I learnt today that a pitchfork isn’t called a pitchfork because you use it to pitch hay onto a hay cart, it’s called a pitchfork because it’s pointy and you poke it into the hay. That’s what pitch meant originally. This might not have a great bearing on the hi-tech digital world you live in but I thought I’d mention it because the cricket season is just around the corner.

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If you’ve ever tried your hand at fine cabinet making, you’ll be familiar with the router. It’s a clever electrical tool for cutting very uniform, patterned, grooves in wood. I mention this because my friend Nick recently took delivery of one by mistake – you could say it had been misrouted – and, being a drummer, he immediately set about demolishing his shed.
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On Monday I was packing up old toner cartridges for recycling and one of the little sods, despite having declared itself empty (long before emitting anything like the 400 or so pages worth of ink that it claimed to), managed to muster a final squirt of magenta to smudge on my jumper. That’s the reward I get for being planet conscious.
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I was reading the label on a bag of basmati rice the other night, just to pass the time as I was gliding up the escalator at Sainsbury’s, when I noticed that it said ‘Net weight: 5kg e’. I’m sure that when I was a boy, the word was written ‘nett’, not ‘net’, so I started rummaging through my bags, looking at labels to see if any of them were still spelling it the old-fashioned way. (more…)

This Sunday – in case you need reminding – is one of the most significant days in the calendar. A day when we put selfish issues aside and celebrate one of the great constants in our lives. I’m talking, of course, about Pi Day. (more…)

Don’t you just love an apocryphal tale? When it comes to the origin of popular sayings, you can hardly move for them. This week brought the first sighting of a newt in my garden pond. It’s always an exciting moment when something other than a cat or a bird happens across my natural habitat but there was something particularly poignant about the arrival of this newt, coming as it did at a time of national fixation with getting back to the pub. (more…)

Don’t you just love an apocryphal tale? When it comes to the origin of popular sayings, you can hardly move for them. This week brought the first sighting of a newt in my garden pond. It’s always an exciting moment when something other than a cat or a bird happens across my natural habitat but there was something particularly poignant about the arrival of this newt, coming as it did at a time of national fixation with getting back to the pub. (more…)

There aren’t many TV ads that move me these days, other than to throw a brick at the telly, of course, but one that always makes me smile is Snoop Dogg’s Just Eat commercial. For the first time possibly since mash got Smash, here’s an ad that’s got style, humour and poetry. (more…)

To sing or not to sing? That is the question. And for 60% of us, the answer is “not to sing”. Why? Because we can’t. (more…)

If you were a potato (and that’s a big ‘if’), how would you want to be cooked? This question cropped up today in one of those high-level strategic planning meetings and I have to say I’m still struggling to decide. (more…)