Thanks to ChrisC for pointing out to me that it was the fiftieth anniversary of Aberfan today. Actually, what he said was "do you know anything about Aberfan?"
( Yes. )

Quite often, when I phone my parents, there's some sort of breathless scramble at their end as they turn off whatever music they're listening to. I nearly always have music on when I'm at home, and my parents do too... I always assumed that was just what people did, but apparently not ( Read more... )

I've been doing some tidying up recently, and trying to sort through a massive stack of unlabelled tapes. Some have been easily dismissed as blank, or not things I recognise as mine. Some turn out to be taped-off-the-radio tapes from the late 80s/early 90s. Which has been fascinating, even as it has confirmed that my early teenage self had flippin ( Read more... )

Hmm. I was about to post the following poll:

Poll

Except it turns out that Wikipedia has a much longer list of stories. And their list doesn't include Peregrine Falcon (which I haven't seen anyway - maybe it belonged in a different series?)

Earlier in the week, I nearly sent someone an email entitled "Wembley", because I was asking about their plans for Wednesday. And then I changed my mind, because I wasn't sure how many people frequently substitute Wembley for Wednesday ( Read more... )

Following a brief conversation in my office about whether or not you could get to heaven in a biscuit tin, I have to ask....

Poll

I just regaled ChrisC with a story about the lowly position of empiricists at the French court in the 17th or 18th century. The story goes like this:

All the finest minds of the era were busy debating why a bowl of water should become lighter when you put a goldfish into it. The debate was heated and wide-ranging. Until someone came along and said ( Read more... )

Some time ago, I reached the age where I realised I didn't know my age. If asked (which, let's face it, doesn't happen all that often) I'm forced to remember what year it is, subtract my birth year, and work out whether I've had a birthday or not recently in order to answer ( Read more... )

Hello. I've been on holiday, but I'm back now. More of that another day ( Read more... )

At the weekend, I spent a lot of time clearing out old files of work and notes from school and university ( Read more... )