- Thu, 21:41: My inadvertent mystery tour of Greater Leys is slightly improved by intermittent glimpses of the beautiful crescent moon. #wrongbus
- Wed, 18:04: RT @giles_fraser: Chicago Airport. Any country that has a whole shelf of Ayn Rand at the airport bookshop has a real problem with morality.
- Sat, 15:51: @Juggzy Surely everyone knows plump people objecting to fat jokes are humourless - like mixed-race people complaining re racism. Lighten up!
- Thu, 19:47: Lord Lamont on R4 this am suggested deregulation could improve growth. What d'you think caused this crisis? Can you spell 'twonk', m'lord?
- Fri, 10:40: Very pleased that one of the words in little A's very limited active vocabulary is 'book'. But not surprised :)
- Wed, 20:37: RT @giles_fraser: Prob with C of E on gay issue is not so much that it doesn't practice what it preaches but that it doesn't preach what ...
- Tue, 17:39: RT @giles_fraser: If u can have synchronised swimming at the Olympics, then why not Morris dancing?
- Tue, 17:42: Unwanted election leaflet through the door turned out to be urging me to vote Tory; missed the chance to give them it straight back. Damn.
- Wed, 07:45: The Graun says Call-Me-Dave's been abroad 42 times in less than 2 years. P'raps next time he could save us all the cost of his return fare?
- Fri, 18:22: Bought a nice bag from the Moroccan market today: coming back in, the front room smells of the tannery. Oops.
This old-ish photo of mine got a few views on flickr today and, when I looked to see what had led someone to it, I found that they had in fact been searching flickr for famous porn star. I re-read my caption and tags with attentive surprise and found that all of those words are indeed there. So I can see how their search produced that result; what I don't get is how come, if they were searching for 'famous porn star', they clicked through on a thumbnail of the above — unless they were misled by the vegetable in the middle. Maybe they were just as surprised by the result as I was, only in reverse...
We just spent a week with my family in Tenerife, to celebrate my dad's 80th birthday. It had its ups and downs, as these things do: my mum is getting increasingly sharp and irritable, and begins to come across as old in a way that my dad still doesn't.
Anyway: this entry is a stub — just in case I don't ever get round to more of a write-up, I wanted to set down that on our last night there little A noticed the stars for the first time. Well, strictly speaking, a couple of planets, actually: the night skies were pretty clear, and Venus and Jupiter were very bright, one above the other, at about supper-time. I took little A out onto the terrace to look at the stars, and she quite clearly pointed up at Venus. (Till now, I'm not really sure that she's even noticed the moon!)
<End proud-parental gushing>
But it's not really gushing: I just wanted to record it somewhere as a journal entry, so that I remember.
- Tue, 19:48: RT @giles_fraser: Someone just asked me my star sign. But I don't believe in star signs - probably because I am a Sagittarius and natura ...
But that's not the point. No, the point is that Downy Duckling is a weird little tale, especially the bit where the eponymous Downy is nearly left by all his friends and family to drown under the ice of the frozen river. (Spoiler: he survives.) And the illustrations (by A J Macgregor, possibly still in copyright) are even weirder. Specifically, it's the partially-anthropomorphized mice that get me: AFAIK these pictures didn't scar me as a child, but y'know, I'm kind of wondering how come they didn't?
It's undated, and has no ISBN, but it turns out to have been privately published in 1953 by and for The Universities Federation for Animal Welfare. It's a compilation, by the mediævalist Rosalind Hill, of various odd little snippets about the relationships between people and animals, all culled from history and hagiography, and beautifully illustrated by the cartoonist Fougasse. ( Actually, it's the charming line drawings that really attracted me to it... )
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jinty) did our household budget, and worked out just how slender our monthly underspend is, I convinced myself that I could afford one of these, and I've been trying it out.Sensible results are now going up on flickr, but before I got that far I did take one or two trial shots in and around the house. One of the kitchen looked as if, suitably cropped and/or de-fisheyed, it could reasonably go into an estate agent's brochure — I mean, who could resist a kitchen ( like this... )
- Fri, 19:32: Little A is clearly destined for geekdom, given the evident relish with which she is tucking into yesterday's cold pizza.
Aphra at her Nursery Christmas party — which is what we sent round by email in lieu of Christmas cards. And now, 2011 in review (warning for arachnophobes — avoid July!):
( That was the year that was. )
Via Flickr:
We went up to South Park today, and little A played in the fallen Autumn leaves for the first time: last year she'd have been only a few months old at this time of year, but now she's big enough to take an interest. While I was taking these photos a passing teenage boy in a Cheney uniform spontaneously commented that she had "got to be one of the cutest babies" he'd ever seen!
See where this picture was taken. [?]
- Thu, 20:07: Email from Schools Minister trying to reassure teachers re pensions: Thunderbird thinks this message might be an email scam. Go Thunderbird!
- Fri, 11:21: Taking photos of little A playing in Autumn leaves: a passing teenage boy said she had to be one of the cutest babies he'd ever seen. Aww.
- Fri, 11:23: Last Autumn she wasn't really old enough to appreciate them...
- Wed, 17:30: War is peace! Freedom is slavery! Making it easier to sack people will somehow cure rising unemployment! #toriesareungood
- Вт, 18:44: "Little widdershins hamster girl!" #infiniteuseoffiniteresources
- Ср, 08:00: Just when I thought it couldn't possibly, my faith in the unregulated market hits a new all-time low - http://t.co/GhwZs8xY
- Ср, 08:02: ...Because Peter Grossman's worth it. #vulturecapitalist
