Times Tables

~ Ruth ~ 6 Comments

When I was in primary school, long before there were calculators, we each used to make ourselves a square cardboard table card that we used regularly to help us learn our times tables and manage simple multiplications – they were really useful things that went all the way up to twelve times twelve.

The idea was to grid out your card in equal square boxes marked from one to twelve from left to right on the first horizontal row, and also one to twelve top to bottom on the first vertical row. This was your one times table already done and dusted.

You would then methodically fill in all the multiplications for each number on the following rows and columns until you had filled in the very last bottom right square which would be 144, for 12×12. And now your super-duper hand-made table card was ready for use!

So for example, to find out the answer to 9×6 using your table card you would look across the top row then follow down the column for 9, and also look down the first column for 6 then follow across that row – the point of intersection would be at the box with 54 written in it.

PS I always liked to write the ‘squares’ of each number, leading diagonally downwards across the card from 1 to 144, in a different colour to highlight them and make my table card look a bit nicer – it seems even as a small kid I had an artistic brain! 🙂

Ragtag Daily Prompt: Twelve

Fandango’s One Word Challenge: Super

A Nation Bereft

~ Ruth ~ 7 Comments

POTUS governs with malice and spite
Wish his sycophants would see the light
End their worshipful trust
Of a man so unjust
Call him out on his lies, start to fight

For a country that thought itself great
Until personal greed sealed its fate
True democracy dead
Ruled by fascists instead
Through a self-defined king steeped in hate

How can one bloke too big for his boots
With corruption infused to his roots
Be the one they admire
Just an arrogant liar
Dressed in lumbering, ill-fitting suits

So the allies of old move away
From this fool, more unstable each day
What a legacy left
Just a nation bereft
Of world powers it once held in sway…

Pumpkin and Chili Soup

~ Ruth ~ 6 Comments

I once made a huge pot of pumpkin and chili soup, when just after Halloween one year our local supermarket was selling off large pumpkins for 10p each – bargain!

The soup turned out absolutely fine, lovely and thick when liquidised, and the heat of the chili nicely balanced the sweetness of the pumpkin – but that was my one and only attempt to cook with pumpkin.

In general I much prefer using butternut squash, which I love to roast in chili and garlic oil, cut into chunks – these can be added easily to a basic curry or chili sauce along with other veggies to make a delicious vegetarian curry or chili – yum! 🙂

Fandango’s One Word Challenge: Pumpkin

Grassy Knoll

~ Ruth ~ 7 Comments

My abrupt arrival in the world came only 11 days after President Kennedy was assassinated, so as a marker in history the violent death of JFK has always been of great fascintion to me.

I find it amazing that even after 60-something years conspiracy theories still abound surrounding exactly what happened on that fateful day.

Nowadays there would no doubt have been multiple CCTV images from many different angles, and no end of personal mobile phone images to trawl through, never mind countless media footage to be examined forensically. (Mind you there are also deep-fake AI-generated images these days, so perhaps things would be no clearer after all?)

But back in 1963 there was only grainy film footage and poor camera images to go by. And as Lee Harvey Oswald was himself assassinated a couple of days later, there was no possibility of anyone providing him with any real defense at the trial so of course he was always going to be found guilty.

Was it the lone gunman in the book depository, was he working for someone else, was there also a disputed second gunman on the grassy knoll, or in all the confusion was it actually a panicked Government Agent who accidentally fired the fatal shot that killed the President?

The expectation had always been that once the last of the Government files were finally released last year unredacted, we would finally find out all the answers, but it seems there are still unanswered questions that may never be made indisputably clear…

And so the conspiracy theories continue…

Ragtag Daily Prompt: Knoll