Kitchen equipment aids English lesson
Wednesday 11 March, London
📌 Hilarious posting in Quora from Terence Kreft, who asks:
Do they have ground beef in England? Why do they call it mince?
The answer, which I note has been upvoted by Clive Anderson, is:
Two questions:-
1. Do they have ground beef in England?
Yes, but it’s called mince in England.
2. Why do they call it mince?
I’m glad you asked me that. What you call ground beef in the US is produced using a meat grinder, which in a kitchen may look like this…
In the UK we use a meat mincer, which looks like this…
Oh, erm, right.
📌 Ollie the female cat owned by funnyman Ricky Gervais and partner Jane Fallon, has died, passed away, gone claws up.
Fallon adds beneath this posting: “I have no idea what I’m going to do without her by my side. #Ollie”
📌 The Conversation has an essay with the headline “Five things people think they know about English grammar that make absolutely no sense”.
Hard not to click on that. And if you want to know the difference between the two meanings of the word “can” (the ability and the permissive) it’s your go-to lunchtime read.
📌 In the Education Centre at the Guardian, the Year 12 group are more in love with alliteration than they are with meaning.
One pair were doing a story about turtles mistaking plastic rubbish for their next meal.
And so hungry for alliteration were these two 16-year-olds that they couldn’t even decide what the subject of the story was. Plastic pollution, turtles or the smell of turtle prey resembling that of plastic crap thrown into the sea?
I got them to start the headline with the word “turtles”, considered it a major leap forward in teenage literacy, and moved on to another desk.
📌 In the Archive, Ryan was indexing some old Don McPhee negatives from the Govan shipyard on the River Clyde. The ones of a ship launch were very special.
On my way out of the Guardian, I got some shots of the typographical posters that used to be on display in reception at the old 119 Farringdon Road offices.
And at Kings Cross St Pancras the external lift opposite the station was at the top floor.
📌 Got a call from Specsavers in Tottenham Court Road to say the glasses I deposited with them two weeks ago for new lenses are not ready because they accidentally broke the frames.
They want me to OK the free-of-charge replacement frames before they order them.
📌 Angelina just sent me this joke BBC news bulletin intro.
And Sadiq Khan sent me this message:
Khan has never, in any of the emails he’s sent me, named his rival in the Mayoral elections. I still don’t know who it is. Note the way in this message he tags the contest to Boris Johnson.
📌 Met my cousin Helen and her husband Steve in a pub off Euston Road. They were down from Stoke to see Uncle Vanya. I wondered what kind of story Checkhov would have written about Stoke.
We dined in a nearby fish restaurant, caught up on all the gossip and heard about their plans to go and live in Coleraine in September and each do a degree at the university there. They are in their sixties.
They’re pushing themselves when others might sit back and dodge around the softer options. We look forward to visiting them in the very north of Northern Ireland.
📌 Liverpool are out of the Champions League.
Pop Quiz… Name that Tune
“I think it’s because I’m clumsy
I try not to talk too loud
Maybe it’s because I’m crazy
I try not to act too proud
TITLE …………………………..
ARTIST …………………………
BillyScraps 