hightonandy

1001 albums

In 2025, I read about a project. There’s a book called 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die . I don’t particularly like bucket lists or being told what I must do before I die but what I liked about this was that someone created a simple app which offers one of these albumsContinue reading “1001 albums”

The Babel fish

“The Babel Fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe.” So begins the description of this strange creature in the classic 1979 book ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ Douglas Adams, the author of the book, described a fantastic creature that you place in your ear and which allowsContinue reading “The Babel fish”

“Language learning is like cooking”

I heard this statement many years ago. The simple premise is that you could have the most expensive pots and pans, the best kitchen utensils, the most exquisite oven but if you can’t actually cook anything with this collection, you’ve got a problem. Almost all of us learn foreign languages using methodology that hasn’t fundamentallyContinue reading ““Language learning is like cooking””

First steps… again

I first started writing a blog many years ago – certainly before my now-teenage kids were on the scene. I think I wrote a couple of pretty good posts but then other events caught up with me and time disappeared, and this was before we all had smartphones permanantly in front of our faces. MaybeContinue reading “First steps… again”