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Pink Pachyderms on Parade
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| We interrupt this broadcast for an advertisement. |
[May. 18th, 2012|06:01 am] |
The Spicery is an online spice shop.
The beloved introduced it to me, saying "look up a spice. Now click 'add to basket' "
I did, and it took two clicks to where I could check out with paypal. And if I do that, it doesn't even need to ask for an address, it gets that from paypal. It is also possible to use a credit-card, and not a paypal account.
This online shop doesn't request I register, or log in, or anything. They sell spices, and they make it easy to buy spices.
"This is dangerously easy." I said to the beloved.
"So you understand why I ordered £20 of spices." the beloved said to me.
Also, they have an interesting selection, with dried chillies, and pepper, and spice-mixes, and herbs and so on. And long pepper, that I've never seen before.
It also sells teaspoonfull amounts, so you can try stuff, or order something you want for just one recipe.
Also with the box of spices there arrived a free sample of zaatar. So I now have an easy source for it (Mind, I still have some I brought back from Israel.)
It's based in the UK. It has free shipping in the UK - possibly limited to mainland Britain, I did not check. It's a bit expensive - for whole cloves, or cumin seeds, I can just go to my corner shop. But it's handy and useful and has interesting things. And some people live in the UK without easy access to shops like my local ones.
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| I just watched 'Le Havre' |
[May. 13th, 2012|01:36 am] |
It's a film by Aki Kaurismäki. He's a Finnish director. It's set in France. So, a French film where people are taciturn ;)
I loved it and I came out of the cinema happy.
The trailer on youtuibe: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKzHv6A5Or0
( 'Le Havre' spoilers, and ruminations )
I loved the film and I came out of it happy, a sort of gentle happiness about people being kind and the world being an amazing place.
Then outside the Prince Charles Cinema were people in costume for the Quote-along Ghostbusters and they were awesome, and that made me happy for the creativity and dedication and geeky joy. Also I took photos.
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| The Sadness of m&m's World in London |
[Jan. 7th, 2012|02:03 am] |
A few weeks ago - or late last year, depending on how you look at it - friends were visiting London, and I wandered around with them.
One of them is a fan of the m&m's sugar-coated sweets. So they saw the 'm&m's World' on Leicester Square and wanted to go.
It's a big, colourful place. It *looks* exciting. But it's a *shop*. Full of ... m&m's merchandising. There are m&m branded t-shirts and plates and pillows and key-chains and so on, various tat. There are plastic, er, m&m figures in plastic re-creations of London tourist attractions. Also there were pre-packaged m&ms, in plastic boxes of various shapes. It was just before Christmas, so a lot of tree-shapes and red+green colours.
What they did *not* have on sale, though, was what I expected, and what my friend was excited for: the full range of m&m sweets. They had milk chocolate and peanut. And that was all. My friend was looking forward to the ones with rice crispies in them. Or pretzels. Or hey, the american website has almond ones coconut ones and three-chocolate ones and mint ones. Interesting varieties!
The m&m's world has loud music, bright primary (and secondary) colours. And ... even finding the peanut m&m's was not obvious. It's huge. They have a lot of space. It is just full of ...tat. Branded merchandising.
The thing is, I thought it looked bad when I saw it, but I expected maybe some child-enticing rides, or playground-style things. There weren't any.
My friend, who wanted to go was disappointed. Surely, we thought if they have four floors of shop... Surely they'd have the full range of actual m&m's?
Bright lights, Loud music, and far less of the thing they claim to be about than one would expect.
So that is why I tweeted this:
"m&m's world on Leicester Square. It's a shop. Also a sign of the imminent death of humanity. Just because wandering inside = urge to kill."
And retweeted this:
"@echtburge
There are three things I would like to see wiped from the face of London: bigots, poverty and that f*cking M&Ms World in Leicester Square."
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 21st, 2011|12:42 am] |
On Thursday I met friend Del in a pub - I handed over an old phone I have to spare, now that I'm using a new Android phone
It was good at the pub, we talked and told each other about things we'd both seen on tumblr.
Like the < a href="http://geyserofawesome.com/post/14283998736/a-very-lovecraft-christmas-faced-with-the">Cthulhu Christmas Tree</a>. And other things.
On Friday I went and saw Sherlock with abigailb at the Hackney Picture House.
( spoilers )
Yesterday I shopped and shops were unbusy and oddly calm. 20th december. Odd.
Also I signed for a direct debit for
http://www.careinternational.org.uk/ for a charity fundraiser outside the maul.
Then I went home and googled them and was afraid I'd agreed to donate to http://www.care.org.uk , which I'd have had to cancel, because very not my thing.
But care international looks more like the kind of thing I would like to support.
I found a ten-pound note and I looked around for someone looking for it, and nobody was, so I picked it up and took it.
At the supermarket there was a self-checkout machine, so I had energy for interacting with some humans at other shops. Hello, shop humans! Thank you for being kind and friendly.
Today is the beloved's birthday. So far: success.
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| Linkify |
[Dec. 16th, 2011|05:17 pm] |
"Of course I had my heart broken as a teen. I was desperately in love with myself. Then I found out that I was completely shallow. I haven’t spoken to myself since."
—M.T. ANDERSON, AUTHOR OF THE ASTONISHING LIFE OF OCTAVIAN NOTHING
"The boy I loved didn’t know I existed. Then again, he was obsessed with Camus, so he didn’t know if any of us existed."
—DAVID LEVITHAN, COAUTHOR OF NICK AND NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST AND WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON
"When my heart was broken and I was fifteen, I listened to Lou Reed's Berlin over and over and walked around a lot in the rain while my friends followed me looking worried and imploring me not to do anything stupid. Well, stupider than walking around in the rain, anyway."
—NEIL GAIMAN, AUTHOR OF THE GRAVEYARD BOOK
Those three are from from: http://whywebrokeupproject.tumblr.com/celebrity-break-up-stories
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2011/12/14/if-you-cant-notice-a-gorilla-how-the-heck-can-you-testify-as-a-witness/ On Perception and attention and why eye-witnesses often fail to see things.
Uncle Iroh for your tea
Advent Calendar of Science!
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.3) rjw76 explains genetics, starting on Science Advent Calendar Day One. You can continue by following with the tag: http://rjw76.livejournal.com/tag/advent_science_2011
Cthulu Tentacles
http://madartlab.com/2011/12/14/fantasy-armor-and-lady-bits/ A look at armour for women and on women.
The True Cost of Handmade A post about hand-made craft items, and how much they cost.
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 16th, 2011|02:20 am] |
Friend apiphile asked on tumblr
apiphile:
GUYS CAN YOU REBLOG AND NAME FOR ME:
- YOUR FAVOURITE TV SHOW PRODUCED IN YOUR HOME COUNTRY AND
- YOUR FAVOURITE TV SHOW PRODUCED OVERSEAS (WITH THE NAME OF THE COUNTRY WHERE IT IS MADE IF YOU KNOW THAT)
All I have is questions.
(the first question is ... what, tumblr, why can I not make formatting work? Fuckit, back to the old LJ/DW/IJ)
Like Home: Is it where I grew up, or where home is now? Two different countries.
A current television show? An old one I am nostalgic for? A series? A film I saw on television?
Have some bunches of things:
Bunch one: The country that used to be home:
רגע עם דודלי (Rega with Dodly)
Children's television, Including a talking wind-up robot barrel. And a puppet-boy come-to-life and a wise uncle.
קשקשתא (Kishkashta)
The first puppet I loved, a cactus character. Well before I knew of the Muppets.
קרובים קרובים (Krovim Krovim) (Close Relatives)
An ancient - I mean the early eighties - and genius sitcom of its time.
העולם הערב (Ha-Olam Ha-Erev) (The World Tonight)
Satire show, flourished during the 1991 Iraq war
מבצע סבתא
Short film, so very Israeli and funny.
בעל בעל לב
Short film, very sweet
החמישייה הקאמרית
Sketch show, acute observations, satire, and also some sheer weird nonsense :D And excellent writing.
Bunch two: The country that is home now:
The Clangers
The Moon! Soup Dragon! Swanee whistle talk! Also, my childhood.
Drop The Dead Donkey
(Not going out after dark in winter meant watching a lot of television in January 1991.)
Queer As Folk UK
Beautiful, funny-with-sad bits, properly bitchy bits, deeply familiar portrayal of clubbing culture, and a Happy Ending. :))) Also, a gay man who loves Doctor Who and soap opera.
The Lakes
I don't remember much about it, except I liked it, and so I call it good.
Doctor Who
Misfits
Black Books
What Darwin Didn't Know
Bunch Three: Neither of these, USA
The Muppet Show
My So-Called Life
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Community (Possibly currently-showing favourite)
The West Wing
The Power-Puff Girls
Samurai Jack
Avatar, The Last Air Bender
I have loved The Simpsons in the past, but the love has waned.
Not A Bunch,
Princess Tutu, from Japan. Crack and Fairy-tales and meta.
... Will that do?
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 1st, 2011|04:34 pm] |
Ben Aaronovitch was doing a book-signing today, because Rivers of London has just come out in paperback.
It was a lunchtime signing in Waterstones Covent Garden. I arranged with abi to meet there.
So I got there late and texted people :'I am late. Be surprised'. They weren't.
Got to the bookshop and the author was looking for a chair.
He said in other bookshops they treat him better, this is the one where he used to be a bookseller, so they don't make him coffeee - 'you know where the kettle is'.
So! got Ben Aaronovitch to sign books and also Doctor Who things (that was abi) , and talked with him. He was friendly and chatty and funny.
on slash( Read more... )
***
Other things about the books -- he said they were selling well, and that there would be more, which makes me happy, as I enjoy them a lot.
he said he's planning to write this series until he's rich
which will take a while, because the definition of rich keeps rising the more money he makes...
( spoilers )
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| Book Marks |
[Aug. 8th, 2011|08:49 pm] |
http://thecheeky.com/book-marks
Six paper book-marks. On the front of each is a caricature of a famous person named 'Mark' or 'Marx'.
"Let Mark Wahlburg, Mark Zukerberg, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, Mark Anthony and Mark Hamil be a part of every chapter you read."
Sizes 5 1/4” x 1 1/2”
It is a product, but it is listed as currently sold out.
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 4th, 2011|12:46 am] |
I have finished reading The Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch and I still like it a lot.
London <3 !
Our hero shares information! With a woman Police Constable! Whom he recognises as better than he is at important aspects of the job! And I wish that wasn't so exciting to me, but it is such a relief that he's not a patronising git.
Oh! Warnings. There is a murder investigation, people are brutally murdered, including one baby. There is blood.
And two children dead off-page. So if that will put you off, be warned.
The book was fun and I have just borrowed the next one, Moon Over Soho.
On the author's website, it says in the 'about' section:
Ben Aaronovitch currently resides in London and says that he will leave when they pry his city from his cold dead fingers.
Which he is not the only person I know who feels that way :)
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| Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch |
[Aug. 1st, 2011|05:34 pm] |
I've started reading Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. It's an urban magic detective. And it's told in first person.
But this one is funny and it is set in London, in places around Covent Garden and Leicester square that I recognise because I've been there, so the places I have not been are more real because I trust that they'd be recognised by people who know them.
There have been three women mentioned so far, and only one has been described as fuckable, and that is the woman our naarator is aware that he wants to fuck. The two others have been witnesses, and they are described, but not as fuckable objects. ... this should not be amazing to me. But still. Women not rated for their attractiveness. By a detective-type person!
Also I have to pause to laugh every few pages.
I like it when the person who is stumbling around clueless is actually aware that he needs more clues.
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 19th, 2011|08:05 pm] |
I've finished reading The Demon's Surrender by Sarah Rees Brennan, who is on LJ as sarahtales and on twitter as @sarahreesbrenna .
It is good and fun and it is a satisfying end to the trilogy that began in 'The Demon's Lexicon' and continued in 'The Demon's Covenant'.
So I was wondering what Sin Point of View would be like, and I loved it! It was good.
I liked how Sin was very aware of the way other people perceived her, and of body-language.
And I liked the interactions.
( Read more... )
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| X-Men: First Class Meta, for Del. |
[Jul. 2nd, 2011|06:07 am] |
This was going to be about Erik with a bit about Israel and its attitude to the Holocaust and Holocaust Survivors in the 1950s. It became very little about Erik and a lot about Israel.
It was going to be called
Erik Lehnsherr: Jew and Survivor, Mutant and Proud*
*Proud as in Fuck You
But this is not quite that.
( Read more... )
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| Food. |
[Jun. 27th, 2011|05:57 pm] |
Yesterday was hot.
We ate banana ice-cream, through this recipe:Step-by-Step instructions for one-ingredient ice-cream .
( banananananas )
Scarcity = I want that
This is why I couldn't leave 'treats' or 'bad food' around and had to finish it, when I was living in a dieting food-shaming environment. And for a while after I had left.
'How To Let Your Kids Become Overweight' Sort of describes some of that environment.
And why I now have a bar of chocolate I have been distracted from eating for over a week. And now I have remembered it, I just put it in the fridge for later, because it's a hot day. But I can eat it later, when I feel like it. And I don't have to hide having eaten it, so there's no need to finish all the chocolate and dispose of the packaging to hide the evidence. (P.S. I cannot hide evidence that I have eaten, I have a body that takes up a lot of space. And that's okay. )
A couple of paragraphs about being 'Lazy':
Here are some things that can sap away your will to exert energy: depression, fear, loneliness, self-loathing, social anxiety and discouragement. I’m sure you guys can think of more to add to this list.
And guess what? Even experiencing a lack of motivation or inability to function as well as you’d like due to depression, fear, loneliness, self-loathing, social anxiety and discouragement isn’t the same as being lazy.
I say we just go ahead and stop using the word.
And that's from here
A chart of recipes and ideas: Real Good Cheap Easy Food. I like the idea but have not tried any of the recipes. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 19th, 2011|01:15 am] |
Went to the Taste of London at Regent's Park. It rained and was windy and it was sunny and warm. And muddy.
There were many delicious things to eat.
I took some bad photos: 
Possibly longer post with more details later. |
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| one film, one play |
[Jun. 17th, 2011|06:18 pm] |
I have seen 'Attack the Block' and it was great, and you should watch it too.
( Read more... )
Also Nick Frost is in it, in a small part.
***
Thursday night I went to the Haymarket theatre and watched
'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead'.
( Read more... )
Also, there were pirates. |
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| Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time |
[May. 22nd, 2011|12:25 am] |
1. It's funny.
2. It's in Swenglish. No subtitles.
3. There's a beardy man with a big sharp knife.
4. There is regular eating of mayonnaise, with a spoon, directly from the jar.
5. In the end shouty beardy man serves the food to three male friends.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y463g76MFRw is for Pancakes Painfully Patriotic ones, apparently). I particularly like the power-tool modification there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L40f39bPII Chop Chop Carnage Stew. Violence is done to food.
6. I am impressed by how clean the kitchen is at the beginning of every video. Especially considering the way the food is thrown and punched and mauled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBhS19kU4lU Catastrophic Crayfish. It just ends with them demonstrating how hard they suck .The crayfish meat out of the claws. Look at their powerful suction.
Is there fandom for this thing? Want ridiculous stories of man punching food and laying a table and feeding his friends.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykX2_Jh6LFE Satanic Salad. So much knife action in this. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 27th, 2011|02:53 am] |
.Watched three films on the weekend.
( Volver )
In the following two responses to films I refer to the characters by the actors' names. This is wrong of me. Feel free to copy the text and do the search-and-replace so it is all proper and right. I know if I open imdb to look up the characters' names it will take me too long to post and I will not get around to it.
( Snow Cake )
( [500] Days of Summer ) |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 13th, 2011|01:06 am] |
I have read 'Whose Body' (1923) and 'Clouds of Witness'(1926) by Dorothy L Sayers. (Downloaded from death+50 copyright gutenbergs. )
I have 'Gaudy Night' on the shelf, but I think I would like to read 'Strong Poison' first, which - Wikipedia tells me - is where Harriet Vane first shows up.
I am glad I had read a warning for casual anti-semitism in the books before I started reading. Still, nothing like the disgusting scene in The Grand Sophie, which is from 1953. So hey.
***
There's an independent bookshop not far from here ... not very far. http://www.biggreenbookshop.com/about-us/info_1.html and they are now struggling, and they have free UK delivery, their website says.
But on the other hand. I have been mostly buying eboooks that fit in the computer and ebook-reader and do not need shelf-space.
Hoom.
On the third hand, I wonder if they have the second Castle Waiting book? That is a book I would like to read on paper, being comics and all pretty illustrations and.
And I still haven't read Glass books of the Dream Eaters, (or was it Dream books of the Glass Eaters?), and Derek said it is good, I wonder if they have it. And it's not available for instant download to me. So I could get it in paper.
And so on. Ooh, and maybe the Shaun Tan book, that looked like it would be pretty.
Eric by Shaun Tan, hosted by the Guardian
And I should send the niblings some books.
***
Speaking of Shaun Tan: There's the whole of
http://www.netvideoizle.com/the-lost-thing-hq.html
Oscar Animated Short, The Lost Thing, based on the book.
Speaking of Embedded videos: Pam Noles, 'All I Wanted For Christmas Was A Millennium Falcon'
( Read more... )
it is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4k7max2dUg
Pam Noles' Kickstarter for the Hollywood Fringe Festival is here:
http://kck.st/fDdxMj |
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