News from Nowhere

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

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

[...] 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 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

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.

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

1. The Launderette Sessions continued: Martin Simpson at the Gala Theatre was also excellent, if not quite as intimate as Nancy Kerr at the Launderette. That said, the theatre isn't huge, and it wasn't sold out (inexplicable but true), so there was quite a cosy atmosphere, and the Mighty Simpson Merchandising Empire consisted of Martin himself selling CDs, so we did get to chat a little after the show. Perhaps this low-key mood explains something very unusual about the performance: he did a request. I've seen him decline to play requests in the past, and I have a whole theory about his slowly evolving repertoire to explain why things that are not currently being kept fresh and practised for performance are just not going to be performed - but on Friday we had, by request and with some apology, a 'let's see if I can remember this' version of One More Day / Boots of Spanish Leather, and it was absolutely wonderful. Balancing that old favourite with something completely new, not quite bedded in to the repertoire, Kate McGarrigle's Talk to Me of Mendocino: the accompaniment was all Martin Simpson, but I kept hearing Kate's voice behind his vocals.



2. It has taken me until now to write about this, because we have had house guests: J and 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...



3. They have now moved on to London, and 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.



4. We disposed of several large cardboard boxes. This wasn't entirely motivated by the imminence of visitors, but it wasn't entirely unrelated, either. When I went booked some tickets for the Book Festival, the young man at the box office offered me a copy of the festival's joint read, Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger, and I accepted, because it's a while since I read any Sarah Waters, and I've enjoyed what I've read. I didn't look too closely, as I was in the middle of reading something else, so it was only later, reading a piece in the paper about the new film adaptation that I realised that I had read this book. Did I own a copy? Librarything said yes, but it wasn't on the shelves... 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.



5. Quotation of the day: Zoe Williams reports on procedural discussions at the Labour Party conference: "I'm told one memorable point of the meeting was Keir Starmer saying: 'Right, now we have to agree what we mean by 'consensus'.'" I have been there, done that...

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

• Intrigued by remarks on my friends' page, and elsewhere, we tracked down Jeremy Corbyn's appearance on The One Show. Which was fine, but not as interesting as a short film from the European Stone Stacking Championship (don't miss the picture gallery).
  
  
  Watch on YouTube



• We spent last Saturday at Wonderlands, a perfect mini comics / graphic novels con. Went to several panels, wandered round the hall, talked to lots of people, had a great time - there ought to be more to say about it, but no. Take the title of this post as an indication of my esteem. And have a quote from Martin Rowson, on the primacy of drawing: "Writing is just a by-product of accountancy."



• It was at Wonderlands that Mel Gibson told us about her late father, Jeff Johnson: I hadn't heard of him, or seen his work, but I rather like the painting reproduced in that obituary.



• On Saturday evening we went to The Dragon and the Bone Queen, half performance, half illustrated lecture based on the work of Records of Early English Drama North-East: there was a procession led by the Boy Bishop (Durham always has to be different, and marked Whitsuntide with not one but two Boy Bishops, one for Durham itself and one for Elvet), there was music, both singing and instrumental, there was a dragon, there was the Dance of Death, as represented by the Bone Queen and her attendants:
  
  
  



• It was a beautiful evening, as you can see from the light flooding in through the window and fogging the photo. We walked home from the Music School by the scenic route, and admired the evening light on the Cathedral, not to mention the moon...