Poach Pod
I’ve been having a massive clearout and, finally, the poach pods have gone for recycling. I bought the set of garish purple silicon egg poachers years ago in the UK. Back then I thought they were a brilliant idea but they turned out to be one of the most useless things I’ve ever had in […]
Valerie’s A-Z of Bullshit
From Awesome to Zeitgeist, you’ll be blown away by this no-brainer A to Z of buzzwords, hype and cool stuff (originally written and posted in April 2016 for the April A-Z Blogging Challenge). A is for Awesome Please do not send me any more promotional emails that say: “Hi there [user name] I just want […]
Waiting for a Fat Furry Girl
I hesitate to give you this link: you see, it’s a major procrastination tool, which is why I’d carefully deleted it from my bookmarks and my mind. But after a hard day writing workshop content and decluttering my inbox (seriously – I have mails dating back to 2008. I’d have even earlier ones if I […]
Stainless Steel
So I had the idea of doing a kitchen-themed exploration of my language obsessions. What gadgets or utensils or whatever were worthy of note, linguistically speaking? Stick beater. I like that one. A beater in the form of a stick. Teardrop grater. This is a box grater with teardrop-shaped holes. Cool. And then… bam! Stainless […]
Birging and Corfing
Who remembers the wonderful game show they used to run on British TV, Call My Bluff? The show featured two teams of awesomely witty celebrity contestants. An obscure word was given: one team would give three definitions, only one of which was correct, the other two being brilliantly plausible bluffs. The other team had to […]
Z is for Zeitgeist
This German word is one of my favourites and it means ‘spirit of the age’, which obviously doesn’t sound as streamlined as the German (which translates literally as time-spirit. For cognate lovers, Zeit = tide and Geist = ghost). I don’t personally think zeitgeist is a bullshit word (yet) but what else could we have […]
Y is for Yettie
You know who they are. They carry black computer bags and they are that particular irritant in airports, spouting into their phones non-stop all the way from baggage drop through boarding, and they can barely be assed to shut up on take-off. And they spout one long stream of bullshit. The Young, Entrepreneurial, Tech-based Twenty-something. […]
X is for X-Ray Specs
If this blog had a soundtrack, this song by punk band The Lillingtons would be it: Cause I can see through your bullshit with my X-Ray specs. Well I can see through your bullshit with my X-Ray specs. I can see through your bullshit with my X-Ray specs. I can see through your bullshit with […]
W is for Wow
Bullshit aside, this is absolutely one of my favourite words in the whole of the English language: it’s versatile and expressive and energy-efficient, packing a big punch with just one easy-to-utter syllable. ‘Wow’ of course was originally an interjection expressing wonder, amazement, as in ‘Wow!’ (that Facebook emoji you can click on to ‘react’ to […]
V is for Vector
Sorry, no idea what a vector is. Nor has anyone else (except, presumably, rockstar mathematicians and engineers.) Not to worry. It’s extremely versatile and sounds great. Just toss it in wherever you want, but do make sure it’s vaguely connected with movement in one dimension or direction. You can talk about vectorial-generating interfaces or cutting-edge […]