Mortal Monarchs, Deep Secrets, and Missing Letters

A dark red rose bud just beginning to open, against a blurry background of various shades of green.

The Deep Secrets are beginning to open, thus continuing the accidental bloom succession begun by the kōwhai and continued by the crabapple. The Blue Moon is close behind (the buds are swelling but not quite open yet) and the Westerland has decided once again to concentrate on producing one very very tall stem to the exclusion of flowers. So far.

Interesting Times

For some reason, English uses the letters t and h next to each other to express the consonant that begins the word thorn. But it was not always so. We used to have a letter for that sound, and it was called…thorn. It looked like this: Þ
For some reason (which may or may not be the same reason) we use the same digraph (th) to express the sound which begins the word then. But it was not always so. We used to have a letter for that sound, and it was called…eth. It looked like this: ð and it was for some reason pronounced eÞ, not eð.

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In Search of a Working Kettle

Despite what the US Embassy in London may say, microwaving is not the right way to heat water for tea. For one thing, an explosion of superheated water as you take your mug from the microwave creates the very opposite of the soothing and restorative effect a good cuppa should have. The proper way to make tea is with water boiled in a kettle, and these days that’s usually a super-convenient electric kettle.

Except.

As Consumer NZ wrote in 2019, “We’d expect even the cheapest kettle to last at least five years of household use” – but their survey showed that 85% of kettles are defunct before they reach that age.

Diagram of an electric kettle controller.
What could possibly go wrong?

This does not surprise me in the least. Over the course of our marriage, the Caped Gooseberry and I have seen no fewer than five electric kettles bite the dust – including the one that memorably died the day after we moved house.

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