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Personal Blogs
Getting from Hay to Bee
Monday, 21 Sep 2020, 23:44
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Proof And Refutation
Monday, 21 Sep 2020, 23:29
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Groaner
Sunday, 20 Sep 2020, 10:44
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Apparently someone has set up a floating cannabis farm, in the ocean far from territorial waters. They call themselves Sea Weed.
My Blotted Shopping List
Saturday, 19 Sep 2020, 03:34
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Made up Names in Literature
Saturday, 19 Sep 2020, 02:19
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I have a friend called Pamela, and we collaborate on crosswords quite often. At one time this would be down the pub, with a bit of catch-up online, but now everything is the other way round.
When I got a signed message, 18a noodle, I suddenly remembered that Pamela is a concocted name, invented by Sidney for a work called Arcadia. And this reminded me that Miranda (The Tempest) is also an invented name, and (I thought) Wendy (Peter Pan). But there is doubt about Wendy, and also about Lorna, which I understood originated with Lorna Doone, but may have not done.
After searching I found this article
https://interestingliterature.com/2015/10/10-first-names-that-have-their-origins-in-literature/
and it was interesting.
Food Hygiene101
Friday, 18 Sep 2020, 00:36
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In the Middle Ages they didn’t have any fridges.
So the rate of food poisoning must have been prodigiese.
See These Amazing Patterns Produced by a Dimpled Glass
Friday, 18 Sep 2020, 00:04
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Edited by Richard Walker, Friday, 18 Sep 2020, 00:06
New blog post
Thursday, 17 Sep 2020, 00:56
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Q. What food flavouring category is also a name for secret agents?
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A. Spice.
A Fable
Wednesday, 16 Sep 2020, 23:16
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A Fable
One day the Red Sauce and the Brown Sauce decided to have a race!
Both set off but from the start the Red Sauce lagged. Soon the Brown Sauce was far ahead and grew near the finish. When it looked back there was no sign of the Red Sauce in the distance. So it decided to lie down for a quick nap.
Meanwhile the Red Sauce had been moving steadily and eventually passed the Brown Sauce, who woke up with a start, and made a dash to reach the finishing line before the Red Sauce.
But it was too late to ketchup.
Moral: Slow and reddy wins the race.
Wisdom
Wednesday, 16 Sep 2020, 02:54
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Not sure where this came from, but
The wise always know better than to think they know best.
Playground humour
Wednesday, 16 Sep 2020, 00:37
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What sort of sweets moan all the time?
Whine gums!
Sangaku (算額)
Wednesday, 16 Sep 2020, 00:24
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Edited by Richard Walker, Wednesday, 16 Sep 2020, 00:26
At one time, around the late 1600s to early 1800s, Japan had little contact with Europe. In that era Japanese mathematics developed significantly, but in isolation.
During this period a tradition developed of painting geometrical therorems, or sometimes just questions, on wooden tablets, called Sangaku, often in bright colours and with decorative feeling, and depositing them in temples as religious offerings.
As a mathematician of sorts, and in common with many other mathematicians, I find this unique act highly moving.
Only about about 900 have come down to the present.
Sangaku concerned geometric problems; simple shapes such as lines, circles, trianges, squares; in contact; and dimensions. Here is an example which appears on many sites (and so I don't know who to atrribute the image to).
Many of the problems are very difficult, and two were not solved until this century, one only in 2016 and in a long and techical paper. But here's a simple example, in the Sangaku tradition, that you might like to try.
The two big circles have radius 2. What is the radius of the small one? Can you prove it?
PS it's meant to touch the line, my bad drawing!!
Alla Barnen*
Tuesday, 15 Sep 2020, 02:18
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All the kids loved their teacher. Except Nat.
He left tin-tacks where the teacher sat.
* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alla_barnen
One Liner
Tuesday, 15 Sep 2020, 02:11
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In the Awful Jokes Olympiad I was the easy victor, with an unbroken series of wince.
No clear answer
Tuesday, 15 Sep 2020, 01:26
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Q. What is the most difficult tongue-twister?
A. It’s impossible to say.
One Liner
Tuesday, 15 Sep 2020, 01:18
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Recently done a brilliant course on optimisation. It was, just, like... the best.
One Liner
Monday, 14 Sep 2020, 19:57
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I used to play the guitar. But the guitar always won.
The Meaningless of Life
Monday, 14 Sep 2020, 00:58
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I liked this quip from the radio program “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue“
Nietzsche said life is a choice between Boredom and Suffering. He didn’t mention experiencing both at the same time.
(Actually I think it was Schopenhauer, but it’s no big deal.j
Arrivals at the Biscuit-makers’ Ball
Sunday, 13 Sep 2020, 23:04
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Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome to the Biscuit-makers’ Ball:
Mr and Mrs Gestiff from Wales, and their talented son Dai.
Mr and Mrs Aroon from Scotland, and their celebrated son Mac.
Mr and Mrs Verkerk from the Netherlands and their gifted son Jeff.
Mr and Mrs Malcracker, from the US, and their accomplished daughter Annie.
M. et Mme D’Odgeux from France, and their fils talentueux Jamie.
Mr and Mrs Nutbutter, world citizens, and their up and coming son Pete.
Just thinking
Sunday, 13 Sep 2020, 01:58
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There are family names Tea and Biscuit.
If I’d had a mother who was a Tea, and a father who was a Biscuit, and been given a double-barrelled name, I would be Rich Tea-Biscuit.
Ambition
Saturday, 12 Sep 2020, 00:32
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I hoped to come up with a one lion joke. Although it’s nothing you can take pride from.
Hyphen-Nation?
Friday, 11 Sep 2020, 23:55
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A BBC article today said “Places that were once teeming with the hustle and bustle of daily life have become ghost-towns.”
That hyphen feels wrong. It reminded me of the cartoon below, which I found in David Crystal's book MAKING A POINT, which I highly commend to language-lovers.
Untitled
Friday, 11 Sep 2020, 00:12
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A cookie might crumble
A biscuit might break
But a wafer is braver
And it won’t ever quake.
A Short Universal Epitaph
Thursday, 10 Sep 2020, 23:57
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X
What can we learn from cookies.
Thursday, 10 Sep 2020, 00:14
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“That’s the way the cookie crumbles”, someone said in the local inn tonight. I’ve said the same thing hundreds of times I suppose but this time I thought and said “Or the way the biscuit breaks”.
Not sure what cookie crumbling really means, although they might be fortune cookies.
A biscuit might break in a random way.
Another confusion is ginger snaps.
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