10 fascinating facts about the leap day
February 29th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Today is, of course, 29 February – a leap day that only happens once every four years.
You can read 10 interesting bits of information about the leap day here.
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)
Word of the day: OK
February 28th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
It’s one of there most commonly-used words in the English language – but what is the origin of OK? There are lots of incorrect explanations, but one can find the true history in the book “The Story Of English In 100 Words” [my review here].
The term first appeared in 1839 in a Boston newspaper. There was a vogue for inventing humorous abbreviations using initial letters. One of these was oll korrect. a comedic adaptation of the words all correct. All the other abbreviations used in the newspaper disappeared. Why not this one?
Well, in the following year 1840, it came to be associated with with a totally different use – as a slogan during the US presidential election of that year. It was the shortened form of Old Kinderhook, the nickname of President Martin van Buren – Kinderhook being the name of his hometown in New York State. He lost the election.
So now you know …
Posted in Cultural issues, History | Comments (1)
The Faberge Big Egg Hunt
February 27th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
I like it when art comes out of the gallery and in to the streets. Here, in London, we have had coloured cows and coloured elephants dotted round the city at different times. And now we have something different: coloured eggs in the shape of The Faberge Big Egg Hunt.
Apparently the event was unveiled a week ago by the actress Emilia Fox, but I only learned about it today when I was down in central London with my good friend Jennifer and her delightful 16-month old son James. We spotted three of the eggs – but there are 209 (or least there were – two have already been stolen).
What do these eggs look like? See here.
What’s it all about? It’s a fund raising event for the charity Action for Children.
Posted in Cultural issues, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”
February 26th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
The film was released in Britain this weekend and we saw it in our local multiplex in Harrow where the theatre was absolutely full (we have a large Asian community in the area). We loved it and you can read my review here.
Almost all the movie is shot in the wonderful Indian city of Jaipur.We have actually been there and you can read my account of the visit here.
Posted in Cultural issues, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
“Fifty Things You Need To Know About World History”
February 26th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
If you were writing a book on world history of just 400 pages and decided to select only 50 events or people or developments, what would you chose? You can see the choice of Hugh Williams here.
I think that it is important to have some appreciation of the history of the world and not simply one’s own nation or region. You will find my reviews of 10 books on world history here.
Posted in History | Comments (0)
The rise and rise of the app
February 25th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
On my iPhone and iPad, I am a a big user of apps – and it ia market which has simply exploded.
Apple’s Apps Store now has a choice of over 550,000 apps. It is clocking up around 500 downloads a second and is about to hit the 25 billion mark. The revenue raised will be some £3.6 billion. All this for a market which did not really exist until Apple made downloading apps so easy in 2007.
Of course, Apple is not the only apps platform and the whole story is told in an article in today’s “Guardian” here.
Posted in Internet | Comments (0)
The day 17 Chinese came to tea
February 24th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Our Chinese ‘son’ Zhihao makes his living by accompanying various Chinese delegations on their tours of the UK and his current delegation had a different request from others: they wanted to visit a typical British home. This is how 17 Chinese turned up at our semi-detached house today – a bit of a crush but a lot of fun.
They insisted on taking off their shoes which is the Chinese tradition, so our hall had 17 pairs of shoes lined up, making it look a bit like a shoe shop.
They went from room to room seeing how we live. In the dining room, they gathered round the table for lots of photographs. This room is also my library with one entire wall filled with books and they were understandably interested in my Chinese section. This includes my copy from the 1970s of the “Quotations From Chairman Mao” (otherwise known as “The Little Red Book”) and the controversial biography of Mao by Jung Chang & Jon Halliday [my review here].
I have been to China three times – twice with Vee and once with Zhihao and his wife and son – and they were interested to view the photograph albums of these trips. Although we have visited 15 cities all around China, we have never been to the province from which this delegation hailed: Jiang Xi which has Nan Chang as the capital.
In order to provide the delegation with cups of tea, we had to borrow extra cups. Then there was strawberry cake, walnut cake, strawberries and blueberries, so they left refreshed as well as happy. It was good to have done our bit for Anglo-Chinese relations.
Posted in History, My life & thoughts | Comments (2)
Putting time back in its box of light
February 24th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Can anything travel faster than the speed of light? According to the Special Theory of Relativity, no. But, in September 2011, Italian scientists reported on an experiment which seems to suggest that some neutrinos may be capable of travelling faster than the speed of light which would raise the notion of time travelling backwards. The scientists admitted that the results were odd and needed further examination.
Shortly after the announcement of the initial results, I happened to be at a north London dinner party with the Cambridge University Lucasian Professor of Mathematics (as you do) and asked him his views on the experiment. He thought that the suggested outcome was extremely unlikely – and so it has proved to be. We now have the news that the original experiment was probably flawed as a result of faulty wiring.
I draw two lessons from this odd turn of events:
- Most IT problems can indeed be resolved by switching the machine off and then switching it back on again.
- The great strength of science is its reliance on evidence and its challenge to all to falsify the current paradigm.
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
The curse of the quotation marks
February 23rd, 2012 by Roger Darlington
How not to use quotation marks – see here.
How to use quotation marks – see here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (1)
How good is your knowledge of English?
February 22nd, 2012 by Roger Darlington
It will need to be quite good to appreciate these little jokes:
- There’s no “t” in China
- There’s no “x” in alimony
- There’s no “q” in Tesco
- There’s no “u” in solipsism
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (2)