Iyer samayal

Thanks to Neha, I discovered a mami-mama who most helpfully demonstrate terrific south Indian, dare I say tam bram dishes on youtube.

Clan Fire Place

A rather friendly and laid back colleague went on holiday with wife and two toddlers to a place in North Wales. Let us call him Charlie Evans. So Charlie went on holiday exactly last year with his family to llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochuchaf in Anglesey.

Naturally, I was a bit confounded to find out. So I sat down across a coffee table sipping tea and spoke to him. Here is some bits of what we talked.


How do you say the name, Charlie?
I cannot pronounce it, I can only do the beginning and the end.


Is there a shorter name for it?
Yes, can’t remember it though. Something like llanfairgogogoch.


Why did you go there and what did you do there?
Visit a friend who had a Holiday caravan just down the road.


Do you have any pictures from there?
I have a picture of the train station sign on my phone. There is not a lot there. Just a train station, a few shops and a take away.Anglesey has some nice places though, if you are thinking of going.

They also have a website for tourism. As a semi-technical person, jolly good that domain names can take up to 63 letters! This is how to pronounce the name. Some thing like Clan fire...

Happy Vishu From England

On work

A rather thought provoking talk on various aspects of work - type, meaning, motivation, end - by Alain de Botton. at the RSA (Royal Society for encouragement of Arts etc)

[The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work]

I have eaten seeds..

..and have passed days in mild terror that any day I could sprout a creeper through my ears. How this idea was planted in my head I am slightly hazy; it could have been an exasperated grandparent or a righteous, god-fearing, finger-wagging child of our neighbours, or well, my mother even, just for laughs; but most certainly watermelon seeds have slid in with the sweet red juice down the throat during the summer holidays. I am sure pomegranate seeds have. In the days of seed-ful grapes and oranges, those too have immigrated successfully. As I grew I up, I took much trouble to reassure myself - it could not possibly happen. The seed would be disposed of sensibly by the body, I have told myself.

Now several years later, I come across this in the Guardian.

The diagnosis? Fir on the lung

16 Apr 2009:

Ian Sample: Medics in the Urals have removed a tiny tree from a man's lung after he complained of chest pains