I'm going to change the world
Welcome.
There's not really an Enfield accent, nothing distinctive or remarkable, and I only notice it when I meet up with school friends, or when actors try to do it. You wouldn't know it was Catherine Tate on stage, in a play about the GOAT poltergeist, except she sounds like Amanda Holden in Life is Sweet. I lived about a mile away at the time. These girls have an Enfield accent:
These are actors trying to do an Enfield accent:
I meant Alison Steadman, of course. I've never even heard of Amanda Holden.
Catherine Tate is funny.
Funny is right.
Why is it when you walk a dozen blocks in London you are in a location with a completely different accent!?
I know this is true; I’ve been to the silly city and experienced it myself.
Why is it when you walk a dozen blocks in London you are in a location with a completely different accent!?
The only one distinctive to my ear is the East End accent, but then they talk like they've got mouths full of gobstoppers and the cozzers are just around the corner.
If you want the old school, you can have Sunday lunch in the Seven Stars, coffee and cake in Bar Italia, and drinks in the Cross Keys.
I think I've solved my math problem. It's the Year of the Wood Dragon.
Subbed, just started at page 1, but I would already buy a book you wrote.
Welcome aboard, nootaboos.
Easter. I want to go to the passion play in Trafalgar Square tomorrow, because I drove past it one year and it looked good. And besides, everybody needs a narrative. I find religion being treated as a Boolean tiresome. Alas, I don't think there is going to be time. Of course I haven't solved my math problem, but I am finding new ways to fail. Fail better, somebody said.
Easter is boring! Stick to American baseball!
Well, at least you've eliminated some approaches, charlie. I imagine that's a big part of theoretical math (physics, chemistry, whatever)--trying some ways and finding out, "well, that wasn't a good path after all." (?)
Maths is mind-bending sometimes.
I recently learned that the sum of all positive integers is
Spoiler
-1/12
Though I do think the proofs I've seen are dubious.
The gist of it seems to be as follows. The Riemann zeta function, defined on some complex numbers, is the function f(x) = 1/1^x + 1/2^x + 1/3^x + ..., which is the limit, if it exists, of the sequence 1/1^x, 1/1^x + 1/2^x, 1/1^x + 1/2^x + 1/3^x, ... . The function is defined on all complex numbers whose real part is greater than 1. If it were defined on -1, then f(-1) would be 1 + 2 + 3 + ..., but it isn't defined on -1, because the sequence 1, 3, 6, ... has no limit. However, there does exist a unique analytic function g such that, for all complex numbers x, if f(x) is defined then so is g(x), and f(x) = g(x), and g is defined on -1. For reasons I don't understand, g(-1) = -1/12, and that somehow entitles one to say that 1 + 2 + 3 + ... = -1/12.
Come to think of it, I don't understand why the Riemann zeta function can't just be considered as a function on the reals, or even the rationals, and then proceed from there. Is it because in that context it does not extend to an analytic function that is defined on -1? Is that why it is necessary to invoke the complex numbers?
The gist of it seems to be as follows. The Riemann zeta function, defined on some complex numbers, is the function f(x) = 1/1^x + 1/2^x + 1/3^x + ..., which is the limit, if it exists, of the sequence 1/1^x, 1/1^x + 1/2^x, 1/1^x + 1/2^x + 1/3^x, ... . The function is defined on all complex numbers whose real part is greater than 1. If it were defined on -1, then f(-1) would be 1 + 2 + 3 + ..., but it isn't defined on -1, because the sequ
The "proof" I've seen is predicated not on the zeta function (which I don't really understand) but on other "proofs" that involve shady manoeuvres like
S1 = 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + ... = 1/2 (because it yields partial sums 1 and 0 of which 1/2 is the mean lol)
Well, at least you've eliminated some approaches, charlie. I imagine that's a big part of theoretical math (physics, chemistry, whatever)--trying some ways and finding out, "well, that wasn't a good path after all." (?)
Eliminate the impossible...
It's the not knowing whether a solution even exists. A problem is easier to solve if you know in advance that a solution exists. I keep hoping it's there, a hidden Faberge egg staring at me like the Cheshire cat, but the evidence to the contrary is accumulating. Failure is damaging to one's faith.
Accentuate the positive!
Wow. A kindred spirit. I stop off in the local for a pint, and meet a woman who knows more than me about the A6 murder case, thinks Hangover Square is one of the greatest books ever written, and that Fall Out is the greatest work of art ever. She's called Denis, like in the Blondie song.
It's funny to look back and remember Blondie as being (rightly) adored by the year zero set when quite a few of their hits, like Denis, were covers (very much frowned upon at the time).
What a great band though.
Blondie was part of the canon.
I had to finish early today. Quickest way from Mayfair to Victoria was via Waterloo Bridge. Unless you want to go via Kensington LOL. Some demonstration. I check every Friday whether there is one planned in support of Palestine, which there has been every other Saturday for the past six months, so I'm not sure what this one was. Mexicans in the back. At first they don't get it, but when they see the mayhem everywhere it's "you treated us like a friend", which was a nice thing to say. The aforementioned pub near me is some rare spacetime conjunction of people I like. By coincidence, some hippy gets in at Victoria yesterday, "just a short journey, man", and it turns out he's a friend and neighbour of one the regs. Of course I don't charge him. Gay Pride next Saturday. Legalize it and they start acting like they own the place. Just kidding. Nothing is happening.
Hippies still exist!. What a time warp. I haven’t seen a real original hippie in at least 20 years, possibly more. And he didn’t realize what planet he was on which is just as well. He just faded away into a wisp of sweet smelling weed smoke. Just a faded memory on the jagged edge of history.
It's the Magic Taxi, man. Free rides for hippies, sick children and Chelsea Pensioners.
I must go and visit Benedict Arnold's resting place sometime. I live not far away. Happy Independence Day!
Freedom is Slavery
Making money is addictive. One sees it in some of the wealthy, and in the lie that people choose to be impoverished. My innate sense of survival again facilitates my annual pilgrimage up the North. I shall be visiting York Minster, Hadrian's Wall, and the Durham Miners Gala, among other things, and have purchased copies of the magazines Viz and Philosophy Now for the train journey up, to get me in the mood.
People are always leaving stuff in the cab. Umbrellas, hats, gloves, sunglasses, wallets full of money and drugs, but most of all it's the phone. It's such a nuisance that I am working on acquiring the habit of checking the back after each journey, but this time they contrive to leave it in one one of the fold-down seats, so I couldn't see it in any case. The Lost Property office used to be central, but TFL, in their wisdom, have moved it to the back of West Ham bus garage, which is the most out of the way, difficult, and completely un-signposted place to find, and where all the parking places are currently chained off. Entry is via garbled intercom, local government flunkeys are always the most officious, and collection of lost property is strictly by appointment only. Good. Stop leaving your goddam phone in the cab, man.
Aren’t they usually drunk and don’t notice it sliding out of their pocket?
