smallbeasts

Dear Mr BBC,

In a day when I've already been shaken to the core by an evil slug consuming part of a home grown baby courgette, I really didn't need more nasty surprises. So whose idea was is to ask the cast of Torchwood to reinterpret Tess of the D'Urbevilles? And, dear god, why?

Also -- Pacific Abyss? Cut out the manufactured diving crises. We really don't care.

In other news -- and bah to those (well, geroge) who were tutting at my lackadaisical way with vegetables! Not pinching out your tomatoes? It's gonna be a trend.

You may have been idly wondering why I haven't run my usual Premiership prediction game this season. (Or of course you may be relieved, in which case you'll probably want to skip the rest of this post too.)

I think the Premiership race is going to be even more tedious this year than it has for the last few. It looks like Chelsea will get back ahead of Man Utd, and it's seems likely Liverpool will overtake Arsenal. Spurs or maybe Pompey for 5th, with Villa, Blackburn and Everton all falling away. Maybe a surprise strong showing from Sunderland or Newcastle. That's about as exciting as it'll get.

I have to admit though that the reason I'm so unenthused is because of deep sickening trepidation about West Ham's season to come. This is the most pessimistic I've been at season kickoff since the pre-Redknapp days. I fully expect us to be struggling to avoid relegation, and can only hope that there'll be three sides sufficiently worse.

How has this happened, after finishing solidly in the top half last year? Since then we've managed to alienate our best goalkeeper and sell his only decent backup; our only purchase of the summer looked hopelessly outclassed on Sunday; we've sold one of our first-choice centre-halves, despite already being hopelessly short there -- and a whole gang of lesser squad members; we've had to pay something like £6M just to get rid of one particularly disappointing signing; and two of the most expensive players in the club's history are still injured, having played less than a dozen games between them since signing last year. I could go on.

It's clear that the owners have basically fouled up hideously financially; spending far more money than they could afford, and seeking to claw back as much of it as they can, now that the credit crunch has hit their bank. Curbishley didn't help, sloshing that money into notoriously injury-prone players like Bellamy and Dyer. After just two games he's already got that hunted expression we normally assocate with January onwards. I suspect the only thing that may keep him in post is if they can't afford to fire him.

The only bright aspect is that it looks like a West Ham fan may be the next ruler of the soi-disant free world. I son't suppose that'll really help much, but at least it's better than Arsenal's most famous supporter, whose name differs by only one letter.

In all the excitement of being on holiday and suchlike, I never did that version of the 100 foods every omnivore should try some time. I think a bunch of my friendslist has already done this, cursed it for being very american, and got fed up of it or something - but given that I opined on some of the foodstuffs contained within, to a greater or lesser extent, lemme have a go at the finished version.

Ta, anw, for this list - interesting, especially in its divisiveness!

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

( details to be skipped as desired )

This also happened today:

• 11:36 Seven black sacks of autumn leaves in front of a garage door; on top of one, a single black court shoe rests like a sinister clue.

Text message microblogs broadcast from cleanskies on Twitter by LoudTwitter

First hit on Google for "vector of the void" http://celestialweasel.livejournal.com/173235.html, the rest are scientific papers. Curiously last time I did the search, the Fritz Leiber story from which the phrase comes was one of the hits, now it isn't. On the other hand Alta Vista has it as a second hit http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23162/23162.txt Project Gutenberg thinks that the copyright wasn't renewed, so there it is.

""There's a storm in that vector of the Void."

"Circle it," Sid ordered.

"There are dark mists every way."

"Then pick the likeliest dark path!"

I called through the dark, "Fair is foul, and foul is fair, eh,
Siddy?"

"Aye, chick," he answered me. "'Tis all the rule we have!""

miss world queen
Originally uploaded by Jeremy Dennis.

I have eventually posted up photos from oxyrhynchite and diana's wedding. The photos ended up being mostly of the beautiful (albeit slightly disturbing) house. There's also a shot of the bizarre topiary, a small bored child and someone giving advice in Ancient Greek. And some photos of me that happened when timscience nicked my camera.

... The Sex, Drugs & Rock'n'Roll Olympics!

Marvel as hundreds are disqualified for taking banned drugs (none of which will be remotely performance-enhancing) and the relay teams dance about the track waving their batons in the air...

Wait for the birth of all the superchildren conceived during after-hours parties...

Practice for the new exhibition sport of Brompton-racing (suits & bowlers mandatory)...

And why screenwriters so constantly fail the test. More meat in the comments than in the article, but because there's lots of good stuff in the comments rather than because the article is skimpy.

Includes good stuff about script writing, social reactions, star vehicles, non-recurring phenomena, and a wee bitty link to the X-Men as an interesting gender history (when Claremont was writing it).

Jo and Alex had a barbecue whose theme was inspired by a coat Alex bought: Doctor Who-niverse. Jeremy made Lady Cassandra O'Brien.Δ17 from a peach-coloured top stretched over a picture frame and a small plastic brain in a pint mug; I made cardboard Judoon heads; Angharad and Ruth came as Weeping Angels, a costume idea that is fun until you realize it entails spending most of the party not being allowed to move.

I do rather wonder what people who didn't like the 8 minute London / Britain extravaganza were expecting and/or thought we should do instead. I mean, Morris dancing and Souza marches will only get you so far, and Souza was an American anyway.
Clearly neither the British Empire nor 'we will fight them on the beaches' would be viable for obvious reasons of taste and 'global financial capital' and 'sodding enormous sprawly 19th century mega-city (which grew up largely because of the aforementioned empire)' lack a certain immediate visual impact. There is an argument that Shakespeare and the Beatles could have been worked in, though I think the Beatles figured in the video (*), but fundamentally 'buzzy global metropolis' was probably the only way to go, and even if it weren't it was clearly how it was going to be played.

I was against the London Olympics for the same reason I was against making Oxford the city of culture i.e. it didn't really need it. It would be like making Venice 'City Of Canals 20xx'. But the nay-saying is melting my stance.

Also, remember that there will be another mayoral election before the Olympics, so there is still time... Turn again Livingstone thrice GLC leader / Mayor of London.

(*) the Myra Hindley bit shows that Visit London is another organisation in need of Weasel WTFFAYFT Services LLP, although I understand the video has been used lots before before the Fauxfendocracy spotted That Bit this time.

Having spent enormous amounts of time and money and mental aggro on adding three additional rooms and large amounts of built in storage to our house, I'm trying to take everything out of various cardboard boxes and onto appropriate shelves, and am failing dismally.

Hence I'm about to freecycle a nearly complete run of SFXs, a job lot of late 1990's PC games (Age of Empires 2, Diablo 2, Halflife, Black & White etc), and a bundle of Ars Magica books (2nd edition I think).

Anyone interested? otherwise I'm sure the fine people of Lambeth Freecycle will give them a home.

What would you call this?


Poll #1247845 I'm not even considering the possibilities of hyphens or splitting the word
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

If you choose more than one, you'll have to explain in a comment

Before it gets too hard to remember. With photos.

Day 0 - long journeying day, after a hectic CAPTION weekend. Up at about 5:30, coach before 7 am, into Heathrow in good time for a hella long boring plane flight. Watched 'Prince Caspian' and was glad not to have bothered watching it in the actual cinema. Dinner in Cary with colleagues Sue and Jackie, who were kindly putting us up. Distinct and audible crash as we fall asleep around 9ish Eastern time.

Day 1 - proper first day. Car we hired the day before turned out to have a weird sound emanating from the suspension so we traded up to one of those rather cool / weird retro chrysler things. Miles of undistinguished post-industrial landscape give way finally to a bit of the Blue Ridge Parkway, a lateish arrival in Knoxville with no hotel booked (had to stay in a moderately expensive chain hotel as a result) and a well-deserved beer & meal.


Day 2 - a very long drive ahead before reaching Chicago - we did start out fairly late the day before, after all. GPS lady misbehaves a bit at first and at last (in the canyons of Chicago) but we work out that it's partly because she's a bit undercharged, poor thing. Otherwise she does us proud and gets us from Tennessee, Kentucky (rest stop in the handsome craft center, with purchases), past silly signs like 'Chateau de Pique Winery', Indiana, Illinois and over the bridge which shows us Chicago's fantastic skyline. Another audible crash into bed as we more or less get into somewhere around Greenland's time zone.


Day 3 - a thankfully drive-free day spent exploring Chicago's beauties - Millennium Park in the morning, watching Alan's kids play in the fountain, and a tour of Chicago in the afternoon (historic skyscrapers, very well worth doing). Having assumed we were nearer to being adapted to US time, this is belied by another physical slump at the advanced hour of, er, about 9:30 pm at the latest.


Day 4 - setting off without too much of a hurry to Chicago leaves us slightly worried at the end of the day that we might arrive too much after we'd said we would - but it all works out beautifully, with lunch in small town Michigan and lots of commenting on the road signs (for cities such as Valparaiso, Sparta, and even Climax, MI). The one we we were most sorry to miss getting a photo of was the city of Romulus, MI - presumably where the Romulans come from? Sean and Sophia have invited us to a cook-out at their cousin's out of town, so it's back in the car for a drive to Ann Arbour - but luckily Sean loves driving. It's a great friendly evening, making kebabs and eventually sitting round a big fire in the dark. We finally manage to stay up until a proper bedtime so we must be doing something right.


Day 5 - in Hamtramck, doing more walking than I ever expected to be doing in Motor City. We walk to the diner for breakfast, we walk around Hamtown, we look at the shops (amber, yum - motodraconis, thought of you) and at Pope Park, we walk to Hamtramck Disneyland and then after that enough is definitely enough for the morning. It would maybe have been enough for the day except that there was also the Dream Cruise taking place in Ferndale too - car after classic American car cruising past on the long street of Woodward, with a gala air and plenty of people out to watch. It gets a bit much for R and I and we retire to have a cold beer, but it's a pretty amazing thing to be there to watch.


Only day five? Cor!

Warning: contains gruesome Japanese horror. (Via Bottom Half Nude)

( Keep on running.... )

Just uploading some more photos of the US road trip R & I have just completed - there are too many to deal with quickly, from my point of view as well as that of anyone who wants to look. I'm struck by the idyllic weather we had for much of the time - Hamtramck has a bright deep blue background of sky, our walking tour of Chicago wasn't scorching in the typical August heat,and really the only grottier day we've had (yesterday, with quite a bit of rain on our return from the Outer Banks) was offset by the fact that the day before we had a delightful swim in the sea as late as five or six pm.

Internet access has been patchy - there's been plenty of places with free wi-fi, but frankly we've been too busy getting to places and doing stuff to do much more than catch up on reading emails and the odd post, never mind actually posting ourselves, but then it saves the temptation of posting long-winded recitals. Suffice to say - a fantastic time, with no tears or quarrels despite having to drive and navigate in complicated cities like Chicago and New York (bless you, GPS lady!), lots done and experienced, and almost everything on our to-do list ticked off (apart from seeing Central Park, which we didn't quite manage on our last morning in NYC - we saw the Metropolitan Museum and then called it a day).

To come - road signs of America, with names we were amused by. badasstronaut, unfortunately we didn't manage to get photos of roadsigns for either Coxsackie, New York or of Onancock, Va, though we tried.

Belated reminder - whoniversal BBQ and sort of Alex birthday thing this afternoon from 3pm. Bring BBQables and booze and selves!

PeeM of Pakistan had been playing down the War on Terror thing round me. I told him, Gilani, you needs to address these problems of enforced disappearances. Its not really doing much to diminish terror by keeping a list of so-called criminals quite invisible. I didn't ask whether hes a family man nor did I tell him he can drink all the coca-cola he likes but if he keeps sucking, hes gonna be peeing poo out of his bum. Well I did, although I re-phrased it considerably, more like this with remedies and good advices

Tried to reach Gordon Brown through a chat room before he took off to the games this morning. Hes looking forward to Beijing. I messaged him to find out if he'd mention the human rights problem in China to the dignitaries there. I should have asked him to look at the displacement so that he can prepare for when the games hit Britain. Chances are he'll not bother before breakfast, though he'll know the message is there by the time hes on the plane.

Am assured theres a spot open for me to meet with Gela and Yuri, though I hope its going to be for toast in the morning. I can do toast. The pair of them like that photograph toast, I've got that. Silver shiny toast rack, just like in the charity shops, hotels and bed and breakfasts. We need to settle this displacement of people in South Osetta. I'm getting fed up of these deliveries of chewy toast, which is okay sometimes. Black and blue toast is never good, but then by pointing this out to them will they challenge me on this ? Will they produce more black and blue toast to prove me wrong? I really hope that they can see the logic in a different preparation.

Nudged. I hope it doesn't topple. If it does, somewhere safe, and sunny side up.

Don Warrington appears to be doing Strictly Come Dancing!