This ticket for a 2008 performance of La Bohéme at the Royal Opera House fell out of a library book yesterday, having been used as a bookmark.

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Suffrage (n): The right to have political representation and to vote in elections.

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Chronophage (n): The locust-like creature atop Cambridge's Corpus Clock, acting as its escapement mechanism.

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Improvised (adj): Spontaneous, impromptu, created from whatever comes to hand.

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Quilt (n): A bed covering made of two layers of material, stuffed with varying densities of filling or padding depending on how much warmth is required by the user, and often decoratively stitched.

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Nineteen (n): A number in the range 10-20; a natural number; also a prime number. It is the atomic number for potassium.

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The mundane task of getting train times on the National Rail website has been transformed this morning thanks to a quirk of its print stylesheet.

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Dūcan (verb, Old English): To dive, from which we get our modern word for the duck.

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Here’s a news story that really caught my eye this morning – discussing the idea that activities you do in virtual worlds can have tangible benefits in real life.

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Something like 18 months ago, a certain Mr Random Merryman and myself were happy residents of the virtual world Second Life where we spent a large part of our time as part of the the neo-Victorian roleplaying community of Caledon.

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Over the road lives a lay minister of the Church of England who is accustomed to perform funeral services. Today a large, dark Volvo estate pulls up outside her house. A very young, very soberly-dressed gentleman climbs out and walks at a subdued pace to the door. He can only be an undertaker, in his dark coat and black tie.

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At no time are we ever in such complete possession of a journey, down to its last nook and cranny, as when we are busy with preparations for it. After that, there remains only the journey itself, which is nothing but the process through which we lose our ownership of it – Yukio Mishima

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Sick of being threatened with eternal damnation on your daily commute? Here’s your opportunity to strike back…

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Calling all Alias fans. Think of this as Lolcats: Jack and Sydney Bristow edition.

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Found this today while out geocaching, caught in the hedgerow in a farmer’s field just south of Cottered in Hertfordshire. The balloon (which had been yellow) was in shreds but still attached.

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Today we are celebrating a momentous date – it’s 08/08/08, an occurrence we could not let pass unremarked. And it has the added advantage of working out whether you’re using the civilised British formula or the utterly counterintuitive American one ;- ))

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Here’s a thing of wonder: the launch of a brand-new A1 Pacific steam locomotive built and paid for by enthusiasts, equipped to run on the mainline tracks, and reported on by The Independent.

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Artists Michael Townsend and Adriana Yoto, and six of their friends, noticed an architectural anomaly in the giant shopping mall being built in their town – Providence, Rhode Island, USA. As the project progressed, it became clear that this added up to “750 square feet of underutilized space inside of the mall.”

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Robert Rauschenberg, an immensely influential American artist and arguably the father of the modern trend towards making installations, has died.

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Today’s Wikitionary’s Word of the Day, which I found very pleasing.

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