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July 24, 2007
You Learn Something New Every Day
This feels like a new category for the blog. I certainly learn something new every day, and some of those things are even bloggable. One of the non-bloggable ones is that I was told this morning that the Met Office had added new areas to the Shipping Forecast for the first time for years -- Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire.
When I was young I had a jigsaw made of the countries of Europe, and a map of the UK with the counties, towns and major rivers on little bits of sticky plastic which you fixed in place. But the countries of Europe and the counties of Britain have changed a good deal since then. The US states, on the other hand, are a gratifyingly stable form of learning; no changes to the lower 48 for well more than my lifetime. Nevertheless, I've learnt more about the shapes and positions of states today than in the whole of the rest of my life, thanks to Statetris, a flash game where the states drop from the top of the board and you have to rotate them and get them in the right place. My top time on 'hard' is 3:23; not bad for a foreigner. Now, if we could just get someone to teach US children where France is on the map, we might be getting somewhere.
Separately, I learn from Green Chair Press that the rhyme I know as 'The Queen of Hearts' was published in 1782 and has four verses, one from each suit.
If this were LiveJournal, I could do a version of the Good/Bad poll, so you could choose for each YLSNED item whether it's new learning, or old hat. Feel free to comment instead.
Posted by Alison Scott at July 24, 2007 11:48 AM
Comments
One of the non-bloggable ones is that I was told this morning that the Met Office had added new areas to the Shipping Forecast for the first time for years -- Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire
Err, but you just blogged about it.
Posted by: Erik Olson at July 24, 2007 06:25 PM