| Oxfam! |
[Jul. 2nd, 2009|02:06 am] |
My son is working as a volunteer at our local Oxfam charity shop! So far (after one afternoon) he enjoys it. He's in charge of dvds and records, ie music and films.
It's great experience for him because he'll be working in the stock-room, and pricing items, and also working on the tills. I know several of the ladies who work there, none of them under 60, and they are going to mother him, I suspect. Hahahahaha! |
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| Another lifetime first... |
[Jul. 1st, 2009|11:42 pm] |
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...is when your son (who was a cute baby only 5 minutes ago) drives his Dad down to the supermarket in his car. |
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| Car. |
[Jun. 27th, 2009|01:27 am] |
My baby boy has a car. A second-hand Ford Fiesta, actually. He can't drive it until he passes his Test; but he has spent a lot of this evening just sitting in it.
Awww! |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 25th, 2009|01:14 am] |
Well, I spent the whole afternoon clearing rubbish from Upstairs, making beds with clean sheets, putting away the clean clothes and generally making the house welcoming for daughter Sacha and her Young Man Martin.
Of course, after a cuppa when she arrived, Sacha slalomed into the kitchen and began to make cakes. We have a dozen fairy cakes, one chocolate-iced marble cake, and one vanilla cake with peanut-butter icing and chocolate sprinkles. Her cakes are delicious!
She also made a jug of Pimms and lemonade, with cucumber, mint and lemon slices.
Sacha to Mark (son John's friend): 'Have some of this.'
Mark: 'What is it? It looks like a jungle!'
I confesas, I collapsed into giggles. |
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| See you in Court! |
[Jun. 17th, 2009|08:42 pm] |
Last Thursday we left the house at 6 am to drive to Winchester, where John was a witness in the trial of a young man accused of trying to make a bomb. Details from the local newspaper: http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/homepage/Bristol-terror-suspect-like-nice-guy/article-1071819-detail/article.html
We got there at 8.30. John was called at 2.40. Tedium, they name is Winchester Crown Court.
Mind, the judge was quite a slender man, almost overwhelmed by his wig. I kept expecting him to jump up and burst into some Gilbert and Sullivan.
*Exits, singing 'He will be surely happier, for He's such a susceptible Chancellor!' (Dum-diddle-ee, dum-diddle-ee, dum dum dum dum dum dum etc.)* |
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| Crud Mandoon |
[Jun. 11th, 2009|09:17 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | rubbish tv | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  fed up | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Ukulele Orchestra of GB | ] |
A new, comedy-fantasy, series on BBC2 tonight. Our hero walks into oaken posts while haranguing the audience. (We know it's oaken because he says, thoughtfully, "Oak" when he's clunked his head against it. Tense(ish) scene in tavern when Krod extorts keys to dungeon from villain devolves into silly fight when K complains to villain because he's called 'worm-faced.'
Dumb one with the ears locks rescuers of General into dungeon when he cuts wrong rope. (Don't ask.)
Half-way through this stuff (oh dear, girlfriend=pagan=has sex with everything that moves) and it's already total crap.
A comedy fantasy would take its cues from Diana Wynne Jones' 'Tough Guide to Fantasyland' (if you haven't read it, RUN to the bookshop and order a copy. You will sleep with it beneath your pillow because you love it so much.) A serious treatment of fantasy tropes would be so much funnier, so much cleverer. Compare the incomparable Blackadder.
This makes the current Robin Hood series seem a)historical and b)logical.
I guess that you'd need 2 bottles of wine to find it funny; and I've only had 3/4 of a bottle of Bergerac. I'm going on Youtube to watch the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. |
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| Cricket again |
[Jun. 7th, 2009|09:53 pm] |
Wonderful programme on BBC2 tonight, 'Empire of Cricket' about the West Indies. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00l6c5w (I hope that's the right link for BBC iplayer.
There are clips of fantastic players (Worrell, Richards, Lara - the latter would look graceful weeding his lawn!) and also the sad, sad decline of recent years. I do so hope that the WIndies will return to the top, but it's going to be hard work as much as talent that does it.
Also - woot! England beat Pakistan! Though the Pakistan team that turned up was a wee bit lacklustre, I thought. |
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| Cricket |
[Jun. 5th, 2009|09:10 pm] |
Well done, the Netherlands! They beat England in a truly exciting game!
(The Netherlands is supposed to be a minor cricketing nation; England are supposed to be a major one.) |
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| Online again! |
[Jun. 5th, 2009|02:50 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  squee! | ] |
Yippee! I have a new laptop! She's PINK! She doesn't unexpectedly fall off the Internet as her elderly predecessor did!
Did I mention that she's PINK??? |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 10th, 2009|10:05 pm] |
Gordon bleedin' Bennett! There's an ad on tv for Marks and Spencer stir-fry packs that cost £6.99 for two people. That's - that's almost seven quid!!
My stir-fry probably costs half that.
( Read more... )
Adaptable, delicious, healthy and, above all, cheap!! |
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| Mother's Day |
[May. 10th, 2009|09:17 pm] |
Does anyone know why in the UK Mothering Sunday was on March 22nd but in the US Mother's Day is today? And do other countries have differing Mothers' Days? (Should the apostrophe go after the S when you have a plurality of these Days?)
Just curious. |
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| Shadow Unit |
[May. 8th, 2009|11:43 pm] |
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Anyone on my flist who likes the tv series 'Criminal Minds' or 'CIS:Whatever' or 'Law and Order:Etc' should have a look at Shadow Unit - http://www.shadowunit.org/episodes.html. It's a website for an imaginary show that mixes the FBI and SF (of the Keith Laumer 'A Plague of Demons' kind. Which is, by the way, a good adventure story even though it's over 40 years old.) There are stories based on the episodes: currently we're at the beginning of series 2. The authors are all very fine writers in their own right. Hop over there and have a look. |
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| Language |
[Apr. 28th, 2009|10:30 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | words | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  happy | ] |
A reference to a 'syrup' by son's driving instructor (a Norf London man) puzzled me for a moment. We were talking about baldness and Yul Brynner, and I realised that 'syrup' is rhyming slang for 'wig.'
'Syrup of figs' = 'wig' |
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| Old Grannie Brinkley's Wise Words no 3985710 |
[Apr. 25th, 2009|11:20 pm] |
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It is advisable to check whether the bottle of wine you seek to open has a cork or a screw-top BEFORE one spends 15 minutes looking for the corkscrew. Ten to one it'll be a screw-top. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 18th, 2009|01:05 am] |
My son has elbow-length curly, coarse black hair which tends to shed everywhere. On the stairs, in the washing machine when his clothes are washed...
Heard tonight from his friend Josh: Uggh John!You're MOULTING on me! |
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| Good dentishtry |
[Apr. 15th, 2009|07:42 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | sore | ] |
I went under the hammer drill this morning to have a broken tooth mended. It doesn't hurt, having one's teeth done, but it's very boring staring up at the ceiling with one's jaw gaping.
He's a good dentist, is Mr Botha, though a little too keen for my taste to show one pictures, diagrammes and x-rays of one's mouth. I got a lecture on how the nerve in the jaw runs on each side from behind the molars to the front teeth. I was glad I'd been too nervous to eat breakfast. |
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| Books as presents! |
[Apr. 10th, 2009|01:26 am] |
If you're looking for beautiful books as presents for friends-and-relations, look no further than Norilana Books: http://norilanabooks.livejournal.com/
I have their edition of Sabatini's 'Captain Blood' - that is a classic story in a beautiful binding - as well as original fiction including the wonderful 'Lace and Blade' anthologies.
(I studied book-binding as part of my postgrad library course, and believe me, good bindings are very rare nowadays. Usually, if you read a modern paperback more than once it begins to fall apart. Not ideal. But these books stay the course!) |
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| I'm an idiot! |
[Mar. 14th, 2009|01:50 am] |
I forgot to mention that the band that my son plays guitar in, the Wind Up Toys, had their first gig tonight: a charity do for Red Nose Day at Harlow New Town Football Club.
He refused to allow his Aged Parents to attend, possibly because he was afraid we might mosh in the moshing-pit...
Apparently it went well. At least, when I asked him he grunted in an upbeat manner. |
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