“The only ancient culture to develop a word for blue was the Egyptians — and as it happens, they were also the only culture that had a way to produce a blue dye.”

Well thats wrong for a start. What about all those woad painted celts the Romans used to encounter?

And there are plenty of words in ancient languages for blue (or at least we transalate them as blue).

I believ the ancient Sumerians (who pre date Egypt) prized Lapzi Lazuli so much there was a large long distance trade in the stuff. The defining characteristic of lapis lazuli, the thing that makes it unusual, is that it is bright blue.

Unless your phone can navigate a battlecruser across interstellar space whilst fighting off hordes of Covenant warships, its not Cortana.

Seamus Heaney on his use of the word “So.” to open his version of Beowulf,

But in Hiberno-English Scullion-speak, the particle ‘so’ came naturally to the rescue, because in that idiom ‘so’ operates as an expression that obliterates all previous discourse and narrative, and at the same time functions as an exclamation calling for immediate attention. So, ‘so’ it was:

So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes’ heroic campaigns.”

And if its good enough for Heaney, its good enough for me.

And, much like the gaelic argument above, we have no record of any genuine Anglo Saxon (ie. Old English)taboo swear words.

It was all written down by monks.

Though, if we are doing fictional characters, who would dinosaurs vote for then?

Triassic, Jurassic or Cretaceous dinosaurs?

No one, fictional characters dont get a vote.

Whatever your views on the religion industry, and the whole Son of God thing, its quite likely Jesus wasn’t a fictional character.

I however am more keen on DIY

Then just hope you don’t have to go down to B&Q for a packet of zip-ties and a roll of duct tape the day after its release.

‘There has been no cover up’ is the line to take in public…

Which does not mean that it is not true

Dawes Galaxy.

They aren’t that fashionable, and look a bit out dated, but they almost have legendary status for touring.

I dont think the newer Dawes Galaxys get great reviews, I think they tend to rely on the “legend”.

Spa cycles own tourer got a good review in the CTC rag, although its only just under the 1k mark.

SPA cycles steel tourer

Its quite complicated

Rules on deer stalking[/url]

I believe the OS are on the road to full privatisation and are under pressure to create revenue streams.

They are already set up to print 1:50000 and 1:25000 maps on demand. So perhaps they would consider reintroducing other scales if they thought there was sufficient money in it.

Have we done the untouched drops yet? You can’t do a nazi stem and ignore the genocide of the untouched drops.

And they have to be shallow drops because, (surprise surprise), everyone has their stem set too low.

Its either MTB fashion or bike industry cost cutting imposing the supposed advantages of threadless headsets on the masses.

We’ve lost the wide range and fine height adjustment you used to get with a quill stem

Between now and my planned retirement age, I am likey to earn roughly £422500, before tax.

A million quid (is it tax free?) would be completely life changing.

She is one lucky lady.

What do you mean by that?
Do you mean the owner hasn’t accounted for staff wages? or do you mean the staff bonus?
or something else?

It means the price includes the cost of the meal. It does not include the the cost of someone comeing to your table, takeing your order and delivering your meal.

Thats why you wouldn’t tip at McDonalds or at places where you queue up to order food at the bar.

As a seller the only advantage with a cash buyer is you don’t have to wait for their mortgage to be approved? Why would you offer a discount?

Unless the buyer was offering a suitcase full of used £50s, in which case you might be getting a visit from the fraud squad.

Bloody Hell,

I never realised eating out was such a confrontational activity.

Yes

He was educated at University College School, an independent school in London, where he achieved two As (History and Latin) and a B (English Literature) at A-Level. He read History at Trinity College, Cambridge as well as at the University of Chicago, and was for a time an Associate Fellow of the Centre for History and Economics at King’s College, Cambridge. He undertook postgraduate study at the University of Cambridge and completed his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 2000. His thesis was titled Civic thought in Britain, c.1820– c.1860. While at Cambridge he was a member of the Footlights, where he was a contemporary of David Mitchell and Robert Webb.

Not too shabby.

Thats just shows he’s had a good education. It doesn’t mark him out as being particularly bright.

saving the company money

Last time I dealt with real live human HR, I was applying for a travel allowance as a result of a forced move.

Unbeknown to me, the team were about to loose their jobs to “efficiency savings”. They gave me a much more generous allowance than I was expecting because they didn’t really give much of a toss anymore.

I think most of our HR is done by software now. Any HR people left are too frightened to talk to human beings.

they should be able to decline 15 different types of Latin verb
This would be incredibly difficult as you conjugate verbs! Declensions are for nouns etc.

Ah, that’s why I flunked my Latin O-level then.

I’m a victim of a failed education system!

Being able to recite the 12 times table from memory has little practical application in our post decimalization world. We no longer use £s, shillings and pence and no longer deal in dozens and gross. I belive ther reason that kids don’t know their 12 times table now, is because they only have to teach up to the 10 times table in middle scholol nowadays.

As a target for academic rigour, you might tas well say they should be able to decline 15 different types of Latin verb, it has about as much use.

Perhaps a more relevant target might be to make kids comfortable in doing basic arithmetic in hexadecimal. Do code monkleys still need to do that sort of thing?

We used to have rats living in both our composters.

They were actually quite good for the compost as they turned it all over.

Never did the tomatoes any harm.

Privatise the MOD. Whats good for the NHS and all that . . .

He said that the “cruise ship-sized” asteroid would pass as close as three times the distance from the earth to the moon.

So not really a “graze” then.

I was once shown a series of slides (in a private collection) that showed a group of clubmen making a winter crossing of the Stelvio prior to World War1. Fixed gear drop bar bikes on what was little better than a goat track covered in snow and ice. Standard wear was the Norfolk Jacket, plus scarfs. Seems eminently practical to me.

What sort of interest are you paying on your mortgage? Probably more than any return you would get on investing the equivalent amount of cash.

So unless you think you will need a large chuck of cash in the near future its probably cheaper for you to pay of the mortgage.

Shame Colin Pillinger didn’t live long enough to find out what happened to it.

Probably someone pissed off about their council tax bill

Yeah, and burning down the offices is really likely to reduce their bill!

When I was little I was always told to turn everything off at the mains overnight in case it blew up and started a fire – this was when radios and TVs still used valves.

I still turn everything off now, although in recent years I’ve started leaving the router on overnight.

I’ve no idea how likely an LED TV or Xbox on standby is to burst into flames, but it just seems lazy to leave them on.

I am actually struggling to think how I could be active for less than 20 minutes a day

I think when they mean 20 minutes of brisk walking they mean at a level that actually raises you pulse and gets you breathing harder. Its not just strolling around the shops at lunchtime.

I’m not sure I do 20 minutes of brisk activity EVERY day.

threats from the Germans in WW1 … N. Irish discord, and we didn’t have so many attacks on our freedom from our own govt.

Well, WW1 and pub licensing laws spring to mind.

And there was all that silliness about broadcasters not being allowed to transmit NI politicians words. Remember all those Gerry Adams speeches where they showed him talking and had to use the voice of an actor to overdub the speech?

I’m not sure people actually listen to music that much, rather than having it on in the background as a soundtrack to their lives.

roots 81k minutes is about 4.5 hours a day. Were you really listening to it all that time?

For example I have a mate who looks like shrek If anyone says this to him in a piss taking way he responds with great anger and mighty fury.

Of course he has a right to be offended, but would your friend murder 12 people in cold blood because someone called him Shrek?

A while ago I used to see a few suspicious types on my way home from work.

Three or four young “Asian” looking men. Full muslamic beards, full desert pattern camouflage fatigues and combat boots. I think one of them even had a Taliban floppy hat.

They used to meet up together an wander off somewhere.

I did briefly wonder about informing “the authorities”, but then realised they were all a bit too Tooting Popular Front. I guess real terrorists would try and draw less attention to themselves.

Mind you, I haven’t seen them for about a year. So perhaps they’ve ben looked up in Paddington Green, or gone of to Syria or something.

My Garmin has a barometric altimeter and usually gives just under 1000 feet.

As Gandhi said though, an eye for an eye leaves us all blind. We need to move on

But in this case it wasn’t really an eye for an eye. More like 12 deaths in return for a probably not very funny political cartoon.

As I have a (Scottish built) Linn amplifier, should I move my electricity supplier to Scottish Energy, just to make sure it’s all compatible??

Scottish electricity is probably a bit too cold to unlock the full tonal warmth of you music. You would need to run it through a pre heater before it got to the amp.

Since processing sound is actually a function of the brain, does not believing that it sounds better actually make it sound better?

Better still, forget all that messy mechanical interaction between air molecules and the ear drum. Just read the musical score and imagine it as the composer intended!

I wonder if NAIM will ever introduce a device that gives the average Hi Fi buff’s ears the sensitivity and range of, say, a 16 year old virtuoso violinist.

Perhaps a matrix style socket (gold plated naturally) in the back of the head that bypasses the ears and connects directly with the audio centers in your brain.

Its bound to be worth a try.