words

Obsolete Words

Earlier in the week I came across a wonderful list of 18 obsolete words, which never should have gone out of style.
They’re all wonderful, but here’s a selection …
Snoutfair: A person with a handsome countenance.
Pussyvan: A flurry, temper.
Wonder-wench: A sweetheart.


Spermologer: A picker-up of trivia, of current news, a gossip monger.
Tyromancy: Divining by the coagulation of cheese.
Beef-witted: Having an inactive brain, thought to be from eating too much beef.
Resistentialism: The seemingly spiteful behaviour shown by inanimate objects.
Bookwright: A writer of books; an author; a term of slight contempt.

And I think my favourite of all …
With squirrel: Pregnant.
English is such a wonderful language!

current affairs, ramblings

Government and IT

Yesterday’s Independent carried a short article under the headline

Using computer technology ‘could save state £10bn a year’

Yes, you bet it could! Here are extracts from the article:

Civil servants could cut the cost of government by £70bn in seven years just by making more use of computer technology, a think-tank report … claims.
The ambitious claim … is almost 10 times what the Cabinet Office hopes can be achieved.
The report … highlights ways government departments waste money by using too much paper.
Offenders include the Crown Prosecution Service, which prints a million sheets of paper every day, the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency, where “two articulated trucks loaded with letters and paper pull in every day”, and the Passport Office, which prints out forms filled in online and posts them back to applicants to sign.

Oh FFS! I know I worked for a large IT company but set in its ways though the Corporation was even we got rid of most paper forms 10 years ago!
So you bet the government could save £10bn a year, but it will happen only if:

  • They learn something about IT and how to manage IT projects
  • They are prepared to listen to advice from suppliers
  • They are prepared to invest some money up front
  • They are prepared to grasp the nettle and tell the civil servants that this is how things will be done — no push-back allowed.

Will all of those happen? … No.
Will any of those happen? … Probably not.
Gawdelpus!

photography

Weekly Photograph

Here’s one from years ago (like 2008) when I went to London Zoo — and yes, for some unknown reason they let me out again!
No story to this, just a pretty picture!

Click the image for larger views on Flickr

Birch Tree
Birch Tree
June 2008, London Zoo

memes, personal

Five Questions, Series 4 #5

So, at last, we get to the final question of series 4 of Five Questions.

Question 5: What is the biggest obstacle that stands in your way right now?
There is only one possible answer to that … ME!
You think I’m joking? Then you’ve not seen the size of me!
What?! You want a more serious answer?! You mean that isn’t good enough?!
Well if you push me then the answer has to be (a) depression and (b) not enough hours in the day to get done what I want to do.
But isn’t that essentially the same for everyone? … There isn’t enough time and we just can’t push ourselves to do more.
– oo OO oo –

OK, that concludes Five Questions, Series 4. I’ll do another series in a few months.
Meantime, I would like questions to answer — ask anything and I will see if I can answer it. No promises though ‘cos you really don’t want to know about my … TMIA!

words

Word: Chatoyant

Chatoyant
Having a changeable, undulating, or floating lustre, like that of a cat’s eye in the dark.
Hence also a chatoyant stone or gemstone, such as the cat’s-eye.


From the French present participle of chatoyer, to shimmer like cats’ eyes; from chat, cat.
The OED records the first use in 1798 in a scientific description of crystals.

environment

National Zero Waste Week

Starting next Monday we bring you National Zero Waste Week which runs from 2 to 8 September.
National Zero Waste Week, which is now in its sixth year, invites you to reduce landfill waste and save money. This year they will be concentrating on tackling food waste. There is research which suggests that on average in the UK we bin a quarter of all the food which is produced. That is northing short of scandalous!


So yes, the aim of National Zero Waste Week is to drastically cut the amount of stuff which goes into landfill by either (re)using it or recycling it. Ultimately it is for the good of our environment, and almost certainly our wallets too!
As always there is more over on their website at www.zerowasteweek.co.uk.

quotes

Quotes

Another selection from my perusals, in no special sequence …
I chortled so immoderately I filled my codpiece with widdle.
[Katy Wheatley]
To say ‘I wonder’ is to say ‘I question; I ask.’ The mind seeks. Sometimes it finds answers, sometimes it does not. We need wonder in order to keep moving and growing – to stay alive to the world. It gives us meaning and, in fact, makes us human.
[Marian Bantjes; I Wonder]
It was their wonder, astonishment, that first led men to philosophise, and still leads them.
[Aristotle; Metaphysics]
I’m not weird, I’m limited edition.
[unknown]
I may be a little weird, but I’d rather be weird and right than normal and wrong.
[Paul Stamets, Mycologist]
In the realm of medicine, sham treatments have long had a name: placebos. I suggest we call the equivalent treatments in society “placebos at large”. In fact I want to make the analogy with placebo medicine still closer. In much the same way that we have “invented” witch doctors to provide spells and potions that allow us to overcome the timidity of our bodily healing systems and cure ourselves of physical disease, so we have created witch institutions, witch ceremonies, witch arts to cure ourselves of incipient mental and social disease.
[Nicholas Humphrey, “Placebos at large: the power of society’s symbols”, New Scientist; 03 August 2013]
Life is a disease; sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal
[unknown]
“You see, I don’t mind what happens” … To “accept” the way things are is to stop resisting reality; to stop using positive thinking to try to pretend things are different. Put like that, acceptance seems like a precondition for change, not an obstacle to it.
[Oliver Burkeman writing about Kristnamurti in the Guardian, 10 August 2013]
No event can trigger upset without a belief that it’s undesirable.
[Oliver Burkeman writing about Kristnamurti in the Guardian, 10 August 2013]
Things themselves have no natural power to form our judgements.
[Marcus Aurelius]