Aw Diddums

Mood: Stiff
Listening to: Ghostly song in my head: 'Higher Ground' by UB40

Two things this morning.

Boys' Books

A while ago I posted on the subject of boys reading - do they read while young; what do they read; what puts them off some books? Iain from Posted Notes was unable to comment there because of a Blogigo glitch (a cue for change of blog hosts when I can). He has posted his response here.

Something I've been thinking is that women don't always think it's OK to be 'feminine' either, and will draw their own chalk lines. "I hate pink, I never wear skirts, I never cried when I fell over" and so on... So I wonder if going beyond a certain level of femininity is actually.... this is hard for me to find the right words for... not so much a gender issue as a 'character flaw' in any person and any age - but has not entirely been perceived as such. (Is it just me who sees the word 'ninny' forming in the middle of the word 'femininity'? Just an oddity as far as I know). You can imagine people saying that weakness is weakness, or softness softness, no matter where it's found - and that it's nearly always to be despised. Nobody wants to be seen as a 'mark' or as 'silly' in any way, and yet it's still seen as a predominantly feminine thing.

Silly giggling is regarded as feminine, but I remember going through a spell of that, and I was helpless! It must have been a hormonal thing for older girls. It's bad enough when you're on your own, but when there are two or three of you, all about the same age, you can keep each other going. And you don't even know why you're laughing. Life just seems as though it's bubbling over with peculiarity. Something that's not mentioned so much, if ever, is that around the same time I found just about everything made me cry.

It can't just be girls, though...? Boys giggle and cry too.

I don't know enough about all this (or about people in general) to get it right - I was just wondering. I've lived a sheltered life in many ways, but it's also been a life of freedom. The world 'sheltered' brings up the image of a girl living confined under one roof for most of her girlhood (and maybe beyond), but if that girl is living her life not knowing about certain assumptions or ways of life, and not fearing all the same things that other people fear, then she's free in many ways.

Read whatever turns up in front of you, even it if doesn't look like something you would normally read. (Easy for me to say - I still refuse to read certain types of horror novels...)


Advertising

Certain pop-up ads are appearing on The Scotsman Online, and you have to click the X to close them if you want to read the articles. In my opinion, this is 'not done'. I do not want to interact with ads in any way whatsoever, even if just clicking on an X. I do not trust them enough - I've heard bad things about clicking on Xs! I will stop reading The Scotsman in any shape and form if this form of pop-up, text-obscuring advertising continues.

I'm now scuttling off (trolley in tow) to walk N's dog.

PS: Saw a comment (on The Scotsman!) from someone saying that there's no such thing as bad dogs - just bad owners. I take issue with that. People are living beings. Dogs are living beings. If you can call a person bad, you can call a dog bad. If you can't call a dog bad, then you can't call a person bad either. Simple.

(Trots off).

Mood: Not feeling 'noble' or 'proud'
Listening to: Ghost song in my head: 'The Earth Dies Screaming' by UB40

That computer desk has reduced me to a dishrag.

We moved it to Mum's house in bits, and it took two trips using my sister's bigger car with its back seat down. Two drawers and some storage sections had already gone on ahead, so it really took three trips to transport my desk. Today there were four 'cabinets', various shelves, supports and doors, and then the sturdy desk top itself, which needed a separate trip on its own. I think it was that that did me in - when we were heaving it out to the car, I felt coldness slide up my neck, and thought 'uh oh'.

That wasn't even the end of it, as we then had to heave everything out of the car and haul it all upstairs. Then there was a rushed trip to town to look at carpet, tiles and paint, and to my sister's, to carry a roll of carpet down from her loft. Then I had to walk N's dog. Thankfully the desk was mostly put back together by the time I returned, but there was still a certain amount of shuffling around trying to find the right position for the various units, and mild cursing till we got them to fit. Finally we stuck down the storage sections on the top of the desk with blue-tack.

In the middle of the day I felt sick, but it wore off. I was just about to say I will be resting tomorrow, but then I remembered - I'm walking the dog again!

Still - I found something to pass the time on the blog What's That You Said?

 

Mood: Apprehensive
Listening to: Quietness - am about to turn in

User Interfaces Should be More Obscure! - Ron Kollgard

I discovered that article by accident a few days ago, and much enjoyed it. Similar thoughts went through my mind when trying out Bryce and (a while earlier) DAZ Studio. Mostly astonishment that the user guides were so good and had such a friendly tone. The columnist (above) felt a 'fairy' theme (DAZ Studio) was not really the best choice for guys to play around with; on the other side of the divide I was thinking it wasn't great for women either. I would have liked some more sensible clothing to put on my fairies so that they could be allowed out in public. My own sneaking suspicion is that it's deliberate - if we want to be able to show off our posing characters, we will have to buy them some proper togs first.

Mood: Dancing
Listening to: 'I Got You Babe' by UB40

Moon and stars sit way up high
Earth and trees beneath them lie
The wind blows fragrant lullaby
To cool the night for you and I

from 'Higher Ground' - UB40

My computer desk has been taken to bits, ready to move. This is serious - I would never let it go till it was nearly time to move myself. Meantime, both computers have been set up on a gate-legged table in my sitting room.

Got the Mac plugged into a good Yamaha amplifier so I can enjoy UB40 more - | should have done that ages ago, but was pottering along vaguely with the basic round iMac speakers. I'm just lazy, and it doesn't do me any good - what's the use of having things (especially better things) I don't use? It's been remedied now, though, and had a little bop round my living room when it seemed nobody was looking. Unless you count Sharky, but he was fast asleep and didn't pay any attention.

Cherry oh Cherry oh baby
Don't you know I'm in love with you?
If you don't believe I do
Then why don't you try me?
I'm never gonna let you down
Never make you wear no frown

from 'Cherry Oh Baby' - UB40

Using Bryce, I did a little 3D mock-up of the sitting room I'm to move to at Mum's house - it's been a headache deciding where everything has to go, and I thought if I planned it to scale before we started heaving heavy things around, it might help. I'm surprised how big that window is - it takes up most of the upper part of the wall. Nevertheless, it's a dark room, and always has been, especially in this dreary November weather. (Did I say November? I mean June, of course).

Anyway, I was doing this little 3D plan, and was putting some small what-not in the very back corner - and thought, "it's dark in this room, I can't see it properly." (And this is in the computer mock-up!) "Well then," I decided, "I better create a nice light so I can see what I'm doing - and I'll hang it right here, near the what-not."

A warm dry wind is all that breaks the silence
Highways, quiet scars across the land
People lie, eyes closed, no longer dreaming
The earth dies screaming

from 'The Earth Dies Screaming' by UB40

(Still swaying to my intense UB40 CD. In the future world, it doesn't matter where the what-not goes).

I didn't mention this yet to Mum, but next day she came over and said "I've been thinking.... it's so dark in that room. We better get some nice standard lamps to go in the back corners." So we bought a pair of uplighters, and positioned them right where I hung my spherical lights in Bryce...

The night seems to fade
But the moonlight lingers on
There are wonders for everyone
The stars shine so bright
But they're fading after dawn
There is magic in Kingston Town

from 'Kingston Town' by UB40

Mood: Shivering a little with the grey chilly rainy weather out there
Listening to: Washing machine clanking

The pouch of cat food I opened for Sharky's dinner said 'Beef'. It also said 'Buey' and 'Vaca'.
"Buey," I lowed. "Buey, buey."
The cat raised his eyebrows at me from his vantage point on the kitchen floor.
"That's the noise it makes," I said. "Till you come along and eat it, that is."
Sharky smacked his lips enthusiastically.

That's not artistic licence of any type - he really did choose that moment to lick his chops. He does it anyway as sign language for "I would like some food please." I like to think that he was listening with eager attention to my lecture, but it's more likely he was thinking "I wish the old cow would slap that Buey on a dish already - I'm starving!"

Mood: Cheerful but burnt out
Listening to: Ghost song in my head: 'Zombie' by the Cranberries

It was very rainy, which is sad for a birthday which is usually lovely weather... we did get a very hot dry spell in the middle of the day, when we hoped it might stop raining long enough to let my grass dry enough to be mowed... but nothing doing.

For the past three or four days I have been feeling rough, and don't know why. I look much better than I feel - when I look in the mirror I expect a real classic zombie look: sunken cheeks and hollow eyes... instead I look as fresh as a bunny just sprung out of bed, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Mum said it's the weather, and she feels rotten as well.

I was given an ice-cream maker. My first ice cream (when I get the ingredients) will be banana ice cream. And next will probably be mocha.

Slurp.

I was also given a hi-fi (small, modern style) though Mum said she looked for one with a tape deck and that was the only one. Looking at the huge number of tapes I saved from university days, a tape deck was advisable. It felt rather strange to be choosing a tape from the tape box again, and fitting it in to be played. Felt so familiar, yet covered in the cobwebs of time. I hadn't thought about it, but I rather missed not having a small thing sitting by me to play the tapes - having the computer play CDs to me was never quite the same. It's less companionable.

Mum's cat, Cheeky, loves Mum's hi-fi and is always turning it on. The other day she put on an Imagination CD while we were upstairs trying to 'move things in'. I was wondering where the loud music was coming from, and thought Mum had put it on, but she hadn't. Anyway, guess who was happy when I took my new hi-fi out of the box and put it on? Cheeky went and stood by one of the little speakers with her ear to it, listening to the music. When I turned it off, she footled around as though trying to figure out how she might turn that one back on.

The new hi-fi also tunes into DAB radio (which I'm unfamiliar with) so I was surprised to discover that it will display the station and even the name of the track that's playing, as well as the artist. Puts radio more within my reach!

I gave it a try, and the very first song that popped up was Zombie by the Cranberries. I hadn't got the display worked out at that point, but I didn't need to be told.

It's the same old theme since 1916
In your head, in your head they're still fightin'
With their tanks, and their bombs
And their bombs, and their guns
In your head, in your head they are dyin'

In your head, in your head, zombie, zombie
In your head, what's in your head, zombie?

When I was a teenager, I had a little radio of my own because I wanted to hear the chart music - someone told me I should check out the new music on the radio and buy whatever appealed to me; that was supposedly the cool way of doing it, rather than only voting for songs AFTER they appeared on Top of the Pops. I wanted to try that, but there were problems: (1) finding the right station (bearing in mind that I didn't hear a word any of the radio presenters said.. to me it was all hissssssssss "mumblejumblemumble!" hisssssss!); (2) knowing who was singing what song. Also, the one time I tried to buy a song I heard and liked (from Eurovision - I think it was L'Oiseau et L'Enfant?), they seemingly hadn't thought of making a single for it.

So that project flopped! I could have done with a DAB radio then. But maybe I can take up where I left off. Where's all the happening music on the radio these days, then? Zombie wants to know.

Mood: Overtired
Listening to: House rumbling and purring

I successfully installed my free Bryce 5.5 (3D computer art) - I'll link to it later if anybody likes, right now I'm feeling a bit overstretched and can only think of my sofa.

On second thoughts, now that I'm online...
Bryce 5.5, PC version
Bryce 5.5, Mac version

I still want to say this, as I don't know when I'll next have a spare moment - I'm so happy! I've been after Bryce or similar for months, ever since I started following what people were doing in the desktop picture world. I know 3D computer art doesn't always look that realistic, and there are bad examples of it as well as good. It's about the challenge.

I love the fact that you can dream up a scene and create it for yourself, so perhaps it's a question of control. It's the same impulse that drives me to keep a doll's house (a whole little world to shape). It might even be the same impulse that drives me to write fiction, and to daydream about another kind of world.

Any photo you take will only ever be of this one.

The following is one I did when following a tutorial in the Bryce manual. Probably everybody has done this same image, or variations of it! I now have a spooky vision of there being a real 3D fantasy world - people all over the world have been sent to the very same spot to set up their 3D easels. And yet the images won't be exactly identical - this mountain will be smaller; that one will have three trees; the other a different sky; a fourth will have rather muddy water in the lake, which will be an entirely different shape.

There's a long way to go, but it's a start.

I'm happy enough with it to use it as wallpaper; when I get better, I can always go back and wander around with my 3D brushes again. And I'll try not to fall in that lake - it scares me to look at, it's so cold and clear and deep. I should know.

Mood: Up to the ears in editing
Listening to: A long slow song of nothing by nobody which had been ringing in my ears for the past 2 or 3 days

I don't know if you ever play that 'competing with the neighbours' game. Not 'keeping up with the Joneses' so much as attempting to beat them at the minutiae of every day life. I try to be first to put up the Christmas tree (I win about one year in five) - and I try NOT to be the first to turn on the lights. I sit here, squinting at the text I'm working on, and every so often cast a despairing glance across the road... windows still dark. Then I think maybe they're out, or sitting snugly at the back of their house with a small lamp on, and if I carry on like this, I'll be sitting in the dark till midnight. So I say out loud, "sorry guys, but I need to see my work" - and on goes my light.

I doubt if they noticed at all. They couldn't anyway, as I think they WERE out. Even their dog was out (he usually sits and gazes out the window).

Just found this - Disability Carnival: Borders. I've not read any of the posts myself; hope to find time soon.

Mood: Fed up
Listening to: Ghost song in my head is STILL 'D.I.V.O.R.C.E.' by Tammy Wynette

Iain has been talking here about the covers of children's books, worrying that boys will not read books with a girly appearance. He's probably right. I expect there are other classics boys wouldn't touch, such as Heidi, What Katy Did, Pollyanna, Anne of Green Gables etc. Little House on the Prairie does focus on a family of girls - and I like the cover.

My mother thinks that boys don't read anyway - not till much later. There are books like Kidnapped they could read, but probably wouldn't bother.

In a charity shop they had a set of recently printed older classics, all by the same publisher - looked as though they were bought at the same time by the same person - I can't remember what they were, except that one was The Owl Service by Alan Garner - and it had quite a fantastic cover of the face of the goddess of owls and flowers. They were in excellent condition - obviously never read. Do you suppose they belonged to a boy?

I don't know - do most boys under 14 read? What do they read? Are there books they refuse to read - and why? Do the illustrations affect them?

I said to Mum, "there is no equality really - it's OK for girls to be like boys, but not for boys to be like girls."

My tone was critical, blaming males for behaving as though it's a shameful thing to be female - but Mum took it up and said "the girls get the best of it."

She doesn't blame boys - she feels society is giving girls more choice, but limiting what boys are able to do.

I suppose that's true. Girls can read all those fun books no matter what the cover looks like - boys can only read Biggles.

PS: As a collector of children's books, I picked up a hardback by Alan Garner - The Moon of Gomrath. I loved the Alan Garner books when I was young. Maybe Iain should consider getting those instead of the Little House on the Prairie. Mum's suggestion is The Coral Island by R.M. Ballantyne.

Mood: Achy tooth - makes my lip itch
Listening to: Ghostly song in my head: 'D.I.V.O.R.C.E.' by Tammy Wynette

As Pete says, it's 'that time of year again' for hayfever sufferers of all degrees. I'm not too badly affected - it annoys my mother more than it annoys me. At any rate, she's always seeking a cure for me.

Her most recent discovery is Luffa - she bought a bottle of these tablets, and now they sit on my desk. 'Herbal tincture tablets', it says here. I don't know yet if they're good at dealing with hayfever - I've only just taken my first couple of pills. I'm not even sure I'll notice if they do work, but doubtless Mum will make remarks like "my goodness, your cough has gone!" or "are you sure you're taking those tablets I gave you? You're worse than ever."

Will let you know.

Mood: Tired
Listening to: Ghostly song in my head: 'D.I.V.O.R.C.E.' by Tammy Wynette

There are suddenly a lot of memes about! They come in waves. I stole this one from Pacian at Space Cat Rocketship.

* Your most marked characteristic?
Not sure, but Mum once said I was pedantic. I had no idea why she said that, but one of my friends laughed and said 'yes.' Huff.

* The quality you most like in a man?
The courage to stand by you - doesn't tag you as 'too difficult' and disappear.

* The quality you most like in a woman?
Perceptiveness.

* What do you most value in your friends?
That they value me.

* What is your principle defect?
Hermit-like tendencies.

* What is your favourite occupation?
Daydreaming.

* What is your dream of happiness?
A society that's more relaxed, secure and accepting.

* What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?
For Waterworld to come true.

* What would you like to be?
Able to join in the conversation.

* In what country would you like to live?
Wherever my family lives.

* What is your favourite colour?
Pastel pink - or a nice summery blue. Depends on my mood.

* What is your favourite flower?
Lavatera.

* What is your favourite bird?
Eagle owl.

* Who are your favourite prose writers?
Neil Gunn, Rudyard Kipling, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Tove Jansson, George Mackay Brown.

* Who are your favourite poets?
Ted Hughes, Alfred Tennyson, Andrew Marvell, John Donne, John Keats, John Masefield, e e cummings.

* Who are your favourite heroes of fiction?
Slippery Jim diGriz from the Stainless Steel Rat series by Harry Harrison.
Jonny Good Boy Tyler from Battlefield Earth by L Ron Hubbard.
Rincewind from Terry Pratchett's Discworld books.
Sam from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
The family d'Alembert from a series by E.E. 'Doc' Smith.

* Who are your favourite heroines of fiction?
Granny Weatherwax from Terry Pratchett's Discworld books.
Anne Shirley from the Anne of Windy Willows series by L. M. Montgomery.
Mrs Rosen, the former award-winning swimmer in The Poseidon Adventure (though the series of events in the film improved on the events in the script. See here for some trivia on this film).
The family d'Alembert from a series by E.E. 'Doc' Smith.

* Who are your favourite composers?
Mozart. Of course. Oh, and Vivaldi. And Pachelbel, just for his Canon in D.

* Who are your favourite painters/photographers?
Don't have any. Some children's book illustrators are very good, but I've never looked out for any in particular. Also, not all artists are 'painters' and 'photographers'.

I've found an interesting perspective in Pete's blog post Nature in Art. Images related to animals and children do seem to be treated as though they shouldn't be taken seriously; many (especially those with light colour schemes) get landed with the description 'chocolate box'. Computer art, digital illustrations and certain abstracts are also considered 'not proper art', just as digitally improved photographs are 'cheating' - and film photographers never do anything artificial in the darkroom; never touch up their photos; never use filters on their cameras; never shoot in black and white; never specially adjust their lighting??... It's all in the way you think about things, and the way people think can be oddly biased.

* Who are your heroes in real life?
Sefton, the Household Cavalry horse. Apart from his survival of the evil that men do, I don't think I have any heroes. Maybe Winston Churchill, who got it right.
By the way, I got a bit of a shock when I researched Sefton online and read the first line there! It's the other name he was given...

* Who are your favourite heroines of history?
Mother cat who scorched her fur off saving all her kittens from a fire, one by one. (It happened years ago - so it's history!) In fact, all mothers are heroines, especially supportive ones who look after the soul as well as the body.

* What are your favourite names?
Mythological names, fantasy names and 'fancy' names. I tend to think normal names (such as Tom and Max) are unimaginative when used for pets - that's just my own opinion, though. I certainly prefer 'Tom' and 'Max' to abusive names (and there are a few about). I used to think up names for show cats. My suggestions tended to be airy and romantic rather than witty and original, which wasn't necessarily what breeders/owners were looking for - they used some of my names, though. People would rather think up names of their own, so now I just keep quiet, except for a few sops so that they will think I'm trying when I'm really not.

* What is it you most dislike?
Insensitivity, lack of imagination and the crossroads between the two. (That was Pacian's answer, but I can't think of a better one. I might add to it: witch hunts and the 'mob' mentality. Applies to blogs as well - a group of them can get on the war path at times. Or you get non-blog commenters getting together to rain on someone else's parade - I've seen that happen, though the victimized blogger simply switched his settings to 'please register to comment' - and that stopped the howling mob in its tracks. Heh).

* What natural gift would you most like to possess?
I find these strangely hard to answer - already struggled with "What is your principle defect?" OK, I've thought of a natural gift - it has to be 'space'. Fewer people treading on my heels in the street and jamming themselves into the back of my chair in cafés. More space would do me a lot of good - other natural gifts (such as 'confidence', 'employment' and 'general good humour') would swiftly follow.

* How would you like to die?
Gently, in my sleep, during a pleasant drowsy dream - and without giving anyone a nasty shock in the process. That means I have to be very old or very ill, so that people know it's going to happen. Just not dragging on for ages, though!

* What is your present state of mind?
Disillusioned. But...

* What is your motto?
"After clouds, sunshine."

Mood: Slightly down
Listening to: Nothing in particular

Found this meme over at Snoskred's - thought it might cheer me up!

Six weird things about me.

1. I've been bitten all over by safari ants.

2. I lost a black gym shoe in the Indian Ocean (when I was 7 or 8). Do you suppose it's still out there?

3. I feel limp after watching Beaches. I used to like it - can't think why.

4. If I can't hear something and somebody spells it out loud, I still don't seem to get it. Maybe because I don't hear the letters any better than I hear the words, or because I put so much effort into just hearing them that I don't have any energy left over for stringing them together... but your guess is as good as mine.

5. When I was little, I lost a tiny teddy bear in the African bush. It scarred me for life.

6. I collect children's books - today I came home with an old Paddington Bear paperback. The cover shows him messing about in the street with a shopping trolley. I still miss our local teddy bear shop - I'm angry they closed down (and not for lack of custom or local goodwill).

Mood: To sleep
Listening to: Ghost tune in my head: 'Oh what a beautiful morning' by Howard Keel

I've been tagged by The Bunnyman:

‘The rules are simple. There are 9 questions (3²), each of which has 3 answers, to give a total of 27, or 3³. The whole point is that the questions are somewhere between eclectic, banal and downright bizarre, so that you can answer completely truthfully without actually giving much away. Just put down the first three answers that come to mind if you can’t work out the “most appropriate” three.’

Objects Within One Metre Of You

   1. A glass bowl of chocolate Revels
   2. A fairy teddy bear with pink wings and a green dress
   3. A peacock feather standing on the floor, rrreaching out towards me.

First Names of People You Sat Next To At School

   1. Una
   2. Jane
   3. Susan

TV Programmes You Won’t Watch

   1. Big Brother (waste of time)
   2. 'Secret camera' things (depressing)
   3. British soaps (also depressing)

Favourite Trivial Pursuit Categories

I only played the game a few times (years ago), so I can't remember what the categories are

   1. Probably Literature, if it's there
   2. "Sorry, let me see the card, I can't hear what you're asking"
   3. "Oh, I had that question three times before; now let me think..."

Superpowers You’d Like To Have

   1. Invisibility
   2. Superhuman strength, so nobody can make me do anything I don't want to do
   3. The ability to read minds (so long as I could switch it off occasionally)

Newspapers, Magazines or Periodicals Read Regularly

   1. The Thinking Fish’s Diary
   2. The Radio Times
   3. The Scotsman Online

Songs You Dislike

   1. Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick by Ian Dury and the Blockheads
   2. There's No One Like My Grandma
   3. Mistletoe and Wine by Cliff Richard (though I agree with Mum that the words are good. I just hate the sound of it).

Blog Posts of Your Own That You’d Recommend.

I think you should read them all! No? Only 3? Well - try these...

   1. Escape from One Brave New World to Another
   2. Blessed Confidence
   3. Beleaguered Crumb

People You’d Like To See Answer These Same Stupid Questions

   1. Anyone reading this post who hasn't already done this meme, whose name (or assumed name) begins with G
   2. Anyone reading this post who hasn't already done this meme, whose name (or assumed name) begins with P
   3. Anyone reading this post who hasn't already done this meme, whose name (or assumed name) begins with any other letter of the alphabet (if you would like to!)

Have fun.

Mood: For dancing (I blame Geosomin and the jiggy music she's collecting)
Listening to: Ghost tune in my head: '12 Bar' by UB40

A few brilliant blog posts of the type I like to rave about:

Fraud (Andrea's Buzzing About)

I try to discover a little something to make me sweeter (The Goldfish)

Odd day with flower (Little Stitches in a Tapestry)

(Pauses to admire them all a little longer, then packs them away in her attic).

I decided to do a little housekeeping on Mum's computer yesterday, and deleted 31 of the least attractive wallpapers. Then I downloaded 15 brand new ones.

It's still an improvement, but I wish it had been either 30 or 32 that I deleted.

Song in my head yesterday (for the whole 24 hours) was:


It reminds me of another one I've liked since I was 7 - Montego Bay. I can't even remember who sang that one, but I should, as it's on a CD I got not so long ago. It must be at Mum's house. Sigh.

Am reading two 'new' books - Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve (99p from Waterstone's), and The Blue Lion by Robert Lynd. The latter is hardly new, having come out in 1923; we found it yesterday, bundled with children's books at Sue Ryder's. Obviously someone mistook it for an Enid Blyton or something. I looked it up on the internet and was seeing prices like £6 (not including postage) - I got mine (admittedly scruffy) for 50p.

I seem to have been bitten by the 'essay' bug. I've finished George Ade's Single Blessedness and Other Observations (£2 from an old bookshop). It's strange the connections one makes at different times - we were watching Waterworld (starring Kevin Costner as a rather odd fish), and he was 'outed' as a mutant and lynched, merely because he refused to take a woman to keep him company on his boat. They thought it wasn't 'normal' for a man who had been alone so long at sea. I immediately thought of George Ade's Joys of Single Blessedness:

"...the presumption of guilt attaches to every single man beyond the age of thirty. And if, as the years ripen, he garners many dollars, and keeps them in a hiding place which is woman-proof, he slowly slumps in public esteem until he becomes classified with those granite-faced criminals who loot orphan asylums or steal candlesticks from an altar."

And also:

"The idealized bachelor of fiction may be a super-gallant, but the real article is a scared fish the moment he swims out of his own puddle."

Mind you, in that particular fish's case, the entire ocean was his puddle. Do you think he sings 'Oh what a beautiful morning' when it's just himself and the vast blue all around?

Mood: More musing
Listening to: Waily tinnitus

Life flows through your hands like water, and it's impossible to hold onto any of it. I endeavour to assimilate all my thoughts and experiences, and in one sense they become a part of me, but in another they are lost from view.

It's like roaming a dark attic, playing a torch over the bags and boxes assembled there. You highlight the items that please or surprise you, and pass quickly over anything with more negative associations.

If you read a brilliant blog post, you might feel it should change the world simply because it's there and has been written. You might link to it; send your friends and family to read it; talk to the blogger who wrote it... but then what? It could be that everybody you know agrees, and says "yes, that was a jolly good blog post," or (more likely) says nothing at all. And life goes on as usual.

It slips your own mind, and tomorrow you're raving about somebody else's post; a news article; a TV programme; a book; a picture; a cartoon; a letter in a magazine. Or you're staring vaguely at the leaves stirring on a tree, thinking about nothing much at all.

The fact that I keep those 'things' in my attic, I suppose, speaks volumes. Sometimes I get them out again and dust them off. Always, they colour my thoughts and affect my choices.

Last Monday I changed the screensaver on my PC. For a while a marquee scrolled across it in a shocking pink, proclaiming that "Diddums is working hard." Then I changed it to "Diddums is moving house." That stayed there for months, till I got bored with all the unfulfilled suspense, so I switched the screensaver to a random slide show of my pictures.

Having spent so much time recently on my wallpapers and fractals, I was half expecting those to show up in a bombastic display of glittering talent. Instead, I received bits and pieces of my life from the dustiest corners of my attic, such as:

• a photo of Thor (my cat who died) curled up with a client's dog;
• a pair of bears with their heads together;
• a bunch of bruins we entered in a teddy bear show;
• a wall of cat show rosettes (long since taken down);
• other people's cats;
• the view from my house after a snowstorm;
• a shot of the river during a sunny summer walk with Thundercloud;
• a weird dragon picture of mine;
• fuzzy NASA photo of a nebula (playfully phased up out of the blackness of my desktop);
• one of my all-time favourite wallpapers - Endless Blue by Digital Blasphemy.

Snips and snaps from my past and present, with treasures discovered along the way. Each one shows up for five seconds then is gone, replaced by the next in line. A constant string of images and impressions which might return periodically, or perhaps never.

Story of my life.

Mood: Musing
Listening to: Nothing

The world isn't black and white, and there isn't always a perfect solution to problems, just as there isn't always someone to blame - not even yourself.

That annoys me.

I want everything to be neat, logical and fair - but it's not.

It could be that we're all just part of the colour spectrum - we make a grand light show. Or we're the cells of a larger organism - maybe a giant rhubarb that grows ponderously in space. When I see the repeated patterns and shifting hues of fractal art, I can't help but wonder...

Mood: Looking back
Listening to: Nothing

Noted the following while I was still blogging about my holiday and didn't want to interrupt the flow of my narrative (cheese cheese):

Friday 1st June 2007

Last night's dreams:

Lynxes!

There was a large group of us in a sophisticated travelling caravan of some type, or it might have been a very big train. It had small shops, including a bear shop. A family group of big cats came in and overcame us - somehow I got separated from the others and ended up in an adjoining room with the glass door shut fast, being 'guarded' by a mother lynx and her cub. They looked so beautiful with their thick, soft pelts, that I considered stroking them as though they were my own cats. Looking at the twitch of the mother's tail and the way she bent her ears back, I changed my mind, as I suspected I wouldn't have any skin left on my hands afterwards.

At one point I tried to overcome the mother cat by throttling her. I didn't mean to kill her, but hoped to stun her enough to escape. I didn't seem to be very efficient at throttling, although the lynx obligingly lay still and allowed me to try - so I stopped and sat back.

Eventually we made friends with each other, and I got up and strolled out of the small room, pushing the door open, to see how everybody else was doing with their own large and angry lynxes. To my surprise, nobody was about, except for someone I recognized. He didn't come on the trip in the first place, but here he was, as large as life. He was desultorily pushing a broom about, and I worked out for myself what had happened - a rescue party had arrived and released the other people in the travelling caravan from their furry kidnappers.

He caught sight of me and was startled. "Oh! I didn't know you were in there, sorry. We would have come in to see if you were alright, but it was so quiet we thought the room was empty."

"It's fine," I said; "I handled it. Meet my new friends!" ...but I was still less than impressed. Of course it was quiet - I was lying on the floor with a mother lynx standing scowling on my chest.

---

The Girl Who Cried Wolf (Apparently): Part 1

For the rest of the journey I was in a separate carriage with a man I knew (possibly the one with the broom), and his wife, a 28-year-old mother of a 3-year-old boy. The woman had taken against me - it was probably a 'what are you doing in MY carriage?' thing from one woman to another. It was a self-catering carriage, so the mother was popping about making the evening meal and setting everything out on the table. Trying to keep out of her hair, I looked out of the window to admire the view of the wood our train was rushing through... and saw something that scared me. I came back very quickly and said "there's a wolf out there, and it's running very fast this way. We should be ready for anything that might happen."

Nobody seemed to hear me. The woman was clacking about busily and talked over me to the broom guy. I repeated myself, much louder. I was still ignored.

Broom guy was sitting at the table with his nose buried in a newspaper and I turned to him, thinking that, even if the woman had too poor an attitude to listen, HE might be reasonable. But he said, without raising his eyes from the paper, "don't worry about it - you get in such a flap about nothing."

I understood that he was taking his tone from the woman and was being deliberately off-hand to please her, when he might normally have been more polite.

Just then there was a hair-raising snarl from the open doorway... the wolf had arrived. And didn't he look mad!

---

The Girl Who Cried Wolf (Apparently): Part 2

Well, we somehow dealt with that little situation, presumably without despatching the wolf, and then the woman's 3-year-old son, silent till then, made a soft protest which was almost drowned by the woman's clattering about, yattering at her husband. But she heard. And she looked directly at the boy. She paid attention.

Furious, I said to her "funny how you hear this child when he says something very quiet that concerns himself only, but when I'm saying quite loudly that all our lives are in danger, you pay no attention whatsoever."

She didn't reply, but shot me a hard look that said "what do you expect? I wouldn't be a good mother if I didn't put my son before everybody else."

For a moment I was ashamed of myself - of course a mother should value and listen to her child! But shouldn't she listen to other people as well? Families are important, but there's a wider world out there, full of people who need to be listened to as much as any blood-relation or spouse. People haven't fallen off the flanks of the earth just because they're single.

---

The Travelling Bear Shop

Well, of course - I mentioned a bear shop, didn't I? Oddly enough, I didn't rush to buy any bears, and hardly went near it till the older woman who owned the shop was packing up near the end of the journey. She looked directly at me, and said "last chance to buy my bears. Soon they'll all be gone."

Well, I went over and had a look. And looked again. At first I didn't see anything that stood out - then Mum strolled past, holding a very pretty bear she had chosen for herself, and I felt jealous. I picked up three different bears, rather nice ones, but rejected an ugly stuffed Alsatian wearing a small white headscarf. There was a handwritten notice saying the shopkeeper would charge a small fee for every day that a bear had been sitting on the shelf since she opened shop in the caravan. As I'd left it all week I could expect to be charged full whack, but I didn't care. I realized she had just been trying to get people to buy the bears sooner rather than later, perhaps so she could put her feet up in the last part of the week.

Then the dream fizzled out. It's annoying that I went to all that trouble to pick out some nice bears, and here I am back on Planet Earth without them.

Perhaps it's a sign I should make my own - there they are, waiting for me to bring them into existence! But I won't be troubling myself with that Alsatian - it can stay right there in dreamland.

Mood: Just about caught up
Listening to: House buzzing quietly to itself

Apologies for the recent flurry of activity on my blog - I was tired of recording my holiday of several days ago instead of blogging about the here and now, and felt the need to get it all out of the way. Onward and upward!

First, though, I have a few photos...


Here we have Bluebird, my new cool bag on wheels from Barnitt's, York. He's a lot lighter and quieter than my backpack trolleys, having been designed for rough ground instead of smooth shiny floors. He's not as expressive as either Jolly or Teal'c, but one should not judge the book by its cover... A cat client has already emailed to say she noticed the new addition! Apparently we trooped past her in the town centre the other day (when she was on a bus).

I blogged about Bluebird in:
Part Seven: Boxes of Rien
Part Ten: Catty People


Above is a snap of Sharky and his cuddly toy. He developed a worrying habit of nabbing my various bears and kneading them with his claws. Perhaps he misses Fusspot and needs something warm and soft to curl up with, and I didn't want my own bears to be kneaded to a rag - hence the arrival of the giant chick. It was only £1 from a charity shop. He can knead this one as much as he likes.


A rather dark photo of Jack from the Stonegate Teddy Bear shop, York. He's a Charlie Bear with a growler. It's not a very good picture, but it's hard to photograph black things! I seem to have a growing subset of black bears, but can you imagine what it might be like trying to photograph all of them in a group? Nightmare.

Jack's arrival is blogged about here (briefly) - Part Ten: Catty People.

Mood: Catching up
Listening to: House buzzing quietly to itself

A few days after returning from York, a box arrived via courier. At last! The Steiff bear I got for Mum's birthday was inside - he’s beautiful.



My giant stuffed spider (at least as big) asked if he could eat him, and Mum said “absolutely not!”
She listened to the bear playing his night music (Eine kleine Nachtmusik) and said “he goes on forever.” Well, what else does one expect from great composers?

Something about Mozart Bear’s wide black stare reminds me of Puss in Boots from Shrek 2.

I said to Mum I like the way his ‘skin’ glows pinkly through his white fur, and we both giggled - then I said “I wonder what the real Mozart would have thought?”

Come to think of it, I wonder what the real Shelob would have thought...?

Mood: Lazy
Listening to: Nothing

Sharky likes Yorkshire Lemon Cheese (lemon curd from the fudge shop). I should have got him a jar of his own, but I bet he would still try and muscle in on mine.

I said to Mum it was a good holiday despite all our nitpicking about sleeping arrangements, shoogly tables, no soap being provided, almost no hot water, a toaster that only toasted one side of the bread, an oven whose door wouldn’t open when you tried to get the supper out, not enough hangers, the house being on the dark side except for the upstairs sitting room, dull and rainy weather two days out of three, dryer not to be used (for whatever reason), torch batteries run down and not replaced, Harpic nearly finished, rotting bench out the back, wash basins being too small and set so far back so that you couldn’t turn the taps properly, carpet not being properly hoovered in my room when we got to York (ugh), and the only carpet cleaning solutions in the house being Woolite and a Vanish stick.

“Oh yes, very nice,” Mum agreed.

I added it was the first holiday we’ve ever had in which we didn’t have a blazing row over nothing.

She thought about this for a second or two and then laughed, and said “yes, you did VERY well. And E too. Usually you are the one who starts mumping first, and then E goes all silent. But this year I didn’t really want to go home, and could have stood an extra two days.”

I was speechless with all this praise. True, I tend to get a little ‘mumpy’ about nothing much, but I remember plenty of times when I was reasonably relaxed and friendly, and suddenly got roared at for not hearing, or for missing something that was said. I’m not perfect, but I'm not always the loudest or the grumpiest.

Maybe we got on better because it was a bigger house which we could spread out in, and because I got a break from the other two on Thursday. That trick might be worth remembering for future holidays. Also when you’re thinking “I could blog about this”, your humour tends to stay good...

Of course the house had its plus points and we weren't nit-picking the entire time. The car was easily parked. There was that lovely view from the back, and the patio. The sofas upstairs had spring-out foot rests. There was a 'proper' shower downstairs which was lovely and hot, but I think I was the only one to use it as the others prefer baths (they had to carry hot kettles to make sure the bath was hot enough). In particular, we loved the fact that both televisions in the house were subtitled.

In the past it was almost unheard of to find a Teletext television in a holiday house. It's not that holiday house owners have stopped to think about this and changed their habits - it's just that all modern sets (digital) have subtitles now. It's that easy, really. Incorporate the technology wherever possible. It shouldn't be optional.

Talking of television subtitles, I noticed something rather strange. For some time I've been grumbling that ITV2 and ITV4 (and probably ITV3 too) tend to advertise subtitles - and then the programmes appear without any. Judge Judy is one. Andromeda is another. Sometimes we would get subtitles on Judge Judy, but more often not.

In the York house, Mum watched Judge Judy most evenings, and it had subtitles! I didn't really think anything of it till I got home to Scotland, tried to watch Judge Judy..... no subtitles. It's the same on Mum's TV and my sister's, so it's not my TV acting up.

I don't really know how subtitling works, so I'm at a loss to account for this. I can only suggest that the signal strength for ITV's subtitling (though OK on ITV1) is strong enough for York but not our area.