Partner: this word has changed meaning over the last 30 years, during the time that my brother has lived in Spain. He is married (his wife is Spanish) and he has a Business Partner (an English woman). Over the years, until around 2001, he would refer to the latter as his “partner”. He wasn’t living… Continue reading Word of the week: partner
Some years ago, during a conversation with an old school-friend, the subject turned to languages. He’s been based in Christchurch New Zealand for many years and knows a lot more about Maori culture and language than I will ever know. He told me about the Maori idea of 100 songs to learn a language, and… Continue reading 100 songs to learn a language
This is a piece about making arrangements to meet people. It contains simple advice to minimize the amount of time you or your friends spend outside in the cold and rain waiting for people to turn up. Many years ago my wife was arranging to meet a friend in town a few days later. Her… Continue reading Where to meet people
In my piece about Good Friday 1972 I wrote “We went to Woolworth’s to buy Easter Eggs, like we always did.” We would also pick up hot cross buns at one of the bakers on the High Road. In the 1970s it was usually Landgrebe, and by 1980 there were new bakers, called The Baker’s… Continue reading Good Friday Memories
We got up really early in the morning. It was still dark. We were going to West Ham, almost as far as you could go on the District Line. Leeds United were playing and the game started early, 11 o’clock or something. Dad, Jim and I travelled all the way to East London and when… Continue reading Good Friday 1972
Last night, around 10.30pm, I finished reading “A Brief History of Seven Killings”, Marlon James’s 2015 Booker Prize-winning novel. This means that I have read every Booker Prize winner. As I have written elsewhere, the words “I have read” mean that my eyes were open and they passed across every word on every line on… Continue reading On reading every Booker Prize winner
When I was young I spent thousands of hours playing football and hundreds of hours playing Scrabble. I enjoyed both pastimes and was, at the very least, competent at both of them, able to kick a ball, and able to find the odd 7-letter word. Looking back I realize that I received hardly any coaching… Continue reading Coaching: Football and Scrabble
This post is over 5 years old. Thanks for stopping by. Please follow me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/ReillySJ) Can you think of 9-letter word with no repeated letters? I’ll give you a minute or two. If you never play with words (anagrams, crosswords, Codewords, games of Scrabble) it might take a while to come up with… Continue reading 9-letter words with no repeated letters
The name Boaty McBoatface has been in the news for the last few days. I first read about it on Sunday, in this piece on the BBC website, and it made me laugh out loud. It still does. Typing “Boaty McBoatface” makes me laugh, saying it makes me laugh. In case you haven’t come across… Continue reading Boaty McBoatface
Narg: it’s an acronym, for “Not a real gentleman”. It’s also the reason I know the word “acronym”, which describes a word that’s formed from the initials of other words, like NATO or AIDS. (I like how in other languages the same letters are used in a different order for both terms – OTAN and… Continue reading Word of the week: Narg
