Saturday, Apr. 15, 2017 - 22:40

"Out of the simple consonants of the alphabet and our eleven vowels and diphthongs all possible syllables of a certain sort were constructed, a vowel sound being placed between two consonants". (Hermann Ebbinghaus)

At the moment I am reading a book (I have read it before, eight or so years back) about plane disasters etc. with particular focus on cockpit voice recordings. It's a subject that interests me, but alas most of the content of the book feels a bit wayward in nature - much of the CVR transcripts adds little, and it feels like the 'theme' was committed to before the whole book and how it hung together was created. It just feels there is a little too little context. Still, I'll persist.

Biologically, inbreeding is good news in terms of the altruism and likelihood of passing on your genes to offspring (if you partner already has some of the same genes), mathematically speaking. However, there is of course the issues of genetic disorders and the like, which of course aren't so great. It would be interesting to read a neutral and factual book on the subject, as much of the stuff I've dipped into online seems to be beating a political and/or racist drum. Kenny 'the Down Syndrome' Tiger is an illustrative case, even though his condition was not Trisomy 21 as is true DS.

Clothes shopping is not my most enjoyed pastime. I meant to spend some of my lunch break at work last week buying some new clobber on t'web, but didn't find the time - despite having three client visits this coming week and only two clean 'smart' shirts. This afternoon I went online and purchased four t-shirts and three shirts. Shabba.

Diners are more likely to order items listed inside boxes on menus, apparently. I suppose there is an extent to which this makes sense - the assumption there is something special about a highlighted item like that kind of thing. The finance director where I worked fifteen or so years back had Pink as his screensaver, he was a bit keen on her, he was - despite being in his fifties. Whatevz.

Eighteen hundred and ninety-nine was the year in which Emma Morano was born, but she died today aged 117. The Italian supercentenarian, was up till then the verified oldest living person and was the last living person born in the 1800s. One of the five verified oldest people ever, she credited her long life to her diet of raw eggs and being single (though she was between 1926 and 1938 married to and living with a guy called Giovanni) as well as not taking drugs, drinking a glass of homemade brandy every day, and the occasional chocolate. Above all, she credits the power of positive thought about the future.

For there again, against the glass, as if to blight his confession and stay his answer, was the hideous author of our woe—the white face of damnation. I felt a sick swim at the drop of my victory and all the return of my battle, so that the wildness of my veritable leap only served as a great betrayal.

Gifs of animals knocking over toddlers are quite funny. I chortled a touch this afternoon at some of them, esp. dogs barrelling excitedly into kids and cats leaping at babies. Sheffield United are League One winners following a loss for Bolton at Oldham this afternoon.

Hillsborough happened twenty-eight years ago today, and ninety-six died. Of course, there was much more mention of that in the news and online today than the anniversary of the start of the Tiannaman Square protests in which somewhere between a few hundred and a couple of thousand later died in Beijing, the anniversary of The Belfast Blitz where German bombers killed more than a thousand, or of the anniversary of the death of one and a half thousand people or more when the Titanic sank.

I played 'Rodent's Revenge' this evening on a DOS online emulator. I recall the ol' days when I used to play that, plus Sim City and Battle Chess (not to mention all kinds of card games) on my Dad's PC. It's funny how dated it seems now and also how advanced it felt at the time compared to the ZX Spectrum and ZX81 I'd grown up with.

Journalists aren't my favourite people - self-appointed nosy bastards/bitches and liars as they often are - but reading about The Sun suspending columnist Kelvin MacKenzie because of 'racist' aspects in his article criticising Everton's Ross Barkley and comparing him to a gorilla I found somewhat ridiculous. Yes, his comments about people in Liverpool with money oft being drug dealers is unpleasant, nasty, provocative and untrue - and he is an arsehole for making derogatory remarks about the area. However, it's comparing a man of physically caucasian appearance who happens to have a grandfather born in Nigeria (none of the sources I've seen have clarified whether he was black), and hence is mixed race, with a gorilla in his dim behaviour that is intolerable because it is apparently racist. How little of your racial make-up needs to be mixed to be considered 'mixed race' and for unpleasant comments made about you to be interpreted as racial slurs? Liverpool Mayor has said the comments are racist due to being 'a racial stereotype of Liverpool' - a nonsensical statement that proves there is at least one 'thick' person in Merseyside. It all seems like a personal dislike between the columnist and the people in the city - I don't feel the 'race card' being played achieves anything.

Knowing a bit about football (hence my playing that football trivia game yesterday and enjoying it) I sometimes challenge myself to try and remember things for lists when I'm in bed trying to fall asleep - 'cause it takes my mind off daily worries. Recently I have been trying to recall FIFA World Cup games which have finished with the same score between the same two nations in two different finals tournaments. I could remember England 1-0 Argentina in 1966 and 2002 for myself quite easily, but others have taken more time to come to mind. Germany 1-0 Argentina in the finals of 1990 and 2014, of course. Yugoslavia and Scotland drew 1-1 in both the 1958 and 1974 tournaments. Italy and Argentina shared the same score in 1974 and 1990.

Laundry weather today - sunny and breezy, not actually that warm out. I did a load of washing and hung it out. If you're intereted in the numbers, it was three t-shirts, three shirts, a pair of jeans, and what must've been seven pairs of pants and the same number of pairs of socks.

Medieval villagers chopped up the dead to stop them coming back as zombies. That said, the English word "zombie" is first recorded in 1819, in a history of Brazil by the poet Robert Southey, in the form of "zombi", so.. I guess the Dark Ages folk weren't making direct reference to the term as it dervies comes from Haitian folklore (a zombie is a dead body reanimated through various methods, most commonly magic).

Ninety-four, was that the best year for football strips, or am I just being nostalgic and rose-tinted about being sixteen again? I just liked so many of the kits at the World Cup - the adidas three stripe template as worn by the likes of Bulgaria, Sweden, Romania (and the diamond motif on Germany, Spain) as well as USA's denim style blue shirts with white stars? Gotta love Nigeria's African print white change kit too. That said, almost every goalkeeper's kit was an atrocity.

Overly keen to correct, Cortana shouted "Inch cannot be converted to dram!" at me this evening (thankfully just with large text on a pop-up, as I have the voice thing disabled). I had typed 'in dram' into the search box in my browser 'cause I was looking for 'In Dreams' by Roy Orbison. I'll have to re-watch 'Blue Velvet' again, it's fuckin' disturbing. Orbison was the mutt's nuts.

Pointless Celebrities this evening was a family special and had four couples who were related (or married). Edele and Keavey from B*witched were a bit crap, but co-incidence in that yesterday I was teasing my colleague by singing 'C'est La Vie' to her by the Irish girlband. Fern Britton and her daughter Grace were on too. I didn't know (or forgot) that Phil Vickery and Fern Britton are married (not that twenty year-old Grace is their child).

Quonset Air Museum was founded in Rhode Island in September 1992, dedicated as an educational facility to preserve and interpret the state's aviation Heritage. However, following the collapse of its principal building in March 2015 following heavy snowfall, the museum has been closed - it is currently seeking a new home elsewhere in Rhode Island, as current buildings are unsafe. The museum's collection includes military vehicles, missiles, aircraft and over five thousand smaller aviation artifacts. An extensive archive of books, magazines, manuals, photos, documents and blueprints is preserved within the Quonset Air Museum. The collection represents Rhode Island's achievement in private, commercial, and military aviation.

Reading my 1997 diary, I see that today twenty years ago I played hide and seek in the woods with a couple of friends - which I described in my diary as 'it was of limited amusement'. The day after that, Middlesbrough lost the League Cup final replay to Leicester (fuckin' Steve bastard Claridge) - I remember watching it in the pub. They lost the FA Cup final the same year, and the League Cup final the following year too.

Snooker World Championship began today - in the morning session reigning champion Mark Selby took a commanding 8-1 lead over Fergal O'Brien and Stephen MacGuire was similarly impressive against fellow Scot Anthony McGill.

The letter 't' apparently is the most common letter in terms of the initial letter of a word in the English language - a Project Gutenberg text analysis saw it occurring 16.67% of the time (a nice neat sixth of the time, ish). The order, from another source, is t o a w b c d s f m r h i y e g l n p u v j k q z x.

Ululation is a long, wavering, high-pitched vocal sound resembling a howl with a trilling quality. It is produced by emitting a high pitched loud voice accompanied with a rapid back and forth movement of the tongue and the uvula. It is commonly practised in most of Africa, the Middle East and Central-to-South Asia. It occurs a few places in Europe, like Serbia, Cyprus, Malta and parts of Spain. It likewise takes place among the diaspora community originating from these areas. Ululation also occurs among Mizrahi Jews at all joyous occasions such as at a hachnasat sefer Torah (the dedication of a Torah scroll), circumcisions, communal celebrations, weddings, bar mitzvah celebrations, and most of all at henna celebrations.

Vygotsky's theories stress the fundamental role of social interaction in the development of cognition (Vygotsky, 1978), as he believed strongly that community plays a central role in the process of "making meaning." Unlike Piaget's notion that childrens' development must necessarily precede their learning, Vygotsky argued, "learning is a necessary and universal aspect of the process of developing culturally organized, specifically human psychological function" (1978, p. 90).  In other words, social learning tends to precede (i.e. come before) development.

When I was thirteen, which was an age where I was getting more and more into music but hadn't really found my niche yet (I got more seriously into heavy metal and rock around a couple of months before I turned fourteen) I very much liked 'Unchained Melody' by The Righeous Brothers, and used to rewind and repeatedly listen to this tune having taped it off the radio. I was keen on a girl called Georgina from my class at school at the time, not that she liked me at all.

Xylazine is an analogue of clonidine and an agonist at the α2 class of adrenergic receptor. It is used for sedation, anesthesia, muscle relaxation, and analgesia in animals such as horses, cattle and other non-human mammals. Veterinarians also use xylazine as an emetic, especially in cats. It has become a drug of abuse, particularly in Puerto Rico, where it is diverted from stocks used by equine veterinarians and used as a cutting agent for heroin.

Yes, I ate two creme eggs today, and yes, I drank four or five (let's just say 'five short pints') of beer this afternoon. Shuh the fah uh and geh the fuh ow oh muh FACE. I'm annoyed that the spot on my knee isn't healed yet, though perhaps I should stop playing the fuck with it and let it mend itself unmolested.

Zaguinasso is a village in northern Ivory Coast. It is in the sub-prefecture of Kouto, Kouto Department, Bagoué Region, Savanes District. Zaguinasso was a commune until March 2012, when it became one of 1126 communes nationwide that were abolished. Nearby Kouto is known for its seventeenth century Sahelian mosque. The Sahelian style is characterized by the use of mudbricks and adobe plaster, with large wooden-log support beams that jut out from the wall face for large buildings such as mosques or palaces.

Tottenham Hotspur 4-0 Bournemouth. Spurs started well, and though Bournemouth were looking 'on it' too in resisting the waves of attack, it did look only a matter of time. Seventeen gone when Dembele was unmarked to slam home a cross, nineteen when Son Heung Min capitalised on some neat one-touch passing to make it two. Tottenham were playing really well and looked to add to their lead. Less than a couple of minutes into the second half, Kane showed close control and turn and created space to fire past Boruc for Spurs's third (his sixth goal in three games against The Cherries). OptaJoe fact - Kane is only the fourth player to score 20+ goals in three consecutive Premier League seasons following Shearer, Henry, and van Nistelrooy. Unlike last year Spurs seem to not be easing off once they've realised second place is likely to be the best they can do. The south coast team finally had a shot on target with quarter of an hour left, but Lloris was awake. Late on Janssen scored his first league goal from open play for Tottenham, and his side matched the performance and score of last Saturday lunchtime.

Crystal Palace 2-2 Leicester City. Continuing a theme of early goals in the three o'clocks, Bob Huth unmarked six minutes in to head home a good cross - poor stuff by Palace's markers. I noticed this afternoon that the goals/game average this year in the EPL is up above 2.8 - higher than in several recent seasons when it's been between 2.5 and 2.75, despite the likes of Middlesbrough dullifying the season. Jacqui Oatley was presenting Final Score this afternoon - her mum Sonja is a retired nurse who was born and brought up in South Africa where her parents were Norwegian missionaries. Early in the second, there were two goals in as many minutes - first Vardy doubled Leicester's lead with a very good counter (Mahrez linking up well), then ex-Fox Schlupp set up a goal back with a flunked shot that fell to Cabaye to score. Middle of the second, everything level, Palace fight-back, Benteke leaping to power home Townsend's cross. Entertaining stuff from two sides in decent form, but still perhaps looking over their shoulder more than had they won here - Shakespeare will bemoan his side dropping two points from two up.

Everton 3-1 Burnley. Plenty talk beforehand, some chances for each side, Gueye having a chance at one end, Barkley clearing off the line at the other from Michael Keane's effort. On balance it was possible that Burnley edged the opening half hour, still on the hunt for their first away win. The deadlock was broken a couple of minutes into the second half when Jagielka turned home with good reaction after his header was pushed up/out off the bar - he's in a good run of goalscoring form. Burnley were right back into it two minutes after when Joel Robles unecessarily brought down Vokes, who scored from the penalty. There should've been a penalty at the other end shortly after when Keane handballed a shot on target, but it was not given. Mirallas hit the upright. Twenty left when Everton went ahead, Ross Barkley answering critics with a good goal deflected off Ben Mee. Barton should've been sent off for a studs-up challenge on Schneiderlin (and for being a cunt). Lukaku continued his goalscoring form a little after that, poking home into the noof of the rhett butler. Barkley cleared for a second time off the line (had he been playing for Sunderland or West Ham, perhaps they would've won) before being subbed off. Everton in sixth above Arsenal now.

Stoke City 3-1 Hull City. Marko Arnautovic looked likely to end a poor run for Stoke (and continue a poor away run for Hull) with a fine curled shot five minutes in beating Jakopovic into the top coroner. Saddo Berahino thought he'd opened his account for The Potters but was flagged offside - looked like the home team would add to it sooner rather than later. Stoke claimed a penalty for Huddlestone handling, nothing gave. Early in the second, Hairy McGuire levelled things, like Jagielka above scoring a rare goal in little spurts with something something - scrappy but poking the ball home in a bit of a scrum in the box. J'povic saved excellently from Walters's strike. Peter Crouch came on and made immediate impact, posing new questions - he pulled away from Ranocchia and heade home Jon-Boy W's cross. Stoke got a third with a Shaqiri special ten from the end - super curly from distance with a wand of a left peg. At this rate, all Middlesbrough need to do is win their two games in hand and they're out of the bottom three. Ranocchia was kicked in the head by Walters, accidental but painful.

Sunderland 2-2 West Ham United. It didn't take long for Sunderland's problems to increase - Ayew put West Ham ahead after four minutes, Cattermole had already picked up a booking. Pickford busy, justifiably on the PFA young player shortlist, keeping the score down here. A long long goal-less run for Sunderland ended when Wabhi Khazri's whipped corner found the net midway through the half to level the scores in a swirly wind. Ayew went down hurt on half time, hopefully not a recurrance of the injury that he was out for so long with. Minutes into the second, some symmetry in Sunderland conceding a goal from a corner - James Collins heading the ball in at the back stick, again no-one there defending in a key position. Tough stuff, Sunderland asking questions but looking pretty flawed at the back and capable of leaking more. Billy Jones picked up a nasty injury colliding with Kouyate, banging his head and being stretchered off. Borini came on for Jones, and scored after poor handiwork by Randolph dropping the ball at his feet. I doubt it'll make any difference to The Black Cats black season, but it was deserved. Sam Byram picked up a second yellow and was dismissed for a foul on Januzaj.

Watford 1-0 Swansea City. Quiet here - Swansea possibly seeing how poorly Hull's start had been, and possibly thinking an away point here would be decent return. Sigurdsson not involved enough in his position, Llorente back from injury looking a bit rusty, Watford having some quality themselves - Deeney's volley stopped by Fab'ski. Just before the break, a poor goal to concede - Mawson caught in possession by Capoue who raced in on goal and scored at the second attempt after his first shot was saved. Swansea rolled the dice and brought on a couple of players who've yet to impress enough this season. This was proving to be a slightly disappointing game for some of the viewers (esp. in comparison with the excitement elsewhere) with Watford comfy - Okaka had the ball in the net but it was flagged for offside. Borja Valero competed for a high ball but he and a couple of Hornerts collided and needed a bit of treatment. Six away losses in a row for Swansea, the 'bounce' they got when Clement joined has certainly dulled.

Southampton 0-3 Manchester City. The evening game was well-competed and though we saw no goals in the first half hour, we saw chances and excitement for the watching thirty-thousand plus. Saints were set up well, the BBC Sport website commenting that they looked a bit like a Fußball (aka table football, aka babyfoot) side with rows of four, four, two. The aforementioned also showed a graphic a little before half time showing there had been no shots on target by either side - though Forster maybe was lucky not to have given away a penalty for clipping Sane but not so much the ball. The sixth Premier League game this season not to have a shot on target in the first half, three of Saints's most defensive six outfield players booked. More decent stuff in the second half, defensive skillz from Soton. Fifty-five on the board when Vince Kompany headed the ball past Forster from Silva's cross. The hosts would need to change their game plan - they pushed on a bit and could've levelled through Yoshida, but the Japaneseman's header lacked power and Claudio Bravo did a rare feat and saved it. Twelve from the end, Leroy Sane doubled the lead of those in pale blue - de Bruyne controlled a ball through and broke well, feeding the young German to score. Aguero added another shortly after, de Bruyne gathering a Navas ball and lifting the ball across for the Argentinian to score.