I do not belong to that school of thought which says in the face of extreme horror, suffered by others, one should be silent. On the contrary I believe that all the forces of imagination should be employed to speak of their suffering.
Watching any pasta shape being extruded, be that through a small domestic machine or a vast industrial one, is hypnotic. Short shapes are particularly mesmerising, because the dough - made from durum wheat flour and water - emerges at speed from the bronze or Teflon-coated die, and is then chopped to size by a rotating blade. And then there are fusilli, whose helix form is created by an ingenious die that was invented and perfected in the early 1900s. Fusilli twist their way into being, the Syd Barrett of pasta shapes, emerging from the die in a psychedelic spiral.Rachel Roddy, Guardian Feast, 30.03.2024
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durham_rambler wanted, and when he bought it, they offered him free postage and a trial month of Amazon Prime. Which we used, of course, to watch Good Omens.With today's concerns about diversity and inclusion, it's wonderful to have a sponge, a starfish and a squirrel be best friends.Tara Overfield Wilkinson, The Guardian
First the sky, then the mountains, then the hills, then the trees, then the houses, then the cattle and then the people.
[...] have many such examples, and one amongst the rest of a baker in Ferrara that thought he was composed of butter, and durst not sit in the sun, or come near the fire for fear of being melted:
Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy
"I don't have happy endings," Briggs [allegedly] told the Radio Times in 2012. "I create what seems natural and inevitable. The snowman melts, my parents died, animals die, flowers die. Everything does. There's nothing particularly gloomy about it. It's a fact of life."
I want to be very clear. None of my books has "turned" young people into lesbians, gay men, bi people or trans folk. If books had that power, I would stand before you a very hungry caterpillar.Juno Dawson, The Guardian
Late capitalism is like arguing with a teenager. Its gambit on matters of fairness and dignity is "Why should I?" and its logical endpoint is "robots".
Zoe Williams, The Guardian
The Government went Poop-poop-poop,
As it raced along the road.
Who was it steered it over the cliff?
"Piffle-paffle, Toady is a great patriot!," scoffs Boris Johnson. "I met him at a motor show where he clearly indicated to me that he hopes Britain grabs back the power to self-determine. You simply can't be giving in, he told me, to these weasels."
The ultimate salad cheese is feta, not parmesan; parmesan works with everything, whereas feta is like an awkward adolescent that keeps falling out with everyone, until it finally finds a youth club (cucumbers) where it can really be itself.
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!
There are so many ... But if I wanted to live in a world that was full of strangeness and delight, of fear as well as reassurance, of both transience and permanence, I’d hope to find myself among Tove Jansson's Moomins.The Author, Summer 2019
The God of Quiz has eaten his own young, and we will now all scrabble in his droppings for formats. Praise be to the posed question, to which the answer may or may not be known, for by his grace may our endless evenings be marginally foreshortened.
Victoria Coren Mitchell, closing remarks, Only Connect special, first broadcast 25.12.18
weegoddess formerly of this parish, over from the States and catching up with Durham friends. They are the least demanding of guests, requiring neither feeding nor entertaining: a bed, a front-door key and plenty of wifi, and they are satisfied, but we have had talking to catch up with...weegoddess, who is a well brought up wee goddess, has sent me a bread-and-butter letter, with a link to an NYT article about the fall in puffin numbers in Iceland. She writes: "[potential trigger warning: article is a bit sad and shows photos of hunted puffins]" which is true, but the sadness is not news, and the photos - not to mention the videos - are wonderful.durham_rambler thought there was more fiction in his study, hidden by some large empty boxes which might come in useful sometime, stashed there by an enthusiastic builder ahead of the great renovation. He was right, and I have found, and shelved, two more boxes of fiction and biography, including a signed copy of The Little Stranger. The mysterious gaps on the new shelves in the spare bedroom are much reduced. In addition to the boxes emptied in this way, we have disposed of the boxes they were hiding behind; it is now possible to reach the window in durham_rambler's study.There is great pleasure to be had in lying down outside. On a sun-drenched beach or a cold Shetland hillside, wrapped up warm or in shorts and a T-shirt, a doze in the open air is rarely a bad idea. Wild sleeping is as rejuvenating an activity as wild swimming, and it has the major benefit of being a lot less wet.
Nothing like the act of eating for equalising men. Dying is nothing to it. The philosopher dies sententiously - the pharisee ostentatiously - the simple-hearted humbly - the poor idiot blindly, as the sparrow falls to the ground; the philosopher and idiot, publican and pharisee, all eat after the same fashion - given an equally good digestion.
Mrs Gaskell, North and South
Last summer I walked in a field near Avebury where two rough monoliths stand up, sixteen feet high ... A mile away, a green pyramid casts a gigantic shadow. In the hedge at hand, the white trumpet of a convolvulus turns from its spiral stem, following the sun. In my art I would solve such an equation.
timeasmymeasure
