Good Omens:  The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch is a 1990 novel written as a collaboration between the English authors Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, who in turn were dubbed "Double Trouble" by the British press.  The book is a comedy about the birth of the son of Satan and the coming of the End Times.  There are attempts by the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley to sabotage the coming of the end times, having grown accustomed to their comfortable surroundings in England.  One subplot features a mix-up at the small country hospital on the day of birth and the growth of the Antichrist, Adam, who grows up with the wrong family, in the wrong country village.  Another subplot concerns the summoning of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, each a big personality in their own right.  In 2003, the novel was listed at number 68 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Omens     

In April 2003 the BBC's Big Read began the search for the UK's best-loved novel, and they asked you to nominate your favourite books. The countdown of the top 100 books was televised on BBC2.  A further list of the books ranked from 101-200 was put on the BBC's website. https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/22922.BBC_The_Big_Read_Top_100_Books   The books ranked 101-200 can be found in a separate list here: 
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/22...   

Every Letter Is Silent, Sometimes   The a in bread (as well as in tread) does nothing.  You might as well spell it bred except that then it looks too much like the past tense of breed.  So don't do that.  A is similarly indefensible in aisle and aesthetic.  Most silent b's come at the ends of words and just after bomb, climb, comb, crumb, dumb, lamb, limb, numb, plumb, thumb, tomb.  Just when one starts to feel comfortable with the relative regularity of these, debt and subtle show up like a couple of toughs.  Read more at https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/mums-the-letter-when-letters-dont-say-a-thing  

 back-of-the-envelope  adjective  (idiomatic, informal) Especially of a calculation, estimation, or other reasoning, or an idea:  approximate, rough, simplified. [from 20th c.] synonyms ▲quotations ▼  

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/back-of-the-envelope#English   

Slow Food is a global, grassroots organization, founded in 1989 to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the rise of fast life and combat people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how our food choices affect the world around us. https://www.slowfoodseattle.org/what-is-slow-food#:~:text=Slow%20Food%20is%20a%20global,affect%20the%20world%20around%20us.  Thank you, Muse reader.   

The slow food movement was founded in Italy in the late 1980s by the publicist and sociologist Carlo Petrini as a protest against the fast food industry.  When the first branch of an international fast-food chain opened in Rome's city center in the historic Piazza Navona in the mid-1980s, Petrini organized a culinary guerrilla campaign as a guardian of conscious, authentic culinary enjoyment.  In the middle of the Spanish Steps, he invited the public to a traditional spaghetti dinner.  With this classic of Italian cuisine, he wanted to defy the global one-size-fits-all menu from the USA.  Within a short time, he gained a great deal of attention and was celebrated as a sustainability pioneer.  Shortly thereafter, he founded the Slow Food Association, which very quickly found growing acceptance among broad segments of society.  https://www.bhs-tabletop.com/en-en/blog/post/slow-food-trend/#/ 

Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. - William Butler Yeats, writer, Nobel laureate (13 Jun 1865-1939) 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2826  June 14, 2024