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January 22 January 9 OS

127

The Man Who Couldn’t Abide Greed
By Geoffrey Chaucer

On a money-spinning pilgrimage to Canterbury, a Pardoner says the quiet part out loud.

Pardoners, in pre-Reformation England, raised funds for the Pope by selling Indulgences, blessings that relieved sinners of some of the punishment they could expect to undergo in Purgatory after death. Naturally a Pardoner attached himself to the pilgrims walking to Canterbury, and he was refreshingly open about his profitable game.

Posted October 25 2024

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128

Composition

Rewrite these sentences so that they do not use the word ‘and’.

Rewrite these sentences to eliminate the word ‘and’. There may be several ways of doing this. For example:

I scrambled to my feet and looked around.

→ Scrambling to my feet, I looked around.

→ When I had scrambled to my feet, I looked around.

1 I asked for a night’s lodging and she said I was welcome to the bed in the loft.

2 I fitted my key into the door and just then I noticed a man and he was at my elbow.

3 I walked into the room and there was an old man and he was at the head of the table and he rose.

These sentences are based on sentences in the novels of John Buchan.

Posted October 24 2024

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129

A Well-Tuned Heart
By Izaak Walton

A road accident made parish priest George Herbert late for his musical evening, but he was not a bit sorry.

Welshman and poet George Herbert was a country clergyman in Bemerton near Salisbury. Quiet, sensitive, and not much enamoured of the cold new Protestantism, his ministered gently to his parish until his death in 1633 at the age of just 39. Izaak Walton told this story as an illustration of the kind of man he was.

Posted October 22 2024

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130

Dog and Ducking
By Edward Jesse

A much-provoked Newfoundland loses his patience.

The following story was included in a collection of anecdotes about dogs, and credited to Abraham Abell (1782-1851), a native of Cork in Ireland, member of the Royal Cork Institution, and one of the founders of the Cuvierian Society. It is told here by Edward Jesse, the man who oversaw the restoration of Hampton Court Palace and its subsequent opening to the public in 1838.

Posted October 22 2024

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131

Expression

Explain these gems of proverbial wisdom to someone who had not understood them.

Explain these proverbial remarks by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) to someone who has not understood them.

1 What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.

2 Damn with faint praise.

3 For forms of Government let fools contest —
Whate’er is best administered is best.

Posted October 21 2024

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132

On Having the Socks
By Samuel Butler

In Erewhon, apologise by saying you have the socks and everyone will understand.

You would be forgiven for thinking that our politicians today seem more sympathetic towards criminals than they do towards the sick and unemployed. In Erewhon, Samuel Butler’s dystopian Utopia, this had been enshrined as policy — which involved the Erewhonians in some ingenious evasions in order to avoid prosecution for a cold.

Posted October 21 2024

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★ 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