In this piece from February 2016 I summarized the three levels of expertise that apply to practical skills, skills like speaking another language or playing a musical instrument. I categorized these three levels of expertise as “nothing, something and everything”. The first of these applies when you have no familiarity with a task. I offered… Continue reading Word of the week: transpose
This piece from last weekend, and this earlier piece from the weekend before that, listed all the questions and answers from Weeks 1 and 2 of the new series of ITV quiz show “Tenable”. Here are the questions and answers from Week 3, Monday 17 September to Friday 21 September. The format is the same… Continue reading “Tenable” questions, week ending 21 September 2018
Leeds United FC drew 1-1 at Millwall last Saturday thanks to a late equalizer by Jack Harrison. Harrison is on loan from Manchester City for the season. Back in 2010-11 Leeds had George McCartney (a Northern Ireland international) on loan from Sunderland. He played 30-odd games for the club. Before that, Aaron Lennon came through… Continue reading Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Leeds United
This piece from last weekend listed all the questions and answers from Week 1 of the new series of ITV quiz show “Tenable”. Here are the questions and answers from Week 2, Monday 10 September to Friday 14 September. The format here is the same as last week’s piece: a list of the 30 “Tenable”… Continue reading “Tenable” questions, week ending 14 September 2018
Well, this is exciting. Earlier this week the Tate Modern began screening “The Clock”, described on the gallery’s website as “a mesmerising masterpiece of contemporary art”. It was created by Christian Marclay, is 24 hours long, and, again in the words of the Tate’s website, “the installation is a montage of thousands of film and… Continue reading “The Clock”: this is where we came in, over and over again
You are probably familiar with the idea of the “The Full English”, or “The Full Irish”, a breakfast consisting of various fried items. Bacon, sausages and eggs always feature, and then some combination of tomatoes, mushrooms, baked beans, black pudding, white pudding and a fried slice (of bread). You might have strong opinions about what… Continue reading The fry, sandwiches, and another family catchphrase
It’s a while since I mentioned anywhere on this Blog that I have never smoked: not a single puff, drag or draw. That’s the main reason that I have never taken any proscribed drugs. I have never snorted or injected anything, legal or otherwise. I have been drunk plenty of times, and there many pieces… Continue reading The smell of weed is everywhere
Unlike other figures of speech that I learnt about at school, malapropism is one that stuck first time. I had to look up words like zeugma and synecdoche many times, but not malapropism. From the age of 12 onwards I knew that it takes its name from Mrs Malaprop, a character in Sheridan’s play “The… Continue reading Word of the week: malapropism
Back in July, on the day that the FIFA World Cup and the Wimbledon Tennis Championships ended, I speculated that the summer of sport had pretty much come to an end. I was wrong. There have been weekends since then when we have watched more sport on more screens than ever before. It kicked off… Continue reading The summer of sport really does come to an end
“Tenable”, the ITV quiz show that I first mentioned nearly a year ago in this piece, is back with a new series on weekday afternoons. It’s also back on “series record” on our multi-channel box. It is the most linear of quiz shows. Every episode has exactly the same number of correct answers: 10 answers… Continue reading “Tenable” questions, week ending 7-Sep-2018
The Compartments 