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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Jul 23

If so, happy to accept. It is a question, I suppose, why Ozzy's mom should have been attending maternity facility there. But Solihull council website suggests it was then part of Meriden Rural District administered from Coleshill www.solihull.gov.uk/about-solihu...

Marston Green history | Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council

The history of Marston Green in Solihull.

www.solihull.gov.uk

Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Jul 23

Thanks. I have no expertise at all on Osbourne. But I grew up close to Marston Green and it is surely some way from Aston.

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Jul 23

Actually, Meriden, I think, when he was born, not Bickenhill. Still not Aston.

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Jul 23

But this seems wrong. Marston Green was, yes, then not in Solihull but was never, as claimed, in Aston. They are six miles apart. Prior to 1974 it was in Bickenhill, Warks. Osbourne's family lived in Aston and he was born in Marston Green, not Aston, because there was a maternity hospital there.

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Jun 15

Beautifully set by Finzi thelistenersclub.com/2024/05/27/f...

Finzi's "Farewell to Arms": An Ode to the Aging Warrior

English composer Gerald Finzi (1901–1956) was too young to fight in the First World War, but he experienced personally the results of the carnage. Within a span of two weeks in 1918, combat claim...

thelistenersclub.com

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · May 28

Strands accepted it from me as a non-theme word in Sunday's puzzle this week. Do they use a different word list?

The word 'turd' in the NYT Strands puzzle, Sunday 25 May 2025

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Apr 4

According to OED, the use as a singular count noun, chiefly in economics or business contexts, dates to 1898. As an economist, I find it untroubling.

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Mar 23

Also RAYners lane and more obscurely barkingsIDE, covent GARden, kew GARdens, ruislip GARdens, woodsIDE park

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Mar 23

First of those should have been eaLING broadway, also add CHARing cross

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Mar 23

eaLING, eaLING common, hilLINGdon, north eaLING, south eaLING, turnPIKE lane

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Feb 10

Thanks, Cormac. Other Irish-born economists' graves on the walks include Robert Torrens (in Kensal Green) and Richard Cantillon (probably in St Pancras Old Church). On the topic of Edgeworth, there's also his house in Mt Vernon, Hampstead.

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Jan 29

"... But when the seats of power and authority have been attained there should be no more poetic licence. On the contrary, we have to count the cost down to the penny which our rhetoric has despised." From a passage about the "silliness of the doctrinaire"

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Jan 26

The next tweet confirms the menace: "The proscriptions of Marius forced the proscriptions of Sulla." That repeats something he tweeted in May 2024 (but with "led to" upgraded to "forced").

But did Sulla ever actually say that? It's a Scottish motto, used to be written round the edge of £1 coins.

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Jan 8

Nor me. But I don't think she drowns in Night of the Hunter either. She is killed with a knife and the body disposed of in a river.

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Jan 8

According to Wikipedia (I haven't seen it) she was run over in Great Gatsby too. And, strictly speaking, in Poseidon Adventure I think she has a heart attack after swimming rather than drowning.

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Jan 8

The Poseidon Adventure and A Place in the Sun. Bonus point: Lolita

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Jan 7

It is allowed because it is a valid five-letter word and can be a useful guess in eliminating options but it can't be the solution because it is a plural ending in S. That used to be something you could infer from experience, now actually ruled out: www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/wordl...

Wordle answers just got tougher, courtesy of a NYT change

The New York Times just announced that Wordle now has a dedicated editor. It's bringing changes to how answers are selected and what words are valid solutions.

www.digitaltrends.com

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · Dec 17

One of the original clerihews: archive.org/details/biog...

Biography for beginners : being a collection of miscellaneous examples for the use of upper forms : Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith), 1874-1936 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archi...

archive.org

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Ian Preston @ianpreston.bsky.social · May 17

I tried to persuade English Heritage 20 years ago to put a blue plaque on his home in Hampstead but they rejected it. They told me he was more significant to the history of Manchester than London and should be memorialised there if anywhere. Don't know of anything in Liverpool.

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