Word: rot
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...novel deals with the struggles of a young writer who lives on a houseboat moored in the Thames. Separated from his wife and child, mired in an unpromising literary career, he tries to find himself by casting off the paraphernalia of modern life. His boat turns out to be rot-ridden and spider-struck. Every night cats and rats perform a dance of death on his cabin roof. Worse, the free spirits whom he expected to find among other houseboat owners turn out to be frauds or escapists...
...uncontrolled units. Squeezed by rising costs for taxes, labor, maintenance and anti-pollution equipment demanded by the city, increasing numbers of owners are simply abandoning structurally sound, though rundown, controlled buildings. By owners' estimates, some 12,000 buildings containing 350,000 apartments have thus been left to rot in the past few years. Landlords are so upset at the shrinkage of their profits that last week eight organizations representing 25,000 owners begged the city to buy their buildings at "bargain-basement prices." Said Leon A. Katz, spokesman for the group: "Business is so bad that we want...
...Everyman numbly but stubbornly seeks an honorable-a human-way to survive the "endless round that shrinks a man to something less than the size and the meaning of flying ants." Relentlessly staging a Job-like trial-by-humiliation, Armah daubs "the man" with spit, phlegm and sweat. Rot and stink-the look and smell of corruption-rise up from every page. It is a classmate, Koomson, who perfumes all the putrefaction with the sweet smell of his success as a self-serving official of the new regime...
...city incinerators now destroy about 3,000,000 metric tons of other valuable metals a year; magnetic extractors could save the metal and reduce incineration by 10%. The packaging industry could do a profound service by switching to materials that rot-fast. The perfect container for mankind is the edible ice-cream cone. How about a beer container that is something like a pretzel? Or the soft-drink bottle that, when placed in the refrigerator, turns into a kind of tasty artificial ice? Soft drinks could also come in frozen form, as popsicles with edible sticks...
...mountain slopes, and another army of artisans to carve out some three miles of bas-reliefs. What caused the massive temple to be abandoned is equally obscure, although evidence suggests it was caused by the volcanoes that form the spine of Java. For centuries, it lay buried under jungle rot and volcanic...