Teaser Tuesday - Jan 29

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 report describes a 'faint drizzle of applause at the end, and at a party afterwards the opera was jokingly described as 'Boriana' or 'Yawniana'. The journal Musical Times quipped 'Sic transit Gloriana'

from Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Benjamin Britten describing the premiere of Britten's Gloriana which celebrated the coronation, it was inevitable that the audience of the high and mighty were rather over-challenged. The biography doesn't avoid the darker side of Britten's character, someone of extraordinary generosity and yet, and yet... I acquired this book shortly after publication back in 2003 and this is a re-read, deliberately for the centenary of his birth and not sparked by the hoo-hah over a recent new biography. After my initial read I kept away from the Turn of the Screw for a few years I think now I can treat it in a more measured way.

Mutterings - Jan 27

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

1. Sophisticated :: Taste
2. Pelicans :: Crossing
3. Flat :: Land - Edmin Abbott Abbott's fantasy - I remember that my first secondary school had a copy.
4. Cheekbones :: High
5. Possible :: the art of the..
6. England :: Here
7. Jacket :: Shooting
8. Sunflower :: Seed
9. Hungry :: Food
10. Accent :: Acute

Mutterings - Jan 20

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

1. Offered :: Prayer (probably from 'Father hear the prayer we offer')
2. Center :: Mind
3. Benefit :: Jobless
4. Yay! :: Hurrah!
5. Wonderful :: Life
6. Currently :: Now
7. Resignation :: Defeat
8. Testing :: Laboratory
9. Strangely :: Moved (John Wesley..)
10. Clinic :: Doctor

Teaser Tuesday - Jan 15

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!

Take the firebreak which is to the left of the tracks and heads down to a wire mesh gate at the junction of two fences within about 50m of the ridge. Looking along a line from the fence to the village of Bérchules, a white painted cortijo and concrete water store can be seen.

From Jeremy Rabjohn's Holiday walks in the Alpujarras. Memories - not always good ones (but that was life rather than the holiday) of the time around when we walked in the Alpujarras ending in Bérchules (the link goes to my blog describing the walks - once you ignore this post which also appear with that label! and further links to the photos I took). I think the indicated postion is around here near the summit of Cima del Tejar:

View Larger Map
(how do you get a precise point in google maps rather than the points it knows about, I suppose I could tweak the coordinates but it's close enough and the preview won't let you do that and see where you now are...)

Mutterings - Jan 13

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

1. Lizard :: Leapin'
2. Swimming pool :: Dive
3. Tank :: Petrol
4. Horrible :: History
5. Cabbage :: Patch
6. Pet :: Cat
7. Photography :: Daguerreotype
8. 1970 :: A levels (the year I did them)
9. Ornate :: Cornice
10. Turkey :: Stuffing

Teaser Tuesday - Jan 8

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!

George had met Stokes once before, in Cambridge, when they'd all gone out in a punt, Cecil clearly exciting his guest by his lordly thrust and toss of the pole and the intermittent recital of sonnets. Stokes seemed not to remember that George had been of the party, and George didn't remind him, when the talk turned to their Cambridge days.

Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's Child for which there was an earlier teaser last week. A carefully chosen extract....

View from the Cloud

View from the Cloud, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

New Year's Day and so a walk to get some much needed exercise - this year instead ogf Shutlingsloe we did the gentler Bosley Cloud. I don't think I've walked up Bosley Cloud since the 70's! Muddy and very breezy but good views from not too far from the road and then there was the fox we saw thinking about crossing the road on the way there...
A New Year - looking at last year - 128 - that's the lowest number of posts per year on this blog since 2005 - a lot of the smaller items go on twitter/facebook now but I need to work out a theme for a process of revival here!

Teaser Tuesday - Jan 1

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!

Was this it, the sudden helpless breaking of the news? Perhaps not or George would have said something more.

Having finished our current book group book of the month on society around the first World War, I'm now starting another - though more time elapses in this - Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's Child. Myth and memory - reflections over the course of the 20th century, it's a long read but I've enjoyed most of his novels - here's the Guardian's review, and here's another from a blogger. I see the Independent review compares it to Middlemarch, maybe I should suggest it for our book group?

Mutterings - December 30

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

1. Princess :: Pea
2. First kiss :: Long ago
3. Humor :: Cracker (but not usually!)
4. Campaign :: Tents
5. Resolve :: Character
6. Intrepid :: Fearless
7. Rhythm :: Hangman (a useful word for that game)
8. Grand :: Duchy
9. Dirty :: Dozen
10. Tooth :: Fairy

Mutterings - December 23rd

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

1. Altercation :: Argument
2. Spiffy :: Simply
3. Mollify :: Curdle (I've no idea what's going on here, something to do with cooking eggs?!)
4. Heroic :: Eroica (Beethoven)
5. Rustle :: of Spring (Sinding)
6. Bride :: Dowry
7. Turbulence :: Fluid
8. Thirty :: Years War
9. Nonsense :: Rubbish
10. Ordeal :: Trial

Teaser Tuesday - Dec 18

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!

A lad called Baker had been sent back a few weeks ago with a kind of cancerous seeping blob in his neck, a swelling with some kind of life of its own. He'd admitted injecting paraffin wax ten months before.

Life (or death) in the WWI trenches from Louisa Young's My Dear, I wanted to tell you a tale both of those who went to war and of those left behind. Our book group book of the month.

2012 news

Much of this has appeared here in some guise or other but the annual Christmas newsletter of our doings is here.

Mutterings - Dec 16

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

1. Dragon :: Smaug
2. Battery :: Acid
3. Ziploc :: Huh?
4. Shiny! :: Gold!
5. 8 minutes :: 480 seconds
6. Photograph :: Still!
7. Future :: Perfect
8. Tie :: Level
9. Bangs :: Hair
10. Appointment :: Dental

Cat burglar

Via IcanHazCheeseburger - I'd not been there for ages!

New kitchen

kitchen - looking back, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

As some readers may know, we went for sudden death last month and had both the kitchen and bathroom updated at once. The dust has now (mostly!) cleared and here's the kitchen (I'll spare you a bathroom picture!). It - the kitchen - still needs painting, tiling and flooring but it's a lot better environment to prepare food in and the sink now looks out onto the garden (view of that in the next flickr pic to this).

Scargill

the best of the group, a photo by rajmarshall on Flickr.

We've been back to Scargill for an ex-community reunion. It was good to see folk I'd not seen for 30 years even if we didn't manage a trip to the pub! The full flickr album is here.

Mutterings - Dec 2

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

1. Idiot :: Gibbering
2. Starving :: Crust
3. December :: Cold(-hearted - cold-hearted December is a quote from the Sitwell/Walton Facade)
4. Choose :: Moose (word patterns!)
5. Dreams :: Sweet
6. Clash :: Clang
7. White :: Snow
8. Meticulous :: Care
9. Bus :: Double-decker
10. Insubordination :: Courage

Teaser Tuesday - Nov 27

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!

At the same time as I 'played' with what it meant to be Rachel (the experiments with clothing, make-up, voice, bodily movement) I felt like I was becoming more myself. In the midst of the creation, the theatre and the play, I was becoming a solid person rather than a set of masks.

From Rachel Mann's Dazzling Darkness her story of finding herself - I was at the book launch referred to in the link and hope to be able to post a little more of a review once the reading is complete.

Mutterings - Nov 25

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

1. Statement :: Programming
2. Process :: Due
3. Monday :: Happy
4. Certain :: Sure
5. Reflection :: dans l'Eau (Reflets dans l'Eau is a Debussy piano work)
6. Ours :: Theirs
7. Components :: Pluggable
8. Engagement :: Ring
9. Learn :: Teach
10. Products :: Line

Teaser Tuesday - Nov 20

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!

Only a day late!

He had gone into every late or early public-house where there was a light (they were not a few at that time, the road being then much frequented by drovers), and had got down to talk to the turnpike-keepers. I had heard him ordering drink, and clinking money, and making himself agreeable and merry everywhere; but whenever he took his seat upon the box again, his face resumed its watchful steady look, and he always said to the driver in the same business tone, 'Get on, my lad!'

In search of someone... I'm getting to the final straight of Dickens Bleak House!