heath was sporting a beguiling tie knot today. what is it, i asked him. he said it was called a reverse half-windsor, and then i remembered he had told me about it once before. now i shall certainly have to learn it and practise until i can add it to my short list of knots. ( and he showed me how to tie a bow tie! i'd never thought of learning before, because it looked like it would be complicated, this impression reinforced by derek nimmo, who used to say on just a minute that he was in a play called the little hut in which he tied a bowtie on stage during the course of a very short speech and that always won applause from the audience. if i had known it was that easy i should certainly not have been afraid of it!) i've been thinking, there can't be that many socially-accepted knots - at least i can't believe there wold be more than, say, 10? maybe less, but mathematically there must be dozens, or maybe even hundreds of ways. it's like a chess game isn't it? there are only so many moves you could make - you could, i suppose, wrap it towards one side or the other or pull it through a loop in one direction or the other - and once you'd made one choice you couldn't do through a formula of permuation and combination you could arrive at lots and lots of knots, couldn't you. and some of these knots have got to be aesthetically pleasing.

OH! someone HAS made such a study! see the ten knot sequence at bottom of page! i shall get their book!