sensible shoes

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Discover Greece Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

car-free, carbon footprint, credit crunch, G4S, haute couture, haute cuisine, low cost airline, pension reform, sensible shoes, too big to fail, trade route, urban renewal

The site is among the most important, historically speaking, in the Peloponnese. This is where the Byzantine Empire’s richly artistic and intellectual culture made its last stand before an invading Ottoman army, almost 1000 years after its foundation. At least half a day is needed to do justice to the ruins of Mystras. Wear sensible shoes and bring plenty of water. Mystras VIBE IMAGES/ALAMY © KASTRO & UPPER TOWN From opposite the upper entrance ticket office, a path (signposted ‘ kastro ’) leads up to the fortress. The fortress was built by the Franks and extended by the Turks. The path descends from the ticket office leading to Agia Sofia , which served as the palace church, and where some frescoes survive.

Sights MONEMVASIA ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM Museum ( 27320 61403; 8am-8pm Tue-Sun summer, 8.30am-3pm Tue-Sun winter) This small museum displays a useful detailed map of Monemvasia. It also houses finds unearthed in the course of excavations and building around the old town. Sleeping A pocket torch and sensible shoes are a good idea for those staying on the cobbled, dimly lit kastro . MONOPATI ROOMS & APARTMENTS B&B €€ ( 27320 61772; www.byzantine-escapade.com; Monemvasia; apt €70-85, ‘little house’ €110-140) These two delightful stone options ooze personality, as do the hospitable owners. Stylish decor fills the apartments’ quirky spaces, and both include kitchenettes.

The Mykonos Accommodation Centre organises guided tours to Delos at 10am every day except Monday between May and September (adult/child €38/30, three hours). Overnight stays on Delos are forbidden and boat schedules allow a maximum of about six or seven hours there. Bring water and food. Wear a hat and sensible shoes. NAXOS ΝΑΞΟΣ POP 12,089 Naxos is the largest of the Cyclades and has the mountains to prove it. It offers the best of both worlds, a classic island experience balanced by an occasional sense of being pleasantly landlocked in the deep heart of the mountains. Naxos was a cultural centre of classical Greece and of Byzantium, while Venetian and Frankish influences have also left their mark.


pages: 234 words: 84,737

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, cotton gin, MITM: man-in-the-middle, obamacare, off-the-grid, Recombinant DNA, rolodex, Rosa Parks, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, white flight, Zipcar

I had an incredibly realistic imagination, and I knew that no husband of mine would ever be picking me up. After exchanging legal vows and a chaste kiss in front of the judge, my future husband and I would walk with grim determination from the courthouse, hand in hand and Velcroed into our most sensible shoes, get into our roomy midsize sedan, then eat the Tuesday afternoon lunch special at IHOP. We’d toast with overcooked sausage links because IHOP doesn’t serve booze, then drive to our unpretentious ranch-style house to make love one time and never again until we died. So I bought a bunch of vegan cookbooks.

I am hCG-challenged and at an age when all my late nights and drunken partying is dangerously toeing the line between “fabulous and exciting” and “sad as a motherfucker.” The age at which the sluts I used to drink too much and cry with are all dressed like Kohl’s ads, driving sport utility vehicles with roof racks affixed to them, and having stable relationships with men who wear sensible shoes and make wise investments with their beer money. Goddamn it, is there anyone left who wants to be drunk at three in the afternoon and go get manicures?! I see you, potential new friend: banging terrible dudes, drinking backwashed beers some stranger just left on the bar, and basically whiling away your early thirties pretending that your life is an extended episode of Sex and the City when all of a sudden, BOOM.


pages: 91 words: 24,469

The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics by Mark Lilla

affirmative action, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Donald Trump, ending welfare as we know it, Gordon Gekko, It's morning again in America, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, new economy, New Urbanism, Ronald Reagan, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Social Justice Warrior

His vision was simultaneously nostalgic and futuristic: it convinced Americans that the happiness of the golden age was still attainable, just over the next ridge, if the goodness and creative energies of the country could only be unleashed. Reagan abandoned the dour, scolding, apocalyptic style of 1950s conservatism and radiated hopefulness. After George McGovern’s lame plea, Come home America!, after Jimmy Carter’s sensible shoes and sensible sweater and sensible advice to lower the thermostat, Reagan beamed. “Twilight? Not in America. Here it’s sunrise every day.” More important, he exuded admiration for Americans and didn’t ask them to change a thing. After Jimmy Carter delivered his diagnosis of America’s malaise, Reagan responded, “I find no national malaise.


pages: 269 words: 91,325

The Allotment Chef: Home-Grown Recipes and Seasonal Stories by Paul Merrett

carbon footprint, food miles, Google Earth, nuclear winter, sensible shoes

I don’t really know which books are the best to buy, so the following short list is simply my choice rather than the ultimate selection: 1. Geoff Hamilton – Gardeners’World Practical Gardening Course I don’t know where I got this book but it’s been on the shelf for ages. Geoff was a man who liked to lean on a hoe and gaze wisely at the camera – he reminds me a bit of my grandpa with his checked shirts and sensible shoes. He writes quite well and doesn’t presume the reader is already an expert; he includes lots of pictures, which is helpful, though a little intimidating as his vegetable gardens are totally perfect. 2. Dr DG Hessayon – The Vegetable and Herb Expert It would be tempting to dismiss anyone who called themselves a ‘vegetable expert’ as a horticultural megalomaniac, but he is a doctor and that must mean he’s well qualified.

Failure to do so can result not only in a poor harvest but also in an outbreak of death in the flowerbed. With all this in mind, I head off to Wisley full of enthusiasm. I can’t wait to buy the plants and get them dug into the sandy soils of Ealing. I meet my mum outside and, after a quick cappuccino in le café (that contains lots of people in woolly jumpers and sensible shoes), we head straight for the shop, where I promptly part with one hundred quid on books. Then it is off to the plant department. Mum suggests that we stroll through the manicured gardens that Wisley boasts alongside the nursery shop, but I decline. What she doesn’t understand is that I am not interested in orchids and rhododendrons; I am a vegetable man through and through.


pages: 112 words: 33,537

Simple Matters: A Scandinavian’s Approach to Work, Home, and Style by Jenny Mustard

messenger bag, place-making, sensible shoes, Skype

Diana Vreeland slouching chicly on her sofa, telling anecdotes that both the interviewer, we the audience, and she herself know are completely made up. But we’re all loving them nonetheless. The way women looked powerful in the ’90s. Wide-shouldered suits, sleeked-back hair, brown lipstick and strong brows, sensible shoes that could kick office asses. A quiet sensuality with its core in go-getness and ambition and immaculate business cards. Oh, would someone please renaissance the Yuppie? The mood of “In the Mood for Love.” The unattainable #winningatlife-ness of Modesty Blaise. Taipei’s youth crews, dressing in nothing but black, futuristic shapes, and straight hair.


pages: 387 words: 111,096

Enigma by Robert Harris

Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, Bletchley Park, British Empire, Columbine, index card, invention of the printing press, sensible shoes, Turing machine

It was quarter to one. Where was she? He wandered back into the sitting room, hesitated at the foot of the stairs, and began to climb. The plaster on the walls was damp and flaking beneath his fingers. He decided to try Hester's room first. It was exactly as it had been six weeks earlier. A pair of sensible shoes beside the bed. A cupboard full of dark clothes. The same German primer. 'An seinen Ufern sind Berge, Felsen und malerische Schlosser aus den dltesten Zeiten.' On its shores are mountains, rocks and picturesque castles from the oldest times. He closed it and went back out on the landing. And so, at last, to Claire's room.

A couple of elderly parishioners turned to stare at them. 'At once, if you please.' She twisted the handlebars back and forth but Jericho held on. 'I am so sorry. It really won't take a moment.' She glared at him. For an instant he thought she might be about to reach down for one of her stout and sensible shoes and hammer his fingers loose. But there was curiosity as well as anger in her eyes, and curiosity won. She sighed and dismounted. 'Thank you. There's a bus shelter over there.' He nodded to the opposite side of Church Green Road. 'Just spare me five minutes. Please.' 'Absurd. Quite absurd.' The wheels of her bicycle clicked like knitting needles as they crossed the road to the shelter.


(Pocket Adventures Pocket Adventures) Lynne Sullivan by Pocket Adventures Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao -Hunter (2008)

sensible shoes, three-masted sailing ship

A Tommy Hilfiger boutique has been added recently, and the main store stocks a large selection of perfumes and cosmetics, with impressive names such as Dior, Givenchy, and Boucheron. tel. 297-582-4160. Ecco stocks Delft blue porcelain, a large variety of table linens, and some interesting handcrafted objects, along with a mix of beachwear, sportswear, and T-shirts. tel. 297-582-4726. Shooz will cure your aching feet with a pair of fashionably sensible shoes by famous makers such as Nine West, Anne Klein, Nautica, and Dockers. tel. 297-588-7877. Boolchand's, a multi-generational family-owned company, has been on the island for almost 30 years and in the Caribbean for more than 70 years. Among the diverse items they stock, you'll find top-brand electronics, cameras, jewelry, and watches. tel. 297-583-0147.


pages: 443 words: 123,526

Glasshouse by Charles Stross

air gap, cognitive dissonance, experimental subject, gravity well, lateral thinking, loose coupling, military-industrial complex, operational security, peer-to-peer, phenotype, prisoner's dilemma, sensible shoes, theory of mind, white picket fence

Unconsciousness within ten seconds: It's more than he deserved. But now I've got a huge problem, namely a hundred and ten kilos of dead meat lying in about ten liters of gore in the middle of a grass carpet that's already dying. Is this incriminating or what? Oh, and my sweater and skirt and sensible shoes are covered in blood. This does not look good. I laugh, and it comes out as a hysterical giggle with more than a little madness in it. This is bad, I think. But there's got to be something— For a moment I flash back to the time with the malfunctioning A-gate, the pools of fluid and lumps of deanimated meat.

I'm sure you'll have a lot to talk about." Then he turns on his heel and bumbles away down the ward toward the other occupied beds. I realize my teeth are chattering: I'm not sure whether from fever or black helpless rage. I killed you! And you didn't even notice! Then the nurse comes stomping along in her sensible shoes, clutching some kind of primitive diagnostic instrument, and I realize that I'm feeling extremely unwell. NURSE Zombie gives me a test that involves sliding a cold glass rod into my ear and staring into my eyes from close range, then she pulls out a jar and gives me what I assume at first is a piece of candy, except that it tastes vile.


pages: 184 words: 54,833

Why Orwell Matters by Christopher Hitchens

anti-communist, British Empire, colonial rule, deindustrialization, Etonian, hiring and firing, land reform, Louis Pasteur, Mahatma Gandhi, military-industrial complex, Nelson Mandela, Norman Mailer, nuclear winter, public intellectual, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, sensible shoes

When Nineteen Eighty-Four had come out in 1950, Henry Luce’s Life magazine had hailed it for exposing the essential totalitarianism of FDR’s National Recovery Act and Tennessee Valley Authority, and used it to excoriate ‘those fervent New Dealers in the United States [who] often seemed to have the secret hope that the depression mentality of the 1930s, source of their power and excuse for their experiments, would never end’. This image — of Eleanor Roosevelt’s sensible shoes crashing down on a human face, forever — was hardly more absurd than Mr Podhoretz’s view that George Orwell would, if alive, be standing shoulder to shoulder with none other than himself (William Buckley at the other shoulder and Henry Kissinger lurking potently behind). I was fascinated by this essay, for two reasons.


pages: 553 words: 151,139

The Teeth of the Tiger by Tom Clancy

airport security, centralized clearinghouse, complexity theory, false flag, flag carrier, forensic accounting, gentleman farmer, illegal immigration, information security, Occam's razor, operational security, sensible shoes

"He talked to me about how Henry VIII would have given the reporters some special haircuts for that." "Yeah, with an ax at the Tower of London. Sally used to laugh about it some. She needled Mom about her hair, too. I guess that's one nice thing about being a man, eh?" "That and shoes. My wife didn't like Manolo Blahniks. She liked sensible shoes, the sort that didn't make her feet hurt," Hendley said, remembering, and then running into a concrete wall. It still hurt to talk about her. It probably always would, but at least the pain did affirm his love for her, and that was something. Much as he loved her memory, he could not smile in public about her.

The subject was thirty or so, with shoulder-length brown hair, fairly attractive, wearing a wedding band but no diamond, and a cheap gold-colored necklace probably purchased at Wal-Mart on the other side of the road. Peach-colored blouse/shirt. Pants rather than a skirt, black in color, black flat "sensible" shoes. Fairly large purse. Did not appear overly alert to her surroundings, which was good. She appeared to be alone. She finally settled on a blouse, white silk by the look of it, paid for it with a credit card, and walked out of Ann Taylor. "Subject is moving, Aldo." Seventy yards away, Brian's head perked up and turned directly toward his brother.


pages: 187 words: 58,628

An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir by Ariel Leve

Norman Mailer, rolodex, sensible shoes

He would place my foot on the device, my heel snug in the curved metal cup at the bottom, to get the most accurate fit—the length, the width, the arch—it was a meticulous process. He would scribble the measurements down on his notepad before instructing me to switch feet. He would then announce my new size, which I had been eagerly waiting to hear. It was a joyous moment when I discovered my feet had grown. Josie believed I should wear only sensible shoes. There was no need for a moccasin. No need for a wedge. The Bass penny loafers were the standard purchase, and I would slip on the brand-new pair, and the leather was so stiff and uncreased, I’d slide on the carpet as I strode around testing them out, to the point where I nearly did the splits.


pages: 182 words: 61,586

Meaty: Essays by Samantha Irby

Rosa Parks, sensible shoes

She’s obsessed with trying to find a mate and have children, but she’s crabby and negative and controlling, so men run from her. Nell relies on each of them for different things: Vanessa is there for sexy girl talk and bird-dogging dudes, and Gretchen is always there to bitch about how horrible men are and to go shopping with for sensible shoes. PILOT Pouring rain on a beautiful, tree-lined street in an affluent neighborhood. Parked along either side of the street are sleek luxury cars. Giggling teenage girls run by while trying to shield themselves with a single umbrella. A good-looking man in a sharp suit walks an immaculately-groomed poodle while holding a folded newspaper over his head.


pages: 230 words: 62,541

The Essential Allotment Guide: How to Get the Best Out of Your Plot by John Harrison

food miles, sensible shoes

Often it is a good idea to wear ear-defenders or earplugs with noisy engines going nearby and safety goggles will protect your eyes from flying debris from a strimmer. I know it is pretty obvious, but don’t try to clear a blocked shredder with the power on. If they can shred a branch, they will make easy work of your fingers. Clothing Having seen people happily trying to use a fork in sandals, it needs to be said. Sensible shoes and especially ‘toetectors’ can save you from a forked foot or worse. Shorts are great in summer, until you kneel in a red ants nest (happened to me!) and ants in your pants are no fun at all! Pesticides and Other Chemicals Just follow the instructions with great care. And if you take children to the plot, keep the chemicals where the kids can’t get them.


pages: 1,181 words: 163,692

Lonely Planet Wales (Travel Guide) by Lonely Planet

active transport: walking or cycling, back-to-the-land, Brexit referendum, car-free, carbon footprint, country house hotel, Downton Abbey, gentrification, global village, haute cuisine, Kickstarter, land reform, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, period drama, sensible shoes, trade route, urban renewal

During the Reformation, as many as 100 people would attend illegal Catholic Masses at this remote spot. You can trek here from Llanvihangel Crucorney (5.5 miles) or take the B4521 from Abergavenny to the lay-by at the base of the hill (4 miles). It's a steep climb from here through the woods on a track that can be muddy; wear sensible shoes. Once you clear the tree line the walk is less steep, with a final climb right at the end to the summit where you'll be rewarded with extravagant views. Sugar LoafMOUNTAIN (Mynydd Pen-y-Fâl) The cone-shaped pinnacle of Sugar Loaf (596m) is a 4½-mile round trip from the Mynydd Llanwenarth viewpoint car park.

Local lore also says that a woman who crawls around the stone at midnight during the full moon will be joined by her lover – if he is faithful. To find it, turn right on the road leaving the King Arthur Hotel in Reynoldston and look out for a rough parking area on your left. Looking north, you can see the stone on the horizon. The walk to the stone can be very muddy, so wear sensible shoes. 4Sleeping & Eating King Arthur HotelPUB££ ( GOOGLE MAP ; %01792-390775; www.kingarthurhotel.co.uk; Higher Green, Reynoldston; s/d/cottage from £70/80/120, mains £9-14; pW) As traditional as swords in stone and ladies of the lake, the King Arthur serves real ales in a cosy wood-panelled bar and offers a lengthy menu of tasty, rustic dishes in the nearby bistro.


pages: 252 words: 65,990

HWFG: Here We F**king Go by Chris McQueer

call centre, Donald Trump, Kickstarter, Nelson Mandela, sensible shoes, Social Justice Warrior

‘Awrite, mate?’ I asked, trying to sound as cheerful as possible despite the atmosphere in the house. He didn’t reply. He didn’t even turn round. It took a few moments for me to take in what we was wearing; a pristinely ironed blue shirt tucked into beige-coloured chinos and big chunky black sensible shoes. ‘CIARAN!’ his granny shouted from the living room. ‘YOU BETTER BE STIRRING THAT SOUP!’ ‘I am, granny,’ he muttered. ‘So…’ I was trying desperately to make small talk. ‘You know anybody up here then?’ ‘Naw,’ he said, his eyes transfixed on the soup whirlpool he was creating. ‘Everybody apart from my granny is still alive.


Greece by Korina Miller

car-free, carbon footprint, credit crunch, flag carrier, Google Earth, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, informal economy, invention of the printing press, pension reform, period drama, restrictive zoning, sensible shoes, Suez canal 1869, too big to fail, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban renewal, urban sprawl, women in the workforce

If you are worried that everywhere will be full, select a place from the pages of this guide and make your own booking. Slippery Surfaces Many of Athens’ pavements and other surfaces underfoot are made of marble and can become incredibly slippery, especially when wet, so tread carefully and wear sensible shoes. Adulterated Drinks Some bars and clubs in Athens serve what are locally known as bombes, adulterated drinks that have been diluted with cheap illegal imports or methanol-based spirit substitutes. They can leave you feeling decidedly worse for wear the next day. To avoid the risk, drink beer and other alcoholic drinks that are bottled, ensure that you ask for a drink with a distinctive taste or name your brand.

Much restoration has taken place since the 1950s (and continues to this day) and in 1989 it was declared a World Heritage site. Sights EXPLORING THE SITE At least half a day is needed to do justice to the ruins of Mystras ( 27310 83377; adult/concession €5/3; 8am-7.30pm summer, 8.30am-3pm winter). Wear sensible shoes and bring plenty of water. The site is divided into three sections – the kastro (the fortress on the summit), the hora (upper town) and the kato hora (lower town). You can approach the ruins from either direction – top to bottom or vice versa (both options are quite strenuous). If you have transport and start at the top and walk down, you’ll need to return to your car at the end of your visit.

Sleeping There’s no truly budget accommodation in the kastro itself but considering where you are, some places offer excellent value (where else in the world can you sleep at or near a World Heritage site?). Prices are far from rock solid; they alter drastically depending on good ol’ supply and demand. The hotels are nearly identical – boutique in manner, stylishly furnished in timber and muted materials throughout. A pocket torch and sensible shoes are good options for those staying on the cobbled, dimly lit kastro. If the kastro doesn’t give you the urge to splurge, there are cheaper hotels and numerous domatia in Gefyra. Hotel Akrogiali ( 27320 61360; Gefyra; s/d with shower €40/45) This basic but spotless hotel, next to the National Bank of Greece on Spartis, has the cheapest rooms in town.


pages: 255 words: 80,190

Your Life in My Hands: A Junior Doctor's Story by Rachel Clarke

clockwatching, David Attenborough, Donald Trump, gender pay gap, glass ceiling, imposter syndrome, invisible hand, Kickstarter, lateral thinking, Nelson Mandela, pattern recognition, post-truth, profit motive, sensible shoes, Snapchat, women in the workforce, zero-sum game

In a forlorn effort to acquire Dave’s elusive inner frostiness, I retreated to what I knew: my textbooks, revising how to manage every life-or-death emergency I could possibly think of until – in my head at least – I was handling them all like George Clooney. I stocked up on Diet Coke, cashew nuts and moraleboosting chocolate bars. I snuck a pocket guide to emergency medicine into the bottom of my rucksack and chose sensible shoes for sprinting to crash calls. And, when I arrived at my first ever hospital handover at 9 p.m., I took custody of my on-call bleep – the electronic pager through which the nurses would spend the night contacting me – with what I hoped looked like battle-weary nonchalance, while secretly wanting to vomit.


pages: 255 words: 90,456

Frommer's Irreverent Guide to San Francisco by Matthew Richard Poole

Bay Area Rapid Transit, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, Day of the Dead, Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, game design, gentrification, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, haute cuisine, Loma Prieta earthquake, Maui Hawaii, old-boy network, pez dispenser, San Francisco homelessness, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, Torches of Freedom, upwardly mobile

Nordstrom proba- bly has the largest selection of women’s and men’s shoes in the city, in prices ranging from reasonable to check-yourcredit-limit. If expensive isn’t a scary concept to you, head to Kenneth Cole (in the San Francisco Centre, the same mall that houses Nordstrom) for trendy, high-fashion numbers. Gimme Shoes on Hayes Street sells funky new designs from Belgium and France. And don’t forget those sensible shoes: Get ’em at Ria’s, Birkenstock Natural Footwear, and First Step. If it’s July, you’re going to need a sweater... Tse Cashmere features rich colors and luxurious 10-ply handknits; House of Cashmere is just what its name implies; and Irish Castle Shop has fisherman-knit sweaters and the claim to fame of having served Sinéad O’Connor in the past.


pages: 269 words: 78,468

Kill Your Friends by John Niven

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Etonian, gentrification, hiring and firing, illegal immigration, Kickstarter, nuclear winter, sensible shoes, Stephen Hawking

In a room full of people who’ve been up all night, it’s like the air itself is sweating, grimy and tired. I run a quick mental, feasibility study on just fucking off out of there: concierge gets me a cab, back to London in about an hour, hit the sack for a bit, shower, food, then over to Netting Hill for Ross’s Carnival party. Doable. Very doable. Sensible shoes option. “Oi, Stelfox,” says Leamington, clapping a hand on my shoulder, “do you want a fucking nose-up or what?” “Yeah,” I say. And then I’m following him to the toilet, my hands on his shoulders as I bounce up and down, both of us singing, “I love the cocaine, I love the cocaine,” and the girls on reception can hear us and everything but we don’t give a fuck.


pages: 312 words: 84,421

This Chair Rocks: A Manifiesto Against Ageism by Ashton Applewhite

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, Atul Gawande, Buckminster Fuller, clean water, cognitive dissonance, crowdsourcing, Day of the Dead, desegregation, Downton Abbey, fixed income, follow your passion, ghettoisation, Google Hangouts, hiring and firing, income inequality, informal economy, Internet of things, invention of the printing press, job satisfaction, labor-force participation, life extension, longitudinal study, Mark Zuckerberg, Naomi Klein, obamacare, old age dependency ratio, radical life extension, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, Snapchat, stem cell, the built environment, urban decay, urban planning, white picket fence, women in the workforce

Shot from behind, a white-haired, slightly stooped woman strolls alone in a park, eyes on the sun-dappled path ahead. It’s intended to evoke “the bitterness and anguish of my mother’s solitude” with which Begley concludes his essay. Is the woman in the photograph lonely, or simply alone? Depressed, or deep in thought? No telling. She’s a blank slate on which to project our hopes or fears. Other than the sensible shoes, which lurk in my own future, she looks damn good to me. CHAPTER FOUR HEALTH, NOT YOUTH – THE OLDER BODY “Are you going to put a lot about diet and exercise and health in your book?” asked my friend Paola. We share a godmother in Italy and have become fast friends over the course of many summer visits.


Two Kitchens: Family Recipes from Sicily and Rome by Rachel Roddy

sensible shoes

It had rained what turned out to be the last rain for months the night before we walked around Francesco di Gesu’s land near Villalba, in central Sicily, to learn about ancient varieties of wheat and the cultivation of chickpeas and lentils. The late-morning June sun, high and glaring, meant everything seemed dry, but underneath the earth was still damp. We had been told to wear sensible shoes. I was wearing clogs, which are in their own way sensible, just not here. The clay-like earth stuck to my wooden feet in huge tenacious clumps, from which sprouted great tufts of wheat and grass. I tried to stamp as I walked, but succeeded only in collecting more earth and wheat with each step until I could barely lift my feet, such was the weight.


pages: 269 words: 83,959

The Hostage's Daughter by Sulome Anderson

Ayatollah Khomeini, different worldview, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, failed state, false flag, Kickstarter, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, sensible shoes, Skype

THEN February 2003 Clink, clink, clink. There was a moment when I wasn’t sure what had fallen out of my coat pocket onto the floor of my dormitory common area. Just a few seconds, really. Then realization dawned. Oh, fuck, I thought helplessly. I rushed to grab it, but it had dropped not three feet from my dorm master’s sensible shoes, and she got there first. “What is this?” she asked, holding up the marijuana pipe. I’m pretty sure she knew what it was, so the question was rhetorical. I said the first lie that came to my lips. “It’s not mine.” “Uh-huh. Then whose would it be?” Her skepticism was palpable. I was positive she could smell my terror.


pages: 218 words: 83,794

Frommer's Portable California Wine Country by Erika Lenkert

gentrification, Louis Pasteur, Maui Hawaii, place-making, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, white picket fence

Say hello to hot weather and lots of traffic. 33 M O N E Y M AT T E R S Tips Packing Tips If you’re visiting the Wine Country between December and March, be sure to pack an umbrella and a pair of durable walking shoes. The rainy season isn’t usually fierce, but it is wet. Wine Country fashion is part city, part country, with an emphasis on comfort. Sensible shoes are key—especially when you’re wine tasting because you’re likely to tromp through vineyards, gravel, and on occasion, mud. At restaurants, attire ranges from jeans and T-shirts at the more-casual eateries to jacket and tie at the few fancy stops such as The French Laundry. In general, somewhere in between is best when you’re stepping out.


pages: 326 words: 94,046

The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician's First Year by Matt McCarthy

cognitive dissonance, index card, off-the-grid, sensible shoes, upwardly mobile

A few minutes later, the second-year resident I’d been assigned to work with in this portion of my rotation, Ashley—my new Baio—returned from the arrest. She had impossibly high cheekbones and spoke in clipped, overcaffeinated sentences with one thought emerging in the midst of another. In retrospect, she gave the impression of Jennifer Lawrence on speed, perhaps with more sensible shoes. Ashley had greeted me that morning by saying, “Don’t do anything without running it by me first. Are we clear?” Before I could respond, she’d launched into the array of tasks that needed to be completed before rounds—rattling off assignments like wheeling a patient to dialysis and transporting a vial of blood to the chemistry laboratory—faster than I could write, and then withdrew the work delegated to me just as quickly, explaining that it was quicker if she just did everything herself.


pages: 282 words: 89,266

Content Provider: Selected Short Prose Pieces, 2011–2016 by Stewart Lee

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Boris Johnson, Bullingdon Club, call centre, centre right, David Attenborough, Etonian, gentrification, James Dyson, Jeremy Corbyn, Livingstone, I presume, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, plutocrats, pre–internet, Right to Buy, Robert Gordon, Russell Brand, Saturday Night Live, sensible shoes, Socratic dialogue, Stephen Fry, trickle-down economics, wage slave, young professional

Nervinjapan “Russia is very well doing without your Opra Winfrey western pornography and youre decadent music. More lies about Ukraine which was only the size of a biscuit before transexual won.” General Dreedle “Your doughnut dogma can’t disguise the Russian peoples undimmed love for its president, champion of sensible shoes and a lonely flat full of cats.” Jon56780 Top Gear: can any mortal control this foul, pulsating orifice? Observer, 21 June 2015 When I write stand-up or prose about things like Conservative politicians, right-wing newspaper columnists, Top Gear presenters and sports business folk, it is fun to make it as mad as possible.


pages: 269 words: 95,221

So Me by Graham Norton

Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, high-speed rail, Nelson Mandela, sensible shoes, Stephen Fry

A horrible misshapen penny began to drop: I realised that I had never spoken to Shakira Caine and was now sitting alone behind a closed door with a woman who I felt fairly certain would fit into most people’s loose definition of the word ‘mad’. I slowly got up off the floor, not wanting to startle her, and sat on a chair. My mind was racing. True, she seemed like a harmless lady in a pair of grey slacks with sensible shoes, but what if my fake Shakira had a real gun? What if God had told her to kill the vile homosexual off the telly? He’d told people to do a lot of things more irrational than that. ‘I’m sorry I lied, but I couldn’t think of any other way of getting to meet you,’ she said. ‘I understand,’ I lied.


pages: 339 words: 95,988

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner

airport security, Alan Greenspan, behavioural economics, Broken windows theory, crack epidemic, desegregation, Exxon Valdez, feminist movement, George Akerlof, information asymmetry, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, longitudinal study, mental accounting, moral hazard, More Guns, Less Crime, oil shale / tar sands, Paul Samuelson, peak oil, pets.com, profit maximization, Richard Thaler, school choice, sensible shoes, Steven Pinker, Ted Kaczynski, The Chicago School, The Market for Lemons, Thorstein Veblen, Tragedy of the Commons, twin studies, War on Poverty

“This lack of focus,” Levitt deadpanned in one version of the paper, “is perhaps partly attributable to the fact that few economists have been involved in the study of gangs.” Levitt speaks with a boyish lisp. His appearance is High Nerd: a plaid button-down shirt, nondescript khakis and a braided belt, sensible shoes. His pocket calendar is branded with the National Bureau of Economic Research logo. “I wish he would get more than three haircuts a year,” his wife, Jeannette, says, “and that he wasn’t still wearing the same glasses he got fifteen years ago, which weren’t even in fashion then.” He was a good golfer in high school but has so physically atrophied that he calls himself “the weakest human being alive” and asks Jeannette to open jars around the house.


pages: 354 words: 99,690

Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse: And Other Lessons From Modern Life by David Mitchell

bank run, Boris Johnson, British Empire, cakes and ale, cognitive dissonance, collapse of Lehman Brothers, credit crunch, don't be evil, double helix, Downton Abbey, Dr. Strangelove, Etonian, eurozone crisis, Golden age of television, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, Julian Assange, lateral thinking, Northern Rock, Ocado, offshore financial centre, payday loans, plutocrats, profit motive, Russell Brand, sensible shoes, Skype, The Wisdom of Crowds, WikiLeaks

* Imagine you’re running an elite branch of the police, responsible for the security of the country’s nuclear material and installations. Imagine you’re instituting a programme of modernisation and reform so that it can cope better with the threats posed by international terrorism. Would you call the programme “New Dawn”? Personally, I would not. If I were in the Civil Nuclear Constabulary’s thousands of sensible shoes, I think I’d pick something that sounded less like the title of a post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie – something that doesn’t raise the question “Over what dystopian wasteland is this ‘New Dawn’ breaking?”, or conjure up the image of a heavy blood-red sun creeping across the ash-clogged skies of a new empire of cockroaches and scorpions.


pages: 364 words: 103,162

The English by Jeremy Paxman

back-to-the-land, British Empire, Charles Babbage, colonial rule, Corn Laws, Etonian, game design, George Santayana, global village, high-speed rail, Isaac Newton, James Hargreaves, Khartoum Gordon, mass immigration, Neil Kinnock, Own Your Own Home, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Right to Buy, sensible shoes, Stephen Fry, Suez canal 1869, urban sprawl, women in the workforce

Old Country, New Clothes Acknowledgements Notes Bibliography Index For Jessica, Jack and Victoria PREFACE Being English used to be so easy. They were one of the most easily identified peoples on earth, recognized by their language, their manners, their clothes and the fact that they drank tea by the bucketload. It is all so much more complicated now. When, occasionally, we come across someone whose stiff upper lip, sensible shoes or tweedy manner identifies them as English, we react in amusement: the conventions that defined the English are dead and the country’s ambassadors are more likely to be singers or writers than diplomats or politicians. The imperial English may have carried British passports – as did the Scots, Welsh, and some of the Irish – but they really didn’t need to think too hard about whether being ‘English’ was the same as being ‘British’: the terms were virtually interchangeable.


pages: 322 words: 99,918

A Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months Unearthing the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country by Helen Russell

Abraham Maslow, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, death from overwork, do what you love, Downton Abbey, happiness index / gross national happiness, income inequality, job satisfaction, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, Kickstarter, microdosing, obamacare, offshore financial centre, remote working, retail therapy, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Skype, Stephen Fry, Stephen Hawking, work culture

Females under 40 apparently wore skinny jeans, loose-fitting T-shirts, leather jackets, an artfully wound scarf and a topknot or poker-straight blonde hair. Men under 30 sported skinny jeans, high tops, slogan or band T-shirts and 90s bomber jackets with some sort of flat-top haircut. Older men and women preferred polo shirts, sensible shoes, slacks and jackets. And everyone wore square Scandi-issue black-rimmed glasses. ‘But ask a Dane how they’re feeling and what they consider acceptable and you’ll get more varied answers,’ said Christian. ‘People don’t think much is odd in Denmark.’ He explained how social difference wasn’t taken too seriously and used the example of the tennis club to which he belonged.


pages: 400 words: 99,489

The Sirens of Mars: Searching for Life on Another World by Sarah Stewart Johnson

Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, Astronomia nova, back-to-the-land, Beryl Markham, classic study, cuban missile crisis, dark matter, data science, Drosophila, Elon Musk, invention of the printing press, Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Late Heavy Bombardment, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, Mercator projection, Neil Armstrong, Pierre-Simon Laplace, Ronald Reagan, scientific mainstream, sensible shoes, Suez canal 1869

I stopped eating soft cheese and working with chemicals. I avoided caffeine, secondhand smoke, X-rays, kitty litter, hot tubs, and alcohol. I took a prenatal vitamin every morning and a DHA supplement. I shortened the one trip to the field I had planned, and when I arrived at the airport, I let the TSA pat down my body. I wore sensible shoes and watched my step. Instead of running in the mornings, I started to walk, and then began to walk slowly. My restless little one began to somersault through the weeks, up until the night before he was born. He was in an “unstable lie” when I reached term, flipping every couple of days, and the doctors began to worry about the umbilical cord being compressed.


pages: 308 words: 97,480

The Undertow: Scenes From a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet

2021 United States Capitol attack, Airbnb, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, cognitive dissonance, Colonization of Mars, Columbine, Comet Ping Pong, coronavirus, COVID-19, critical race theory, disinformation, drone strike, Elon Musk, fake it until you make it, fake news, false flag, gentrification, George Floyd, Howard Zinn, intentional community, Jeffrey Epstein, lockdown, Occupy movement, operation paperclip, Parler "social media", prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, QAnon, sensible shoes, social distancing, Upton Sinclair, W. E. B. Du Bois, We are the 99%, white flight, white picket fence, young professional

She wasn’t like anyone you’d ever seen on an American middle school wall, and at the same time there was a deep resemblance to the inner selves of countless children who have gleaned from the world that the adult world will not protect them, that they will have to save themselves and each other. I finished my circuit and joined a little crowd of cool kids, Vous Crew elite, milling around outside the auditorium. To them I was just a bald dude in uninspired jeans and sensible shoes. They turned away. I felt like I was thirteen. Then a hand on my shoulder turned me around. Brandon with the Mercedes from the laundromat. He said, “Yo, what’s up!” and pulled my hand in and wrapped his arm around me. Full bro hug, our hands locked in a grip that made a fist like a heart between us.


The River Cottage Fish Book: The Definitive Guide to Sourcing and Cooking Sustainable Fish and Shellfish by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

air gap, California gold rush, clean water, deindustrialization, delayed gratification, haute cuisine, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Kickstarter, market bubble, means of production, sensible shoes

Whiting Merlangius merlangus24 MCS RATING: 4 (2–4) REC MINIMUM SIZE: 12 inches (30cm) SEASON: avoid March—April (spawning) RECIPES: Marinated salt sea bass with roasted tomatoes; Sardine or mackerel escabeche; Fish (and chorizo) soup; Ad hoc fish curry; The FLT; Breaded plaice fillets with tartar sauce; Saltfish and parsnip rösti fish cakes If a whiting were a man, he’d live in Surbiton, drive a reasonably priced hatchback, wear sensible shoes, and like to talk at length about his personal pension plan. In keeping with his beige image, the whiting’s gastronomic reputation is similarly insipid. It could be worse, in that he doesn’t quite suffer the indignity of the pouting, which is widely (and wrongly) thought of as little better than cat food.

So, show whiting some respect, we say. It may not be glamorous but it is still a great white fish to catch or buy, and a perfect foil for strong flavors—anything from chorizo to cheese, curry to coconut. It’s also ripe for light salting and/or smoking. Once you get your whiting home, let him change out of his sensible shoes and express himself. He may just surprise you. Ling Molva molva25 MCS RATINGS: inshore 3; deepwater 5 DON’T EAT! REC MINIMUM SIZE: 32 inches (80cm) SEASON: avoid March—July (spawning) RECIPES: Marinated salt sea bass with roasted tomatoes; Brandade; Smoked roe; Smoked roe and lemon on toast; River Cottage tarama; Steam-braised sea bass with thyme and lemon; Saltfish and parsnip rösti fish cakes; Roast pollock head with thyme, bay, and garlic If Dr.


pages: 378 words: 110,408

Peak: Secrets From the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson, Robert Pool

Albert Einstein, autism spectrum disorder, deliberate practice, digital rights, iterative process, longitudinal study, meta-analysis, pattern recognition, randomized controlled trial, Richard Feynman, Rubik’s Cube, sensible shoes

And the erratic numbering system doesn’t always tell you exactly where to find a particular address even when you’ve found the right street. Thus the best advice for visitors is to forget about renting a car with a navigational system and instead rely on the city’s cabbies. They’re ubiquitous—some twenty-five thousand of them driving around in their big, black, boxy cars that are the automotive equivalent of sensible shoes—and they are astonishingly good at getting you from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible, taking into account not only the lengths of the various possible paths, but the time of day, the expected traffic, temporary roadwork and road closings, and any other details that might be relevant to the trip.


pages: 407 words: 107,343

Felaheen by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Boeing 747, bread and circuses, haute cuisine, polynesian navigation, sensible shoes

"Did Your Excellency say something?" CHAPTER 13 _____________ Flashback Four nuns sat by one window, two pairs facing each other across the carriage like sour-faced crows. They had black habits and whatever those white hats were that went straight down, giving them cheekbones they didn't deserve. They all wore sensible shoes for the journey, flat soles and laces. And they carried sandwiches wrapped in grease-proof paper and a salami in its own cotton case, like a fat cloth condom. Sally was pretty sure she'd seen sisters in New York wearing pale blue jumpsuits, God Loves Baseball caps and trainers; but maybe convents were tougher in North Africa or perhaps this kind were just a different genus--or should that be species?


pages: 355 words: 106,952

Visit Sunny Chernobyl: And Other Adventures in the World's Most Polluted Places by Andrew Blackwell

Anthropocene, carbon footprint, clean water, Google Earth, gravity well, liberation theology, nuclear paranoia, off-the-grid, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, place-making, ride hailing / ride sharing, sensible shoes, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, special economic zone, the scientific method, young professional

Beads exploded from her hands, filling the air with plastic shrapnel. Through the haze, I saw the silhouette of a young man in a perfect cowboy hat, his profile seething in the flare of a spotlight. Scott and I found Laura on one of the side stages, utterly transformed from the day before. Then, she had been a short, unprepossessing woman in jeans and sensible shoes. Now she was dressed as Wheel of Fortune, a Pat Sajak fever dream of sequins and feathers, with an enormous model of the wheel rising from her shoulders. She was ten feet tall, an Aztec high priestess of TV game shows, with a floppy BANKRUPT wedge running down her leg. One of the first out of the gate, she had been standing in presentation for upward of an hour, next to a nebula of plumage that was a woman dressed as Monopoly.


pages: 366 words: 107,145

Fuller Memorandum by Stross, Charles

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, Beeching cuts, Bletchley Park, British Empire, carbon credits, cognitive dissonance, complexity theory, congestion charging, Crossrail, death from overwork, dumpster diving, escalation ladder, false flag, finite state, Firefox, Herman Kahn, HyperCard, invisible hand, land reform, linear programming, messenger bag, MITM: man-in-the-middle, operational security, peak oil, Plato's cave, post-work, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, quantum entanglement, reality distortion field, security theater, sensible shoes, side project, Sloane Ranger, telemarketer, Turing machine

AT ABOUT THE SAME TIME I'M FALLING FEETFIRST INTO A PIECE of railway history, another part of the plot is unfolding. Let me try to reconstruct it for you: A red-haired woman holding a violin case is making her way along a busy high street in London. Wearing understated trousers and a slightly dated Issey Miyake top, sensible shoes, and a leather bag that's showing its age, she could be a college lecturer or a musician on her way to practice: without the interview suit, nobody's going to mistake her for an auction house employee or a civil servant. Which shows how deceptive appearances can be. Kids and shoppers and office workers in suits and shop staff in uniforms move around her; she threads her way between them, not looking in shop windows or diverting her attention from the destination in hand.


pages: 338 words: 112,127

Leaving Orbit: Notes From the Last Days of American Spaceflight by Margaret Lazarus Dean

affirmative action, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, company town, Elon Musk, helicopter parent, index card, Joan Didion, Jon Ronson, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, New Journalism, Norman Mailer, operation paperclip, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, private spaceflight, Richard Feynman, Richard Feynman: Challenger O-ring, risk tolerance, sensible shoes

A friendly couple in their early fifties, just starting to gray, who drove two days to see their first launch before it was too late. The husband wears wraparound sunglasses and a T-shirt that says LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF THOSE WHO THREATEN IT on the back. The wife is carefully made up and coiffed, but she wears baggy capris and sensible shoes, a popular look for women at shuttle launches. After locating the launchpad through his binoculars with my help, the husband tells me that we are all going to be forced to live under sharia law before too long, a conclusion based on “the way things are going in England.” (When pressed, he reveals that his main piece of evidence for England’s inevitable transition to Islamic theocracy is the fact that Mohammed is the most popular name for newborn boys in London.)


pages: 391 words: 117,984

The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz

access to a mobile phone, Ayatollah Khomeini, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, business process, business process outsourcing, clean water, disinformation, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, half of the world's population has never made a phone call, Hernando de Soto, Kibera, Lao Tzu, low interest rates, market design, microcredit, Nelson Mandela, out of africa, Ronald Reagan, sensible shoes, side project, Silicon Valley, Skype, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, tontine, transaction costs, zero-sum game

“Veronique,” she said slowly, enunciating each syllable, perhaps now thinking I was hard of hearing or a little daft. Though she was probably not much more than 34 or 35, maybe a decade older than me at the time, somehow she reminded me of my grandmother, with her thick hands, broad shoulders, and feet settled in sensible shoes. She wore a brown and green cotton, African-print dress with billowing sleeves. Oversize, boxy plastic glasses accentuated her square face. Her hair stood on end, flopping this way and that in cadence with her exuberant speech. I liked her immediately. My grandmother Stella once wore a housedress to the wedding of one of her sons because she’d forgotten her fancy dress back home in Pennsylvania.


pages: 442 words: 115,860

Effendi by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

clean water, Kickstarter, low earth orbit, no-fly zone, sensible shoes

Raf went back to watching the tourists who fed from Place Saad Zaghloul, and headed south down Rue Missala, searching for bars and theatres or just in a hurry to get back to their hotels. After a hundred and eleven days in the city, Raf could now identify tourist groups as clearly as if they wore labels: waddling Austrians, dark-haired Frenchmen, the odd bunch of shore-leave Soviets in mufti and, rarer still, an occasional pink-skinned Englishwoman with silk scarf and sensible shoes. But mostly Iskandryia got nice couples, as befitted a famously romantic city. The fuck-me singles, with their piercings, tattoos and trailer chic, came out only after dark, and then only in closely defined areas. Places like PeshVille, where Scandinavian kids hosed lines of coke off toilet rims, while girls shuffled, in darkened corners, on the unzipped laps of boys too blasted to know they weren’t safely hiding out in student halls back home.


pages: 549 words: 116,200

With a Little Help by Cory Efram Doctorow, Jonathan Coulton, Russell Galen

autonomous vehicles, big-box store, Burning Man, call centre, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, death of newspapers, don't be evil, game design, Google Earth, high net worth, lifelogging, lolcat, margin call, Mark Shuttleworth, offshore financial centre, packet switching, Ponzi scheme, reality distortion field, rolodex, Sand Hill Road, sensible shoes, skunkworks, Skype, traffic fines, traveling salesman, Turing test, urban planning, Y2K

1057 He sat down in one of the chairs, which bulged and sloshed as it conformed itself to his back and butt. He patted the upholstered jelly beside him. "You may always assume that I would be immensely grateful for your advice, Trish," he said. 1058 She sat down and crossed her legs, letting her sensible shoe hang loose. "Right. DC is a busy place. In academic circles, in tech circles, you might get together to feel out your opponent, or to make someone's acquaintance, or to see an old friend. You might get together to enjoy the company of another human being. 1059 "We do that in DC, after working hours.


pages: 419 words: 119,368

Espresso Tales by Alexander McCall Smith

cuban missile crisis, language of flowers, Malacca Straits, seminal paper, sensible shoes, South China Sea, upwardly mobile

“A girlfriend, actually.” Bruce chuckled. “George! Got yourself fixed up at last? A real stunner, no doubt!” Which is exactly what he thought she would not be. He could just imagine the sort of girl George would end up with. She would be the absolute bottom of the heap; bargain-basement material. Sensible shoes. Markedly overweight. Dull as ditchwater. And probably from Crieff into the bargain! That girl he used to see – what was her name? – Sharon somebody or other, who lived with her parents in one of those little bungalows off the Comrie Road; that sort of girl. Poor George! Bruce was uncharitable about his home town.


Wireless by Charles Stross

air gap, anthropic principle, back-to-the-land, Benoit Mandelbrot, Buckminster Fuller, Cepheid variable, cognitive dissonance, colonial exploitation, cosmic microwave background, Easter island, epigenetics, finite state, Georg Cantor, gravity well, hive mind, hydroponic farming, jitney, Khyber Pass, Late Heavy Bombardment, launch on warning, lifelogging, Magellanic Cloud, mandelbrot fractal, MITM: man-in-the-middle, Neil Armstrong, peak oil, phenotype, Pluto: dwarf planet, security theater, sensible shoes, Turing machine, undersea cable

Something in another universe just sucked a microscopic lump of neural tissue right out of your intrapa rietal sulcus, and it won’t grow back.” Urk. Not so much “use it or lose it” as “use it and lose it,” then. Could be worse, could be a NAND gate in there . . . “Do we know why some people suffer from it and others don’t?” “No idea.” She drops what’s left of her cigarette and grinds it under the heel of a sensible shoe. She catches my eye. “Don’t worry about it, the Sisters keep everything orderly,” she says. “Do you know what you want to do next?” “Yes,” I say, damning myself for a fool before I take the next logical step: “I want to talk to the long-term inmates.” I’m half-hoping Renfield will put her foot down and refuse point-blank to let me do it, but she only puts up a token fight: she makes me sign a personal-injury-claims waiver and scribble out a written order instructing her to show me the gallery.


Ma’am Darling by Craig Brown

Ascot racecourse, Bletchley Park, British Empire, Desert Island Discs, Etonian, Joan Didion, Norman Mailer, North Sea oil, sensible shoes, Timothy McVeigh

If the egg that turned into Elizabeth had instead turned into Margaret – that is to say, had Margaret been born first – would Margaret have become the dutiful monarch, and Elizabeth the wayward bossyboots? Or would Queen Margaret I have been a chain-smoking, high-camp, acid-tongued, slugabed monarch, leaving her younger sister, HRH the Princess Elizabeth, in her tweed skirts and her sensible shoes, to pick up the pieces? Was Margaret’s entire life overshadowed by the conviction that she had missed out on the throne? How odd, to emerge from the womb fourth in line, to go up a notch at the age of six, up another notch that same year, and then to find yourself hurtling down, down, down to fourth place at the birth of Prince Charles in 1948, fifth at the birth of Princess Anne in 1950, then downhill all the way, overtaken by a non-stop stream of riff-raff – Prince Andrew and Prince Edward and Peter Phillips and Princess Beatrice and the rest of them, down, down, down, until by the time of your death you have plummeted to number eleven, behind Zara Phillips, later to become Zara Tindall, mother of Mia Tindall, who, if you were still alive, would herself be one ahead of you, even when she was still in nappies.


The Next Great Migration by Sonia Shah

Anthropocene, Berlin Wall, British Empire, climate change refugee, colonial rule, dematerialisation, demographic transition, Donald Trump, Easter island, en.wikipedia.org, European colonialism, failed state, Fellow of the Royal Society, Garrett Hardin, GPS: selective availability, Gregor Mendel, hive mind, illegal immigration, immigration reform, index card, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Ken Thompson, Lewis Mumford, mass immigration, meta-analysis, Nelson Mandela, open borders, out of africa, Scientific racism, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Steve Bannon, TED Talk, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, urban sprawl

he asked, referring to the poet who’d written the famous words inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty welcoming the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” The attendees squirmed, furtively glancing at one another. Most of the middle-aged professionals there had arrived straight from their offices, still wearing their sensible shoes and rumpled suits. They were more interested in chatting about a new Young Republicans club at the local high school and enjoying a cold Yuengling and a slice of pizza than in revisiting milestones in U.S. history. The journeys of their fellow human beings, across sea, desert, jungle, and mountains were as distant as a Komodo dragon in that fluorescent-lit suburban hall, with its practical low-pile wall-to-wall carpeting.


pages: 382 words: 127,510

Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire by Simon Winchester

borderless world, British Empire, colonial rule, Corn Laws, Edmond Halley, European colonialism, gentleman farmer, illegal immigration, Khyber Pass, laissez-faire capitalism, offshore financial centre, sensible shoes, South China Sea, special economic zone, Suez canal 1869, the market place, three-masted sailing ship

It all suddenly seemed rather ludicrous, and I was cross that I was going to be late for tea. (Afternoon tea is not the only British custom still rigorously maintained in the colony. The author Nicholas Luard once met a formidable British nanny near Algeciras. In spite of the heat she was dressed in a severe grey coat and skirt, and wore a grey felt hat, and very sensible shoes, in which she was clumping towards La Linea. Luard offered her a lift, and asked where she was going. ‘Gibraltar,’ she replied, in tones impeccably Home Counties, ‘to buy a reliable kipper.’) In the event, the excursion was pleasant enough, even though the bullet-like craft only narrowly escaped being run over by a tanker in the thick fog—the cotton-wool-like taro—that hangs almost perpetually over the Straits.


pages: 414 words: 121,243

What's Left?: How Liberals Lost Their Way by Nick Cohen

"hyperreality Baudrillard"~20 OR "Baudrillard hyperreality", anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, centre right, critical race theory, DeepMind, disinformation, Etonian, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Farzad Bazoft, feminist movement, government statistician, Great Leap Forward, haute couture, kremlinology, liberal world order, light touch regulation, mass immigration, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, no-fly zone, plutocrats, post-industrial society, profit motive, public intellectual, Ralph Nader, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Scientific racism, sensible shoes, the scientific method, union organizing, upwardly mobile, Yom Kippur War

Equally, a world where there is no revolution worth striving for can feel a disenchanted and dreary place. There is admittedly something a little boring and wholesome about striving for reform and democracy. Suicide bombers and wife burners, whatever else they are, are not boring and wholesome: not sensible shoes, wholemeal bread and composite resolutions. But it is one thing to bewail conformism in the lecture halls of Berkeley and the London School of Economics, quite another to ignore Spanish Republicans, black South Africans, Indian feminists or Iraqi democrats who ask for your support. At that moment, you must choose, and the choice of neutrality is the choice to keep the funeral pyres burning.


pages: 1,631 words: 468,342

Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson

biofilm, Boeing 747, Broken windows theory, clean water, deskilling, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, independent contractor, Indoor air pollution, indoor plumbing, Jacquard loom, Own Your Own Home, sensible shoes, spice trade, Telecommunications Act of 1996, telemarketer

Guests are especially likely to take a tumble because of this, even though you may be used to it. Sensible Shoes High heels, slippery soles, floppy footwear of any sort that is prone to flying off your foot—all these can cause injuries. (High heels also cause dents in your wood floors.) They are not especially comfortable either. The safest shoes in the home are low-heeled and rubber-soled with good nonskid treads that offer your foot plenty of coverage and support. Elderly people especially should always use such shoes in the home, and, really, so should everybody else. Sensible shoes are available now in a variety of attractive styles, and are not so grandmotherly and hygieniclooking as they used to be.

And never lean ladders of any sort—metal, wood, or any other material—against any power or electrical lines. At the end of the holiday season, when you put your lights and decorations away, put your instructions away with them, on top, so that you will be sure to review and follow them next year. Slips and Falls The older you are, the harder you fall … Stairs and steps … Sensible shoes … Dizziness, poor balance … Ladders, step stools … Rugs and carpets … Floor wax … Obstacles, clutter … Electrical cords … Spills … Bathrooms, wet floors … Windows … Level floors … Furniture … The importance of good lighting everywhere It is hard to convince people to take precautions against falling at home, but let me try.


pages: 428 words: 134,832

Straphanger by Taras Grescoe

active transport: walking or cycling, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, airport security, Albert Einstein, big-box store, bike sharing, Boeing 747, Boris Johnson, British Empire, call centre, car-free, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, City Beautiful movement, classic study, company town, congestion charging, congestion pricing, Cornelius Vanderbilt, correlation does not imply causation, David Brooks, deindustrialization, Donald Shoup, East Village, edge city, Enrique Peñalosa, extreme commuting, financial deregulation, fixed-gear, Frank Gehry, gentrification, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, housing crisis, hydraulic fracturing, indoor plumbing, intermodal, invisible hand, it's over 9,000, Jane Jacobs, Japanese asset price bubble, jitney, Joan Didion, Kickstarter, Kitchen Debate, laissez-faire capitalism, Marshall McLuhan, mass immigration, McMansion, megacity, megaproject, messenger bag, mortgage tax deduction, Network effects, New Urbanism, obamacare, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, Own Your Own Home, parking minimums, peak oil, pension reform, Peter Calthorpe, Ponzi scheme, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Skype, streetcar suburb, subprime mortgage crisis, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, transit-oriented development, union organizing, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, walkable city, white flight, working poor, young professional, Zipcar

When I wheeled my suitcase into the main hall of Copenhagen’s magnificent, wood-beamed central station, I was rested, well-fed, caught up on my reading—and three minutes ahead of schedule. Copenhagen Has Been Taken I was prepared to admire Copenhagen, grudgingly, as you might a doughty Lutheran aunt who prides herself on her strong opinions and sensible shoes. I didn’t expect to become infatuated with the place, jealous of those who got to live there year-round, and, to my wife’s annoyance, an advocate for an eventual emigration to Scandinavian climes. I’ve been to more striking cities. Copenhagen is like a greatest hits of more glamorous destinations: it has the canals of Amsterdam, the squares of Florence, and the Baroque architecture of Vienna; there is even a single, New York-style modernist skyscraper (the SAS building, all of twenty stories).


pages: 493 words: 132,290

Vultures' Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates, and High-Finance Carnivores by Greg Palast

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", anti-communist, back-to-the-land, bank run, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, British Empire, capital asset pricing model, capital controls, centre right, Chelsea Manning, classic study, clean water, collateralized debt obligation, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, currency risk, disinformation, Donald Trump, energy security, Exxon Valdez, Glass-Steagall Act, invisible hand, junk bonds, means of production, Myron Scholes, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, Pepto Bismol, random walk, Ronald Reagan, sensible shoes, Seymour Hersh, transfer pricing, uranium enrichment, Washington Consensus, Yogi Berra

Lady Mehriban Aliyeva appears . . . unable to show a full range of facial expression.” The U.S. Intelligence officer assumes this is the result of “substantial cosmetic surgery.” Maybe. What expressions does she lack? Empathy? Self-awareness? The report does not say. Kadija, on the other hand, has a full range of facial expressions. Just from her sensible shoes, flat black slip-ons, you could say Kadija is Azerbaijan’s last lady. And proud of it. We hired Kadija to shepherd us around Baku, which she did waving and grinning at our police shadows and translating when we were stopped by a “volunteer” in a black sedan. (He freely said, when she asked, that he would be paid for keeping an eye on us.


Digital Photography: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover, Barbara Brundage

AltaVista, Firefox, sensible shoes

If your family lives in sunny California and the grandparents are back East, Grandma can oogle your latest baby pics online the day you shoot themand order prints of her favorites. As described in "Sharing Your Photos Online" (Chapter 14), you set up your online albums and email invitations to folks you want to share them with. Now put yourself in Grandma's sensible shoes for a moment. Here's how to look at, and order prints from, an online album someone shares with you. You get an email inviting you to view the pictures. In the email message, you'll find a link to the online album. Click it. In your Web browser, a window displays the shared pictures, usually in the form of thumbnails.


pages: 455 words: 133,719

Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time by Brigid Schulte

8-hour work day, affirmative action, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, blue-collar work, Burning Man, business cycle, call centre, cognitive dissonance, David Brooks, deliberate practice, desegregation, DevOps, East Village, Edward Glaeser, epigenetics, fear of failure, feminist movement, financial independence, game design, gender pay gap, glass ceiling, Great Leap Forward, helicopter parent, hiring and firing, income inequality, job satisfaction, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, labor-force participation, machine readable, meta-analysis, new economy, profit maximization, Results Only Work Environment, Richard Feynman, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, sensible shoes, sexual politics, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Skype, Steve Jobs, tech worker, TED Talk, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thorstein Veblen, women in the workforce, work culture , working poor, Zipcar, éminence grise

I’m terrified that all the mess that I usually keep stuffed behind a friendly, competent, professional, if harried, veneer will come spilling out. “Sorry to be late,” I apologize breathlessly. John Robinson just shrugs. He is, I would soon find out, no slave to the clock. He is seventy-four years old. Tall, thin, and stooped, he wears khaki pants, a canary yellow polo shirt, and sensible shoes. His long, wispy gray hair is styled in a Beatles mop top. Robinson leads me into a conference room, saying he’d rather meet here than in his office. (I would later discover why.) We sit. I reach into my backpack and pull out two little black Moleskine notebooks, 3¾ inches wide by 5½ inches long, crammed with crazy scribbles.


pages: 543 words: 143,135

Air Crashes and Miracle Landings: 60 Narratives by Christopher Bartlett

Air France Flight 447, air traffic controllers' union, Airbus A320, airport security, Boeing 747, Captain Sullenberger Hudson, Charles Lindbergh, crew resource management, en.wikipedia.org, flag carrier, illegal immigration, it's over 9,000, Maui Hawaii, profit motive, sensible shoes, special drawing rights, Tenerife airport disaster, US Airways Flight 1549, William Langewiesche

Now, in general, sitting as near as possible to an exit (at least within five or six rows) is the best choice, as is an aisle seat, which besides allowing you to walk around and avoid deep vein thrombosis, lessens the chance of you being hemmed in. Having cotton clothes covering arms and legs, and avoiding nylon panties[140] that are liable to melt and produce severe burns as you go down the emergency chute is advisable. Sensible shoes (high heels not only make getting around more difficult but also could tear the chute (page 165)) are also a good idea. Analysis of various air disasters has shown that survival can greatly depend on one’s sheer determination to survive. Even a few seconds’ hesitation can be fatal, and in this regard counting the rows to the exit can gain valuable time in exiting if the aircraft has filled with smoke.


pages: 928 words: 159,837

Florence & Tuscany by Lonely Planet

Bonfire of the Vanities, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, European colonialism, haute couture, Kickstarter, period drama, Pier Paolo Pasolini, post-work, retail therapy, sensible shoes, Skype, trade route, urban planning

Cover yourself when entering a church (no shorts, short skirts or sleeveless or off-the-shoulder tops) and also, to a degree, when on the beach – topless and nude bathing are unacceptable in most instances. It pays to bring a sweater (jumper) and rain jacket in all periods except high summer. Take sensible shoes in every season, as streets are cobbled and often totally unsuited to high heels or thin soles. What to Pack » Passport » Credit cards » This guidebook » International Driver’s Licence » Phrasebook » Driving map » Travel plug (adaptor) » Mobile phone (cell phone) and charger » Earplugs » Sunscreen » Sunhat » Sunglasses » Swimming towel » Umbrella » Rainproof jacket » Torch (flashlight) » Pocketknife with corkscrew » Camera » Medical kit Checklist » Check the validity of your passport » Check if you need a visa ( Click here ) » Organise an International Driver’s Licence » Organise a youth, student or teacher card if applicable ( Click here ) » Organise travel insurance ( Click here ) » Book ahead for accommodation and major sights » Check the airline baggage restrictions » Organise international roaming on your phone if needed ( Click here ) Etiquette » Greetings Shake hands, make eye contact and say buongiorno (good morning/afternoon), buonasera (good evening) or piacere (pleased to meet you).


pages: 547 words: 148,732

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan

1960s counterculture, Abraham Maslow, Albert Einstein, Anton Chekhov, Burning Man, cognitive dissonance, conceptual framework, crowdsourcing, dark matter, Day of the Dead, Douglas Engelbart, East Village, experimental subject, Exxon Valdez, Golden Gate Park, Google Earth, Haight Ashbury, Howard Rheingold, Internet Archive, John Markoff, John Perry Barlow, Kevin Kelly, Marshall McLuhan, Mason jar, Menlo Park, meta-analysis, microdosing, military-industrial complex, moral panic, Mother of all demos, off-the-grid, overview effect, placebo effect, radical decentralization, Ralph Waldo Emerson, randomized controlled trial, reality distortion field, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, satellite internet, scientific mainstream, scientific worldview, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Skype, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, sugar pill, TED Talk, the scientific method, theory of mind, Thomas Bayes, Whole Earth Catalog

“As academics, either we’re incredibly focused on a particular problem,” Gopnik told the audience of philosophers and neuroscientists in Tucson, “or we’re sitting there saying to ourselves, ‘Why can’t I focus on this problem I’m supposed to be focused on, and why instead am I daydreaming?’” Gopnik herself looks the part of a Berkeley professor in her early sixties, with her colorful scarves, flowing skirts, and sensible shoes. A child of the 1960s who is now a grandmother, she has a speaking style that is at once lighthearted and learned, studded with references indicating a mind as much at home in the humanities as the sciences. “If you thought, as people often have thought, that this was all there was to consciousness . . . you might very well find yourself thinking that young children were actually less conscious than we were,” because both focused attention and self-reflection are absent in young children.


pages: 630 words: 174,171

Caliban's War by James S. A. Corey

clean water, gravity well, phenotype, sensible shoes, statistical model, systems thinking

When Holden arrived, the crowd was still cowed by the security officers’ Tasers and shock prods, but from the rising tension and anger in the air, he could tell that wouldn’t last long. Just behind the front line of rent-a-cops, with their nonlethal deterrents, stood a small clump of men in dark suits and sensible shoes. They carried shotguns with the air of men who were just waiting for someone to give them permission. That would be the corporate security, then. Looking over the room, Holden felt the scene snap into place. Beyond that closed loading bay door was one of the few remaining corporate freighters loaded down with the last food being stripped from Ganymede.


Inside British Intelligence by Gordon Thomas

active measures, Albert Einstein, Apollo 11, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Bletchley Park, British Empire, country house hotel, cuban missile crisis, disinformation, Etonian, Fall of the Berlin Wall, false flag, job satisfaction, Khyber Pass, kremlinology, lateral thinking, license plate recognition, Mikhail Gorbachev, Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, old-boy network, operational security, Ronald Reagan, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, Suez crisis 1956, University of East Anglia, uranium enrichment, Yom Kippur War

Eliza Manningham-Buller had smiled—a brief and decisive movement of her lips, gone as swiftly as it had appeared—accompanied by a little nod, itself a reminder of that evening on stage when she had waved her wand over Cinderella. On April 24, 1974, she signed the Official Secrets Act and became the latest recruit in MI5. IN HER CONSERVATIVE CLOTHES and sensible shoes, with hair cut in an old-fashioned style and only a touch of lipstick to enliven her face, Eliza Manningham-Buller reported for her first day in MI5. She was twenty-five years old and ready to play her role as a spy. Her destination was Number 1 Curzon Street, a bunkerlike building, built in the 1930s; its basement had served as an air raid shelter for the royal family in nearby Buckingham Palace during the blitz.


Frommer's San Francisco 2012 by Matthew Poole, Erika Lenkert, Kristin Luna

airport security, Albert Einstein, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Blue Bottle Coffee, California gold rush, car-free, centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, El Camino Real, gentrification, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, high-speed rail, Loma Prieta earthquake, machine readable, Mason jar, Maui Hawaii, McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit, off-the-grid, place-making, Port of Oakland, post-work, San Francisco homelessness, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, Torches of Freedom, transcontinental railway, urban renewal, Works Progress Administration, young professional

Every style, era, fetish, and financial status is represented here—not in huge, sprawling shopping malls, but in hundreds of boutiques and secondhand stores scattered throughout the city. Whether it’s a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes, a Chanel knockoff, or Chinese herbal medicine you’re looking for, San Francisco’s got it. Just pick a shopping neighborhood, wear some sensible shoes, and you’re sure to end up with at least a few take-home treasures. The Shopping Scene Major Shopping Areas San Francisco has many shopping areas, but the following places are where you’ll find most of the action. Union Square & Environs San Francisco’s most congested and popular shopping mecca is centered on Union Square and bordered by Bush, Taylor, Market, and Montgomery streets.


pages: 611 words: 186,716

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

British Empire, clean water, dark matter, defense in depth, digital map, edge city, Just-in-time delivery, low earth orbit, Mason jar, Neal Stephenson, pattern recognition, pneumatic tube, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Socratic dialogue, South China Sea, the scientific method, Turing machine, wage slave

Judge Fang had been expecting that the ship would be some kind of bulk carrier, consisting almost entirely of huge compartments, but the first thing he saw was a long corridor running parallel to the keel, seemingly the length of the entire ship. Young women in white, pink, or occasionally blue dresses and sensible shoes bustled back and forth along this corridor entering into and emerging from its innumerable doors. There was no formal welcome, no captain or other officers. As soon as the boat girls had assisted them on board, they bowed and took their leave. Dr. X began to amble down the corridor, and Judge Fang followed him.


The Rough Guide to Sweden (Travel Guide eBook) by Rough Guides

carbon footprint, centre right, congestion charging, glass ceiling, high-speed rail, Julian Assange, Kickstarter, large denomination, Peace of Westphalia, place-making, sensible shoes, Suez crisis 1956, trade route, urban planning, WikiLeaks

Kabinbanan End June–end Aug daily 10am–4pm; Sept Thurs–Sun 10am–4pm • 7min • 135kr return A cable car, the Kabinbanan, whisks you from just behind Storlien’s main square up to a viewing platform (1274m) and Stormköket restaurant (open in connection with the Kabinbanan’s operating times), some way up Åreskutan. From the viewing platform it’ll take you a further thirty minutes to clamber to the summit. Wear sensible shoes and warm clothes, as the low temperatures are intensified by the wind, and it can be decidedly nippy even in summer. From the top the view is stunning – on a clear day you can see over to the border with Norway and a good way back to Östersund. There’s a tiny wooden café, Toppstugan, at the summit (open in connection with the Kabinbanan’s operating times), serving coffee and extortionately priced sandwiches.


pages: 695 words: 189,074

Fodor's Essential Israel by Fodor's Travel Guides

bike sharing, call centre, coronavirus, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, Louis Pasteur, Mahatma Gandhi, means of production, Mount Scopus, New Urbanism, Pepto Bismol, sensible shoes, starchitect, stem cell, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban planning, Wall-E, Yom Kippur War, young professional

In Jerusalem, these are around Zion Square, the Ben Yehuda Street pedestrian mall, and a few strategic locations elsewhere in the city (Jerusalem Mall, German Colony neighborhood, Jewish Quarter). g Packing Israel is a very casual country, and comfort comes first. For touring in the hot summer months, wear cool, easy-care clothing and sensible shoes for walking. If coming between May and September, you don’t need a coat, but you should bring a sun hat that completely shades your face and neck. Take one light sweater for cool nights, particularly in hilly areas (including in and around Jerusalem) and the desert. Also take long pants to protect your legs and a spare pair of walking shoes for adventure travel or hiking shoes for more serious hiking.


pages: 601 words: 193,225

740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building by Michael Gross

Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Bear Stearns, Bonfire of the Vanities, California gold rush, Carl Icahn, company town, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate raider, cuban missile crisis, Donald Trump, Glass-Steagall Act, Irwin Jacobs, it's over 9,000, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, junk bonds, McMansion, Michael Milken, mortgage debt, Norman Mailer, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, plutocrats, Ronald Reagan, sensible shoes, short selling, strikebreaker, The Predators' Ball, traveling salesman, Upton Sinclair, urban planning

“Grandfather was very disagreeable and stiff. He said children should be seen and not heard. Children were a bother. He was considered dashing and handsome, but I found him quite scary.” “He’d sit sourly, barely conversing, barking orders,” remembers Wilmerding. Catlin remembers Electra as “a cozy person” in sensible shoes and cotton dresses. “Grandfather let her take the stage, and she was clearly the more warmhearted person.” Sam junior agreed, recalling his grandfather as “a little crotchety.” His grandmother “made up for it because she bubbled all the time.” Sam found the apartment formal, too, as was the strict schedule whenever the Webbs were in residence.


The Rough Guide to Norway by Phil Lee

banking crisis, bike sharing, car-free, centre right, company town, Easter island, glass ceiling, Nelson Mandela, North Sea oil, out of africa, place-making, sensible shoes, sustainable-tourism, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, walkable city, white picket fence

Whale-watching safaris Whale safaris (4–5hr) leave from the Andenes Whale Centre, or direct from the harbour (late May and mid-Sept 1–5 daily, subject to demand) • 870kr (children 5–13 years 550kr); includes guided tour of the Whale Centre • Not recommended for children under 5 as the sea can get rough; warm clothing and sensible shoes are essential • Reserve at least a day in advance through the tourist office, or direct on 76 11 56 00, whalesafari.no Andenes is famous for its popular whale-watching safaris, with a marine biologist on board to point out whales, such as pilots, minkes, humpbacks and sperm, as well other sea creatures like dolphins and porpoise.


Israel & the Palestinian Territories Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

active transport: walking or cycling, airport security, Albert Einstein, back-to-the-land, bike sharing, biodiversity loss, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, coronavirus, flag carrier, G4S, game design, gentrification, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, information security, Khartoum Gordon, Louis Pasteur, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Skype, South China Sea, special economic zone, spice trade, Suez canal 1869, trade route, urban planning, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

The 10km road from Nahariya ends at the Rosh HaNikra Grottoes (%073-271 0100; www.rosh-hanikra.com), from where a cable car (adult/child 45/35NIS; h9am-4pm Sun-Fri, to 6pm Sat Sep-Mar, 9am-6pm Sat-Thu, to 4pm Fri Apr-Jun) – made by an Austrian ski-lift company – descends steeply to the bottom of the flint-speckled cliffs. Inside the grottoes, lit by the luminescent blue of the Mediterranean, waves crash with awesome power against the bone-white walls. The site is at its most dramatic during stormy weather. The cable car is wheelchair accessible, but the caves are not. It's a good idea to wear sensible shoes with grippy soles. Behind the lower cable-car station, inside a naturally cool rail tunnel, you can watch a film on the area's geography and the history of the Haifa–Beirut railway, whose tunnels were excavated by British army engineering units from New Zealand and South Africa in 1941 and 1942.


pages: 821 words: 227,742

I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution by Craig Marks, Rob Tannenbaum

Adam Curtis, AOL-Time Warner, Bernie Sanders, Bob Geldof, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, crack epidemic, crowdsourcing, financial engineering, haute couture, Live Aid, Neil Armstrong, Parents Music Resource Center, pre–internet, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, sensible shoes, Skype, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, Tipper Gore, upwardly mobile

DON BARNES: Julianne Phillips was in “If I’d Been the One.” She was Bruce Springsteen’s future wife; supposedly, he first saw her in our video. Mercy. It was hard to keep your eyes off her, or even think about anything else in the shoot. CAMILLE GRAMMER, Club MTV dancer: I did a few videos, including David Lee Roth’s “Sensible Shoes.” I was one of the two blonde—what did they call them?—oh yeah, “video vixens.” I remember some tabloid calling me that when I started dating Kelsey Grammer. I was in Colin Quinn’s “Going Back to Brooklyn,” which was a parody of LL Cool J’s “Going Back to Cali.” Ben Stiller directed that. I did a Kool Moe Dee video, a Manitoba’s Wild Kingdom video, plus a few others I can’t even remember.


How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France

affirmative action, Albert Einstein, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Donald Trump, East Village, estate planning, facts on the ground, global pandemic, Live Aid, medical residency, placebo effect, Ronald Reagan, sensible shoes, sugar pill, trickle-down economics

Iris Long was a most unexpected arrival in the movement. With her suburban hair bob, she cut a figure that might have been perfectly ordinary on the subway, but not in this room, packed with fashion-conscious men and women. She favored a garishly bright-colored wardrobe belted through her soft middle with an overfull fanny pack. She wore sensible shoes and sun visors, and her eyeglasses, owlish panels rimmed in gold, were tinted a muddy brown. Everything about her pointed to the fact that she was a working-class, middle-aged heterosexual woman—a platypus among the swans. She had been attending since the first meeting, often rising to speak, in her thick outer-borough accent, when the agenda reached “Lifesaving.”


The Rough Guide to Chile by Melissa Graham, Andrew Benson

Atahualpa, California gold rush, call centre, centre right, company town, cuban missile crisis, Easter island, feminist movement, Francisco Pizarro, it's over 9,000, Murano, Venice glass, sensible shoes, sustainable-tourism, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, union organizing, women in the workforce

It is important to book ahead at the tourist information office in Calama, or directly by telephone (T 55/322122) or email (E visitas@codelco.cl). Regular yellow colectivos (20min; CH$1500) leave for Chuquicamata from Calle Abaroa, on Calama’s main plaza. The tours last 1 hour 30 minutes and take place almost entirely on a bus, though you’re allowed to get out at the viewpoint looking down to the pit – wear sensible shoes and clothing that covers most of your body.The rest of the tour takes you round the machinery yards and buildings of the plant, which you see from the outside only. Moving on from Calama Most visitors are in Calama on their way to San Pedro with regular bus connections (around ten a day) provided by several companies, including Tur Bus at Balmaceda 1802 (T55/341472) and Buses Frontera, at Antofagasta 2041 (T55/318543) with the most frequent services, and Buses Atacama, Abaroa 2106 (T55/316664).


Lonely Planet Greek Islands by Lonely Planet, Alexis Averbuck, Michael S Clark, Des Hannigan, Victoria Kyriakopoulos, Korina Miller

car-free, carbon footprint, credit crunch, Easter island, eurozone crisis, G4S, haute couture, haute cuisine, low cost airline, Norman Mailer, pension reform, period drama, restrictive zoning, sensible shoes, sustainable-tourism, trade route, transfer pricing, urban sprawl

Many of the most significant finds from Delos are in the National Archaeological Museum (Click here ) in Athens, but the site’s rather run down museumOffline map Google map still has an interesting collection, including the lions from the Terrace of the Lions (those on the terrace itself are plaster-cast replicas). Overnight stays on Delos are forbidden and boat schedules allow a maximum of about six or seven hours there. Bring water and food. Wear a hat and you’ll need really sensible shoes. Ancient Delos Sights 1Agora of the CompetialistsA4 2Agora of the DeliansB3 3Agora of the ItaliansB3 4 Cistern B5 5DodekatheonB3 6GymnasiumD1 7Hill HouseA2 8 House of Cleopatra B4 9House of ComediansB2 10House of DiadumenosB2 11 House of Dionysos B4 12House of HermesB4 13 House of the Dolphins C5 14 House of the Masks B5 15House of the NaxiotsB3 16 House of the Trident B4 17Institution of the PoseidoniastsB2 18KeratonB3 19Lake HouseB2 20Monument of the BullsB3 21 Museum B3 22PalaestraB2 23Poros TempleB3 24Roman WallB2 25Sacred CaveC5 26 Sanctuary of Apollo B3 27Sanctuary of ArchegetesC2 28Sanctuary of DionysosB3 29 Sanctuary of the Syrian Gods C4 30 Shrine to the Egyptian Gods C4 31 Shrine to the Samothracian Great Gods C4 32South StoaB4 33StadiumD1 34Stoa of AntigonasB3 35Stoa of Philip VB3 36Stoa of PoseidonA3 37Stoa of the NaxiotsA3 38Temple of ApolloB3 39Temple of ArtemisB3 40Temple of the AtheniansB3 41Terrace of the Lions (Replicas Only)B2 42 Theatre B4 43 Theatre Quarter B4 44Tourist PavilionB3 45Wall of the TriarusA4 46WarehousesA5 Exploring the Site The following is an outline of some significant archaeological remains on the site.


pages: 993 words: 318,161

Fall; Or, Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson

Ada Lovelace, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, back-to-the-land, bitcoin, blockchain, cloud computing, coherent worldview, computer vision, crisis actor, crossover SUV, cryptocurrency, defense in depth, demographic transition, distributed ledger, drone strike, easy for humans, difficult for computers, fake news, false flag, game design, gamification, index fund, Jaron Lanier, life extension, messenger bag, microaggression, microbiome, Neal Stephenson, Network effects, no-fly zone, off grid, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, pattern recognition, planetary scale, ride hailing / ride sharing, sensible shoes, short selling, Silicon Valley, Snow Crash, tech bro, telepresence, telepresence robot, telerobotics, The Hackers Conference, Turing test, Works Progress Administration

These were all more or less calculated to hurl tasks into colleagues’ laps, which he reckoned might keep them off balance long enough that they wouldn’t miss him while he was taking in some kind of stupid action movie with Dodge. As he always did while working, he went into a sort of flow state that must have lasted for about half an hour. At the beginning of it he was conscious of his surroundings: patients biding their time, receptionists checking people in, medical personnel in scrubs striding to and fro on their sensible shoes. And, just for a moment, Dodge’s voice heard dimly from the back, making a crack as he was wheeled to the procedure room. Nothing that needed concern him at the moment. Into the universe of email he went, and abided for a time. He was vaguely aware that people were, all of a sudden, distressed about something.


The Transformation Of Ireland 1900-2000 by Diarmaid Ferriter

anti-communist, Bob Geldof, British Empire, Celtic Tiger, collective bargaining, deliberate practice, edge city, falling living standards, financial independence, ghettoisation, greed is good, hiring and firing, housing crisis, immigration reform, income per capita, land reform, manufacturing employment, moral panic, New Journalism, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, open economy, Plato's cave, postnationalism / post nation state, sensible shoes, the market place, upwardly mobile, urban renewal, wage slave, women in the workforce

The ballroom people were so shortsighted they didn’t realise they would have to improve their surroundings … people got a bit more sophisticated and time caught up with the ballroom owners.184 Women in particular became disenchanted with the ‘cattle market environment’ of the dances. A female student at University College Dublin remembered her contemporaries’ preoccupation with not just cinema and politics, but also with fashion, which ‘changed enormously as we started out dressed like young ladies in tweed and sensible shoes but ended up in boots and mini skirts hoping we would look like Julie Christie’.185 The feminist June Levine, in her acclaimed Sisters, recalled the obsession with new hair styles and skirts; her contemporary, the journalist Mary Kenny, remarked: ‘My mother hates skirts, but doesn’t everybody’s mother?


pages: 2,313 words: 330,238

Lonely Planet Turkey (Travel Guide) by Lonely Planet, James Bainbridge, Brett Atkinson, Steve Fallon, Jessica Lee, Virginia Maxwell, Hugh McNaughtan, John Noble

British Empire, car-free, carbon footprint, country house hotel, Exxon Valdez, Kickstarter, megacity, Mustafa Suleyman, place-making, restrictive zoning, sensible shoes, sustainable-tourism, Thales and the olive presses, trade route, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, yield management, young professional

For more information about the synagogues see www.izmirjewishheritage.com and www.wmf.org/project/central-izmir-synagogues. 2Activities oOnly in İzmir Culinary WalkWALKING TOUR (http://culinarybackstreets.com/culinary-walks/izmir; per person US$125) The many unusual and delicious culinary treats of İzmir are investigated on this 5½-hour guided walk in and around the Kemeraltı district, which offers fascinating information about the city's history and culture as well as giving all participants the opportunity to eat and drink to their fullest capacity (and then some). Wear sensible shoes and skip breakfast on the day. oJewish Heritage ToursTOURS (%0232-446 4400; www.izmirjewishheritage.com; per person €45; hMon-Fri & Sun) Operated by the Izmir Project, an initiative of the local Jewish community, working in association with the ÇİT-TUR Travel Agency, these half-day guided tours of the synagogues around Havra Sokağı in the Kemaraltı Market visit four still-functioning places of worship: the Şalom, Algazi, La Sinyora (The Lady) and Bikur Holim synagogues, all of which date from the 17th and 18th centuries.


Greece Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

active transport: walking or cycling, Airbnb, capital controls, car-free, carbon footprint, credit crunch, haute couture, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, indoor plumbing, Kickstarter, low cost airline, pension reform, period drama, sensible shoes, trade route, urban sprawl

This was once the wealthiest monastery of Mystras, the focus of cultural activities and the burial place of the despots. Of its two churches, Agios Theodoros and Aphentiko, the latter is the more impressive, with striking frescoes. TACKLING MYSTRAS At least three hours are needed to do justice to the ruins of Mystras. Start early in the morning to beat the tour groups; wear sensible shoes; and bring water (you can refill at the monastery). The site is divided into two interconnected sections – the kastro (the fortress on the summit) and the hora (upper town), accessible from the fortress gate; and the kato hora (lower town), accesible via the main gate. If you don't have your own wheels, it makes sense to catch a taxi to the fortress gate and walk down.


Germany Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

Airbnb, Albert Einstein, bank run, Berlin Wall, bike sharing, Boeing 747, British Empire, call centre, capitalist realism, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, company town, double helix, Dr. Strangelove, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, gentrification, glass ceiling, Gregor Mendel, haute couture, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, Honoré de Balzac, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Kepler, Kickstarter, low cost airline, messenger bag, Mikhail Gorbachev, Neil Armstrong, New Urbanism, off-the-grid, oil shale / tar sands, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Eisenman, post-work, Prenzlauer Berg, retail therapy, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, sensible shoes, Skype, starchitect, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, V2 rocket, white picket fence

Klimahaus Bremerhaven 8° Ost MUSEUM (Climate House; www.klimahaus-bremerhaven.de; Am Längengrad 8; adult/concession/family €14/9.50/40; 9am-7pm Mon-Fri, 10am-7pm Sat & Sun) The space-age and sluglike Klimahaus Bremerhaven 8° Ost offers a journey around the world along the 8° east longitude through climate zones in Switzerland (rather on-the-nose due to cow pats), Italy, Niger, Cameroon, Antarctica, Samoa, Alaska and Germany. The displays have an educational aspect and are very much aimed at kids but are enjoyable for adults, too. The temperatures do soar and plummet considerably (Cameroon gets pretty sweaty), so along with sensible shoes to scale Swiss mountains and cross stepping stones and rope bridges in Africa, wear two layers of clothing. Late afternoon is the best time to visit because the queues are shorter; plan about three hours to get the most out of the experience. Zoo am Meer ZOO (www.zoo-am-meer-bremerhaven.de; H-H-Meier-Strasse 6; adult/child €7/4; 9am-7pm) The Zoo am Meer isn’t spectacular on the face of things, but it enthrals kids, partly because the enclosures are cleverly built into one big artificial ‘rock’ formation.


Germany by Andrea Schulte-Peevers

Albert Einstein, bank run, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, call centre, capitalist realism, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, company town, computer age, credit crunch, Donald Trump, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, gentrification, glass ceiling, Google Earth, haute couture, haute cuisine, Honoré de Balzac, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Kepler, Kickstarter, low cost airline, messenger bag, Mikhail Gorbachev, New Urbanism, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Eisenman, place-making, post-work, Prenzlauer Berg, retail therapy, ride hailing / ride sharing, sensible shoes, Skype, trade route, urban planning, urban renewal, V2 rocket, white picket fence

It opened in mid-2009 and offers a journey around the world along the 8° east longitude through climate zones in Switzerland (rather on-the-nose due to cow pats), Italy, Niger, Cameroon, Antarctica, Samoa, Alaska and Germany. The displays have an educational aspect and are very much aimed at kids but are enjoyable for adults, too. The temperatures do soar and plummet considerably (Cameroon gets pretty sweaty), so along with sensible shoes to scale Swiss mountains, and cross stepping stones and rope bridges in Africa, wear two layers of clothing. In fact, any wardrobe choice will be the wrong one at some point of the journey! Other sections focus on climate change and the elements. Late afternoon is the best time to visit because the queues are shorter, and plan about three hours here to get the most out of the experience.


pages: 1,737 words: 491,616

Rationality: From AI to Zombies by Eliezer Yudkowsky

Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, anthropic principle, anti-pattern, anti-work, antiwork, Arthur Eddington, artificial general intelligence, availability heuristic, backpropagation, Bayesian statistics, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, Build a better mousetrap, Cass Sunstein, cellular automata, Charles Babbage, cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, correlation does not imply causation, cosmological constant, creative destruction, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, dematerialisation, different worldview, discovery of DNA, disinformation, Douglas Hofstadter, Drosophila, Eddington experiment, effective altruism, experimental subject, Extropian, friendly AI, fundamental attribution error, Great Leap Forward, Gödel, Escher, Bach, Hacker News, hindsight bias, index card, index fund, Isaac Newton, John Conway, John von Neumann, Large Hadron Collider, Long Term Capital Management, Louis Pasteur, mental accounting, meta-analysis, mirror neurons, money market fund, Monty Hall problem, Nash equilibrium, Necker cube, Nick Bostrom, NP-complete, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), P = NP, paperclip maximiser, pattern recognition, Paul Graham, peak-end rule, Peter Thiel, Pierre-Simon Laplace, placebo effect, planetary scale, prediction markets, random walk, Ray Kurzweil, reversible computing, Richard Feynman, risk tolerance, Rubik’s Cube, Saturday Night Live, Schrödinger's Cat, scientific mainstream, scientific worldview, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Singularitarianism, SpaceShipOne, speech recognition, statistical model, Steve Jurvetson, Steven Pinker, strong AI, sunk-cost fallacy, technological singularity, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, the map is not the territory, the scientific method, Turing complete, Turing machine, Tyler Cowen, ultimatum game, X Prize, Y Combinator, zero-sum game

* 314 Epistemic Viciousness Someone deserves a large hat tip for this, but I’m having trouble remembering who; my records don’t seem to show any email or Overcoming Bias comment which told me of this 12-page essay, “Epistemic Viciousness in the Martial Arts” by Gillian Russell.1 Maybe Anna Salamon? We all lined up in our ties and sensible shoes (this was England) and copied him—left, right, left, right—and afterwards he told us that if we practised in the air with sufficient devotion for three years, then we would be able to use our punches to kill a bull with one blow. I worshipped Mr Howard (though I would sooner have died than told him that) and so, as a skinny, eleven-year-old girl, I came to believe that if I practised, I would be able to kill a bull with one blow by the time I was fourteen.


Lonely Planet France by Lonely Planet Publications

banking crisis, bike sharing, British Empire, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, Columbine, David Sedaris, double helix, Frank Gehry, G4S, gentrification, glass ceiling, haute couture, haute cuisine, Henri Poincaré, Herbert Marcuse, high-speed rail, Honoré de Balzac, illegal immigration, Jacquard loom, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Kickstarter, Louis Blériot, Louis Pasteur, low cost airline, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, Murano, Venice glass, ride hailing / ride sharing, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Suez canal 1869, supervolcano, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, urban renewal, urban sprawl, V2 rocket

The further south you go, the more relaxed fashion becomes, although it’s still sassy, especially on the French Riviera. Avoid shorts and flip-flops unless you’re at the beach, and dress up rather than down at restaurants, clubs and bars – no jeans and trainers, unless you’re at the local village bar. Bring a sweater (jumper) and rain jacket, and something to protect your skin from peckish mosquitoes. Take sensible shoes whatever the season – cobbled streets simply don’t marry with high heels or thin soles. What to Pack » Passport » Credit cards » This guidebook » Phrasebook » Driver’s licence » Travel plug (adaptor) » Mobile phone (cell phone) and charger » Earplugs » Sunscreen, sunhat and sunglasses » Umbrella (northern France) » Rainproof jacket » Torch (flashlight) » Pocketknife with corkscrew » Camera » Medical kit » Comfortable walking shoes » Light scarf or sarong » Book or e-reader » iPod (with French music playlist) Checklist » Check passport validity » Check if you need a visa ( Click here ) » Arrange travel insurance ( Click here ) » Check airline baggage restrictions » Book ahead for accommodation and big-name restaurants » Buy tickets online for the Louvre, Eiffel Tower etc » Organise international roaming on your phone if needed ( Click here ) » Download France-related travel apps and music playlist Etiquette » Greetings Shake hands and say ‘Bonjour’ (Hello) or ‘Bonsoir’ (Good evening) to strangers, and exchange two cheek-skimming kisses – right cheek first – with casual acquaintances and friends.