Tuesday 28 February 2012

None Shall Pass!


The revolution has started. On sunday, I was confronted by the Che Guevara of sheep, was turned back at the border, by a fleecy militia.
Tomorrow they march, they will be unstoppable. (Unless surrounded by roast potatoes and mint-sauce). 

Yesterday's Infinitely Replicated Fractal Dinner


 It always seems a sin to actually eat something so beautiful. But mmmm, lightly steamed, with a cheese sauce? Oh yes. Nice in salads too. If I didn't eat it, then it would just be wasted.
Can't have that. 


Fractal and Fibonacci!

Charity.

I've been pestered on three evenings this week by different charity door-knockers, all with proper i.d., sweatshirts and coats printed with the charity's names.
All want me to sign up for a monthly donation, pointing out that it's tax free, and would make so much of a difference.

This week, I decided not to do my usual, which is "No, thank you, go away", but to listen, then tell them why the answer is still "No".
(basically, that I'll decide which charities I'll support, in my own time, and any charity which actively pesters me will be absolutely excluded from consideration.)

Believe it or not, after I'd let one go through his entire spiel of how my little donation would enable them to find a cure for cancer, and if I didn't sign up there and then, all the deaths from now on would be my fault, and I then said "No, I don't think I want to donate, right now.", the guy turned to his female companion, and said, I can't believe how this guy's just wasted our time!"

I said, "Well, I was just sitting, reading, when you rang the doorbell, I'd have been quite happy to not have been disturbed, but, as you insisted, and rang again, I thought it was only polite to get up out of my chair and stand here in the cold for five minutes with you, before I declined to give you my money."

According to Adullamite....

I'm a 'versatile blogger'. He's lumbered me with the award, (along with a veritable pantheon of other bloggists).

I'm a bit late at responding, my busy life got in the way, in that I've been too knackered to get around to it, and I only knew I'd been nominated because Red Dirt Girl told me.

Adullamite's a displaced Scot, whose blog ranges over a plethora of interesting things and thoughts, though I don't share his enthusiasm for football, Scottish or otherwise. All that effort wasted on kicking an effigy of an inflated pig's bladder up and down a muddy field. Once upon a time, of course, his ancestors would have been kicking an enemy's head around the town. I suppose a adidas pig's bladder is easier on the toes.

What do I have to do? Oh. it seems the Versatile Blogger Award comes with terms and strings. I must display the award....

And share seven things about myself.
Ha!

  1. I am a displaced Emperor. Tremble, peasants, as I pass! Well, I was born in the 'Imperial Nursing Home' in Harrogate, Yorkshire, and a child, I was convinced that obviously only the families of Emperors would frequent such a place. I was, it seems, somehow mislabeled at birth, and thus handed to a much humbler family.  My mother, would often mutter exasperatedly,  "He's not my child!".
  2. I am horribly untidy and seem incapable of creating order out of chaos. Chaos is normality to me. I live a cluttered life. I'd love the ability to declutter and live in one of those stark white houses so beloved of architectural journals. Alas, it is never to be. I will eventually die under an avalanche of books.
  3. I talk too much, as my uncle Len ("Loquacious Len", alias "Garrulous Griff") used to say,   'Inoculated with a gramophone needle'.
  4. I love history, a sense of place and connection with people long gone.
  5. I hope I'll never stop being curious, and interested in everything.
  6. I wish, however, that I could focus on individual tasks without being distracted.
  7. I wish I'd met Red Dirt Girl a lot of years before I really did.

The other part of the award is to pass it onto 15 more deserving people, and there I falter, because I think the recipients might sigh and hurl bricks at me. Most of them have already got one, it seems, and are mentioned by other recipients.  I'll try, though, and I'll do it in Adullamite's stealthy way, in which he doesn't actually inform the recipient directly, just tags them in a post. I'll try to add some that readers here might enjoy.

  1. Nag on the Lake The Nag posts often, and has won Canadian Popular Culture blogging awards, she's witty and eclectic.
  2. "ook?!" thought, pictures, pots, Wales, mountains. 
  3. TheBloggess.com  Impossible to describe. The Bloggess is not my daily read, but she can be so funny I snort tea out of my nose. Sorry about that. I didn't mean to disgust you quite so much. Jenny the Bloggess doesn't need my support, or my recommendation, nor is she ever likely to know I tagged her, as she has about as many readers in a day as I'll get in a zillion years.
  4. Violins and Starships  links and interesting oddities around the internet.
  5. Miss Cellania How she finds all the stuff she posts, I'll never know. Amazing. Go there.
  6. "Tai-wiki-widbee" is an eclectic mix of trivialities, ephemera, curiosities, and exotica with a smattering of current events, social commentary, science, history, English language and literature, videos, and humor. We try to be the cyberequivalent of a Victorian cabinet of curiosities.
  7. newshelton/wet/dry/

I give in.
Well past bedtime, and I've failed in the versatile blogger challenge.

I like blogs. I like the huge variety of blogs out there, but I'm sad to see so many blogs are closed up, their lights out and nobody home.
Facebook? Twitter? Pah!