More Words

While discussing our favourite words (sad, I know), a friend told me about a great website called Free Rice. It's a vocabulary quiz where for each word you get right, they donate 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.

This site works for me on so many levels:

1. It's fun.
2. Hungry people get food.
3. It tells me how smart I am.
4. I can show others how smart I am.
5. It teaches me new words.
6. I feel socially responsible and morally superior.

Try it!

Favourite Words

Each Saturday, the Guardian's Weekend magazine features a Q&A with a moderately well-known person. One of the questions asked is, "What is your favourite word?"

Reading this always makes me think about what I would say if someone asked me to name my favourite word. In fact, choosing a word has been more difficult than I thought it would be, and so far I have not yet picked one favourite. I have, however, narrowed it down to five (in no particular order):

1. Schadenfreude
2. Robust
3. Serendipity
4. Onomatopoeia
5. Bollocks

How about you? I am very interested in what words our readers pick as their favourites. Please share your favourite words with us in the comments.

Exhibition Road

I am very pleased to see that the Kensington & Chelsea council are following my advice and continue to adopt the clean streets approach advocated by Hans Monderman, albiet in slow increments.

The Evening Standard yesterday reported plans for a major makeover of Exhibition Road, home to some of London's top museums. According to the article:

. . .traffic and people will share a York stone and granite surface stretching the width of the street. . . designers will mimic the "naked streets" design in Kensington High Street where roadside railings, unnecessary white lines and signposts were removed to encourage motorists and pedestrians to share the road.

This is great news and I hope they achieve their goal of making the area an "inspiring destination." I applaud every effort to remove the visual cacophony that currently blights London's streetscapes.

Subprime Explained

While the financial world melts down around us, you might enjoy this Subprime Primer on Google Docs.

Dubya's Wold

I Asked You Not to Tell Me That

Yesterday, for really no reason that I can recall, I found myself thinking about "Get Smart," the 60's US spy-spoof sitcom created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. The series starred Don Adams as Maxwell Smart and Barbara Feldon as Agent 99, both agents for the super-secret spy agency "Control."

Specifically, I remembered the cone of silence (invented by Professor Cone of course), a device intended to keep secret conversations secret, but really only managed to keep Max and the Chief from hearing each other.

I found a brilliant website dedicated to the show called wouldyoubelieve.com, where I spent far too much time laughing and remembering the funniest parts of this show.

One of my favourite recurring gags typically went something like this:

Max: You think you've got me, but at this very moment there are 100 Control agents surrounding this building.
Villain: I find that hard to believe.
Max: Would you believe 50?
Villain: No.
Max: Would you believe two girl scouts and a pocket knife?

And of course the classic exchange:

Max: Don't tell me he's dead?
Agent 99: He's dead Max.
Max: I asked you not to tell me that!

And finally, my favourite: The Craw.

Boo, Boo, Boo. . .

. . . what a load of rubbish!

Giant-killers Barnsley have knocked Chelsea out of the FA cup with a 1 - 0 win today. And worse, they even deserved to win. They outplayed Chelsea for the entire match and shut them down completely.

This comes after Avram (Dracula) Grant has spouted off about how his team will focus on playing attacking and imaginative football, and demeaning his predecessor's focus on achieving results over style. I guess that's going well.

If Grant keeps up with this version of imaginative football, he better start imagining himself without a job.

I know that I said that cheering for the little guys is fun, but it hurts when they beat your team.

I hope this isn't Karma's revenge for my glee over the trouble Barnsley gave to Liverpool in their Cup match.

A True Believer?

I'm truly enjoying the American Republican presidential primary race, especially now that John McCain has emerged as the certain nominee. It's fun to watch the neo-cons and Fox "News" commentators fall all over themselves denouncing him as not truly conservative.

An organisation called the American Conservative Union compiles statistics on senators' and representatives' voting records and rates members' conservatism based on their votes. John McCain scores more than 82% favourable "conservatism rating." In contrast, Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama both score in the single digits.

Actions speak louder than words and the actions of this self-styled "maverick" say conservative almost all the time. He consistently supports the positions of the current administration: a true loyal Bushie.

The cynical me thinks that the far right's harping about McCain is really a ploy to make him palatable to moderate voters in November. The logic being that if reactionary poster children Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter detest him, maybe he's not so bad.

Voter beware! While it's nice to think that McCain takes independent positions and delivers "straight talk," the American electorate needs to exercise caution to avoid falling into the bait-and-switch trap of the 2000 election, when George Bush masqueraded as a mainstream moderate to get elected, then lurched to the right after taking office.

Remember "compassionate conservatism?"

Eat to Live

The Guardian newspaper recently published a insert describing The Mount Athos Plan, subtitled "Lifestyle secrets of the world's healthiest people." According to the article, The Mount Athos community of Greek Orthodox monks enjoy an extraordinarily low rate of cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer's.

Basically, a series of rules and principles govern this diet, "centred on a philosophy of strict moderation." In essence, if you eat a diet of fresh, natural ingredients consisting mainly of fruit, vegetables and fish, don't gorge yourself, exercise and live a low-stress existence, you will live longer.

No real surprises here, and you really don't need to live a cloistered monk's existence to achieve this, although this would undoubtedly help those with self-control issues like me.

In general, I suppose that moderation is a good thing - as long as you don't overdo it. For me, I'm still contemplating the merits of the coffee, cigarette and lettuce diet.