At this level

"At this level, you've got to stick those away". If I had a pound for every time I've heard a football commentator say that, I'd be a rich man.

For those readers unfamiliar with footy jargon, it means "he should have scored". But what does "at this level" mean? Is there a level at which this doesn't apply? If your 10 year old daughter misses an open goal in her under 11s game, surely you'd be yelling the same thing. I know, my readers are too genteel to yell. And mostly too old to have 10 year old children. And favour middle class sports like golf and croquet. And knitting.

I'm writing this whilst watching RC Lens playing Paris Saint-Germain in Ligue 1 in France. On TV, obviously. The commentator, whose name I will not reveal [actually I don't know who he is], as well as uttering this meaningless phrase and which stimulated me to write this, has just described the Lens shirt colour as "blood and gold". What? Did I hear correctly? Apparently so; Wikipedia tells me "Its nickname, sang et or (blood and gold), comes from its traditional colours of red and gold." Here it is: 

I know, it's trivial. But not for Lens supporters - their team, newly promoted to Ligue 1, has just beaten the uber-rich champions in their first  ever match at the top level. So the blood beats the gold. I bet you wish you had been watching. Got yer there.

I could fill a book with commentators' gibberish. Someone probably has.

Ex footballer Jamie Redknapp: “Will Chelsea qualify with ease? I think they will, but it won’t be easy.”

Theo Walcott: “I’ve been consistent in patches this season.”

Here's my favourite. You'll love this: "Julian Dicks is everywhere. It's like they've got 11 Dicks on the field."

There, I've got that off my chest.

TLDR and Mr Shakespeare

TLDR is a term I learned today. It means "Too Long, Didn't Read". I came across it whilst watching a YouTube video copy of a previously live stream. Someone joined Chat and asked "I've just caught the stream; could you give me a TLDR?". The valiant streamer then proceeded to summarise the game, which had so far lasted some 6 hours, in one sentence. 10/10 Potato McWhiskey.

TLDR is apparently a common internet acronym dating back to the early 2000s so I don't know why I haven't come across it before, but it now constitutes "one new thing I learned today". I have no idea in what context its usage is common but I thought I might apply TLDR to books I have recently read so that busy, or impatient, readers won't have to read them. Idle, patient readers can skip to the quiz at the end.

Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self (Claire Tomalin) - Pepys is born and grows up, writes a diary, works for the navy and gets married, although continuing to lead a lustful life.

The Machine Stops (E. M. Forster) - Everyone lives underground, each in one room, where the Machine controls and supports their life, until the Machine breaks down.

The Three Body Problem (Liu Cixin) - Young scientist foolishly sends a message to the universe, which reveals Earth's location to everyone else, causing problems when the Solarians threaten to invade.

And here's a famous - possibly infamous - movie: "A family's first Airbnb experience goes badly wrong".

And a well-known TV series: "Small man manipulates everyone to get his own way".

Meanwhile, here is today's quiz, using info from theodysseyonline.com. Identify the following plays of William Shakespeare from their TLDRs:

• Some hooligans run away and end up getting their dream weddings.
• A fully-grown, college-educated man mopes and whines like a child about his home life.
• Identity theft runs rampant in a beach community.
• A wife loses a hankie and also her life.
• A small boy battles it out with an experienced weasel and nobody wins.
• A bunch of royals get stuck on the most wicked awesome deserted island ever.
• Some shady characters make a whole bunch of outdated law puns; also a woman clearly says no yet in a play full of lawyers no one brings up the issue of consent.

Anyone getting 7/7 is a genius - or at least a Shakespearean nerd.

Answers in one week - watch out for it!

I'm puzzled

Two things happened yesterday.

One, I started a new puzzle

Can you guess what the picture is? There are clues.

Two, I received a surprise package from a shop in Whitstable. It is another puzzle!

The message card says "Happy puzzling!" and it reveals that it was sent by my co-grandparent Jane. Thank you, Jane!

The picture is Van Gogh's "Starry Night".

It's the usual 1,000 pieces and looks a real challenge, Almost as tricky as this

which I was given as a present some time ago by Jane and Trevor and which I have so far not mustered the courage to begin.

Let's see if I can complete these without ending with a piece missing!

Judge a man by his questions

...rather than by his answers. So said Voltaire.

Voltaire (1694-1778) was the nom de plume of François-Marie Arouet. His family apparently nicknamed him "Zozo"; you can see why he changed that. He took Voltaire after being imprisoned in the Bastille; the word has a convoluted genesis involving anagrams, which I won't bore you with. It seems a bit lubricious, frankly.

Anyway, to questions. Judge me by them.

Q. What animal has the biggest ears?

Q. Why has Elon Musk put a chip

in a pig?

Q. Why is a botched job called a pig's ear?

Q. Who does Napoleon represent in Animal Farm?

Q. If Musk's pig now has a brain the size of a planet, why does she tolerate the name Gertrude?

Q. How many pigs does it take to change a light bulb?

Q. If it takes 120 days for a piglet to be born, would it take 240 days for piglet twins (piglins)?

Q. Do pigs roll around in sand dunes in the desert?

Q. Can pigs see rainbows?

I'm not giving answers because Zozo would not be interested. It is not known whether he kept pigs.

Judge me.

It's done

 

My latest jigsaw puzzle. Finished.

Or not. Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed one piece - ONE! - missing.

Was I sold the puzzle incomplete? Or have I lost the piece whilst shuffling around the pieces during the last few weeks? Obviously the smart money is on the latter.

Do I now turn my house upside down in an effort to locate the 1,000th piece or will it by now have disappeared into the depths of my Dyson vacuum cleaner (which, funnily enough has been sounding a bit off lately)?

Blooming Paris. Blooming jigsaws.

UPDATE: Having searched every square inch of floor in my lounge, to no avail, I dismantled the Dyson in the hope that the errant piece might have found its way into its tubes. The bad news is that no jigsaw piece was found; the good news is that the Dyson is no longer sounding funny.

Full stops

 I'm told that Linguists believe that full stops have fallen out of fashion with young people because they 'signify an abrupt or angry tone of voice'

I'm definitely not angry

Does Generation Z feel intimidated Apparently so and they also dont use punctuation in their text messages. [Aargh! Delete that! Just kidding]

Is it the Americans that call full stops periods We have a different meaning for that

Are exclamation points open to misinterpretation [question mark deleted] Does that mean you are shouting Calm down

Wired.com [how to avoid the full stop in a URL] tells me "A semicolon in a text message is the equivalent of putting on makeup to go to the gym" I have no idea what that means

Is this what my mum used to say about minding my Ps and Qs (I always like to search for the derivation of obscure phrases but could find nothing definitive for this) [Are curly brackets punctuation If so I am not G Z friendly]

Adrian Mole had a go at understanding punctuation

"Pandora! / I adore ya / I implore ye / Don't ignore me."

James Joyce had this down to a fine art Molly Bloom's soliloquy in Ulysses counts out at a 3,687 word sentence So kids do streams of consciousness Ive heard my grandkids do that And some bloggers

Im glad Im not a teenager any more