Sam Redlark

This is my response to a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The Guardian website on 27th November, 2022. The Guardian is apparently no longer happy to host my comments on their site, so it is appearing here instead. This blog is obviously not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that appeared in Notes & Queries is presented here under the terms of fair use. ~ Will there ever be world government, and would we want it? image generated by Craiyon I telephoned James Anton one Sunday morning: “Me and John Edgeler will be around later to break your heart.” “Oh, that is splendid news,” he said. I could hear him attempting to conceal his breathlessness as he spoke the words. For the second time in less than a year, the artificial organ that pumps blood around James' body had been dialled down to maintenance mode by the manufacturers. I will name them here because I think they should be called out: Sandry Organs & Prosthetics, or '...

This is my response to a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The Guardian website on 21st November, 2022. The Guardian is apparently no longer happy to host my comments on their site, so it is appearing here instead. This blog is obviously not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that appeared in Notes & Queries is presented here under the terms of fair use. ~ Will we ever set up an outpost on another planet? image generated by Craiyon In July of 2020, Elizabeth Mose discovered that someone had built a house on her land. “We're sitting on 26 acres,” she says. “I hadn't been going out of the house much on account of the COVID. Anyway I went to check the fences along the west side because we'd had some high winds blowing in from that direction. As I was getting nearer to the property boundary, I could see this solid looking block in the middle of the field, and I thought maybe someone's abandoned a trailer there. “When I got ...

image generated by Craiyon This is my response to a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The Guardian website on 13th November, 2022. The Guardian is apparently no longer happy to host my comments on their site, so it is appearing here instead. This blog is obviously not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that appeared in Notes & Queries is presented here under the terms of fair use. ~ What would happen if we changed our spellings to match phonetics? “There wos kwite a big problem wiv won of thee Amason misshuns reesentlee,” sayd Sigric. “Shud u eeven bee there?” murmurd Jeff, throm behynd his jin and tonic. “Yore tredding on the tows of gods hu awlreddy hav a thirm footing in the jungall.” “Well, that's the waiy it is wiv relijun,” replied Sigric: “A crouded room thilled wiv a lowd of gods, all shuthling arownd tri-ing to get to the frunt. Anywaiy, we had a new doctor go out, becos it's not just abowt sayving soles...” Hee I'...

This is my response to a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The Guardian website on 6th November, 2022. The Guardian is apparently no longer happy to host my comments on their site, so it is appearing here instead. This blog is obviously not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that appeared in Notes & Queries is presented here under the terms of fair use. ~ Why do cats, dogs and other carnivores have far neater and straighter teeth than humans? image generated by Craiyon “I was doing Bluetooth decades before the whole blooming world jumped on the bandwagon,” boasted Thomas Padginton. He opened his mouth, pulling back his lips as his jaws widened. It was like watching a big cat yawn away the hours of a hot and dusty afternoon on the plains of the Serengeti. We were thousands of miles away from Africa, having recently emerged from the vaulted subterranean gloom of Gordon's wine bar, onto Villiers Street, in Central London, where early-...

image generated by Craiyon Crossed posted from r/ImaginaryLondon In a classroom in Harmondsworth, Laurie Rose is teaching a small group of pilots how to manage a plane that has been caught in a Mayblush Column on the approach into Heathrow Airport. The Mayblush is one of the four London winds. The other three are the Beamer, the Ragsail, and the Nersha, all of which carry with them pros and cons, though none affects aviation so much as the Mayblush that rises during the Summer, and is credited with putting the pink in the apples. The Mayblush column is not an entirely natural phenomenon. It is caused by a descending aircraft interacting with localised weather fronts. Rose describes it as “quicksand at 2000 feet”. Once caught, it is impossible for a plane to land safely at Heathrow. Pilots are instead instructed to make for “the lull” at Mitcham Mills Airport in South London – formerly an aerodrome called Greenroost – now an emergency runway, surrounded by a nature reserve, capable of a...