Author Archives: charlottesheridan

Growing up in the 1970s, I was fed a diet of BBC children’s programmes like Bagpuss and The Clangers. If you’re unfamiliar with them, please allow me a short childhood reminiscence.  Bagpuss was first shown in 1974 – the story of a magical cloth cat that came alive. Every episode a young girl, Emily, wouldContinue reading “We can all stickle it”

Guts are having a renaissance. It’s 2021 and it’s now perfectly acceptable to bring them up in conversation. Look in the bookshop window and the shelves are groaning with guts. The gastrointestinal tract is merely a 4.5 metre tube, yet it’s the most densely populated spot on the planet. A place that 100 trillion microbes callContinue reading “Trusting your gut”

Collective nouns do what they say on the tin – they’re the names for collection of things, like a herd of cows, a hive of bees or a pride of lions. These are easy ones that a five-year old would know. Here are more everyday examples: a fleet of ships, a panel of experts, a podContinue reading “The name for people who are lost”

The time we spend thinking about something often doesn’t match its importance in our lives. If we parked all our worries in a line, they would stretch to the horizon. When is the ‘eat by’ date of the yoghurt? Did I use the wrong title on the presentation? Should I smile more at the check-outContinue reading “The relative size of things”

Count the number of times I’ve included Japan in my blog posts and you’d think I was in love with the place. Japan appears every few weeks – here on regrets, here on career advice, this on the power of words, one on having a calling and here on the strength of letting go. I use the word “appearing” as I’m not doingContinue reading “Being a frog in a well”

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” The author of this saying is lost to the mists of time, although it’s routinely attributed to The Buddha, the Chinese text The Confucian Analects, The Theosophics, or even Tao Te Ching (in a longer form): “when the student is ready the teacher will appear. When the student is truly ready,Continue reading “Why we’re always learning”

Who doesn’t love a horror film? Me actually, but many people do. Why do we snuggle up on the sofa to watch gore? Why do we invite terror into our homes? Isn’t life stressful enough anyway? Christian Jarrett wrote about this in The Psychologist magazine. “Fear coils in your stomach and clutches at your heart. It’s anContinue reading “Being lost and also found”

The expression “two sides of the same coin” refers to things that seem different but are actually related; tragedy and comedy for example or love and hate. According to The Cambridge Dictionary “violent behaviour and deep insecurity are often two sides of the same coin.” The Longman Dictionary has “great opportunity and great danger areContinue reading “When life is two sides of the same coin”

Gaussian Curve is the name of a music trio – an Italian, a Dutchman and a Scot. I’m not starting with a culturally insensitive joke though. The direction I want to take is a mathematical one; the statistical Gaussian Curve from where the band takes its name. A Gaussian Curve describes the normal distribution of things,Continue reading “Why I’m better than him, but worse than her”

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.” Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carroll, 1871 Words are funny things. They’re a jumble of letters and sounds which intrinsically don’t mean anything. A few words are onomatopoeiac – the ones that sound like the things theyContinue reading “Words, schmerds”