The blob on the map marks the location of Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose on the outskirts of Helston. One of the functions of the station is to provide search and rescue services for the south west of England. It is also the place where the Olympic flame was landed yesterday.
The name derives from Cornish cul ros meaning “narrow heathland” and is pronounced kəlˈdrəʊz, unless you happen to be David Bond, the BBC’s sports editor, who seems convinced that it is pronounced ˈkʊldrəʊz.
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The chap in the picture is, of course, François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande, the 24th President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. For a couple of seconds while watching the news last night I thought he had changed his name. Nick Robinson, BBC political editor, seemed to be talking about someone called Rollande, as pictures of the new Pres were shown. frɒnswɑːrɒlɒnd was what he said. I wonder how many more mangled variations of the guy’s name we are going to be subjected to.
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Although I have put this in the rant category, it’s really more of a sigh and a groan. I came across the word yimby about two hours ago. It appeared on the “Ethical Living” page of yesterday’s Observer colour supplement. A yimby is the opposite of a nimby, which, as I’m sure you know, stands for Not In My Back Yard. Nimbies do not like wind-farms, recycling centres, or anything at all really being built too close to their homes. Yimbies on the other hand welcome such things. All well and good. If there is a such a concept, I suppose we should have a word for it. So why the groan and the sigh?
Well, the word is introduced at the bottom of the page as if it were a dictionary entry. We are told that it is a noun. Thanks. We are told what it means. Thanks. We are told that it is pronounced [ˈjim-bee]. No thanks. I don’t know if this masterpiece of nonsense was cobbled together by a journalist, or if it is a direct quote from an actual dictionary. If the latter is the case, I would strongly advise anyone owning a copy to throw it away immediately. Ah, no. Be ethical! Keep it as a weapon to thump journalists over the head with until they get things right. Just kidding.
elegance~elements~elephants
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The only sphere of activity I can think of where blue is a colour (and so are yellow, green, brown, pink and black), but red is not a colour is the game of snooker.
I recently watched the World Snooker Championships on the TV and it suddenly struck me as strange to hear utterances like: He’s hit a red and not a colour. However, the game is home to some strange words anyhow, beginning with its own name. Apparently, this derives from obsolete British Army slang. A snooker was a beginner, an inexperienced soldier. Legend has it that British Army officers in Jabalpur in India around 1875 had the idea of adding coloured balls to a game called pyramid pool, which already had a white ball, a black ball and a pyramid of red balls. This new variation got its name, apparently, when, some years later, a player missed an easy shot and someone called him a snooker.
I was driving at a leisurely pace down Taroveor Road in beautiful downtown Penzance yesterday evening on my way to pick up Mrs M at the station. I had reached the point indicated on the map by the tip of the blue arrow. A car emerged backwards from Belgravia Street. The red blob shows the spot. I assumed that it was going to turn and then drive up Taroveor Road towards me, so I slowed to a crawl. The car simply sat there, completely blocking the road. I stopped and waited. And waited. It didn’t move. I approached cautiously. When I was near enough, I could see…
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