Posts by Stephen Judd
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
"Two things you never want to see being made: laws, and sausages."
That's usually attributed to Bismarck, in a form something like "people who love the law and sausages couldn't sleep at night if they saw how they were made."
Oddly enough I was looking for a verified source the other day. Couldn't find one, but it goes back to the 19th century anyway.
-
(Also, on learning as an adult - I feel there are many more deep concerns competing for my attention now. As a teenager, I could devote hours every day to anything that interested me. If anything's slowing up my various educational endeavours right now, it's time and attention, not capability).
-
I've retained much more of the French I started learning at about seven than the extra French from high school and uni, and almost none of the Russian I learned at varsity. I feel like it's much harder to learn new languages now that I'm old and my brain is slow.
I agree with mark. An alternative explanation is that you used basic French for longer than more sophisticated French, and much longer than you did Russian, so it is more deeply burned in. I started German, French and Maori at roughly the same ages, and with rougly equal proficiency and aptitude, but of those only the German has stayed with me to any useful extent, and I think that's because it is the language that I continued to study and use into my 20s, and still deploy occasionally. Use it or lose it.
Now that I'm learning Portuguese I'm finding it much easier than I recall language learning being as a teenager. I'm not sure why, but I think I've got better at rote learning, and as a programmer, I've become used to expressing my thoughts (in an admittedly very narrow range) in artificial languages.
On another, more apropos note: this story made me verklemt. I felt something clench inside by the time the visit to the hospital came. Of all the things that terrify parents, sure the thought that something is wrong with my baby ranks high on the list.
-
has anyone else noticed that bees seem to be coming back?
The opposite, I'm afraid. Here in Wellington, and on a recent visit to Hamilton, I noticed I couldn't see any bees even on bee-magnet plants, but there were lots of bumblebees (I presume they are prospering without the competition from honeybees).
Where are you? It'd be nice to have more honeybees around.
-
Also, in response to the theme of the post: spa pools are like champagne. I have never been angry or sad drinking champagne; it is a universally cheering drink. Let's have some champagne!* Likewise, I have never felt down in a spa pool. Well-being, wholesome or unwholesome, is inherent in the bubbly water. Perhaps it's something to do with aeration.
*I filched this idea from the beastly Kingsley Amis, but he was right.
-
They're funny places, gyms. They can be most intimidating, as we subject ourselves to the gaze of whoever's around, or to our own standards. Or not, depending on the atmosphere set by the owners and the existing members. How you feel about being there is both a product of what your bring to it and the people you find there.
Much like any social enterprise really, except that we are sold time in the commercial gym as an individual experience. Which is bullshit. You can expend mental effort to screen other people out and focus on your own workout, but fundamentally it's a shared space with all the potential angst that comes from being badly dressed and feeling exposed doing stupid things while other people watch.
-
It wasn't Andrew, it was me who should cop your wrath, Jackie. I'm sorry, I can't think of a less patronising way to express that sentiment, which in hindsight should have been a warning sign. It was well-meant, anyway.
-
it's the chances of catching athletes foot in the wrong places.
That's a rather recherche preference.
-
I just want to point out, as a semi-regular gym rat, that when I see a person of more than usual corpulence, I think "good for you" and try to send positive vibrations.
In my experience most people in gyms are less than fit-looking. That's why they're there. The only gym I've been to where that wasn't true was the Club Physical on K Road; otherwise the middleaged and wobbly predominate in the weights room.
-
Clearly, rather than sex-segregated changing rooms, what we need is Fucking and Non-Fucking.