Mr Lion Tamer and Miss House Dust Particle

Following my witterings about eccentric Finnish surnames, thank you to Lea from Lincoln for informing me that Latvian surnames are equally colourful.

The photograph above features her Latvian partner, whose surname translates as Mr Lion Tamer, and a relative whose maiden name translates as Miss House Dust Particle. Mr Lion Tamer's father was a Mr Holly Bush.

They also know a Mr Lightbulb, a Mr Woodland Scenery and a Mr Long Table.

I've just got back from Aberdeen, where I was running a course at the BBC for a few days. It was driech. Very driech indeed.

'Driech', or 'dreich' - pronounced 'dreek' (with a soft 'chhhh' sound rather than a hard k) is one of those wonderful words which aren't onomatopoeic as such, but somehow perfectly embody the thing they describe.

It means 'dreary, dull, bleak, wet and dismal'. On a driech day, the clouds loom low and you're drenched by an all-permeating drizzle.

It was pretty driech when we landed at Luton, but it's looking less driech now thank goodness.

For years, I've hated June 17th. Without exception, it's my worst day for hayfever - ruined by endless sneezing, wheezing, asthma and itchy eyes. I even had to take an extra tablet this morning which made me drowsy and absent-minded all day.

Why June 17th? I've no idea. But June 17th it is, and it's become legendary in the Peacock family. My Mum even wished me 'good luck on 17th' when we were chatting at the weekend.

But tonight, I discovered a possible cause. For some odd reason, I felt drawn to my folklore calendar when I walked into the house. To be honest, I've not looked at it for a week or so and I hadn't turned it to today's page. But when I did, I wheezed in shock. June 17th is the feast day of Saint Hervé - patron saint of allergy sufferers.

Saint Hervé is the most popular saint in Brittany, where Hervé is the most common boys' name. He was blind, lived with his pet wolf and went around curing and calming animals. I've no idea why he's the patron saint of allergies, but he was obviously a very nice chap. Happy Saint Hervé's Day.

I popped into the wondrous Van Hage garden centre in Ware today and discovered the Baobab Jungle shop in an African hut near the cafe. Among other things, they sell West African brass hooks and I bought one featuring a peacock turning round to groom its back.

Apparently, it's an Adrinka symbol called Sankofa. This means 'return and fetch it' (se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi). The philosophy represented by Sankofa is that it's fine to return and fetch something when you forget. In other words, you should always learn from your mistakes and from history.

I also like the Keerapa symbol for good fortune because it makes me think of Bolly. The philosophy it represents is 'cleanliness is next to godliness' or, more specifically, 'sanctity, like a cat, abhors filth' (kerapa te se okera - kyiri fi)

The Epa symbol is a self-help book in itself. It means 'you are the slave of him whose handcuffs you wear' (onii a n epa da wo nsa no, ne akowa ne wo).

The Fofoo symbolises envy and appears to be inspired by a jealous plant. 'What the fofoo plant wants is that the gyinantwi seeds should turn black' (se die fofoo pe ne se gyinantwi abo bedie). That's the last time I plant a fofoo in my rockery.

I've just heard a TV reporter describing something as 'very unique'. No. It's either 'unique' or not. 'Unique' is an absolute adjective, like 'dead'. You can't say - 'I'm sorry - he's slightly dead'.

But I must applaud a friend who massively overdid it with 'unique' the other day. He was describing how distinctive and eccentric an acquaintance was and getting quite carried away.

'She's the most uniquest creature you could ever meet,' he said. Fantastic use of English. But not if you're doing a report on BBC News.

I had to email a student (a uni student) the other day. His reply - soz m8- ASL?

This apparently means I'm terribly sorry but I've totally forgotten who you are. I had to go on Google to translate.

Soz m8 = sorry mate

ASL = age? sex? location?

Clearly 20 is the new 2. Uni is an infantilised world - an 18-30 holiday with one or two bookiewooks to read and little tests at the end. Grown-up words are strictly for essays.

You don't have a boyfriend. You have a boyf. You don't eat kebabs. You munch on babs. You don't get drunk. You get trollied, muntered, clangered, bazzeracked or wombled.

Degree classes have childish nicknames too.

A First is a Damien (Hirst)
A 2.1 is an Attilla (the Hun)
A 2.2 is, of course a Desmond (Tutu)
A Third is a Richard (III), Thora (Hird) or Vorderman (after Carol, who got one) and
A Fail is a Dan (Quayle)

I'm aware of the linguistic argument that this is all very healthy and that students are excellent at code-switching (between slang and formal English). But clearly Mr ASL didn't possess this skill.

Of course we used childish slang too. A disco was always a bop for instance. I openly used acronyms like narg (not a real gentleman). And one boy in my college frequently appeared in public with a teddybear under his arm. Brideshead was on TV at the time.

But the point is that we did do grown-up things as well. My tutor called me Mr Peacock. We had to wear gowns for formal hall. We had to sign an exeat book if we went home for a weekend. And we read lots of books and talked about them - sometimes till dawn.

In some ways, that world was a fantasy too. Just a different one. A Merchant Ivory version of youth, as opposed to the Hollyoaks/Friends/Big Brother one they have now.

But at least we didn't say uni. Soz m8, but you're a narg.

a magpie, trying to look cute

I was woken up today, yet again, by the nasty metallic chattering of magpies. The Roman poet Martial said that if you just heard a magpie and didn't see it, you wouldn't think it was a bird. I agree. You'd think it was a pneumatic drill. Or the wind-up mechanism of a sinister machine. I'm pretty sure the 'wind-up bird' in Haruki Murakami's Wind-up Bird Chronicle is a magpie. The book starts with the main character listening to the overture to The Thieving Magpie.

The thieving stereotype is true by the way. They're renowned for picking up bright objects and hoarding them, a bit like like chavs in Argos. And they build rounded nests which they fill with the assorted objects they've nicked. This is probably where we get the word 'pie' from (as in tart).

This time last year, a mob of them attacked the blackbird nest in the garden. I was driven to despair by their grim cackling and the piteous distress calls of their poor little victims, which I had to bury once they'd murdered them for no apparent reason.

In some cultures, Magpies are considered good omens. The blue magpie is the national symbol of Taiwan. The Chinese call them 'happy magpies'. Yes - and the people of Tibet are happy too. And the word magpie has positive connotations in Newcastle, being the nickname of the greatest football team ever.

They've never been popular in Europe. In English folklore, it's believed they were the only bird not to go on the ark with Noah, preferring to sit outside 'jabbering at the drowning world.' And they allegedly refused to mourn at the crucifixion.

They were considered to be the devil's birds. People used to chant 'devil, devil, I defy thee' if they encountered a magpie. Or they'd turn around three times and say, 'Hello Mr Magpie, how are you today? Where's your wife, your child and your family?' Alternatively, they'd pinch the person they were with. This all went on well into the late nineteenth century.

Magpies were originally just called 'pies'. Shakespeare famously saw pies as harbingers of doom -

Dogs howl’d, and hideous tempest shook down trees;
The raven rook’d her on the chimney’s top,
And chattering pies in dismal discords sung.

'Pie' was probably derived from their Latin name – pica pica. But, for some odd reason, the name Margaret or Maggie was attached to 'pie' in the late seventeenth century. This may have just been a nickname, as in 'Jenny Wren' or 'Tom Tit'. Whatever the reason, it stuck, and Maggie Pie soon became shortened to 'Magpie'.

Magpie superstitions continue to this day, including the rhyme which was the signature tune of the ITV children's programme Magpie -

One for sorrow, Two for joy, Three for a girl, Four for a boy, Five for silver, Six for gold, Seven for a secret never to be told.

In other words, if you see one magpie, you'll experience sorrow and so on.

Magpie was ITV's answer to the BBC's Blue Peter and, as you may know, was considered dangerously subversive by middle class parents, because the presenters wore jeans and trainers and had long hair. One even had an afro hair-do.

They're also cunning mimics and can accurately imitate human voices. The author Gerald Durrell had two tame magpies which used to impersonate his mother and cause havoc by calling their pet dogs in her voice.

Magpies are wrong. They must be stopped.

a Taiwanese Blue Magpie - it's pretty, but don't be fooled by its blandishments

a magpie nest

a sinister-looking magpie in a medieval bestiary

Magpie on ITV

a magpie playing football

I met a strange Finn the other day. In St Albans. I've never, to be honest, met a Finn who wasn't strange.

This prompted me to explore Finnish culture. I started with the language and stumbled on a list of Finnish surnames.

Here are a few. They're real as far as I can tell. I cross-checked them in a dictionary because they just seemed to weird to be true.

Aatos - Mr Thought

Alkio - Mrs Embryo

Arvio - Mrs Estimate

Erikoinen - Mr Peculiar

Haimola - Mr Pancreas

Hikipää - Mrs Sweat Head

Hiukkanen - Mrs Particle

Ilmiä - Mr Phenomenon

Ilmiäkorpi - Mr Forest Phenomenon

Häkämien - Mr Carbon Monoxide Gas

Rantakulkkila - Mr Beach Interpreter

Tomula - Mrs Dusty Household

Ylilherne - Mr Superpea

If, like me, you were introduced to German by the frighteningly aryan Hans Schaudi, his sinister schnitzel-obsessed family, his disturbed beagle Lumpi and his spooky sidekick Lieselotte, you'll shout 'Toll! Das ist aber schön!' and possibly even 'Mein Bein tut weh!' when you learn that the 70s Vorwärts German course has now become an internet cult.

There are even some amusing parodies (in French and Vorwärts-type German) on www.schaudi.com Super!

Vorwärts was partly devised by my German teacher Mr (Herr) Brendan. Revisting the Schaudis, I find this somewhat worrying.

The Schaudi Family

Hans and Lumpi. NB Lumpi was a Beagle and not a Dachshund, as claimed by the conspiracy theorists who view Vorwärts as a Nazi allegory

Hans, Lieselotte and Lumpi search for mushrooms

Lumpi gets lost in the wood

Hans Schaudi. What's that thing on his head? An insect? I don't recall any references to it during my German lessons.

Mr Brendan

I've been ridiculously absent-minded and tired this week, and I think it's because of the wind. When I was teaching children, they were always at their most unruly and fidgety when it was windy, and teachers generally report more fights and bad behaviour on windy days.

'Ill Winds' are a well-known phenomenon in some cultures. Weird, warm winds - such as the Föhn (Alps), Mistral (France), Chinook (USA) and Sharav (Middle East) - are always accompanied by a rise in accidents, crime and suicide. And some criminologists have suggested that judges should take windy weather into account as a mitigating factor.

Meteorologists say it's probably to do with changes in electrical charges and pressure in the atmosphere. Whatever it is, it's making me very scatty and sorely ruffling my feathers.

The Hertford General Synod of 673

It's almost Easter, but it's only the middle of March. What's that all about?

Easter Day falls on 23rd March this year. The last time this happened was in 1913. The next time will be in 152 years.

It's not the earliest Easter can be. That's 22nd March. The latest is 25th April.

It was at the first General Synod in Hertford (673 AD) that we officially adopted the current method of calculating the date. So it's Hertford's fault.

Basically – the rule is that Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox.

The Vernal or Spring Equinox happens on March 20th (occasionally 21st) and signifies the start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

The equinoxes (when the Sun is directly over the Equator, favouring neither the Northern nor Southern Hemispheres) happen in spring and autumn and are the half-way points between the Solstices. A Solstice is when the sun is at its strongest over the Northern or Southern Hemisphere. It's at its strongest on the Summer Solstice and weakest on the Winter Solstice.

Solstices and Equinoxes are on set dates. But the first full moon after the Equinox doesn't happen on a set date (or day of the week) at all. That's why Easter is such a moveable feast.

This year, the Vernal Equinox is on Thursday March 20th. The first full moon after that is, by chance, the next day - Friday March 21st. So Easter's two days later, on Sunday March 23.

You may care to work it all out for yourself, using this fun algorithm -

a = Year mod 19
b = Year \ 100
c = Year mod 100
d = b \ 4
e = b mod 4
f = c \ 4
g = c mod 4
h = (b + 8)\25
i = (b - h + 1)\3
j = (19*a + b - d - i + 15) mod 30
k = (32 + 2*e + 2*f - j - g) mod 7
m = (a + 11*j + 22*k) \ 451
n = j + k - 7*m + 114
Month = n\31
Day = (n mod 31) + 1

I've been playing a lot of Scrabble recently and have, for obvious reasons, become fascinated by two-letter words. Here are my top five.

My favourite two-letter word is 'od'. The 'od' was a mysterious hypothetical force, postulated by Baron von Reichenbach in the nineteenth century.

In Ancient Egypt, the soul was called the 'ba' and took the form of a strange bird.

Here is a 'xu', together with a few dongs. A 'xu' is a small unit if currency in Vietnam. Not as big as a dong, or even a hao, but better than nothing.

An 'oe' could very well be blowing in this photo of the Faroe Islands. An 'oe' is a Faroean wind. Very onomatopoeic. Just try saying it in a sort of Scottish/Scandinavian accent.

The 'ai' is a three-toed sloth. They look very friendly to me. I might just buy one.

St Raphael is the patron saint of single people. Raphael was a bit of a matchmaker - famously responsible for introducing Tobias to Sarah. Sarah didn't have a very good track record with men though. Her first seven husbands died on their wedding night. St Raphael's day is October 24th.

The patron saint of single men is St Benedict. As you can see, he wasn't much of a looker. His day is 11th July.

St Agatha is the patron saint of single women. Her day is February 5th. Poor Agatha had a hard time of it. She was sent to a brothel, but refused to do any work.

I'm reading 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins at the moment, and it's good to see that he credits Hertford's Alfred Russel Wallace as well as Darwin when he's writing about evolution.

Wallace (1823 – 1913) lived in Hertford from the age of 5 to 14. His mother's family – the Greenells – were Hertford people and his great grandfather was the town's mayor.

He lived at No 11 St Andrew Street in what's now called 'The Wallace House' and he was a pupil at Hertford Grammar.

We went to school in the winter at seven in the morning, and three days a week remained till five in the afternoon; some artificial light was necessary, and this was effected by the primitive method of every boy bringing his own candle or candle-ends with any kind of candle-stick he liked. An empty ink bottle was often used, or the candle was even stuck on to the desk with a little of its own grease. So that it enabled us to learn our lessons or to do our sums, no one seemed to trouble about how we provided the light.

Hertford Grammar when Wallace was a pupil

His first great expedition was to the Amazon, where he made copious notes and collected examples of many extraordinary species. But the ship back to England caught fire and sank, drowning most of his research.

Thankfully, he survived and went on another expedition to Indonesia. Here, he discovered many new species, including the Wallace's Flying Frog. He also postulated the existence of a line dividing Asian from Australasian species (The Wallace Line). Then he contracted Malaria. But this gave him the space he needed to dream up a theory of natural selection.

I was suffering from a sharp attack of intermittent fever, and every day during the cold and succeeding hot fits had to lie down for several hours, during which time I had nothing to do but to think over any subjects then particularly interesting me.

Over the next two days, he wrote 'On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type.' He then sent the paper off to the man most likely to appreciate it – Charles Darwin.

By sheer coincidence, Darwin had just started writing up his theory of evolution. 'I never saw a more striking coincidence,' wrote Darwin on receiving Wallace's work. 'Even his terms now stand as heads of my chapters...so all my originality, whatever it may amount to, will be smashed.'

In other words the Hertford naturalist discovered evolution at exactly the same time as – if not before – Darwin.

After 'On the Origin of Species' was published, Darwin wrote to Wallace, 'Most persons would in your position have felt bitter envy and jealousy. How nobly free you seem to be of this common failing of mankind.' He even suggested that Wallace would have written his own definitive book on the subject just as well or better 'if you had had my leisure.'

Wallace was a generous chap and appears to have been perfectly happy for Darwin to get most of the credit for evolution. He was, after all, the kind of man who bottle-fed a baby orangutan for three months after he’d rescued it from a swamp. A true animal lover. Back in England, he had pet cats called Flunkie and Crumpet.

He also became a socialist after observing life in the rainforest. Whereas Darwin was appalled by the gap between the 'savages' he encountered and the people of Europe, Wallace was struck by the similarities, and felt a real connection with them.

He also differed from Darwin scientifically – believing that humans transcended evolution because of their spirituality. He even became a Spiritualist and attended séances, but, being a scientist, he insisted on searching the room first. Fascinated by extra-terrestrial life, he wrote a paper called 'Is Mars Habitable?'

Wallace remained modest throughout his life, trying to turn down an honorary degree from Oxford, membership in the Royal Society, and the Order of Merit. And he remained incredibly active until his death, even building a new house when he was 89.

He could have been buried in Westminster Abbey, next to Darwin. But, knowing his wishes, his family turned down the offer. Instead, they buried him in the local graveyard, which had a better view.

After his death, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle allegedly based an entomologist character on him. Conan Doyle - also a Spiritualist – was a great admirer of Wallace and claimed to be guided at points by his ghost – 'an invisible and friendly presence.'

The Wallace House in Hertford is now occupied by a GP. But there is a memorial to Wallace in the town – a roundel in the pavement outside Waitrose, where you can see several of Wallace's creatures, including his fabulous flying frog.

'The' is endangered. Please use it. A lot. Today.

It's a sinister conspiracy. This morning, a BBC reporter completely ditched it on TV. He was talking about children. And - instead of saying 'at the age of 12' or 'by the age of 7' - he said 'at age 12' and 'by age 7'. I almost choked on my Deluxe Dorset Muesli with Nuts.

Peacockshock says - Save the the!

Now - where did I put my brain?

A couple of days ago, as you probably know, the Archbishop of Canterbury said it was 'unavoidable' that some aspects of Sharia (Islamic) law would be adopted in the UK. He didn't call for the public beheading of murderers or the chopping off of burglars' hands or the stoning of adultresses. And - yes - he did just say 'aspects'. And - yes - most of Sharia law seems quite sensible if you bother looking at the details. And - yes - I'm absolutely sure he meant well.

But the man is clearly away with the fairies and stuck on Planet Theologian if he thinks you can make statements like that and not cause a massive row. What on earth were his media advisors thinking of?

My company talk advises people on handling the media (from High Court judges to CEOs to teenagers to - um - theologians) and one thing we tell all of them is to (1) think about what you say, but also (2) think very carefully about what people will hear (or want to hear).

It's like libel law which is about what average people are likely make of your statement rather than the statement itself.

So, unless he's naive beyond all stupidity, he must have known, or at least been warned, that - regardless of his intentions or nuances - it would inevitably cause a very unholy war of words - and endless wailing and gnashing of keyboards.

He could have easily delivered his point in the form of questions and hypothetical scenarios ('Who knows? One day, some aspects of Sharia law - such as blah, blah, blah - might be incorporated here...')

Instead, he used the crass and inflammatory word 'unavoidable' (subtext - we want/need to avoid it).

Then he said 'aspects' without saying which aspects.

And now he's reportedly shocked at the backlash.

Archbishops are not, I sincerely hope, enthroned because they're good at handling the media. And they shouldn't censor everything they say out of fear of the tabloids. But surely they have media teams. And surely he could have been a teeny bit more careful about his language.

It's occurred to me that yet another 'the' has gone missing. The 'the' in dates - as in 'The 14th of March.' Now, it's just known as '14th March'. This is an abomination.

Yorkshire people are allowed to omit the 'the' or reduce it to 't' or 'tut' but no-one else is and I won't have it.

Geordies have kept the 'the'. But they sometimes use it in odd, quaint ways, as in 'see you the morrow' (a bit like Old English) or 'have you seen the Lympics?' (a well-known international sporting contest, held every four years).

And 'a' is having a hard time of it too. Whatever happened to 'a quarter to nine' or 'a quarter past ten'? Dropping the 'a' was a bad thing and symptomatic of a decline in Britain's moral fibre.

Thanks to Frank for alerting me to the existence of Vivian Comma Close in Islington. For years, Frank has walked past, wondering why there was a comma called Vivian, and now he's found out.

Vivian was a composer and jazz and calypso singer.

But I'm having terrible trouble finding out anything else about Mr/Mrs/Ms/Dr/Prof Comma and I'm not even sure if Vivian was male or female. Perhaps Vivian was 'Lord Comma'. Calypso people used to knight themselves at the drop of a hat.

I think Vivian was connected somehow to Lord Christo and to the Golden Cockerel. But it's possible that Vivian was the Golden Cockerel. In which case, it's likely that she was a man.

S/he also appears to have written a song called 'Oh - You Nasty Woman' and the music for a 1957 film called 'Fire Down Under'.

I like pilcrows. They're the ghosts of punctuation. They signify nothingness.

I've learnt something new this weekend. 'Hippopotomonstrosesquipedeliaophobia' is now considered to be the longest word in English. It means 'the fear of long words'.

Rupert - a bear

There was a letter in The Times (or The Telegraph - can't remember) this week, bemoaning the widespread use of 'Rupert the Bear'. Rupert is, of course, just 'Rupert Bear'. Why dub him 'Rupert the Bear', fulminated the disgruntled correspondent, when we don't refer to Rupert's Peruvian cousin as 'Paddington the Bear'. What next? 'Mickey the Mouse'? 'Donald the Duck'?

The Rupert issue is, of course, a thorny one. Why, for example, is Felix always 'Felix the Cat' rather than plain old 'Felix Cat'. Why, for that matter, isn't he just 'Felix - a Cat'? I guess he's Felix the Cat in order to distinguish him from Felix the Gerbil or Felix the Termite. And 'Felix the Cat' scans better in the song.

I like a nice 'the'. 'The' adds a touch of Edwardian grandeur to a name. Imagine dining at 'Ivy' (or even 'Ivy's') rather than 'The Ivy'. It just wouldn’t be cricket. And, for me, it will always be 'The Lebanon', 'The Gambia', 'The Ivory Coast' and 'The West Country'.

But some jumped-up metropolitan popinjays have recently got it into their heads that 'the' is a bit up-tight and dropping it is cool - the verbal equivalent of not doing up the laces on your trainers.

On the tube the other day, the voice announced, 'Alight here for Houses of Parliament'. No 'the' whatsoever. As a protest, I refused to get off and stayed on ... all the way to The Canary Wharf.

In the perverse and slouchy world of art, it's also considered a bit old-school to bother with 'the'. So we end up with the article-free 'Tate Modern' in London and 'Baltic' in Newcastle. But it's a human right to be preceded by a 'the' in my view, so I jolly well add one, as in: 'I went to The Baltic the other day and saw lots of random objects which made no sense.'

Without 'the', we'd all be cast adrift in a sea full of indefinite articles, bobbing around like driftwood. 'The Queen' is clearly not the same as 'a queen'. Being invited to 'a queen’s garden party' is a different thing altogether. And 'The Queen' is not 'Queen'. To my knowledge, Elizabeth II has never had a hit with Bohemian Rhapsody and doesn't sport a camp moustache.

Talking of bands, it doesn't do to get your definite articles in a twist. Some have a compulsory 'the' - 'The Stones', 'The Who', 'The Fall'. People would think you were a bit odd, or an entomologist perhaps, if you dropped the compulsory 'the' and said: 'I'm a big fan of Beatles. I've got lots of Beatles in my iPod.'

But 'The Fleetwood Mac', 'The Wham', 'The Take That'? No. I think not.

Other bands are more borderline. It gives me a cheeky fillip to add a 'the' to 'Kaiser Chiefs' for example. But I'm quite hardline about 'Arctic Monkeys' who are emphatically not 'The Arctic Monkeys'. Saying 'The Arctic Monkeys' is a sure sign that your CD collection qualifies for Saga insurance. 'The' is still hanging on, but seems to be reserved for the more perky bands such as 'The Wombats'.

Which brings us to the eighties band 'The The'. If they were launching now, they'd probably be required to drop the initial 'the' and just call themselves 'The'.

On the other hand - they could privately think of themselves as ‘The The The’, drop the first ’The’, remain ‘The The’ and just about manage to save face.

Or should that be 'save the face'? No. My face is my face. Not the face or a face. In English, we say, 'I’ve broken my nose.' But in many other languages, your nose is simply 'the nose', as in: 'I've broken the nose'. I guess the assumption is that 'the nose' is quite obviously your own one and not one which happened to be randomly passing by.

It is acceptable to drop the 'the' in everyday phrases such as 'I'm going to bed' - unless you're Scottish, in which case you say 'I'm going to my bed', presumably to make it unequivocally clear that you're not heading for someone else's.

'The' is becoming an endangered species in English and must be preserved at all costs. In other European languages such as German, they fling it in willy nilly wherever they can. Friends are referred to as 'The Siegfied' or 'The Brunhilde’. You attend 'the school', you get admitted to 'the hospital' and you fear 'the death'.

I hope you’ve found this article definite. And - by the way - I am the Ian Peacock and not the other one.

The the is dead. Long live the the.

I spent yesterday at the Southbank Centre and found myself feeling oddly nostalgic as I strolled around in the shadow of all that brutalist architecture. It was a bit like being in the Cotswolds. It proper warmed my cockles.

I feel the same about Centrepoint, the BT Tower, the Pompidou Centre and the Byker Wall. I think it's because 50s/60s/70s architecture reminds me of my childhood and optimism about a space-age future, which of course never arrived.

Or perhaps it's because the Southbank has become a trendy new setting for romantic moments in movies. Couples in British films used to routinely have such moments walking ridiculously slowly along gravel beaches. Now it's obligatory to have them in front of the National Theatre.

I look forward to the day when they shoot a Hovis ad at the Southbank, with Dvorak in the background and shots of a yoof on a skateboard delivering a modernist loaf to the Hayward.

I bought a baking tray the other day and was delighted that it was described as 'oblong' on the label. The oblong is a wondrous creature and I'm sure I wasn't alone in feeling ruffled when it was usurped by the evil 'rectangle' in the seventies. Oblongs are the cute red squirrels of geometry. Rectangles are the nasty grey ones.

This year's Ig Nobel Awards have been announced.

The 2007 winning projects included -

a study into jet lag cures for hamsters

a scientific paper revealing that swallowing swords is bad for you

and

US Army research into a 'gay bomb' to make same-sex enemy troops irresistable to each other, thereby distracting them from their duties

I think they should drop one on the Mid West and the Bible Belt for fun.

A boy from York has suddenly developed a posh southern accent after recovering from a brain op. William McCartney Moore, 10, now uses long 'a' sounds ('carstle' instead of 'castle'). And he’s not alone. I used to work in the same office as Annie Bristow - a BBC producer and presenter who had a standard BBC English accent but then sounded distinctly Scottish after she had a stroke. And Geordie Linda Walker - from my home village near Newcastle - woke up after a stroke last year with a Jamaican accent.

When I first heard about Foreign Accent Syndrome or FAS, I assumed it was some kind of mysterious throwback to previous generations. But it turns out there’s a slightly more rational explanation.

FAS accents aren’t authentically local and sometimes fall between two totally different geographical areas. Mrs Walker, for instance, is sometimes perceived as sounding a bit Slovakian. So neurologists and linguists have concluded that the accents are actually ‘perceptual epiphenomena’ - not real, but in the ear of the beholder.

They’re actually caused by damage to the motor areas of the brain - affecting movements in the mouth and tongue. This changes the formation of sounds, causing a new accent which can correspond accidentally with a local accent from another geographical area.

And the changes can be reversed with the help of speech therapy, so William should be able to get his Yorkshire accent back. I hope he won’t suffer the same fate as Astrid L from Norway. In 1941, she suffered a head injury from shrapnel during an air-raid and was left with what sounded like a strong German accent. This didn’t go down too well and she was shunned for the rest of the war.

Watch an interview with fabulous 'Jamaican Geordie' Linda Walker

rabbit warren illustration from The Medieval Cookbook

I bought a medieval recipe book at the weekend, so don't be surprised if I serve up a mess of potage followed by frumenty the next time you come for dinner.

The Medieval Cookbook also includes herbal remedies. If you need to 'staunch blood at the nose' for instance, you should 'anoint the nose with the juice of leeks within. Also, dandelion will staunch blood at the nose, if thou wilt break it, and hold it to the nose and the savour may go into it.'

Jain monk

I had to kill a fly yesterday after it crash-landed in some gloss paint when I was doing a bit of DIY. I've felt bad about this ever since. I've also felt angry with the fly for messing up my paintwork, but also guilty about feeling angry.

I've always had a soft spot for insects and I'd only kill one if it was directly threatening a person or a pet. I once killed a wasp that seemed to be attacking Mo my pet rabbit. OK – I've also murdered the odd mosquito in Africa, but I do regret it.

When I was a child, I used to pick up insects and take them for walks – fascinated by the fact that they were travelling relatively vast distances in seconds, like humans crossing the globe or going into space.

And I once became obsessed by the BBC's insect sound effects discs. I recall one which was labelled: Housefly, Prague, 1967. I like the fact that someone was pedantic (and underworked) enough to record this detail. And I like the fact that this fly was immortalised without being remotely aware of the fact, and has probably starred posthumously in loads of BBC dramas.

The Indian Jain religion has a fascinating, if controversial, take on insects and forbids harming them. Jain monks walk slowly with brooms to sweep insects away and avoid treading on them. They also brush chairs with whisks to avoid sitting on them. And they wear masks to avoid breathing them in.

Some Jains even refuse to take antibiotics as they don't want to harm microbes. I draw the line at that, having been almost killed by microbes two years ago. If it's between me and a microbe, I win. I feel I possibly have more to contribute to the universe, but I may be wrong.

I once attended an entomologists' conference and enjoyed it immensely. Many of the insectologists fitted the stereotype perfectly. They had beards, wore tweeds and were rotund and jolly.

Ten random insect facts -

(1) Fleas can jump 200 times their body length. That's like you or me jumping onto the top of Canary Wharf.

(2) Fleas have caused more human deaths than all wars put together. George W – if you read this, please don't declare a War on Fleas.

(3) Aphids can produce 50 aphid babies a week. No wonder aphid maternity wards are so big.

(4) Dragonflies only live for 24 hours. But Spendour Beetles live till they're about 47.

(5) Ants can carry things 50 times their own weight. This is like you or me lifting an elephant.

(6) Crickets hear through their knees. How silly is that?

(7) The greatest number of pairs of legs ever seen on a milllipede was 375.

(8) Insects outweigh humans by a factor of 50 and there are more insects in a square mile of countryside than there are humans on the entire earth.

(9) Bot flies lay their eggs on mosquitoes' noses.

(10) A cockroach can live for a week without its head and cockroaches can hold their breath for 40 minutes. Well, whoopie doo.

Gordon Lamont uses his favourite photo (of some bluebells) to boost his confidence - using photos is just one of the many fascinating psychological tips in this book

As you may know, I run confidence courses and spend a lot of my time trying to boost the confidence of broadcasters and real people too. I also – like everyone – have regular confidence lapses.

And I occasionally find myself haunted by the notion that (1) there's such a thing as a Confident Person (2) I'm not a Confident Person myself, but (3) I could become one if I only knew the secret formula. This is, of course, total nonsense.

The newly-published Confidence Book by Gordon Lamont is an excellent guide to boosting your confidence. It's a great read - full of anecdotes and useful ideas - and it doesn't pretend that there's some Californian self-help formula which can turn you into a superperson overnight. It simply guides you along the spectrum from unconfident to more confident. It's a book about 'confident behaviour' rather 'confident people'.

The author – an actor, trainer and media person - is amusingly and touchingly honest about his own confidence challenges and shares lots of personal tips and stories.

The Confidence Book has loads of useful advice on body language, smalltalk, creating a good first impression, and using creative visualisation. There are some fascinating ideas – the 'gesture plane', 'radio cross-dressing' and 'quintessence' (a five-part route to approaching something more confidently). And the no-nonsense tips are interspersed with bursts of sometimes surreal humour.

The Confidence Book is rounded off with a list of confidence boosters. Not 20 or 100, but a rather strange number – 63.

'Why 63 ideas?' asks Lamont. 'Why not? I set out to write 50 but decided that I had a few more to add. I know books are supposed to be neat and tidy with lists of ten or 50 or 99 or 100. Let me confidently assert that I have 63.'

The Confidence Book is published by Sheldon Press – ISBN 978 – 1 – 84709 – 001 – 0 and is available in bookshops and on Amazon

The Confidence Site

Date - Saturday 18 August 2007

Venue - Central London W1

Trainers - Ian Peacock (me), Kathleen Griffin, Gordon Lamont Kathleen and Gordon are highly-acclaimed self-help authors and very experienced in the media.

Company - The Talk Consultancy

Course - A chance to explore the right style of confidence for you, with loads of fun interaction, debate, tips, techniques, and opportunities to try things out in a safe, friendly environment. You'll diagnose your stumbling blocks, explore what's holding you back and then develop a practical action plan for a confident way forward.

Fee - £119

Book a place on The Confidence Course - email confidence@talkconsultancy.com or contact me through Peacockshock

Thanks many to the Peacockshock visitor who kindly emailed me night last regarding the cat and guinea pig photo.

His comment: 'cute, very'.

When I was trained to write news at the BBC, we were always taught never to write backwards as it can lead to comical ambiguity.

Indeed, to comical ambiguity it can lead, as in:

After eating my lunch, the waiter engaged me in conversation.

And while I'm on, the answer to 'How are you?' is: 'Well, thank you'.

It is not: 'Good'.

When I ask you how you are, I'm not enquiring about your opinion on your ethical status. I simply want you to say 'well', even if you're ill.

Now go away and stop annoying me.

Away. Go.

I can't stop listening to the new Mark Padmore CD of Handel Arias - 'As Steals the Morn'. It's the best classical release of 2007 in my opinion.

'A beguilingly rich and sensitive recital from one of the most thoughtful tenors of his generation. Mark Padmore uses extraordinary diction and whispering chamber-like intimacy. Padmore is a master of taste, restraint and unassuming gesture.'
Gramophone Magazine

'Someone who, alone in a room with a tea cosy, doesn't try it on.' (that counts me out then)

'Someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of the Lone Ranger.'

'Someone whose mind watches itself.' (Albert Camus)

'Someone who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.' (Dwight D Eisenhower)

'Someone who has found one thing more interesting than sex.' (Aldous Huxley)

'An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.' (Charles Bukowski)

'Being an intellectual is wearing your glasses half way down your nose then having to tilt your head back to see people.'

'Someone who hears the phrase 'Big Brother' and thinks of George Orwell first.'

What happens when an English phrase is translated (by computer) back and forth between five or more different languages? You can now find out, thanks to an online Babeliser. I tried out some phrases and quotations and got some pretty weird results.

The fat cat sat on the mat –
The great cat was firm

I wandered lonely as a cloud –
Vento vento only communicates like the cloud

Kiss me quick -
bacillus fastly

A Big Mac and fries with strawberry milk shake please -
With that ã. ã. "they are he and ã. IMPER and oil of the asterisk of the inginocchiamento of him ' ã ' "ã. 6á. he is great

It's raining cats and dogs -
The cat and the rectangles of the rain of the dog

I love to go a wandering along the mountain track -
Esteem the movement that goes the length of the ways of the movement of the mountain i love to go

A noisy noise annoys an oyster -
the ascent of her disturba obstructs one ostra

I love to love you baby -
The boy assesses the situation, that one that he appreciates

Liar liar pants on fire -
Asthma of the mentiroso of the mentiroso of the fogos

I shave with foam and a razor -
I am completely burned by the bubble and scherblock of the rasatura

I have a hangover and require a coffee and an aspirin -
I have the part of the rest, have the necessity of the series of silicone of desperations of the coffee and the Arab league

The hills are alive with the sound of music -
Assembly and healthful lodging of music

Do not feed the lion -
The lion would not have that to modify itself for particular requirements

I've just discovered an extraordinary fact.

There are 84 thousand Ians in the USA. Ian is the 579th most popular US name. And 99.9% of USA Ians are male. If my terrible maths serves me right, that means there are 84 female Ians.

There are also 24 thousand American Peacocks, but a mere seven Ian Peacocks.

I discovered this on the brilliant How Many of Me? Why not try your own name and discover how common you are?

I've invented a new displacement activity - googlewhacking names on How Many of Me?

I tried Bert Snodgrass first and discovered there are two of them.

Then I tried my mum's cousin in New York whose real name is Ranulph de roos Norman, and was told he didn't exist and that there are no Ranulphs at all in America. Wrong.

Then I hit lucky with Dick Dick. A mere one. Hurrah.

But my absolute favourite was Kitty Bollinger. Yes. There's someone (only one) in the USA with that name. Bolly and I were most amused and intend to track her down. I have an inkling that she's a grand old lady living in New England, but who knows?

Just Jack

For the last month, the song 'Starz in their Eyes' by Just Jack has haunted my brain, running in a constant loop.

This is despite the fact that I listen to loads of music all the time. Today, it's been Arvo Pärt and Philip Glass. But it's always the naff pop songs that get stuck. I once had Kylie Minogue in my brain for a year. It was hell. I even had Marlene Dietrich singing constantly in my head for a month in 1992. And I almost failed an O-Level thanks to the song 'You Can Ring My Bell' which possessed my teenage brain like a terrible disco poltergeist.

Apparently, catchy tunes share qualities with histamines and cause so-called cognitive itches or 'ear worms'.

But knowing that doesn't solve my problem. Just Jack - please jack it in. Please. I like your rhyme schemes. I admire your use of Sprechgesang, but please leave my head. Now.

Now why do you wanna go and put starz in their eyes?
It's the same old story but they just didn't realise.
And it's a long way to come from the Dog and Duck karaoke machine,
And Saturday night's drunken dreams.

Avaunt ye, foul lyrics!

Bollinger with Charlie and Tigger

I now have 43 files on my desktop: 31 (numbered 01-31) to cover the days of the month, and then 12 more to cover the months themselves. Each folder has a list of things to do, which I have to do in that day or month. It's a system used in the GTD or 'Getting Things Done' movement, which inspired the 43folders website. Should be interesting to see whether it makes life easier.

The Pope

It's World Aids Day and it's uplifting to learn that a quarter of a century after the first diagnosis (and after 25 million deaths) the Catholic Church has decided to discuss allowing the use of condoms. Nice one.

This month's mammal is a Christmas Cat (looking suspiciously like The Pope in the photo above).

A new dictionary of cockney rhyming slang - Shame About the Boatrace - lists some new terms invented by the celeb-obsessed Heat generation.

My favourites:

Ayrton Senna - tenner

Britney Spears - beers

Paul Weller - Stella

Basil Fawlty - Balti

Tony Blairs - flares

Billie Pipers - windscreen wipers

and

Brad Pitt - fit

I won't bother explaining a Melvyn Bragg or a James Blunt.

I'd love to be immortalised by rhyming slang, but I can't think of anything that rhymes with Peacock - apart from a small chicken which would be a wee cock.

There's scope for my cat Bolly, as her name rhymes with wally and so on. But I'm at a loss when it comes to friends and acquaintances, who include: Alyal, Paczek, Tversted, Srinivasan and Darukhanawala.

My favourite all-time rhyming slang is 'bobble', as in: 'You're 'avin' a bobble, mate!'

Bobble = bobble hat and scarf = larf

I'd like to suggest a new celeb one, which - rather like the Brad Pitt example - has a nice synergy between the person and the concept:

Jade Goody - hoodie

Well done to the Cornish Archives people for compiling a deeply silly list of ludicrous names which I stumbled on when I was thinking about rhyming slang. And you thought the names in Dickens were made up??? Here are some of my favourites:

Admonition Abbott (Admonition was once a very popular first name)

Bastien Badcock

Gentle Bant

Fozzitt Bond (the name's Bond - Fozzit Bond)

Obedience Budge

Truth Bullock

Fanny Cock

Fanny Cobbledick

Moody Cugley

Charity Dingle (as in Emmerdale!)

Edward Evil

Olympia Lark

Epiphany Lullaby

Christmas Peacocke

Ostrich Pockinhorn

Hambly Foote Scantlebury

Dorothy Silly

Henrietta Whetter Tickell

Thomas Trampleasure

and

Clobery Silly Woolcock

No. It's a photograph - of Henley in 1897. It was taken by Elias Burton Holmes who pioneered colour photography. At one point in his life, he was doing six travel lectures a week, showing his photos and films. From a rich American family, he was first inspired to travel when his granny took him on a tour of Europe. You can see his evocative colour photos of exotic locations and wonders in a new book called Burton Holmes Travelogues.

But he did capture England too. I like his photo of Castle Combe in Wiltshire, taken in 1914 before the First World War (which also looks like a painting). There's a melancholy magic about its very English mood. I wonder what the boy sitting on the bridge was thinking.

This is a quetzal. I discovered it while looking up high-scoring Scrabble words, such as squeezy, quartzy, quixotic, pretzels, besique and quisling.

This month's mammal is the golden-rumped elephant shrew.

Apparently, the History Matters project was inundated with blog entries on 17th October. I don't normally do diary-type entries, but I decided to record all my movements on that particular day for posterity. No matter how mundane. Here they are -

03:33
Woken up by Boll howling and scratching outside the door. Boll is banned from my room at night as she fidgets and runs around and I need my beauty sleep. Read Who Moved My Blackberry for half an hour. Silly but funny and very 21st century.

06:30
Woken up by Nicky Campbell on Five Live, reading out listeners' comments about annoying things in supermarkets. Jenny, a supermarket assistant from Hertford, says customers irritate her more than anything. Decide to look out for Jenny in Waitrose, M&S or Tesco and give her a hard time.

06:37
To kitchen, accompanied by Boll. Boll has Science Diet cat food for breakfast. Put heating on. Make full caffetiere of coffee and drink it all.

06:45
To office (upstairs in house). Send emails to solicitor and to friends Fran and Henrietta.

06:50
Emergency ironing session.

07:00
Bath, with Classic FM on. Jane Jones has a fine basso profundo in the morning. Used to be quite squeaky at lunchtime.

07:25
Breakfast. Special K with Red Berries. Boll demands a second breakfast. Give in.

07:43
Put new playlist on iPod. Lots of Jet, Killers, Feeder. Fast stuff to make me feel anarchic while commuting with boring city people in suits. Spend hours doing it.

09:32
Train - Hertford North to London. According to The Times, cod fishing is to be banned. I've stopped eating cod and had haddock mornay for dinner last night, which Boll shared.

10:30
Carrot Muffin and latte at Coffee Republic near Broadcasting House.

10:53
Bump into Melvin Bragg whose hairdo has undergone another inexplicable tectonic shift.

11:00
Interview Radio 4 presenter Peter White - very nice chap - about website accessibility, for forthcoming radio programme. New BH open-plan offices are horrid. Just like all offices everywhere. Devoid of character. Not very BBC at all. The BBC used to have a peculiar Reithian/Orwellian/Bohemian chic. I miss it.

11:17
Central Line to Chancery Lane.

11:35
Latte at Caffè Nero. Full of lawyers. Decide I must see the new David Hockney, Holbein and Velasquez, but no chance this week.

11:54
Arrive at Disability Rights Commission to do another internet accessibility interview. South African receptionist. Why are all receptionists South African?

12:20
Tortuous tube trip to Hoxton, via Bank and Old Street.

12:57
Meet friend Wilhelm and interview him about website accessibility. Go for drink in a frighteningly trendy Brazilian café called Favela Chic.

14:30
Train from Old Street to Hertford.

15:50
Hertford. Walk past what used to be a Travel Agents near my house. There's a notice saying it's about to be occupied by an undertaker. I reflect on this and decide undertakers are just travel agents who don't do return tickets.

15:55
Diversion to Waitrose to buy comfort crumpets, a Thai Green Curry readymeal and a sachet of Organic Chicken Whiskas.

16:05
Home. Eat large pot of natural yoghurt. How can it be fat-free when it's so creamy?

16:10
Begin five hours of editing, with occasional breaks to have tea and crumpets and to play with Boll.

19:11
Doorbell. A woman who looks like a pixie is standing there, brandishing a portfolio. She explains that she's a Polish artist selling paintings. Hertford seems to be full of Eastern Europeans at the moment. I politely tell her I'm too busy. She seems like a nice person, but I'm not in the mood for buying art.

20:55
Balance exercises. The vestibular system in my cerebellum decided to go berserk during my mini-stroke last year, so I have no real sense of balance. I just rely on my eyes to stop me falling over. I look drunk when I'm tired and try to walk. And I fall over within seconds if I stand up and close my eyes. So ... I sit down, close my eyes, stand up, turn clockwise, sit down, close my eyes, stand up, turn anticlockwise, sit down etc etc etc. Balance physiotherapy is a new thing and I'm a sort of guinea-pig.

21:00
Have a TV dinner. Thai Green Curry Chicken with noodles. Glass of Hardys Cabernet. Watch Bratcamp on Channel 4. Not very good. No characters.

22:00
Watch the top of the Ten Oclock News ('The Ten' as we media types call it).

22:25
Go to bed. Read book. Lock Bolly out.

22:31 ish
Fall asleep.

This is a fab new book by Adam Jacot de Boinod, published by Penguin. It's a fascinating list of single words from around the world, embodying concepts which we English speakers have to express via long phrases.

bakkushan (Japanese) - someone who looks cute from behind but ugly from the front

Drachenfutter (German) - peace offering made by guilty husband to wife (literally - dragon fodder)

Backpfeifengesicht (German) - a face that cries out for a fist in it

fyrassistent (Danish) - assistant lighthouse keeper

mamihlapinatapei (Fuengian language spoken in Chile) - shared look of longing between parties who are both interested, yet neither is willing to make the first move

koro (Japanese) - hysterical belief that your penis is shrinking into your body

fucha (Portuguese) - to use company time and resources for your own purposes

Latah (Indonesian) - uncontrollable habit of saying embarrassing things

Yuyin (Chinese) - remnants of sound that stay in the ears of the hearer

and

tingo (Pascuense language spoken on Easter Island) - to borrow objects from a friend's house, one by one, until there's nothing left

Adam Jacot de Boinod's website

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Yes. You've probably seen this before, as it's done the rounds on the internet. But is it true? Here's what one Cambridge language expert has to say about it.

You can also scramble words using an internet word jumbler.

Here's something I jumbled using it -

Hawets blriilg, and the sihlty toevs did grye and gbilme in the wbae. All mmisy wree the bvoogores, And the mmoe rhats obtaurge.

Cornflowers - my favourites

It occurred to me today that nearly everything in this room is blue. I'm wearing blue. My diary's blue. My PC wallpaper's blue. My desk files are blue. Even my scissor handles are blue for goodness sake.

Blue's always been my favourite colour (I was nicknamed Little Boy Blue as a child). But it's not just me. Looking out into the street, I can see endless blue. What's going on?

Well, according to research by the Pantone Color Institute, blue is the most popular colour in the world, getting 35% of votes. Green comes in second at 16%.

The least popular colour in the world is apparently white (is white a colour?), except in China, Mexico and Brazil.

Blue's also the world's favourite colour for toothbrushes by the way. And blue cars are extremely popular and reasonably safe. The most dangerous colours for cars are black and green. Silver cars have the fewest crashes.

Most languages recognise blue in the same sense as English and have a word for it. But Vietnamese doesn't. In Vietnam, the word 'xanh' covers both blue and green. And Russian and Italian have two separate words for light blue and dark blue, suggesting that they see them as separate colours like red and pink.

All About Blue

This month's mammal is the tree kangaroo.

This month's mammal is the manatee. Manatees are plump, slow moving, non-aggressive, herbivorous and curious creatures - rather like most of my friends.

Thank you to Brendan and Liz in New Zealand, who alerted me to the sale of an apostrophe on trademe (a New Zealand auction site). The current bid is $100.00

One apostrophe. Black. 12pt. (Times New Roman). The apostrophe is hardly used and still in near-mint condition. It's great for contractions or cases of possession. It comes with a full set of instructions for use (English language version only).

One of a bulk lot of surplus apostrophes scored from the local fruit shop ("apple's banana's and pear's").

This apostrophe is a conventional one. It's one with a circular part on the top and a tapering tail towards its bottom end.

Not suitable for pluralisation.

Distribution of surname Peacock in 1881 and 1998 respectively

Spatial Literacy is a fascinating new website where you can view the distribution of your surname in the UK and around the world. The UCL researchers behind it also discovered lots of name-changing over the last century. One trend was to add an 'e' at the end to make your name seem posher (Peacocke - yes, they do exist). And some names have totally disappeared - notably Cock, Handcock, Hickinbottom, Haggard and Daft.

An Octodon Degu

I was in a bad mood for most of last week and decided it might have something to do with lack of sleep. So I started sleeping in beyond my usual 6 am most mornings. I ignored Bollinger's howlings and scratchings (there's no snooze button on a cat) and blocked out the light by wearing an eye mask I'd been given on a plane. And it worked. I'm feeling much better.

We get two hours less sleep on average than we did a century ago. In 1910, the average was 9 hours. In 1975, it was 7.5 hours. By 2002, it was 6.9.

The negative effects of sleep deprivation are well known. The KGB used it as a form of torture. And getting up too early can harm your health. Dr Peter Axt argued in a recent study that late sleepers live longer than earlybirds.

Circadian rhythms are still a bit of a mystery. We certainly don't have a single body clock. We have countless watches in different cells, all ticking at slightly different rates, taking cues from our genes, hormones (melatonin etc) and environmental cues such as light.

And they all work on a cycle that's slightly longer than 24 hours (much longer in the case of adolescents - hence their odd sleeping habits).

Circadian rhythms may be regulated by an area called the SCN (superchiasmatic nucleus), but sleep research has yet to solve all the mysteries of Morpheus.

Sleepologists use humans in their experiments, but also diurnal rodents such as the octodon degu - a sort of Chilean gerbil on steroids. My favourite degu study is: Crepuscular Rhythms of EEG sleep-wake in the Hystricomorph Rodent Octodon Degus. A gripping read.

Octodon degus are just like us. Some of them are natural owls. Others are larks. Others are a bit of both - referred to by sleep experts as 'hummingbirds'.

I suspect I've been fooling myself for years that I'm a lark, when in fact I'm an owl who likes to go to bed early. Perhaps this category could be named a peacock.

I was reading about Alaskan laws today. Apparently, in Alaska, a moose may not be viewed from an aeroplane. It's also considered an offence to push a live moose out of a moving plane.

According to the Times letters page, a Gloucestershire college is currently advertising: 'study opportunities, including National Diploma's, Degree's and Master's Programmes'.

Clearly, our university's, college's and student town's are losing it when it come's to apostrophe's.

I was in Cambridge the other day and ended up going clubbing at a place called 22. It was fun, but I was deeply shocked by the random apostrophe's and typo's on their plasma screen's.

A further inspection of their website uncovered the following horror's:

'Friday nights have evolving- Reinassance - The Re-Birth. Friday nights have changing with a new Dj line up and a whole new feel about the night come down and join the revolution.'

'Its never to early to book your tickets.'

'Closing times may vary due to trading pattens.'

In Cambridge, of all place's.

This month's mammal is the sloth.

I've finally given in to Global Warming. It was 30°C yesterday and the office/study was just tooooo hot for thinking. So I moved my desk to the other side of the house - which only gets sun in the morning - and bought a nice oscillating desk fan. I'm now typing this in my new office. I wonder whether this will affect my writing. Will it become cooler and less ranty?

Following a popular series of monthly microbes, Peacockshock is proud to introduce a new feature - Mammal Of The Month. July's mammal is the Aye-Aye from Madagascar - a nocturnal lemur which resembles Ozzy Osbourne.

The Sakalava people believe that the Aye-Aye enters houses during the night through thatched roofs and murders the sleeping occupants. It supposedly uses its elongated middle finger to cut the aortic vein of its victims.

In fact, it uses its protruberant finger to tap trees and entice insects out. It can hear insects pootling around at a great distance, thanks to its large ears.

There's an Aye-Aye in Bristol Zoo. I find them rather cute, but I wouldn't want to meet one in a dark alleyway.

Hell - freezing over

It's 6/6/6 today. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: For it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six.

Opponents of Ronald Reagan used to claim he was the Antichrist, as his three names (including middle name 'Wilson') had six letters in them. And when Ron and Nancy moved to Bel Air, they bought number 666 St Cloud Road, but changed it to 668 (668 is known to theologians as 'the Neighbour of the Beast').

The emperors Nero and Domitian were also said to have connections with the number.

Meanwhile, Brighton pensioner June Dumas is 66 today. She was born at 6am, weighing 6 pounds and 6 ounces. Mrs Dumas apparently intends to spend the day quietly in Hove.

And hospitals have reported more requests than usual for induced births, to avoid the dreaded date.

In a clever PR move, the new Omen movie is released today, having allegedly been beset by spooky explosions and odd happenings on set. The actor who played Damien in the original film has been pursued by the number ever since he was a child. The bill for his 19th birthday party at the Hilton came to £666. Pretty cheap for the Hilton in my view.

And the producer of the Iron Maiden album 'Number of the Beast' crashed his car when they were recording it. The mechanic's bill - $666.

Today, the self-proclaimed mayor of Hell Michigan is throwing a huge party. The inhabitants of Hell are selling souvenir mugs and t-shirts, for $6.66 - together with letters of authenticity, verifying that you celebrated 6/6/6 in Hell.

I have a neurology appointment this morning. I'm hoping they won't find '666' etched on my brain, but I'm not particularly hexakosioihexekontahexaphobic myself.

666 in The Independent

The good people of Hell Michigan celebrate 6th June 2006

This month's microbe was once very close to my heart. In my heart to be precise. It's a year since a bunch of streptococcus viridans microbes decided to move house into my aortic valve ('deceptively spacious, in a sought-after location') and nearly killed me. But I survived, which I'm very pleased about.

Do microbes have an image problem?

It probably hasn't escaped your notice, even if you're a broadsheet reader and Radio 3 listener, that this year's Big Brother cast includes a boy with Tourette Syndrome. And of course the press have claimed it's exploitation and focussed on the fact that he swears a lot.

In fact, fewer than 15% of people with Tourettes have coprolalia (compulsive use of taboo words or phrases). But what about the ones within this 15% who live sheltered lives and have never encountered swear words?

I've yet to find out exactly what they do, but I did see a programme about Tourettes in which a compulsive swearer adapted his words and phrases to the culture he was in. So, on a visit to the USA, he kept shouting 'Twin Towers!' at bemused passers by. And I did find one entry on a Tourettes site which backed up the idea of 'contextual swearing':

I choose the ones that would be most offensive to whoever is nearby. And no matter how sheltered your life is you will pick up some doozies. I've even found that I will make up new swear words if none of the ones I know are 'appropriate'. Then of course, when I've relaxed a bit, the memory of what I've said haunts me for ages.

This then led me to some international swearing phrasebooks. Did you know, for instance, that 'pumpkins!' is a swear word in Macedonia? 'Stubby legs!' is also highly offensive in Japan.

And here are some phrases guaranteed to offend people in the Netherlands:

Je hebt het niveau van een poffertje!
(you're equipped with the intellect of a small pancake)

Je moeder heeft een snor en een baard!
(your mother has a moustache and a beard)

and

Eet pinguin poep!
(I won't bother translating this)

As for Tourette Syndrome, it's a neurological disorder, possibly caused by irregular levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. It was first described by Dr Georges Albert Édouard Brutus Gilles de la Tourette.

I get a daily word or phrase delivered from the Urban Dictionary. Today's phrase is 'porch dog.'

A porch dog is:

A person who frequently attacks others in speech or writing, but who poses no intellectual threat whatsoever. The motivation of this type of person can usually be accurately construed as a desire to be obnoxious and offensive. The phrase 'porch dog' is used to refer to dogs that sit on front porches and bark at passers by, but pose no physical threat.

This month's microbe is Pfiesteria Piscicida which has acute multiple personality disorder. It can choose from 24 different identities (4 are illustrated here), sometimes behaving like a plant, sometimes like an animal. Pfiesteria Piscicida usually exists as a non-toxic amoeba. But when fish are around, it morphs into a weird poisonous form and sucks them to death.

'The purpose of our lives is to be happy.'

The Dalai Lama

This month's microbe is a particular favourite of mine - the plankton Dinobryn which is a member of the Chrysophyceae family. It likes nothing more than to swim around ponds using its flagella.