“Canteen” | a place in a factory, office, etc. where food and meals are sold, often at a lower than usual price.[Cambridge English Dictionary]
“Craic” | (Irish English) enjoyable time spent with other people, especially when the conversation is entertaining and funny [Cambridge English Dictionary]
I hear some people are finding it hard to stay at home and shun human contact during this Covid-19 crisis. Understandable, especially if their regular lifestyle involves daily socialising. But I am experiencing an unexpected bonus. Ever since I stopped going to work I have found it increasingly difficult to find the time to keep up with this blog; suddenly I have no excuse but to knuckle down and resume normal service. Thanks pandemic, for the first time in ages I have time on my hands.
I am fascinated with communal eating, and it’s ironically apt at the moment, when eating out is banned until further notice, by edict of BoJo. In particular, canteens are a thread which runs through much of my life, from school dinners to university refectories, via worker’s canteens, in the UK and overseas.
Even without the virus crisis I just miss the canteen experience these days, as a social diversion, a welcome pause in the working day. Looking back, there have been periods when no canteen was available on a daily basis, such as when I went freelance after leaving the BBC in 1983. At such times, the lack of a canteen was a minor disappointment, something missing in the working day.
Of course, it’s not just about the food, but the craic as well. Actually, like Commisario Montalbano I am rubbish at eating and talking simultaneously, so it’s eat-first-chat-second for me if I have a choice, but for sure there’s not much to be said for eating alone. . Continue reading
On a fine day in December last year, Kirkby on Bain Parish Councillors were invited by Alan Stephenson, Quarry Operations Manager at the Woodhall Spa Quarry, to attend an open afternoon following the recent discovery by local archaeologists of a Roman settlement. It was a fascinating event, led by Lydia Hendry, Community Archaeologist, Heritage Lincolnshire, and her team. She took us round the site in small groups and explained what they had found so far, demystifying numerous trenches, artifacts and data.
By way of an update to 
This weekend the City of Lincoln will be invaded by Steampunks! Don’t worry, they are entirely harmless, they just love dressing up in Victorian style – anything from top hats and flying goggles, to corsets and flamboyant feathers.
I really cannot recall when I first heard of George Boole, the creator of Boolean logic, but I do remember being intrigued when I spotted the plaque on his former house in Pottergate, Lincoln, when I first came to work in the City.
When I first mentioned to a few local acquaintances that Boole came from Lincoln I was met with a few blank looks, but now, in Boole’s bicentenary year, there are welcome signs of a growing recognition here of his global importance. Much of this awakening is down to the sustained and dogged influence of my friend, former colleague and co-director of the 
Most readers interested in Lincolnshire will probably know that 2015 is the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. Similarly, most will be aware of Sir Isaac Newton as the county’s most illustrious son. But very few will know of the bicentenary of George Boole, the Lincoln man who has had most recent worldwide impact. He invented “Boolean Logic” which is the binary system at the heart of silicon chips and all things digital. As if that wasn’t enough, he was the youngest and poorest winner of the Royal Society’s Gold Medal for a hundred years. To cap that off, he also laid some of the foundations for ‘Pure Maths’ and gave us many aspects of calculus used daily by scientists and technologists of every type. 
Peter Dewrance 