Personal Blogs
In ground-breaking research announced earlier today, scientists think they have detected video signals from an alien star system.
The signals, though faint, appear to be a drama set in some sort of domestic situation. A member of the team told our reporter, “This proves that where there’s life there’s soap”.
What English word is the most difficult to pronounce? It’s hard to say.
So we’ll go no more a roving,
So late into the night.
Though the heart be still as loving
And the moon be just as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheathe,
And the soul wears out the breast.
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
I’m learning this poem by Lord Byron and this is as far as I got. I thought posting it here (from memory!) might help to bed it down. Is it right?
Tomorrow I will learn Stanza 3 hopefully.
Wheatear
A small perching bird with a white rump. I don’t think you’d typically see one in your garden but I have been to places, such as heaths in Norfolk, where they were everywhere. When they fly away the white backside is very conspicuous and it’s generally thought that the bird was originally called a “white arse” for that reason. A mixture of “folk etymology” - an intuitively appealing idea about a word origin but not based on recorded evidence - and dislike of coarse words (mealy-mouthedness in fact!) morphed this into wheatears and then people felt this was a plural, so we got wheatear.
Compare with pea; there were originally no peas but there was pease pudding (“Pease pudding hot, pease pudding cold, pease pudding in the pot, nine days old”); this sounds like a plural, so back-formation led to pea.
What jokes can you tell over the internet? Onliners.
Isohyet
A line on a climate map, connecting points of equal rainfall.
Alpha leather
Beta drum
Gamma long way
Delta lousy hand
Epsilon way to Tipperary
Zeta party of six
Eta hearty meal
Theta it
Iota load of money
Kappa civil tongue in your head
Lambda baby sheep
Mu like a cat
Nu are Wildebeest
Xi sickness
Omicron!
Pi for now
Rho your boat
Sigma Freud
Tau the line
Upsilon Dion
Phi on you
Chi to the door
Psi of relief
Omega!
Three men walked into a bar. The fourth was in a wheelchair.
"When you've seen one plank, you've seen them all", said Tom with a bored expression.
My cousin Connor believes the world is run by pirates. Behind his back we call this “Con’s piracy theory”.
"Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" is a choral work by Ralph Vaughan Williams. I was listening to it tonight, and thought how the words have always moved me, particularly the last four lines.
Let us now praise famous men,
And our Fathers that begat us.
Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms,
Men renowned for their power.
Leaders of the people
By their counsels and by their knowledge.
Such as found out musical tunes,
And recited verses in writing:
All these were honoured in their generations,
And were the glory of their times.
And some there be which have no memorial;
Who are perished, as though they had never been.
Their bodies are buried in peace;
But their name liveth for ever more.
The text is adapted from Ecclesiasticus 44. Ecclesiasticus is in a section of the Bible (the
Apocrypha = Greek From hidden) between the Old and New Testaments, and not always considered as worthy of inclusion, although the balance of opinion across time and place has felt it deserves its place, and I concur.
Finally I though you might like to see the passage (as it was originally) in the first printing of the King James Bible. The image is from https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Ecclesiasticus-Chapter-44_Original-1611-KJV/
Socrates. Was he just trying to Confucius?
My dog Arnold has always been a fast learner. So I thought I’d see if he could be trained to swim underwater. Sadly, it seems you can’t teach Arnold dog newt tricks.
减? (7, 8)
Grandad worked in a circus as a lion tamer but it was such a small outfit they could only support a single lion. Other lion tamers laughed at him, and he became a one-lion joke.
Thanks for the heads up garden birds
I get it
Spring’s coming.
pococurantism
Not giving a fig.
As defined by the OED: indifference, carelessness, nonchalance.
Another puzzle I found on John Baez's blog. It seems to have been discovered and published only as recently as 2011. Baez's post gives a reference.
Two touching semi-circles, aligned as shown, are inscribed in a circle.
You might think you need more information, such as the relative sizes of the semi-circles perhaps. But in fact it doesn't make any difference.
I will post my solution on 6 March.
Here is the solution I can up with.
Langeleik
An old Norwegian stringed musical instrument, resembling the zither according to the OED.
‘Zither’ is interesting itself; it derives from Ancient Greek ‘Kithera’, the origin also of ‘guitar’ and the older ‘cittern’, and possibly also related to ‘sitar’. The latter is from Persian but may be from a common root.
Tea and Eternity
Two things to talk
About forever.
Can you identify a hard white crumbly Welsh cheese? Think carefully.
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