Monthly Archives: May 2003

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I looked through my logs for the first time in ages last night and found a bunch of image stealers. I’ve only had time to get one of them so far, but a big reorganisation is in order, I think.

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A page of ‘Useful/rare/interesting words‘ is worth checking out for ‘hypnerotomachia’ – ‘the struggle between sleep and sexual desire’, and ‘schadenfreudian slip’ – failing to discreetly conceal pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.
And just for Guy, ‘plenilune’ – ‘the time of the full moon’.

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Mmmm, long words at the Grandiloquent Dictionary. My inaniloquence will be even more long-winded, I’m already alieniloquent every time I drink. I can aspire to adoxography but I fear I am currently an aeolist.
If I learn Spanish, I will once again be an abecedarian. I never realised that Australians are all infracaninophiles. Surely ‘amomaxiaphobia’ (“A fear of making love in an automobile”) isn’t a real word.

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From the Sunday Times:
‘A court in Kansas City granted a restraining order against a woman who Wesley Fitzpatrick claimed was stalking him. “I was scared and in fear for my freedom,” he said. But the ruling was lifted when the court learnt that the woman was Fitzpatrick’s parole officer.’
Maybe I should try this:
‘Care worker Angelika Wedberg, 30, was having no luck finding a new job, so she put an advert in a Stockholm newspaper. “I want a well-paid job,” it read. “I have no imagination. I am anti-social, uncreative and untalented.” She was deluged with offers, including one at three times her previous pay.’

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Bill Bryon has a new book out, “A Short History of Nearly Everything”. I’d buy it purely on the basis of this passage:
“…disturbance from cosmic background radiation is something we have all experienced. Tune your television to any channel it doesn’t receive and about 1% of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember that you can always watch the birth of the universe.”