Author: Steve Caplin

How to hang a swing

HANGING A SWING from the branch of a tree is a lot easier than it looks. There are just four steps to follow. Tie a weight, such as a hammer, to the end of a piece of rope and throw it over the branch. Do the same with the other end of the rope, so […]

Wile E Samarra

AN ANCIENT LEGEND tells of a rich Indian merchant who sends his servant to the market. In the marketplace the servant encounters Death, who has a startled look on his face. Terrified, the servant flees to the city of Samarra to escape him. Later, the merchant himself finds Death, and asks him why he frightened […]

Cogito ergo sum

RENE DESCARTES’ famous statement, cogito ergo sum – I think, therefore I am – was the result of taking his doctrine of universal doubt to extreme levels. Sitting in his study, Descartes tried to discover what he absolutely, certainly knew to be true, as opposed to what he merely believed to be true. The phrase […]

Yin Yang Ching

THE I CHING is an ancient Chinese divination process. To use it, you first think of a question to which you need the answer. You then throw a bunch of yarrow stalks (or if yarrow isn’t available on Amazon, toss a coin) to produce one of two results. These may produce a broken line (Yin) […]

Jargon unbusted

WHEN I BOUGHT MY FIRST MAC in 1987 the computer salesman offered me the choice of two graphics programs: I could pick either MacDraw or MacPaint. ‘What’s the difference?’ I asked The salesman looked at me contemptuously. ‘MacPaint is a bitmap program,’ he explained, ‘whereas MacDraw is object-oriented.’ Apple may have gone to extreme lengths […]

Twenty’s plenty

I BOUGHT MY FIRST Apple Mac in 1987. It had 512k RAM and a floppy disk drive, which meant you had to swap disks if you wanted to load a program, or open a file, or save your work. It was a tortuous process, so I treated myself to a 20 Megabyte hard disk. It […]

Future-proof Spectrum

WHEN I BOUGHT my first computer, a Sinclair Spectrum, in 1979 I had to make a choice between the 16k version and the massive 48k version. I chose the 48k model because it was future-proof. 48 kilobytes of memory was enough to run games from Manic Miner to Jet Set Willy; in a text file […]

Elite gaming

THE VIDEO GAME Elite, a space trading game, was published by Acornsoft for the BBC Micro platform in 1984. It had unusually high replay value because each time a player launched the game, all the planets in its universe had different names. That’s because generating the names at random required less code than storing pre-made […]

Faster and faster

THE SPACE INVADERS arcade game was released in 1979 by Japanese developer Taito. Due to the low power of the computing chips, each time an ‘invader’ was destroyed, the game got faster. That’s because the processor was having to throw fewer pixels on the screen. An increase in speed as the player progresses is a […]

Brass monkeys

CANNONBALLS ON SAILING SHIPS had a tendency to roll around the deck. Stacking them in a pyramid helped, not only to keep them in a neat pile but also because the friction between them helped stop them rolling away. To make sure they didn’t roll around the deck, the powder monkeys – the sailors charged […]

Of pigs and cats

MEDIEVAL PIG BREEDERS found that the problem with selling piglets at market was that the little tykes would run about all over the place. To stop them making their escape, they would put them in a bag, known as a poke. (A small poke is to this day called a pocket.) The more unscrupulous breeders […]

Red herring miracle

THE NOTED THEOLOGIAN Thomas Aquinas died in 1274, and in 1319 the Catholic Church wanted to make him a saint. There are two criteria for this most exalted of positions: either you must have been martyred, or you had to have performed at least one miracle. Aquinas, a Dominican Friar, lived a cosy life as […]

Penalty shootouts

I’M NOT A BIG FAN of football. I do watch the occasional match, and the one thing I hate is the penalty shootouts that follow a draw. It’s unfair and humiliating for the player who misses the goal, who’s then blamed for his team’s defeat. And so I propose the following modifications: First half of […]

Final request

I HAVE TWO final wishes. 1. I want my remains to be scattered around Disneyland. 2. I don’t want to be cremated.

Jesus’ dad

ONE DAY, JESUS CHRIST had had enough of working miracles and decided to search for his father. All he knew was that he was called Joseph, and he was a carpenter. He searched the villages, going door to door. Then he searched nearby towns, and even different countries. Eventually, he knocked on the door of […]

In a pickle

GARY WORKED in a pickle factory. One day he came home looking very upset. His wife could tell something was wrong, and asked him what the problem was. ‘It’s just… it’s embarrassing,’ he explained. ‘But I have this overwhelming urge to stick my penis in the pickle slicer.’ His wife suggested making an appointment with […]

The visit

ONE DAY AN ALIEN landed on earth. He was clearly from a very advanced situation, and all the world’s leaders wanted the chance to talk to him. He agreed to give them five minutes each. Eventually it was the Pope’s turn. He sat down with the alien, and asked: ‘Do you know our Lord and […]

Pronunciation

TWO AMERICAN TOURISTS were driving through Wales. They approached a well-known town and gazed at the name on the signboard. ‘Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch’, read the sign. The Americans stared at it, and started arguing about the possible pronunciation. They continued arguing until they stopped for lunch. As they were ordering, they said to the girl behind the […]

Rabbits

A PRIEST, a rabbit and an imam walk into a bar. The bartender asks the rabbit, ‘What would you like?’ ‘No idea,’ says the rabbit. ‘I’m only here because of autocorrect.’

Holy cola

A GROUP OF COCA-COLA executives go to the Vatican to visit the Pope, and make him an offer. ‘How about,’ they say, ‘if, in the Lord’s Prayer, rather than “give us this day our daily bread”, you were to say “give us this day our daily Coke”?’ ‘Impossible,’ the Pope replies. ‘The holy scripture cannot […]

Doctor, doctor

A MAN GOES TO THE DOCTOR for the results of his tests. ‘It’s not looking good,’ the doctor says. ‘I’m very sorry to say you don’t have much time to live.’ The man blanches. ‘So… how much time do I have?’ ‘Ten,’ says the doctor. ‘Ten what? Ten years? Ten months?’ ‘Nine,’ says the doctor.

The undertaker

A WOMAN GOES INTO a funeral parlour, where she sees her late husband laid out in his coffin. ‘Oh, no,’ she says. ‘He’s wearing his blue suit. He hated that suit. Can you change it?’ The undertaker replies, ‘Well, the funeral is in a couple of hours. But leave it with me – there is […]

Well well well

TWO MEN are out for a walk in the countryside. They find a well, and want to know how deep it is. So they drop a stone down. There’s no splash. They drop a rock, and listen – still no splash. Then they find a millstone nearby, stand it up between them, and with a […]

Intellectual jokes

It’s hard to explain puns to kleptomaniacs because they always take things literally. A Roman walks into a bar and asks for Martinus. “You mean a Martini,” the bartender asks. The Roman replies, “If I wanted a double, I’d have asked for it”. A Roman walks into a bar, holds up two fingers, and says […]

Logical thinking

THREE LOGICIANS walk into a bar. The bartender says “Do you all want beer?” First one says “Maybe.” Second one says “Maybe.” Third one says “Yes.”

Learn by teaching

I’D BEEN USING PHOTOSHOP for many years when a student in a class I was teaching suggested I write a book about it. I thought little more about it, until a letter arrived from a publisher saying that one of their other authors suggested I might be interested in writing a Photoshop book for them. […]

Arts and Crafts

SOME YEARS AGO I visited my sister, who was in the middle of hosting a crotchet group. Half a dozen women sat around her living room, beavering away with their wool and needles. One woman was crotcheting a version of a photograph of her granddaughter. The original photograph was poorly taken, with half the girl’s […]

Don’t shriek

THE OLD MAN moved slowly out of the darkness. ‘Hey! Stop! It’s me! Don’t shoot!’ Greg peered into the gloom and lowered his gun. It was his father! Exclamation marks – or ‘shrieks’, as they’re known in the newspaper business – are perfectly acceptable in speech. None of those four short exclamations would make sense […]

Take Five

MOST MUSIC IS WRITTEN in 4/4, which means four beats to the bar. Some is written in 3/4, which is ‘waltz time’. But occasionally an inspired composer will write a piece of music with five beats to the bar. It’s not done very often as it’s almost impossible to dance to. The most famous piece […]

Easy sawing

DESPITE MY AVOWED love of power tools, especially the cordless variety, there are times when you need to use a handsaw. And these can be cumbersome devices in untrained hands. There are two key rules when using a handsaw. First, you should hold the grip so that you point your index finger along the length […]

Why is a wicket 22 yards long?

AN ACRE IS THE SIZE of field a medieval ploughman, with a team of eight oxen, was able to plough in a day. His field was 220 yards long – a ‘furrowlong’, which became abbreviated to a ‘furlong’. This was the distance a team of oxen could till before they needed a rest. The ploughman […]

Don’t be afrit

WHAT’S THE POINT of those black dots around the edge of your car windscreen? Every car has them. And they’re called ‘frit’. The windscreen is fixed in place by a sealant, which also keeps the rain out. The black frit paint is rougher than the glass, so it makes a more secure bond between the […]

The width of a horse’s bum

THE BOOSTER ROCKETS that lift the Space Shuttle off its launchpad – those twin bright red cylinders either side of the shuttle – are significantly taller than the shuttle itself. The reason why is surprising. The rockets are built at a plant some distance from the launchpad, and as they’re much too big to go […]

The circumference of the Earth

THE PHILOSOPHER Eratosthenes worked at the Library of Alexandria. It was common knowledge that there was a well in the town of Syene, some distance away, where on midsummer’s day you could see the reflection of the sun at the bottom. Eratosthenes sent a rider on a camel to Syene, timing how long it took […]

Forensic entomology

IT WAS PROBABLY The Silence of the Lambs that brought the knowledge of forensic entomology to the wider world: it’s the art of making scientific deductions from insects. But the science dates back to the 13th century. In 1235 a farmer in a small village in China had been killed with a sickle, and lawyer […]

Memorial

A First World War memorial in Bury St Edmunds cathedral. They’d never take such liberties with the typography today.

Estates

Good to see an estate agent really pulling out all the stops to sell their property

Ford

Thanks, Mr Ford, that’s really helpful. Happen to know the page number?

Mind reading for adults

ONE OF YOUR PARTY leaves the room – the mind reader. The rest of the assembly choose an object in the room, and the mind reader returns. ‘Is it that one?’ you ask. ‘No,’ says the mind reader. ‘How about that thing there?’ ‘No,’ says the mind reader again. ‘Or that thing?’ ‘Yes,’ says the […]

Mind reading for kids

ONE OF THE BEST ways for kids to impress adults, which works especially well if you’ve never met the child before. The child stands in front of you, and you hold up your hands behind their heads. ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ The child thinks for a moment, concentrates, and answers ‘Seven.’ ‘How […]

Oak planning

WESTMINSTER HALL, at the entrance to the Houses of Parliament, was built in 1097. A new hammerbeam roof, make of oak, was added in 1393. By 1913 some of the oak timbers needed to be replaced. But due largely to the construction of the English fleet required to fight the Spanish Armada, oak was increasingly […]

Dash it all

TAKE A LOOK: -, – and — all look more or less the same. But the hyphen, en dash and em dash behave differently. A hyphen is placed between co-joined parts of a word (see what I did there?). An en dash is used to signify a change of direction in a sentence – such […]

Mr but Prof.

SOME ABBREVIATIONS require a full stop after them, and some don’t. How can you tell? Why is ‘Mister’ abbreviated to ‘Mr’, when abbreviating ‘Professor’ to ‘Prof.’ requires one? There’s a simple rule. If the abbreviation ends in the same letter as the word it’s contracting, then no full stop is needed. So Dr Kildare doesn’t […]

Political quotes

MANY POLITICIANS can’t open their mouth without putting their feet in it. Here are just a few of my favourite examples of political bollocks. “A day like today is not a day for soundbites… but I feel the hand of history upon our shoulder with respect to this, I really do.”Tony Blair “You know, the […]

Fluffed it? Do it again

WHEN IMPROVISING MUSIC, especially jazz, it’s easy to miss the intended note and hit a pairing that clashes – a discordant chord, if you like. The simple way to cover up your error is to repeat it. The more times you play it, the more intentional it will sound.

Do it today

I HAVE A NUMBER of mottoes which encapsulate the way I feel about a variety of quotidian activities. Here’s my somewhat controversial one about DIY: Never do it properly when you can do it today. It’s flippant, of course, and not meant to be taken entirely seriously. But there is something deeply satisfying about starting […]

Music in films

FILMS USE MUSIC to heighten excitement – there’s nothing so stimulating as frantic strings when the hero is rushing to beat his nemesis. But music also steers your subtler emotions, guiding you on when to be sad, or joyful, or hopeful. It’s quite possible to watch a whole film without registering the music at all. […]

Dictionary of rhetoric

I LOVE RHETORIC. Politicians love rhetoric. Barack Obama is a master of it, as was Churchill. Tony Blair used to beat it into shape with a heavy fist (education, education, education). As the Ancient Greeks knew, it could greatly help to convince your listeners of the truth of what you were saying. But I always […]

The genius of A4

IN AMERICA, they use US Letter as their standard paper size. In Europe, we use A4. It’s not just a matter of national preference: A4 – 297 x 210 mm – is, by any reckoning, a much better size. Why? Because if you fold a sheet of A4 in half, you get a sheet of […]

Me, me, me

IT’S COMMONLY HELD among the middle classes that to begin a sentence with ‘Me’ is a sign of a poor education. ‘Me and my mate went to the movies’ is a sure way of showing your grammatical ignorance. ‘My mate and me went to the movies’ is barely any better, although it does have the […]

Departures

How busy? Three. That’s how busy. Out of how many?

Sauna

Not worth going to the trouble of getting a new sign made

Odeon

The cinema that cares

Pepperoni

Er… there’s no word for Pepperoni in English either

Brett

Hideous logo? Maybe, but all the elements can be rearranged into a rectangle! Cool, huh? Huh?

knife

Clearly wasn’t worth going to the trouble of making a whole new sign

cardiac

Bold! Underlined! Italics! Capitals! Must be serious.

ADEF

One company, three logos

message

A helpful message in a rental car.

Plaza de Armas

The spacing is hideous, but the hyphenation of Luisiana is unforgivable.

Worship

Look how many fonts I have! I’m going to use them all!

DIY time

I’d trust cheeky chappie Tommy Walsh to tile my bathroom. But I wouldn’t let him anywhere near my computer.

Concept

Yes, I can sort of see what they’re doing. But that’s definitely a capital S.

Max waiting

Do “total” and “only” serve any purpose here?

Printer error

The really funny thing is that this is the printer who printed this programme.

A design too far

The logo for OPEC, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Hard to imagine it being any uglier.

Every story needs a picture

But some pictures are just wrong. A better way to keep your brain healthy would be to keep it inside your head.

Leading vs type size

LEADING IS THE TYPOGRAPHER’S TERM for line spacing – the space between the lines of type on the printed page. The name comes from the thin strips of lead that printers would insert between the lines of metal type in order to space them out. These lead strips were added to prevent the ascenders from one line bumping into […]

Perfect ampersands

TYPOGRAPHERS GO TO EXTREME LENGTHS to ensure that each character, each number and each element of punctuation in a typeface is in perfect harmony with all the others. Creating a typeface a complex and painstaking process. The one area where these masters of self-control allow themselves a little latitude is in the design of the […]

The perfect selfie

THE WORST WAY TO TAKE A SELFIE is, of course, to hold your phone at arm’s length and point it at yourself. You’ll see your friends in the distance looking happy and smiling, with a close-up of yourself in the foreground squinting at the lens and wondering if it’s going to work. The best way […]

Ne regrette rien

JE NE REGRETTE RIEN, sang Edith Piaf plaintively. “Formidable,” she exclaimed when she first heard it, “this is the song I have been waiting for. It will be my biggest success!” And so it was. For good reason. We all make mistakes. We all say things we wish we could take back, and do things […]

The age problem, solved

METHUSELAH WAS THE OLDEST person in the bible, reaching the rather splendid age of 969. He’s otherwise only of interest for being Noah’s grandfather, and Noah obviously inherited his genes – he made it to 950. Elsewhere, we read that Adam lasted to 930, while his third son Seth achieved an impressive 912 years. So why […]

Noah’s dilemma

THE WORLD’S MOST CELEBRATED SHIPBUILDER certainly had his work cut out. Not only did he have to build a 50-cubit long boat, he also had to fill it with two of everything. Two lions, two antelopes, two zebra finches, and so on. Two mosquitoes. Really? Couldn’t he have missed out the mosquitoes? Two iguanas, two lemurs, […]

The first Mrs Adam

ADAM AND EVE were, as everyone knows, the first happy couple. Except that they weren’t the first couple. That would be Adam and Lilith. Adam’s first wife doesn’t get a lot of coverage in the Bible. She’s been almost comprehensively expunged, edited out of history with an efficiency Lenin would have envied. Almost. There are […]

What’s the time?

A REASONABLY ATTRACTIVE retro-style clock in a Newmarket café. But can you figure out the time? With the hands exactly the same colour, shape and size as the structural bars you could be excused for missing them altogether. Then you spot the hour hand just before the 12, and shortly afterwards you make out the minute […]

Period drama

EVERY EPISODE of the period drama series Poirot is beautifully crafted. Every element, every piece of furniture, every prop, every location, are perfectly set in the 1930s world that Hercule Poirot inhabited. But hang on a minute. Here’s this fussy, old-fashioned, middle-aged detective, occupying an environment that was, in the 1930s, bang up-to-date. Are we really […]

Why don’t we zag zig?

YOU CAN LISTEN TO HIP HOP, but not hop hip. You can hear the pitter patter of tiny feet, but never the patter pitter. You can hear chit chat turning into a right ding dong, but never chat chit turning into a dong ding. Reduplicatives, they’re called, these doubled-up words with a single changed syllable. […]

Use the taps

I FIRST CAME ACROSS THIS WATER COOLER at the BBC radio headquarters in London. It features two buttons, an LCD screen, and two taps. When you press one of the button, a message appears on the screen telling you to press the taps. As far as I could tell neither the buttons nor the screen had any […]

Mispronounciations

THAT’S A MISTAKE, of course. Most people know that the noun isn’t pronounciation, but pronunciation. And they’ll duly write in to Radio 4 in their hundreds every time they hear the word on the radio. The surprising thing is that they’ll write in to complain even when it has been pronounced correctly: they’re expecting it […]

The perfect Eurostar font

IT’S NOT OFTEN that a corporate entity such as Eurostar gets playful with typography. But this notice on their London St Pancras platform is a splendid choice of font. The font, called Mr Eaves, was designed in the 1990s (in Birmingham, as it happens) but perfectly captures the essence of 1940s French beer bottle labels […]

“You can quote me”

YOU’LL HAVE SEEN QUOTATION MARKS around the most unlikely of phrases. Their proper use is to indicate that a saying has been first pronounced by someone else: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be,” as Polonius said. It all dates back to Aristotle, who called this technique one of the five non-technical proofs of rhetoric (the technical […]

Perfect headline fitting

NEWSPAPER SUBEDITORS go to great lengths to make headlines fit the page. This isn’t a recent innovation – it’s been happening since the beginning of commercial printing. This poster board from the Evening News of 1911 features four decks of headline, all exactly the same width. OK, it’s not perfect from a typographic point of […]

The red big bus

THERE’S NOTHING GRAMMATICALLY WRONG with that headline. Determiner, adjective, adjective, noun. So why is it so awkward to read? Every native English speaker instinctively knows the correct order in which to place adjectives in a sentence. Let’s give it its correct formulation, and make it longer: The big old red London bus.  Moving any of those […]

Pissing policeman

THE WINDOW OF A POLICE STATION in Geneva, Switzerland. Is it just me, or does that graphic of a policeman pasted on the window look like he’s been taken short?

Electrical, & Co

MUCH AS I’D LIKE to admire the logo for electrical contractor Mitchell & Co – after all, it’s not often an independent electrician goes to the trouble of creating his own logo – I can’t help feeling that this is trying just that bit too hard. It’s a cute idea, and it very nearly works. […]

Passing off

IT’S TECHNICALLY ILLEGAL to try to copy a commercial rival’s design in such a way that it will tend to confuse the buying public, leading them to associate your brand with theirs and enticing them into making the wrong purchase. It’s known as passing off, and it’s not only frowned upon, it’s against the law. […]

Meetings and action

EVERYONE LOVES A GOOD MEETING. It gives them the opportunity to nibble a few custard creams, to drink more coffee than is good for them and to play the odd surreptitious game of Angry Birds while checking their social feeds. Meetings take place during the working day, and so everyone who attends a meeting is […]

Speak softly

WHEN WORKPLACE DISCUSSIONS turn into arguments, tempers begin to fray and the atmosphere can quickly heat up. Pretty soon, someone’s going to start shouting. Don’t attempt to shout back. That will only result in them shouting louder, and the winner will be the one who shouts the loudest. Instead, lower your voice so you’re speaking deliberately […]

Watch the background

THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENCES between professional and amateur photographers. One of the key failings of happy snappers is an inability to look at what’s going on in the background. You’ll often see holiday shots with a telegraph pole growing out of someone’s head, or a plane driving into their ear, or half a printed sign drawing the […]

Saying no

EVERY PARENT HAS EXPERIENCED the problem of being ground down by persistent nagging. The very worst phrase you can use to your children is “Oh, all right then.” It may have taken them ten minutes to get you to cave in. Next time it may take twenty. Or half an hour. They don’t care. If nagging […]

Telefonica innovates

TELEFONICA, LIKE MOST mobile phone providers, isn’t  known for its innovation in design. But look at the way these two simple words have been set, each letter casting a shadow on the one that follows. It’s enticing, it’s novel, and it draws you in, in a way that plain text wouldn’t. I’ve never seen this […]