One man’s proverb is another man’s ‘wtf?’
When someone else is screen-sharing, and I’m trying to point them to the right link or button or drop-down on some over-complicated screen, I’m reminded of The Golden Shot
For younger readers, the Golden Shot was a 1970s UK game show involving blindfolds, crossbows and Bob Monkhouse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Shot
This is very good…on getting physical fitness into perspective
“I always regarded fitness as my superpower. Something that I worked hard at, for sure, but something that gave me kudos. Keeping fit – I mean, really fit – seemed to me an admirable and noble pursuit. I could fit into nice clothes easily. I could push my body and trust it not to fail. Whatever other qualities I didn’t possess, whatever I wasn’t good enough at, I could walk into a gym or toe a start line for a race and pass muster”
A moment that changed me: I thought fitness was my superpower. Then I realised it was a ball and chain - https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/08/a-moment-that-changed-me-fitness-was-my-superpower-then-a-ball-and-chain?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Room 101 was a meeting room
#TodayILearned, via mastodonapp.uk/@Probertd… that
“The original Room 101 was not in Broadcasting House as the BBC maintains but in 55 Portland Place.
It was where the Eastern Service held Committee meetings some of which Orwell attended, until the Indian Services office moved to 200 Oxford Street.
The point so far as Orwell was concerned was not death by impalement or drowning or the other deathly delights he mentions but attendance at meetings which, though beloved by bureaucrats, to Orwell and anyone else engaged in creative pursuits was a fate worse than death. For evidence and further details see A Life in Letters, p. 197”
Orwell at the BBC: Two Wasted Years? - orwellsociety.com/orwell-at…
Was up in London over the weekend and went to see the now not-very-new statue of George Orwell, at the BBC
I liked it very much - it reminded me of stylish comic artwork. I also liked the fact that he’s depicted ‘having a fag’
An amusing UK political story
The bloke who made it compulsory to bring photo id to your polling station got turned away today… because he’d forgotten his photo id
We had to vote for a Police and Crime Commissioner today.
It turns out every one of the candidates were for the former, and against the latter…so i voted on party lines
I’m slightly worried that Alfie Gilchrist is going to spontaneously combust at full time ⚽
📷 photoblogging challenge #mbapr - unputdownable
Somewhat negated by the fact that I have clearly put them down on the floor for the photo, but I think this might be the only book I’ve got two copies of - Dave Marsh’s The Heart of Rock and Soul
I really enjoyed all the hometown photos in the photoblogging challenge. Call me nosey, but it’s nice to get a sense of where everyone is. Thank you, everybody! #mbapr
This was my April, in #SketchNotes
From top left to bottom right
- Guinesses in the Wig and Quill 🍺
- studs in the Achilles ⚽
- first Old Sarum run of the year 🏃♀️
- slightly obsessed with Merlin - Shazam for birds
- coastal erosion artwork in the Close
- Wetherspoons and Toby in one day - yay, me!
- mishap with my tablets
- 3 goals in one evening
- marshalling in the rain
- took the dog in the car
- saw the boy play (and win!) a University game on Youtube 🏀
- More Christy - a Salisbury Christy Moore tribute band🎵
- Southampton vs Watford ⚽
- dog had a coughing fit, but OK now
📷 #mbapr photo-blogging challenge - hometown
I’m not 100% sure whether this is the photo I took, but if not it’s very similar.
The Giant and Hobnob show the oddness of my hometown, I think
🎙️ Podcast episode in which A.J. Jacobs tries, and largely fails,to live day without plastic
📷 #mbapr photo-blogging challenge - drift
I’ve got a vague feeling I’ve seen flowers like this described as a ‘drift’…bit perhaps that’s just snowdrops
#TodayILearned that ‘scarper’ is rhyming slang, derived from Scapa Flow, rhyming with ‘go’….at least according to the attached
Scapa Flow was naval base - it’s probably best known for the scuttling of the German fleet at the end of World War One
This podcast episode includes my favourite tale of quintessential British upper middle classness
A young Hugh Laurie asks whether his father can actually row before a boating expedition. It had not been mentioned before, not was it mentioned at the time, that his father had won a gold medal in the coxless pair event at the 1948 Olympics
I got a bit damp last night marshalling for the Salisbury Hospice Midnight Walk.Terrific event though- congratulations to everyone who did it
Only saw the last half hour, but that half hour was a great Chelsea performance ⚽
Karaoke doesn’t half make you appreciate professional singers 🎵
Football has come a long way since ‘Ron Manager’ ⚽
I “created an animation with my kids to explore how the mind works, emphasising emotion and intuition as life’s dominant forces.
The philosopher Jonathan Haidt uses the elephant and rider metaphor to illustrate this: the elephant represents our emotional, instinctive self, full of raw passion, while the rider symbolises our rational mind, often struggling to control this surge of emotions.”
Yes, data helped Grimsby to stay up but love and connection kept us going
This week the powers that be decided to stick with Ofsted’s 4-point scale of assessing schools - outstanding, good, requires improvement and inadequate
It’s still two points less than the food inspectors use to assess the hygiene of our local pub
Both are important, but you’d think schools need a bit more granularity than how the cleanliness of the pint glasses
I’ve been to the theatre a few times since COVID, but I’ve not really managed to get involved in the same way I used to, apart from pantomime, obviously, and one musical I saw
I think it’s partly that our local theatre has gone very ‘safe’, possibly for understandable commercial reason, and maybe partly because I started watching more telly during the pandemic
it’s a bit of a shame
I was standing just now next to someone who stank of cigarette smoke
I’ve never been a smoker, and I used to hate the smell, but for me it’s now like the smell of madelaines(?) was to Proust
There are days when the notion that exercise is good for you is totally counter-intuitive. This is one of them. ⚽
“Drummers are like hockey goalies. No-one knows how to talk to them apart from other drummers”
#TodayILearned how much of a drummer Karen Carpenter was
Word In Your Ear Is Karen Carpenter pop music’s saddest story?
