My daughter is taking her Mock GCSE exams this month. When she started senior school she did well enough in her initial assessments to be selected for Mandarin classes. She was in the “MEP” (Mandarin Excellence Programme), a pathway that offered extra tuition in the language and the prospect of an extended trip to China… Continue reading Word of the week: Milord
“What does your dad do?” That’s a question I was asked many times at primary school. The answer was easy enough: he worked on building sites. At least half of the other kids were of Irish background, like me, and many of their fathers were involved in construction one way or another. My father spent… Continue reading Word of the week: Formwork
Now that I’ve fessed up about celebrating my 60th birthday recently (Dead at 59, another list) let me tell you the best thing about reaching this milestone: free public transport. Age-related benefits are not cast in stone. Pensionable ages have changed in ways that I have not really kept up with. Most of my friends… Continue reading Word of the week: Twirly
Robert FitzRoy (1805-1865) was a naval officer, captain of HMS Beagle for Darwin’s voyage to the southern hemisphere, and later an MP. He was also Governor of New Zealand and, later still, the “founding director of the Meteorological Office – the world’s first full-time professional weather forecaster”. That quote comes from the fly-leaf of my… Continue reading Word of the week: FitzRoy
Tomorrow, 30 August, is the Feast of St Fiacre, a 7th century Irish saint. I am drafting these words in a hotel room in Kilkenny, before we relocate to Dublin for the next part of our Irish holiday. Fiacre is celebrated here this time of year at a place known as St Fiacre’s Well, a… Continue reading Word of the week: Fiacre
The current UK prime minister is Boris Johnson, still, hanging in there until the election of the new leader of the Tory Party, who will become his successor in 10 Downing Street. That’s how it works these days, and the results should be in on 5 September. There are reports that Johnson is getting booed… Continue reading Word of the week: ponce
How visual are you? Can you picture things in the correct order, like colours of the rainbow, or Olympic rings? If so, congratulations. The rest of us have to make do with mnemonics and acronyms for this sort of information. For colours of the rainbow, I have always favoured the simple 7-letter word ROYGBIV (Red… Continue reading Word of the week: BRYBGR
Another week another quiz show. Last Friday Channel 4 launched “One Question” hosted by Claudia Winkelman. As its name suggests, this is a show in which contestants can win money (in this case up to 100,000 pounds) if they know, or guess, the answer to just one question. In total there were two questions on… Continue reading Word of the week: rumbledethumps
As a family, we have started to do the daily Wordle puzzle most days. My wife and our 15-year-old daughter have been doing it for a few months. Our 17-year-old son has been doing it in form time at school from time to time. I have only started in the last fortnight, long after most people.… Continue reading Word of the week: bayou
Hypermiling: that’s the word I was looking for. I read something about it at least 10 years ago, some print article on a motoring page about maximizing your miles per gallon. I wouldn’t know where to look for it now. This recent piece on the Guardian website by Sam Wollaston reminded me of the word… Continue reading Word of the week: Hypermiling
The Compartments 