The famous glass and a half

 

Remember those famous "glass and a half" Cadbury commercials on the then black-and-white television? I've never forgotten the good professor who roamed the world, bringing the light of science to the masses through his demonstrations in physics, with a bit of philosophy thrown in.

I no longer roam the world but I do roam the local op-shops where I found this copy of Julius Sumner Miller's autobiography. It reminds me of my early days in Australia when I watched him on a black-and-white telly from the depths of some worn-out armchair in some dimly-lit "common room" in some rundown boarding house. It brought back lots of memories of some tough but somehow happy times. As the good professor used to say before launching into an explanation of each of his fascinating scientific experiements, "Why is it so?"

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We're talking about language

 

Words are all we have. Certainly, reader, words are all we have, you and I, as you sit with this book or reading device in front of you and I sit and tap at my keyboard. You have no idea where I am as I do this, and I have no idea who, where or what you are as you continue to read. We are connected by a filament of language that stretches from somewhere inside my brain to somewhere inside yours. There are so many cognitive and cerebral processes involved simply in the act of my writing and your reading these words that not all the massed ranks of biology, genetics, linguistics, neurology, computational science or philosophy can properly describe, let alone understand or explain, how it all works."

Thus writes Stephen Fry in his Foreword to "Planet Word - The story of language from the earliest grunts to Twitter and beyond". These "456 pages of reading pleasure", as I described them here, arrived by parcel post today. As it turned out, there were only 444 pages in the book but each one is packed with so much erudition that I'm perfectly happy to forgive the publishers this small piece of misleading advertising.

 

You may wish to read the book online here
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Stephen Fry wrote, "We may be what we eat, but we most certainly are what we say", to which I would add, "and we most certainly are what we read". I will be 444 pages wiser at the end of this wonderful book.

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As thin as a rake

 

I've been thin all my life and could have got away with paying half-fare on public transport, but those six weeks of radiation almost two-and-a-half years ago left me as thin as rake - not in a historical context but in the sense of the garden tool - as I dropped from my previously constant 82 kilogrammes to my now also seemingly constant 70 kilogrammes. That's a 12-kilo drop!

I'm tired of Padma telling me, "Eat up! You've gotta put on weight!", and my oncologist asking me, "How are you controlling your weight loss?"

I've got news for both of them: I'm back to my former 82 kilogrammes!

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Sofa, so good!

 

Early morning at "Riverbend" after a restful night in bed after a restless day on the road. After we had got home last night and sat on the sofa in the lounge catching our collective breath, we looked at each other and it was Padma who said it first, with total and utter conviction in her voice: "It's good to be home again, isn't it?" Isn't it?

And it's good to be cooking my porridge again - five tablespoons of oats, a handful of raisins, milk, and a dollop of honey. I've already given the resident possum her breakfast in bed, and fed the resident wild ducks by the pond, and I'm about to sort through several scores of emails that accumulated during my one day away from the computer, with offers of penis enlargers and business proposals to handle the millions of dollars left by some deceased tinpot dictator in some African banana republic.

Mind you, I might just first do what I always do when I feel totally at home, which is to watch the sunrise in a recumbent position from the old sofa on the verandah. In fact, I'm doing it right now. Sofa, so good!

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P.S. As for my oncologist's prognosis in Sydney, he reckons if I cut back just a little bit on my booze and sex, I should live to see a hundred! 😜

 

I'd be dead without ABC Radio National!

 

When I still lived and worked overseas, I didn't watch television or listen to the radio much, because the various corners of the world I dwelt in for a period of time were either so remote that there was no reception or in a language I could not understand.

Not that I missed it because the 'real' world around me was so exciting that it surpassed anything produced by the BBC or National Geographic.

However, now that I have, as they say, "settled down", I feel more cut off from the world than at any time before but, thanks to modern technology and through my computer, I can listen via the Radiobox and the Radio Garden to just about any radio station around the world.

And yet, for my wake-up call in the morning and for my non-alcoholic but all-the-same intoxicating nightcap just before dropping off to sleep, I simply couldn't do without my trusty old friend, ABC Radio National.

Their interesting and often erudite programming gives me a sense of continuity and a sense of anticipation. I think I'd be dead without it!

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