Fun With A Pun

If you love puns ...


Nobody was injured in an unusual dockside accident today.

The grain elevators were out of service, so it was decided to unload the grain the old-fashioned way, using manual labor, cranes and canvas slings.

A sling had been loaded by the laborers and was being hoisted up when one of the slings' strops slipped off the hook.  The grain was scattered all over the laborers.

It goes to show, doesn't it -

What you loose on the slings is grain on the roustabouts.

Why I've been away and why I'm back.

I'm 79yo now.  I receive a state pension which falls short by about £50 a week from what I need to keep paying bills.  I took a break from social media so I could make money from fixing stuff for neighbours.  I also wrote a book about Chinese diesel air heaters - link in my bio.

When Air India 171 crashed I started researching probable causes.  I have been interested in accident investigations since childhood.  I remember news about the 1952 Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash and I remember reading in the Daily Mail about the 1957 Lewisham rail crash.  In about 1960 I came across a book about the loss of the R101, since when I have been fascinated about accident investigations

Air India Crash: When 2 + 2 Does Not Compute

2 + 2 Does Not Compute, But 1 of 4 AND 1 of 4 Does

On 12 June 2025 a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad Airport, India.  The crash resulted in the tragic loss of 260 lives.  The plane was destroyed, along with a number of buildings.  There was only one surviving passenger.

Why investigate when you can blame the pilot or pilots?

Throughout the whole history of civil aviation there have been far more instances of defects in the plane causing a crash than pilot malice.  There are but very few instances of a pilot deliberately causing a crash.

Understanding The Voynich Manuscript #4

If not Latin, then what?

Please see the links at the foot of this page for my previous articles on the Voynich manuscript.

Only a few people claim that the language underlying the Voynich Manuscript is Latin. However, there are very many people who claim, without proof of an alternative, that the VM is not latin.



The "stars" are plants.

Understanding the Voynich Manuscript #3

Plants and the moon.

For thousands of years, people from many lands have believed that the planets and stars affect their lives. The belief in astrology is widely known. Less well known is the equally ancient belief that the moon affects the germination and growth of plants. Unlike the case with astrology, there is at least some scientific basis¹ for the idea of a connection between the phases of the moon and the growth of plants.

Understanding the Voynich Manuscript #2

An i for an i ?


Not nymphs: women!

There are strings of what look like letters i and c in the Voynich Manuscript. If they are in reality i and c then they do not make sense. If we take it as a given that the writer of the VM intended his manuscript to make sense, then these glyphs must represent something else. But first, a few words about contextual dependency.

Contextual dependency.