shewhomust: (Default)
shewhomust ([personal profile] shewhomust) wrote2009-03-14 08:32 pm

Six things make an LJ post and a bit.

We celebrated [livejournal.com profile] durham_rambler's birthday with lunch at Zen, as recommended by our friendly neighbourhood professor of mathematics. He raved over the green curry, which we found a bit bland - we being [livejournal.com profile] durham_rambler and me, [livejournal.com profile] helenraven and [livejournal.com profile] desperance. ([livejournal.com profile] desperance's readers will know that of course he thought it bland; but he was not alone). On the other hanmd, the starters were fun, and the papaya salad was fresh and sharp and zingy. The deep fried ice cream in peanut crust was proportioned rather like a scotch egg, a scoop of ice cream buried within a flapjack - a thinner crust served hotter would have had more drama. But the garnish of caramelised cashew nuts was yummy. So was the Argentine chardonnay: it tasted of cloves, which was unexpected, but not disagreeable (and it was fair trade, too).

Later, some of us watched Little Miss Sunshine, supplied by [livejournal.com profile] helenraven. It was very sweet, and good fun: although situations and events were rigged to manipulate the comic effects into position, it was entertaining enough that it was only afterwards I realised just how much this had been done. I loved the finale, where Olive does her dance, though for the benefit of anyone who hasn't seen it, I won't say why. Michael Ritchie's Smile remains my favourite beauty contest movie, but I liked Little Miss Sunshine.

I have Chatted! Dropped in on [livejournal.com profile] desperance's Author Chat at Flycon, and had no technical problems at all. Etiquette problems, maybe: a tendency to jump in and try to steer the conversation (She Who Must, you know...). But generally I feel pleased at having done a New Thing.

A news item about a Roman joke book is vague about the extent to which this is actually a new discovery. If, as the Guardian story says, it's a Roman joke book written in Greek, it can't be the one that cropped up forty years ago in my A-level Latin exam. The Unseen paper regularly consisted of three passages, a piece of poetry, a piece of Golden Age prose and Something Else. And in our case the Something Else was three jokes, of which I can remember two. One was I say, I say, I say, my wife's just hanged herself from the fig tree! / Really? You must give me a cutting! and the other What do you call a man who gets caught in adultery? / Slow! My Latin teacher told us she would complain to the examining board. (More jokes on the Todayprogramme).

Today's Saturday Poem in the Guardian is Fin by the wonderful Michael Donaghy.

Heard on the radio: "The duck-billed platypus gets more REM sleep than any other creature."

[identity profile] shewhomust.livejournal.com 2009-03-15 07:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you. That does indeed explain precisely how 'new' the text is!

I hadn't known she was speaking in Newcastle...