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The etymology dictionary says that ‘dote’ dates from around the year 1200 and meant to behave irrationally, do foolish things, be or become silly or deranged. That fits with the modern use of ‘dotage’ but in modern English the word ‘dote’ means to give someone a lot of love and attention, to try to satisfy their needs.

‘Hyraceum’, a popular ingredient used in perfume, is fossilized hyrax urine that has collected on rocks (from the Longleat guide)

Reported in The Week, 28 May 2022, page 6.

The number of men and women getting married has fallen to a new low, according to the Office for National Statistics. In 2019, 219,850 couples married in England and Wales, the fewest since 1893. Just one in five couples had a religious ceremony. The average age of the newlyweds reached a record high, of 32.3 years for women and 34.3 for men.

On a recent trip to the West of England by car I counted these dead animals by the roadside – FOUR dead deer. FIVE dead badgers. That is just me at the times I was there. What are the totals in a week, in a month, in a year, every year?

The obituary for William Hurt in The Week mentioned that he suffered from logorrhoea.

It is: Elated or irritable mood, disinhibition and recklessness (social, sexual, financial), pressured speech, flight of ideas (rapidly jumping between tenuously related topics), grandiose delusions, and mood-congruent auditory hallucinations indicate an acute manic episode.

That sounds like manic depressive behaviour without the depression.

Over the past few days I have listened to several versions of Rachmaninoff’s Elegie op.3 No.1. That includes the version played by Rachmaninoff himself. Naturally, that recording is quite old, so the full richness of the piano as an instrument doesn’t come through like it can with modern recording. Tonight, because it appeared in the sidebar on YouTube I listened to the version by Alexey Botvinov, and almost from the first note I thought it was good and was going to be good. And it is good – and he is a wonderful pianist.

Here is the link to the video on YouTube

So then I wanted to know more about the man, because I have never heard of him before. That is not a big surprise because there are many pianists and others that I have not heard of. And this is his bio – or some of it from Concert-Media

Alexey Botvinov is an exceptional pianist in our time. The most famous Ukrainian pianist, Botvinov is one of the best specialists in Rachmaninoff music worldwide. Botvinov is the only pianist who performed Bach’s „Goldberg Variations“ more than 300 times on stage. He performed in over 45 countries.