Personal Blogs
Last week I visited Solva, a place in South-West Wales. It's a fishing village and harbour. Up on the cliff overlooking the sea there is an (Iron Age?) fort, it was once an significant commrercila port and centre for lime burning, and it probably has some Viking associations. The name might be derioved from Old Norse Sol = sun and Vo/Voe whichh means inlet in English and so may have had a similar meaning in Old Norse. But the orgin of the name does not seem to be attested - there is no early written evidence - so it's hard to know for sure.
Here is a picture of the estuary by Bill Boaden.
Here is a photo taken by one of our party, showing what it looks like from the shore with the tide out.
From Solva there is a cliff path that takes you to St David's and the cathedral of the monastery founded by the saint. It was a fine day and I would have liked to have walked it, but I am simply not mobile enough.
In my hedge grown these “pinkbells”, from bulbs I planted many years ago.
I just stumbled across this paradox which was only discovered (or invented?) quite recently. It's called the Brandenburger-Keisler Paradox and I'm still trying to get my head round it.
Ann believes that Bob assumes that Ann believes that Bob’s assumption is wrong.
Does Ann believe that Bob’s assumption is wrong?
There beautiful flowers are snakes-head fritillaries, in flower a couple of weeks early than usual.
They are widely cultivated, but also grow wild in southern and central Britain, although it is not clear whether it is native or a garden escape. See Wkipedia for more on this.
Next year will be a square year. 2025 = 45 x 45, and this is the only square year in this century, because 44 x 44 = 1936 and 46 x 46 = 2116.
By the way, here is a neat trick for squaring numbers that end in a 5. Suppose the number is X5, where X is some series of digits that form a number in their own right. Work out X times X+1, then pop 25 on the end.
Take 135 as an example. 13x14 = 182, so we get 18225, which is indeed 135 squared.
Muscatorium: a pope’s ceremonial fan.
I slipped on a banana skin. It didn’t suit me so I took it off again.
What was Chopin‘s favourite pasta? Spaghetti Polonaise!
I saw a sign saying “Table top sale”. I thought “Strange, why don’t they sell whole tables?”
What do you call a group of policeman standing in the middle of a field?
Copse.
You've probably met the Zen kōan of "clapping with one hand". Well, nalbinding is knitting with one needle. It is far older than knitting and examples from 6500 BCE have been found in a Judean cave. Wikipedia is full of information about the craft [1].
Nalbinding is also known from the Viking era, and the tradition is strong today in Scandinavia. Here's an attractive example fro the late 19th century. [2]
The word means "needle binding", and the common root of "nal" and "needle" may perhaps be related to ancient Greek νήθειν = "spin". This connection is appealing but I couldn't find any strong evidence.
The city of Melbourne Australia was, for a short time in the early 19th century, known as Batmania? Named after someone called… Batman.
I live in a very modest house. It doesn’t like talking about itself.
a woman who helps you cross a river?
Scroll down
…
Bridget
Here’s a riddle I heard in the local Co-op.
What coat is best put on wet?
Here’s a riddle I heard in the local Co-op.
What coat is best put on wet?
Spring clouds
I reached up to grab you.
But you ran away laughing.
Eunoia is a warm feeling a speaker has towards their audience. See https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/eunoia
It's interesting because it's the shortest English word that contains all 5 vowels. If there were a shorter it would have to be an anagram of 'aeiou' and there isn't one as far as I know.
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