I was taught English at school by the novelist Christopher Rush. He had a habit of taking deep sniffs of any old books he happened to have down off the shelf. His claim was that he could tell by the smell of each one which Edinburgh second-hand bookshop he'd bought it in.
"The change you deserve" is the slogan for Effexor. The republicans will have to come up with something else, which is perhaps a good thing if Hamlet was right:
"Treat each man as he deserves, and who shall 'scape whipping?"
Good article. I knew one guy who had a sign pinned to the wall above his desk. It just said 'remember the Therac 25'.
Good advice.
Ginger @8,
Apparently Napier didn't actually say it. The magazine Punch put the words in his mouth in a cartoon. Snopes has something on this here, and for those with access to JStor there's a serious academic paper on the subject here.
Ginger,
Charles Napier beat you to that one by 165 years. His was a double pun: he'd acted against orders in conquering the province.
'Gobstoppers' is a poor choice of word for these tlonian items. Gobstoppers (large round hard candies) were well-known sweets in Britain long before Dahl mentioned them in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. I don't know when they first appeared, but a character in Pat Barker's Regeneration (set in the 14-18 war) refers to them.
The glass is falling hour by hour;
The glass will fall forever.
But if you break the bloody glass,
You won't hold up the weather.
Stephen Donaldson is still going on the Third Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.
Lord Foul's Bane was 1977. The second of four books in the third chronicles (Fatal Revenant) will appear later this year, but the third and fourth are yet to be completed.
John,
That's interesting. I'd always heard it spoken of as a pint - as in the famous Hancock episode I quoted. I wonder whether that was always incorrect or whether there was a change at some point.
I used to be able to give blood no problem, but after nearly passing out each of the last three times, they asked me not to come back. The annoying thing is that I nearly manage to fill the bag, but they have to stop before I get there.
This is in the UK, where a pint is 568ml - very nearly an armful, as a wise man once said.
Charlie,
Actually uttered by an Edinburgh landlord: 'Fuck me you fucking fuckers! You've fucking fucked the fucking place!'
It had been a good party...
First attempt at this.
Some Philolsophy:
R3n3 D3sc@z: I can has apple?
YES
R3n3 D3sc@z: Apple has a flavour?
YES
R3n3 D3sc@z: Oh Noes! Evil Dem0n!
R3n3 D3sc@z: Ping World
WORLD AFK
R3n3 D3sc@z: Ping body
BODY AFK
R3n3 D3sc@z: Do not want!
R3n3 D3sc@z: thinks
R3n3 D3sc@z: ping self
Self: ohai
R3n3 D3sc@z: ping God
God: ohai
R3n3 D3sc@z: evil demon pwned
R3n3 D3sc@z: ping world
world: ohai
R3n3 D3sc@z: ping body
body: ohai
R3n3 D3sc@z: kthxbai
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