Things I know

 

I know the motto of NSW. In case you ever feel you need to know this it’s Orta Recens Quam Pura Nites which means “Newly risen, how brightly you shine”. There you are – instant geek!

I know how to sing La Marseillaise, the French national anthem. I presumably picked this up in French lessons at school but I’m mystified by why I still recall it. When one’s brain capacity is shrinking it seems odd that this is one of the memories it retains.

I know the date of the French Revolution – 1789; also learned in modern history at school. As a sign of those times, we learned about the French, Russian and Japanese revolutions instead of learning the name of Australia’s first Prime Minister – or indeed any Prime Minister. And further to this French theme, I have some remnants of French language from five years of study.

I know how to clean silver cutlery and other smallish silver objects, at least a practical thing to remember. You line a large bowl with silver foil, put the cutlery in, shake in lot of bicarb soda and cover it all with boiling water. Instant clean!

As I’ve noted before, I know a LOT of poetry. It’s interesting that I remember poetry and lots of history but, as I’ve written before, absolutely nothing from my years of learning maths at school. There’s not a jot of Algebra, Calculus or Trigonometry in my noggin, but there’s masses of bits and bobs of literature including Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 which is supposed to be the most perfect sonnet in the English language. OK, if you really want to know …

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark,    

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me prov'd,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

 

I know how to use a Thesaurus.

I know when to use “shall” and when to use “will” (it’s I shall, you will, he/she it will).

I know that media and data are plurals so they should be followed by “are” not “is”.

I have a profound understanding of where and when to put an apostrophe. An example: it’s “such and such was popular in the 1970s”, but “the clothes were 1970s’ fashion” where the first is a plural and the second a possessive. (I know I’m a punctuation bore.)

I know the two most famous dates in British history: 55 BCE and 1066 CE. The first is Caesar’s invasion of Britain and the second, the Norman invasion. This information became fixed in my mind when years ago I read the wonderful spoof on British history called 1066 and All That. And of course in those days we used BC (Before Christ and AD (Anno Domini – in the Year of our Lord), now replaced by BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era) because not all of us count with reference to Jesus.

I know the other thing which happened in 1492. Not only did Columbus “sail the ocean blue” but all the Jews were kicked out of Spain in the same year. Well, most of them, because there were pogroms and expulsions well into the next century.

I know how to give a good speech. I write them, then perform them. My mother was very supportive of my inability to speak extempore and told me I was in good company because Winston Churchill also wrote his speeches.

I know, thankfully, how to make good friends and I’m really chuffed that I’ve made new friends on the Northern Beaches.

I once knew how to use a theodolite and even a slide rule although I suppose this doesn’t count because I’ve forgotten how to do either. I just thought you might be impressed with the one-time breadth of my knowledge.

I know that Britain only has 36 actors who wander from program to program.

Because I am hopelessly boring, I know where to put apostrophes around quotes at the end of a sentence and I know that most publishers get it wrong. (If the quote is only a part of the sentence, the inverted commas go inside the full point, not after it. Boring, I know!)

I know what DNA stands for – Deoxyribonucleic Acid – but not what it means.

I know how to iron shirts really well.

To quote Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof I can do a “little bit of this, a little bit of that”.

I once saved the life of a newborn chick, but to be fair I didn’t have a clue how to do this until I’d spoken to a vet. The chick was suffering separation anxiety from having been taken from its mum and sold to my offspring at the school fete. When I discovered they had purchased this chick we were already home. Within minutes of coming inside, the chick keeled over. I rang a vet from the yellow pages (remember those) and he told me to put the chick on a warm hot-water bottle, cover it with a soft jumper (cashmere preferred) and feed it warm water through an eye dropper. I conscientiously did all these things and was richly rewarded when the chick returned to the vertical.

These chicks (there were actually two of them, but one was decidedly more robust than the one who’s life I saved) lived initially in the children’s bath-tub as their principle activity was pooping. Later they graduated to the courtyard as the weather warmed up but grew decidedly uglier as they aged. Eventually they were gifted to a friend with acreage in Queensland, via another friend who was flying up to see her; my spouse presented this second friend with a carrier bag to take with her on the plane which secretly contained the two chickens. Somehow or another, she managed the trip without knowing what she was carrying and the chickens lived a reasonably peaceful life until they were eaten by a fox.

 

Quote of the week from Chamber’s Dictionary of Modern Quotations:

American humourist (and mathematician) Tom Lehrer: “It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age he had been dead for two years.”

And from one of his hilarious songs:

“I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky. In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics. Plagiarize!

Plagiarize!

Let no one else's work evade your eyes;

Remember why the good Lord made your eyes, 

So don't shade your eyes, 

But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize … 

Only be sure always to call it please "research".