I am, according to John Massengale at Veritas et Venustas, a schmuck. Of course I understood this was derogatory, but I was inspired to look it up. Originally, schmuck meant decoration or ornament in German. It’s easy to see how that would become a word for jewelry, but what about the other meaning? In Yiddish …
I’ve been sent an apology: Dear Rob, Thanks for your note. I am very, very sorry for the error that meant the email addresses were filed under bcc. I want to offer my profuse apologies. I am very sorry. Gareth
Ok, hang on, my enthusiasm has waned. It doesn’t work with Mozilla: The site you have tried to enter requires Internet Explorer 5 (or better) with Windows Media Player 7 (or better) on Windows XP, 2000, Me or 98. Not only that, but the mail shot that I received had everyone’s address in the CC …
Just received in my e-mail and posted here as an addendum to a conversation I was having with a friend last night. Today is the launch of bignoisemusic.com. Oxfam’s music download service – www.bignoisemusic.com – is now live. Pick from over 300,000 tracks to download – including exclusive downloads from Coldplay, George Michael and Faithless. …
If the Hitch Hiker’s Guide taught me how to read, then Slaughterhouse 5 taught me what to read. In it one of the characters says, Everything you need to know about life can be found in The Brothers Karamazov; I tried it, he was right. Vonnegut’s interest in Dostoevsky still shows itself in a recent …
Treat this post as an advert. Yesterday I returned, for the first time in years, to a bookshop on Bath Street in Wolverhampton (in between the brewery and West Park). In the space of a few minutes I found three great books, purchased two and (being £1 short) had the third saved for me until …
Posted mainly as a gift to my friend Rob S, but also as an offering to any architecture students who happen to Google for RIBA Part 3 Management Papers, I give you my own paper from last year’s exam (PDF link). Warning A: If you are not an architecture student taking your part 3 exam, …
Predictably, my comments in the AJ a few weeks ago prompted a response in this weeks edition from Thom Gorst. Yes, the University of Central England in Birmingham is likely to be the university that Phillip Singleton left out when implying that the city had only two universities (AJ 29.04.04). We are the university that …