UK – Page 71 – don't confuse the narrator

light relief

Midnight Moths owl: Birmingham Big Hoot Art Trail. Artist: Alyn Smith

When I told a friend that I’d been looking through old poems trying to find one to send to a competition with the theme darkness, he laughed and said I should find that easy: after all, I write lots of dark poems.

In fact he was wrong. The subject matter isn’t always the most cheerful, but I do tend to find a bright twist to things. Like the owl in the photo – the Midnight Moths owl from Birmingham’s Big Hoot Art Trail – I can’t help but see the stars.

Coincidentally, yesterday I came across the word eigengrau: the colour that we see when there is zero light.

It seems that even in perfect darkness we don’t actually see black: our optic nerves make us see a dark grey instead. Perhaps we should re-name them optimistic nerves. Perhaps I should write a poem about that.

no more fun

True, there was no diversion on the other side of the sign, but nor is life “a glorious cycle of song” on this side. There again, what did I expect?

worthless opinions

When I paid for my shopping at the supermarket check-out the other day, the assistant rejected one of the coins, telling me it was foreign.

She was wrong: it wasn’t foreign, it was old. Somehow this had got into in my purse:

I wasn’t wearing my glasses, so I’d handed it over thinking it was a tuppenny piece. It seems my two penn’orth is only worth a ha’penny.

feeling positive

Although I understand that they simplify the process of marking tests and correlating results, I have never been fond of multiple-choice-style questions: all too often there are ambiguities that force you to second guess what the examiners want you to answer.

This shouldn’t be a problem when the question is just asking you to rate how you feel about something, but the following question from a recent YouGov survey had me confused:

Just what is the difference between “very positive” and “strongly positive”? And which is the right choice for those who feel emphatically negative?
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