shewhomust: (bibendum)
shewhomust ([personal profile] shewhomust) wrote2025-07-29 06:01 pm
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Greetings from sunny Orkney

It turns out that reports of absence of internet were exaggerated: a cable has definitely been severed, and a trawler has owned up to severing it, but we have internet, and shops seem able to take our plastic money. Taking nothing for granted, but all well so far.

Two very different days. Yesterday a long drive north under milky skies. Dinner in Pitlochry had been richer than it should have been (I blame the raspberry cranachan sundae, and I should have known better) and neither of us slept well: so I snoozed through the first stage of the journey, as far as the outskirts of Inverness whre we charged the car and drank coffee at the adjacent garden centre. This revived us enough that we accepted the satnav's suggestion of an alternative route, slower but more economical - also, it turned out, more scenic:

Struie Hill viewpoint


We weren't sure - and in part are still not sure - whether we had ever been this way before. We drove through places with unfamiliar names, and saw sights we surely couldn't have forgotten. That view above, though, wasn't entirely unfamiliar. And we have driven to and from the north coast quite a few times. Not far short of the coast, just before we came out at Bettyhill, we realised that this stretch at least we had driven before, in the opposite direction.

I had wondered whether we would leave the rosebay willowherb behind as we drove into the highlands, but no, it continued as impressive as ever, great swathes of pink piled high on the verges (but never quite where the drives could be persuaded to stop for photographs). The further north we got, too, the more pink there was in the heather: can it really be past its peak further south? That seems impossibly early... One last twist as we drove along the ramp towards the ferry, and the rosebay gave way to great willowherb (which I had to look up, since I always think of it as codlins-and-cream...). And then we were on the ferry, and the less said about the catering the better, but we had a fine view of Hoy as we rounded the souh of the island and passed the Old Man.

Today we planned to take it easy, and went to Stromness for a little light shopping. We were distracted in Stenness village by the Maes Howe visitor centre, and though I'm not at the moment brave enough to crawl into Maes Howe, they had a very interesting display (mostly about the Ness of Brodgar, which they had offered a home when the dig on the Ness closed down) and we were glad we had dropped in. The shopping: [personal profile] durham_rambler bought an old-style bladed razor at the Co-op, I tracked down the hardware store which replaced my watch battery (and in the search for it dropped into a gallery or so); I succumbed to temptation and bought a couple of tote bags (prints by Jeanne Bouza Rose); books don't count, do they? (an Ellis Peters from the cats' charity shop, and Harry Josephine Giles Deep Wheel Orcadia from the Stromness Bookshop); we popped into the Pier Art Gallery because we could, and finally we returned to the Co-op to buy a picnic for our tea.

Come to think of it, it must be nearly tea time now...
smallhobbit: (Default)
smallhobbit ([personal profile] smallhobbit) wrote2025-07-29 10:55 am

Writing - July 2025

Just under 14.5K for the month, bringing my annual total to 77K and allowing me a bit of breathing space.

I completed my [community profile] whatif_au Bingo card, with Miss Marple to the Rescue written last month, but now edited and posted (High/Low fantasy - Miss Marple/Sleeping Beauty - Bourne), The Baker Street Incomparables (Superheroes - Sherlock Holmes (ACD)) and Summer at Bag End (Decade Specific (1920s) - The Hobbit).  The last was also written for [personal profile] melagan 's Dust off your Plot Bunny challenge.

[community profile] no_true_pair had a 4 fandom No True Fandom challenge, which gave me the chance to write some interesting crossovers When World's Collide

And then were two challenges this month on [community profile] allbingo   My favourite Winterfest in July: A Slightly Different Christmas where, using the Holidays list I again wrote for my Spooks Love in all Seasons 'verse.  And the new Western challenge, which gave the Ferret from Sherlock Holmes (ACD) the opportunity to shine (or not!!) When Plan A Fails Try Plan B (or Plan C...)
jazzy_dave: (books n tea)
jazzy_dave ([personal profile] jazzy_dave) wrote2025-07-28 06:38 pm
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Book 39 - Camilla Gibb "Mouthing The Words"

Camilla Gibb "Mouthing The Words" (Vintage)







Mouthing the Words is a powerfully engaging and highly readable novel about growing up in a dysfuctional family.

Thelma is five when the story opens. The family live in a village called Little Slaughter where they are ostracized as outsiders by the neighbours. Thelma's mother, Corinna, a former model, wants little to do with her daughter and relegates her "to the realm of the rather inconvenient", preferring to shower affection on her younger brother, the result of an affair with an Edinburgh solicitor.

Thelma is sexually abused by her alcholic father, Douglas, and made to play games of naughty secretaries and bosses. Unable to communicate this terrible secret to anyone outside the family, Thelma invents three invisible friends each representing an aspect of herself, who help her to cope. She longs, in vain, for another adult to adopt her.

The family move to Canada where things worsen, her parents eventually separating. There is a friendship with the hippyish family next door, and an all too brief period of happiness when her mother takes a Punjabi student as a lover, the first adult who really reaches out to the love-starved Thelma.

Thelma is institutionalised with anorexia - starvation is the only way she can physically prevent herself from becoming an adult woman, but recovers to win a scholarship to Oxford to study law. Although she proves to be a brilliant student, she rapidly descends into serious mental illness and self-mutilation.

Gibb is able to portray a descent into madness better than almost any other author I've come across (with perhaps the exception of Bessie Head in Maru) and her depiction of the psychological effects of abuse is extremely convincing. And we're right there to cheer on Thelma's slow journey to reclaim herself, and to be able to own her own words.

Sounds like a misery read? Far from it. The material is dark, but Gibbs has a lightness of touch and a humour (some parts are extremely funny!) that pulls the book back from being heartbreakingly sad
shewhomust: (bibendum)
shewhomust ([personal profile] shewhomust) wrote2025-07-27 06:44 pm

Message from Pitlochry

Well, we have set off on our travels, and it's so far so good: [personal profile] durham_rambler has left his razor behind, and I realise I didn't quite clear all the perishables from the fridge, and there will be half a lemon, half lime and a red chilli festering in the door on our return. These things happen.

I have been mentally compiling a post with the title 'Things fall apart...', because they certainly do. I decided it was too negative a title for this actually perfectly cheerful post, but in other respects it is quite apt. I think I already mentioned that my phone is in the process of becoming obsolete: I have not yet managed to replace it. A week ago my food processor refused to function, so that's something else I need to replace. Waking this morning, I consulted my watch, and realised it was losing time badly: only (I hope) the battery, but another thing to be sorted. I broke a dinner plate in the washing up, and there's nothing can be done about that.

But the reason for listing all these casualties here is that last night's news carried a report that the cable carrying the internet to the Northern Isles (and beyond, to the Faroes) has been broken. The company responsible says it should be fixed by next weekend, but in the interim, we will be without internet. Also without plastic money, but we can stock up on paper before we reach the ferry tomorrow. I will miss it, of course - I love my internet. But we will have fun regardless.

Two good things from the drive north. First, it appears to be peak season for rosebay willowherb: the roadsides a draped in great patches of intense pink. (Also, in Northumberland, meadowsweet, but Scotland is all about the pinkness).

Second, we took a comfort break on the Edinburgh bypass, pulling in to a random service station. Where we were greeted by the Parish Clerk; yes, Durham's Parish Clerk. He had been on some endurance hike, 25 miles in the pouring rain to what he described as "Britain's most isolated pub" (possibly The Old Forge, but anyway, he didn't think it was worth it) and was on his way home. So much for holidays and getting away from things: we ended up discussing Parish Council business anyway.
smallhobbit: (dragon)
smallhobbit ([personal profile] smallhobbit) wrote2025-07-27 04:36 pm
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The Friday Five - Five One's

This week's [community profile] thefridayfive  questions:

1. one place you volunteer (or would like to)? Why?
Gloucestershire Bundles.  Because they're a local charity, which provide clothing, equipment and toiletries to families with children up to the age of 16 who find themselves in crisis situations.  They're a small local charity who seek to make life better for children, regardless of their family situation.  We are a 'baby bank' - a bit like a food bank - but our remit is up to 16.  I'm a trustee, the treasurer, so take care of the finances, make grant applications and speak to groups etc to promote what we do.

2. one book you'd like to see made into a movie? Why?
Karolina, or the Torn Curtain by Maryla Szymiczkowa.  It's set in Krakow in 1895.  I'd like to see the characters, the fashions and the settings.  The plot is both great fun, but also very realistic in its outlook.

3. one creature (living, extinct, or mythical) you'd like for a pet? Why?
I'd like a dragon, please!  'Cos dragons are awesome.

4. one place on Earth you'd like to visit? Why?
Prague.  We were planning on going pre-covid and haven't yet made it.  Maybe next year?

5. one talent or skill you'd like to develop? Why?
I'd never claim to be proficient at what I do, but I find my current abilities are sufficient for the time I have available, and while I could improve some of my crafting skills, the enjoyment is in the doing, so why rush?

thisbluespirit: (reading)
thisbluespirit ([personal profile] thisbluespirit) wrote2025-07-27 01:31 pm

A post

Things continue much as before. I wanted to make a post, but I haven't quite the brain for reviews or the like, so here are two random quick things:


1. Back when we were all making top 100 lists, [personal profile] osprey_archer did a picture books one, and there was a discussion in the comments about US vs UK picture books, so I did a UK one, with the best/most popular/influential picture book illustrators I could think of (up to 2010 when I stopped being a children's librarian and, indeed, anything much), but it took ages to try and make sure I wasn't missing people and put all the covers on, and then I kept forgetting I'd made it.

It's here for those who like clicking on books in a list.

(I apologise for the lack of 2010s and 2020s; but I have not kept up at all! Also I included picture books only for the most part, with a few honourable exceptions, so this means there are very few early reader type books & no comics, but there are picture books for older readers. It needs to be an unorthodox size and shelved in the kinder boxes! Also, I focused on illustrators not authors. Plus a tiny handful were just personal favourites, but it is my list. ;-p)


2. I was talking about Outrageous, the U&Drama/Britbox TV series about the Mitfords last time. It continued to be excellent and it finally occurred to me that I could link the trailer, which would be helpful:

smallhobbit: (Gloucestershire Peregrine)
smallhobbit ([personal profile] smallhobbit) wrote2025-07-26 02:13 pm

Teddy Bear's Zip Wire

Picking up on my post for Sunshine Revival Challenge #4 and mentioning the Teddy Bear's Zip Wire, Thursday turned out to be the perfect day, both dry and not too hot.  Families brought picnics and their soft toys, the ice cream van came for part of the time, and there was even a selection of children's crafts to try inside the church.

The zip wire was attached at the top of the church tower and then run across the churchyard.  Teddy bears, and other soft toys, were placed in little harnesses and hauled up the outside of the tower in a basket.  They were then attached to the wire and travelled down to be collected by their owners (both young and old).  After which all the teddies were awarded a certificate for their bravery.

abject_reptile: (Postal Rupert)
abject_reptile ([personal profile] abject_reptile) wrote2025-07-25 04:51 pm
Entry tags:

(no subject)

Years of watching The Great Escape at Christmas - and who doesn't want to escape at Christmas - encouraged a love of escape narratives. And then there was the TV series Colditz although escaping from Anthony Valentine wasn't my first thought. *is irreparably shallow*

Escapes and Escapism: The Appeal of the Mid-Century Prisoner-of-War Memoir.
jazzy_dave: (books n tea)
jazzy_dave ([personal profile] jazzy_dave) wrote2025-07-25 09:39 pm
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Book 38 - Francos King "Frozen Music"

Francos King "Frozen Music" (Arena Arrow)




A fairly simple little novella looking at India before and after independence. Rupert, recently divorced, is travelling around with his elderly father Philip and the latter's new wife, Kirsti, who is Rupert's age. They want to visit the grave of Philip's mother, who died during an earlier family trip to India in the 1930s, when Rupert was still a child. And of course it all leads to a lot of readjusting of perspectives and revising of memories.

It's really more an expanded short story than a compressed novel, and King uses the extra space to sketch in minor characters like the group's Indian driver, Rajiv, and the hotel manager Mr Solomon, whose father had worked for Rupert's uncle. Slight, but very nicely done.
radiantfracture: Two cat characters from the 1985 anime lean out the train window (Night on the Galactic Railroad)
radiantfracture ([personal profile] radiantfracture) wrote2025-07-24 08:20 pm

On with the show; this is it (Twelfth Night asynchronous viewing party!)

Welcome to the asynchronous viewing party for the The Space all nonbinary/trans staged reading of Twelfth Night, introduced by Sir Ian McKellen! Yay!

Come in. Get comfy (or pleasantly uncomfortable). Grab some snacks. Etc.

The purpose of this post is to act like an oddly static Discord, to wit: I'll live-comment here as I watch the reading, and you are invited to do the same, whenever you watch the stream, so that the end result is a braiding-together of our viewings, a co-viewing and conversation in slow time.

I'll see if I can timestamp. I might not be that together tomorrow morning.


§rf§

Notes

The show starts at 11 am July 25 my time (Pacific) / 7pm Greenwich.

(Book here if you haven't yet.)
lycomingst: (Default)
lycomingst ([personal profile] lycomingst) wrote2025-07-24 03:24 pm
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(no subject)

The new cat tower is being used. There is contention and Snow is a bit of a bully. He chases Festis every time she tries to use it. Last night there was an argument and they both fell off as they tried to commit murder on each other.

I moved the older tower in alongside the new one. It’s rather rickety but it provides a view of the back yard where everything is happening. I’m hoping the cats can peacefully coexist if each has a seat at the window.

I play a computer game called “June’s Journey” and about a week ago I started getting a message that there was a ‘security threat’ and it wouldn’t open. Inquieres told me that I wasn’t the only one. It was a new update they did and their website said that they didn’t support Chrome. Well, you have for the last 6/7 years. I don’t know anything about IT but cutting your customer base seems that you’re going in the wrong direction. I miss my game. Once in a survey I did for them I asked if they got their servers at a garage sale. Things have always been chancy with them.

I finished “Agents of Shield”. Whedon is a jerk but he and his family (blood and artistic) turn out good series. I’m going to miss the gang. Coulson is immortal, as it should be.

There is going to be a brief interlude before starting my next set of dvds as I want to rewatch Ghosts (UK) for writing purposes.

I’m getting bored of summer. And there’s still August to get through.
cmcmck: (Default)
cmcmck ([personal profile] cmcmck) wrote2025-07-23 02:54 pm

A walk to Dothill

Dothill is on the moorland side of town and is an interesting combo of marshland, wetland and lakes.

This path takes you in once you walk through Donnerville Spinney to get there:



See more: )
rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
rydra_wong ([personal profile] rydra_wong) wrote2025-07-23 07:41 am
Entry tags:
jazzy_dave: (books n tea)
jazzy_dave ([personal profile] jazzy_dave) wrote2025-07-22 10:19 pm
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Book 37 - Carl Hiaasen "Hoot"

Book 37 - Carl Hiaasen "Hoot" (Macmillan)




Dare I say it? This book was a 'hoot'! This is a fun read with wonderfully developed characters that still offer ruminations for deeper thought. Three middle school youth band together to protect a species of endangered owls from corporate expansion and their neglectful attitude toward the environment in their rush to expand. It offers food for thought about resistance to corruption, care and protection for the environment and encouragement for those who think they might not be able to take a stand. The book is well written and reads fairly quickly as Hiassen combines intimate knowledge of the Florida landscape with wit and insight. A wonderful and worthwhile read!
smallhobbit: (Gloucestershire Peregrine)
smallhobbit ([personal profile] smallhobbit) wrote2025-07-22 01:16 pm

View from the Window - July

Here are this month's views - the grass is almost totally parched now:

July views )
jazzy_dave: (bookish)
jazzy_dave ([personal profile] jazzy_dave) wrote2025-07-21 09:21 pm
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Book 36 - Graham Swift "Last Orders"

Graham Swift "Last Orders" (Picador)




This is Swift's Booker Prize-winning novel from 1996, and for me it is a re-read. Some have noted similarities between it and Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, but that does not detract from its quality which has been evident in Swift's writing since his earlier success with Waterland (a novel that was short-listed for the Booker). While I found it a bit slow at first, it eventually evolved into a captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request--namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. None could be better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies--insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war.

The narrative start is developed with an economy that presents (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth with a minimum of melodrama. The group is uncomfortable at first as evidenced by weak and self- conscious jocular remarks when they meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader gradually learns why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does--or so he thinks. As you might expect there are stories shared with topics like tales of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms. There is even a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling sea waves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Graham Swift is able to avoid artificiality by listening closely to these lives and presenting realistic voices that share stories of humanity with the proverbial ring of truth. If you have seen the film version, then you will know these characters, but if you have not, I totally recommend this novel forst.


jazzy_dave: (books n tea)
jazzy_dave ([personal profile] jazzy_dave) wrote2025-07-21 09:14 pm

Book 35 - Grayson Perry "Playing to the Gallery"

Grayson Perry "Playing to the Gallery" (Penguin Books)





A genuine attempt at an accessible work on understanding contemporary art for the average person, by one of Britain's more accessible and popular contemporary artists. I like Grayson Perry and his work, and I have a lot of time for anything he wants to say on this (and several other) subjects. I find myself nodding along to a lot of what he writes here, and he does raise some thought provoking points.

However, somehow it doesn't add up to more than the sum of its parts. There is no great overarching vision here, just a series of interesting points well made, so it ends up lacking a little coherence overall. Also, he is still very much an insider to the art world, so sometimes what he says seems to lack a little insight into what those who are truly on the outside might feel (lots of talk about making money out of the art world, and thinking about what curators value in a work etc; quite minority interests, even for other artists that don't exist in that rarefied strata) But, worth a look, not least for his humorous sketches that litter the book, and manage to capture some aspects of contemporary culture pretty neatly.
rusty_armour: (gizzyicon)
rusty_armour ([personal profile] rusty_armour) wrote2025-07-21 10:57 am
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Happy Birthday, Grondfic! :-D



Best wishes and many happy returns, [personal profile] grondfic!






shewhomust: (ayesha)
shewhomust ([personal profile] shewhomust) wrote2025-07-24 05:59 pm
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A poet writes a letter to the newspaper

The Guardian Letters page recently published this from Blake Morrison: it's a letter, but the bulk of it is a poem (if you don't want to visit the Guardian, search on the title - A Compilation of terrorists - to find it elsewhere).

I like it better as a letter than as a poem: your mileage may vary. It's a list poem, and I liked it best as an invitation to add your own entries to the list. It didn't take me long to start thinking "Adrian Mitchell reciting 'Tell me lies about Vietnam'"
I was run over by the truth one day.
Ever since the accident I’ve walked this way...

- only of course, the title of that poem is To Whom it May Concern - which makes it another letter to the press, doesn't it?

And here it is:

lycomingst: (Default)
lycomingst ([personal profile] lycomingst) wrote2025-07-19 09:56 pm
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(no subject)

This week's questions were suggested by bindyree.


1. Name five favorite movies.
Laura (Casablanca is, of course,a given), The Avengers, The Bourne Legacy, Paddington 2, The next one I see that surprises me.

2. Name four areas of interest you became interested in after you were done with your formal education.
Travel, history, crocheting, cats

3. Name three things you would change about this world.
Everybody gets fed, everybody goes to school, everybody gets to vote.

4. Name two of your favorite childhood toys.
I was just about books and reading.

5. Name one person you could be handcuffed to for a full day.
I don’t think that would be feasible since I have to go to the bathroom so much.


I noticed the other day that the kitty litter I buy went up three dollars.