Office fashion

Perhaps it's just me, but I'm sure the dress code in my office has gradually become more casual over the last few months. People in my team would normally dress fairly smartly, but I've noticed that sometimes these days the man opposite barely even brushes his hair, or shaves his chin. I took a picture of him on my webcam. I don't think he noticed.

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Dudley Inferno 1 - Torquay Dental Clinic 0
Westminster Death Squad 2 - Stanley Giblets 1
Orpington Stranglers 3 - Worksop Popsocks 0
Leicester Hovel 1 - Newcastle Strewth 1
Angel of the North vs Godzilla 1st Eleven postponed due to rodent infestation

Musical discoveries

I have trawled the company shared files for music. Unfortunately a lot of it is copyright protected.
Of the music that isn't, I listened to one band that sounded like funky jive metal performed by the Addams family.
I am now listening to an album that appears to star a turkish classical orchestra accompanied by mid-nineties techno, sometimes dark breakbeat, sometimes heavy metal.
And there is a lot of Christian Rock.
I wonder if I have met the colleagues who uploaded these tracks.

Cumbrian Toponymy

I was in the Lake District for a short break last weekend. It's a beautiful part of the world, and also historically interesting.

I was fascinated by the survival of traces of old English and old Welsh (or 'Cumbric') in the local dialect. One example is the old method of counting sheep, still remembered by many older inhabitants in Cumbria, Yorkshire and Northumberland: "Yan, tan, tether, mether, pip...". Music fans might recognise these peculiar numerals from the chorus of the sad but lovely song Old Molly Metcalfe by English chanson singer Jake Thackray.

It's also a part of the country with some very interesting place names, reflecting the rich cultural inheritance of the area - Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Irish, Viking, Scot. I didn't manage quite as much hillwalking as would have been good for me, but I thought it might be edifying to look up the ten highest peaks in the Lake District. For general information, here they are, in ascending order of height:

Scarface Pike
Trumpton Pike
Grange Hill
Big Egg
Little Egg
Adolf Pike
Cuthbert's Knob
Furby Knoll
Craig David
Wazzock

Postscript: a friend visited the Lake District the following weekend. He told me: "I've climbed Craig David. I got there on Monday, set off on Tuesday, reached the top on Wednesday..."