daily headspa

That's what Sean Connery should have been saying as James Bond instead of "shaken not stirred." (see video clip below for Sean's rendition of "007 cocktail 101")

But maybe he wouldn't have. It's a big debate in his homeland and amongst all of us wanna be Scots elsewhere - whether or not to put a little water in your whisky. Proponents of water in the whisky, such as John from New Zealand behind the bar on a tiny little Scottish island...how do these small islanders find each other...say it opens up the flavours. Naysayers will tell you it masks them and call themselves purists. People who put ice in their whisky just don't count. As human beings.

Chemists have been studying this (on their breaks from creating the next biofuel that will save us all) and they conclude that

If you increase the water content, you reduce the solubility of some long-chain compounds - such as esters. You also increase the volatility of some compounds, especially hydrophobic ones. While phenols, for example - the smoky compounds - are particularly water-soluble, so you'd expect to reduce the volatility of those as you dilute. Nitrogen-containing compounds too - they're the roasted nut and cereal flavours - would be reduced.

I might have had too much whisky...what? In sum, "So if you like the cereal tones or that smoked peaty aroma, drink your malt whisky neat."

However, before you start waving that in someone's face as she reaches for the quaint water jug designed especially for this purpose...

When you add water to one it tastes much better, but add water to another and it might taste far worse. For example, heavier whiskies that have strong sulfur notes -those compounds are released when you dilute the whisky, and most people find them unpleasant.

Here's a link to the whole article in "Chemistry World," including some information about why I've been too harsh to those who put ice in their whisky. Who knew?

Like most good, long-standing clannish fueds it remains entirely up to one's personal taste and family tartan tradition as to whether you add water or not. Alternatively, you could just try to decide which will make you look sexier when ordering a drink. Which leads us back to Bond. Throw it all out and go for the martini? Here's that clip I promised to help you decide.

Okay, so is it "neat and clean" or "neat and tidy?"

Imagine that you are learning English as a second language. Imagine that you are writing to an English language forum with this burning question. Here's the answer -

"Neat and tidy","clean and tidy", and "neat and clean" all mean the basically same thing to me. The main difference was that one isn't a typical collocation. I suppose "neat and clean" could be applied to a person whereas the expressions with "tidy" tend to indicate a place.

response to a question posted by Van Kahn writing from Ho Chi Minh city on englishtest.net

Got it? Neat and clean = person. Neat and tidy = place. Here are some additional video resources to help you keep this important distinction in mind (wouldn't want to be sloppy with your neatness references, would ya), whether English is your first or 51st language.

Neat and Clean

Neat and Tidy

I admit it. I'm a bit of a neat freak. Apparently, this is not good news. Sigh. Another virtue deconstructed...

According to a study by Eric Abrahamson, professor of management at Columbia Business School, and writer David Freedman,

moderately disorganised people, institutions, and systems frequently turn out to be more efficient, resilient, more creative, and generally more effective than highly organised ones

This is truly news to me. But here's the real shocker -

These two authors surveyed real office workers and found that

people with very neat desks spent 36 per cent more time on organising and searching than people with fairly messy ones. This is probably because an apparently messy desk reflects some intuitive organising principle inside its user's mind.

Great. There goes all scientific justification for the time I spend keeping my desk neat. But what if my intuitive organizing principle is manifested in the act of tidying my desk. What then, huh, huh?

Why can't I be both virtuous (as in, neat) and intuitive. Didn't think of that one, did they? I should stop before this gets messy...