Category Archives: education

The History of the Kings of Britain

britain, education, england, fiction, scotland, uk, wales, words, , , ,

Geoffrey of Monmouth completed this book in 1136. It traces the story of the kings of Britain from Brutus – the great-grandson of Aeneas who escaped from Troy – to Cadwallader who died in 689AD. Along the way the reader encounters familar names such as King Lear, Cymbeline, Merlin, and especially King Arthur. Most of the kings probably didn’t exist, but with great skill Geoffrey makes them more believable by providing synchronisms of actual true events such as Julius Caesar invading Britain, King Solomon reigning in Judea, Hengist and Horsa coming to Britain etc.

This book has the most wonderful index of over 80 pages that is really needed if you’re getting confused between Assaracus the nobly-born Greek whose mother was a Trojan and Assaracus the nineteenth son of Ebraucus, King of Loegria.

This is a very entertaining read. The constant battles between various tribes do become rather repetitive after a few hundred years especially as most people die terrible, painful deaths that make them vomit their souls.

Hana Videen on the evolution of language

britain, education, england, uk, words, , , ,

An absolutely fascinating article in the New Statesman Christmas and New Year special about the evolution of the English language and the work of Hana Videen.

A favourite Old English word of hers is uht-cearu. Uht is the pre-dawn time and cearu is cares, so uht-cearu means the cares or anxiety that we have in the time before dawn: the idea of lying awake and thinking about all the things you need to worry about.

This resonates with me because I have uht-cearu sometimes, but the idea that people had a word for this 1300 years ago is quite astonishing, though I’m not 100% sure why, as they would have had plenty to worry about. Some things never change, it’s only the things to worry about that do.

Google Reviews

education, travel, , , ,

I’m not sure if you write reviews on Google for places you’ve visited both at home and abroad, but it would appear the AI algorithm used to check the content has some very strange rules. I’ll provide two examples:

The first is my review of Avenida station in Lisbon, in which I said that “Avenida is on the Blue Line and is one stop north of Restauradores.” This was referred back to me by Google as not meeting their guidelines. I played around with the text and found that the problem was with the words ‘Blue Line’. I referred to ‘Blue Line’ as that’s the colour the line has on the maps.

The second is my review of the St Roch church in Lisbon. I wrote that ‘after the austerity of Alcobaca, this is a reminder of the wealth of The Jesuits’. Again this was referred back to me as it didn’t meet the guidelines. I played around with the text, thinking the wealth of the Jesuits had caused the problem, but no it was the ‘austerity of Alcobaca’ that I had to remove before the AI algorithm would accept it.

Hana Videen on the evolution of language

britain, education, england, uk, words, , , ,

An absolutely fascinating article in the New Statesman Christmas and New Year special about the evolution of the English language and the work of Hana Videen.

A favourite Old English word of hers is uht-cearu. Uht is the pre-dawn time and cearu is cares, so uht-cearu means the cares or anxiety that we have in the time before dawn: the idea of lying awake and thinking about all the things you need to worry about.

This resonates with me because I have uht-cearu sometimes, but the idea that people had a word for this 1300 years ago is quite astonishing, though I’m not 100% sure why, as they would have had plenty to worry about. Some things never change, it’s only the things to worry about that do.

Google Reviews

education, travel, , , ,

I’m not sure if you write reviews on Google for places you’ve visited both at home and abroad, but it would appear the AI algorithm used to check the content has some very strange rules. I’ll provide two examples:

The first is my review of Avenida station in Lisbon, in which I said that “Avenida is on the Blue Line and is one stop north of Restauradores.” This was referred back to me by Google as not meeting their guidelines. I played around with the text and found that the problem was with the words ‘Blue Line’. I referred to ‘Blue Line’ as that’s the colour the line has on the maps.

The second is my review of the St Roch church in Lisbon. I wrote that ‘after the austerity of Alcobaca, this is a reminder of the wealth of The Jesuits’. Again this was referred back to me as it didn’t meet the guidelines. I played around with the text, thinking the wealth of the Jesuits had caused the problem, but no it was the ‘austerity of Alcobaca’ that I had to remove before the AI algorithm would accept it.