Sometime in the summer, towards the end of August, I realised that a stray plant growing in an abandoned plant pot on the garden wall was in fact a sunflower. Goodness knows where the seed came from but I watched it develop from this
to this. A bit of an unexpected bonus beauty!
Over the last week or so I have observed another plant growing in another abandoned plant pot in a different part of the garden. Surely not another sunflower! But it looks for all the world as though that is what it is!
It’s November. What is a stray sunflower doing in my garden at this time of year? What chance does the poor thing have of actually coming into full bloom? This is not an isolated incident. On Saturday I stopped and chatted to a lady whose well-kept garden I always admire as I run past. She pointed out a large white poppy flowering out of season, a clematis which was throwing new buds, and various other odd floral developments. So my sunflower is not the only plant totally confused by climate change!
I’ve been reading odds and ends about words. It’s just one of those odd things I do. Apparently Dictionary.com always chooses a ‘word of the year’ and this year’s is the suffix “maxxing”.
They say that “maxxing” is not a new concept. Dungeons and Dragons players have been “min-mixing’ character stats for years (whatever that means!). And as far back as the 40s the term was used in game theory (another area of mystery for me). I notice that in these explanations the word is spelt with 9nly one x. But in recent years it seems we use the new spelling to “optimise” all facets of our lives. Influencers of both genders go in for “looksmaxxing”. We indulge in “personalitymaxxing”to charm people, and in “sleepmaxxing” to get the best possible rest. People are proteinmaxxing their breakfast, tokenmaxxing their use of AI … cozymaxxing on a Friday night Even the pentagon is reported to brag about “lethalitymaxxing”!
It’s a whole new way of describing things.
Here are some neologisms of a different kind:
Fauxstalgia:- The ache for a memory that was AI-generated and never actually lived through.
Algonesia: - The inability to remember whether you discovered something yourself or were served it by an algorithm.
Hoverwhelmed:- caught between tracking your child responsibly and becoming obsessed with the flood of real-time parenting data.
Flawnting;- influencers publicly performing imperfections in order to signal their aithenticity.
Puregatory:- the plight of trying to live ethically, where even responsible choices feel compromised.
I think it was some time early last month that I heard about freezers in some large French supermarkets being hacked. Temperatures set at -25° were raised to 40° of 50°. The contents of the freezer compartments had to be thrown away - such food waste! - such a loss of income for the supermarkets! Today I read that stores in Sweden, Belgium and Luxembourg have also been hacked in a similar fashion. Goodness! There’s a bit of me that wonders, however, why supermarket freezers are computer controlled at a national level so that such hacking is possible - hack into the system and mess up the settings for just about all the stores of a particular brand! And do the hackers do it for the fun of the challenge? Or is it a not so subtle protest at AI taking over?
Another way of organising the world exists! Or so it seems! According to this article, astrology is enjoying renewed popularity among Gen Z. They are finding the world too complicated and looking to the stars is a way of understanding what is going on. What a surprise! I’ve never really been into astrology but it’s always amusing to read last month’s horoscope at the hairdresser’s and decide how good it was at predicting what happened in your life!
And finally, here’s a cartoon about exercise in the age of zoom-classes!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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