Random Things

[nineveh_uk]

I am enjoying Pratchett’s Going Postal a great deal more on the second read, and can only conclude that I can’t have been in the mood for it the first time round and was mostly disappointed that it wasn’t something more in the Carpe Jugulum vein. I adore Carpe Jugulum, but I’m glad that this time I’m also enjoying Going Postal. I must finally buy The Fifth Elephant, and dig out that idea for Vetinari/Margolotta fanfic.

Department of the old ones are the best: having nearly filled my digibox recorder with old episodes of Frasier (must switch off the series record now I think I've looped round to the beginning again), yesterday I reached the one in which Frasier finds himself backing a candidate for Congress who confesses to having been abducted by aliens. Splendid as ever.

My office is in a converted hospital building, and my particular office is in a converted hospital ward, which dates to 1770 and has graffiti from 1776 on a windowpane to prove it. It is rather nice as a result, with a high ceiling and big windows. It is also rather noisy when windy, with lots of wuthering going on – cue my colleague saying “And when you weren’t in on Monday and it was really windy it was very spooky, and I suddenly remembered that this was a hospital and people must have died in this room”. I suppose it puts a different perspective on annoying emails.

It is the 21st March tomorrow. Alas, it will definitely not be spring.

Comments

[sir_guinglain]

I keep thinking it's January; or possibly November, given the not-quite-fog this afternoon.

[nineveh_uk]

I too got a bit of a late autumnal feeling yesterday. Brr!

Births and deaths and bridal nights

[antisoppist]

When we found there was a room number missing in the numbering of our H-shaped student residences it was said that this was because someone had hanged themselves in it and the numbers had been changed so that no-one would know which room it was. I spent many sleepless nights working out how the numbering might have originally gone round the H and all the ways it could have ended up being mine. It is probably a University Myth, except that there really wasn't a room 27 or whatever it was. However, I have no problem sleeping in the bedroom that my great-grandmother died in at my parents' house (and given that it's a farmhouse over 300 years old, probably quite a lot of other people have died in it too).

"My" digibox is 98% full again. I have to get forceful about the precedence of the complete House of Eliot over Strictly Come Dancing results and Tracy Beaker Returns. I must work out how to back it up to a usb stick.

Re: Births and deaths and bridal nights

[nineveh_uk]

Hopefully the decorators just got confused... Quite a lot of people have probably died in a 300 year old farmhouse. Probably not in a 30s semi, but I must ask my Dad whether my grandfather died at home or in hospital (none of my other grandparents died at home and 2 of them did so on holiday, something I would not mind emulating!).

When Peter says "I was begotten and born in a bed" how does he know? Did he ask his mother (one of the things he was eventually educated out of as a child), or look up the calendar and work it out? Though admittedly if the Duke was conceiving children at house parties they probably weren't legitimate...

Re: Births and deaths and bridal nights

[antisoppist]

When my grandmother was seriously ill (she then went to hospital and died there) my aunt told me it reminded her of when my bedroom had been her bedroom and her grandmother was dying in the room next door. I was 15 and found the continuity of it all quite comforting rather than morbid.

how does he know?
Not a bed but the bed where twelve generations of [his] forefathers were born and wedded and died. There is a difference. It is a pity. I initially wondered whether he naturally assumed no-one ever had sex anywhere else. Hence:

"It is perfectly possible for people to be begotten not in a bed," Harriet pointed out. "I mean there are all sorts of places..." She paused, remembering how some of them had been rather uncomfortable, not to mention damp and ruinous to her stockings, but, on balance, not entirely devoid of interest. Her husband was eyeing her with wild surmise. She gazed back, determined and unblushing.

"If the idea has never occurred to you," she said, "it might be worth trying it some time."

Peter had deliberately never referred to his wife's Bohemian past, assuming it was something she preferred to forget, but now, Jordan's river passed, he realised that there were experiences that a man who had not only always demanded beauty as a pre-requisite but also luxury, comfort and freshly laundered sheets might have missed out on.

***

But no, that wasn't what you or he meant. Perhaps his mother told him "Well Gerald was a honeymoon baby of course and I knew Mary was on the way when I was so ill on the journey home from Mentone but you belong to Denver."

Re: Births and deaths and bridal nights

[nineveh_uk]

That'll teach me not to omit an ellipsis! Your second explanation makes good sense though (right down to the favouritism). However I am glad that I did, as commentfic has enormously improved my evening spent writing the minutes I was supposed to be doing this afternoon, but which wrecked on the rock of the friend I was having lunch with and me going mad in the name of peer support and sharing a bottle of wine. I am nearly finished with the wretched things.

Full marks to Harriet for broadening Peter's mind. I bet Peter never has had al fresco sex, the closest he's got being throwing Harriet about in the Oxfordshire field. Harriet, on the other hand, with the beech leaves has canonically shown interest in at least out-door something or other.

Re: Births and deaths and bridal nights

[antisoppist]

I am merely continuing my theory that Boyes wanted a mistress because they do things that wives do not and Peter should not smugly assume that he will be the only one generously bestowing the fruits of his vast experience. And I bet Boyes' theory of living to which Harriet submitted included satisfying his necessary urges whenever they happened to occur and on whatever surface happened to be handy even if she was mid-paragraph at the time. Plus trips to the great outdoors on the days he was trying to be D H Lawrence.

Perhaps I should have wine for lunch. It couldn't make me less productive in the afternoons. Sadly here the supportive conversations are all over pots of tea.

Re: Births and deaths and bridal nights

[nineveh_uk]

Put like that, one can see how Peter's post-case malaise could be comparatively unannoying. At least sex as sleep-aid doesn't interfere with vital moments of inspiration around the plot.

Suddenly I am feeling more sympathetic to the T,D notes on silver trays - it is a lot easier to say, "You will have to wait, I am working out a tricky bit" to a note than to someone hanging around your door, whatever you are wanted for .

[tree_and_leaf]

Nothing like spring. We have got daffodils, but only just, and the trees have only just started to blossom.

[white_hart]

Though I saw an excited tweet from a Canadian knitter on a visit to Wales yesterday saying 'Spring is definitely on its way to West Wales!' with a picture of a clump of snowdrops.

I am so glad I don't live in Toronto, I couldn't cope with this every year.

[nineveh_uk]

Does Toronto get a decent summer? I might be prepared to swap of the promise of sunshine at some point before October.

[nineveh_uk]

My daffodils appear to be huddling miserably together wondering if they dare take off their scarves.

[madam_du_batty]

"I must finally buy The Fifth Elephant, and dig out that idea for Vetinari/Margolotta fanfic."

Oooh please do, i read your last one and it was excellent (the fact that it came out on my birthday just made it even more epic)

If its any help i think i might know were you can read fifth elephant (and a host of other pratchett works) online.