Odds and Sods #3

• Robert Fulford has a lively review of a three-CD collection of spoken word by British authors:  Joyce, Woolf, Conan Doyle, Wodehouse and other.  As Fulford says: “Hearing the voice of a long-dead writer adds another dimension to a reader’s connection with an author’s work, not profound, but intimate.”
• Specialists have confirmed that the human ability to attach stone blades to wooden handles by use of adhesive tars goes back at least 70,000 years, almost double the age of previous finds.  Isolated examples even suggest dates back to 100,000 years ago.
• Some good folks are working on producing professionally made DIY glasses that do not need an optician.   The lens shape is controlled by adjusting the amount of water in the lens.  The target is to distribute up to 100 million pairs of glasses to the poor around the world every year.  A worthy aim, and I wish them all success.