ephemeral

ephemeral
• adjective lasting or living for a very short time.
“There remain some truths too ephemeral to be captured in the cold pages of a court transcript”
lasting a very short time; short -lived; transitory: the ephemeral joys of childhood. ...

eschew

eschew
/isschoo/
• verb abstain from.
To avoid; shun

Where is the train?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1082482/Tickets-A-perilous-free-ride-ride-home-Muslim-pilgrims-Pakistan.html

peripatetic

Synonyms:
ambulatory, itinerant, migrant, mobile, nomadic, rambling, roving, traveling, wandering
Synonym Collection v1.1Copyright © 2008 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC.

Cryptic crossword clue - a sane peripatetic (5) - NOMAD

Tea Bag is 100 years old

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1026125/Happy-birthday-brew-The-Great-British-Tea-Bag-100-Yank-thank.html

The tea bag as it marks its 100th birthday. But if it wasn't for a handful of confused Americans, the tea bag may never have made it into our cups at all.
They came about only after Mr Sullivan, in an attempt to cut costs, sent samples of tea leaves to potential customers in small silk pouch-like purses.
Unsure quite what to do with the strange little bag, the Americans dunked it into a cup of hot water. And so was born the tea bag.
After complaints that the mesh on the silk was too fine, Mr Sullivan developed sachets made of gauze - a method which was instrumental in today's tea bag design.
But it was not until 1953, when British tea producer Tetley spotted the commercial potential of the bag, that it began to take off here. The firm now sells 200million tea bags every week.
William Gorman, executive chairman of the UK Tea Council, said: 'Without a doubt the tea bag saved the tea industry.
'There is no way in our busy lifestyles today that we would have had the time or inclination to make tea the old way.'
Tea drinking is seen as a quintessential British tradition, with 130million cups drunk every day. But the initial reaction from Britons who visited America 100 years ago and experienced tea bags for the first time was lukewarm.

A major breakthrough came in 1930 when William Hermanson - one of the founders of the Bostonbased Technical Papers Corporation - patented the heat- sealed paper fibre tea bag.

Convinced the tea bag was the future because of the way it allowed the tea maximum exposure-to the water resulting in a good, strong brew, Tetley persevered with perfecting the bag.

dactylogram

dactylogram
n. finger-print. dactylography, n. study of finger-prints.

Posit

posit [pozz-it]
Verb
[-iting, -ited] to lay down as a basis for argument: the archetypes posited by modern psychology

Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006
Noun
1.
posit - (logic) a proposition that is accepted as true in order to provide a basis for logical reasoning

Colonel Haathi

http://www.thehindu.com/2008/06/21/stories/2008062156552000.htm

Chaibasa: No truck driver plying on the Haatgamria-Baraiburu road in Jharkhand can escape without giving him his due. He is no toll collector, but a tusker, who has got separated from a herd. He stands for hours each day on the road waiting for food-laden trucks to give him his daily quota of food.
“We don’t mind giving him a bunch of fruits, rice or other eatables. This is his toll,” says a trucker plying on the route.
Fondly called ‘Ramu Haathi,’ he is not always friendly. If he cannot spot a food-laden truck the whole day, he raids roadside hotels for food.
Assistant Conservator of Forests Arvind Kumar says Ramu got detached from a herd several months ago and took shelter in Saranda forests, nearly 50 km from here.
Normally such a loner becomes violent and attacks human habitats, but Ramu is an exception. He has jelled so well with villagers that they take care of it, said Mr. Kumar, who is posted in West Singhbhum district.
Not only food, local brews ‘mahua’ and ‘haria’ also attract them to villages. “Once they get the intoxicating smell, the elephants will not leave the place without tasting it.”

trying to revive this

I thought I should revive this blog. I shall not just restrict myself to vocabulary and the like but any news item that might just make interesting reading.

chignon - the good old fashioned bun

A chignon, pronounced "sheen-yon,” is a popular type of bun style. The word “chignon” comes from the French phrase “chignon du cou,” which means nape of the neck. Chignons are generally achieved by pinning the hair into a knot at the nape of the neck, but there are many different variations of the style. They are frequently worn for special occasions, like weddings and formal dances, but the basic chignon is also worn for everyday casual wear

Giorgos Seferis

A writer, diplomat, nobel laureate

said

Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.

Schlimazel or shlimazel

pronounce SHLImah-zul

Someone prone to bad luck

tambour

1: drum
2 a: an embroidery frame; especially : a set of two interlocking hoops between which cloth is stretched before stitching
a rolling top or front (as of a rolltop desk) of narrow strips of wood glued on canvas

Jingoism

Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy"
the extreme belief that your own country is always best, which is often shown in enthusiastic support for a war against another country:
Patriotism can turn into jingoism and intolerance very quickly.(Cambridge)
jingoistic - fanatically patriotic

peculate, avowal

Peculate:
to steal or misuse (money or property entrusted to one's care, esp. public funds); embezzle

Avowal:
open acknowledgment or declaration

mortar-board

The square academic cap, very commonly called a mortarboard cap, is an item of academic headgear consisting of a horizontal square board fixed upon a skull-cap, with a tassel attached to the centre. In the UK and the U.S., it is commonly referred to informally in conjunction with an academic gown worn as a cap and gown. It is also often termed a square or trencher in the UK and Australia. In the U.S., it is usually referred to more generically as a mortarboard, or simply cap.