Last week I decided that I should do more exercise. This thought normally occurs to me when I have eaten a particularly large piece of cake. Usually however, by the time I have got home from the particular purveyor of cake, I have discarded my plans to become an olympic athlete and I continue as […]
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At the beginning of June I was playing the organ at York Minster for a weekend of Services. 3 days later, during a live broadcast on Radio 3, the organ suddenly stopped working and evensong was dramatically halted half way through the anthem. There followed a rather long period of radio silence, until an announcer […]
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The principles of grouping (or Gestalt laws of grouping) are a set of principles in psychology, first proposed by Gestalt psychologists to account for the observation that humans naturally perceive objects as organised patterns and objects, a principle known as ‘Prägnanz’. Gestalt psychologists argued that these principles exist because the mind has an innate disposition […]
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Earlier today whilst most of the country was huddled under a white blanket of snow, a friend remarked to me that all the songs which feature snow are Christmas ones. It turns out that she’s right. Well almost. Jingle Bells is performed nowadays as a Christmas song and has been since the early 20th century. […]
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In 1954 the Great British public was introduced to the front room of 23 Railway Cuttings in East Cheam. Here they found one Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock. The Hancock character is in many ways the model of a dyspeptic, status anxious, petit bourgeois suburbanite who stomps grumpily around the lower reaches of Middle England. […]
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A hammer, a fork and a piece of rubber. With these three items I could potentially fulfil one of my life ambitions and tune a piano. I mean really, just how hard can it be? Ive tuned a guitar and have a vague notion of the difference between A=440 and A=439.5. And from what I […]
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On 21 December 1968 man didnt quite make it onto the moon. However, Apollo 8, the second manned spaceflight mission in the United States Apollo space program, was launched, and became the first manned spacecraft to leave Earth orbit, reach the Earth’s Moon, orbit it and return safely to Earth. The three-astronaut crew Commander Frank Borman, […]
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“With regard to religion, finally, it may be briefly said that she believed in God in much the same way as she believed in Australia. For she had no doubts whatever as to the existence of either; she went to church on Sunday in much the same spirit as she would look at a kangaroo […]
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Back in June i found myself drinking latte in a supermarket cafe just on the outskirts of Swindon. Worse than that, I managed to get involved in something known as a ‘meeting’. Apparently this occurs when a group of people get together to spend many hours discussing something at length, rather than just doing what […]
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Prior to 1840, most people expected to get quite a few birthday cards. The custom of sending greeting cards can be traced back to the ancient Chinese, who exchanged messages of good will to celebrate the New Year, and to the early Egyptians, who conveyed their greetings on papyrus scrolls. By the early 15th century, […]
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