Monthly Archives: July 2002

people who can count

count for more than people who can’t. Rupert, for example, worked out for me how much bigger are the pits in CD than the bases on a string of DNA. It turns out that, if both were the same size, … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Worms | 3 Comments

one good man

is unhappy about the choice of Rowan Williams for Canterbury: my freind Angus, who is as decent an honourable as anyone I know. But his wife is on holiday this week, and it disconcerts him to hear the radio going … Continue reading Continue reading

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more global fame

Your questions aswered by an expert. Continue reading

Posted in God | 2 Comments

Do you hate all Jews?

A question asked of Gary Trudeau in the feedback to his Doonesbury site. I especially like the idea that anyone who laughs at Shrub has blood on his hands. It’s as enlightening as being instructed by Waggy Jim that it … Continue reading Continue reading

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snot green

The phrase turned up in my search requests this morning; I don’t know why, since I couldn’t find myself in Google on the subject. I did, however, find this list of colours for boy’s dolls. Continue reading

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Remember googlewhacking?

Sex in vegetables works. Actually, I was wondering where fruitless plants have their seeds: once they’ve been pollinated, where do the seeds appear? I still don’t know. Continue reading

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The new new cuisine

I came on this fragment of a transcript when I was working this morning. AC is Alan Coulson, at the Sanger Centre, who probably knows more about the extraction of DNA than any man alive. “John” is Sir John Sulston. … Continue reading Continue reading

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homonyms

When it says on my resume that I used to be the chief reporter for the Spectator, it doesn’t mean this one. Heteronym isn’t the right word, either, though it’s groping in the right direction. Continue reading

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a needed word

We have hyperbole. But what about the complement of the process, in which a word gradually loses all its force as a result of constant overuse? Awesome, brilliant, classic, original …. all these suffer from hypobole. Continue reading

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awesome

I love that word: it’s the Californian for “brilliant” and suffers from equal Hypobole. If Fred Sanger were to offer the right change in the market in Saffron Walden, he’d be told he was “Brilliant”; walking through a drugstore parking … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Software | Comments Off on awesome