Yeah, RIP to that save file. Had to start all over again.

When I was younger I was playing Pokémon Red on a gameboy with a rechargeable battery. It was charging as I was playing, plugged into the wall. I was just outside the entrance to the Elite Four, Pokémon all set up for the battle. I pressed save … and then we had a power cut followed quickly by a surge. The game wiped, everything was gone. I remember the loss still.

That was such a great game! And the music was excellent; there’s a playlist of it on YouTube somewhere and I still listen to it.

I would absolutely not ever play a game on any format that was littered with ads. That’s a deal-breaker right there, no question. I wouldn’t care if it was free — if it’s got ads I’m not playing it.

I’ve never seen a cockroach outside of a zoo and I hope I never do but this story was hilarious, sorry 😂😂

Thanks for the recommendation! :)

Until maybe two years ago, I hadn’t heard of it either (I live in the UK). It seems that it has mostly been a problem in the US, where the term “Anglo Saxon” came to gain white supremacist meanings, along with nationalism and racial purity, etc. Abhorrent, of course. But in the UK (and I suppose parts of Europe?) “Anglo Saxon” broadly refers to the time period between the end of the Roman period and the beginning of the Viking Age, and doesn’t have the same horrible meaning that it does in the US. It was news to me when I first heard about that, but I’ve since read more. In her recent book Buried, Dr. Alice Roberts has a whole postscript section about the use of the term and how its meaning has changed over time across the world.

I can definitely vouch for the Welsh names, because I grew up there. In Wales Aber means the mouth of, as in, the mouth of a river. So Abertawe (Swansea) means the mouth of the river Tawe.

I lived in Scotland for a while and never made the Dun connection, but that makes so much sense now you’ve said it!

I find all this stuff really interesting. I did a degree in history and I’ve got lots of books on words and the history of words, sayings, and place names. Fascinating!

Yes, I find it fascinating! The names of places in the UK is also very interesting when you start picking them apart. There are a lot of places near where I currently live that date from the Anglo-Saxon period. It ties into the whole language thing quite nicely and just adds to the richness of the landscape for me. I’m sure the same is true of the rest of the world too, and I’d love to hear those stories, but I see these place names every day so they’re more in my mind.

There isn’t a single source of English. The current archaeological/anthropological/genetic thinking is that there was a gradual, but eventually very large, migration (not an invasion) of Saxons and other peoples from around that area to what is now Britain, and they brought their language and customs with them. The Vikings brought theirs, and so did the Normans. The language we speak now is an amalgamation of quite a lot of others. The genetic research being done for the Thousand Ancient Genomes Project is very interesting, and some of the preliminary results have been released regarding the Saxons (it seems to be quite a touchy subject and the name “Anglo-Saxon” has acquired negative connotations in the US which has trickled over to us), although Covid slowed quite a lot down obviously. I’m really looking forward to hearing more results from the TAGP!