Vaccination

1803, used by British physician Edward Jenner for the technique he devised of preventing smallpox by injecting people with the cowpox virus (variolæ vaccinæ), from vaccine (adj.) "pertaining to cows, from cows" (1798), from L. vaccinus "from cows," from vacca "cow" (bos being originally "ox," "a loan word from a rural dialect" according to Buck, who cites Umbrian bue). "The use of the term for diseases other than smallpox is due to Pasteur (Trans. 7th Session Internat. Med. Congr. (1881) I.90)" [OED]. The noun vaccine "matter used in vaccination" is recorded from 1846; vaccinate is an 1803 coinage.

Sri Lanka 600/6d lead India 223 & 103/6 by 274 runs, TEA on Day 4 of 1st Test @ Colombo SSC

[MATCH SCORECARD]

Murali, debutante Ajantha Mendis, and The Review, are quickly spinning India towards their third worst innings defeat in Test history...

Where's the bloody Ceylon monsoon when you need it!

UPDATE:
Sri Lanka 600/6d bt India 223 & 138 by an innings and 239 runs, Day 4 of 1st Test @ Colombo SSC

Festival Internacional de Benicassim 2008 on Video

Did you miss Europe's biggest rock music festival? Do you live in the UK? If you answered yes to both, you're in luck. ITV compiled an hour's worth of acts and broadcast it last night. It's available online for the next month. [CLICK HERE]. Any ideas how I can rip this stream?

24 for 3 by Jennie Walker

You know you're living in the right country when BBC Radio 4's Saturday Review programme analyses a novella about cricket. Jennie Walker is the psyeudonym of poet Charles Boyle whose self-published 24 for 3 has become a big word-of-mouth success and won him the 2008 McKitterick Prize for a first novel by an author over 40.

According to The Telegraph:

"Publishers Bloomsbury spotted the self-published work, called 24 for 3, after a reviewer described it as "a little marvel of a novella". They found its author and telephoned "her" and spoke to the writer, whose real name is Charles Boyle. But when they asked to speak to "Jennie Walker", he told the surprised agents with a smile: "You have." The ruse was perpetuated when, at the Society of Authors awards in London this week, Mr Boyle accepted a prize for the book but the audience assumed he was "her" agent. The story is about a woman whose devotion is split between her cricket-loving husband, her lover and her missing teenage son. Mr Boyle, 57, from Shepherd's Bush, in west London, said he had only intended the "sex change" as a joke. He said: "If I'd actually realised that this book was going to get the attention that properly published books get, I would have worried more." Helen Garnons-Williams, of Bloomsbury, said: "We thought it would be a contender for the Orange Prize." To date, 500 copies have been sold with a new edition due in August.
Synopsis from Amazon:

"Do cricketers blush? What happens if the ball hits a seagull? Can a woman have a lover and a husband and still keep her family together? Can the rules be changed? Friday: as a Test match between England and India begins, a woman's attention is torn between a husband who is all too keen to explain the rules, a lover who prefers mystery, and a sixteen-year-old son who hasn't come home. By Tuesday night the match will have been won or lost. Or perhaps it will have reached a draw in which only pride may be salvaged."
Don't forget to order your copy!

Round Britain Quiz

BBC Radio 4 is fast becoming my station of choice. Tonight I discovered a delightful panel game programme that first went-to-air in 1947 and is the oldest quiz still broadcast on British radio! The show comprises a tournament featuring teams from various regions around the UK taking part in a series of head-to-head battles. In each half-hour programme, two teams face four multi-part cryptic questions worth up to six points, depending on how much help the host provides during each question. The parts of the question generally have a common theme running throughout them and as the show's home page points out, a degree of lateral thinking is often necessary to score full marks. One question for each team has a music or sound component, and another is submitted by listeners. The host also shares a teaser question at the end of every show that is answered at the beginning of the subsequent week's episode. Here are all the questions from this week's episode featuring teams from Northern Ireland and the Midlands:

LAST WEEK'S TEASER:
Can you think of an English word which has two precisely opposite meanings – one suggesting solidarity, the other schism?

QUESTION 1:
Who were Thrysis, Lycidas, and Adonais – and who mourned them?

QUESTION 2:
What essential element distinguishes Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili from a Polish shipyard worker, and why?

QUESTION 3:
What’s the bond between this song, a classic comedy set on the English Riviera, and an educational institiution founded for the betterment of society?

QUESTION 4:
Why should you be careful in case these (sound) clips, and LNER Class A4 4468, get you a zero score?

QUESTION 5:
Where might you find two blind beggars, the Prior of Lindisfarne, a high feline’s arch-enemy, and an infant beetle, be manipulated to fight small fires? And who’s missing?

QUESTION 6:
For a Frenchman, why are these things linked with a kiss? Jewels, pebbles, cabbages, knees, owls, toys and lice?

QUESTION 7:
Name thes six people: a troubled model and author; an opera librettist and judge of talent; a soccer boss and fantastic director.

QUESTION 8:
Think of a particular prime number. If you moved from Monte Carlo to Las Vegas you’d find it had increased by one. Multiplying it by three, on the other hand, might bring to mind a war hero, and could make you nervous on the cricket square. What’s the original number?

THIS WEEK'S TEASER:
What fell on whose head in Woolsthorpe in 1665, and what was the name of his dog?