by David West | Oct 23, 2026 | News
In yesterday’s post I said that the Oxford University Golf Second Team was called the Divots. Our Cambridge opponents were the Stymies. To be stymied is to be obstructed, frustrated or prevented from achieving an objective. A politician may be stymied by parliamentary...
by David West | Oct 22, 2026 | News
When I was at Oxford I played golf for the university second team, which is called the Divots. The word divot is familiar to golfers everywhere, describing the piece of turf dislodged when a club strikes the ground. Yet its origins have nothing to do with golf. The...
by David West | Oct 21, 2026 | News
2026 is the the UK National Year of Reading. Sadly across the world just 45% of ten-year-olds say that they read for pleasure. And if you think that the UK is an advanced country, that figure is just 29% in the UK. Perhaps the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures might...
by David West | Oct 20, 2026 | News
The word oil has a history stretching back more than three thousand years, beginning with one of the Mediterranean’s most important agricultural products: the olive. Our English word derives from the Old French oile or uile, which came from the Latin oleum, meaning...
by David West | Oct 19, 2026 | News
The word paranoid comes from the Greek paranoia (παράνοια) meaning mental derangement, madness, or folly. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for an upswing in sanity at the US mid-terms. This was formed from two elements: para (παρά), meaning “beside”, “beyond” or...
