Last month, as part of her homework, my 9-year-old daughter had to research palm oil. Among other things she had to check foodstuffs at home to see which of them included it as an ingredient. I have been checking ingredient lists for decades but the prevalence of palm oil had passed me by. When did… Continue reading Palm Oil
Sometimes you encounter a word in a few different contexts in a short space of time and then you don’t hear it again for a while. Palimpsest was like that, back in January and February, and I haven’t come across it since then. The word crummy (which means “not very good”) appeared three times in… Continue reading Word of the week: crummy
Some of the training courses that I have attended over the years (which have resulted in vaguely work-related certification) place great emphasis on “The Unconscious Mind” and what it can and can’t do. The advice is that “The Unconscious Mind” is like a child that follows clear instructions and cannot process a negative. If you… Continue reading Not thinking of Blue Trees
Back in the 1980s a school-friend made a comment about TV dramas that still holds true much of the time. When food is introduced in a scene there is a strong chance that one of the characters will throw it at another. Similarly in many movies food can’t be allowed just to sit there: one… Continue reading Food in the movies
The Beach Boys, and their main songwriter Brian Wilson (typically described as “troubled creative genius” Brian Wilson), inspire great devotion among some music-lovers. I can understand this, and if I were 10 years older would probably feel the same, about them or the Beatles, Kinks or Rolling Stones. At least one 60s band (Small Faces… Continue reading “Love and Mercy”
Biopic and wannabe are two words I came across many times in newspapers and magazines without knowing what they meant, and without any immediate way of looking them up. These days online dictionaries and other resources make it easy to look up any word but it was different in the 1980s. Back then you’d come… Continue reading Biopics and wannabes
For two or three years now the supermarket chain Waitrose has had a reward scheme (the “myWaitrose” card) that offers card-holders a free coffee and a free newspaper every day as long as you spend £5 in the store. (The minimum spend is £5 Monday to Friday, £10 at weekends.) That minimum spend of £5… Continue reading Things that really are free
Sometimes there are too many variables. When asked complicated speculative questions (which often begin, “What would you do if …?” or, worse, “What would you have done if …?”) my usual answer is, “Too many variables”. I like to keep things simple and think of circumstances where there are two variables, and each variable has… Continue reading Two variables, four outcomes and a practising non-believer
This short piece in Larry Elliott’s Economics Blog in last week’s Guardian reminded me of how much I like the word “trouser” as a verb. For once I read the piece in the paper itself before checking it online. He writes about the recent travails at BHS, previously owned by Philip Green and sold on… Continue reading Word of the week: trousering
Some years ago BBC Radio 2 compiled “The Nation’s Favourite No 2 Single” a chart of the best songs to make it as far as #2 in the UK charts and no further. They compiled a list of “around 100 classic number two hits” and then Radio 2 listeners voted for their favourites. The results… Continue reading More Pop Trivia: Stuck at 2
The Compartments 