Oh god this food is crap.
Hate the decor.
Plates are cold.
This chair is doing my back in.
Really slow service.
Background music is rubbish.
And too loud.
Don’t think much of the view outside the window.
Why did we come here.
Don’t know big mistake.
How many stars?
0/5
I believe in moderation. But only to a degree.
‘Gubernator’ and ‘Cybernaut’ are ancestral the same word, which meant steersman, in Latin and Greek.respectively. How remarkable, that govern retains a similar meaning, yet cyber has gone its own way.
Light morning rain
When it stopped
We could hear a buzzard.
Sad news today. The inventor of the candle extinguisher has snuffed it.
First ripe outdoor tomatoes. They taste wonderful.
Not sure where I heard this one.
How would you organise a wedding in space?
Plan it.
Not sure where I heard this one.
How would you organise a wedding in space?
Plan it.
The Greek physician Hippocrates of Cos recorded in about 430 BCE that lettuce has sedative properties and it does indeed contain a mild narcotic. Perhaps taken to excess it could cause salad daze.
I say I say I say, on the way here I heard some sheep singing.
What were they singing?
I don’t know, I only caught the first few baas.
(Traditional joke)
This is the terminus of the North Norfolk Railway, which runs from Sheringham to Holt about 5 miles away. At this time of year there are about 9 trains each way a day, and the majority are pulled by steam which is rather thrilling!
Try saying this over and over
How cool is a cool cucumber?
I had a friend Rudolph who was a fervent communist but worked during the day selling umbrellas, macs, Wellington boots and other stuff designed to keep you dry. He was a real expert and would tell customers “Rudolph the Red knows rain gear”.
This pretty flower has appeared in our wildflower patch.
I think it’s a telesperma in the sunflower family apparently some telespermas produce flavonoids and are used by Navajo and Hopi Native Americans to make a herbal tea.
Don't cry-ee! Don't sigh-ee!
There's a silver lining in the sky-ee
Bon soir old thing! Cheerio, chin-chin!
Nahpoo! Toodleoo! Goodbye-ee!
From the popular WW1 song Good-bye-ee, by Weston and Lee. Look out for it in Oh What A Lovely War.
What does chin-chin mean though? I always vaguely imagined it was an English-Languge expression for "cheers" and to do with two people holding glasses to their chins to toast one another.
But no! It seems to have come into English and many other languages from Italian cincin (pronounced the same). I found several explanations, such as it being derived for the name of the famous vermouth, or the sharp sound made when two drinking glasses gently collide.
But these informal etymologies, though appealing, are almost certainly wrong. The word appears to be from a Europeanised version of Chinese quing-quing,請請, which means something like "please, welcome". Why it came first into Italian I don't know.
Napoo is for another day.
You with the broken National Health specs
Patched up with sticking plaster.
And your minuscule handwriting
Micrographia it’s called.
In the summer we’d escape through your bedroom window
Onto the flat roof beyond.
And talk there for ages.
But now I shall never see you again.
My gardening companion was recently donated a garden bench which may have woodworm, so I looked up The Common Furniture Beetle. Turns out the woodworm is almost certainly not active and if it were then the wood can be treated in an ecologically friendly (except to woodworms) way.
Woodworms are larva of the CF beetle and spend three to four years eating their way through wood in a fairly haphazard way. They then come close to the wood surface (how do they know where it is?) and become a pupa for some weeks, finally emerging as adult beetles. From then on they don't eat, just mate if they can, and then the females lay their eggs in any cranny she can find in the wood, and the cycle starts again. Like many insects the adult we see is just a final short-lived phase at the end of a much longer life as a larva.
That's fascinating, that such a life-style has emerged, and in fact there are a fair bunch of other wood-borer insects apart for the CFB.
This all set me thinking about beetles. Famously there are many different kinds, about 400,000 known to date, and they constitute 40% of insect species and 25% of all animal species. Think of that; pick a random animal and there is 1 in 4 chance it will be a beetle.
A note to end on (The American Naturalist, 1959):
There is a story, possibly apocryphal, of the distinguished British biologist, J.B.S. Haldane, who found himself in the company of a group of theologians. On being asked what one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of his creation, Haldane is said to have answered, “An inordinate fondness for beetles.”
Graffiti. It could be on its way out. I can see the writing on the wall.
For years I was just an amateur crastinator. I knew I ought to turn pro but kept putting it off.
UK Weather had this to say for 18 July
“The UK heatwave is set to continue after England and Wales recorded their hottest day of the year so far on Sunday.
Highs of 31.6C (88.9F) were recorded at Heathrow and 30.2C (86.4F) in Cardiff, according to the Met Office.”
In our garden it was 33C at 3 pm. What temperature did others record, interested to hear.
Geology rocks.
Being a mapmaker is an easy job. You always know where you are with it.
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