As I explained in this piece (“Bar snack? (9) …”), I rarely do Cryptic Crosswords these days. I do, however, attempt the Quick Crossword whenever I pick up a copy of the Guardian. As I noted here, it is my paper of choice, and you can get it for free at Waitrose if you have… Continue reading Word of the week: onager
In this earlier piece, about the UK’s best-selling singles by year, I noted that three of the best-selling songs in the 1980s began with the word “Don’t”. We had “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” (Police, 1980) “Don’t You Want Me” (Human League, 1981) and “Don’t Leave Me This Way” (Communards, 1986). Including these titles,… Continue reading UK #1s containing the word “Don’t”
A few reflections on the UK’s best-selling singles by year. Recently I have been reading up on the best-selling records of each year in the UK, beginning with these two links: a list on Wikipedia and a gallery or slideshow (one year at a time) from the Official Chart Company. The latter goes up to… Continue reading The UK’s best-selling singles by year
Buy at a low price, sell at a higher price. That, as I’m sure you know, is one way to make money. It is something that we have never set out to do, but over the last two years we have acquired many hundreds of items which we are now able to offload at twice… Continue reading Buying for 5 and selling for 10
In December 2020 I posted this piece about the BBC “Sports Personality of the Year” (or SPOTY for short). Here are 20 questions about the award, 10 of which have multiple choice answers. The answers to all of them appear at the end of this Post. The Questions Before Emma Raducanu won it in 2021,… Continue reading 20 questions about “Sports Personality of the Year”
In the last two days I have transcribed, or reworked, quiz questions from BBC Radio 2’s Pop Master. This piece lists questions that cost me a maximum score of 39 at some point in the last year, and this one is about 80s bands that only had one hit. Here, for a change, are 10… Continue reading 10 Biblical Questions
Pop Master, BBC Radio 2’s mid-morning quiz, is the most listened-to slot on UK radio. I have mentioned that fact before on this Blog, many times, but always qualified it with the phrase “outside of breakfast shows”. The generally-quoted number of daily listeners up till now has been 7.5m but according to Scott Mills, when… Continue reading Pop Master: Let down by Question 10 (20 examples)
Here’s a question from Radio 2’s mid-morning quiz Pop Master from last week: In 1984 the song Feels Like Heaven became the only Top 40 hit for which group? The answer didn’t come to me in time, though I’m sure that there have been times when it would have, not least in 1984 itself. You… Continue reading A Confusion of 80s Bands
Do you remember the concept of “Googlewhacking”? It was described on Dave Gorman’s website as “what happens when two words are entered in to Google and it comes back with one and only one hit.” I wrote about it in this piece in 2017, and included a link to Gorman’s site. Click on the link… Continue reading “Blogwhacking”
Last month I posted two pieces about me and my son both testing positive for Covid, five days apart. We have recovered, as far as we can tell. Our symptoms were mild. Time will tell if we have lasting effects from the infection, but so far so good. Until two days ago, my wife and… Continue reading It was only a matter of time
The Compartments 