March Archive

Thursday, March 31, 2005
To anybody here about Perplex City...
If you've been on the wiki you are probably thinking "Where's all the ppc stuff". This blog is at least as up-to-date as the other two. Do a Technorati Search of the site and you'll find stuff.

Oh and by the way I've just become an ARGolonist if that means anything and solved a challenge - so woot to me.

Think that should be 'truncated' guys.

posted by She Weevil @ 9:48 AM 8 comments

We're drinking my friend to the end of a brief episode...
... make it one for my baby and one more for the road.

It's still a relatively sensible time across the pond. Out across the pacific it's about time for a cup of tea and way down under it's nearly time to be thinking about a spot of lunch.

Here in dank old Plymouth, Devon, England, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island, Europe, the World it's 2:27 in the morning and we are not drinking anything. That is to say I am not drinking anything. A doctor once told me that all I had to do was to learn to drink normally. Isn't that the whole point you arsehole?

The rest of the she weevil brood are abed, infact I've just heard the patter of tiny footsteps heading to Mummy and Daddy's bed, so when I exorcise whatever this is that you are about to become subjected to, there will be three in the bed and the little one will say "I don't want cubbers".

Talking to a nameless friend started it I suppose, airing our respective dirty washing over the madness you find in acadaemia. I try not to think about it often - it just seems like someone else's life. That person just about made it through university for many and varied reasons, including sole responsibility for two children, a landlord from hell and an extremely dangerous house, a court case, a fatal attraction to alcohol and meeting the love of her life - I almost forgot, and the madness of the aforesaid academicians. When she left she was vital and excited and sure and enthused. She knew life was going to get better.

Watching Jamie's Kitchen this evening finished me off. I describe myself on various blogdirectories as an erstwhile scrubber. Last year I took a job as a cleaner. They were quite surprised at me wanting the job with my qualifications but it suited me at the time. Later on their cook left and I changed roles. I worked bloody hard and I could cook them all into a cocked hat but my face didn't fit. They got the opportunity to hire the person they had wanted for the job in the first place and they sacked me. It took me two months and the threat of legal action for me to get my severence pay and holidays etc paid; they weren't going to pay it at all. Then we had the lovely saga of the house, then Christmas, the stroke, the heart and now, Jesus, I feel unemployable.

I said I'd stop doing this but I'm sorry tonight you are my buddy - so just listen a minute will you? I don't know what the hell to do, I don't know which way is up. I don't know how to make thingsdifferent: I don't even know where to begin.

posted by She Weevil @ 1:23 AM 3 comments

Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Book stick
Well this became, in my head at least, the big bad book stick. The big, guilty, bang you over the head bookstick. It almost took on the dimensions of my big, guilty bin-liners-full-of-expensive-knitting-wool-that-I-can't-bear-to-throw-away. And why would this little, unassuming meme have gotten me so wound up and angst ridden? I suppose because I'm ashamed I don't read enough. I used to read all the time. After my degree it took me three years to even pick up a book. Now I read sporadically. Thanks Cheryl for nominating me.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Well, I answered this over on Badaunt's page in her comments. I did have a kind of asexual crush on Jo from Little Women. The part where she cut off her hair was truly horrific to me and at the same time so noble. I loved her for it plain and simple. It did irritate the shit out of me the way she called her mother Marmee, though. Male crush would have to be Inspector Rebus. He's just so flawed. Please ignore the truly awful TV version and the miss casting of John Hannah - Rebus is distinctly more flawed and has obviously eaten a few more haggis suppers than John Hannah

The last book you bought is

This was a charity shop find. I love charity shops for books they are always dirt cheap and you find some interesting things that someone has cherished enough to take along rather than just bin. Anyway the book in question was Final Days by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. I bought it for The Painter because he loves the film All the President's Men. Obviously it's about the final days of the Nixon administration. I haven't read it yet and I can't at the moment even locate it we have so many, some would say too many, books in this house.

The last book you read

The last book I actually read was The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen. Sounds lofty but it was just lying around and I thought I would improve my mind. Not with this though. A very strange little tale about a man who escapes reality into a kind of Narnian attic. I suppose if Ibsen were writing it now the protagonist may end up blogging himself into obscurity instead. Translation is always a problem and I'm not sure that this edition had been done very sympathetically but it was infinitely better than Candide by Voltaire.

I had embarked on Bjorn Larsson's Long John Silver when the whole stroke situation kicked off but it was tidied up by The Painter after he got out of hospital. I hate that. I hate people picking up after me (do it yourself then, you lazy cow - internal monologue). Now I keep looking at it on the bookshelf and glaring at it like it was the book's fault.


Five books you would take to a deserted island:

The first, as I mentioned over on Badaunt's gate-crashed entry would be Cohesion in English by Halliday and Hassan. I would take it to the island and really coherently (pardon the pun) demonstrate why their theory is wrong. I attempted to do this for my Bachelor's dissertation (Text: a question of cohesion). My tutors were distinctly unconvinced giving it only a 56 - the external moderator was obviously a woman of some sense as she marked it up to a 64 (that's a big leap guys, my vendetta theory seemed somewhat less bizarre when I found that out).

The next I would take would be the Norton Anthology of Poetry. This is an American publication and so there is some bias in its editorial but it is a very thorough collection of poems in English and the chapter on versification at the end is a useful toolbox for any poet.

Next I would have to take two books as one choice. I know this is cheating but the two books were bought together in a second hand bookshop. Okay, okay, I'll make them count as one each but you have no soul. They had been presented together as a prize in a race in 1911 or some such and included a newspaper clipping of the race results (YMCA Manchester Harriers v YMCA Oldham Harriers). The pair of books are The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns and the Life of Robert Burns by JG Lockhart published by JM Dent and EP Dutton (1910). I first bought a copy of Burns Poems and Songs aged 6 at a jumble sale and read it for many many years until it fell apart. To be without this copy would be unthinkable; to part the copy from its mate would be inhumane.

The fourth choice would aptly be The Coral Island by RM Ballantyne. Again this is as much about the edition of the book as the story; it's a colonial tale and as such is not very politically correct in these post colonial times but the strangeness and the beauty of the South Seas islands comes through very strongly. It would act as a kind of survival manual too and as long as I didn't have to eat long pig I think I'd be okay. The copy I have is covered in a blue/green shagreen and has thin pages. It smells, when you open it, like a missal or a hymnal. Lovely.

My fifth and final choice would be 101 Dalmations by Dodie Smith - don't even speak about the various Disney travesties - please read the real thing with paper pages. It would inspire me to find a way home.

My book stick nominees are the weird and wonderful Rantz, Ally over at Ducking for Apples and of course the other Ali over at Alastair Campbell. (He won't answer - too busy running the election but I'll chuck the stick at him anyway.)

posted by She Weevil @ 11:34 AM 10 comments

Lax
I have been very lax over the Easter weekend. Could this be because the Weevil was busy making her Easter devotions, all gongs and incense. No, sadly not. Just been exceedingly slothful.

Bloglines feeds haven't been working properly either, so blogdom seemed eerily quiet. Thanks Rantz for leaping to my defence yesterday. My rude visitor (yesterday's comments) was in fact my lovely mad sister. She's been doing all the running around with mum because she lives nearby. She is lovely. She thinks she's funny. What is funny is that you can't make a Simnel cake with hate in your heart: it just won't rise or cook. The marzipan will act like some kind of weird insulating blanket/Duvet thing. You will end up with a Simnel pancake.

I have another sister. She is also mad and when I don't mention her and tell her she's lovely she gets huffy.

posted by She Weevil @ 9:02 AM 1 comments

Sunday, March 27, 2005
Lionel Ritchie and ....
... the Comedones.

And their hit single "Squeasy like a Sunday Morning". Please do not click the link above unless you have a strong constitution and are not easily shocked.

posted by She Weevil @ 3:34 PM 3 comments

Friday, March 25, 2005

Borage

posted by She Weevil @ 11:43 AM 2 comments

Mary, Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow?
Well for some time now I've intermittently told you about the loss of my lovely garden when we moved and how difficult I found it.

We applied for an allotment as soon as we moved in but we were put on a waiting list. Yesterday we got notification that we've been allocated a half plot and so I snapped it up. Just in time, too, with the growing season almost upon us.

So I spent a very pleasant evening trawling through my lovely Thompson and Morgan catalogue and find lots of yucky, I mean lovely, vegetables to grow in the garden. Yes thta's right I love growing them and garden fresh are as good as it gets but I'm not the world's biggest vegetable fan - give me a lump of meat and I'm happy.

Here's what I've got coming:

Bean : French Bean : Purple Teepee
Bean : Broad Bean : Express
Courgette : Salad Collection
Lettuce : Freckles
Carrot : Fly Away F1
Broccoli : Summer Sprouting Wok Broccoli
Squash : Winter : Avalon F1Hybrid
Lathyrus odoratus Astronaut Mixed
Lettuce : Colour Shades Mixed
Giant Strawberry Maxim - 6 Plants
Herbs : For Windowsills

I'm going to get some seed potatoes, onion sets and tomato plants locally as I've left it a bit late for ordering; needless to say it feels like Christmas not Good Friday.

posted by She Weevil @ 10:59 AM 7 comments

Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Twenty-three reasons to blog about Alastair Campbell

Most of the following are personal impressions or taken from Alastair-Campbell.blogspot.com

Woman of a certain age find him oddly appealing yet at the same time vaguely irritating
He has red hair - he is not a ging
He has a strong aversion to Piers Morgan
Rumours that he was a riviera gigolo persist despite the fact that he bangs his fist and pouts about it
Brusque and northern
Clever
On the wrong side of the Blair/Brown divide (apparently there is no such thing)
The Painter alleges that he is the lapdog of a tyrant
He is a devisive character
He very nearly advocates the kicking of King Charles ... spaniels
He runs marathons - the man's a nutter
He supports Leukaemia Research
He was played by Jonathan Cake in "The Government Inspector"; hunky but not like the real deal
Controversial
He wasn't daft enough to join the Wrens (or female enough for that matter)
He read modern languages - I think the ability to speak another language is cool in anyone. I only speak very bad French and even worse German.
He doesn't apparently like dogs; does he like cats?
The thinking woman's Sean Bean
Almost as sexy as the thinking woman's John Prescott (Gordon Brown)
Sexier than the thinking woman's David Icke (Tony Blair)
Spells Alastair with an internal A but no D
The name Campbell comes from the gaelic: twisted mouth
Alastair is an anglicised form of the gaelic form of the greek

posted by She Weevil @ 1:51 PM 4 comments

Over on the Alastair Campbell blog
"To anyone who caught that Politics programme yesterday I warn you to ignore the advice given by Derek Draper about tactical voting. That wanker suggested voting Lib Dem or even Tory in marginal seats to try and get rid of Tony. For starters why the fuck would you want to get rid of Tony? It would be a very dangerous idea to vote like that as the Tories could get in by the back door or even worse we could end up with Gordon Brown as PM. Do not think that the British people would be that stupid to heed someone like that’s advice anyway. " Alastair Campbell (apparently)

Still haven't made up my mind about this. In some ways it doesn't matter whether it's him or not. Makes for (or would if more people were looking at it and commenting) quite a nice sounding board/unofficial focus group. I think there's just me and Cheryl so God help him!!

posted by She Weevil @ 8:48 AM 1 comments

Monday, March 21, 2005
Perplex City
Just another of the things I fill my mind with in order to almost completely shut out reality seems to have begun in earnest this morning. Following an email from ARGN.com announcing the launch of a new ARG Perplex City. They send us all to www.perplexcitysentinel.com who have the article from which all the clippings collected from the Earth newspapers over the past few weeks and the bits from Dinah and Alice too.

At the moment there seems no way to subscribe - if YOU know how please let me know or the forum at unforum.

posted by She Weevil @ 11:18 AM 2 comments

Fanstory ... again
Well the other reason I've been quiet on here is because I've been over on Fanstory. Contrary to popular opinion, I can't mop the floor and wash the windows at the same nor can I write on here and on there.

I write my drivel here and I put my self-indulgent drivel over there. It's all Madbaggage's fault. She started it all. This weekend we both ran into a lovely chap on there with quite firm opinions about most things in the universe.. Here's what he had to say about a piece I'd written:

"This was a decent piece of writing, but there simply wasn't much of a story. I think this could be developed much further. Good job overall. Below are some suggestions. XXXXXXX

"... then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink." I wouldn't capitalize these words (unless they are in that actual book)"

I did respond that it wouldn't have occured to me to misqote Keats, at which point the conversation stopped. I welcome anyone's review; he just has all the social graces of a teenage boy. Funny that.

What is a freshman in high school?

posted by She Weevil @ 8:48 AM 2 comments

Monday, Bloody Monday.
Been quiet all weekend on here. Probably cos Rantz shamed me over the backups thing. Well to understand my pathetic justification, I guess you had to be here. No, I don't mean here in our delightful (and only pissed stained on the outside) local authority flat. No. And not even walking a day in my shoes is close enough. You have to be right here, inside my head, to get it.

Saturday mum phones me. Not that unusual. She's won the premium bonds - only £50 -better than a poke in the eye. When I ask her how she is - she says not so good. A few chest pains. Bronchitis? No, and pains in her collarbone and down her arm.

I try telling her that taking an aspirin and having a sit down isn't the best plan of action but she' a bit pigheaded. She tells me she'll phone the doctor in the week and make an appointment. I know this is the best I'm going to get out of her for the moment.

I phone Sunday and she's had another two episodes in the night and one in the morning. I try and persuade her to call the doctor. Apparently she won't get an appointment at short notice. Anyway she's got grow houses coming by courier from Argos - she couldn't possibly phone them and put them off. She assures me she'll phone as soon as they have been delivered.

I sit pondering the conversation, wondering why she told me in the first place (she doesn't like to worry people and normally keeps things to herself); thinking about dad up on his cloud glaring because he doesn't actually believe e in heaven or the afterlife, yet here he is stuck on this fluffy construct waiting for everyone else to join him (morning, dad, BTW). I phone her back and say "You know you are having a heart attack, don't you. The doctor's surgery will have to see you if you tell them what's wrong." She tells me of course she knows she's having a heart attack, she's not stupid. Gets quite irritated and goes.

More pondering. A discussion with The Painter. He mutters things like "fucking ridiculous" a lot. I ring my sister and then my godmother, all the while thinking she's never going to speak to me again. Thankfully my godmother and her other oldest friend both go to see her and I get a phonecall at lunchtime to say they are off to A&E. Dribbles and trickles of information - has she, hasn't she? Apparently she probably has had at least one heart attack but they won't be able to confirm until later.

I phone the hospital this morning to see how she went over night and I get to speak to her, sounding better than she has done for ages. She even laughs when I tell her the treadmill they are going to get her to go on this morning has nothing to do with her heart condition - it's attached to a huge dynamo and powers the whole hospital (well, she is my mum - someone's got to laugh at my pathetic attempts at humour). She's still convinced she's going home today - she's still worried about the Argos parcel and her seedlings, but hey, she's in the right place.

I kept my promise Dad.

posted by She Weevil @ 8:04 AM 6 comments

Friday, March 18, 2005
Ain't no mountain high enough
So - I've been quiet for the last few days. Not really quiet, you just couldn't hear me screaming and swearing at the computer. It started with an infection of the viral variety which I thought I had quarantined and dealt with, an hour long conversation with a very nice techy guy at AOL and a format of my hard-drive.

This was not as straight forward as it sounds as my desk is (or was) somewhat like the Scafell Pike of paperwork. It did actually look like somebody had taken an office's waste paper and tipped it on the desk but I knew where things were (okay, I knew their general location). Included in this melee were, somewhere, operating disks et cetera, et cetera, all necessary for the afternoon's events. The external CD writer that we have with this clockwork powered pile of pooh is of course not connected. It sits like a little shrine to house dust under the desk in the vain hope that someone will actually one day attach it to the computer and make it useful again. There are a number of reasons why this hasn't happened and they are all down to my dreadful manana state of mind. NEVER DO TODAY WHAT YOU CAN PUT OFF UNTIL TOMORROW.

For the benefit of those of you visiting from North America or anywhere that has lots of mountains, Scafell Pike may not seem much more than a bump in the ground; I grew up in Cornwall, the highest point of which is Brown Willy - no, really, it is, height 1375 feet.

Nonetheless, it was not working. I was forced to try and get the collective detritus of four verbose individuals and their accounts on to three floppy disks. There are some of you out there who have probably never even used a floppy disk. Trying to do backups to them has always been a pain. Yesterday was no exception. To back up My documents was going to take approximately 380 disks. I had 12. They were old and reformatted but I was going to give it a go. After disk number five had successfully finished and prompted me for no six, the floppy drive decided it didn't like the disk and asked for another. Apparently I took too long complying and computer said no. The backup stopped and I was left with five disks full of meaningless crap.

I changed tack at this point and started breaking tasks down into smaller, more manageable chunks. This, as has emerged, has been somewhat successful apart from (bien sur) the accounts. I backed these up individually and on coming the restore them, the backup software tells me there is no catalogue on the disk - task aborted.

So if I'm quiet again for a few days, think of me in my stout climbing boots, pushing on towards the pike, bar of Kendall Mint Cake in hand, in a valiant attempt to rebuild my life and my big box of cookies.

posted by She Weevil @ 8:52 AM 3 comments

Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Paddy's Wigwam ...
They speak with an accent exceedingly rare; meet under a statue exceedingly bare and if you want a cathedral we've got one to spare ...

Over on the Perplex City forums, there is an amount of debate about where this picture (the one in the top left-hand corner) is. There is, it has to be stated, also an amount of discussion as to whether or not it is important.

The candidates at the moment are London or Liverpool. It was considered to be London for the longest time but someone pointed out that the two small barely visible bits on the skyline might be St John's beacon and the Metropolitan Cathedral (affectionately known as Paddy's wigwam).

If you know where this view is, where the picture was taken from and where the missing cube is please just leave a message here or on the forums mentioned above.

If you don't know what I'm talking about but would like to, go here. Otherwise, thanks for stopping by.

posted by She Weevil @ 4:46 PM 3 comments

Boy(s/z) in the hood ...
I can't pretend that I know where the hood is.

In my mind it has something very vaguely to do with Will Smith but that's about it as far as locating it into time space or anywhere else the person that tidies the hood away at the end of the day might have put it. I know that a lot of the young men around here seem to think they come from or are going to the hood. I didn't know that I was (should that be woz?) currently living in the hood and I don't have anything in my wardrobe that approximates the requisite item of clothing (a hoody).

The yoof round here have a lot, in a wide variety of colours of grey; they only appear to wear the hoods up if they are also wearing a baseball cap. I'm not sure where these come from or why they are here. As far as I can elicit, on the large green in front of my asbestos tower there is very little evidence of any kind of sport at all. Once in a very blue moon you might get a couple of lads knocking about a football of the association variety but more usually there's just a lot of schlepping, spitting and swearing. Certainly no evidence of any kind that they have the slightest interest in or knowledge of the noble sport of baseball (sad sham that it is of the nobler sport of rounders). Speaking of the NRA, there's another nice link to it over on coppersblog. What? It's not a link to that NRA? You mean there's another one? To do with guns? Why would a British police officer link to that?

I read him quite often. He never fails to meet my expectations.

Back to the asbestos tower. We got a letter from the council.. They are conducting a stock condition survey. They have discovered asbestos in properties like ours but only in the living room and airing cupboard ceilings. Don't worry. Nowhere we really use.

Having been part of a stock condition survey a number of years ago, I do know that asbestos in situ is per se nothing to worry about. You only have to worry about it if is in poor condition or has been disturbed or damaged. There's a hole in the corner where someone who either didn't know or didn't care about asbestos exposure has drilled a hole for the TV aerial to come through and there was that patch in the middle that was a different colour to the rest. I could become paranoid but what would be the point? Needless to say we won't be doing anything to the ceilings.

Back to the yoof in the hoods. They may not play baseball but they do enjoy word games. I know this because they practice their post-modern version of hangman at the foot of our stairs. They may not have actually coined a new verb but they have kindly brought it to my attention.

To meat: as in Gemma Cop is gunna get meated. I presume this is not a spelling lapse or an erroneous use of the verb to meet. I assume that Gemma Cop has not arranged an assignation with any of the hoods.

I have my own presumption about what it means and it offends me. I presume that because the term has not yet made it to the dictionary (OED please take note) that it does not count as graffiti of an offensive nature and that is why it is still there.

If anyone does know the exact location of the hood perhaps you could let the yoof down stairs know. That way they can go back to kicking footballs and tin cans and stop spitting, swearing and stealing cars and remember that they live in Plymouth, err, Devon.

posted by She Weevil @ 12:44 PM 0 comments

Monday, March 14, 2005
Something yummy this way comes
As if I needed an excuse to talk, think, dream about food, I am carefully minding my own business over on blogexplosion when I stumble across these heavenly delights: Southern Kitchen. Delicioso!

posted by She Weevil @ 1:20 PM 2 comments

Happy Monday
I have been neglecting you. So sorry. Quite caught up with Fanstory and got a bit lost on here. That business with the blogger comments was a real bummer. Don't they realise that these things interrupt the flow, destroy the synergy.

Anway, in an attempt to recapture mine, I've been doing a bit of blogging this morning. That was the intention anyhow. I got as far as Present Simple and became a bit blogged down. Quizzes and riddles have always done it for me and this was a game with words - even better. It may surprise you to learn that my favourite prog is University Challenge. What an old bore.
Complete silence is the rule and you can only give an answer if it is an attempt at the right answer - unless it is a maths question when anything goes because after Paxman's first three words my head has begun to swim around as though full of candyfloss. I can hear Rantz calling Social Services as I type - yes the children have to sit in complete silence!

Inhumane, my arse.

But on the a note of international co-operation, is it only Britain that still has UC. I know it was invented in America; is it still running? I could google it but why when I've got you lot to ask? Oh, and who's your host? Consider it a starter for 10.

posted by She Weevil @ 12:03 PM 2 comments

Friday, March 11, 2005
The roll of the dice ...
I was reminded yesterday, whilst trogging through the blogosphere over on Blog Explosion, of the concept of living by the roll of a dice. I was surfing through the random pages, at times appalled, amused, abashed and afraid, when I came across a page where a man posted about a blog poll to decide his wife's hair colour. Normally at this point I would link to said blog in the manner that is expected in blogdom but I can't find the link. I'm sure I bookmarked it but can I find it? No!

Whoever you are, wherever you are, I'm sorry - if anyone knows leave a comment and I'll cite the blog properly.

My imagination was taken by a person using blog polls to decide their life. I'm sure this would have occurred to Luke Rhinehart if he had written his book now. If a girl can sell her virginity in order to pay her way through college, surely someone will decide to live by blog survey.

Any ideas for an initial survey?

posted by She Weevil @ 1:23 PM 3 comments

Wednesday, March 09, 2005
A new thingy ...
Thanks to Spud King over at instantmash for the nifty little gizmo in the side bar (yah boo sucks, Madbaggage, you mock AC stalker). He was the first to respond to my request for interviewees and the questions are trickling into my head as we speak.

posted by She Weevil @ 7:20 PM 7 comments

Tuesday, March 08, 2005
A legend in her own lunchtime ...
Thanks to Melinama over at Pratie Place for setting me the following, rather daunting, questions.

1. Tell us about your love of obscure industrial folk music. Start with, what is it?
I was fortunate, or unfortunate depending on your pespective, to have been brought up on a diet of the work of A L LLoyd, Ewan MacColl and the collected works of many other folk artists who made music about the lot of the working man and woman in our (British) industrial past. These records were loathed by my two sisters and not really my mum's cup of tea but I loved them. I like lots of folk music but these seemed to be about something tangible, not gypsies and princesses. I was especially taken by the number of women's working songs there were. We think of women working outside the home as being a twentieth century phenomenon; that just isn't true.

Many of the songs that I particularly like are songs of weaver-lasses and I'm particularly partial to a bit of Gaelic mouth music. Much of this is words and sounds put to a heavy beat to aid the women as they made the tweed.

If you want to hear any of the stuff I'm talking about look out for albums called The Iron Muse, Steam Whistle Ballads and an artist called Isabel Sutherland. It is an acquired taste but I acquired it and sing the songs to myself and to my children.

So break my heart and make it sore
So break my heart my dearie
And I'll lie in the cold green ground
For of single life I'm weary.

2. I see you like plastic surgery programs. Have they inclined you towards or against getting some yourself? What do you think about plastic surgery?
I have always been fascinated by medicine and I suppose that's where my interest started - I will watch anything factual and medical. I'm a bit sqeamish when it comes to rhinoplasty and liposuction but most procedures just fascinate me.
I suppose it's the psychology behind it that also fascinates me - you se people who are sometimes quite disfigured being given the ability to be somewhat less remarkable. Again you see people mutilating themselves. If young girls didn't starve themselves maybe they wouldn't "need" breast implants.
The only thing I would contemplate is breast reduction. I have no problem with my body really (it could be a bit smaller, it could be a bit firmer, I could make it that way I just haven't) the problem I have is with men talking to my boobs. I am 6'2" and they are at eye level for some men, I suppose. It's difficult to be cogent when someone is staring at your tits. Apart from that no I wouldn't have anything done - I like me as I am.

3. In "This is the She-Weevil's Lot" you described some zig-zags in your path. I think of this also as the "That's Good, That's Bad" syndrome - sometimes the thing you think is going to be great is awful and vice versa. Do you have another example?
My grandmother had a saying that what was for you wouldn't go past you. It's a fatalism that has been useful in seeing my life as on the whole positive - I could see it - and have chosen to on many occasions - as a catalogue of disasters. If I do this it negates the good things in my life. They are not numerous but their value is immeasurable.

I am lucky to be alive. At 18, while in the Wrens and whilst very drunk, I climbed 4 storeys of scaffolding attempting to get back into my room in Wrens Quarters because I had forgotten my key. When I got to the top someone had shut my window and I had to climb down again. The whole WRNS thing was a disaster in so many ways. It was supposed to be a safe environment - it was what I felt I needed at the time but with hindsight it very nearly brought about my demise.

4. You haven't written about The Painter for a while. How is his recovery going?
I think the phrase is up and down. I haven't written so much I suppose because I feel a little more self-conscious now. He's sitting behind me as I write and perhaps he won't like being discussed. It was cathartic before - maybe I feel like I'm not so entitled to that catharsis now. I don't know. His recovery has slowed. That in itself is an adjustment we didn't appreciate we would need to make. He started getting better; we assumed he would continue. He has reached a plateau and that is a little difficult to accept.

5. What question do you wish I had asked you? You get to choose number five.

You're so ravishingly beautiul, Sheweevil, and obviously so talented is it possible you just sit at home and write this stuff for the love of it?

So in the spirit of the above if there are any willing victims (max 3) out there just leave a comment and I will endeavour to be as searching with you.

posted by She Weevil @ 7:50 PM 3 comments


Rose study - calm.

posted by She Weevil @ 1:05 PM 0 comments

It's a zebra-fucking-crossing-you-eejit ...
You get some wacky types here in blogdom and they often say some weird and sometimes frightening things. But on the whole they are a sfae distance away, somewhere undefined on the other side of some plate glass (or perhaps , if they are snazzy gadget jones' and they have no children to put their fingers through it, they have one of those plasma screens). They are unlikely, however little they think of you, to run you over in their car.

But if you should venture to Tescos - sorry Relishthecontinental buddies but it is just around the corner and I don't drive - and you have too much shopping for 1 1/2 adults and a TYOG to carry and the bag handle on the cat litter to stop you smelling like pissy old cat woman has just broken, say you just happen to be standing at the zebra crossing waiting like some road aware pack mules to cross, you would think that the genteel looking chap with his wife in the natty little silver grey hatcback would stop, wouldn't you?

You would be wrong. You would be left shouting "It's a zebra-fucking-crossing-you-eejit".

Never go down to the end of the town if you don't go down with me.

posted by She Weevil @ 12:31 PM 2 comments

Sleep deprived ...
Another day dawns oyster grey and I feel I have spent the night in a large, padded, floral boxing ring with Mike Tyson. That really is a horrid thought. In reality, though, I have not spent the night fending off advances from The Painter (I practice not being very good at fending) but struggling with the eel-like creature we call the two-year old genius.

He has moderate to severe eczema and at the moment is technically "flared up". Since he was born I have had two (count them) nights of unbroken sleep. Normally this doesn't bother me too much. The constant state of knackerment is just the price you have to pay for having a wonderful, funny child who just can't stop scratching. This morning, though, when I woke up with a start and realised that the two-year old genius (TYOG) had reprogrammed the alarm clock and that the two older ones were going to be late for school because they were going to miss their bus and they were going to become vagrants and live a life of misery, I realised that maybe what I needed was a good night's sleep.

Of course, when I tried to rouse the troops, Surrealo Son was already up watching something very British on UK TV Gold. This is against the rules, bien sur, but there he was, oblivious to the rest of the family in the land of nod, carefully assuming his pipe and slippers position and watching Keeping Up Appearances or, ironically, As Time Goes By.

Does everyone function as dyssly as we do?

posted by She Weevil @ 9:20 AM 0 comments

Monday, March 07, 2005
Everything in the garden is lovely ...
Thanks to Rantz the kind people over at Relish the Continental's foody forum, I am just about able to keep up some kind of interest in gardening. I am trying to let go of my old garden: if I can't change waht's happened then there is really no point in worrying about it is there?

But it is very weird not having soil under my nails. We are waiting for an allotment but where we are obviously gardening is more popular, or maybe the allotments are more popular, than in the inner city where we lived before. We're not exactly in the burbs here, more in the sprawl - Plymouth is a very sprawling small city.

This time last year I had just put in potatoes and had sown lettuce (that were later all eaten by the voracious snails) salad onions, tomatoes, chillies, aubergines and courgettes. Courgettes I recommend to everyone I grew them in large pots and they work really well as ornamental plants they have large exotic looking foliage and lovely yellow flowers. They are very prolific so long as you keep taking the fruit off them. The tomatoes were excellent too and we have a over a dozen jars of spiced green tomato chutney that will remind us for years how delicious they were.

My favourite crop were the potatoes. I grew a red variety - I think itwas an Arran or a Pentland but can't quite remember - sorry. When I dug them up they were the colour of radishes. If you like vegetable to taste the way they used to plant your own potatoes. You can grow them in a tub if space is a problem but grow them. Nothing tastes better than your own patatoes pulled from the earth and washed shortly before cooking.

Try Thompson and Morgan for seeds of all varieties. They ship internationally and usually offer excellent value, customer service and freebies. Try David Austin for roses and Claire Austin for perennials, especially irises.

posted by She Weevil @ 9:50 AM 1 comments

Normal service has resumed ...
... So this morning blazing row with AD and The Painter with me stuck in the middle like some pathetic referree. Just missing the little flag and the whistle.

Oh yes, and the book of rules. The one that says you shall not tell your step-dad to FO. The one that states you shall not end a comment to your step-daughter with the phrase F you. The one that states people who have just had strokes should not engage in neck-vein-popping arguments with anyone. The one that states that sheweevils will go into meltdown if it all doesn't just stop.

She (AD) is about to go into meltdown anyway. The GCSEs are almost upon us and if history has anything to teach us at all, it is that the mood that is becoming more and more apparent, the brooding darkness (a bit like that bloke from the Darkness shrieking) is going to deepen before a new dawn breaks. This will be shortly after the last exam. Sweetness and sunshine will reign supreme until mid-August when the exam results come out.

Do I just grit my teeth and bear it?

posted by She Weevil @ 9:08 AM 3 comments

Thursday, March 03, 2005
Another clue
Fethy Po Fyliel An Gwarry Ha Tra Nahen translates as"Win or Lose, The Game and Nothing Else"

posted by She Weevil @ 12:05 PM 4 comments

Fanstory is an experience ...
Thanks (I think) to Madbaggage for pointing me in the direction of Fanstory (linked above). She is quite reticent about her own proliferation on there. I literally haven't had time yet to read her work; the first I came across had an estimated reading time of 15 hours and the children needed food. I will be going through it all with a fine tooth comb, well what would you expect from a She Weevil.

I agree with the baggage that much of the poetry on bloggs is a bit suspect and I'm happy for you to include mine in there too. You don't put your stuff out there thinking that everyone will think you're a genius, or even a half-wit. You put it out there mostly because you like it and hope others will too.

Some of the criticism has been very interesting but one in particular stands out. On a piece entiled Sonnet, which can be found by clicking the interesting link above, I received the following:

"A sonnet has three quatrains of twelve lines total, four lines per quatrain, and then an ending two line couplet. I'm not sure if you have the right format here for a true sonnet, since you have 16 lines. Some decent imagery in it, though few may know what a tarantella is. I guess some of the words could be changed around to make it more coy, or move it along better. Those three syllable words seem to get me stuck in places. It is still a decent start. I would write it out and iambicly check it to see if there is a a-b-a-b type of relationship in the syllables"

My response was polite and to the point in a Sheweevilly kind of way:

"Thanks for your remarks. I can only count 14 lines which would make it a sonnet. It is written in iambic pentameter and for those who don't know what a tarantella is maybe they should write and read with a dictionary, I do. Actually the form of this sonnet is an Italian or Petrarchan (c.f. Petrarch) which classically comprises an octave and a sestet. As far as the rhyme scheme goes it's fairly free form. I am sorry you have problems with the three syllable words, the only thing I can think of is a difference in pronunciation? Perhaps a difference in cadence between American and British English? Thanks for your input. I would feel really stupid calling something a sonnet if it wasn't."

Was I too hard?

posted by She Weevil @ 9:44 AM 3 comments

Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Cheating today
Not much time to do anything today. Hoping to hear that the painter is coming home so got to have a bit of a shuggle here. Anyway, tear your thoughts away from my domestic idyll and get your laughing gear around this:

... the little number quiz.
1. 747 JJ
2. 60 SIAM
3. 1963 AOJFK
4. 3 BM
5. 12 IIAF
6. 50 WTLYL
7. 20000 CWKTRW
8. 14 LIAS
9. 24 HFT
10. 57 HV
11. 1066 BOH
12. 101 D
13. 3 STH
14. 42 MOLTUAE
15. 7 DS
16. 7 WOTW
17. 100 CIAD
18. 14 DIAF
19. 666 TNOTB
20. 1666 GFOL
21. 999 EWSP
22. 52 PCIAD
23. 15 MOADMC
24. 1314 BOB
25. 29028 HOMEIF

The prize for the winner is a signed photo of La Sheweevil; the prize for the runner up is three of the signed photos. It has been posted before but no-one was reading then (or not many). Which clever dick will be the first to get them all?

posted by She Weevil @ 7:29 AM 13 comments

Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Walking with my dad ...

A post over on Present Simple inspired this post. Walk down from the cottages on the harbour wall towards where it doglegs. Instead of following the dogleg, in the outer corner where it turns to cliff again there is a little flight of granite steps (careful, quite slippy when wet). Now take your two daughters, both under the age of 5, for a nice bracing walk up the cliff.

Seems like madness to me now but he used to take us for miles to give my mum a break and tell us about the flowers and the animals and the birds. If you look at the top of the picture, you'll just be able to make out a small square building. This is the former coastguard lookout and is near the spot where Marconi made his first transatlantic radio broadcast.

Thanks to Cornwall Cam for the image

posted by She Weevil @ 1:38 PM 3 comments

Perplex City
For all you browsers from Britblog who have arrived here hoping to see something enlightening in reference to Perplex City, since Sente sent the email my husband has been very ill (see Gutted) so I'm just now getting back to it (he's quite a bit better now).

I have posted a bit of wild speculation on the unforum today and I'll probably get trouted or moved or moderatedly reprimanded by Wishi-san. At least I'm trying; it's only a game not a matter of life or death, after all. Or like, football, is it much more important than that?

posted by She Weevil @ 12:14 PM 0 comments

Colour bar
The man in the bed next to The Painter in hospital has a problem with colour. This first became apparent when he refused the fibogel they offered him. It wasn't apparently orange enough: "I have Fibogel Orange, not that muck." "I've got some on the trolley, you can have that" offers the nurse helpfully. "Is it orange? It's gotta be Fibogel Orange! That's not the orange stuff. That's why I haven't been since I got here. My bowels haven't functioned."

But then he really started. "I asked that doctor today. That Indian one" the nurse nods, "the dark skinned one". The nurse isn't really listening by now and who can blame her. "She's got halitosis." This has the nurse's attention "I don't know, I don't think" starts the nurse. "That's what they used to call it. Halitosis." The nurse, a little taken a back retorts "well, she works hard, gets a bit dry and thirsty, maybe ..." "the other one with the blue and the yellow stripe works hard. She hasn't got halitosis" counters the old man. At this point The Painter leans over and says "He called her a Pakky to her face earlier, she didn't bat an eyelid. She's very nice."

"When can someone take me downstairs for a smoke?" asks the old man. Apparently smoking for 70 years have done him no harm whatsoever. If you discount the stroke that put him in the hospital bed and now means he can't go down in a lift four floors unsupervised. Or if you ignore the ventolin inhaler on his night table and the little covered dishes, one with his false teeth and two others containing the frequent and noisy sputum samples he produces. And of course his Colgate-fresh breath. No harm at all.

posted by She Weevil @ 9:57 AM 0 comments

Do you, or don't you ...
like marmite? Not that it's important or anything it just seems to provoke strong reactions wherever this question is posed.

If you don't know what it is, click the link above and it'll take you through to an explanation. Don't like to be guided in your surfing? Just put marmite in a search engine then. Sod you.

Me, I'm in the "get me a strigil quickly so I can clean my tongue" camp. No equivocation here.

The Painter, may the Lord forgiven him, once brought me a sandwich (well, no he's actually done that more than once but on this particular occasion); I had asked for pate and bit distractedly into it while tippety tapping on this thing. The next thing I'm aware of is my tongue protruding from my mouth and not being allowed to return to its place in there. It seemed like my body was spontaneously rejecting my tongue. That couldn't be though could it? No, it was an alien substance and it was hidden in the sandwich: cheese and marmite.

After several minutes gesticulating and trying to speak and not to gag, a glass of water was obtained and the offending article had been hastily removed never to return and I suspect never to be served again.

So do you love or loathe?

posted by She Weevil @ 8:31 AM 6 comments