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Continue reading →: Tricks of the Trade
It’s always a good idea to watch a professional at work. My evening class was taught by a professional artist, Chris Dearden, an abrasive character from Huddersfield who moved to Northern Ireland in 1973. I had hoped to pick up a few tips on watercolour painting, and the evening did…
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Continue reading →: What’s in a word?
I was listening to the radio this morning when the word palimpsest cropped up in a conversation about Tory canvassing in Yorkshire. This is one of those words that I thought I had probably heard before, but never troubled to look up in the dictionary. The context in which it was used…
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Continue reading →: Creative Marketing of AK47
The Guardian newspaper reports that an AK47 is being offered as a top prize by Al-Qaida to young Yemenis entering a quiz. Second prize is a motorbike and third prize a laptop. Knowledge of the Koran is de rigeur and completed quiz forms can be handed in to your local…
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Continue reading →: A song for Europeans
National anthems can be rousing songs to stir the citizens to action. The French have their Marseillaise, the Germans their Deutchland über Alles, and we British have God Save the Queen. The lyrics to those anthems can be a bit triumphalistic, referring to past military prowess. Reminding current generations that nationhood sometimes…
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Continue reading →: Voice Projection
I must have very sensitive hearing. There are some noises that I find particularly irritating, such as a gaggle of people excitedly talking drivel at the tops of their voices, car drivers tooting their horns at passing pedestrians, camels hissing, peacocks squawking and drunken yobs chanting anything at all. As a…
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Continue reading →: Stuff about blogging and search engines
I am amazed at the search functions available online. Google is top dog, of course, but let’s not forget Bing, Ask and other more specialist search engines. Refining your search requires familiarity with the syntax that will get you what you want. Some tips about Google searching can be found…
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Continue reading →: Anti Smoking
As a former smoker, I am now very much against the idea that smokers have a right to pollute the air of others in enclosed spaces. That said, I don’t mind sitting outside a pub and breathing in the occasional whiff of tobacco smoke. Anti smoking posters range from the informative to…
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Continue reading →: Armenia
As Europe veers to the right it is worth remembering past atrocities carried out by authoritarian regimes in the last century or so. The Ottoman Turkish regime carried out the mass killing of Armenians, a fact that the Turkish government disputes to this day. There were approximately 2 million Armenians living…
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