Tardigrades!
Dec. 21st, 2021 02:00 pmMoss piglets! Water bears! Coming to you from Phil Gates's garage roof.
(We were awake early on Sunday).
(We were awake early on Sunday).
And the winner is...
Dec. 16th, 2021 02:14 pmThe Woodland Trust has announced its Tree of the Year 2021, an extremely windswept hawthorn "on a windswept cockleshell beach" in Dalbeattie (actually in the car park, which doesn't sound as good).
Good luck, tree!
The winning hawthorn tree will now go on to represent the UK in the European Tree of the Year 2022 contest.
Good luck, tree!
Seven degrees of John Pilgrim
Feb. 7th, 2021 04:58 pmI didn't recognise the name 'John Pilgrim' (and the internet points out that Marvel comics have an entirely different John Pilgrim, but I didn't recognise him, either). He played washboard with the Vipers skiffle group, and, okay, that name does ring the faintest of bells. But just read his Guardian obituary for a whole constellation of familiar names (including the obituarist).
As always, your mileage may vary, and what is familiar depends on your age, background and interests. But if you want to know what connects Philip Larkin to Pussy Cat Willum, just follow the link ...
As always, your mileage may vary, and what is familiar depends on your age, background and interests. But if you want to know what connects Philip Larkin to Pussy Cat Willum, just follow the link ...
Where have I been all of your life?
Jan. 13th, 2021 12:00 pmThis is Keith Newstead, maker of automata:
I only learned about him from his obituary in The Guardian. Not for the first time in reading an obituary, sadness that someone had died was outweighed by happiness that they had lived. This seems a waste. Elsewhere in the newspapers, people are only profiled if they have something to promote, but couldn't we have a section where random people are profiled just because they are interesting? It's not as if the obituaries weren't on file well in advance anyway, all you'd have to do is pick one to publish under the heading "Not Dead Yet".
Anyway ...
And then I fell into the wonderful world of automata: YouTube took me down the rabbit hole, leading me from Keith Newstead to Paul Spooner (and more Paul Spooner here, in a ten-minute walk through his wonderful contraptions including the Exeter Phoenix and the Borgias' cat). More examples on a website dedicated to contemporary automata... Meanwhile on YouTube, Scott Weaver's 'Rolling through the Bay' gives you a tour of San Francisco built from toothpicks - which doesn't sound like a good idea, but is rather wonderful (close-up images here).
And there's more - but it's lunchtime, so I'll have to come back later to Rowland Emett.
I only learned about him from his obituary in The Guardian. Not for the first time in reading an obituary, sadness that someone had died was outweighed by happiness that they had lived. This seems a waste. Elsewhere in the newspapers, people are only profiled if they have something to promote, but couldn't we have a section where random people are profiled just because they are interesting? It's not as if the obituaries weren't on file well in advance anyway, all you'd have to do is pick one to publish under the heading "Not Dead Yet".
Anyway ...
And then I fell into the wonderful world of automata: YouTube took me down the rabbit hole, leading me from Keith Newstead to Paul Spooner (and more Paul Spooner here, in a ten-minute walk through his wonderful contraptions including the Exeter Phoenix and the Borgias' cat). More examples on a website dedicated to contemporary automata... Meanwhile on YouTube, Scott Weaver's 'Rolling through the Bay' gives you a tour of San Francisco built from toothpicks - which doesn't sound like a good idea, but is rather wonderful (close-up images here).
And there's more - but it's lunchtime, so I'll have to come back later to Rowland Emett.
Farewell to a slut
Jan. 10th, 2021 04:33 pmI was sorry to hear of the death of Katharine Whitehorn, and if anything even sorrier to learn that her death was preceded by a diagnosis of advanced Alzheimer's. I can't remember a time when I didn't know her writing (she joined The Observer in 1960) but there's surprisingly little of it on the internet. Oddly, most of the references I am finding relate to her time at Roedean school, from which she ran away: fortunately, she remarked later, because otherwise ahe would never have lived it down on Fleet Street (times have changed...).
With one exception: inevitably, her notorious piece about Sluts (think of it as How not to be a domestic goddess). Certainly I recognise myself in the comment "But sluts are good at using memory as a substitute for tidiness - though I absolutely deny that I ever said (as friends allege): 'If you're looking for the tax forms, they're under your slippers in the salad-bowl.'"
Her Cooking in a Bedsitter, which I treasure for its style more than for its usefulness, lists under essential kitchen equipment:
It includes a recipe for 'Toucan Mush' (a can of tomatoes, a can of broad beans).
Available in the UK only, Katharine Whitehorn's Private Passions (choice of music and biographical chat).
Found while looking for more KW, the John Bright Collection: collection of historic costume belonging to "award-winning costume designer John Bright" (who?). I want this Liberty cloak.
With one exception: inevitably, her notorious piece about Sluts (think of it as How not to be a domestic goddess). Certainly I recognise myself in the comment "But sluts are good at using memory as a substitute for tidiness - though I absolutely deny that I ever said (as friends allege): 'If you're looking for the tax forms, they're under your slippers in the salad-bowl.'"
Her Cooking in a Bedsitter, which I treasure for its style more than for its usefulness, lists under essential kitchen equipment:
NEWSPAPER You cannot do without it. It is your work-surface, your floor-covering, your splash-mat round the gas ring itselg; it is the only way you can stop the coffee grounds fallong through the slats of a wicker waste basket, and the neatest way to bundle up the debris for getting it out of the room. The nicer your room, the more newspaper you must spread around.
It includes a recipe for 'Toucan Mush' (a can of tomatoes, a can of broad beans).
Available in the UK only, Katharine Whitehorn's Private Passions (choice of music and biographical chat).
Found while looking for more KW, the John Bright Collection: collection of historic costume belonging to "award-winning costume designer John Bright" (who?). I want this Liberty cloak.
Quilts for cold nights
Dec. 3rd, 2020 04:48 pmAnother link from the Guardian: the quitmakers of Gee's Bend. Geometrical pieced quilts claimed as art: the article promotes an exhibition in London, anf of vourse nothing compares to seeing the thing itself, but failing that, there's an excellent next-best on the website of Souls Grown Deep.
Don't hang up
Nov. 21st, 2020 04:21 pmVia the Guardian, a project called Crossed Lines "explores the ways that the telephone has been conceived by writers from the 19th century to the present day". Some of the material goes beyond the capacity of my phone: Dial-a-Poem requires me to download an app, which my dumbphone will not do (and then presumably to listen to a poem over the phone, which isn't my preferred means of delivery). However:
I've been enjoying browsing the Online Exhibition, a crowdsourced selection of literary references to telephones: a bit of Good Omens here, a Robert Frost poem there, plenty of good stuff ...
The gallery is still open to contributions. Naturally, as soon as I start to think about it, my mind goes blank. All I have right now is the Bob Newhart monologue in which Walter Raleigh, at the far end of the phone, attempts to describe the riches of the New World (video or text): the telephone as a means of not communicating.
ETA: Likewise, Alan Bennet sends a telegramme -
I've been enjoying browsing the Online Exhibition, a crowdsourced selection of literary references to telephones: a bit of Good Omens here, a Robert Frost poem there, plenty of good stuff ...
The gallery is still open to contributions. Naturally, as soon as I start to think about it, my mind goes blank. All I have right now is the Bob Newhart monologue in which Walter Raleigh, at the far end of the phone, attempts to describe the riches of the New World (video or text): the telephone as a means of not communicating.
You can take the girl out of Essex
Oct. 5th, 2020 02:21 pmI'm not an Essex girl (I was born in London), but I lived in the county as a child, and I went ti school there. This was a significant enough part of my life that as the stereotype of the Essex girl emerged, I felt I could claim that I was one.
So I enjoyed reading what Sarah Perry had to say about Essex girls in Saturday's Guardian. I'm not sure I want to read a whole book on the subject, but maybe I should try one of her other books ...
So I enjoyed reading what Sarah Perry had to say about Essex girls in Saturday's Guardian. I'm not sure I want to read a whole book on the subject, but maybe I should try one of her other books ...
Eavesdropping on the critics
Sep. 27th, 2020 06:06 pmEwan McColl's Critics Group is the stuff of legend. McColl responded to the folk revival of the 1950s and 60s by taking the music seriously, and trying to ensure that people did it right - whatever "right" might be. This much I knew, but I didn't know that Charles Parker - yes, the Radio Ballads' Charles Parker - was a member. And he kept the tape recorder running.
All the news that's fit ...
Apr. 30th, 2020 01:07 pmIn normal times - the old normal, which may never be normal again - I barely dip into the news section of the paper, getting my news from the radio, aI can take nd referring to the paper only when I want to know more. These days, though, I can take only so much of the radio news, with its passion for the daily briefing from Downing Street, and I'm spending more time reading the paper, where I can skim or linger as I please. From Saturday's Guardian - the 'news' section alone - I liked:
- a report that the Natural History Museum has acquired the notebooks of George Murray Levick, member of Scott's Antarctic expedition and observer of penguin behaviour, which so shocked him that he used the Greek alphabet to record it: I don't know whose sensibilities he was shielding here. Also his photographs of penguins. I'm always disconcerted by the way the era of photography overlaps with the era of people drawing on a classical education to write down the unspeakable. Also the heroic devotion with which explorers deployed unweildy photographic equipment. The NHM shamelessly reproduces a page of this penguin porn in its version of the story.
- There are other ways of running a travel business: An interview with John and Irene Hays of Hays Travel, who rescued Thomas Cook from administration only to see the entire world go into lockdown. The couple who own the business have put themselves on the national minimum wage:
"We said we’d work for nothing and then our payroll said they’d have to make us redundant in that case, so we changed our minds," said John.
Richard Branson please note. - Virtual Amsterdam: links to explore ...
- Department of second thoughts: I'm disappointed that the headline which appeared in the dead-tree edition as "I overcame my fear of bears by feeling the Earth beneath my feet" has been revised for the online edition. The article doesn't mention not stepping on the cracks ...
Lifting the lid
Apr. 18th, 2020 10:41 amAlmost a month ago, I posted about the daily photos sent out by the Head Gardener of the Botanic Gardens. Today's picture comes with a note:
You get a better class of infestation at the Botanic Gardens -
That's Day 31. 31 days, a whole month.
We have been topping the bird feeders up daily, much to the satisfaction of our resident pheasant and ducks.
A while ago now I lifted the lid on the metal storage bin where we keep the seed, so the other picture I am sending you is of something which managed to lift the lid on the food store then jump inside to grab a bite to eat. The lid fell shut on it, so it was not released until I opened the lid on the store the next morning, but it was fast asleep so there was time to take a pic...
You get a better class of infestation at the Botanic Gardens -
That's Day 31. 31 days, a whole month.
Decoy penguins
Apr. 17th, 2020 04:47 pmInteresting article with some wonderful pictures.
Something similar's been done before, with puffins. I could spend all evening looking for the story I half remember, and being distracted: Manx puffins! (I know, I know), decoys from the Audubon Society (available in a wide variety of species) or - just what we need right now! - make your own puffin facemask.
Something similar's been done before, with puffins. I could spend all evening looking for the story I half remember, and being distracted: Manx puffins! (I know, I know), decoys from the Audubon Society (available in a wide variety of species) or - just what we need right now! - make your own puffin facemask.
Finding consolations where we can -
Apr. 10th, 2020 12:25 pmFive things make me feel better:
- Sometimes when things are out of stock, you just have to make do. Ocado didn't have my preferred olive margarine / spread, so I increased my butter order. This morning we buttered our hot cross buns - and there was mirabelle jam, also supplied by Ocado (though I recognise the 'Reflets de France' brand from French supermarkets). Breakfast, best meal of the day ...
- I have telephoned an order to Broom House Farm, which was as stressful as I anticipated. I have ordered meat and a lemon drizzle cake, and it's all necessary supplies, but you can't browse when every item involves asking a very stressed person do you have any ... I had anticipated the worst of both worlds, whereby I order by phone and still have to collect, but another customer from our street will be collecting tomorrow, and will have their arm twisted to deliver for us, too (I didn't recognise the name, but do know their next-door neighbour). And maybe another time, you could deliver for them? asked Jane Grey. Good plan ...
- Neanderthal string (with thanks to
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
poliphilo for the pointer). There are plenty of small objects with holes in them, which is evidence of their being hung from some sort of cord, but that could be leather or animal sinews: now archaeologists have found some actual, twisted from vegetable fibres, string. - The pandas at Hong Kong zoo are enjoying being left in peace.
- When you're lost in the rain in Juarez, And it's Eastertime too ... The Guardian ranks Dylan's 50 best songs in order - and that isn't even one of them. Some surprising decisions, and not just because they have placed songs I don't know above those I do. All together now:
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east
Any day now, any day now ...
Stockpiling
Apr. 7th, 2020 03:53 pmYesterday morning I placed an order with the greengrocer; last night I found my way onto the Ocado website, and placed an order with them. Both will deliver today. As with the previous Ocado order, I was getting anxious at reports about long delays before supplies could be delivered, and then was wrong-footed by the fact that the only deliveries offered were 'next day'. I was tempted to abandon the order, but who knows whether I'll ever get back to the site? Nonetheless, I ordered smaller quantities, and was pickier about substituting for unavailable items, than if I were shopping for a more distant future. Then there are the conflicting reuests not to shop too often, and not to buy too much at one time. Stock up, but don't stockpile ...
steepholm identified this phenomenon as an emotive conjugation (something whose name I had not previously known), and in comments, I tweaked her formulation: I plan ahead; you stockpile; they panic buy. And a degree of snarkiness is justified; inevitably, we are gentler to our own failings than other people's. But it's true, too, that there are no right answers here, only at best an uneasy balance. Bee Wilson, in a very interesring Long Read in the Guardian offers the sequence: He panic buys. You stock up. I tirelessly provide food for my family, She argues, among other things, that if we obey the advice to shop less frequently, or to buy on behalf of vulnerable neighbiours, we inevitably buy more than usual, and that this is enough to disrupt the supermarkets' just-in-time supply chain. (And the moral of this is, support your local shops.)
The one thing I do admit to stockpiling is books. If I see a book that I want, I don't pause to consider whether I already have enough books (enough books? these words do not make sense). Other people, I know, have To Be Read piles: the secondhand bookseller at the market, reducing the price of a water-damaged novel (by Clive James) advised me to add it to the bottom of the pile, and this would be sound advice if it didn't involve tunneling into cardboard boxes, a whole wall of cardboard boxes ... These are strange days, and for once I can feel good about the book mountain. I open a box at random, and pull out something of which I have no recollection, but which looks rather good -
( Why is Janice Elliott not better known? )
( Paris in the springtime )
( I may be some time... )
steepholm identified this phenomenon as an emotive conjugation (something whose name I had not previously known), and in comments, I tweaked her formulation: I plan ahead; you stockpile; they panic buy. And a degree of snarkiness is justified; inevitably, we are gentler to our own failings than other people's. But it's true, too, that there are no right answers here, only at best an uneasy balance. Bee Wilson, in a very interesring Long Read in the Guardian offers the sequence: He panic buys. You stock up. I tirelessly provide food for my family, She argues, among other things, that if we obey the advice to shop less frequently, or to buy on behalf of vulnerable neighbiours, we inevitably buy more than usual, and that this is enough to disrupt the supermarkets' just-in-time supply chain. (And the moral of this is, support your local shops.)The one thing I do admit to stockpiling is books. If I see a book that I want, I don't pause to consider whether I already have enough books (enough books? these words do not make sense). Other people, I know, have To Be Read piles: the secondhand bookseller at the market, reducing the price of a water-damaged novel (by Clive James) advised me to add it to the bottom of the pile, and this would be sound advice if it didn't involve tunneling into cardboard boxes, a whole wall of cardboard boxes ... These are strange days, and for once I can feel good about the book mountain. I open a box at random, and pull out something of which I have no recollection, but which looks rather good -
( Why is Janice Elliott not better known? )
( Paris in the springtime )
( I may be some time... )
Just like the old days on Heimaey
Mar. 23rd, 2020 05:10 pmThe Guardian reports from New Zealand, ehere volunteers are rescuing Hutton's shearwater fledglings which have crash-landed on the roads. Click the link for a not-to-be-missed picture of a Hutton's shearwater chick in a bucket.
More about Hutton's shearwater (puffinus Huttonl) and the Hutton's Shearwater Charitable Trust.
It's very reminiscent of the puffling rescue squads of the Westman Islands, down to this detail: "Experts think the fledgling chicks in Kaikoura are confusing black, shiny bitumen for the surface of the ocean on their first journeys out of their nest, especially on foggy, moonless nights." I'm sure I've heard the same explanation from the Westman Islands, where it may have been the supermarket car park causing the confusion.
The news of Iceland's pufflings is better than expected, too.
More about Hutton's shearwater (puffinus Huttonl) and the Hutton's Shearwater Charitable Trust.
It's very reminiscent of the puffling rescue squads of the Westman Islands, down to this detail: "Experts think the fledgling chicks in Kaikoura are confusing black, shiny bitumen for the surface of the ocean on their first journeys out of their nest, especially on foggy, moonless nights." I'm sure I've heard the same explanation from the Westman Islands, where it may have been the supermarket car park causing the confusion.
The news of Iceland's pufflings is better than expected, too.
Books on the streets and underground
Oct. 8th, 2019 12:22 pmThere's some fine street art on this walking tour of Boulogne-sur-Mer (which I don't think was there last time I was in Boulogne, whenever that was): the text is in French, but there are plenty of pictures. I particularly liked the gable end transformed into a bookcase by Dutch artist Jan is De Man - a serial bookcaser, evidently, since his portfolio also shows one in Utrecht. (See, I knew we hadn't seen all Utrecht had to show us).
Meanwhile, In the Book have made a Literary Tube Map of London: that is, they have removed the station names and replaced them with the titles of books set in the vicinity. Think of it as a Work in Progress rather than a finished project: the real fun is to be had in filling in the gaps. There are some fun items: I liked The Canterbury Tales in Southwark, and Mary Poppins at St Paul's. But no Neverwhere, no Rivers of London? Must try harder...
Meanwhile, In the Book have made a Literary Tube Map of London: that is, they have removed the station names and replaced them with the titles of books set in the vicinity. Think of it as a Work in Progress rather than a finished project: the real fun is to be had in filling in the gaps. There are some fun items: I liked The Canterbury Tales in Southwark, and Mary Poppins at St Paul's. But no Neverwhere, no Rivers of London? Must try harder...
Five things make a tidy desktop
Jun. 27th, 2019 09:04 pm- well, tidier, I hope, by the closing of some tabs...
- The Guardian reviews an exhibition of linocuts at the Dulwich Picture Gallery (here's the gallery's own publicity). It looks wonderful, but is only on through the simmer, so there's no way I'll get there...
- There's a 'cutting edge' theme going on at Dulwich (their lone, not mine): looking for that exhibition, I also found Nahoko Kojima's 'Sumi', a paper-cut crocodile - I was going to say 'a gigantic paper-cut crocodile', but perhaps that's just how big crocodiles are. What do I know, I took it for a dragon at first. More (and better) pictures on the artist's website, not to mention the eagle, the blue whale and the honeycomb.
- Someone has translated the Bible into Polari:
"And Gloria cackled, Let there be sparkle: and there was sparkle.
And Gloria vardad the sparkle, that it was bona: ..." - I expect everyone but me already knew about the Yiddish Book Center? I picked up Aaron Lansky's Outwitting History in the Amnesty bookshop, curious about the title, and then intrigued by the extension title "How a Young Man Rescued a Million Books and Saved a Vanishing Civilisation". This made the enterprise sound quixotic, with all that t6hat word implies of 'quirky', 'irresistible' and 'doomed'. THat's the flavour of the narrative, too: it's very personal, lively and just a little too slick (anecdotes and conversations of twenty years ago are given in too much detail to be absolutely believable). It took a while to dawn on me that this student stunt was turning into a serious enterprise - and then, well, how could I not already have heard of this?
- Real collectors can't turn down a tempting donation: they have a collection of Yiddish typewriters.
