A colleague over here in Oxford pointed me at a BBC TV program about English people emigrating to Australia. Yesterday’s episode was about a couple who are thinking of moving to Adelaide - so at time of writing you can still watch this online at BBC One.
Jon Mills is desperate to persuade his wife Mandi […]
I’ve been helping out the Wall Street Journal’s “Numbers Guy” again, with some samples of the data I’m working on. This time he wanted to know about changes in the use of the phrase “tipping point”, and to compare this with other, similar phrases:
‘Tipping Point’ Takes Off
“The Tipping Point” is the title of a Malcolm […]
In Arabic class yesterday, we learnt the word for “student”. It is:
طالِب
talib
Someone asked if this was related to the word “taliban”. Our teacher thought for a moment, then told us that yes, “taliban” is a Pashtun derivative, meaning two male students.
Not in a gay way, of course.
Sometimes it is good to recognise your limitations. And sometimes it is good not to recognise your limitations.
Did you know?
The word identity comes from the Latin denti, meaning “teeth”.
The Romans discovered, through their rituals of cremating the dead, that the teeth were the one part of the body which survived physical obliteration. (Forensic scientists still make use of this fact today, establishing the identity of victims in terrible disasters by collecting and […]
I have been reading The Bottom Billion, by Paul Collier, about how the poorest countries in the world can improve their situation.
In the first place, Collier deserves the praise he has received for this book, as it is a serious effort to make the world a better place. He presents a largely original analysis of […]
I went and saw this at the cinema last night. It totally surpassed my expectations.
I had thought this film might be a bit silly, or somewhat schmaltzy. But in the event it was absolutely dreadful.
Spaz Luhrmann should have his citizenship revoked.
Over the last couple of weeks or two I have really been noticing a specifically male phenomenon: confusing conversation with information.
Some guys have a habit of constantly interjecting in conversation to air whatever knowledge they have on the topic at hand. It is an almost exclusively male habit - I wonder why? Maybe, like so […]