Category Archives: Uncategorized

Workouts

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I am happy to welcome rhinofitnessonline to my blog.  I have not written anything fitness-related as yet, except my layman’s guide to dieting, but I am a regular visitor to my local gym and I do try to keep in shape.

My big enemy is boredom.  I can handle the pain of pumping iron and the like, but I get bored easily.  I know this is a problem for other people too, so I will share with the world my own tricks for overcoming it.

  • First, I role-play.  When I’m lifting weights I become Rocky Balboa.  When I’m on the rowing machine I’m in the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.  On the cross-trainer I’m walking uphill through the snow to rescue a tipsy St Bernard.
  • Second, I have targets and personal records to beat.  This applies mainly to the rowing machine.  My target is to row 500m within 2 minutes 20 seconds; my record is 2 minutes 9 seconds.
  • Third, I vary my routine.  Every so often I drop one of my regular exercises and try something new.
  • Fourth, I have something specific to think about while I’m exercising.  I’m writing a book at the moment* so I use my gym-time to work out the next twist in the plot.

I also made a rule that I eat chocolate only on gym-days.  That helps if I’m tempted to skip a day.

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*  Actually a trilogy, of which the first book is called ‘Eeks’. It will be published as an e-book very soon.

Anthropocene

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Have you heard of the International Commission on Stratigraphy, ICS to its friends?  Neither had I until I read an article by Ian Sample in the Guardian Weekly.  The ICS decides the names and dates of the geological eras, periods, epochs and ages, most of whose names we are aware of without necessarily knowing when they started and finished, or even what they mean.  We know there were dinosaurs during the Jurassic period.  We are now in the Cenozoic era, the Quaternary period and the Holocene epoch.  You hadn’t noticed?  Tch tch.

Apparently there’s a great debate going on about the word ‘Anthropocene’, coined by Dutch chemist and Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen in 2000.  This has now entered the language, referring to the period during which human activity is the dominant shaper of the planet.

The ICS has not officially endorsed it.  But I think the horse (which appeared in the Tertiary period) has bolted.  Dragging it back into the stable would be like trying to persuade people that ‘data’ is plural.

Roundism

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Well, it’s nearly time stay up late and open a new diary.  The Earth is about to complete another orbit.  But it’s no big deal because the new year doesn’t end in ’00’ or even ‘0’.

Why are we so hung up on round numbers?  It’s not just about years and birthdays.  Some people won’t buy a car unless the registration number ends in at least one zero.  Mrs SG and I bought a house partly because it had a telephone number ending in two of them.  If I write a report and make 19 recommendations, I look for a way to split one of the recommendations into two, so I’ll have a nice round 20 in my list.

It’s daft!  And it makes me stroppy that I fall for it just as much as anyone else.

Here’s a thought for any other economists who are reading this.  If we spend more on presents and celebrations when a round number is involved, how much money would be saved if we used a duodecimal counting system instead of decimal?

 

Crackers

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Five days ago I heard someone refer to a Christmas cracker as a bonbon, and a wave of nostalgia hit me.  That’s what my mother called them in the distant past in England.  I remember being surprised to learn that ‘bonbon’ was French for a sweet – as in confectionery.  I suppose the original crackers contained sweets, instead of the toys and jokes we now expect.

And that brings me to the point of this post.  I have the impression that the toys are getting much better.  If I am right, is this a sign that Chinese manufacturing standards in general are improving rapidly?

It calls to mind the transition that Japan made in the 1960s and 70s, from being a maker of cheap crap to having a reputation for quality on a par with Germany’s.  If China is on a similar trajectory, the rest of us will have to lift our game if we want anything to bear a stamp other than ‘Made in China’.

On the other hand, I think the jokes are getting worse.  Does anyone out there agree with me?

 

Apostrophes

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Oh, ye greengrocers!  Hang up thy marker-pens, and then hang down thy heads!

That’s an example of apostrophe: a rhetorical device wherein a person or group is addressed in an exclamatory passage.  But the word also applies to the little curly mark that signifies either a possessive (the cat’s whiskers) or missing letters (you can’t or you won’t?).

I was moved to write this post, unfairly to the great majority of greengrocers I’m sure, by a brilliant 5-minute film that my friend Ron sent me today.  There are subtitles, and it was the appearance of a rogue greengrocer’s apostrophe* in one of those subtitles that made me stroppy.

Even so, it’s a really good film so I’ll share it with you.  Here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/embed/WR8tIjTykbE

 

*  That is, an apostrophe that’s incorrectly inserted before a pluralising S, as in “Banana’s $2.99/kg”.

J’accusative

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What is so hard about distinguishing between the nominate and accusative cases?!  How can people with even a slight knowledge of good English literature say things like “Me and the wife went to the flicks last night.”  Have we ever heard the Queen start a speech with “Me and the Duke went to Africa this year…”?

And the same people mess up the other way round as well.  Even on the radio people say “Between you and I” and…  I won’t go on.  You can compile your own list of appalling howlers.  I’m already working myself into a dangerous state of stroppiness.  I will sit quietly and contemplate split infinitives.  That usually calms me.

Trip Advisor

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I have to share this news…  I have my Trip Advisor Reviewer badge!  It is a Passport badge, because I am so well travelled.  How does Trip Advisor know that I am well travelled?  Because I wrote a review of a B&B in St. Austell and a review of the Eden Project.

Mrs SG and I were travelling by rental car in Devon and Cornwall a couple of months ago – we can’t afford trains any more – and finding B&Bs as and where we could at the close of each day.  We discovered some interesting facts…

First, British B&Bs are very expensive these days: around GBP100 for a double in St. Ives, which could be why the man with seven wives was coming back.  Why is that?  Only 50 years ago you could stay at a B&B anywhere for between 6/- and 15/- a night.  Half-a-guinea was pretty normal, which was about 3% of the average weekly wage.  Now you’re lucky to get away with GBP30, which is about 5%.  True, you get an en-suite bathroom and a flat-screen TV now, but do those fripperies really justify such a hefty hike?

Second, Trip Advisor has replaced the AA as the arbiter of quality.  Every B&B has a certificate on the wall or even a metal plate beside the front door.  That’s why I’m so proud of my new badge!

English Language: Obscenities

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I remember when the word “bloody” caused refined ladies to call for their smelling salts.  Now %?&/ and @!\# are commonplace, and &?*# is the only word left with power to shock.

What makes me stroppy is our failure to agree on when it’s OK to use these words in print; when we have to use asterisks and ampersands; and when we should give the reader a clue by supplying the initial letter.  I’ve even seen different treatments in the same edition of the same newspaper.

Why can’t the editors of the world get together and agree on a standard?!  To save money, they could share the conference facilities with the electricians when they agree on a universal power socket.

English Language: Semicolons

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There was a nice line in a film – I forget which one.  A woman says, “He’s so unromantic, he even puts semicolons in his love letters.”  Words to that effect, anyway.

In an age where even commas and full-stops are considered expendable, and the possessive apostrophe is a threatened species, I still like to have the semicolon as an option.  It’s like having a .38 calibre pistol, for those occasions when a .45 would be overkill but a .32 just wouldn’t do the job.

What do you think?

English Language: Plurals

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When I started blogging I thought, “I mustn’t moan too much about people’s misuse of the English language; that’s so boring and I’ll offend too many people.”

But what’s “too much”?  I do get awfully stroppy when people use plural words as though they were singular: “criteria” and “data” for example.  “Opera” is a lost cause – except, I suppose, among members of Opus Dei.