Six (Brief) Things...

...for your Monday morning

Thing 1

I hadn’t seen Merriam-Webster’s Time Traveller for a while, but it popped up in my timeline, and is always worth a look. It tells you which words were first used in print in which year.

The year of my birth, for example, saw the coining of, among others, cherry-pick, dork, empty-nest syndrome, grunge, focus group, jet lag, multipack, pixel, wheelie and zit.

How about you?

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Thing 2

Spend a calming few minutes making a stained glass window. Strangely satisfying

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Thing 3

The men’s marathon world record was broken yesterday. It is now tantalisingly close to the two-hour mark. And this reminded me just how desperate certain men are to run a marathon in under four hours.

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Thing 4

I simultaneously want to live in this house and very much do not want to live anywhere near this house.

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Thing 5

I do like the Merlin app, but when it tells me that our neighbours’ five-year-old is an Indian Peafowl, I can’t help thinking that we’re in for an awkward conversation at some point.

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Thing 6

Some good bird migration news, courtesy of the British Trust for Ornithology’s Cuckoo Tracking Project.

Cuach Torch has reached the Congo.

The Cuckoo Project is an Excellent Thing. You can read more about it here and you can sponsor a cuckoo here. Recommended.

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