Close Menu

Search The Copy Book

Clay Lane Clay Lane Home Blog The Copy Book Think and Speak Comfortable Words About Clay Lane Cookies
The Copy Book Copy Book Home Archive Subjects Authors Events Years Podcasts Search the Copy Book
Recent How the Cobra Got His Spectacles Naughty Eppie A European Fraud There’s Nae Good Luck in Durham Gaol
Clay Lane

Blog

New posts, old posts, and a few brainteasers

January 22 January 9 OS

121

With Good Intent and Friendly Desire
By Ivan IV of Russia

Ivan the Terrible offered free trade to English merchants throughout his dominions.

In 1553, Edward VI gave letters into the hand of Richard Chancellor, to present to the ruler of Moscow should the Englishman’s dangerous voyage of exploration through the icy waters of the northeast passage succeed. Despite grave hardships the English won through, and following year Tsar Ivan IV (‘the Terrible’) wrote a reply — unaware that Edward was dead, and Queen Mary would be reading it.

Posted October 31 2024

Read

Tags: Copy Book (73)

122

What Do You See?

Make each scene come alive by adding people and action.

The first of these was given to students in Clay’s Exercises 12-13 (1933); the others are mine. Choose one of the following and describe it, introducing people and action.

1 A waiting room.

2 A lift.

3 A cricket pavilion.

4 A shop at an airport.

5 A stables.

Try to make sure your scene helps the reader to answer six questions: What? Who? Where? When (e.g. in the day, or in history)? How? Why? But remember: Show, don’t tell!

Posted October 28 2024

Tags: What Do You See (2)

Post Box : Help Available

123

Why We Study the Classics
Find in The Copy Book

Rudyard Kipling believed that a better appreciation of ancient Greece and Rome could help the English be less insular.

As the twentieth century progressed, more and more people asked why English schools taught Latin and Greek. Rudyard Kipling was one of those who resisted the trend. The value, he said, lay not in ‘intellectual training’, which can be acquired in other ways, but in the development of humility and respect — like playing cricket long enough to realise just how good Ranjitsinhji was.

Posted October 28 2024

Read

Tags: Copy Book (73)

124

An Englishman in Exile
By William Cobbett

Faced with a choice between silence, dungeon or exile, William Cobbett chose exile — and then had to make sense of it.

In March, 1817, English radical William Cobbett fled to the US, in the belief that he was about to arrested for his cheap, popular and highly critical digest of Parliamentary news, the Political Register. A few months later, he wrote back home to his supporters from his Long Island farm explaining how, as an expat, he would balance his divided loyalties.

Posted October 27 2024

Read

Tags: Copy Book (73)

125

Jenny Kissed Me
By Leigh Hunt

Leigh Hunt looks back to a memorable event in a long life.

Leigh Hunt first published this delightful poem (which he labelled a Rondeau, though hardly in the technical sense of that term) in The Monthly Chronicle for November 1838. It was inspired by a impulsive greeting from Jane Welsh, wife of Thomas Carlyle.

Posted October 26 2024

Read

Tags: Copy Book (73)

126

Dial
Find in Think and Speak

Make as many words as you can from just nine letters. Can you beat our score?

See All Words

aced acid acne acted aide ailed alien alit allied ante anti antic cadet call called candle candlelit cane caned cant canted cedilla cell cent cine citadel cite cited clad clan clean cleat client dace dale dance date deal dealt dean decal decant deli dell delta denial dent dental detail detain dial dialect dice dicta diet dilate dill dine dint eclat edict edit elan eland enact entail iced idea ideal idle inlet lace laced laden ladle laid lain lance lanced lancet land lane late lead lean leant leat lend lent lentil lice lied lien lilac lilt line lineal lined lint lintel lite nail nailed neat nice tail tailed talc tale tall tallied teal tell tend tidal tide tied tilde tile tiled till tilled tine
candlelit citadel dialect allied candle client denial dental detail detain dilate entail lancet lentil lintel nailed tailed tilled acted alien cadet clean dance dealt delta edict enact ideal inlet laden ladle lance leant lilac lined tidal tiled aced acid acne aide ante call cane cell cent cite clan clad dale date deal dean dell dent dial dice diet dill dine edit iced idea idle lace land lane late laid lead lean lend lent lain lied lilt line lint lice nail neat nice tail tale tall teal tell tend tide tied tile till
aced acid acne acted aide ailed alien alit allied ante anti antic cadet call called candle candlelit cane caned cant canted cedilla cell cent cine citadel cite cited clad clan clean cleat client dace dale dance date deal dealt dean decal decant deli dell delta denial dent dental detail detain dial dialect dice dicta diet dilate dill dine dint eclat edict edit elan eland enact entail iced idea ideal idle inlet lace laced laden ladle laid lain lance lanced lancet land lane late lead lean leant leat lend lent lentil lice lied lien lilac lilt line lineal lined lint lintel lite nail nailed neat nice tail tailed talc tale tall tallied teal tell tend tidal tide tied tilde tile tiled till tilled tine

Posted October 26 2024

Tags: Polywords (16) Think and Speak (37)

Clay Lane

The Copy Book

Think and Speak

Comfortable Words

Word Games

Blog

The Copy Book

Archive

Subjects

Authors

Events

Year

Search

Popular Games

Add Vowels

Polywords

Honeycomb Game

Clay Lane About Clay Lane Email Support nicholas@claylane.uk

Blog Latest

★ Wulfstan and the Seal of Approval William the Conqueror’s purge of the English Church was halted by a humble bishop and a dead king.

For Today • January 9 • The Feast of St Wulfstan of Worcester

How the Cobra Got His Spectacles John Wood shares the wonder of the Indian cobra’s hood, in science and in myth.

Posted Yesterday • The Copy Book

Naughty Eppie Silas Marner has to harden his heart and teach little Eppie a lesson she will remember.

Posted January 20 • The Copy Book

Music Video Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Othello, Op. 79: II. Children’s Intermezzo

Posted January 20

Vocabulary Compose sentences to illustrate the meaning of these words.

Posted January 20 • Think and Speak

A European Fraud Dostoevsky had to break it to Moscow’s students that ordinary Russians found their brand of politics patronising.

Posted January 19 • The Copy Book

Pronunciation Suggest words in which the letter ‘o’ is pronounced as it is in ‘comely’.

Posted January 18 • Think and Speak

Tea Make as many words as you can using the letters of one nine-letter word. Can you beat our score?

Posted January 17 • Think and Speak

Film Video Professor Smith reluctantly confides his ‘guilty secret’ to his students.

Posted January 16

Sentegrams Unjumble these sentences from the novels of George Eliot.

Posted January 15 • Think and Speak

There’s Nae Good Luck in Durham Gaol On his visits to Durham Gaol, prison reformer John Howard found conditions that were all too familiar.

Posted January 15 • The Copy Book

Music Video Alexander Borodin: Petite Suite: VI. Rêverie

Posted January 14

Person, Object, Action! Make up sentences using these phrases, making sure you put plenty of action in.

Posted January 14 • Think and Speak

Rhymes Suggest words that rhyme with ‘love’.

Posted January 13 • Think and Speak

The Abuse of Literacy Reading and writing should have taught the people more than name-calling and how to manipulate opinion.

Posted January 13 • The Copy Book

Among Old Friends ‘Alpha of the Plough’ hoped Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did not treat his old friends as he treated his favourite books.

Posted January 12 • The Copy Book

Music Video Orlando Gibbons: Thus Angels Sung

Posted January 12 • Comfortable Words

A Reckless Indifference to Life In eighteenth-century England, the death penalty was the solution to almost any crime.

Posted January 11 • The Copy Book

Music Video Sir Charles Villiers Stanford: Symphony No. 3 in F Minor, Op. 28 (Irish): II. Allegro molto vivace

Posted January 10

Vocabulary Express each of these phrases in a single word.

Posted January 10 • Think and Speak

Dear Anne Elliot Anne Thackeray saw something in Jane Austen’s heroines that she missed in their more modern sisters.

Posted January 4 • The Copy Book