Come On You Wands!

The absolute history of the word 'soccer'. The facts speak for themselves. 'Soccer' is a word that was first coined in Victorian England around the latter part of 1885 by Oxford University students. Prior to this the game was never known as 'soccer'. The word 'soccer' is a classic example of old university slang. It simply took the 'soc' from 'Association' and added the '-er' suffix—exactly how 'rugby' was shortened to 'rugger'. Before the official rules were ratified by the English Football Association in 1863, traditional British football was a chaotic free-for-all where handling, carrying, and kicking the ball were all allowed in the same match. The nearest modern equivalent to this shambles would probably be Gaelic football.   The 1863 split drew a hard line between the two disciplines of rugby and football. While it was used for decades as a common nickname in British newspapers, 'soccer' has never be...

It has long been known that the British government is trying to push all motorists over the age of 70 years off the road. They are currently viewing, with the aid of the DVLA, to initially target drivers with failing eyesight. That's fair enough. But, they will only be coming after the over-70s, which is not fair enough. I actually fall into the above age group. I have done so for nearly a year now as I write this. Just over three years ago, I underwent a double cataract operation on my eyes. Not both at the same time; there had to be an interval of about six to eight weeks between procedures. Until my optician advised me that my eyesight had got so bad, I hadn't realised what a menace I was to other users on the roads. So, I quickly signed on the dotted line to get something done about it, as being a full-time carer without transport is a non-starter. During my recovery period, which spanned the two operations and a few weeks beyond, I was not permitted to drive. Or, rather, ...

A while ago I wrote an article in which I extolled the virtues of using Google when researching information to write about. I now find that I have to backtrack on that advice. Since I wrote that article, Google has changed to rely very much on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the robotics that go with it. This, as you may already be aware if you've read my previous articles, goes against the grain regarding what I am about. Instead of recommending that you should have no qualms about relying totally on Google's output, I am now saying 'take care' if you use the search engine for any or all of your research, because AI can and does get things wrong. That, on its own, should be a warning sign. So, what's the alternative? Well, strange as it may seem, I now recommend 'old school'. Yes, I am talking about text books, where facts and figures contained within their pages have been checked, checked and checked again before being allowed to be published in print. Th...

I very first caught the wander bug towards the back end of the 1980s. I don't mean the wanderer bug; I got that back in the late 1960s. So, what is the wander bug? It's when you get the itch to travel places, see other countries, breathe in the atmosphere, try the many different types of food on offer, fly on a Jumbo Jet, ride in a foreign taxi, get squashed riding on an overcrowded overseas bus, all those and more. I have been to many different countries since the late 1980s, yet it all started quite innocently when I took a flight out of Lydd Airport in Kent over to Jersey in the Channel Islands in the summer of 1988. I will never forget that time. It was my first time flying and it was a 52-seater propeller-powered aeroplane belonging to Dan-Air. Locally, we jokingly called it Dan Dare but, if you don't think that is amusing, here's a couple of truths about that trip. Firstly, a flock of sheep had to be ushered off the runway before the plane could take off (Lydd ai...