| Pears |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|09:41 pm] |
Last night's dinner at Asadal Korean Restaurant had some wonderful things (and a couple not so wonderful. A couple of things only turned up when we pointed out that they were on our list, but not on the order that had gone to the kitchen.
Among the wonderful things was Yuk Hwae - seasoned minced beef with pear. Now there's a dish you wouldn't have imagined existed, and excellent it was. Despite me not liking pears that much, and usually avoiding them.
I don't, for example, drink perry from choice. Although I have drunk Swedish pear cider and found it not unpalatable. Pear cider is a term which I accept on a bottle of Koppaberg, as I accept it as probably being a translation from Swedish, for a European market, where it might reasonably be thought that the drinking public would understand 'pear cider' but not 'perry'.
I am, however, mightlilly grumpy about English-speaking-perry manufactuerers calling their products 'pear ciders'. I refuse to drink it, on principle. And as I've mentioned, I don't like it anyway.
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| Catching up, moving on .... |
[Jun. 28th, 2009|08:25 pm] |
It has been Too Hot here today.
The next weekends are scheduled for
Leighton Buzzard
Tewksbury
York
Cambridge
Quebec City
Montreal.
I hope they are all not as hot and sticky.
I am trying to find accomodation on the Ile d'Orleans (an island just downriver from Quebec city) and have been derailed by one that features 'rooms without rugs'. Even understanding that this may be a not-quite-full translation from the French 'tapis' (carpet, rug) doesn't help much. Is this a feature for allergy-sufferers? Then why not specify allergy-friendly bedding? Or does it mean marble floors or wood floors - in which case, why not 'sell' those.
Seminar, I was going to write about the seminar.
The papers were a mixed bag. I am growing more and more confident that I have heard the final paper before. Or read it. Maybe in Italian. It was, I think, probably the best-presented, but also the worst. But also the most-likely-to-become-something-really-important.
All that is, of course leaving aside the presentation from Ironville School. Which was not an academic reflection on the processes of facilitating academic and life achievement within a working-class school (although it could have been). It deserves a separate post. |
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| Cultural enrichment |
[Jun. 27th, 2009|09:06 am] |
For those of you who like preraphaelite art, can I reccomend www.prerapaelites.org ?
Luscious as hot chocolate! |
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| 19th July - Nonsuch Palace |
[Jun. 20th, 2009|04:50 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | nonsuch | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Wome | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  Too much of a good thing | ] |
| [ | music |
| | come dine with me | ] |
I now have 3 places I could be on 18th/19th July - I will be in York, so can't get to :
NONSUCH GOLD AT BOURNE HALL: SATURDAY 18 JULY & SITE TOURS SUNDAY
19 JULY 2009
‘Nonesuch … which no equal hath in art or fame …’
Five hundred years since Henry VIII became King, and fifty since Nonsuch
Palace was uncovered, this special study day explores the wealth and power
of Tudor palaces. The programme features Martin Biddle, excavator of
Nonsuch, and will include a showing of recently re-discovered film footage of
the 1959 dig.
Tickets: £15 for the study day only; £20 for the whole weekend including site
visits. Available from the Friends of Bourne Hall Museum, Spring Street, Ewell,
Surrey KT17 1UF. Contact the Museum on 020 8394 1734; email
JHarte@epsom-ewell.gov.uk
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| Weighty matters |
[Jun. 20th, 2009|03:49 pm] |
Broggy weighs (according to the wii) 1 stone.
Does anyone know how to record this on the wii? |
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| Her life .... |
[Jun. 19th, 2009|06:19 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | stereotyping | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Wome | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  Preconceptions, we have them. | ] |
| [ | music |
| | BBC news on the Parthenon marbles | ] |
I am flipping through the Radio Times, in the hope that there is something worth watching ignoring while I type, and I come across a small article on My Life in Verse : Malorie Blackman. The piece starts out "Prolific children's author Malorie Blackman, best known for her clever exploration of racial attitudes in Noughts and Crosses struggled to find her way in a world of preconceptions about what a black girl from south London could do". Fine. Not got me wanting to watch the programme yet, but fine. After a sentence or two detailing her early life, the author (one JR) goes on to conclude "Remarkably, despite being inspired to write by the work of black poets James Barry, Bejamin Zephaniah and Jackie Kay, along with the lyrics of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, she initally decided not to write only about race and racism".
What? It's remarkable that a black woman does not just write about race and racism? I have no idea what else she writes about - Watervoles, Watermills, the battle of Waterloo, Watergate, Water-colourists of the 19th century. What's remarkable about her writing about any of them?
I shall order some books from the library, and find out what the 'remarkable' things are.
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| ALS Dublin Monday |
[Jun. 15th, 2009|10:37 pm] |
Woke quite late, breakfasted on a lot of white pudding, spicey saussages (and fruit).
We set out to find the Strangers-to-Citizens exhibition at the National Library, which is slightly creapy due to renovations which mean you have to go through a maze of white plastic - anyone who has seen New Dr Who knows why this is Bad.
It turned out the exhibition was in the French Instutute back on Nassau street, but first we went to the bookshop and bought the catalogues for the Yeats exhibition, the Strangers-to-Citizens, and also a book on Irish lighthouses. I think we probably have the best collection of books on lighthouses in the UK, excluding of course those people who are actually _properly interested_ in lighthouses.
The exhibition itself is good (albeit the hunt-round-the-module form of exhibition design is at work again here - it just means that you find odd panels out of order rather than missing the labels, though). It is a National Library exhibition, and to celebrate 400 years of Irish colleges in Europe, both facts which conspire against it exploring the history of the Irish vagrants in more than one panel. So the message is: the Irish went forth, and either assimilated, or came home. Which is Not True, at least as far as England is concerned.
It was quiet small, so we went off to find the National Photographic Archive. This has a degree show in its exhibition space. I was particularly taken with the work of Michael Conlon and Una Spain (the latter name from memory, I have a postcard of the former). Una (I know I have that name right, apart from the fact the U was accented) had a lovely book, exploring an asylum, a religious institution and a factory. Michael's work is about street violence which (unlike asylums) is not a subject I find immediately attractive, but who has very powerful images - some not bad but not exceptional portraiture in his book - what is wonderful are his night images, particularly the person who lies on a shining pavement, as if impailed on a bollard. I could rave on about this image for pages. It is beautiful. It wasn't a selling exhibition, which is a shame, as I think I would have bought this. Despite the subject matter (there is blood running into a gutter), this is something I want on a wall where I can see it every day. For me, the opposite of a Bacon portrait (something which _should_ be on a wall, but I wouldn't want on mine).
Then we came home. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 15th, 2009|10:32 pm] |
The Blackberry ate Sunday.
From memory, what I wrote was:
The delayed walking tour took place on Sunday morning.
The Dublin Writer's Museum is showing its age (18 years), and I want to take it over. I read a frustrating email from a so-called colleague from work this morning, which kind-of cast a shadow over the day until the evening.
One thing gone wrong with DWM is the cafe has been closed for a year, causing kerfuffle as the ALSers gradually discovered this (each person finding out in turn and deciding to decamp, in turn, to the City Art Gallery next door with functioning cafe (or not) and asking the woman on the desk to 'look after' their audio tour until their return. Fankly, I'm shocked she didn't kill anyone. Exmemsec and I decided to tour first, cafe after. By which time it was lunch time and the rest of the ALS had eaten it out of the strawberry cheasecake (the smoked salmon was eaten-out the day before, this being the Saturday before Bloomsday*). So we had soup (sweet potato). I think the wii might not be so bad**.
In the afternoon we toddled off to the Collins Barracks (National Museum of Decorative Arts, etc.). First we did 'curators choice' (more hund-round-the-display-to-find-the-label), and an open store. This latter was good as they go, but given we only had an afternoon, I think we should have concentrated on narrative displays. Then Irish furniture, which was excellent. Bought the book, should anyone want to borrow it. Then we wanted a coffee and a sit down, in the cafe below. But had to walk back round two sides of the parade ground to get out at cafe level. Felt this was So Much Exercise, I could have passion fruit cheesecake*** Then we started on 'Soldiers and Cheiftains', a military history involving Ireland from the late 1400s. We had got to the 1920s when we were chased out as they wanted to close. Ironic, as this is the point at which my grandfather would have arrived in the story. We are going to have to come back.
We took a tram back, as had done enough walking.
Met 'the Webbs' (or rather, one Webb and his wife) in the bar, and talked about Margaret Gelling, and learned of her death and her (nrelated) fire in the shower. ExmemSec agreed that in Mr Webbs and his wife, we have seen ourselves in the future, and it's a very nice prospect. Also, that Birmingham is an intellectual powerhouse.
Slept better, as ExmemSec coughed a little less, but mostly because the yard was quieter. Did I mention the yard? Our hotel backed onto what was, I imagine, prior to the smoking ban, a place where beer barrels were stacked. Now it is the place where three bars have awning-covered dance-and-eating places. The volume was immense, until (Mr Webb told us) 3am on Friday and Saturday night. I buried it deep while I slept, but ExMemSec says he heard it in his dreams, and thought it was the sound of the sea.
* 16th June, annual Dublin Joycefest.
** How wrong I was. See next post.
*** You do know what the wii is going to say, don't you!
**** Her shower head cought fire. She used Harwells to restore her books. The smoke didn't touch her study, for which she was very grateful. |
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| More ALS from Dublin |
[Jun. 14th, 2009|09:43 am] |
My bgs came down swifly, and we went off to dinner.
At ALS people introduce themselves as "Linda ; Clare" or "Claire ; Marlowe", erc. We are "The Reybolds : Tolkien". There are some inevitable "Talking??". "No, Tolkien, JRR, Lord of the Rings". Often, we are ignorant of who _their_ author is (1)
We went en masse to a four-storey layer-cake of Hibernian evening-out (to floor Authentic Dublin food), floor below solid Guiniss drinking to woman singing ballads, next floor down much singing and fiddling by assembled compay. Quite amazing, as there did not seem to be room to draw breath, let alone bow, much less get to the bar. Semi-basement was similar, but for a youger crowd (cider rather than guiness, amps rather than acoustic, and more people (this was achieved by the assembled crowd dancing - by jigging the efficiently shared the air, occassioannly leaping up to grab a more oxegenated mouthful.
But we went on up through all of this to the restaurant. All kudos to the staff, who accomodated a party of 18 when the booking was for 10. There were only half a dozen other covers left, as the restaurant was largely occupied by a Swedish choir, who sang "what shall we do with the drunken sailor", Sibelius, Abba and some leide.
I ordered the special: Lobster and asparagus in whiskey pepper sauce. Rather dissapointingly, the only asparagus was the solitary blousy spear on the dish of veggies that everyone got. However, MrLobster was accompanied by a vast quantity of prawns that had not previously been mentrioned. Brown bread ice cream, naturally.
And so to bed, to listen to ExMemSec cough.
Breakfast includes white podding! What is the wii going to say?
The meeting of the ALS started with an introduction to Irish poetry. We then had a not-quite-ready-for-performance read-through of a scene from Portrait of an artist (2) - after explanations about Parnell(3). We also had Waiting for Godot.
Then the AGM. The main point of interest is that the German equivalent of the ALS appears to be gearing up to submit a proposal to the EU for network development funding.
Lunch: went next door to the Gresham Hotel. Crab Salad has a lot of the former and a small amount of the second. Very nice chips, we should not have ordered as it "came with" bread (yum yum yum - what will the wii say?)
In the afternoon, we were scheduled to have a literary walking tour, but some AGM attendees had argued that we should walk on Sunmday because the National Library was closed then, but open this afternoon.
The NL was almost closed - so no giftie shop - but this meant we had a guided tour of the reading room which appears to be pretty near perfect in terms of a library as a place to read a book. Librarians may swoon at the romance of a library still operationg card catalogues and with no computer outlets at the desks, just the green hooded lamps inmstalled in "the modernisation" of the 1930s.
We had been entratied to go for the Yeats exhibition, which is trueley worth visiting. The BM's turning-the-page software is useless for someone like Yeats who appears to have gone to the same school of calligraphy as Tolkien, and to have used the same pencils. Otherwise, excellent. Not a tourist exibition, but one that general readers will enjoy at one level and fans will plunge into a dozen times. It's online, so google it if you want to know more.
Back to our room for a short nap (whee! No copughing!!! Perhaps because ExMemSec remebered the bottle of cough mixture we had procured at Heatherow?) Before dinner.
We sat with an Austin, her husband, a Dubliner, and a Virginia Wolfe. People do tend to be somewhat like their authors. The Mrs Gaskells are very well dressed. The Johnsonians are very definite. But it would be a grave mistake to believe because you coan't think of anything worse than a long journey with only one of _their_ aothor's books to read, you will not get on with the fandom.
I went to bed and read (5), while Exmemsec sat drinking downstairs until everyone else but the Dubliners had gone.
(1) Clare is John Clare, the "mad sheperd poet" of Northamptonshire. if I'd known about the society when.I was 16, I'd have joined.
(2) I was 16 when I read this. I had read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog, and thought it would be similar.
(3) These were in the footnotes to the edition I read at 16. I should have understood this then, as my grandfather was vert tangentally(4) involved, but I didn't. It doesn't work as an explanation in footnotes, so if you are interested, I recommend you read a general history of the time and _then_ Portrait.
(4) Tangental, in that it had a profound effect on my grandgather, and absolutely no effect on history, faced with Dublin in the years after WW1, he simply stopped being in the British Army and started being a student of Mathematics at Trinity.
(5) "Where did it all go right?". I am not sure if this would appeal to anyone who did not have the good fortune to be born in Northampton during the 1960s. But I and my sister (who leant it to me) think it hilarious. The Author, Andrew Collins, is our second cousin. We don't think he knows that, because he didn't put it in his book. Actually, I think I will recommend this to any Tolkien fan who feels they don't quite understand the genealogical imperative of Hobbits. |
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| Alliance of Literary Societies |
[Jun. 13th, 2009|09:33 am] |
The ALS is ignored by almost all of sf fandom. Which is rather suprising given that it is an association for those who run groups for and of fans. But the Tolkien Society is a member, and on and off for 15 years ExMemSec has been attending. This will be my second time (the other being the one organized by the TS in Oxford 3 years ago).
This one is hosted by the Dubliner's literary circle.
So, after a week that started in Loughborough and an abortive attempt to sell Uncle Dennis' car (flat battery, otherwise a bargain at 2.5k), an evening finding out about the Surrey MBA and an evening at the Surrey Museums Consultative Committee, I packed.
Discovered Aer Lingus' cabin limit is 6 kilos .... Slight packing challenge!
Trevor's cough bad; treat with entire contents of medicene cabinet, including olbas oil stream bath.
Nevertheless, decide to go anyway.
Voyage without incident.
Room in hotel miniscule (did not stay in naything so small in Japan, apart from one ryokan, and there we had a one-mat balcony, too).
Visited the National Museum of Archaeology, which is full of dead people and shiny things. Some of the dead people are shiny (human skin aquires an irridescence after submresion in bog water for hundreds of years. Some of the display techniques were ewxcellent (these bodies, for ecample, had quiet, large, respectful spaces within the gallery, each entered by a spiral ramp, uncluttered by any interpretation (that being all outside the space). On the other hand, the designers clearly believe in out of body experience, as one approaches little modules of introductory paragraph and large (often shiney) object. No interpretation of object. Until you go round to the other side where there is a peep-through to the shiney obkect, another (smaller) case of (small) more or less shiney things and an abstract from a medieval Irish text (and translation). The text has some relevance to one or more objects, or the theme of the module - e.gm the theme is "things found in bogs", and includes a tubful of butter. The text mentions cows. The translation appears to be 19th cebtury, and to have footnotes - but these are not included in the exhibition. Several of the sections appear to have been originally written in Gaelic, as the typos reveal. EG "longphort" is lifted straight into the English, and a date is written 800is (I can't remeber now how that is in Gaelic, bit I think it is 800ois).
Longphort may be entrepot. Or steelyard.
I has a set failure, and had the highest blood glucose (HI - to high for metre to read) so gave up on the visit without seeing all the shiney things (although I think I saw all the dead people. It is perhaps fortunate that we failed to sell uncle Dennis' car, for I was besotted with the replica of a particularly shiney necklace (gold and twisty).
More later ... |
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| Not really a snark, more of a cross post |
[Jun. 7th, 2009|08:21 pm] |
Hi All,
This really isn't much of a snark, more of a cross-post from disabled_fandom (snarkiness: why is disability so rarely acknowledged / dealt with in speculative fiction?).
Is anyone here going to Anticipation (Worldcon) in Montreal? I am thinking of maybe co-ordinating a panel or round-table or something (if no-one else has got there before me) - to debate the whys, what's good about disability in sf, and other questions.
And, tangentally, I think someone here's an archaeology student from Montreal - fancy a coffee with a buildings archaeolgist from the UK?
Cheers,
Pat |
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| Presence and Personhood - a request for reading |
[Jun. 7th, 2009|11:47 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | presence, work | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Yome | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  anxious | ] |
| [ | music |
| | a kettle, singing | ] |
I am writing the self-evaluation thingy ahead of my appraisal next week.
I am working through the 'development' section at the moment.
When I was interviewed for a NHS post back in January, one of the interviewers noted that I do not have a great 'presence'. It is true. I don't get noticed when I walk into a room. Actually, I'm quite shy, and would rather _not_ be noticed. But that's not the point.
Any recommendations for reading materials in this area (or courses, or directions to go stick my head in a pig, or whatever)? |
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| Fifteen books |
[Jun. 7th, 2009|10:00 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | books | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Yome | ] |
| [ | music |
| | the sound of an ironingboard hitting the chandalier | ] |
Meme from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) wellinghall and rustica
Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Copy the instructions into your own post. Tag people if you want to.
Lord of the Rings
Ant and Bee see the world
I can Jump puddles
Our Bodies, Ourselves
A History of Archaeological Thought
The Hobbit
The Horse and his Boy
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Beowulf
The Silver Sword
The Doomsday Book
The Book of Kells
Martin's Hundred
Swallows and Amazons
The Dark is Rising
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| how much?? |
[Jun. 4th, 2009|11:44 am] |
The hospital scales say I have lost a kilogram over the last 2 months. The consultant is delighted.
The wii fit says I have put on a pound over the last 1 month.
Given that during April I had Eastercon, my birthday, and AGM, all occassions to eat, drink and not be terribly active (apart from Durham), while in May I climbed a small Alp, did 20 mins wiifit a day, and tried very hard not to drink alcohol on a school night, what can explain this???
Oh well ... Let us see what happens in June. |
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| Party Political Casting about |
[Jun. 1st, 2009|12:04 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | politics | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Wome. | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | Just do _something_! | ] |
On the grounds that they are the only party (including the wierdos) who say anything about Heritage, I think I should vote for the Scottish Liberal Democrats (according to research here).
On the other hand, there is The Roman Party, Ave!. Unfortunately, I cannot find out a single thing about them (apart from the stuff the have to file with the Electoral Commission. I have, therefore, no idea of what their position is on anything. I would guess they would encourage the preservation of Roman sites, and perhaps the consumption of saltimbocca?
Is it any wonder that no-one votes any more?
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| this narrative is increasingly incoherent ... |
[May. 27th, 2009|08:34 pm] |
I forgot to say that on monday my camera refused to work. As in switch on or off or zoom. As if the batter was dead, but it isn't. I borrowed Gosh's yesterday. It does not appear to focuss. Or be less kind to camera shake.
Tuesday morning we discovered we have satnav. In French.
also on Tuedsay we saw cows. My mother cried "tha cow"s got a mucky bottom!". Ah well, at least she's enjoyinmg the sights.
We spend some time looking for a medieval bridge, glipsed from the road, but the town has hidden it.
Gosh finds the 50 cent electric candles to be "cheating candles".
We then drive over Monte Cappo (need to chech up all these names but it is too dark to see. Many menorials to heros of the resistance "who fought with more faith than arms.
Then to a village straight out of Magicians of Caprona. It has L-space.
Then told the satnave to take us home. It argued with us about getting off the mororway. So we went home te way we had gone the first night.
This morning we tried to use the satnav to take us to the Olive Museum in Imperia. It said "N'est pas en France" and sggested various places in Cannes we might like to go instead. Exmemsec found a Fil Festival Press pass in the glove compartment- the monstrosity is that kind of vehicle.
So we used [interrupt: fireflies!!!]
We used maps.
The olive oil museum is very modern, and apart from having after-thought ramps, nothing much to get my teeth into, complaints wise.
Porto Moritzio is odd: very un-poursity in the old town. Eventually found a bar for lunch. Then moved the car, despite not finding the road into the centre.
More later .... |
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It's got pears in it
cheerful
amused
yeay! More literary Dublin!
curious
contemplative