Made quite an early start and went to Arnold Library. It is a bit of a nuisance having the Eastwood Branch closed for refurbishment. I don't know what actually needs doing up; libraries can be fairly basic - walls with shelves that books are stacked on. But I suppose that's me being aged, because I remember when librarians used to 'shhh' people who dared more than a whisper. Still I won't have a closed mind and the 'mod' version may be great. We shall see.That one can now borrow from any branch and return to any branch is a big improvement. Y dscovered this morning that you can have 24 items out at the same time. Well remember it being 4, then 4 novels and 2 non-fiction, etc., and so it has grown. I would still take to the streets to defend people's free access to written information. They could charge for novels without offending me and CDs and stuff but I remember in Sutton-in-Ashfield how proud people were of Sutton Free Library. What's all this to do with a picture of thorns on a rose-twig you ask. Nothing, I reply.
Picture 1 is itself a crop and while examining it to see of it was 'sharp', he he! I noticed the little fella who is the subject of Picture 2 apparently avoiding skewering himself while crawling round the twig. He must be 'white' as shown because I haven't messed about with the colour or anything. He also seems to be equipt with mandibles, which I don't think aphids are. I hereby enter it in the 'smallest bug' competition. As some wag once pointed out, could have been S. J. Perelman - however small the bug, it probably has smaller bugs infesting its armpitsBungus seems to be our current bug-expert so perhaps he, or one of you could advise. Or perhaps it's a job for Sky and Helen.
David liked the 'computer fights back' smiley and asked for a copy. It came from the Smiley Xtra 4 'add-on' for Firefox that Madeline sorted for me. Unfortunately, it seems to be only available for Firefox, but I got over the problem by 'save as' (a GIF) and getting it a URL from Walagata, and then sending David the URL. He wants to use it at School with some students. A picture tells a thousand words and it makes an important point.
Pleased to hear that Jill also could live in a caravan, obviously better insulated than the one she experienced in a wet and miserable March. Personally I don't mind the effect of the 'rain on the roof'' it always sounds romantic. The David & Helen version actually has ducted central heating so the cold wouldn't be a problem. I suggested to Y that Jill could join Bungus and me and play at being woodcraft folk. Y immediately 'cut to the chase' and said "Do either of them realise how you snore?"
After Arnold it was home for a salad lunch and then this afternoon I had my hair cut prior to our Nat Trust to Weston Super Mare jaunt leaving on Friday. I want to look smartish for the weekend because Y says that, if I leave it, I look 'seedy'. The epigrammatic names for hairdressers are so cringe-making it is a relief to visit 'Ren and Matt' with a traditional red and white barber's pole outside. I suppose if I was a barber in Berlin I could call my shop 'Herr Kutz" - but I guess the joke would fall fairly flat in German.
Crossword finished except for a clue, the answer to which is going to be 'fishes' but neither of us can work out why. My charity book-shop yield was a 'Selected' Dylan Thomas always a favourite. I don't even need to look up the following to see if it's in, and if it isn't for 80p I don't care :-
"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
drives my green age.
That blasts the roots of trees is my destroyer"
.............Dylan Thomas
Good news in the Telegraph that Delia is to make a comeback to TV with 'recipes that work, no 'f' words and no tantrums' - I can hardly wait.
See you all tomorrow. Have a good night.
See you all tomorrow. Have a good night.
1 comment:
Responding to Jill:
One of the several caravan horrors I remember was in a static at Ingoldmells where it rained for a week and Sandra was stuck inside with Simon who had got mumps and 2 year old Dan fell in a deep pool by the breakwater and I yelled, “Grab him Stevie!” and she, aged 5, replied, “I can’t, I’m watching this starfish.”
As for the RadioG suggestion that library charges for novels would be reasonable, I must oppose. I would never have read Leslie Charteris, Bulldog Drummond, Dornford Yates, Biggles, Arthur Conan Doyle or many others. The knock on effect does not bear thinking about.
And, although I have an affection for the churchlike ambience of the old Mansfield library I do feel the new ones are more comfortable.
Sorry, I don’t recognise the little white bug (unless it has something to do with Tommy Steele?)but I think the verse you are looking for may be Jonathan Swift’s ‘On Poetry’ (1733):
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey:
And these have smaller fleas to bite ‘em,
And so proceed ad infinitum.
Thus every poet in his kind
Is bit by him that comes behind.
I was unaware of the snoring. I’ll remember to take my workshop ear defenders to the caravan.
A holiday haircut’s OK but don’t overdo this looking smart thing or people might not recognise you (who said, ‘ark oos talkin’?). I now have my hair cut (occasionally) at an establishment called ‘The Barber Shop’(but the proprietor, whom I make a point of waiting for, is female).
As a lover of surrealism (in words more than in pictures) your doubt whether 'Herr Kutz" would be understood in Germany reminds me of my own laboured joke which captioned a picture of a swan on her nest, viz:
Ceci n’est pas un canard s’asseoir
(mais cela est une double entendre – ou, peut-etre, un canard, non?).
It is a bit of nonsense (canard ?) and the pun(s) almost certainly occur only when the message is translated into English (does that make sense?). The twisted reasoning runs as follows:
'This is not a pipe' (Magritte)
But THIS is not even a picture of a sitting duck (it is a sitting swan).
The English 'sitting duck' is a deliberate confusion, ie, in this instance it has a literal meaning, not the more usual 'easy target'.
Double entendre. An English pun on the French words 'canard' ('duck') and 'canard' ('nonsense' / 'hoax' / 'red herring').
But then I found another use for ‘red herring’ with a picture of a fish:
This is not a pike (Magritte: pipe / pike)
But it is a bit fishy.
Perhaps a red herring?
Which leads to a further possibility:
This is not a pike.
Could it be a double-edged sword?
Or even a concealed weapon?
Spike Milligan might have understood, being frequently in need of psychiatric help. But we shall never know. Jokes are always improved by being explained in detail, I think. Or perhaps not.
If the above causes confusion to English readers, what might it do to the French? But surely even they, devoted to logic as they reputedly are, must derive some linguistic pleasure from two words spelt the same but with different meanings?
Replies unnecessary unless they add further opacity to the murky waters in which the duck (or swan, or pike) swims…
I had a couple more matters to air but they can wait for another day.
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