Archive for the ‘Words’ Category

Why Miss Jones

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

During a recent lunch hour, I saw two older women at a nearby table, each doing puzzles from a newspaper. Here they are, in some superhero capes I drew on them, to represent their tireless and unswerving commitment to puzzling.

From the well written blog of Miss Jones

15 podcasts that will make you smarter

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

They say the true worth of a man is what he carries in his mind…
but failing that, carrying it in your pocket in case you get bored on long journeys is okay.

CollegeCrunch have compiled a worthwhile list of 15 stimulating podcasts, which is nice of them… Here’s the link

Some Esoteric Political Commentary

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

In Balzac’s The Finger of God, our favourite accident-prone French realist recounts how he watches from a Paris bridge while a jealous seven-year old girl pushes her little brother into the Bièvre River, drowning him. As the mother realises what has happened (but not necessarily who has perpetrated it) we leap forward an untold number of years. The mother and her remaining children have just come back from the theatre, downcast. All go their separate ways except the youngest son, a bawling baby at the time of the accident, who stays and recounts to a family friend how they had all fallen silent upon witnessing a scene of the play where a man drowns his son. The mother and daughter then re-enter the room and the girl flashes her mother a frightened glance, worried that ‘these remarks would aggravate the punishment hanging over her’. It is a mischievously ambiguous phrase. Punishment for the current embarrassment, or punishment for the long-ago events? Has she never been punished? Does her mother even know of her guilt? Intriguingly, as time passes, is the potential punishment increasing or decreasing?

I thought of this moment of fearful anticipation today as I read about the fate of Sir Peter Viggers, MP for the constituency of Gosport since 1974. A few days ago it was gleefully reported in the press that he claimed on his MP expense allowance £1,645 for a duck island in an act utterly within spirit and legislature of the rules as they existed at the time, and yet he has subsequently been forced to retire. That the rules need to change goes without saying; what struck me was that this bombshell came fourteen days into the series of revelations. I wonder what the last fortnight of Sir Peter’s life have been like?

(more…)

Something to Ponder

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Stem Cell guru Robert Lanza just published an interesting book about Biocentric universe theory (the universe is created by life not the other way around).

Here’s an article…

Some New Words

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

Cracked has a nice article, featuring coined phrases from overseas…
which includes… Esprit d’escalier,

(The wit of the staircase)

When you think of the perfect verbal comeback… much too late.

(Via Geeklikeme)