Random Thoughts
A word picked at random from a book picked at random – third shelf from the bottom, fifth book from the left, flip to page 101 and first noun or adjective (no adverbs)
The Book
I pick up Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography and it's a pleasure to hold it again. I haven’t touched these pages in a couple of years.
The word
Centuries
It's a good word to spring from a history book, stretching back to the centuria, the Roman soldiers who marched across the world. But the group of 100 weren’t all military men, the Romans took their administrators with them, knowing that control needs more than the point of a sword.
They also took something else. I remember a half heard radio programme explaining the importance of foot care to a Roman soldier. It’s an uncomfortable truth but the centuria wore socks. With sandals.
4 comments:
I just love where your randomness takes you!
This picking a word at random stuff is addictive...but it only works it you don't cheat!
I'm increasingly starting to think that randomness doesn't actually exist and that the things I perceive as random are just the universe's way of telling me to concentrate. For example... you are the second person in two days to give me instructions on how to find a "random" thing. That can't be random. :)
(the idea of Italians wearing socks with sandals is quite worrying......)
And I read your comment while listening to Melvyn Bragg on Radio Four discuss randomness with a group of mathematicians.
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