Bog-standard

I was reading a long list of British words when one in particular caught my attention: bog-standard. Whoooosh - a split-second rewind to October 2003 when I was first reading OotP - this is what I came across:

"Well, we thought it was a bog-standard chicken until it started breathing fire."

A vague understanding was instantly formed, namely that the chicken in question was not too out-of-the-ordinary, but perhaps by wizarding standards at best. And one could just hear the scratchings coming from the cardboard box.

Fast forward to the present. This is the definition of bog-standard: (UK, somewhat derogatory) ordinary, basic. So there is definitely no wizarding connection. A Google search yields about 349,000 results, and obvious muggle ones at that (as opposed to stuff like "spellotape" and "blast ended skrewts", which yield results in their thousands). And when you try to find out its origins, you find out that everyone else is just as mystified as you are! It seems that this quirky, colourful little phrase just came out of nowhere and latched itself effortlessly onto the public psyche.

Bog-standard, I ask you? Gotta love the British.

What makes a good lecturer?

Lecturers come in all shapes and sizes, but the good ones have one thing in common:

• They speak TO the audience, not AT the audience.

A Whiff Of Yuletide

Thursday night, way past bedtime. "Christmas is approaching" I lay musing, "but what shall we do for a tree?" I had scoured the shops for a decent-looking tabletop tree earlier, to no avail. Then the long-dormant origami master in me stirred, and spit out, "we shall fold one, of course."

I had searched for Christmas tree origami models before. They were disappointing. Either they're flat, vaguely tree-like shapes, or modular structures resembling pagodas more than trees. So I set about devising an alternative method.

Being the strict purist I am, that would mean folding an entire Christmas tree out of a single sheet of paper. Yes I'm bonkers.

But I only realised that after hours of fruitless attempts, during which I worked out a solution to the decimal counter, revised the structure of the solar system clock, invented a 3D board game, to name a few things.

Needless to say I succumbed to pressure and tried modular origami instead X( My final method is based on one of the pagoda thingies plus the "Fortune Teller" fold. Somehow the two unrelated folds came together in a moment of glorious Eureka!!

This is partly due to my curious gift of "space awareness": presented with any simple enough fold or warped continuous structure (e.g. drapery and certain garments), I can mentally reconstruct their original state and folding process. So the whole thing was worked out lying in the dark, with mental images as reference. I resisted the enormous urge to creep out of bed and start folding one straight away, and was determined to do so first thing in the morning.

I woke on Friday feeling distinctively perky, and set about making this promising model. First the theory was tested out on scrap paper, just to get an idea of the proportions. It turned out pretty well! You can see how the finished model retains the elegance of pure origami without resembling a pagoda or using up 250 pieces of paper. The whole thing consists of 17 squares of paper, and holds together entirely by friction (except the topmost cap, which is optional and purely for aesthetic reasons).

Love love love love love it. 'Nuff said.

Next Time

"Next time, oh but next time"
Thus the idle heart flounders,
And the crannies of thought never see the light of day:
Old Time never loses,
Nor the Moirae nor the Muses,
Yet still 'tis the Mind that holds sway -
  It holds sway.

-----------------------------------

I was lying awake in bed in the wee hours of morning when this barged in. As sleep had not yet come and consciousness had exhausted itself out, my mind was a state of utter chaos.

Suddenly the first line came drifting across my plane of thought.

Then a blurred image of the second line floated into view.

Then a hint of the third...

I fumbled for my mobile phone, switched it on and jabbed the shortcut code for "notebook" in record time, all the while coaxing lines out of obscurity. It was like receiving unexpected extraterrestrial signals over wireless: a frantic attempt to record while trying to hold on to the signals!

Anyway I successfully got it down, and in a presentable form needing very little editing on my (conscious mind's) part. One of the very few times I've been able to do so. The "signal" is frequently too weak to capture, save a few phrases or lines. Revelations that occur during the day usually fall under this category because the Conscious is too active and overrides the "critical wavelength". The fragments produced go on my "pending projects list", and with some luck, get worked into a full-blown poem. Otherwise they get labelled Fragmentary and sit in my ditty box forever.

Dreams

Dreams are a way of convincing yourself of the truth.