Grater
I don't really grate things very much: when I have occasion to, I use the grating disc attachment to the food processor. In days bygone I had a Mouli grater that I remember as being a very efficient little piece of kitchen equipment. The other thing, of course, that I grate and have a designated grater for is nutmeg. I have a recollection ( Read more... )

Doing this a little behind the herd...
( Read more... )

But I am just slightly niggled that nearly all the comments to my previous post were picking up on something in the extract from Lucy Mangan's piece which I had only included in order to provide context and coherence, i.e. the issue over vocabulary acquisition, age of, rather than the thing I was actually interested in, and discussing myself, about ( Read more... )

It's a long time since anyone actually said to me explicitly 'But surely a grown woman should have the poise to be able to deal with unwelcome attentions' in a discussion about sexual harassment, and in that case it was a bloke of at least a generation senior to myself, at a time when the issue was just beginning to be articulated.

Which I somehow ( Read more... )

Finding a word for something is satisfying, but I'm not sure how far it gets me.

While I was away I had a small and trivial incident of a thing that I find generates a disproportionate emotional response of rage, resentment and humiliation.

This occurs if I go into a restaurant (bar, shop, etc) and they appear either not to notice me at all or have ( Read more... )

I think there is something quite sweet (even adorably naive and utopian) about Will Self going on about the disinterested pursuit of Lerninz, but, honestly, I was brought up short by this:
'that perennial sawhorse: whither the novel?'
WHUT.

Maybe he was dictating this over the phone, and no-one picked up on this extremely bizarre metaphor or ( Read more... )

Normally I find Suzanne Moore reasonably okay (though has perhaps gone off a bit from her earlier self, haven't we all), but I do not agree with this: This growing culture of outrage doesn't extend free speech - it limits it.

Because, honestly, isn't it All More Complicated?

I do see that outrage probably conjugates as one of those triplets:
I - am ( Read more... )

Dept of, I knew that, sort of: Cryptic crossword solvers played a vital role in military intelligence during the second world war.

Dept of, not immune to the attraction of Neanderthal Man: The downside of sex with Neanderthals.

Dept of, like no divorced couple ever remained friends: The secret letters of Wallis Simpson are sensational - but don't ( Read more... )

The Oxford English Dictionary has discovered a use of "OMG" from 1917 .

Errrrr: not quite?
It comes in a letter by British Admiral John "Jacky" Fisher, who wrote that:

I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis-O.M.G. (Oh! My God!)-Shower it on the Admiralty!

The letter was published in his Memories, published in 1919.

But there ( Read more... )

(I suspect that future work travel will probably be an era of new austerity and helping to pedal, so I'm enjoying this while I have it - adorable wee cakey things in the 1st class lounge while I was waiting!).

A very good colloquium (with enjoyably apposite amusing misspelling on one of the notices) though as I'd had a very bad night with migraine ( Read more... )