A Triumph for an Ancient Brain

When I went out to the shops yesterday I forgot my shopping so I had to shop from memory. When I got home I checked against my list and found that I had bought precisely the items listed, and nothing else!

A Floriferous November

Although we are now about half way through Autumn there are still plenty of flowers in the garden. Zonal pelargoniums, begonias, campanulas, mexican daisies, fuchsias, feverfew, Winter jasmine, and at least tree other plants the names of which escape me, are all in flower. In a couple of months time the early Spring flowers should start to appear, so we shouldn't be without flowers for long.

Fireworks delayed.

There seemed to be few fireworks yesterday but rather more tonight, though not a great number on either night. Perhaps smelly explosions are becoming unfashionable, though mine is a fairly quiet area with quite a lot of elderly people who may be past getting excited by such things.

Fundamntal Units Confused in the Media

This afternoon I watched a television programme about the earth's atmosphere, and was reminded why I rarely watch television programs about science. Atmopheric pressure near the earth's surface was described as 1 kilogram per square centimetre, perpetuating the pernicious confusion of force with mass.

I prefer to state atmospheric pressure at sea level as about 10⁵ pascals. A pascal is 1 newton per square metre.

Olive Trees in England

I often notice olive trees for sale at prices that seem rather high. I wonder why people buy them. I doubt if trees grown in England would produce sufficent fruit for people to press their own oil. Yet the plants strike me as very ugly, so there seem to be neither utilitarian nor aesthetic grounds for having them.