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Coracle!
I’ve been in London for the weekend and one of the joys of visiting is a chance to see my niece Katherine.
She’s currently in the middle of a project and is building a coracle in her flat in Bermondsey.
Picture courtesy of Katherine Midgley Like other vessels covered by a membrane stretched over a frame, coracles are an ancient form of water craft. The use of coracles in Britain was noted by Julius Caesar on the occasion of his invasion of Britain in 55 BCE.
The etymology of coracle is from the Welsh corwgl, which is in turn related to Irish curach, meaning a boat.
Although an ancient form of craft, coracles have still found working uses up to the present day. For instance, for many years until 1979, Shrewsbury coracle maker Fred Davies achieved some notability amongst football fans; he would sit in his coracle during Shrewsbury Town FC home matches at their old riverside ground of Gay Meadow and retrieve stray balls from the River Severn. His coracle was last heard of in the National Football Museum.
Coracles are difficult to manoeuvre as they are unstable due to their sitting “on” that water. In addition, coracles can easily be carried by currents and the wind. Nevertheless, let’s hope the maiden voyage is recorded for posterity.
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After the book and film, the HTML colo(u)r chart
There’s been a lot of interest in the media in recent days over the impending release of the film of E.L. James’ 2011 erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey.
Following hard on the heels of the media interest, comes the HTML colo(u)r* chart.
If you need to pick colours for web pages, fonts and the like, the W3C has a handy picker.
* In HTML American spellings – e.g. color, center – are used.
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Another sign of spring
Following on from last weekend’s catkins (posts passim), another sign of spring has just emerged: the croci (or crocuses) have burst into flower in the pocket park in Chaplin Road, Easton. On a bright, sunny day the flowers shine like beacons.
Although not native to the British Isles, crocus sativus, the saffron crocus, has long been cultivated for the spice saffron.
Indeed, such cultivation has given rise to some place names. For starters, there’s Saffron Walden in Essex, as well as Croydon in the sprawl of Greater London.
As regards the latter, the theory accepted by most philologists is that the name Croydon derives originally from the Anglo-Saxon croh, meaning “crocus”, and denu, “valley”, indicating that it was a centre for the cultivation of saffron. It has been argued that this cultivation is likely to have taken place in the Roman period, when the saffron crocus would have been grown to supply the London market, most probably for medicinal purposes, and particularly for the treatment of granulation of the eyelids.
The croci shown above are not saffron crocus, but are still a welcome sight. On a sunny day the air inside the flower cup of the crocus is said to be some degrees warmer than the surrounding air, making it a welcome place to visit for early pollinating insects.
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Red card offence?
Not being a regular reader of the sports pages, particularly not the football coverage, I’m indebted to Redvee once again for the screenshot below of an excerpt from yesterday’s Bristol Post report of the League One (that’s the Third Division in old money. Ed.) match between MK Dons and Bristol City FC.
Isn’t defecating on the pitch a red card offence? 😉 Besides this, his excrement might have hit spectators behind the goal…
The article has since been corrected.
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Greenwash Capital moves to non-existent website
In a new move Bristol City Council has started advertising websites for non-existent domains as part of its tenure as European Green Capital 2015.
I’m indebted to Redvee for the photograph below.
Not only does the solar park itself not exist, neither does the domain shown on the sign, as a simple whois search reveals.
I wonder how much money has been wasted on the publicity for a non-existent solar park and its accompanying (and equally non-existent) website.
Would anyone from Bristol City Council care to comment?
Update 02/02/2015: a subsequent whois search today revealed that the domain in question was registered by a PR person working for Bristol City Council this morning and that the registrant contact details are currently awaiting validation.
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Watch out, there’s an apostrophe thief about!
Seen in The Galleries, Bristol.
Bristols (noun, plural): English rhyming slang for breasts.
Bristol’s (possessive): from, of or pertaining to Bristol, a city in the west of England.
There’s obviously an apostrophe thief abroad in central Bristol. Could it be a greengrocer looking for fresh supplies (posts passim)? 😉
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Hello subvertising
Spotted in Day’s Road, The Dings, Bristol.
Subvertising (noun), a portmanteau of subvert and advertising.
Definition: The practice of making parodies of corporate and political advertisements in order to make an ironic statement.
Oxymoron (noun), (plural) -mora.
Definition: (rhetoric) an epigrammatic effect, by which contradictory terms are used in conjunction.
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Introducing the biometric wireless keyboard powered by keystrokes
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the USA are behind a project to develop a wireless keyboard powered by keystrokes, Le Monde Informatique reports. The force generated by the fingers can produce enough electrical current for a wireless connection. To convert mechanical energy into electricity, the researchers applied a coating which acts as an electrode on keystrokes. The small electrical charged produced is stored in a lithium-ion battery which powers the interface wirelessly.However, during their work, the researchers have thought of another use which could have a much wider impact. Over 100 volunteer testers typed the word “touch” on the keyboard and a software package collected data on the pressure exerted on the keys and measured the time interval between each stroke. It proved to be that these measurements are particular to each individual. By using signals analysis techniques, they identified touch patterns unique to individuals with a low error rate to achieve a kind of biometric authentication.
A marketable product in 2 years
In a telephone call, Professkr Zhong Li Wang of the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech, stated that these patterns enable a “unique personal measurement” to be defined.
This keyboard, which uses standard materials, would be cheap to develop, Professor Wang stressed. The keys are not mechanical, but made up of transparent films stacked vertically to produce electricity. His team is still working on making the keyboard more reliable, but he believes this product could be marketed in just under two years. What happens if a person breaks a finger or changes his typing rhythm? Professor Wang states that a second authentication mechanism is a definite requirement.
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No sexual partners in Wigan?
So far my experience of Wigan has been as the home of Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls and the birthplace of George Formby, as well as a stop on the railway journey up to my sister’s home in Darwen.
It now seems that Wigan has another claim to fame: no sexual partners are available there if there’s any credence behind the front page from the Wigan Evening Post shown below. 😉
The details of this attempted coupling can also be read on Wigan Today.
Hat tip: Morna Simpson
