Category: Uncategorized

  • Communities

    There are different kinds of attitudes in communities. In one, the members see the others as a springboard to success but do not care about whether the others are successful.

    In others, there is an attitude of mutual care, where success mean success for everyone and where the individuals don’t even consider success outside of a common success.

    For that to happen, everyone has to be responsible for everyone else such that each member knows that all of the others ‘have their back’ so to speak.

  • The Etymology Of Rampage

    From Etymonline

    Rampage (v)

    “rage or storm about,” 1715, in Scottish, probably from Middle English verb ramp “rave, rush wildly about” (c. 1300), especially of beasts rearing on their hind legs, as if climbing, from Old French ramper (see ramp (v.), also see rampant). Related: Rampaged; rampaging.

    A huge untamed beast on its hind legs, an unnatural stance, reaching beyond what Nature has given it, stretching upwards to reach out wildly and destructively in its unhappiness.

  • Bedridden

    Mid-14c., from late Old English bæddrædæn meaning ‘bedridden,’ the adjective from bedreda – a bedridden man, literally ‘bedrider’ from bed and reda (riding).

    Picture a man riding a bed.

  • Macaws

    Macaws are a type of parrot. They are recognisable from the patch of bare skin that covers their faces and usually reaches the base of their beaks. Some macaws have narrow lines of feathers on this patch. Macaws are also recognisable by their distinctive, long, tapering tails.

  • Rowland Morgan

    The Guardian has a section where people can contribute an obituary for a deceased person they knew. Usually it is a partner, brother, sister, etc. The person being remembered will have had some quality that brought them to the public eye.

    This one from Gerald Morgan the brother of Rowland Morgan caught my eye. Rowland Morgan was a journalist who had a column named Digitations in the Guardian in the 1990s where he wrote about ‘facts’. For example:

    British Telecom’s scrap tyres each year would form a column 44 times the height of the London BT Tower.

    Henry VIII had an average of five enemies a day executed.

    Henry reigned for 36 years, so that’s 5x365x36 = 65,700 people that he had executed over his reign, give or take.