times in the last three years I have posted pieces about songs that were “Stuck at 2”. They made it to #2 in the UK charts but no further. The original piece, from June 2016, is here. Over the last year I have been posting lists of the songs that were “Stuck at… Continue reading Stuck at 2: the lists are complete, and a BBC Top 40 revisited
You will find very few statements related to politics on this Blog. There are hints and occasional oblique references. There may be enough material, if you look really closely, for you to work out my political views. But if I really wanted you to know my views about politics, here in the UK and elsewhere,… Continue reading Word of the week: miscarriage
The Compartments 