little bits of everything

A while ago I was washing up and I got a bit of washing up liquid in my mouth. (I was eating the scraps off on of the plates I'm ashamed to say.) They put a substance called Bitrex in some washing up liquid, because the fragrances they add make some smell like food. It has no smell, but is incredibly bitter and the taste remained in my mouth for the rest of the evening. I happened to finish a book  set before and during the First World War on Remembrance Day. Parts of it were like that tiny bit of Bitrex, one scene particularly so. However I can only imagine that for those living through it it must be like drinking cups of it every day. I remember a programme during 2007 when the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery was being marked when one person was a bit exasperated by the subject and just wanted to move on, rather than being reminded over and over what his ancestors had done. Well, yes and no, I thought. It's not the sort of thing that needs thinkin...

I'm reading The Unbearable Lightness of Scones  by Alexander McCall Smith (a great title), the fifth in the 44 Scotland Street series of novels. It was originally published in The Scotsman , each short chapter a day. I'm enjoying it immensely, more than the previous one , the first one in this series which I've read. I think it's partly because I'm more familiar with the characters, and also because I was slightly distracted by the blurb in the other book which mentioned a minor plot point which I waited for ages to arrive. I think the blurb writer, given the intertwined nature of the stories and the lack of major plot points, seized on something to mention which actually was one of loads of details in the life of a character. He writes in the introduction: The story has numerous plots; characters drift in and out; some matters are unresolved; strange things happen. In short, a serial novel is particularly well-suited to the depiction of the shape of real life, ...

When I was at the University of York I had a show on University Radio York  (aka URY). (This fact has earned me some cool points with my children.) I had two hours on a Saturday morning to fill. I found it quite hard to fill the show. If you wonder why, then try and think what it must be like to find 30 tracks you like, when you're only 20, and in the days before the Internet. One of the tricks I'd do was to find an album with a song I knew on it, play that song, and pick another half decent track on the same album - only one album to lug around then. Anyway, the reason I'm posting this is because out of curiosity at the weekend I thought I'd see if it was mentioned on wikipedia, and it was. Not only that, the picture above could almost be me. It was taken around the time I was there, I wore a cool jumper with shoulder pads like that (except mine had a zip down the front). The only way I could convince my children it wasn't me was by pointing out I don't like ...

Smell is the most powerful sense when it comes to evoking memories. (Feel free to dig out the research references for this statement.) On the way home this evening I smelt smoke and it brought back memories - all good ones. One of the oldest memories is of stubble fires. Kate Bush put it in the song Never Be Mine: The smell of burning fields Will now mean you and here For me it brings back childhood memories of long rows of smoke and flame. It's not very common these days, which is understandable, but it's a shame because there's something quite exciting about a whole field on fire. Once I helped someone clear trees and bushes from some land they'd bought so they could build themselves a house. The fire was struggling, but I managed to coax it into life and we burnt lots of wood. When we first moved into our current house there were some Leylandii trees in the garden. I hate that variety for various reasons, and so I set about getting rid of them. The first stag...

You can spot them because they often carry two sheets of sticky labels. One is blank, to cover up spurious apostrophes that they find, such as at the greengrocer's stall at the market. The other contains apostrophes which are inserted where they are missing, often at banks: Barclay's, Lloyd's TSB, and supermarkets: Tesco's, Morrison's. However the world of guerilla pedants is a divided one. Although they all share the same standard when it comes to English as she is spoke and written, they lack a similar benchmark when it comes to communities. The Pedant's Society was torn apart (soon after their triumphant Millenium Party held on the 31 December 2000) by argument and a separate Pedants' Society was formed (both are correct). The guerilla pedants, although sharing a common need to put the written word to rights, are not united in the tactics. There are those who think that if people only ever see correct English they will absorb it and only produce it ...

I've been thinking about buying the domain paulmorriss.com and setting up a website for a while. I had a bit of money for my birthday that would cover it. I was hesitant though, because it was a bit like work, as well as being a bit fun too. What tipped me over the edge was when our old family page hosted by freeserve.co.uk, now Orange, got deleted because I hadn't dialled up in a while. Normally when this happens I reactivate it, but it was such a long time they'd deleted it. So I went and set up paulmorriss.com . One of the choices was which hosting company to use. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on it, as I wasn't going to spend a lot of time on it, and I found a company that let me pay for a tiny amount of webspace at a reasonable rate - asmallorange - "silly name, serious hosting". So now I've got my own home on the internet. It needs a bit of decorating though.

My todo list says "do nothing" I'm scheduling some spontaneity I'm diarising some dallying I'm planning some pleasure My time will be down My outcomes are enjoyment My KPIs are ice-creams and sandcastles The silicon will be on the beach The chips will have salt and vinegar on them