My 8 year old granddaughter informed me this evening that Seth, in school, is in love with her. He just doesn’t know it yet. I knew that Seth had been outmanoeuvred and his fate sealed.

After many years of trying to understand women,  an endeavour I abandoned at least 20 years ago, I couldn’t help thinking that this astute summation of my granddaughter’s impending relationship with Seth has set the stage for all her future dealings with men. Indeed, she has captured the Platonic essence of the relationship between the sexes, something that P. G. Wodehouse depicted so brilliantly in his Jeeves and Wooster novels.

I left South Wales, UK for Canada in 1974. The last few years I spent in Wales were in a village called Machen in the Rhymney Valley; our house was perched on the side of Machen mountain and through our kitchen window you could see the mountainside, scattered allotments and hear the brook that ran through out back garden. On weekends we would often climb the mountain for a view of the adjacent valley and in the summer pick – and eat – wild blackberries. The weather wasn’t always particularly good, and I remember the month I came to Canada it had rained every day for 30 days – not quite Biblical, but close.

Just down the road from where I lived was Caerphilly Castle, the second largest castle in the UK; it is humanity’s bane to take the readily accessible for granted and I only thoroughly explored it when visiting years later.

Before living in Machen I grew up and lived in Cardiff; I remember being struck by Canada’s cleanliness when I arrived. Cardiff was grubby by comparison – a grubbiness, like the castle, I had taken for granted.

A Polish photographer has taken it upon himself to document the “drunken revelry” prevalent in Cardiff.

Looking at these photos, I recognise most of the locations; what is unfamiliar is the fact that the city is not just a little dirty: it has turned into a pigsty complete with porcine inhabitants.

A good cure for any vestigial home-sickness.

I have nothing against protecting the environment: I don’t like smog, smoke or choking yellow haze any more than the next person, but what I use on my rear for my business is –  my business, even if it results in a little extra landfill.

For the green fanatic, though, there is the Wallypop in a variety of colours and understated patterns:

“Alright,” you say, “You’ve convinced me about cloth diapers, and I understand using cloth gift bags and napkins. But toilet paper??” For some people, making the switch to cloth toilet wipes is a huge leap, that’s true. But it doesn’t need to be!

Using cloth toilet wipes actually has many advantages. For one, it’s a lot more comfortable and soft on your most delicate body parts. It’s also more economical, uses less paper, and saves you those late-night trips to the store. And cloth wipes can be used wet without any of the sopping disintegration that regular toilet paper is prone to. For a discussion of the practical aspects of using cloth toilet wipes, please check out our page detailing How to Use Cloth Wipes.

There is nothing new under the sun, of course; here are some much more interesting alternatives – not all of which I have tried – as expounded by Gargantua:

Afterwards I wiped my tail with a hen, with a cock, with a pullet, with a calf’s skin, with a hare, with a pigeon, with a cormorant, with an attorney’s bag, with a montero, with a coif, with a falconer’s lure. But, to conclude, I say and maintain, that of all torcheculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there is none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose, that is well downed, if you hold her head betwixt your legs. And believe me therein upon mine honour, for you will thereby feel in your nockhole a most wonderful pleasure, both in regard of the softness of the said down and of the temporate heat of the goose, which is easily communicated to the bum-gut and the rest of the inwards, in so far as to come even to the regions of the heart and brains. And think not that the felicity of the heroes and demigods in the Elysian fields consisteth either in their asphodel, ambrosia, or nectar, as our old women here used to say; but in this, according to my judgment, that they wipe their tails with the neck of a goose, holding her head betwixt their legs, and such is the opinion of Master John of Scotland, alias Scotus.

There is a lot more where this came from and the adventurous reader can find it all in Rabelais’ classic,  Gargantua and Pantagruel.

According to the Telegraph, the top ten misquotes by British people are as follows:

1) A damp squid (a damp squib)

2) On tender hooks (on tenter hooks)

3) Nip it in the butt (nip it in the bud)

4) Champing at the bit (chomping at the bit)

5) A mute point (a moot point)

6) One foul swoop (one fell swoop)

7) All that glitters is not gold (all that glisters is not gold)

8 ) Adverse to (averse to)

9) Batting down the hatches (batten down the hatches)

10) Find a penny pick it up (find a pin pick it up)

Arbitrary North American irritations:

I could care less (I couldn’t care less)

Money is the root of all evil (the love of money is the root of all evil)

I’ve got less faults than you (I’ve got fewer faults than you)

I should have went to my grammar classes (I should have gone to my grammar classes)

There is bats in my belfry (there are bats in my belfry)

I should of attended my grammar lessons (I should have attended my grammar lessons)

I’m doing good (I’m doing well)

On a daily basis (every day)

Every person should check their words (every person should check his words)

Visa-versa (vice versa)

Its got it’s apostrophe in the wrong place (It’s got its apostrophe in the wrong place)

The trajectory of the Anglican Church (the direction of the Anglican Church)

As well, misplacing words in a sentence can be annoying (misplacing words in a sentence can be annoying as well)