Why Sandi Toksvig is one my my heroes.

Yes it's true and she is. I suppose this is not a real blog post in the strictest terms of reference but so what, who cares? I was googling (should that be a capital letter or only when it's the site title not the exercise?) as usual for strange and wonderful things. Todays foray into the cyber wilderness was about Tim Bentinck, who plays David Archer in the Archers, and that he does the voice you hear on the London Underground telling you to mind the gap. Along the way I found out that he is the 12th Earl of Portland, and also this little gem of an article she [Sandi] wrote a few years back. So to prevent my list of favourites and bookmarks reaching epic proprtions I copied it and pasted it to here. She thinks like me, which may cause you to reassesss those friend rquests.

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Sandi Toksvig
Published: 12:05AM BST 09 Sep 2007

So what is an oxbow lake?

This week I gave the commencement address for a couple of hundred graduating sixth formers. They were a sea of youthful enthusiasm, each of them carrying certificates that declared that they now officially knew something. I always wonder how far certifiable education turns out to be useful.

I know that I could find gas on a periodic table but it's easier at the petrol station and, even in times of trouble, no one has ever asked me to point out an oxbow lake. The parental pride in the room was tangible, but did the students have the nous, for example, to realise that this was one of the best evenings of their lives to tap their folks for money? Indeed, one might wonder if they knew what nous was. It seemed to me that their education was just beginning.

• I'm not a great fan of the vogue for modular learning, which tends to put a neat framework that doesn't really exist around all subjects. If I've learnt anything in this life (and the question is still up for debate) it is that every nugget of information connects with a thousand, often unexpected, others. The minute I learn something I find myself mentally standing in front of a vast intellectual Tube map with any number of options as to where I might go next.

Take this week's strike on the London Underground. Here is a news topic that could lead you, among other things, towards a love of linguistics, the power of classical music, the effect of scent on humans, the genetic mutation of mosquitoes or the value of one-legged men in escalator safety.

Not all of it is useful, I admit, but I like the quirkiness of recalling that St John's Wood is the only Tube station whose name contains none of the letters of the word 'mackerel', while Pimlico is the only station entirely devoid of any of the letters of the word 'badger'.

The Underground is a marvellous place to examine human sensibilities. In 2005, classical music was used to drive away loitering youths at Elm Park station, while a decision in 2001 to introduce a fragrance called Madeleine at St James's Park, Euston and Piccadilly Circus stations had to be discontinued as passengers were becoming sick.

When the first escalator was introduced at Earl's Court station, Bumper Harris, a man with a wooden leg, was employed to ride up and down all day to show it was safe. Then there's science. I never found genetics very interesting until I read a piece in BBC Wildlife magazine proving that mosquitoes living in the Underground system have evolved into a totally different species in a breathtaking time frame and that different Tube lines have their own species of bug.

• That fact leads me to today in 1947, when a moth was found in a relay of the Harvard Mark II computer at Harvard University. The computer had been malfunctioning and scientists discovered the 'First actual case of [a computer] bug being found.' It is, of course, not the origin of the word, for the Shakespearean scholar will recall King Edward after a battle near Barnet (also on the Tube line) in Henry VI, part 3 - 'So, lie thou there: die thou, and die our fear; For Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all.'

The Bard takes us to acting, and the once celebrated Shakespearean actor William Terriss, who was stabbed to death in 1897 and is said to haunt Covent Garden Tube station.

Speaking of violent death - did you know that today marks the day in 1942 when the Japanese bombed the American mainland? Possibly not, as it took the Americans half a day to realise anything had happened. On 9 September, a Japanese pilot dropped two bombs near the small town of Brookings in Oregon. The plan had been to start mass forest fires and panic in the US, but instead they scorched seven pine trees.

• I'm not saying that trivia matters but intellectual curiosity does. What if the weather had been different in Oregon and wind had driven the flames across the state? Did you know that a German called Elmar Weiser was a winner at last week's World Beard and Moustache Championships with a beard shaped like Tower Bridge, which overlooks the Tower of London, where the first female Beefeater has just started work and which you can get to on both the District and the Circle lines? There is apparently a piece of music based on the Circle Line which starts and ends with a shout of 'Mind the Gap'. It is written by Robert Steadman, who also writes revision guides for GCSE music. There we are, back to education on the Circle Line. I'd better get off now or we'll be going round for hours.