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Richard Walker

Word of the day

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Muscatorium: a pope’s ceremonial fan.

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Richard Walker

Banana Skin Joke

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I slipped on a banana skin. It didn’t suit me so I took it off again.

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Richard Walker

Musical Joke (sorta)

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What was Chopin‘s favourite pasta? Spaghetti Polonaise!

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Richard Walker

Ullswater 6 March

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Richard Walker

One Liner

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I saw a sign saying “Table top sale”. I thought “Strange, why don’t they sell whole tables?” 

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Richard Walker

Dad Joke

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What do you call a group of policeman standing in the middle of a field?

Copse.

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Richard Walker

What Fairy Tale?

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Richard Walker

Nalbinding

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Edited by Richard Walker, Sunday, 3 Mar 2024, 02:27

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.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%A5lebinding

[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_par_vantar_n%C3%A5lbundna_av_vitt_ullgarn_med_dubbelvikt_krage_-_Nordiska_museet_-_NM.0005802B.jpg

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Richard Walker

Did you know?

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Edited by Richard Walker, Saturday, 24 Feb 2024, 00:54

The city of Melbourne Australia was, for a short time in the early 19th century, known as Batmania? Named after someone called… Batman.

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Richard Walker

My Dwelling

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I live in a very modest house. It doesn’t like talking about itself.

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Richard Walker

New Keyboard Layout

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Edited by Richard Walker, Thursday, 22 Feb 2024, 00:23


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Richard Walker

What do you call…

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a woman who helps you cross a river?

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Bridget

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Richard Walker

Riddle

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Here’s a riddle I heard in the local Co-op.

What coat is best put on wet?

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Richard Walker

Riddle

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Here’s a riddle I heard in the local Co-op.

What coat is best put on wet?

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Richard Walker

Spring Haiku

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Spring clouds

I reached up to grab you.

But you ran away laughing.

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Richard Walker

Word of the Day - Eunoia

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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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Richard Walker

An owl got in my woodwork

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Richard Walker

Gathering dust

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A disused vacuum cleaner gathering dust.


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Richard Walker

Dilemma

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Richard Walker

Coincidence or what?

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This is something I found on Quora 


but no proof was given there, so here is mine..

Above we see three regular polygons, the equilateral triangle, square and regular pentagon. Each has a side length of 2 units. Associated with any regular polygon are two circles: its incircle, which touches its sides, and its circumcircle, which passes through its vertices.

Surprisingly, the area between these two circles, shaded pink in the figures above, always has an area of π/4 square units, however many sides the regular polygon has. How do we know this?

Here we see two consecutive vertices of the polygon, painy=ts A and B, with M being the midpoint of AB and O the common centre of the incentre and the circumcentre.

The side length is 1, so MB is ½, and because AB is tangent to the incentre and OM a radius of the circle angle OMB is a right angle. Let the radiiusof the circumcentre be R and that of the incircle r, so OB = R and OM = r.

Then using Pythagoras in the irght-angled triangle OMB we have

OM2 + (½)2 = OM2, so r2 + ¼ = R2, or R2 - r2 = ¼.

But now considering the ares of the two circles we have

Area of circumcircle - Area incircle = πR2 - πr2 = π/4.

Notice we haven't used the number of sides anywhere in this! So the area is always π/4 irrespective of the number of sides, as claimed.

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Richard Walker

At the Celebrity Ball

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Ladies, and gentlemen, please put your hands together for the famous Russian ballerina, Sheila Tripova.

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Richard Walker

Fruity Pine Martens

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Edited by Richard Walker, Wednesday, 31 Jan 2024, 00:08

I always wrongly suppose Pine Martens, animals related to weasels and stoats, are exclusively carnivorous  , like their cousins. But it seems now that they also eat fruit and other stuff and are particularly partial to raspberry jam sandwiches. 

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Richard Walker

Daffynitions [1]

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Edited by Richard Walker, Monday, 29 Jan 2024, 21:39

Phobia -  imitation ale

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daffynition#:~:text=A%20daffynition%20(a%20portmanteau%20blend,(or%20group%20of%20words).//en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daffynition#:~:text=A%20daffynition%20(a%20portmanteau%20blend,(or%20group%20of%20words).

Nicked from 3D in today’s Times Quick Cryptic
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Richard Walker

Mr Seal

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Edited by Richard Walker, Monday, 29 Jan 2024, 20:27

A friend spotter this seal on the beach at Aldeburgh. I can’t embed the video on this page but here’s a link to a YouTube playloop:

https://youtube.com/shorts/DNM5P53iUfw?si=NUuBLHTgLb_ABzQk


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Richard Walker

Going Up!

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Permalink 2 comments (latest comment by Richard Walker, Sunday, 28 Jan 2024, 12:09)
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