... I'd write my autobiography, but no-one would believe it....
If you come across any words you don't recognise in this blog, take a look at the Taylorspeke Glossary in the left-hand infopane, you'll usually find a definition there.
There's room for one - or maybe two, at a pinch - more on that bedroom windowsill (the only one in the house that's ideal for them). Let's see what I find. Well, that didn't last long...
EO - Everlasting orchid. Phalaenopsis. I've had this orchid since 2007 and it just keeps flowering...
AO - Alien face orchid. Phalaenopsis . Bought 2018 - lovely little flowers, all different patterns!
RO - Rescued orchid photo to come when it flowers. Phalaenopsis. Rescued from a bin up the road in 2019. Classic!
TO - Tiny orchid. Phalaenopsis. Bought at Tesco 21.8.20. It just begged to come home with me. How could I say no?
CO - Crimson orchid. Cambria. Another Tesco find. This one may be going to live in Ken's room once we've redecorated and put up the new shelving; it prefers a cooler, less sunny windowsill. If so, I'll need to find another cambrian to keep it company.
GO - Golden orchid. Phalaenopsis. Saw this one when I bought CO and left it behind - then immediately regretted it as soon as I got home. Never seen one like it before. Ken, bless him, went back over to Tesco in the rain and bought it for me...
DO - Dendrobium Orchid. Smells of wisteria, so beautiful...
RO2 - Rescued orchid no 2. Phalaenopsis. This is the one I rescued from the wall along the road middle of 2021.
PO. Pink orchid. Phalaenopsis. This is the one I bought at Cabury Garden Centre on special, late 2021. It's much happier here!
TWO. Teeny weeny orchid, Phalaenopsis. Rescued from Tesco end 2021 (I think).
"Autumnal - nothing to do with leaves. It is to do with a certain brownness at the edges
of the day...
Brown is creeping up on us, take my word for it... Russets and tangerine shades of old gold flushing the very outside
edge of the
senses... deep shining ochres, burnt umber and parchments of baked earth - reflecting on itself and through itself,
filtering the light. At
such times, perhaps, coincidentally, the leaves might fall, somewhere..."
(Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
are Dead Act
2: Tom Stoppard)
Autumn...
I love this time of year. I love the colours, the sharp slant of sunlight on the trees, mosaics of acid-yellow and harts-
blood, velvet and
darkness and a haze of mist-grey over the hills. I love its immanence, its mellowness, the tang of frost just around the
corner of the
year...
Watching the little birds in the goat-willow in my garden, I realised something more.
I love this land with a fierce, possessive love, deep-rooted in two thousand years of history. From the frosted beaches
and cloud-brushing peaks of the north to the wind-haunted meanderings of the rivers of the east, from the sensuous
rolling patchworked hills of
the south to the demanding dark moors of the west, this land seeps into bone and blood and synapse, mother of
motley nobility,
culture, individual freedoms. It can be known. It can be understood. It can be felt deep inside.
I love its effortless eccentricities, its vigour and vibrancy, its flawed perfections, its silent strength and tenacious
resilience, its hard-won tolerances and intense and variable beauty, the profound energy in its sacred mythical
landscape.
Home and more-than-home, the forces that shape and protect and bind, in me, as I am in the land. Love returning love
in the stillness
for those who'll only take the time to listen...
Blog Pics I've gathered some of my pages of photos together: the page of links is here. I'll be adding more as time goes
by!
Evil Squid
A Little Glossary of Taylorspeke
(in no particular order)
plit popints - n. Typo for 'plot points' typed on a keyboard with more than half the characters worn off...
[PING] (alt [ping]) - n. A brainwave. The text equivalent of a lightbulb going on blindingly over someone's head. Usually mine. And usually at the most inconvenient of times. [sigh]
TPTB - The Powers That Be.
wulmet - n. A person of little or no talent who somehow inveigles himself into a position where he is in power over other, far more talented people and uses his position to downplay them in order to try to make himself feel superior.
biteable - referring to an anatomical part vb, tasty.
Flatterfed - vb. 27.02.08: my typo for flattered, but since it's so cutely apt I thought it would fit nicely
here. Lutra defined it as "the lovely warm feeling of satisfaction resulting from enthusiastic reviews..." (which I've been
getting for my MB fics).
Composted - vb, 'compos mentis', mentally capable of working. Contrast with
uncomposted or non-
composted, not 'compos mentis', not capable of working, hungover...
Cumbles - n, cucumbers.
Kewp - how Ken says 'thank you'. We rather like Lutra's 'nanx', too...
Musekick - noun, music, without which I cannot work.
'feinne - noun, caffeine, essential for correct mental functioning, especially first thing in the morning. I
prefer mine in the
form of SodaStream Diet Coke. And on that subject...
Skoosh - verb, noun. To skoosh - to add CO2 to a sodastream bottle filled with water to make it
fizzy, prior to adding
Diet Coke syrup (or just drinking as sparkling water). A skoosh - a bottle of water that has been skooshed. Skooshy
- something that
has been skooshed, water, or that whipped cream that comes in tins you have to shake then upend and press the
nozzle...
Shoogle - verb. To shake gently, for example, of roast potatoes in a roasting tin to ensure they're
covered with oil. I
have vague memories of this being a real Scottish colloquialism...
Stegasaurus - n, spider of the genus tegenaria. Why? No idea. I just find it easier, that's
all...
Edit 08.09.07: Lutra thinks that Brian is a good name for a mini-stegasaurus. From now on, any 'Brian's in the posts
may be assumed to be a tegenaria. Except where otherwise specified.
Viterals - noun, vitamins + minerals. Also a pun on victuals.
Splish - verb. A combination of slosh and splash.
Parrots - noun, paracetemol (from the old joke "Why are there no aspirin tablets in the jungle?
Because the parrots eat
'em all...")
Maggles - noun, magpies. As opposed to non-magical people.
Flamewings - noun. Swifts. So called because the first time we became aware of them was an early
summer evening
when they were flying high, the light from the setting sun seemingly turning their wings to flames. Lovely little birds. We
always know
summer's arrived when we hear their high-pitched squeeing.
Murfs - noun, moths.
Peasant cut - noun, roughly cut up into big chunks, e.g. vegetables chopped in a hurry for a
hearty stew or
soup. By extension, anything prepared in a hurry - haircut, material, even a first draft of a story...
Giraffe - noun, a carafe (of wine, coffee or water, for example).
Shrumps - noun, mushrooms.
Splings - noun, Kai's spelling homework: by extension, any spelling.
Tyops - noun, typos. var toyps, typso, psyto, psoyt, etc. Usual result of a dose of the
fingerials (see next
entry).
Fingerials - (pr. fin GEEE ree yalls) noun, fingers that will not type what you want
them to.
Haddock - noun, time, of which I never have enough. (Origin of this term here.)
Sleep - noun? vb? a.k.a. sheeeeeeeeep.... I used to know what this word
meant...
:: World Timeserver For checking the current time around this world
:: Universal Currency Converter Actually it's just a terran-global currency
converter, not universal,
but it's still useful...
So what is it with the
haddock? Am I some kind of fish freak?
I'll leave that to
others to decide.
The tale (or tail if you prefer) harks back
to October 2000, when my GoodTwin and I, ably assisted by Sue,
ran the first UK Professionals convention... It's common
knowledge that I never have enough time, and I was determined
not to bewail the fact that weekend: hence I promised not to use the
'T' word... Of course, that didn't really work (if nothing else I
had to let the trainees know what times things were supposed to be
happening!) so we decided a substitute word would be employed
instead. There were several suggestions. Banana came very close to
being chosen. However, I eventually decided that 'haddock' fitted
the bill nicely. Ever since, haddock=time. Hence the title of my forthcoming
autobiography, My Half-Life in the Haddock
Space Continuum....
Normally I wouldn't, but these
were just irresistible...
These
Too-Kawaii Kitties were adopted from Ghost's Anime
Page (which appears to have disappeared, alas...)
Anime still needed to complete series' I'm collecting...
Many thanks to everyone who has helped me acquire the collection!
Ai no Kusabi
Owned:
DVD Dj: June Special CD: Ambivalence
Cyber City Oedo 808
Owned:
DVD
All 3 eps on Video, dubbed Dj: Cyberage 1-3
Illustrated Book 2 (Benten's) in Japanese
From Eroica with Love
Owned: Manga Vols 1, 9, 11
Mirage of Blaze
Owned:
DVD Vol 1 (eps 1-4)
R.G. Veda
Owned: English Manga: Vol 1 Japanese Manga: Vol 1-7 complete Tarot Pack
R.G.Veda video
Twelve Kingdoms
Owned: Anime Vol 1-12: complete
Under the Glass Moon
Owned: Manga Vol 1, 2
Vol 3 needed
Vampire Hunter D - Bloodlust
Owned:
DVD
Vampire Hunter D Book 1
New Vampire Miyu
Owned:
(Studio Ironcat) Manga Vols 1 -5 (complete)
Yami no Matsuei
Owned:
Viz Manga: English translation, Vols 1 - 11 (complete: I believe vol 12 is only available online)
Japanese 3-DVD set
Central Park Media: Descendants of Darkness Vol. 1, English/Japanese subbed.
Sketchbook
[::..Joules SP fied..::]
... this is Terra? How the hell'd I end up here...?
Oh bloody hell, this is getting ridiculous. Please can someone send me some haddock? 189,669 tons would be useful...
So here we are in 2022... It's started off quite well. Busy as ever, but productive. Let's see...
Media first.
Superman 3 was fun. Extremely daft, but chuckleworthy. Superman VI (The Quest for Peace) however - oh dear...
Red Notice on Netflix. Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot together in a film? What could go wrong? Nothing, actually - it was great fun! Nothing too extraordinary, but a thorough romp. Highly enjoyable.
Wish I could say the same for 6 Underground. Ryan Reynolds again, and good as ever, but Michael bloody Bay was the director. Continuity? What's that? If you ever watch it (and I can't recommend anyone does), note the wingmirrors on that hideous green car in the first 10 mins of the film. They're there, then they're not. Then they're there again. Then gone again. There, gone. There, gone. And the film just goes downhill from there. A real pity, as the idea and plot were actually quite interesting, and in the hands of a competent director it could have been a good film.
I bought the complete Penny Dreadful a while back, and we finally got around to watching it. It's rather good - although the appearance of Shazad Latif as Dr Jekyll threw us to start with. We know him best from Toast of London (his catchphrase there, "Hello Stephen. This is Clem Fandago - can you hear me?" instantly repeats in the mind when he appears...) At the same time I was reading Infernal Devices - it's good, well-written (if a little verbose for my tastes) quirky and interesting. (Alas, I didn't enjoy it enough to want to read the rest of the series, but since it doesn't end on a cliff-hanger, that's fine.)
After that we rewatched Toast of London before moving on to Toast of Tinseltown on Netflix, which is something of a rehash of its progenitor though not as funny.
Don't Look Up (on Netflix) is amazing. Incredibly depressing while being very funny, and unfortunately all too plausible. Hugely satisfying ending. The whole thing reminded me of Ben Elton's Stark, which I then had to rebuy and reread. Terrific book, even more depressing ending. Thought I'd see if I can buy the mini-series but the cheapest I can find is £42 + £21 p&p, so sod that for a game of soldiers. Will see if I can pick it up somewhere else...
After that it was Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde, which I remember from watching as a child. It's aged extremely well, and touches on a number of themes which are now current (transgenderism, for example) but would have been shocking at the time (1971). Well worth watching!
Next was Sweet Tooth, again on Netflix. Hm. It's... interesting, but I'm not entirely sure what the creators were aiming for. May have to watch the second season...
While we're on Netflix offerings, the live action Cowboy Bebop is terrific! The anime was always a family favourite, and this version does the story proud. Really hope it does go to a second season.
The House, on the other hand, is nightmare fuel, although the ending has a downbeat positive turn, I suppose.
OatStudios, however, was just tedious. Wouldn't watch any of these even if they were made into films/TV series'.
Another film I remember from when I was a child is X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes . At the time it scared me, especially the ending. Rewatching it's not so scary, and has aged quite well. I think Kai enjoyed it!
Ken and I are currently rewatching Torchwood and thoroughly enjoying it.
Books... So I read - struggled through - Jetta and Daxx... The three page disclaimer, nearly every paragraph in a different font, should have warned me. But I persevered.
It's dire. It makes Twilight and 50 Shades look like Shakespeare. The porn careers randomly from clinical to crude, is nowt but a collection of clichés, but worst of all it's BORING. I'm not even going to give it away. Kai thinks he might like to read a bit, just to see what his mum finds so awful that she nearly threw the book at the wall more than once, but after that I'm tearing it up and throwing it in the compost bin. Let the tigerworms eat it. It may as well serve some purpose.
Next was A Street Cat Named Bob, the book of which I picked up at Tesco and the DVD of which I found cheap in a charity shop. The book is very much an eye-opener (let's just say it's convinced me to donate to street buskers and Big Issue sellers from now on). Will watch the dvd soon.
Now reading Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane (WARNING - wiki has spoilers), which is... nightmarish in places. I mean, it's good, but I can't say I'm enjoying it.
Domestic stuff... After having the solar panels installed (and they're already producing electricity, even in this weather!) we find that Bristol Energy - our supplier - went bust and we were sold... sorry, transferred... to British Gas. Oh joy. [headdeskheaddeskheaddesk] Now, I fully appreciate that this means that BG has 175,000 extra accounts just from Bristol Energy, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of new accounts from other suppliers who've gone bust, but did it really have to be so hard to 1) actually speak to a human and 2) actually make sense of what I was told? It's going to be VERY interesting when we get our first bill... Luckily, being thorough (not obsessive, of course) I keep copies everything official. As it is, we ended Bristol Energy over £400 in credit. Will report back later.
And then Virgin Media put our account up by another £5 a month to a minimum £60 a month, not including telephone calls, and we'd finally had enough. Got a new aerial installed by a lovely local guy (who was able to programme our TV too! Of course, BND went out and harrassed him, but I'd already warned him so he just ignored the miserable old sod) and are now on Freeview (still getting channels we'll never watch but at least we aren't now paying for them). As of next Monday we'll be getting landline and broadband from BT. Yes, I know I swore I'd never have anything to do with them again when I stopped working for them nearly 40 years ago, but needs must. (We'd have rather gone with the Co-op but they are, apparently, hopelessly incompetent: will maybe check again when the BT 24 month contract ends. At least everyone I've spoken to has been friendly and helpful, which goes a long way!) It's Fast Fibre broadband, and 700 free minutes of talk time (at any time of day, not just weekends) per month on the landline, which suits us perfectly. And all for £35 a month. I think. A lot cheaper than Virgin, anyway.
Of course, Virgin tried to woo us back with the offer of matching BT's costs for the next 18 months, but honestly, I've had enough hassle. Now just crossing fingers tightly that everything gets transferred - including our current telephone no. - nice and smoothly. We'll still have Virgin for over a week after BT goes live, in case of any hiccoughs.
And now to the highlight of the month - our new furbaby Ella!
She's a Caribbean Potcake dog, 9 years old (so a little set in her ways, but we're adapting to each other very well), brought to the UK when her previous humans emigrated but then couldn't find any accommodation that would take pets, so they handed her into the RSPCA. She eventually found her way to BARC, and hence to us. The staff at BARC called her Princess Sassypants, and she can be a bit of a drama queen, but she's adorable. LOVES her butt scratches and belly rubs...
The last one was taken at the top of Arno's Vale Cemetery, a wonderful, dog-welcome (but only on leads) place of hundreds of windy exciting paths. Her jacket's a very sensible double layer, a detachable warm padded interior and a waterproof outer. She's not used to British weather yet.
K&K have constructed a reinforced chicken wire fence between the shed and the side wall (it'll be covered with ivy and honeysuckle in a few years), and Kai is half way through making us a new gate for the path between house and shed (BARC instruct adopters to make sure any obstacles are 5 foot or more to make sure the dogs can't jump over them). Then we need to fill in the fox holes and pile up the stray rocks in one place (grass has grown over them and hidden them, and they're trip hazards) to dogproof the whole garden, and then she can go out there by herself with no lead.
For any readers in other parts of the globe, we escaped Storms Dudley, Eunice and Franklin without damage (although the wind was terrifyingly loud and blusterous) - unfortunately other parts of the region weren't so lucky...
We've made a few changes to daily life. Used to have the TV on all the time: I've now switched to booting up Radio Garden every morning and absolutely adoring discovering new stations to enjoy. Current favourites are Tokyo's Wave Anime station and the local Keynsham one, which has the most amazing Ambient Hour on Sundays from 22.00 - 23.00. Two weeks ago I managed to catch a track that simply blew me away, and went in search of it. It was Alive from Phil Lober's If album. Which of course I immediately bought...
Some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard - complex, alien, intriguing and inspiring. It's fabulous.
TV is now on only when we want to watch somehting.
OK - time to serve lunch. Will try to update sooner in future!
Lovely update. Well done for moving on from Virgin. I don't like it when companies only take notice and offer you good deals when you are leaving them. You can always move on from British Gas when the situation dies down but things are certainly dicey with fuel prices at present. I know of several people who have been moved to ther companies. I'm in the so far, so good camp although of course 'good' is a relative term. I enjoyed Ocean at the End of the Lane and particularly the three women, but yes, some parts of it were definitely scary. Congratulations on getting a dog. Sounds as if adventurese will abound!
Have to confess I do LIKE his depictions of the women (maiden, mother, crone - took me a few pages to realise what they were) but I think some of it strikes too close to home for me to feel entirely comfortable with it. Not far to go, then I'll see if I feel any different at the end.
Adventures, yes... in all weathers too. But I've lost nearly a stone since Yule, most of it in the last three weeks, so as far as Ella and I are concerned, it's a win-win. Even if the exercise does leave me knackered!
I know how you felt about BT, but we've been with them for BB for about 7 years now and never had a blip. I'm sure it's not the cheapest but it's certainly been reliable.
I'm having similar energy issues; we're with SSE for both electric and gas and they're employing in my view underhand techniques in order to force us onto smart meters. I was leaning towards switching to Octopus but unfortunately hadn't got my AinG before all the problems last year.
Ella is gorgeous! Perhaps we need a dog; I could do with losing some weight... :)
3 Comments:
Lovely update. Well done for moving on from Virgin. I don't like it when companies only take notice and offer you good deals when you are leaving them. You can always move on from British Gas when the situation dies down but things are certainly dicey with fuel prices at present. I know of several people who have been moved to ther companies. I'm in the so far, so good camp although of course 'good' is a relative term.
I enjoyed Ocean at the End of the Lane and particularly the three women, but yes, some parts of it were definitely scary.
Congratulations on getting a dog. Sounds as if adventurese will abound!
Have to confess I do LIKE his depictions of the women (maiden, mother, crone - took me a few pages to realise what they were) but I think some of it strikes too close to home for me to feel entirely comfortable with it. Not far to go, then I'll see if I feel any different at the end.
Adventures, yes... in all weathers too. But I've lost nearly a stone since Yule, most of it in the last three weeks, so as far as Ella and I are concerned, it's a win-win. Even if the exercise does leave me knackered!
I know how you felt about BT, but we've been with them for BB for about 7 years now and never had a blip. I'm sure it's not the cheapest but it's certainly been reliable.
I'm having similar energy issues; we're with SSE for both electric and gas and they're employing in my view underhand techniques in order to force us onto smart meters. I was leaning towards switching to Octopus but unfortunately hadn't got my AinG before all the problems last year.
Ella is gorgeous! Perhaps we need a dog; I could do with losing some weight... :)
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