The Cockney Alphabet

A for horses, B for mutton, C for yourself...

 I've often heard passing mention of the Cockney alphabet which begins A for horses, B for mutton etc and have now Googled the rest of it. There are various versions of it but this is a compilation of my favourite answers:

A for horses B for mutton C for yourself D for... [more]

Worst website of the year award

I DON'T know if there is such an award, but here's my nomination for the worst website of the year.

Pictured is one of many home pages that feature a ridiculous message asking me to reconfigure my computer just so I can look at their website:

"This site is best viewed at a screen resolution of 800 x600 and in Internet explorer... [more]

Nothing to sneeze at

Has swine flu made a return?

Has swine flu made a return? I hope not but a number of newspapers have been running stories about the increasing numbers of death from this disease. But I think the medical profession is going to have a hard time convincing the media to pick up this story and run with it. The media caught a cold last time... [more] (1 comment)

Let it snow

With snow on the way I thought I'd share this lovely dialect poem from 1876 that I stumbled across the other day.

THE SNOW John Richardson, Cummerland Talk (1876)

It com doon as whisht an' as deftly as death, O' soond nut a murmur, o' air nut a breath; Flake reacin' wi' flake. Oh ! 'twas bonny to see Hoo it cuvver't up moontain,... [more]

Water rats and water voles

Talking of confusion... people are still getting their water voles and water rats mixed up.

A certain quiz master of my acquaintance asked the question this week "A water rat is actually what sort of animal?" and his answer was a water vole. No, no, no! Five hundred lines on the difference between these two animals by 4... [more] (1 comment)