Archive for October, 2021
Word of the day: tchotchke
October 5th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
A tchotchke is a small bric-à-brac or miscellaneous item. The word has long been used by Jewish-Americans and in the regional speech of New York City and elsewhere. It is Yiddish in origin. The word may also refer to free promotional items dispensed at trade shows, conventions, and similar commercial events. They can also be sold as cheap souvenirs in tourist areas, […]
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Word of the day: hecatomb
October 4th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
Say what you like about British Prime Minister Boris Johnson – and I’ve said a lot that is not complimentary – but his Oxford University education has given him an impressive vocabulary. In an interview this week about shortages in the British marketplace, he commented: “If I may say so, the great hecatomb of pigs […]
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Binge-watching the BBC series “Vigil”
October 4th, 2021 by Roger Darlington
I spent the evenings this weekend binge-watching the six hour-long episodes of the BBC television series “Vigil“, a murder mystery set substantially on a nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed submarine of Britain’s Royal Navy – an original and inventive plot device. I really enjoyed it and, if you did too, you might like to read this analysis […]
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A review of the eagerly-awaited James Bond movie “No Time To Die”
October 3rd, 2021 by Roger Darlington
The release of this 25th feature in the official James Bond franchise was successively postponed for a total of a year and a half as a result of the global pandemic and it comes no less than six years after the last 007 film, so we’ve waited a long time for this. For lovers of […]
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