You always have time to pee. This is a lesson I have tried to teach my children throughout their young lives (although I usually say “You always have time to do a wee”). Last year I told them two stories, one personal and one that was in the news, about people who didn’t think that… Continue reading You always have time to pee
Today I had a lengthy dental appointment, having an old crown replaced. On the way I pondered just how old the previous crown was. It was definitely from the 1980s. When it was fitted Margaret Thatcher was still prime minister, Ceaucescu was still president of Romania and the Berlin Wall was still standing. And I… Continue reading A newly acquired fear about injections
Yes, the title says “Introdution”, not “Introduction”. If you didn’t spot it, don’t worry. Neither did the graphic designers at a training company I worked at in the 1990s. And it was the sort of thing that they were paid to notice. This piece touches on first impressions and attention to detail. It goes back… Continue reading Introdution
I wrote last month about coincidences, and how some people claim that things are “amazing coincidences” when really they’re not. If you keep your eyes and ears open, and read (anything – magazines, newspapers, websites, books), and watch TV programmes, movies and plays, and listen to the radio, you will come across the same things… Continue reading Porlock
Very sad news from West London: Angela Prendergast, who ran the Rhyme Time children’s activity during the last decade and more, has lost her battle with leukaemia. There are people who object to the use of military language when dealing with disease but most of the people I know, who have been through it, are… Continue reading Farewell Angela Rhyme Time
I thought I knew what an adverb was: anything ending in “-ly”, which describes a verb (happily, sadly, strangely). But there’s so much more to it, as I learnt from my 9 year old daughter’s homework at the weekend. She had to include “Time Adverbials” in her piece about how the school canteen works. Thank… Continue reading Word of the Week: adverb
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
“You gotta phone, incha?” That’s our cockney rendering of the phrase “You’ve got a phone, haven’t you?” It’s our catch-phrase for any question with a factual answer that’s somewhere on the internet. What’s the capital of Burkina Faso? “You gotta phone incha?” (It’s Ouagadougou, which has long been my favourite capital city name.) Who’s top… Continue reading “You gotta phone, incha?”
Two stories late last year showed me the gulf between how I use technology (smartphone or laptop computer) and how other people use it. In Simon Hattenstone’s excellent, lengthy piece (over 9000 words) about alleged bullying in the Tory Party and the sad death of Elliott Johnson there’s a paragraph about how someone was blackmailed,… Continue reading Two ways that I will never use technology
Earworm. I first came across the word in this Guardian article, over ten years ago. At the time Kylie’s “Can’t get you out of my head” was listed as the #1 earworm, and it might still be top now. My current earworm is the Queen song “Keep yourself alive” (even more than “Starman”, which I… Continue reading Earworms and “Keep yourself alive”
The Compartments 