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20. THE NUMBERS GAME
17/12/2020
Downing Street, Pelé, Diego Armando Maradona, the basis of the metric system, fingers and toes, scores and ratings. 10 is a bit of a common denominator for the way we organise things, and often a number synonymous in sport with the 'playmaker'. To wear the number 10 shirt somehow sets one apart. The death of a genius on 25 November got me thinking....
When it comes to measuring intelligence, Stephen Hawking's opinion was that "people who boast about their I.Q. are losers" - yet you'd be hard-pressed to find an interview which doesn't identify him as a genius or other similar label. In recent decades, conceptions of intelligence have come to encompass diverse but connected elements such as...
18. LIFE IN THE SECOND WAVE
20/10/2020
Whether it's a matter of jumping on the bandwagon or not, Spotify recognises the new norm, working from home, and has compiled 186 tracks to help you through the day(s): Work from Home with British Classics. Starting with a 44-second divertimento for flute, oboe and clarinet, a kind of classical wake-up jingle, and ending with a 30-minute trumpet...
As long ago as the fourth century BC, Aristotle observed that "man is, by nature, a social animal." It's no surprise then that so many of our most significant inventions - from the telegram in 1792 to the email in 1971 - have been in the pursuit of easier contact over great distances. Today's social media can be considered the...
'Big Brother is watching you' - familiar to readers of George Orwell's post-war dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and viewers of the TV reality show 'Big Brother'. As we noted in our blog on the language of Brexit, new terms like these have a tendency to seep into everyday conversation via current events. Who knows, fuelled by a growing...
15. THE GHOST BETWEEN THE LINES
21/07/2020
What do Mozart, H.P. Lovecraft and Jay-Z have in common? In addition to (and perhaps in spite of) the popularity and influence of their main works, all three have engaged in ghostwriting: the act of producing a work which is officially credited to another individual.
The opening salvo of a revolutionary comedy series that began as a cult but whose impact reverberated around the globe to become an icon that influenced comedy for the next 50 years, and still does today. Yes, it's ... Monty Python's Flying Circus! Why so current after all this time?
Even 'the patron saint of translation' got it wrong sometimes. Jerome of Stridon - most famous for supposedly removing a thorn from a lion's paw - was a fourth century linguist who set about translating the Bible into Latin from the original Hebrew. As a second-language speaker, he failed to grasp that the Hebrew word for a horn was...
