what I have learned today.

[Mrs Pingu]

When you buy plywood, chipboard, OSB etc from B&Q or other timber supplying emporia the items usally have a sticky label placed in the middle of the sheet - with glur of the "shit to a blanket" variety . . .

I've discovered, courtesy of YT, that gentle heat from a heat gun (or even a hairdrier) and gentle scraping eases the label from the surface leaving minimal glue residue which can then be gently sanded away.

On a similar note, I have found removing old bar tape much easier on a warm summer day when the bike storage area is roasting as opposed to in the winter months.

[citoyen]

The female voice at the end of Roxy Music’s For Your Pleasure saying “Don’t ask…” is Judi Dench.

Judi Dench!!!

It actually seems blindingly obvious once you know.

[TheLurker]

Yesterday.  NCP aka National Car Parks used to do cycle parking as well.

Next time you watch, "The Blue Lamp" keep an eye on the hoarding backing onto the tube line that's seen during the on-foot chase sequence as first Riley (Bogarde) then Mitchell (Handley) climb over the fence near the greyhound track.

[Cudzoziemiec]

A couple of weeks ago I learnt the word eleemosynary. Came across it in a book written in the early 18th century. Now, reading another book written recently but set in the same time period, I've encountered it again! I guess it should stick in my mind now.

[graculus]

A couple of weeks ago I learnt the word eleemosynary. Came across it in a book written in the early 18th century. Now, reading another book written recently but set in the same time period, I've encountered it again! I guess it should stick in my mind now.

IIRC PTerry uses it in 'Making Money' (Uttered by the conman who is posing as a vicar).

[T42]

A couple of weeks ago I learnt the word eleemosynary. Came across it in a book written in the early 18th century. Now, reading another book written recently but set in the same time period, I've encountered it again! I guess it should stick in my mind now.

Sounds like Holmes has been at the cooking sherry again: "eleemosynary, my dear Wazzock".

[rafletcher]

Courtesy of Donna Leon's latest offering, there is no word for "privacy" in Italian.

[Canardly]

That the term 'piping hot' refers to the sound made by steam escaping from hot pies, with references as early as Chaucer.

[T42]

Onomatopiea.

[rafletcher]

That TK Maxx is actually TJ Maxx, but in the UK the name was changed so as to avoid confusion the British retail “giant” TJ Hughes - which I’ve never heard of before reading that. 

[lissotriton]

That TK Maxx is actually TJ Maxx, but in the UK the name was changed so as to avoid confusion the British retail “giant” TJ Hughes - which I’ve never heard of before reading that.

Seems TJ Hughes are mostly a northern England thing, based in Liverpool.
Not to be confused with TJ Morris, also based in Liverpool, who own Home Bargains.

[robgul]

That TK Maxx is actually TJ Maxx, but in the UK the name was changed so as to avoid confusion the British retail “giant” TJ Hughes - which I’ve never heard of before reading that.

Seems TJ Hughes are mostly a northern England thing, based in Liverpool.
Not to be confused with TJ Morris, also based in Liverpool, who own Home Bargains.

Gets more confusing as TKMax owns the Home Sense chain or shops

[rogerzilla]

Waitrose still call them chicken kievs.  Russki-loving bastards 

[Salvatore]

That the Spanish for Flemish is 'flamenco/a'.

As in 'la campaña de clásicas flamencas'  in a translation on eurosport.es of an interview with Adrie Van der Poel.

[rafletcher]

What, in some places at least, a "Toby" is.  Apparently, says t'int'ernt, a "Toby" - in Britain and New Zealand no less - is the valve that sits between the water main and your properties supply pipework.  Hence the generic term "Toby Box" for those hatch-lidded openings in the highway, used for water meters, valves, and (pertinent to our village atm) termination of FTTP feeds before being connected to the property itself.

I've never heard the term "Toby" used for a valve. It's apparently from an Irish term for a roadway (the Toby), and short for "Toby-Cock" or "Toby-Valve".

[citoyen]

A couple of weeks ago I learnt the word eleemosynary. Came across it in a book written in the early 18th century. Now, reading another book written recently but set in the same time period, I've encountered it again! I guess it should stick in my mind now.

I first came across that in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (mid-18th century - obviously something they were all into back then). He uses it *a lot*, so it has stuck, even though it's quite a few years since I read it.

[Cudzoziemiec]

A couple of weeks ago I learnt the word eleemosynary. Came across it in a book written in the early 18th century. Now, reading another book written recently but set in the same time period, I've encountered it again! I guess it should stick in my mind now.

I first came across that in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (mid-18th century - obviously something they were all into back then). He uses it *a lot*, so it has stuck, even though it's quite a few years since I read it.

Ditto! The second being Suskind's Pefume...

[citoyen]

A couple of weeks ago I learnt the word eleemosynary. Came across it in a book written in the early 18th century. Now, reading another book written recently but set in the same time period, I've encountered it again! I guess it should stick in my mind now.

I first came across that in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (mid-18th century - obviously something they were all into back then). He uses it *a lot*, so it has stuck, even though it's quite a few years since I read it.

Ditto! The second being Suskind's Pefume...

Ah! I don't recall it from Perfume, though I'm sure I would have noticed it at the time of reading. Can't think of any other books where I've come across it.

What did you think of Tom Jones? It's one of my all-time favourite books.

[Cudzoziemiec]

A couple of weeks ago I learnt the word eleemosynary. Came across it in a book written in the early 18th century. Now, reading another book written recently but set in the same time period, I've encountered it again! I guess it should stick in my mind now.

I first came across that in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (mid-18th century - obviously something they were all into back then). He uses it *a lot*, so it has stuck, even though it's quite a few years since I read it.

Ditto! The second being Suskind's Pefume...

Ah! I don't recall it from Perfume, though I'm sure I would have noticed it at the time of reading. Can't think of any other books where I've come across it.

What did you think of Tom Jones? It's one of my all-time favourite books.

I'm still in the middle of it! Keep getting sidetracked by other things... But I'm enjoying it. And it's interesting how in some ways it seems more modern than something which was written a century later.

[rafletcher]

That typing the abbreviation for Councillor into a text produced Clot instead of Cllr.

[Ham]

That the one time stack construction of the PP3 is nowadays a basket of AAAA (was this the genesis of the AAAA?)

[Nuncio]

I first came across that in Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (mid-18th century - obviously something they were all into back then). He uses it *a lot*, so it has stuck, even though it's quite a few years since I read it.

Gutenberg says only twice in Tom Jones. But the first one is in the first sentence. Unusual words in first sentences can have quite an impact. I learnt 'catamite' from the first sentence of Anthony Burgess' Earthly Powers:

"It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me." (Who wouldn't want to read on after a first sentence like that?)

It is now in fairly common use at work - so much more acceptable than the 'bitch' it replaced.

[citoyen]

Gutenberg says only twice in Tom Jones. But the first one is in the first sentence. Unusual words in first sentences can have quite an impact.

Yes, I remember it being right at the beginning. Could have sworn it being used more than that, but as you say, that's probably the impact of it being in the first sentence.

[T42]

The finest first sentence in English literature.

Can't remember where I first ran into the word, but I knew it before reading E.P.  It sounds as if it might be a siliceous mineral, formerly used in paste form for poulticing boils.  I have unfond memories of having something like that clapped against my bum when I was 8.

[citoyen]

The only one of his books I've read is A Clockwork Orange, but yes, that is quite the opening line and would certainly want to make me read on. I shall add it to the pile.