Category: Uncategorized
Maps
There’s an interesting post on the nature of maps over at Strange Maps today. I remember when some former colleagues and I decided to buy a map of the world to display on our office wall, back in the days where I worked somewhere where people had conversations, and outside interests, and we had a long discussion about what sort of a map we wanted, and someone (probably, I have to say, me) said that we should choose one which reflected a “real” view of the world, rather than one which was devised for the advancement of imperial interests (see the Peters Projection versus Mercator debate for more on this). Now it seems that even that is an over-simplified view.
Thank you
…to the person who came here searching for “Emmerdale Farm audio samples”, and I’m sorry I didn’t have what you were looking for.
(Phew)
I can’t find the full thing on YouTube, so here’s the BBC video of Obama’s acceptance speech. He’s really an extraordinary orator, and I look forward to more speeches, for the poetry as much as for the content. If you don’t want to watch the full 17 minutes – though it’s worth it – then skip forward and start watching at 13:05.
US election day
People keep telling me Obama will win it by a mile, but I can’t help worrying that it will all go wrong at the last minute.
Still, the man himself looks cheerful enough:
(Image via Wikipedia)
Hm
Heidi Klum’s two elder children are called Leni and Henry. That is all.
Overheard II
At the chemist, this lunchtime…
Tourist #1: I’m looking for some lozenges, or pastilles, called Diff…diff-something. For coughs.
Pharmacist: …
Tourist #1: Or do you have another type of cough lozenges?
Pharmacist: Oh yes, there are several types [starts shuffling on a shelf behind her]
Tourist #2: I know what you want! You want Difflam! [To pharmacist] Ma’am, he wants Difflam!
Pharmacist: Difflam? That only comes as a mixture, not in lozenges.
Tourist #1: Oh, really? In Sydney it comes in lozenges. Why can’t you get it in Lozenges here?
Tourist #2: Because the queen! She said so!
Tourist #1, wisely: Ah, I see.
He means business
This morning, I noticed a man standing on the roof of one of the six- or seven-storey buildings which our thirteenth-floor office overlooks. He was peering over the edge and moving in an aimless sort of a way. After a bit, he disappeared off around a corner and out of sight, and I realised that at no point had it occurred to me that he was there for anything other than savoury, non-suicidal reasons. I thought about it a bit longer and decided that this was because he had a pencil behind his ear. Killing oneself doesn’t somehow seem compatible with having a pencil behind the ear.
Spam
I’m delighted to be able to report that I am now getting spam with wildly fascinating subject lines, as well as senders. In my inbox this afternoon I have the following offerings, all of which I quite want to read:
FDA finds salmonella strain in jalapeno
Man kills for lottery winnings
Saturated fat found to be good for you
Christian Bale doomed Oscar chances
Woman loses foot in shock attack [I wonder if the foot will later appear washed up on a Canadian beach?]
And my very favourite:
Monkey breast feeds human baby
Glad All Over 