The High Wood

This is not original but I had to share it with you. Most of you will probably know the Panama palindrome:

A man, a plan, a canal – Panama!

If you somehow don’t know what a palindrome is, the letters read the same forwards or backwords (O No!).

In 1984, a programmer named Dan Hoey wrote a neat algorithm which took a word list and generated a very long version. It includes not only a man, a plan and a canal but also a cat, a leek, a baronet and much, much more.

For your delectation:

A man, a plan, a caret, a ban, a myriad, a sum, a lac, a liar, a hoop, a pint, a catalpa, a gas, an oil, a bird, a yell, a vat, a caw, a pax, a wag, a tax, a nay, a ram, a cap, a yam, a gay, a tsar, a wall, a car, a luger, a ward, a bin, a woman, a vassal, a wolf, a tuna, a nit, a pall, a fret, a watt, a bay, a daub, a tan, a cab, a datum, a gall, a hat, a fag, a zap, a say, a jaw, a lay, a wet, a gallop, a tug, a trot, a trap, a tram, a torr, a caper, a top, a tonk, a toll, a ball, a fair, a sax, a minim, a tenor, a bass, a passer, a capital, a rut, an amen, a ted, a cabal, a tang, a sun, an ass, a maw, a sag, a jam, a dam, a sub, a salt, an axon, a sail, an ad, a wadi, a radian, a room, a rood, a rip, a tad, a pariah, a revel, a reel, a reed, a pool, a plug, a pin, a peek, a parabola, a dog, a pat, a cud, a nu, a fan, a pal, a rum, a nod, an eta, a lag, an eel, a batik, a mug, a mot, a nap, a maxim, a mood, a leek, a grub, a gob, a gel, a drab, a citadel, a total, a cedar, a tap, a gag, a rat, a manor, a bar, a gal, a cola, a pap, a yaw, a tab, a raj, a gab, a nag, a pagan, a bag, a jar, a bat, a way, a papa, a local, a gar, a baron, a mat, a rag, a gap, a tar, a decal, a tot, a led, a tic, a bard, a leg, a bog, a burg, a keel, a doom, a mix, a map, an atom, a gum, a kit, a baleen, a gala, a ten, a don, a mural, a pan, a faun, a ducat, a pagoda, a lob, a rap, a keep, a nip, a gulp, a loop, a deer, a leer, a lever, a hair, a pad, a tapir, a door, a moor, an aid, a raid, a wad, an alias, an ox, an atlas, a bus, a madam, a jag, a saw, a mass, an anus, a gnat, a lab, a cadet, an em, a natural, a tip, a caress, a pass, a baronet, a minimax, a sari, a fall, a ballot, a knot, a pot, a rep, a carrot, a mart, a part, a tort, a gut, a poll, a gateway, a law, a jay, a sap, a zag, a fat, a hall, a gamut, a dab, a can, a tabu, a day, a batt, a waterfall, a patina, a nut, a flow, a lass, a van, a mow, a nib, a draw, a regular, a call, a war, a stay, a gam, a yap, a cam, a ray, an ax, a tag, a wax, a paw, a cat, a valley, a drib, a lion, a saga, a plat, a catnip, a pooh, a rail, a calamus, a dairyman, a bater, a canal – Panama!

(In case you are wondering, I checked it with the following bit of perl code and it is correct)

my $str = 'the string to verify';

$str =~ s/\W//g;    # remove any non-word characters
$str = lc $str;     # lower case everything

print (($str eq (reverse $str))
    ? "Is a palindrome\n"
    : "Is not a palindrome\n");

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The emerald city turned red yesterday. We woke to an orange-red light in the sky and wondered if the world had ended. I checked on the net and google was still up so I relaxed a bit.

It was always possible that we had been transported to Mars in our sleep but no such luck. Pity. I’d always wanted to see the canals.

No, what we had was a gigantic dust storm which was sweeping the east coast of Oz. No doubt the good people in the outback would have noted laconically “bit dusty today” but in Sydney it was a major event. Tens of thousands took the day off work; ventolin sales went through the roof; and the car wash people rubbed their hands with buckets of glee as a pall of red dust settled over everything.

I heroically trekked off to work but Pamela very sensibly stayed indoors. Everything was kind of fuzzy like a heavy red mist.

The really cool bit was the sun. Every so often it managed to shine through a thinner part of the dust cloud and it was a perfect, electric blue circle. You could even see discolourations of sunspots. It was like being on a planet circling a Class A star. Or at least, so I assume. Perhaps not quite as bright.

I took a few photos but I have no idea if they came out ok. I’ll post a couple if they were any good.

Update: and here are the photos.

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