All posts by Keith

I’m a controversialist and catalyst, quietly enabling others to develop by providing different ideas and views of the world. Born in London in the early 1950s and initially trained as a research chemist I retired as a senior project manager after 35 years in the IT industry. Retirement is about community give-back and finding some equilibrium. Founder and Honorary Secretary of the Anthony Powell Society. Chairman of my GP's patient group.
environment

Recycle Week

To go along with National Picnic Week, 17-23 June is also Recycle Week sponsored by Recycle Now along with Keep Britain Tidy.

The intent of Recycle Week is to encourage us to recycle more. Recycling is important for the environment not just in conserving our resources but in preventing pollution and damage to wildlife.

We’d all like to be that bit greener, which means taking what we do already and pushing it just a little bit further. You may recycle at home, but do you recycle at work? Do you recycle glass jars as well as glass bottles? Do your kids recycle at school? Recycling for kids can be fun, and these are just a few ideas for steps you can take to recycle even more!

Remember that recycling isn’t just for bottles, drink cans and newspapers. You can recycle many plastics, metal cans and bottle tops, batteries, Tetra Pak containers, leftover food, water filter cartridges, vegetable and garden waste, even used cooking oil. Everything you can do makes a difference.

The Recycle Now website, www.recyclenow.com, has lots of ideas to help you recycle more.

quotes

Quotes

A few more quotes encountered, for the amusement of those hereabouts. As usual in no special order.

The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it’s unfamiliar territory.
[Paul Fix]

Every man serves a useful purpose: a miser, for example, makes a wonderful ancestor.
[Laurence J Peter]

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.
[Charles Bukowski]

The appellation of Gentleman is never to be affixed to a man’s circumstances, but to his behaviour in them.
[Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729) in The Tatler]

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
[Niels Bohr]

Understand that sexuality is as wide as the sea. Understand that your morality is not law … Understand that if we decide to have sex whether safe, safer, or unsafe, it is our decision and you have no rights in our lovemaking.
[Derek Jarman]

Being childfree or childless is a choice for some, a struggle for others. It’s tough to be childfree/childless in our child- and parent-centric society — especially for women. We are questioned, judged, told we’ll change our minds, etc.
[unknown]

An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.
[Anatole France]
I’d add: and knowing how to find out when you don’t know.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
[Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, 1905]

A family is a unit composed not only of children but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold.
[Ogden Nash]

It’s so much easier to suggest solutions when you don’t know too much about the problem.
[Malcolm Forbes]

food+drink

National Picnic Week

It’s summer (well, allegedly) so what better time is there for National Picnic Week which runs from 17 to 23 June.

We Brits have always been great picnickers — from the old couple sitting by their car with a sandwich to the magnificent spreads of the Edwardian shooting party — and National Picnic Week celebrates this love of the al fresco lunch.

With the UK’s food preferences changing, why stick to the same old picnic fare? To the egg sandwiches and sausage rolls we can now add pizza, mini-popadoms and kebabs.


So let’s make the most of our, all too short, summer and get out to one of this country’s magnificent picnic spots for a sumptuous snack in the wild.

There are lots of resources, including recipe ideas, over at www.picnicweek.co.uk.

words

Word: Overmorrow

Overmorrow

The day after tomorrow.

The OED suggests it is derived from the German übermorgen and Dutch overmorgen.
The first recorded usage was in 1535.

Compare with nudiustertian, pertaining to the day before yesterday.

These have to be a useful words with which to confound the unwary!

amusements

World Juggling Day

Saturday 15 June is World Juggling Day which is set up International Jugglers Association to help spread the fun of juggling and to bring jugglers around the world together.

Juggling is fun — well so they tell me, I was never any good at it. And it is an ancient art: there are images on a tomb in Egypt show people juggling, and there are references to it in writings from China, Ireland and Rome. Juggling was also popular during Renaissance times, when jugglers would entertain the royal court.

As usual there’s lots more information over at www.juggle.org/wjd.

environment

Bike Week

Bike Week 2013 starts on Saturday 15 June and runs until 23rd.

Bike Week is the UK’s biggest mass participation cycling event with events offering something for everyone; from families, schools and companies, to seasoned cyclists and those who have never cycled before. The idea is to show us just how easy it is to make cycling part of our every day routine.

This year, Bike Week is asking the nation to dig out their bikes, get back on the saddle and fall in love with cycling all over again! Cycling is not only good exercise but is also good for the environment in helping us to reduce our carbon footprint.

There’s lots of information and an events register over at www.bikeweek.org.uk.

words

Word: Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

According to the Oxford English Dictionary Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is “a factitious word alleged to mean ‘a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust, causing inflammation in the lungs'”. A condition meeting the word’s definition is normally called just silicosis.

Wikipedia adds: “It occurs chiefly as an instance of a very long word. The 45-letter word was coined to serve as the longest English word and is the longest word ever to appear in an English language dictionary. It is listed in the current editions of several dictionaries”.

Facetious or not its coining in 1935 by Everett M Smith appears well documented, and the word does indeed mean what the OED says.

Whatever you want to call the disease, you don’t want it!