Read Our Minds: November

This month’s trivia question comes from Barack Obama’s memoir of his early years Dreams from my Father:
Which was the university that Barack Obama attended in New York?

Word Puzzles

These language-related puzzles come from 101 Ways to Improve your Memory, where you will find all ­manner of exercises and tips to keep your memory alert. But where would you turn for help if you woke up in hospital and couldn’t remember the past three years of your life?! This is the ­subject of ­Sophie Kinsella’s recent novel, Remember Me?, which featured recently in Select Editions.







Click here to read more about Sophie Kinsella, English author of the Shopaholic series.






Touché - Spot On










































Stick on Syllables











































Changing Words

Take our word for it

Were duels always fought at dawn? Or is this depiction in fiction and movies not true?

Not entirely true, we’re afraid. In Imponderables, our book about the mysteries and perplexities of everyday life, historians reveal that duels were fought at any time of the day. Nevertheless, dawn was the preferred time. Historian CF ‘Charley’ Ekhardt speculates on this strange predeliction of duellists to fight to the death at inconvenient hours.

‘Just at sunrise, if the list [the technical term for a ­duelling ground] was oriented north­–south, neither man got the sun-to-back advantage. Also, the local law was still abed or, if there was a regular police force in the area, the day watch and the night watch were ­changing shifts. Fighting at dawn minimised the ­likelihood of interference by the law.’