STICKING FINGERS INTO THE LANGUAGE

Have you heard about 'finger fluting' a neologism seemingly coined by American anthropologists at Cambridge University and released to the waiting world via segments on Radio 4 this morning?

Finger fluting is not, as one might expect - or hope - a new method of teaching the recorder; nor is it a decorative style arising from dragging the fingers through soft material such as clay.

In fact finger fluting is prehistoric painting: swirls, lines and zig zags smeared by stone age children onto the cave walls (inevitably in the Dordogne) where their parents were depicting antelope, an occasional mammoth and the inevitable crowds of bison.

I am glad children of those far-off times were allowed such artistic licence. Certainly my two have never had a great deal of parental support for their efforts in recolouring the wallpaper. Clearly times have changed in the past 10 or 12 millennia.

Leaving the visual arts aside, I am much more concerned with the words that have come to describe this speliological endeavour. Why 'fluting'?

I've just been through the full Oxford English Dictionary (yes we do own one in the office) to find nothing that would bring us close to the concept. Indeed fluting implies a more complex series of manual processes that simple markings in paint.

I suspect alliteration is to blame. Something that goes with fingers ('nails' not starting with an 'f').

But with that in mind, should anthropologists not have come up with 'digital daubs'?

SKIN DEEP

I am not really blogging - not just at the moment. It's more that I'm taking a break from ironing.

Yes, I iron. Actually I rather enjoy it and I also enjoy the faux military neatness that I can achieve (only to destroy the impression with a lost button or, worse, an ironed-in stain). And I suppose it gives one time to think, or to listen to the radio or to think about amusing lines.

Did you hear about the diner at the café who asked if there was any alternative to the Quiche Lorraine. "No," replied the waitress, "there's no Flan B."

Leaving this aside, I have to tell you that I am slightly worried about my face - one of those parts where the iron must not reach. I was seduced into buying face products the other day. Well accurately a couple of parties I've been to recently were giving patent unguents away and so I felt I should buy some as well.

I have Facial Fuel and something from Cetuem which has 'Active Ceramides' and also I have something from Kiehls that comes with a glass eye dropper although I rather suspect the eyes are the last place this smoking liquid should be dropped.

But the thing is that the treatments aren't working and it looks as though I am never going to achieve my ambition of rejuvenating in the same way that Captain James T Kirk of the Starship Enterprise easily does in the later Startrek movies. In fact, I seem to be going the other way.

Not only does unguent a (or b or c) hurt but the facial results, the morning after, put me in mind of one who has spent the hours of darkness wrestling with the undead only to become one himself.

Lines? There are more lines than Hamlet and deeply engrained (not only in the skin but increasingly in the psyche).

Bags? Ditto the conveyor belts at Heathrow.

Eyes? Not really visibly to my eye (if you see what I mean).

Whatever happened to Wright's Coaltar Soap with its distinctive smell of failed chemical experiments (a far superior product to Lifebuoy if you ask me)? I mean that was a real cleaning agent. I left some on my flannel one night long ago at boarding school and the next day it have gone right through. It became much more popular after that but not perhaps in the way the manufacturers intended - after all boys will be boys.