* I must have read this figure before, but it struck me anew this morning – only 13 per cent of men and 15 per cent of women are eating at least five portions of fruit and veg each day. (It is not that I can claim any high ground on this – in my early working years, when in my own small defence I often worked 12 hour-plus days – I wouldn’t have averaged more than two or three.)

An article in the Observer suggests this is linked to mental dysfunction:

Increasing rates of anxiety, depression and irritability could be due to a poor diet that lacks the essential chemicals to keep the brain healthy, according to a leading mental health charity.

* Books: are we on the cusp of the e-revolution? But for now here’s what sounds like a truly inspirational book by a woman abused horribly as a child, in south London, who has made her own successful way in the world. (Ugly by Constance Briscoe)

* You know all that fuss about “elderly mothers” – well, women who have children in their forties are four times more likely to survive to 100 than women who gave birth earlier. And pregnancy makes you smarter – perhaps all of those men sacking their workers when they get pregnant should think again.

* John Simpson speaks out against the blunt instrument of the government’s anti-terrorism legislation:

There have been unreflective, knee-jerk laws in this area in the past: the ban on broadcasting the sound of Gerry Adams’s voice, for instance. It will be much harder to defend society better against terrorism if we prevent journalists from finding out the precise nature of the threat against us. Does the Government really mean to do this amount of damage to the meticulous, independent journalistic investigation of terrorism? Surely not.

I’m looking at the purchase in the mid-16th century (for “vs iijd”, which I read as five shillings and three pence, i.e. quite a lot) of “two aulter frontes of Dornyke and res.”

Any idea about Dornkye and res. (The full stop is part of the res. making it – is this right for the period? look like an abbreviation.)

All help gratefully received!

“Where uppon Sundayes and all festival dayes the boyes and mardes and children … presently after dinner come into the Church, there they play in such manner as children use to doe till darke night, and hence cometh principally that inordinate noyse which many tymes suffereth not the preacher to be heard in the Quyre.”

… but they didn’t, happily, have Asbos in 1631.
(from London Churches Before the Great Fire, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1917, p. 22)

The first annual Cliopatra Blogging Awards have been announced. (Unfortunately my role as a judge didn’t include an air ticket to America, so I’m slightly behind the times here. The history blog of the year is Blog Them Out of the Stone Age. Love the title – not so keen of the white on black text … hint, hint!

Find all of the other winners through the link above – there are some brilliant blogs there, including the best new blog BibliOdyssey, which was one I had a hand in chosing. Even if you think history “isn’t your thing”, go and look at the pictures – they are gorgeous, and fascinating. Looking at it today there are illustrations from Sir Walter Scott novels, primitive 17th-century hand grenades and Lebanese art posters.

China must be the part of the world where the greatest number of languages and dialects are in danger of extinction. (Although as I wrote last year Nushu, the special women’s language, is going strong with the encouragement of tourism.

You might think there is only Mandarin and Cantonese, but I believe, after talking to Chinese when travelling there, that there are, or were, many many more. A man in Guilin was most insulted by the suggestion that he might speak Cantonese, or Mandarin, as his native language. Of course he spoke Guilinese.

Losing languages doesn’t just mean losing sounds, but also losing world-views, as is revealed by the metaphors in different languages. We say “stop and smell the flowers”. In Cantonese the equivalent is apparently “Drink a cup of tea and eat a bun.”

But the language is losing out to Mandarin.

Such a pity to lose the richness. More Cantonese: “the slang for getting a parking ticket … is ‘I ate beef jerky,’ probably because Chinese beef jerky is thin and rectangular, like a parking ticket. And teo bao (literally ‘too full’) describes someone who is uber-trendy, so hip he or she is going to explode.”