Whittle It a Little, It’ll Fit

Odds and sods I look at regularly, just because they amuse me. I hope they do the same for you. Incidentally, I found this page’s title on Greg Ross’s Futility Closet (it’s somewhere on this page) in a mini-article which also includes the delightful sentence in Icelandic: Barbara Ara bar Ara araba bara rabbabara. Ross points out that this, “besides being fun to say, is spelled with only three letters. It means “Barbara, daughter of Ari, brought only rhubarb to Ari the Arab.”

Futility Closet » “Knight, With Umbrella”

Wednesday 20 March 19:03:39 UTC 2024

The difficulty with all
Forms of heroism
Is that they require
Appropriate occasions,
And that these are rarer
Even than heroes.
Counsequently, the hero
Waits and waits,
Exquisitely aware
Of the absence of any
Heroic way
To mail a letter,
Buy theatre tickets,
Or put on rubbers. Most remarkable about
The older heroes
Is their luck in encountering
Punctual dragons, … [Link]

Weird Universe » For relief of emotional stress

Wednesday 20 March 11:32:00 UTC 2024

For housewives on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Medical Economics – Mar 2, 1959 [Link]

Weird Universe » The Spectrum of Intemperance

Wednesday 20 March 9:47:00 UTC 2024

Where do you fall on the boozy scale?

Source.

[Link]

Futility Closet » Moonlighting

Wednesday 20 March 7:05:01 UTC 2024

In 1788, when two thieves were arrested for robbing an Edinburgh excise office, they identified a surprising accomplice — William Brodie, a respected city councilor and president of a local trade guild. Brodie had been leading a double life, using his day job as a cabinetmaker and locksmith to learn about residents’ security practices and to make copies of their … [Link]

John Gordon Ross

A Man for All Reasons