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[08 Jul 2009|12:50pm] |
I agree with everyone that Torchwood is being strangely good.
(My main thought yesterday- other than hard hat awww and yes, hit that car, estate youths! was OMG NO THE ARCHIVES!!!.)
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[01 Jul 2009|02:49pm] |
Um, book post tomorrow, when I've checked what I read at the weekend...
My teeny bookswapping efforts with someone at work are going well- she liked The Changeover (Mahy, not Jones) and has just lent me an early De Lint.
Had a smashing weekend; a steam train on the mainline, whizzing along at 60 (and scaring sheep and horses and herons who regard diesel trains with scorn), also, a lovely walk on the moor including through an abandoned quarry with huge rocks scattered around, all mysterious in the slight mist (which also kept the temperature down), and bilberries ripe all around the paths, and a peaty stream to balance across on rocks (and Nick Park asked H. to take a photo of him with his family.) And there was a garden centre where I finally got a castor-oil plant for the garden (also a lavatera, some lobelia, a scarlet pink, a campanula, a blue clematis, a lavendar, a cat-scarer and a big bag of manure. But no alyssum, because I had one plant that had actually survived from the seeds I planted earlier, and some little bastard dug it all up last night. Did I mention I got a cat-scarer?) and a kitchen shop with half-price knives, and food.
(Speaking of food, there was a do at lunchtime in our building, and the leftover food just turned up in the staff-room. Profiteroles! Free salmon for supper! There must have been some external bods there, that's all I can say. Oh, yes, and my response on being told of said profiteroles revealed to me that my active vocabulary includes the ejaculation "Heavens to Betsey". Live and learn.)
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[22 Jun 2009|03:17pm] |
Somebody's put a recipe for SLUG DEATH in our staff room (crush 1 head garlic, boil in 1 pint water 4 mins, strain, dilute 1 tbsp in 1 gal water, spray on affected plants, since you ask). Someone has then written MURDERERS! on it. (Possibly our vegan contingent, who have a sense of humour.)
Anyway, what would the Discworld Death of Slugs look like? A heap of salt? A skeletal blackbird?
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[22 Jun 2009|01:28pm] |
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I know descriptions of dreams are dull, but, really, after a day of going to the shops and scrubbing a wall, what was there in my subconscious that led to "escaping through South American jungles with a woman who could knit bridges as we went along" and "reluctantly arresting two Elizabethan poets for sodomy"? I mean, not that they weren't intriguing. (I'm a bit cross that I dreamt one of the poets had some MS circulating, but didn't actually get to read any of them.)
Also, Top Gear may be slipping over into self-parody. This is not a complaint. (I love the way that descriptions of bits of it can sound like dreams themselves. It was amusing when the bacon flew up the funnel of the steam train, for example.)
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| Chalet School |
[15 Jun 2009|09:42am] |
Hello folks,
does anybody know where there's any Chalet School fanfic? ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) googlebrat's interested.
I know there's a childlit mailing list that has quite a few Chalet School fans on it, but can't remember the details; lady_schrapnell, do you have sekrit knowledge of where there might be any other fans, or am I misremembering?
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[10 Jun 2009|01:13pm] |
Well, series 2 of Star Trek is thoroughly fun so far, I have to say (Amok Time and Mourn for Adonais); I keep snidely muttering things at the screen, like "'It 'im again!" and ( slight spoiler ) and "Artemis would not have been seen dead in a gown like that, actually... Oh, my god, it's utterly backless. Held on by Ancient Greek Boob Tape, I assume," and "Wow, I hope that's due to mind-control, because otherwise she should not have got through Starfleet's psych screening".
(I have seen the odd episode of this before, of course, but not watched them deliberately. General impressions so far: Kirk is a prat, Chekov is sweet, Uhura has more to do than I thought (soldering together a whole new type of comms relay FTW) and is cool, as are Sulu and McCoy, other wimmin are ditzy, the remastering was pretty stupid- replacing not-very-good dated model shots with not-very-good anachronistic CGI doesn't add anything- and altogether it's both mockable and enjoyable for its own self.)
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[09 Jun 2009|03:47pm] |
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Good Omens flatpack fic!
Saw Singin' In The Rain on stage on Friday; very good (liked the "cut the 11-minute ballet, substitute a song for Lina" decision), also prompted me to watch several musicals over the weekend, and to see what else Donald O'Connor was in, anyway, which was quite a lot of things, so I should get hold of some of them probably (his IMDb page says he had to have three days in bed after shooting the Make 'Em Laugh sequence, which makes my slightly achy calves from last week look a bit pathetic.) I would quite like to see some Don/Cosmo or Don/Kathy/Cosmo.
And! My delayed Amazon package has arrived, so I have birthday presents for young relatives, and also some Star Trek:TOS.
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| Emily Davies died for me |
[04 Jun 2009|12:21pm] |
My polling station's lovely! 5 minutes walk from my house, only slightly out of the way from the walk to the station, and has a nice garden (it's a community centre rather than a school)- I note their foxgloves are well out whereas mine's still just leaves. Are foxgloves biennial?
Also, polling station was completely deserted apart from the poll workers- has *anybody* been canvassed this time? Or do they usually not bother for the Euro elections?
I'm always amused by the way you have to produce proof of address and ID to join the library or set up a bank account or whatever, but to vote you just wander up and they hand you the paper...
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[03 Jun 2009|03:33pm] |
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Saw the His Dark Materials production that was sold out at the National a few years ago (well, the touring version, which has less staging FX, apparently); pleased to have finally seen it, well acted, the daemons worked spectacularly well (the polar bears even better), compressing three books into two plays makes the first half very full of characters and plot, (even with Mary Malone and Lee Scoresby's subplots left out) but the second half had more air, the ending felt more satisfying than in the books but a bit confusing, and I've talked about it so much with the people I saw it with that I'm sort of out of opinions. We all enjoyed it, though. (And I may reread to get some of the setting and atmosphere that you can't convey with just a stage and a few props.)
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[28 May 2009|12:16pm] |
Trek film parody that made co-worker ask anxiously if I was choking.
(Sadly quotes would mostly be spoilers, but:
KIRK: Who is that pointy-eared bastard, and why are his eyebrows smirking at me?
MCCOY: I dunno but, baby, I like a Vulcan with spirit. Rawr.
...
UHURA: You know my qualifications. MA in advanced linguistics. PhD in badass.
...
SPOCK: Sigh. Now I must render you unconscious with a single blow. How tedious.)
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[28 May 2009|11:21am] |
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My local library is quite big, but has lots of computers and study tables and DVDs and magazines and stuff and not many, you know, books; I borrow one or two a week. I finally got to the central library after work yesterday and it was bliss, I'd almost forgotten what it was like to wander round assembling an unwieldy pile as high as your arms can carry, and still know you can go back another time... getting them home was less fun, of course. )
The bridge I walk under to get to the station has joined the illustrious list of bridges-with-a-grudge;( Cut for homophobic insults ) I think the viciousness coupled with poor spelling make it a rather interesting example. (Also, the name happens to make it a rhyming couplet.) Anyway, how nice to think I'll be seeing it every day until the paint fades, eh?
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[20 May 2009|12:33pm] |
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I've been idly thinking of getting a USB hub; went to a work event yesterday and won one. So that was nice.
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[18 May 2009|10:15am] |
Enjoyed the Trek film, with only one "Yeah, right" moment (that's an... interesting... top predator for an ice planet, mate), and now want to read lots of stuff taking it to bits- I was slightly spoiled (by a Who-crossover fanfic!) but hadn't read much beforehand, and could do with some juicy criticism now. I know about the thread on Making Light, obviously, anybody got any other good links?
ETA:
One.
Another.
Oh, yes! And Eurovision. Norton wasn't bad, was he? Quite liked Portugal. Ours was OK, vaguely pleased with ending up in the top ten. Only one authentically Eurovision moment of cringing back in the chair going "What? What? What is he wearing? What are they doing? Eurgh! ... What?", which was Greece's Man With Loose White Shirt And Tight White Trousers Of Loathsomeness. A fun evening, anyway.
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[13 May 2009|02:03pm] |
Saw The Producers yesterday, which was a well-done production but not quite as much fun as the London one a few years ago with Reece Shearsmith as Leo- I nearly forgot to go, though, as it hadn't gone in my diary- J. emailed me to ask where we were meeting, so I dashed over and only realised what it was we were seeing when I saw the posters outside the theatre! Very much oops. I think everything else I'm actually booked for is in the diary... but I don't get offended by reminders.
(I come across as quite together and capable at work, I think. Beter to confine ditziness to one's personal life, I guess, but it would be nice not to commit twerpitude at all.)
Also, I adore the special features on Absolutely that basically consist of them getting drunk and taking the piss out of each other. I think more DVDs should feature this.
ETA: Also I wish they'd done a commentary on S3ep4, because The Bloomsbury Group sketch and the wedding video sketch are two of the best sketches I've ever seen in anything and I'd really like to have heard them talking about them. (In fact I think the wedding video version of You Were Always On My Mind may edge out the Pet Shop Boys' one for my utter favourite one. SO CREEPY.)
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[05 May 2009|01:38pm] |
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Mushnik And Son, Little Shop Of Horrors |
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Finally got to see Little Shop Of Horrors (the stage version)- it was massive fun, from the Thriller-esque opening to the final alien invasion. Sylvester McCoy was in it! Which was a nice surprise, and meant a New York Jewish character with a distinct Scots twang :-)
It's slightly spoiled me for watching the filmed version, of course, as this one is ruder, wittier and has a more morally correct ending.
Have finally cracked and ordered Beauty And The Beast because Menken and Ashman did the songs. (They also did Little Mermaid, but I'm not so mad about the storyline in that one.) So soon I will be able to revel again in the sheer ridiculousness of the transformation scene at the end, where the Beast gets the looks of quite an ugly Greek statue.
Also saw E., which is always nice, we chatted about a lot of stuff- her band has a new album out and her first PhD students are through; what it is to be multi-talented... and while wandering around the town, kept on bumping in to bits of a Spanish festival thing, notably a whole lot of bell-jangling dancers (the priest and the minotaur who popped in to Boots were quite amusing.)
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[01 May 2009|10:58am] |
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Got caught up in a flurry of pink cherry petals on my way to work. Which was nice.
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[30 Apr 2009|06:39pm] |
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Ha ha. I have in the fridge: cold sausages, cheese, an avocado, a lime, tomatoes, yellow pepper, lettuce and corn tortillas. I'm going to have such a nice supper and y'all can't stop me!
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