Minimalist poet, minimalist lifestyle

In an earlier posting a few days ago I mentioned my superstition where I will put any coins I find in my back pocket and then not spend them until I find another coin.

Although I don't consider myself to be conventionally superstitious, I think I'm just as superstitious as anyone else, but just do things a little differently. Living in Doncaster, it's only twenty minutes on the train to York with its Roman ruins; which I touch at every opportunity when visiting the city and mutter the words "CIVIS ROMANVS SVM" - 'I am a Roman citizen (i.e. I am a free man, not a slave).

I also have two simple ceremonies which I perform when I'm hiking on the moors (not very often these days I'm afraid). One is the simple, and common, practice of adding a stone to every cairn that I pass; and the other is the Stonekeeper's Ceremony (as I call it - I don't know its proper name) which I perform at every stone circle I come across…I always enter the stone circle from the south and touch each of the stones with my right hand as I circle in an anti-clockwise direction the number of times as there are factors of the number of stones present. I then exit from the northern quadrant and continue with my hike.

Army bomb disposal experts have been called in to defuse Christmas crackers.
Boxes of crackers sent to soldiers serving abroad have to be "disabled" because regulations class them as explosives, reports the Daily Mail.
The bizarre rule was uncovered by Major Iain Dalzel-Job, of the Scots Guards Association as he organised to send 650 festive parcels to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
His plan was for the troops to receive a cracker to pull with their turkey dinner on December 25. He arranged for the packages to be flown out of RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.
However, when he was looking in to the list of banned goods he discovered crackers up there on the list.
The novelty's snap is classified as an explosive and cannot be transported on RAF planes, so Major Job's team had to defuse each cracker.
He said: "It's quite tricky to get them out. It took us two hours to go through them all. The soldiers will just have to go 'bang' themselves when they pull them."
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence, which operates BFPO, said the safety of aircraft and personnel was paramount.
He added: "Large numbers of Christmas crackers are classified as dangerous air cargo and therefore require special handling."

Teaching Math in 1950: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching Math in 1960: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

Teaching Math in 1970: A logger exchanges a set "L" of lumber for a set "M" of money. The cardinality of set "M" is 100. Each element is worth one dollar. Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set "M." The set "C," the cost of production contains 20 fewer points than set "M." Represent the set "C" as a subset of set "M" and answer the following question: What is the cardinality of the set "P" of profits?

Teaching Math in 1980: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

Teaching Math in 1990: By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down the trees? There are no wrong answers.

Teaching Math in 2000: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $120. How does Arthur Andersen determine that his profit margin is $60

Teaching Math in 2010: El hachero vende un camion carga por $100. La cuesta de production es...

About a year ago I was having a lot of pain in my right knee; in fact I was lame and limping all the time. I was scheduled for an operation in January but had to cancel because of illness, and as I'd already booked time off work to recuperate from the surgery, I decided to remain off work and do some stretching exercises that I'd found online.

This exercises worked wonders, the pain soon went away and my knee is still fine now; I think, as much as anything though, I just needed a break from sitting in a confined space for eight hours every weekday.

My employment contract finished in March and I'm now unemployed again but able to freely stretch and exercise my knee. At times it feels a bit weak; but this might just be psychosomatic.

I don't entirely trust my knee though; I've noticed that when climbing down stairs or steps, or just stepping off the pavement, I always lead with my good (left) leg. This of course requires conscious thought and delays me for a few seconds; thus slightly restricting my mobility.

I'm alright when walking up steps though; I suppose the consequences of a fall aren't likely to be as severe.

A Scottish lad and lass were sitting together on a heathery hill
in the Highlands. They had been silent for a while; then the lass
said, "A penny for your thoughts." The lad was a bit abashed, but
he finally said, "Well, I was thinkin' how nice it would be if
ye'd give me a wee bit of a kiss." So she did so. But he again
lapsed into a pensive mood which lasted long enough for the lass
to ask him, "What are ye thinkin' now?" To which the lad replied:

"Well, I was hopin' ye hadn't forgot the penny!"

This story could equally apply to Yorkshiremen I suppose, since we're also known for being careful with our money.