Personal Blogs

These wild snowdrops bloom by a path I often take. In the middle ages it was a road but today it is only a track-way.

Linnaeus named this flower Galanthus nivalis; Galanthus from Greek gala+anthos, 'milk-flower', and nivalis from Latin 'of snow'.

The common name snowdrop is only recorded from the 17 c and the origin is unclear, although the Oxford English Dictionary suggests a connection with the German schneetropfen, which itself possibly comes from the name of a kind of earring once popular.

Pyramus and Thisbe were star-crossed lovers who wooed through a wall.

The story had an unhappy ending though. Mine has a better. The relic above is a fragment of the Berlin Wall, which divided East Berlin from West between 1961 and 1989, and cost many lives.

When we visited the Iron Curtain had just been raised, and there were still border guards — it was their job — but they waved us through with every appearance of relief.

When we came to the Wall most of it was gone but there were plenty of bits on sale. You can still buy them easily enough today, with a stamp of authenticity, but mine was authenticated by a hammer.

I was surprised just recently to find how much of the Wall has survived and where the bits are. It is a symbol of freedom prevailing against barriers (something poor Pyramus and Thisbe longed for) and so parts of it have been dispersed to every continent save Antarctica — a sort of wall-diaspora — as you can see in this marvelous piece of journalism.

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/oct/28/-sp-where-on-earth-berlin-wall-25-years-fall

Q. What teaching approach sounds like someone who makes all the calls?

A.  See comment

Q. How do you attract an English breakfast lover?

A. See comment

Hi Rapunzel, long time no see. Gruyère?

What 1,000 kg cheese doesn't move a lot?

A. See comment

Q. Why did Engels fail his exam?

A. See comment.

A. Sepia.

Once upon a time there were two spies, code-named M and N, who worked for rival departments.

By coincidence on one particular day M and N were both assigned to 24-hour surveillance of the email messages sent by a dastardly counterspy X to one of her accomplices Y.

The messages were cunningly encrypted, so the content was unreadable, but it was hoped that monitoring the number of communication would indicate whether or not a crisis was looming and action would need to be taken.

A downward trend during the day would indicate there was no cause for alarm; conversely an upward trend would indicate danger.

M counted the messages sent in each 12-hour period and submitted a report with a graph showing a clear downward trend.

N counted the messages sent in each 8-hour period and submitted a report with a graph showing a clear upward trend.

Yet the equipment used by each spy was perfectly reliable, and they recorded the data accurately. How can this paradox be explained?

Jumping

Frolicking

Marching