To everything there is a season

My annual rail season ticket expired today

clearly there was something I didn't know when I bought it twelve months ago, but I probably won't be renewing it - at least not yet! (I hope I've removed all the personal stuff from this image!)

Decade

For advent, here's Chase Twichell's poem Decade:

I had only one prayer, but it spread
like lilies, a single flower duplicating
itself over and over until it was rampant.

uncountable. At ten I lay dreaming
in its crushed green blades.

How did I come by it, strange notion
that the hard stems of rage could be broken,
that the lilies were made of words,

my words? Each one I picked
laid a wish to rest. I mean killed it.

The difference between prayer
and a wish is that a wish knows it will be
a failure even as it sets out,

whereas a prayer is still innocent.
Wishing wants prayer to find that out.

from her wonderful collection The Snow Watcher.

Mutterings - 29 November

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

1. MacGyver :: google (when you're not American)
2. Garter :: Order (of the)
3. Wedge :: Issue
4. Inches :: Death (by)
5. Code :: review
6. Water :: life
7. Running :: water
8. Curly :: hair
9. Turkey :: lunch (yes I'm cooking turkey breasts later today)
10. Stupor :: drunk

Once more..

I was tempted to wait until the fifth anniversary of this early post on my weblog, but time is, I think, of the essence. Redundancy threatens again and so:

Anyone want an exceedingly young looking 58 year old with 19 years of C++ experience, several years Python, lots of CAD ability, numerical analysis skills... cv has been updated, that's in pdf format!

Email address is in the cv or in the weblog personal details.

Better late than never

How did I miss the Bulwer-Lytton results - which were announced back in June? Maybe it was when I was wandering across the Alps in search of the mythical flower of nearly extinct tribe of the Ngurr although it could have been a river. I was very taken by this one:

The first time I saw her she took my breath away with her long blonde hair that flowed over her shoulders like cheese sauce on a bed of nachos, making my stomach grumble as she stepped into the room, her red knit dress locking in curves better than a Ferrari at a Grand Prix.
Harol Hoffman-Meisner
Greensboro, NC

Apologies to those readers who saw all these long ago!

108 steps

108 steps
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Ascending the 108 steps in Macclesfield on a winter evening - magical!

Marking an anniversary

I see that today is the 5th anniversary of the first significant blog entry on the weblog. I'd blogged before then on my home machine but those well be a bit broken now. I need to look through that older stuff for anything that needs(!?) preserving. But reading that initial month is, for me, interesting.

Teaser Tuesday - 24 Nov

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!

They were beginning to relax in the knowledge that the worst was over when the bus turned a corner and the driver let out a shriek. Around this bend nature had turned on its head.

from Danny Scheinmann's Random Acts of Heroic Love. This month's BATS (book group) book, I'm still early on in the book, I'm not sure so far as to whether I'd recommend it, maybe because I've heard other's reports!

Surfing

Following my twittering about Tell Me a Korean pop song - in a traditional Korean instrument version, you should probably have the fun of the James Bond theme in a Japanese version by the Surf Champlers. Available on a Rough Guide CD.

For those half-remembered quotes

A ukulele! An ukulele! My kingdom for an ukulele!

Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from?

Get your own quotes:

That one is a bit easy though.

English as she is spoke

Hadn't seen this book for years. The internet being what it is, there was bound to be a copy somewhere:

My most dear philosopher, I am induce to pray you to wake give to the M. abbot of Espagnac the panegyrist charge of saint Lowis for the next year. If you can it you shall do a good action, which I shall be too much obliged to you.

Just canny on marvelling at the above link.
Babelfish for the Victorians - hat tip to Kay

Waiting for it..

The Dr Who Christmas Special!

Mutterings - 22 November

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

1. Marathon :: Runner
2. Debt :: mountain
3. Turn :: again Whittington
4. Image :: reality (Debussy's Images lurking in the background)
5. Sofa :: So Good
6. Envelope :: pushing the
7. Cart :: horse
8. Process :: Python (computer language)
9. Question :: Time
10. Rumor :: Mill

Elisabeth Söderström

Elisabeth Söderström, who died yesterday, here sings the Song to the moon from Dvořák's Rusalka

If Beverly Sills rather gushing introduction puts you off, the music starts around 50 seconds in.

Type links with care!

Following a colleague's mis-type I've found blogsopt.com - two letters swapped from blogspot! Whois gives the contact as

Investment Ventures, Inc., Global global@myprivacy.ca
Ave Ramon Arias
Panama City, - -
PA

somewhat different from google, but http:// rmstar. blogsopt .com - lot's of space so you can't click on it! - looks very similar to this weblog, apart from various bits of javascript. I've checked a couple of other weblogs and they seem to be mirrored there too - they're not quite up to date so it not linking back to blogspot. What's really scary is that the top frame - if you're logged in to blogspot with your user id etc looks identical. I wouldn't go to any blogsopt site unless you turn off javascript and preferably not using Windows!
Unless I'm being paranoid..

Teaser Tuesday - 17 Nov

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!

Em told her story of how she'd come to town, and how the town had almost beaten her. The Aunt replied with hers, and how the town was better than a friend.

from Jim Crace's Arcadia - I've previously read (and enjoyed) Pesthouse and Quarantine by the same author,

Mutterings - 15 November

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

1. Grace :: Abounding (followed closely by Alias)
2. Shower :: Rain
3. Alice :: in Wonderland (or Restaurant)
4. Purple :: Colo[u]r (and Bishops! - and Joy, after seeing her dressed in purple this morning at church!)
5. Apartment :: Complex
6. 3 :: phone (or Trinity)
7. Car :: outside
8. Pregnant :: expectant
9. Counselor :: support
10. Discretion :: better part of valour

Shipley Mill

Shipley Mill
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Another trip down to my mother's in Sussex, train and hiring a car from Gatwick seems to be the best course for me at the moment. Another trip out to the Squire and Horse at Bury and on the way back a trip in a break in the rain to see(again) the John Ireland grave at Shipley - and in the distance the mill. Last time I blogged about Shipley the entry was entitled 'Many Waters' after the John Ireland anthem, that title would be suitable for today too! I see there's a photo of the grave on that entry but, I think, with a ropier camera, I may upload todays picture to flickr..

L'heure d'été

Just back from Olivier Assayas' L'heure d'été:

Tinged with a very French sentimentality with heart-breaking moments an interesting study of what use is art if it isn't experienced and part of everyday life. I even enjoyed the seeming vandalism of the film by the young people in the last scenes. I loved it but I think I was one of the few at the screening - or maybe I sat in the wrong part of the theatre?

Cat eating fail

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