The American Pound

An American professor teaches my Philosophy of Economics course. An incident from Monday's class:

Professor:	On the y-axis we have pound benefit to farmers. [tries to draw a pound symbol, fails, tries again, draws an even worse one]
Class:	[laughter]
Professor:	I... I don't know how to draw a pound.
Class:	[more laughter]
Professor:	I'll practise, I'll practise.

Below is a photo of his effort.

No Nazis, No Racists

A poster I saw in my East London neighbourhood:



I wonder if the London Antifascists have given up on posher areas!

Substitutability

From The Regulation of International Trade by Trebilcock, Howse and Eliason:



What?! No!

A Shop Called Sroyon

My first name – a Bengali word meaning 'shelter' – is pretty uncommon; I have never met anyone who shares it. Saha likes to tell a story (see e.g. the third comment here) about staff in my school naming their kids after me, but this, like most of Saha's stories, is a lie.

But it turns out that for twenty years now, there has been a shop in Bhowanipore, Calcutta which shares my name. My father sent me a photo of the shop and its owner.

The coincidence is all the more surprising because, due to the complexities of Bangla Romanisation, this is only one of several possible ways of spelling শ্রয়ণ in English, and not necessarily the most obvious one. Other possibilities include Srayan, Shrayan and Shroyon – the second being the most orthographically accurate.

* * *

In other news, it appears that my feathered friend from last winter was not unique; if The Telegraph is to be believed, sunbirds are known for window-tapping.