Mutterings - Aug 31

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Hell :: Handbasket
2. Time :: Tide
3. Birth :: Trauma
4. Dock :: Criminal
5. Column :: Nelson's
6. Distance :: Runner
7. Text :: Editor
8. Pop up :: Toaster
9. Fear :: Truth
10. Alert :: Police

Terragen scene

I'm trying again with Terragen 2 - I know that version 3 is out so getting my head around the version 2 features is taking a little time...I used the tutorial from here and then fiddled with it a little to get this:

I'm not sure I'm convinced by the foreground but otherwise I'm showing signs of improvement! I ran this on my Vista installation, running on my kubuntu desktop (using Wine to run the windows .exe) is rather slower I don't know whether that is due to the 'emulation' being slower in this case or whether I'm just using the desktop for more things at the same time!

Teaser Tuesday - Aug 26

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

In 2068, thirteen soldiers were killed when a prototype excavating robot malfunctioned, and drove its unit over a checkpoint. This led to a new program where Philosopher William's model of socialised development rose to prominence.

From Bernard Beckett's Genesis. This is our BATS book of the month - a lateral interpretation of the 'a book with a famous first line' choice. Described as young adult reading - reviews are tightlipped about some of the plot developments and I think I'm just getting to the interesting bit...

Mutterings - Aug 24

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Sniffle :: Snuffle
2. Live :: Bait
3. Finally! :: Exception! (a reference to the computer language python)
4. Honor :: Maid (of) - a tart, not eaten one since childhood, must give a recipe a try. I see Delia Smith has curd cheese in the filling which isn't in the first recipe and I don't remember!
5. New :: Broom
6. Cumbersome :: Load
7. Thumbs :: Up
8. Facebook :: Status
9. Cheat :: 5 Queens (must be the card game of that name)
10. Decisive :: Thrust (fencing?)

Mutterings - Aug 17

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Failure :: Hardware (never a software one!!)
2. Extinguish :: Hope
3. Probability :: Dice
4. Lurid :: Tale
5. Hope :: springs eternal (a good counterbalance to no 2!)
6. Supposedly :: Rumour
7. Putrid :: Smell
8. Remarkable :: Story
9. Bunny :: Hop
10. Expectations :: Great

Mutterings - Aug 10

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Games :: Olympic
2. Postage :: Stamp
3. Germs :: Microscope
4. Pump :: Vacuum
5. Mirror :: Wing
6. Slogan :: Election
7. Wagon :: Fall (off the)
8. Treatment :: Emergency
9. Bloody :: Wound
10. Spray :: Nasal

There's a lot of medical conditions in that!

Teaser Tuesday - Aug 4

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

He wondered sometimes if she'd ever done anything wild in her life ansd then he remembered what Jennifer had told hi the doctor had said about the Cadillac in the pond. And maybe the conspiracy around the baby, too, was a piece of wildness.

Another teaser from Anna Quindlen, I found this a difficult book to like, too allusive, nothing happening (but maybe I missed it in those interminable sentences) until you get to the last 80 pages. I see that the back cover blurb has had the language cleaned up in later editions (see my previous teaser) so that the baby's box is no longer so crowded. Some hints in the above but I don't think they amount to a spoiler.

Mutterings - Aug 4

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Survey :: Ordnance
2. Groups :: Abelian (back to the Maths undergrad course! I had to look them up but my approximation was more or less correct)
3. Notes :: Lecture
4. Orientation :: Sexual
5. Interviews :: Second (let's hope)
6. Building :: Site
7. Star Wars :: Film
8. Youth :: Club
9. Details :: Drawing
10. Italics :: Script

Teaser Tuesday - July 28 (wednesday again!)

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

One side of the hut was crammed with garbage. 'Don't sneer at it!' warned David. @there's lots of good meals in there.'

Another teaser from Nicholas Crane's Clear Waters Rising - his account of walking across Europe along the mountain ranges. Things are getting serious, winter has arrived and he's got to the Alps. That teaser is from a diversion(?) up Mont Blanc.

Mutterings - July 28

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Creaking :: Joints
2. Sipping :: Champagne
3. Honeymoon :: Hotel
4. Clang :: -ers (or maybe Die Ferne - an opera by Franz Schrecker - though I see it's Klang rather than Clang)
5. Delight :: Sunny - the power of branding, though I don't think I've ever had any, I should really be trying to think of Turkish
6. Blade :: Knife
7. Key :: Yale
8. Landing :: Knots (arrgh!)
9. Insufficient :: Weight
10. Slam :: Grand (bridge or tennis?)

Teaser Tuesday - Jul 22

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

There was a car up ahead on one side of the road, its front end an accordion pleated around the engine block, and he pulled up behind it, his brights on, and ran to the driver's side to see if anyone was hurt. But the car was empty, empty with the emptiness of an abandoned house, and as he got back to the truck, soaked and shivering, he realised that he was at the Boatwright house, where cars were ranged around the drive and the lawn the way some people planted petunias.

Anna Quindlen's Blessings - our book group book of the month (one set in the summer going by our current set of themes). Nice imagery but those sentences are long (and they're typical or maybe even on the short side). I started off having problems parsing the information on the back cover - 'In a box is a baby and Skip Cuddy, the caretaker who finds her decides secretly to keep her.' my initial image being of Skip being a soft toy kangaroo! Early days yet will see how it progresses! Here's a review. (yes I know it's Wednesday!)

Mutterings - July 20

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Scroll :: Herald
2. Mature :: Wine
3. Breakfast? :: Muesli!
4. Wrist :: Action
5. ___ is better ___ :: frustration (I have a song's rhythm going round my head but I can't remember the name - it's not 2 is better than one)
6. Better half :: Spouse
7. Note :: Minim
8. Worrying :: Fake (..concern, you have a worrying something when it just means I don't like it!)
9. Band :: Aid
10. Insipid :: Sauce

Teaser Tuesday - July 14

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

'I'll have the same,' she sighed. She listlessly reached out her hand to take a roll, but Beatrice snatched away the plate. 'No you don't' she said. 'You wait till you get your own.'

Following a re-read of Maugham's Ashenden's stories I've moved on to his other short stories. This is 'The three fat women of Antibes' a lot of the stories are very much of their time but there some good story telling! You can read the whole story here I see it has recently been made into an opera - pass the cream cakes!

Mutterings - July 13

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Stun :: Gun
2. Park :: Keeper (do they still exist?)
3. Five :: High
4. Slice :: of Life
5. Straight :: and narrow!
6. Neil :: Cartwright (boyhood friend of my brother)
7. Benchmark :: Testbed
8. Cilivized :: (or even civilized) Partnership
9. Today :: Redhead (the presenter of the BBC radio 4 programme of that name for many years and also lived near here)
10. Mortal :: Flesh (let all mortal flesh keep silent...)

Mutterings - July 7

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Forgive and :: Forget
2. Midnight :: Chime (is this Bonhoeffer's Night voices from Tegel?)
3. Overcast :: Sky
4. Church :: Steeple
5. Banner :: Ad
6. Hybrid :: Car
7. Immoral :: Action
8. Sugar :: Blood
9. 1800 :: Napoleonic War
10. Futuristic :: Cityscape

Teaser Tuesday - June 30

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

I slept in bosomy clefts overlooking the ocean with my back turned to the mountains. From my sleeping bag I watched day melt into night and the waking eyes of ships' lights being brushed by the sleeping strobes of lighthouses.

From Nicholas Crane 'Clear Waters Rising' (A Mountain Walk across Europe)- a story of the writer's walk across the mountains of Europe from Cape Finisterre to Istanbul. Here's the good reads entry and another review. That teaser is a bit flowery, the next sentence has 'the milky light of dawn' but there's good story telling in this book and good historical snippets on the regions he passes through. I've just reached the Pyrenees with him so there's a little way to go yet and lots of walking to do, the goodreads reviews suggests it gets better. It sounds a wonderful experience to have but the practicalities for most folk would rule it out but here's the experience shared!

Mutterings - June 29

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Peanuts :: Snoopy (or Beethoven!)
2. Fresh :: Figs
3. Don’t care :: Indeterminate (boolean logic attack here!)
4. Staple :: Rice (as in food)
5. Starred :: Answer
6. Aspirin :: One degree under (the old slogans - my dad worked for Aspro Nicholas back in the 1960's - look here's a souvenir!
7. Root :: Square
8. Calculate :: Compute
9. Shave :: Close
10. Bent :: Handlebars

Truth will out!

Maybe this is a good place to put some very public questions to Nigel Tate, Rob Munro and others in the leadership of St Mary's Cheadle about decisions, actions and discussions that were behind my deeply flawed 'redundancy' in 2009?

• What discussions did you have with others (including but not limited to Rob Munro and Sheila Grieve) at St Mary's Cheadle about me before 23rd Nov 2009?
• Were the reasons for the fabrication of a redundancy case - my age and also my holding views that you would regard as liberal on LGBT issues? (though liberal compared with the leadership of St Mary's Cheadle isn't saying a lot!)
• Were you aware (before Nov 2009) that I was on the Chester diocese organising committee for Changing Attitude?
• Did you (Nigel) write the alleged minutes for the redundancy scoring meeting. Were those minutes a lie from start to finish as the meeting never took place on that day, it was only cobbled together the night before our meeting when I said I wouldn't appear unless I saw a copy - and therefore it never took place in the period stipulated by employment law?
• After the final meeting, my witness and I were left alone for a private conversation. Was our discussion eavesdropped, bugged or did someone 'accidentally' leave the conference call phone on record?
• Was Gary Higham - who was made 'redundant' along with me - employed on the basis that his employment would only be for 12 months? - so that you could feign hurt innocence if accused of age discrimination. (Of course Gary wouldn't have been aware of this!)
• Did Jo Smith's sudden departure in 2008 have anything to do with a desire not to be implicated in the redundancy process?
• Were Siemens offered any inducements (financial or otherwise) to take me on as a contract worker for a very nominal time to make it less likely I'd go to industrial tribunal?
• I foolishly told you the name of the legal practice I was using for my compromise agreement review - to avoid a conflict of interest, and the person I was due to meet cancelled claiming illness and I had to speak to someone who was clearly an office junior for the review. Did you put any pressure on that practice to subvert my review?
• And most smallminded - was a staff meeting hastily arranged on my afternoon of my last day in the office designed to make it impossible for me to say farewell to my colleagues - at least on company premises?
• And I've not even mentioned the non-existence of the software group which was allegedly used to determine who was at risk of redundancy - oops!
  

The Beast

Last month our book group read W H Davies The Autobiography of a Supertramp. I was reminder of the dangerous train rides and the risks taken by travellers on reading these stories of modern emigrants to the US, powerful photography.

Mutterings - June 23

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Purpose :: Walk (no doubt following a route)
2. Service :: Medal
3. Dill :: Comfrey
4. Pompous :: Buffoon (let a very small number of readers understand)
5. Currently :: Seeking (employment)
6. Water :: Heavy
7. Origins :: Dinosaurs
8. Cycle :: Current
9. License :: Software
10. Believe :: Monkees!

Teaser Tuesday - June 16

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Though it was a warm night and the room was stuffy his hands and feet were icy. What a nuisance it was, he reflected irritably, to have an imagination that conjured up pictures of things that you didn't in the least want to see!

From W Somerset Maugham's The Ashenden Stories (this is from the Hairless Mexican). Our book group book of the month - chosen by me - I had to choose a book with a blue cover - mine published in the 1960's - I bought it new for 3s6d - has that as does at least one edition in print. I've not read the Maugham short stories for years and am thinking of following this up with the rest! These Ashenden stories were the forerunner of Ian Fleming's James Bond the head of MI6 is called 'R' and Maugham puts down some lovely interactions, he's not so much concerned with the spying as the personalities - though the situation is what develops the stories.

Mutterings - June 14

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Windy :: Show Boat (the musical has a character called Windy)
2. Left out :: in the cold
3. Hot dog :: Stand
4. Pop :: Culture
5. Hunger :: Games
6. Square :: Peg
7. Unhinge :: Bracket
8. *!#$ :: Shift (key)
9. Toenail :: Clip
10. Irritation :: Niggle

Mutterings - June 7

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Shack :: Wood
2. Cute :: Kitten
3. Factor :: Max
4. Beach :: Shingle
5. Toddler :: Bucket (a carry over from the last word!)
6. Cups :: Tea
7. Leaning :: Tower (of Pisa)
8. Thailand :: Temple
9. Beanie :: Baby
10. Schools :: Out!

Microsoft and ssh

Richard Smedley tweeted about this msdn page about the coming Microsoft implemented ssh. Those of us using other operating systems have been using ssh for many years and there's putty an implementation of it (not by Microsoft) for windows - ssh enables remote logins with secure authentication, public private keys etc, wonderful for managing systems you're not sitting at! Some quotes from that article (rememeber this is a page on msdn written by the team going to implement ssh):

As Microsoft has shifted towards a more customer-oriented culture.

as opposed to what they have been doing??!!

A follow up question the reader might have is When and How will the SSH support be available? The team is in the early planning phase, and there’re not exact days yet. However the PowerShell team will provide details in the near future on availability dates.
Finally, I'd like to share some background on today’s announcement, because this is the 3rd time the PowerShell team has attempted to support SSH.

If at first you don't succeed?

Christmas Trees

Just to be unseasonal for a moment. I've just completed a read of Geoffrey Hill's Selected poems and wanted to quote this one.“Christmas Trees”

Bonhoeffer in his skylit cell
bleached by the flares’ candescent fall,
pacing out his own citadel,

restores the broken themes of praise,
encourages our borrowed days,
by logic of his sacrifice.

Against wild reasons of the state
his words are quiet but not too quiet.
We hear too late or not too late.

Reminiscent of Bonhoeffer's Night Voices from Tegel, questioning the state...

Teaser Tuesday - June 2

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

On another occasion, Sunday morning, and grandfather being in bed, a detective disguised as a poor working man that was almost dying for a drink, wheedled the old man's daughter to sell him liquor over the back wall - the result being a summons for supplying drink during closed hours, followed by a heavy fine, which was at once paid. The third time was at my trial with five other desperadoes, as described in the preceding chapter.

A final teaser from W H Davies 'The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp' - our BATS (book group) of last month. I generally enjoyed this it had some longeurs and some points where you felt you were reading a tale about a totally different person. I hadn't read this before but I remember a school friend praising it.

Mutterings - June 2

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Summer colds :: Hayfever
2. One direction :: Boy band
3. Hormones :: Age
4. Noteworthy :: Highlight
5. Ice cube :: Clink!
6. Shaved :: Foam
7. Spray :: Ocean
8. Portable :: Computer (I don't think they're called that any more!)
9. County :: Boundary
10. Meeting :: Agenda (structure, structure, structure...

Mutterings - May 26

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Homey :: Cozy
2. Stamp :: Rubber
3. Robotics :: Azimov
4. Ironwill :: Cromwell (Oliver rather than Thomas)
5. Glucose :: Syrup
6. Napkins :: Table
7. Perky :: Pinky (aggrh 60's TV)
8. Broad :: Norfolk
9. Crop top :: No 1
10. Decisive :: Abrupt

Teaser Tuesday - May 19

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Not knowing what to do with ourselves until that time arrived, we continued to drink until we were not in a fit condition for this hazardous undertaking - except we were fortunate to get an empty car, so as to lie down and sleep upon the journey. At last we made our way towards the yards, where we saw the men making up the train.

From W H Davies 'The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp' - our BATS (book group) book of the month - this one was a book from school days for one of our members. The tale of a man from the UK travelling around America in the late 19th century hitching lifts on the railways - the hazardous process he was about to undertake in the teaser.

Mutterings - 18 May

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Waste :: Process
2. Excess :: Pay
3. Play :: Store (an android user here!)
4. Heartbreak :: Hotel
5. Purchase :: Button (websites I guess!)
6. Fear :: Wages of (a film)
7. Ages 2+ :: -5
8. Conform :: Peer-pressure
9. Reduced :: Fare
10. Change :: Attitude (Changing Attitude)

Mutterings - May 11

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Relief :: Road
2. Flutter :: Heart
3. Match :: Paris
4. Viewed :: Http logs
5. Soul :: Music
6. Recognize :: Own
7. Ambitious :: Power
8. Dancing :: Dirty
9. Paths :: Grave (lead but to the...)
10. Joke :: Feed line (Patricia supplies them!)

Teaser Tuesday - May 5

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

To Ammu her twins seemed like a pair of small bewildered frogs engrossed in each other's company, lolloping arm in arm down a highway full of hurtling traffic. Entirely oblivious of what trucks can do to frogs.

Back in December, in our book group, we each had to choose a book for someone and the parcels were randomly chosen. My giftee didn't like my choice so we swapped and I'm now - between books reading Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things and I'm quite enjoying - finding it hard to get a handle on the narrative but then you have teasers like this! I was also tempted by the lines I read last night- but they were nowhere near lines 7-12:

Chacko said that going to see The \sound of Music was an extended exercise in Anglophilia. Ammu said 'Oh come on, the whole world goes to see The Sound of Music. It's a World Hit.' 'Nevertherless, my dear' Chacko said in this Reading Aloud voice. 'Never. The. Less.'

Going on a bit to those little details of interaction. And there's a sing-a-long Sound of Music (or maybe that should be 'Sing. A. Long.') at St Michael's Macclesfield later this month!
But for the actual teaser there's the wonderful 'lolloping' to my mind more associated with rabbits than frogs but a lovely sound. Stripping away the charm I see the Oxford Dictionary has its origin as 'Mid 18th century: probably from loll, associated with trollop.'

Mutterings - May 4

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Button :: Hot
2. Mindset :: Rigid
3. Tart :: and Vicar
4. Very unique :: Arrgh!
5. Hologram :: Illusion
6. Comedy :: of Errors
7. Smartly :: Dressed
8. Posted! :: Nailed! (probably along the lines of proclaiming an opinion)
9. Surge :: Election (we have one of these fast approaching, and various parties always claim that the surge is with them)
10. Introduction :: Spoken (probably to a recital)

Mutterings - Apr 26

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Thank you :: Kindly
2. Pills :: Pop
3. Watch :: Stop
4. Don’t move :: or I shoot
5. Meeting :: Strange (Wilfred Owen)
6. Physical :: Stress
7. Finding :: Trail
8. Dangerous :: Moonlight (I don't think I;ve ever seen it)
9. Closely :: Guarded (secret)
10. 8 days :: Film

GAFCON's contempt for the Church of England

Here's Nick Baines (Bishop of Leeds) on GAFCON's latest conference and communique.

I was once at a meeting of evangelical bishops in England when three English Gafcon men came to meet us. They had stated that this was the case and that bishops were giving their clergy a hard time. We asked for evidence so we could consider it before we met. Bishop Tom Wright and I were just two who were outraged at the misinformation, misrepresentation and selective re-writing of history presented to us. When we began to challenge this, we were told that we shouldn’t get bogged down in the detail and could we move on. And they got away with it. I am not making this up.

But go and read the whole article. Anyone who isn't signed up to their shibboleths is automatically an enemy - if Nick Baines feels this then they need exposing and naming for what they are before they damage more churches with their self serving rhetoric.

Mutterings - Apr 19

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Roller coaster :: Ride
2. Notification :: popup
3. Yellow :: Submarine (I don't think I've ever seen it!)
4. Humor :: Pun
5. Parental :: Control
6. Blow :: Low
7. Duck :: Billed Platypus
8. Height :: Dizzyness
9. Wolf :: Clothing (sheep must be in there somewhere)
10. Troubling :: Memories

Teaser Tuesday - Apr 14

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

She looked imploringly into his eyes, aware that he had paid far too much money for a meal that would leave him hungry in an hour's time. Her own appetite was gone, quite gone.

Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac - a re-read - it is the Book Group's book for this month. Here's a fairly randomly chosen review! Brookner's study of a single woman staying at a Swiss Hotel in the off season a quiet, gentle study an age away - apparently - from England in the 80s. She loves these plots on reflective single women, I remember the initial read (just) and bits of the TV version but only the atmosphere, so am awaiting events with anticipation!

A teaser up on Tuesday - shocking (and I finally notice the move of the original website!)!

Mutterings - April 13

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Science :: Knowledge
2. Everywhere :: Waves
3. Seed :: Corn
4. Comedian :: Mask
5. Philadelphia :: Cheese
6. Disillusioned :: Angry
7. Rolls :: Bread
8. History :: Personal
9. Eagles :: Dare
10. Disappointed :: in love

Teaser Tuesday - April 7

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Yes it's even later than usual, I blame the bank holiday (possibly!)

Eventually, he too, like Handel, travelled all over Europe, but precious little is know about what he got up to. He spent the last couple of years of his life in Vienna, where sadly, he pulled off the Composers End No 207 - the so called 'Death in Poverty' position - perfectly.

The last years of Antonio Vivaldi from Stephen Fry's 'InComplete & Utter History of Classical Music' - this was a Christmas present and I'm quite enjoying it. Quite a bit of uinformation I didn't know - though my reading the pre 19th century music was a bit lacking. There's some cringeworthy references to Jimmy Savile - the book was published in 2004. It's also sometimes a bit disconnected, reading like bits have been shoved together - - p113 compares the Beethoven Eroica with Haydn and Mozart symphonies saying it's not in the same playing field 'It's EPIC it's AMAZING'; then p118 on the Beethoven 5th 'Up to now the most amazing thing in the world of symphonies has been Mozart or Haydn' - he should make up his mind! I was also surprised last night to get past 1827-8 with no mention of the deaths of Beethoven or Schubert.

Spring

In the current warm spell, many things are blossoming.

Mutterings - April 5

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. With me :: Be Gentle
2. Goodbye :: I'm leaving you (the curse of the Sound of Music..)
3. Cap :: Peaked
4. Idiotic :: Statement
5. Forever :: Friends
6. Bleeds :: Heart (I'm probably thinking of the computer vulnerability)
7. Expected :: Long (long expected Jesus.. and Advent hymn)
8. Touching :: Place (oh dear that's another hymn!)
9. Shells :: Spiral
10. Awake :: Shake

Mutterings - March 29

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Twins :: Conjoined
2. Seven :: Perfect
3. Canceled :: Meeting
4. Video :: Game
5. Mistress :: Affair
6. Puppy :: Love
7. Sadness :: Grief
8. Cleanse :: Pores
9. Impostor :: Hypocrite
10. Fruitless :: Campaign

On the Canal

Last week was beginning to feel Spring like so we decided a lunch at the Vale Inn Bollington surrounded by a walk would be good. We walked there along the Middlewood way and back via the canal - part of the tow path is closed in Bollington so a diversion through an estate was necessary but on getting back to the canal we saw this: We were convinced, initially, that a barge owner had a very ornate bow decoration but then it moved, caught a fish and ate it in a nearby field.
I've just received the church walk schedule for the summer, I'm leading a walk ending up at the Vale so I think I'll need another reconnoitre!

Teaser Tuesday - March 25

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

And why would you want to be goin' on a diet, Jamie? Sure there's nothing much wrong with the way you are.

From Christina McKenna's The Misremembered Man. Alternating humour and dark tragedy, it's our book group book of the month. Here's a review

Mutterings - March 22

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Ringtone :: Obstrusive
2. Slab :: Marble
3. Harness :: Die in
4. Couple :: Sex
5. Shovel :: Snow
6. Game :: Park
7. Patriotic :: Salute
8. Bleed :: Colour
9. Top :: Monitor
10. Leafy :: Glade

Mutterings - March 16

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Hunt :: Royal (...of the Sun)
2. Spinal :: Tap
3. Groom :: Bride
4. Red light :: District
5. Delayed :: Train
6. Forgetfulness :: Pardon?
7. Tennis :: Elbow
8. Best of luck :: Wish
9. Badge :: of Honour
10. Autograph :: Book

Mutterings - March 8

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Neutral :: Gear
2. Renovation :: Repair
3. Metallic :: Clang
4. Filling :: Tooth
5. Designate :: Bishop
6. Bee sting :: Vinegar
7. Neighbors :: Fences (probably via make good neighbors)
8. Bracket :: Hinge (though I'm thinking of Brackett!)
9. Call me :: Back
10. Pretty :: Young

Teaser Tuesday - Mar 3

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

The arm that had been around Sukey's waist flexed above my head.
'Poke him in the eyes.'

from Emma Healey's Elizabeth is Missing a study of old age and it's indignities and frailties. Our BATS book of the month, it's the meeting tonight and I haven't yet finished it - according to the download from Sainsbury's ereader, I have 346 pages to go - I rather doubt this! I've no idea what's wrong with the page numbering. But I think I intend to finish...

Rather too long since I did one of these.

That's a rather unfair teaser - the final sentence is a punchline!

Mutterings - March 1

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Jude :: Obscure
2. Erased :: Rubbed out
3. Addiction :: Internet
4. Curls :: Electric
5. Hotel :: du Lac (Anita Brookner)
6. Bloomers :: Underwear
7. Membership :: Society
8. Family :: Kith
9. Handle :: Struct - Pimpl
10. Questioning :: Truth

Mutterings - Jan 22

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Fatty :: Lumpkin (Lord of the Rings - I had to look it up though - one of Tom Bombadil's ponies)
2. Injection :: Steroid
3. Fearless :: Brave
4. Overflow :: Saucer (Porgy and Bess)
5. Contract :: Software (anyone want to employ me?)
6. Steal :: Cheat
7. Heartless :: Fraud
8. Flap :: Wings
9. Baseline :: Hypotenuse
10. Merger :: Financial

Mutterings - Jan 15

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Tripple :: 20 (do the Americans spell triple like that, don't they do removal of surplus letters
2. Ownership :: Deed
3. Promising :: Beginning
4. Bonding :: Brotherhood (and blood, Gotterdammerung act 2!)
5. Flurry :: Snow
6. Weather:: Sattelite (or balloon)
7. Conclusion :: Full stop
8. Scolding :: Bridle (I guess mediaeval torture implements to keep women 'in their place')
9. Nipple :: Breast
10. Freezing :: Thermometer (or icicle)

The Wall

Last week Silk Screen showed Julian Polster's The Wall

A film of the novel by Marlen Haushofer from the 1960's and a study of nature and our relationship to it. A wonderful performance by Martina Gedeck ('The Lives of Others'). Nature photography, the animals, the mountains, solitude and focus. There were echoes for me of Winterreise - the crow combining that song and der greise kopf it's a white crow. A solitary tramping though a wilderness. Was the novel written with the Berlin Wall in mind?

The Interrogation

But the financiers will ask
In that day: Is it not better
To leave broken bank balances
Behind than broken heads?

And Christ recognizing the
New warriors will feel breaching
His healed side their terrible
Pencil and the haemorrhage of its figures.

R S Thomas

I'm talking about Thomas in a prayer group tomorrow and this poem seems apposite for the week.

Mutterings - Feb 8

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Tripple :: Metre (or maybe fall!)
2. Rationing :: Book (I had one when I was young!)
3. Wrong :: Right
4. Mother :: Home
5. Lotion :: Calamine
6. Hesitate :: Lost
7. Home :: -ward bound
8. Stumble :: Limp
9. Procedure :: Function
10. Faithless :: Friend

A little late....

Teaser Tuesday - Feb 3

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Genuinestarts of the Cirque d'Hiver," Jenny marvels. "How high up was your trapeze hung?"

from Emma Donoghue's Frog Music. A tale of (ex-)circus folk and a seller of frogs legs in San Francisco in the 19th century. Early days but I'm rather enjoying this! Based on a true story - rather like the woman who gave birth to rabbits and Astray also by Donoghue - both of which I've recently read but rather than a short story this is a full novel, will see if it sustains interest in a longer read.

Mutterings - Feb 1

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Greatness :: Stature
2. Struggling :: Mess
3. Noise :: Barrier (probably via noise -> sound
4. Doorway :: Lilacs (I see it's dooryard
5. Soap :: Soft
6. Cancer :: Crab
7. Sipping :: Tea
8. Stacks :: Book
9. Perfect :: Tense
10. Test :: Written

Mutterings - Jan 25

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Astrology :: Bogus
2. Funeral :: Parlour
3. Candor :: Dandy (Candy is dandy, yes I know that's not candor but that's the way my mind worked!)
4. Dynamic :: Personal
5. Oh my god! :: Shock!
6. Cancer :: Struggle
7. Ross :: on Wye
8. Heroes :: Help (Help for Heroes is a UK charity supporting injured ex-service people)
9. Rachaell :: Sarah (can Rachel really be spelt like that?)
10. Effortlessly :: Glide

Mutterings - Jan 18

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Language :: Barrier
2. Obvious :: Trick
3. Skull :: -duggery
4. Insidious :: Worm - I think this is half-remembered William Blake in the Britten setting - invisible rather than insidious (though it's both in the poem!)
5. Struggle:: Titanic
6. Unspeakable :: Acts
7. Orchid :: Pink
8. Fish :: Rotten
9. Annoyingly :: Consistent
10. Payroll :: Security

Teaser Tuesday - Jan 13

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

What do I lack? And the answer seemed to her to be so immediately obvious.

Alexander McCall Smith's Love Over Scotland this is my book group book of the month - well actually the book for Dec & Jan - we don't have a meeting in Jan and at the last meeting we all brought a gift wrapped (different hopefully!) book which were shared at random. This is nice and light for the season, I suspect my choice was rather harder! Having spent a month working in Edinburgh back in 2013 it was nice to revisit the city in literary form! And that's a rather good teaser!

Mutterings - Jan 11

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Decree :: Solemn
2. Seats :: Bucket
3. No no no :: Nannette - I see the musical which I've never heard has only 2 No's - If the association had been 2 No's then I'd probably have come up with Luigi!
4. Fess up :: Man (up)
5. Construct :: C++
6. Page :: Buttons (must still be pantomime season)
7. Laughter :: Off
8. Audience :: Participation
9. Freezes :: Windscreen
10. Stuck up :: Pompous

Teaser Tuesday - Jan 6

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

The pod is completely dark and sound-free (although the one I used did offer customers the option of 'calming music') and you feel neither temperature nor gravity. I was generously given a double session, because my friend felt that I was more used to silence than most people and a single hour would not be enough for me to get the full benefits.

Sara Maitland's A Book of Silence - I've been wanting to read this and happened to notice it in the library - a book on the value and dangers of silence. In the teaser she's describing a session in a flotation tank at a health spa.

Mutterings - Jan 4

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Note :: Crotchet
2. 2015 :: New Year!
3. Earlobe :: Knighthood - due to a 60's comedy show I parse that word as Earl OBE
4. Sunburn :: Lotion
5. Hashtag :: Twitter
6. Special :: B (the B specials were a overwhelmingly protestant police force in Northern Ireland)
7. Spacious :: Flat
8. Happening :: Stockhausen (many of the 60s Stockhausen works had the ethos of a 60s happening)
9. Blank :: Memory
10. Humid :: percent

Mutterings - Dec 28

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Locked out :: Strike
2. Hourly :: Rate
3. Criminal :: Negligence
4. Seventeen :: Janis Ian
5. Assistance :: Legal
6. Closes :: Handbag
7. Cubicle :: Headphones
8. I´m just saying :: Lie
9. Paperless :: Office
10. In charge :: Management

Mutterings - Dec 21

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Disappointment :: Despair
2. Searching :: Wandering
3. Counters :: Snakes (and ladders)
4. Snippet :: Paste
5. Carol :: Concert
6. Tiresome :: Rage
7. Booger :: Sniff
8. Freak show :: Vulnerability
9. Summarize :: Bullet point
10. Heartache :: Separation

A Pennine pub crawl

A bit back now I joined a group doing a rail trip back from Hudderfield via various pubs - this was the report from one of the travellers:

We weren’t de-railed but “beer-railed” on Friday 21 November when eight blokes from All Saints visited five hostelries in Yorkshire. After re-grouping on Piccadilly Station, Manchester, we travelled to Huddersfield where the magnificent station provided a large range of alcoholic drinks and excellent food (not at all fast). Off to Slaithwaite (pronounced “Slouwit”) for a short walk to a friendly local for more beer. Back to the station and next train to Marsden, down-hill to village and pub with brewery attached. More beer (some had very large sausage rolls to assuage their hunger). Back to the station and next train(s) to Greenfield and later Stalybridge for repeat performances. As the rain fell heavily and more and more of us squashed together in the platform shelters with the other groups (about 50 men), on the same pilgrimage, the noise and banter level increased proportionately to the amount of alcohol consumed. Phil met some former colleagues but this paled to insignificance when one of our party admitted (under pressure) to being the father of Jamie Donaldson. This most enjoyable trip ended for most at roughly 9pm and our thanks are due to Phil Marsh for his communication and leadership skills. “We’ll all drink to that!”

Mutterings - Dec 14

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Stuck :: Down
2. Elevator :: Buttons
3. Vaccine :: Ebola
4. Pepsi :: Cherry
5. Rotund :: Waistline
6. Wonder :: Awe
7. Solo :: Hans (that's a little alarming!)
8. Voodoo :: Pins
9. Sticky :: Back plastic (Blue Peter's non advertising circumlocution for Sellotape - oh dear I think that'll need translating too!)
10. Summarize :: Bullet points

Mutterings - Dec 7

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Fantasy :: Final
2. Square one :: Chess
3. Impostors :: Masks
4. Hydrate :: Test tube
5. Card :: Christmas
6. Respects :: Last
7. Big city :: Manchester
8. Alert :: Danger
9. Scrabble :: Domino (the names of our first 2 cats)
10. Neighborhood :: Friendly

Disgrace

Last week, silkscreen showed Disgrace, the film of the J M Coetzee novel. We read this in our book group a few years ago - I can't find any mention of it on this blog. A study of shame, forgiveness and the new South Africa. It's very true to the novel (as far as I can remember!) as it confronts a nation in a state of change. Watching the film will probably lead - for me - to a re-read of the book!

The Cold season

Those who follow me elsewhere may have already picked up the news that I'm working again - out of IT - driving for a local artisan bakers Flour Water Salt - very local to us - 5 mins walk from the house. I get to drive though quiet bits of Cheshire countryside and there's frequent visits to Jodrell Bank. Today was the first really cold day, so here's a photo and a quote from T S Eliot's Little Gidding:

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart’s heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul’s sap quivers.

Being out in the countryside in this cold, clear light brings life..

Teaser Tuesday - Dec 2

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

'What earthly use are what-ifs?' she asked, pulling a golden muffin off her long fork and reaching for the honey. 'I was born in the body allotted to me.'

Something warming for a winter evening! From Emma Donoghue 'The Woman who gave birth to rabbits' a collection of fictions which are true. The quoted sentences come from the 'Salvages' tale - a wonderful collection of whacky tales full of entertaining historical detail. This is a re-read for me.

Mutterings - Dec 1

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Smug :: Complacent
2. Swan :: Song
3. Ginger :: Nut
4. Doctor :: Finlay (harking back a bit!)
5. Handshake :: Masonic
6. Studies :: Op 42 (Scriabin piano work)
7. Pond :: Life
8. Register :: Awareness
9. Surgery :: Forceps
10. Compass :: Moral

.. a little late!

Teaser Tuesday - Nov 25

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

I went up and down my tables like a ladder. I made the names of the Kings and Queens of England blaze across my mind like banners: Edward Edward Edward Richard Henry Henry Henry Edward Edward Richard Henry Henry Edward Mary Elisabeth James...

again Helen Dunmore's The Lie - this month's book group book.

Mutterings - Nov 23

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Seal :: Arf!
2. Grown up :: Behaviour
3. Rags :: [to] Riches
4. Collar:: Feel (what the police do)
5. Fears :: Tears
6. Yellow :: Belly
7. Link :: Missing
8. Patrol :: Army
9. Fancy :: Little (of what you...)
10. Ears :: Big (and Noddy)

Mutterings - Nov 16

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Drive thru :: Eugh! (sorry!)
2. Horse power :: Engine
3. Plates :: Meat (probably the cockney plates of meat lurking there!)
4. Coffee break :: Chat
5. Dress :: Sense
6. Ferrarri :: Red
7. Bangs :: Hair
8. Charisma :: Dazzle
9. Muffler :: November
10. Crossroads :: Serial (an old TV soap in the UK - I don't think I ever saw it)

Teaser Tuesday - Nov 11

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

I rolled a granite boulder to the head of the grave. I knew how quickly green would cover the turned earth.

Helen Dunmore's The Lie, all very elliptic at the moment, our book group book of the month. No doubt the direction of the tale will get clearer soon?

Mutterings - Nov 9

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Fencing :: Mending
2. Mediocre :: Attempt
3. 19th :: Century
4. Candy :: Man
5. Scorch :: Iron
6. Allergies :: Hayfever
7. Swirl :: Skirt
8. Level up :: Game
9. Modern :: Tate
10. Tasty :: Treat

Teaser Tuesday - Nov 4

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

'Did you know that Mr Barber's life was insured with his wife as sole beneficiary?'
The question was like a wire drawn tight at ankle level: it brought her down with a bump.

A final teaser from Sarah Waters 'The Paying Guests' I'm now in the courtroom drama stage of the novel - maybe the different phases are rather taut and enjoyable! Here's my previous tease from the book.

Mutterings - Nov 2

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Feelings:: Emotions
2. Bake :: Clam
3. Corrupt :: Management
4. Amber :: Insect
5. Awesome :: View
6. Peace :: Stillness
7. Benches :: Alpine
8. Sultry :: Glances
9. Choker :: Pearl
10. Juice :: Grape

Teaser Tuesday - Oct 28

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

When Monte called in for his regular cup of tea in the morning, Tom and Rachel were introduced. He was the double of Harold, although a few stone heavier and with permanent laugh lines etched into his face.

From Peter Lihou's Rachel's Shoe our BATS (book group of the month) - rather too many names in those 2 sentences for a teaser. I wasn't impressed, it felt like teenage fiction (though I suppose there's nothing wrong with that) lots of derring do and a little predictable - having recently watched Edge of Darkness I preferred the rather similar denoument of the TV series.

Mutterings - Oct 26

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Family :: Nuclear
2. Leather :: Armchair
3. Chunky :: Monkey
4. Shaking :: Fear
5. Suffering :: Servant
6. Pockets :: Deep
7. Loose :: Change
8. Show :: Girl
9. Vest :: String
10. Finale :: Grand

Mutterings - Oct 19

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Freak :: Out
2. Thrown out :: Pub
3. Wedding :: Ceremony
4. 99 percent :: Whole
5. Terminal :: Cancer
6. Culprit :: Thief
7. Bows :: Struck (I'm with the violins)
8. Stock :: Beef
9. Hospital :: Ward
10. Dodge :: City

Missed a week - we've been away!

Ginger shortbread

I cooked ginger shortbread yesterday for the during(!) morning service this morning and used a recipe from an old Scargill cookbook:

Ingredients

150g self raising flour
• 110g margarine
• 55g sugar
• 1/2 tsp ginger

For icing:
• 55g margarine
• 4 tblsp icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1 dessertspoon syrup

Method

Melt margarine and sugar.

Work in flour and ginger.

Bake in swiss roll tin in mod. oven 20-30 min (yesterday I found it was around 20).

Melt ingredients of icing and pour on shortbread while it is hot.

Cut when cold.

The cookies that were also cooked - I'd provide a recipe but my notes have the following as the instructions:
Rub in marg
and the ingredients say 'milk' with no quantity - so we're lucky they turned out well!

Mutterings - Oct 5

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Candle light :: Carols
2. Kevin :: Bacon
3. Fireplace :: Stone
4. Pots :: Pans
5. Scarf :: Dr Who
6. Colossal :: Rhodes
7. Golf :: Ryder (Cup)
8. Construction :: First (First Construction in Metal is a work by John Cage)
9. Reason :: Sense
10. Washington :: State

Teaser Tuesday - Sept 30

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

The salami and olives seemed to have disappeared: inroads had been made into the ciabatta. Mentally he substituted grapes for the sliced oranges with cointreau he had planned. His attention was claimed in a quite other direction.

Taking another sentence to the end of the paragraph - another teaser from our book group book for the month. As with the last teaser - choices!

Mutterings - Sept 28

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. 20 :: 20
2. Spark :: (fly) upwards (from the Old Testament book of Job)
3. Hangnail :: and I
4. Distant :: Relation
5. Muffin :: Mule I didn't realise (or had forgotten the BBC had recently revived this)
6. Compute :: Does not
7. Bangs :: Explosions
8. Mattress :: Springs
9. Tense :: Future
10. Sarah :: Rachel

Teaser Tuesday - Sept 23

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

After this spectacular and, it seemed, defining reproach he felt he had only two options. One was to cultivate the life of the mind.

Anita Brookner's Strangers - I'm afraid option 2 doesn't appear for quite a few sentences so you'll have to remain teased both to the reproach and his other option! This is our book group of the month which I am, at last, getting down to! Here's Hilary Mantel's review of the book in the Guardian:

Sustained only by grilled sole, the pale repast of the dead, he haunts galleries and museums. Then, in the hopeless cause of cheering himself up, he locks up his gloomy flat and takes off to Venice. .... Each book [of Brookner] is a prayer bead on a string, and each prayer is a secular, circumspect prayer, a prayer and a protest and a charm against encroaching night.

Mutterings - Sept 21

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Equality :: Justice
2. Strappy :: Underground (probably via the straps for holding onto)
3. Kitten :: Sex
4. Program :: begin (showing my pascal roots!)
5. Inventory :: List
6. Choice :: Road less travelled (Frost - though the word choice never appears in that poem and neither do my associations!)
7. Scuba :: Diving
8. Purchase :: Order
9. Promotion :: Value
10. Organization :: Corporate

Teaser Tuesday - Sept 16

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Soap left streaks on the black tiles. The first, wet rub was important for loosening the dirt, but it was the second bit that really counted, passing the wrung cloth over the floor in one supple, unbroken movement ... There!

More 1920's detail from Sarah Waters The Paying Guests and oozing with sensuality. Here's a review:

Frances Wray doesn’t know the first thing about being a landlady. The first thing about being a landlady is that under no circumstances should you sleep with your young married female lodger, especially if it’s 1922. But given that Frances is the protagonist of a novel by Sarah Waters, a torrid lesbian affair is perhaps only to be expected. The question in Waters’ new book, The Paying Guests, is just how spectacularly Frances’ decision will lead to disaster—and whether or not she will find a path through the wreckage to the other side.

An incoherent mumbling of ice-floes

I'm in the midst of reading (very slowly!) Thomas Merton's Journal for 1939-41 and last night I found this sentence:

Then the Archbishop of Canterbury, smiling in his sleep, announces like the incoherent mumbling of ice-floes breaking up in the wastes of the Antarctic, 'You know Russia is gravitating back towards religion. The people will insensibly return to God because they have to.'

Wishful thinking then, wishful thinking by some on the right now. Merton was obviously not a fan of Cosmo Gordon Lang!

Mutterings - Sept 14

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Men :: Women
2. Partial :: Eclipse
3. Expenses :: Scandal
4. Notification :: Popup
5. Bubble wrap :: Squeezable
6. Speech :: Direct
7. Rumble :: West Side Story
8. Sounds :: Gong
9. Sweaty :: Wrist band
10. Mud :: Slide

Mutterings - Sept 7

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Bubbles :: Squeak
2. Urges :: Primal
3. Doorknob :: Broomstick
4. Insipid :: Stew
5. Freckles :: Arm
6. Leafy :: Glade
7. Volkswagon :: Golf
8. Scrap :: Metal
9. Illuminate :: Display
10. Headboard :: Bed

Teaser Tuesday - Sep 2

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

It was as if a giant mouth had sucked a bag of boiled sweets and then given the house a lick. The faded carpet in her mother's old bedroom was lost beneath faded pseudo-Persian rugs.

Wonderful imagery and dripping with 1920's detail is Sarah Water's The Paying Guests, you just have this feeling that it is going to end badly!

Mutterings - Aug 31

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Brownie :: Scout Hut
2. Randomly :: Walk
3. Congratulations! :: Card!
4. Curls :: Lip
5. Lipstick :: Pink
6. Memory :: RAM
7. Tea :: Caddy
8. Bulletin :: Sheet
9. Fragrance :: Forgotten (is there a poem somewhere..)
10. Pace :: Impatient

Mutterings - August 24

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Burp :: Digestion
2. Inseparable :: Companions (or typo in its original form ;-)
3. Flights :: Ash (cloud)
4. Schedule :: Demands
5. Bucket :: Ice
6. Divorce :: D-I-V-O-R-C-E
7. Office :: Mayor
8. Tweed :: Jacket (and someone's nickname at school)
9. Mattress :: Bought (one yesterday!)
10. Priorities :: Right of way

Teaser Tuesday - Aug 19

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

The plaque's inside the church. Brian John Edmondson aged 17 and a good swimmer.

from Julie Myerson's Something Might Happen a murder mystery but also a study in grief set in a small Suffolk town (clearly Southwold!) Here's the Guardian review. It's our book group book of the month - not a comfortable read but I think it's going to be a rewarding study. And a wonderful teaser!

Mutterings - Aug 17

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Chocolate :: Dark
2. Spike :: Milligan
3. Puppy :: Affection
4. Corner :: Shop
5. Charcoal :: Burner (Swallows and Amazons lurking there i think)
6. Game :: Chess
7. 28 :: Perfect
8. Summitt :: Typo
9. Tuxedo :: Dinner
10. Winner :: Plaque

Mutterings - August 10

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Supervisor :: Guard
2. Facebook :: Like (maybe!)
3. Almond :: Essence
4. Southern :: Cross
5. Hangnail :: Ouch!
6. Runner :: Do a
7. Authentic :: Jean de Florette (saying l'authentique with an appropriate accent!)
8. Curls :: Golden
9. Skirt :: Avoid
10. Detective :: Emil

Mutterings - Aug 3

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. I think I love :: You
2. Obsessed :: Angry
3. Dancers :: before God (I think that's Tippett and the Knot Garden)
4. Guitar :: Strum
5. Hurry up! :: Waiting
6. Thump :: Fist
7. Conquest:: Norman
8. Lights :: Harbour
9. Rose :: thou are sick (Blake), and Taylor-Milton
10. Birthday :: Party