Gnats and camels

It was an amusing tale in the published by the BBC Council’s clean-up warning for St George’s crosses but also the co-incidence with an article published by the LICC that prompted Coco. We do so easily see the gnat, but fail to notice that there is a camel in our beaker of notoriously middle-class or upwardly-mobile freshly ground and brewed, steamed, iced, skinny, but extra hot, caramel latté (Coco’s judgement on that drink: ).

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Preferred pronouns

What a mess is the language of Coco.
Not so long ago most dialects of British (if not also other forms of the language) English dropped the singular form of the second person, though it hung on for in the vales and tor of the West Riding for many a long year after its abandonment in standard English, so that What has(‘)t(‘)h’done could ring in the ear of many a bairn. Coco is not quite sure of the correct orthography, perhaps you/thou dear reader will/wilt provide it.

We are also in danger of losing any distinction in the third person, where he/she/it are slowly being replaced by they: There were no other customers. Simon was alone in the bookstore and after they had paid, they walked off with their book.

Have you, dear readers, or, as is perhaps more likely unless sharing a screen, hast thou, dear reader, noticed that they have started a campaign to remove the first person singular form also and so we, who are English speakers, move away from the use of I to be replaced with we? Now in regal use that has long been the case, for the monarch spoke not merely on his own behalf but on the behalf of his government as a whole, but for thee and me, surely not?

A letter recently arrived from them as follows – only relevant content is included:

We are sorry to hear
We are writing to you because
Incorrect….and we fully accept that
We hope that you will appreciate that
We recommend that when…
This address should … if you need to write to us please write to us separately….
If any other…..we will contact you separately….
If you are … we may need to contact you again…because we are required..but we will contact you if…
If you would like more information…please contact us. Our telephone number is at the top of this letter.
If you would like independent advice…you can ask these organisations to contact us on your behalf.
Please accept my apologies once again for contacting you at this time.
Yours sincerely

Office Manager

All would have been well, apart from the final inclusion of the word again. Without that word Coco would have understood that Office Manager would have been writing on behalf of the organisation and therefore we would have been the correct form to use up to that point. At no point in the letter though did Office Manager ever express apologies for anything, so it was not possible for Office Manager, as distinct from the organisation on whose behalf they(sic!) were writing, to correctly say again. The conclusion must be, for the use of again, that we and my in this letter refer to the same person, persons or being of more than one personage. The question may arise, to which person does we/my refer?

We may skip the option of a being of more than one personage, as this is an entirely of this world letter, so there is no need to invoke an alien origin. As the letter was from an organisation, Coco did not expect an individual of the name Office Manager to write on their(sic!) own behalf, so it was not inappropriate to take the earlier references in the letter we that we was the organisation, being a collection of persons or a company of such. The use of again however contradicted that assumption. The we of the earlier part of the letter must be the same person as the my preceding the again.

But if that is the case, why then was my not used throughout the letter? The conclusion must be that the use of my at the end was an oversight. It was really intended to be we, but an individual, whom Coco shall name for the sake of naming, Office Clerk, had failed to make the correction when scrutinising these official letters for any use and all uses of the singular pronouns.

So, the merely singular use of my suggests to Coco that we was always the intended form and that my is an mistake or oversight, The answer to the question to whom does we/my refer? then becomes unimportant. For either way, if it refers to Office Manager we, being used multiple times is the preferred pronoun for them(sic!), and if it refers to the organisation, then the my used towards the end is a mistake.

Given that emotions can only be felt by sentient beings, then whereever we/my is used to express and emotion, the reference must also be a sentient being, so cannot be the organisation but must be Office Manager.

Coco must conclude that as the use of my was a mistake, and that Office Manager, on behalf of the organisation has consistently used we to refer to themself(sic!) [should that be themselves?], Coco must conclude then that a decision has been taken somewhere in government to suppress the use of all singular pronouns.

Let them do so:

Singular
We are
You are
They are
singular-noun is

Plural
We are all
You are all
They all are
plural-noun are

Singular
We love
You love
They love
singular-noun loves

Plural
We all love
You all love
They all love
plural-noun love

Coco just needs to get all in the right place, that’s all.

A song for August 2025

The dew this evening fell
To refresh the ground again.
We thought it would be well
And remembered then the pain.
The pain of leaving home,
Of walking in a strange place,
But freedom then to roam
Gave to pain a new brand face.

Each day we walk uncertainly,
Not knowing of the end,
But the God of grace and mercy
Knows well how to defend.
He saw the world before it was
And knew how it would be.
And yet he made it all because
Of love for you and me.

The pain that we all feel
For the wrongs that we have done
Though grievous to his soul
Yet for it he would atone.
There on the Roman cross
His blood for the world was shed.
It was for him no loss –
Let us now by him be led!

Another year has passed away,
Another now employ.
May you know joy and peace alway
In him without alloy.

Sennheiser PCX550

Well the battery died quite some time ago, but well out of warranty, and it was left to find a moment when a repair process could be enacted, a replacement battery be found and a resurrection be performed. Today was such a day.

The repair process

A search found that Maurice Brg, among others, had not so long ago performed such an operation. The difference between him and others is that he prepared a report on the matter:
https://mauricebrg.com/2024/05/sennheiser-pxc-550-battery-replacement.html
A very thoughtful man who recognises that if you have a question others will have the same question but do not dare to ask it. So he did, and he provided the answer as well.

Coco could not describe it better. Not only did his repair succeed, he knows what technical terms like spudger mean, not that you need to know the technical terms because his description is in plain easy to read English.

If your PCX550 requires some TLC in the form of a new battery, you could not visit a more helpful place that Borgmeier’s Blog.

Footnote: Coco has only completed the first part of the operation. There was no point, he thought, to acquire a battery if he could not open the baffle.

Circles

How often have you gone round in circles?

Resisting the temptation to look at the comments where there may be an answer to the puzzle which at first you thought was proving difficult only because you had not spotted the correct approach to the solution, you slowly begin to discern that in order to solve it it may be that you need one more piece of information. What do you do? Like every good student sitting an examination or test, you read the whole question again, carefully this time, looking for that one additional piece of information that will cause the solution to appear, rather like those pieces of art which you must examine with cross-eyes to see what is really there, out of the mass (mess?) of mathematical nonsense that already litters the page, but it is not there. You have found all of the information that is to be had.

You try again this time to establish what the missing piece might be which would allow a solution to be found. You discover that if you knew any one of three things there would be a solution. You look for all three things in the information provided, only to discover that it is still not there. At that point you open up the comments on the question to find several answers, but they are all different. How could that be? There is only one correct answer, but the respondents are quite sure about their own answers. You also see that there are others who have understood correctly that insufficient information has been given: some even point out that the assumptions made by those who have found an answer are both extraneous to the question, and unjustifiable on the information given.

In the light of this discovery it behoves those who are tempted to solve questions posted in this forum to ask whether there is sufficient information to find the answer before attempting to solve the riddle.

With that in mind, I thought I would pose one myself, not in its most generalised form, but then neither in the most simplified. We have three spheres in three dimensional space, whose sizes and locations we know. A fourth sphere lies between them and touches the surface of each of the other three. We want to know the size and location of the fourth sphere.

Without any more information we must be content to describe the locus and radii of all spheres that satisfy the touching condition.

The additional piece of information you need is that the centre of the fourth sphere lies on the same plane as the centres of the other three spheres.

Aside you will find a diagram, in which the z-axis has been rotated so that it is vertical to the plane that all four spheres hold in common.

E&OE If you do think you need more information, please raise your hand.

Ans. There are two solutions, one for an inner circle as above, the other for an outer circle. If the solution is progressed correctly both solutions should also fall out:
(2.593190781, 0.467232119, 2.480014276(=(-97465+3*4*√5*√19*√37*√47*√893)/19471)) ) (3.33644816961878, 2.48464503182240, 12.49131313089260(=(-97465-3*4*√5*√19*√37*√47*√893)/19471)))

The sons of God

One writer comments that in Genesis 6:1–4, the reader encounters one of the most challenging passages in all of Scripture to interpret. In this article Coco seeks to challenge that thesis by pleading that a plain reading of the text is all that is required.

There are several articles available on the internet explaining who the sons of God are of whom Moses makes mention in Genesis 6. Two of these may be found here:

https://equip.sbts.edu/article/who-are-the-sons-of-god-daughters-of-man-and-nephilim
Who Are the Sons of God, Daughters of Man, and Nephilim? By Mitchell L. Chase

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Augsburg

Poker anyone

As one who only knows one thing about poker, that it was the second thing a cowboy did after he had entered the bar, I have heard it said that it is quite unlike any other card game. In any other game, if you don’t know how to play, you can still play. In poker, if you don’t know how to play, don’t.

That was the situation in Augsburg. It has been repeated many times since in different contexts, perhaps famously when one nation left an economic bloc it placed its cards face up on the table, and secondly more recently when a new president stretched out his arm to an old enemy – but that game is not yet over we must wait to see what the outcome is.

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A song for April 2025

In the days when the winter wanes
The winds do turn the weather vanes
To point toward the coming spring
When birds shall fly upon the wing.

They shall return the air to fill
And we shall climb once more the hill
Which overlooks the festal day
When all our cares shall flee away.

Now if this rhyme non-sequitur
Know that this bard is truly dour
He writes not logic for to make
But merely hopes yo’enjoy your cake.
A Winter Window Of Summer Sun Lavender, Avignon © Marcel Gatteaux