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{ Category Archives } Miscellaneous

Three Little Pigs

I am hopeless on nursery rhymes. I guess I never learnt them as a child. Here as a public service is one: This is taken from published 1886 “collected chiefly from oral tradition”, three years before James Halliwell’s death in early 1889 (so it is now out of copyright). The reason for this sudden foray [...]

More sham apologies

I first took an interest in this topic when banking chiefs started parading before the Treasury Select Committee three years ago. I returned to it when Richard Williamson apologised to the pope shortly afterwards. Recently, claims Christina Patterson in today’s i, sham apologies have been coming thick and fast. Her main concern was l’affaire PIP. [...]

Foxy Knoxy

[The location of Perugia for those whose geography is as hopeless as mine! From GoogleMaps] [Photo of Meredith Kercher released by police] Meredith Kercher (21), a British student from London on an exchange visit to Perugia, was murdered on 1 November 2007. She shared a flat in the Via Pergola with Amanda Knox (then 20) [...]

National Lottery

The UK National Lottery’s main game, Lotto, requires you to pick 6 distinct numbers from 1-49. You pay £1 for each such entry. At the draw, 7 distinct numbers are drawn, the last being the “bonus” number. To get a prize you must match at least 3 of the main numbers. The prize types are: [...]

Police too timid to enter dark park?

The headline in the Daily Express sounds amazing. Have the Cambridgeshire police really been instructed not to enter a park where local yobs are causing trouble after dark, because they cannot see well enough? Is this the ultimate Health & Safety absurdity? Well not quite. The reports are about Waterlees Park in Wisbech. Apparently, nearby [...]