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nineveh_ukPlan for the day: get up, pick hawthorns, boil for jelly (to be finished tomorrow). That shouldn't take too long. Except that I spent ages picking, because I thought that I needed lots. Then I spent ages picking them off the twigs etc, which took ages because I had lots. Then I boiled them in two enormous pans. Then I discovered that they massively o'erflowed the jelly bag. Then I manufactured a second jelly bag from random close-weave cotton/old sheet and hung it from a cupboard door. Now it's nearly seven o'clock. Roast duck for dinner will be happening tomorrow.
On the plus side, though I still have to do Jelly Pt. II tomorrow, at least a larger quantity shouldn't take longer at that point (except of course it will). It had better taste nice.
I passed the time while picking berries from twigs in listening to Cabin Pressure and, courtesy ofantisoppist, Death Bredon, a Radio 4 Saturday play about Dorothy L. Sayers early years as a copywriter and relationships with John Cournos and Bill White. It's quite fun, extremely fanficcy, very Radio 4 playish, and unabashedly portrays John Cournos as a complete git. Since by all accounts he was a complete git, this seems fair enough. I felt Sayers came across as a bit wet, though. There's no denying that she seems to have had terrible taste when it came to men, but she was also a person who - even when completely wrong - knew what she wanted and stuck to it, and there was no significant sense of this forthright side of her character. After all, surely an important part of the Cournos story is that Sayers doesn't sleep with him, because she disagrees over the terms and sticks to her guns. That's the same person who was a nightmare for the BBC producers because she insisted things happen her way or not at all, or who in 2013 would be at the centre of notorious internet flamewars.
Also, I always get annoyed by mysteriously queasy = unwittingly pregnant.
On the plus side, though I still have to do Jelly Pt. II tomorrow, at least a larger quantity shouldn't take longer at that point (except of course it will). It had better taste nice.
I passed the time while picking berries from twigs in listening to Cabin Pressure and, courtesy of
antisoppist, Death Bredon, a Radio 4 Saturday play about Dorothy L. Sayers early years as a copywriter and relationships with John Cournos and Bill White. It's quite fun, extremely fanficcy, very Radio 4 playish, and unabashedly portrays John Cournos as a complete git. Since by all accounts he was a complete git, this seems fair enough. I felt Sayers came across as a bit wet, though. There's no denying that she seems to have had terrible taste when it came to men, but she was also a person who - even when completely wrong - knew what she wanted and stuck to it, and there was no significant sense of this forthright side of her character. After all, surely an important part of the Cournos story is that Sayers doesn't sleep with him, because she disagrees over the terms and sticks to her guns. That's the same person who was a nightmare for the BBC producers because she insisted things happen her way or not at all, or who in 2013 would be at the centre of notorious internet flamewars. Also, I always get annoyed by mysteriously queasy = unwittingly pregnant.
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(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-12 05:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-12 06:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-12 06:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-12 07:24 pm (UTC)You're so right, Sayers would have enormous trouble coping with the fact that Someone Was Wrong on the internet. I bet she'd have given JPW the codslapping of her life, for starters.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 07:51 am (UTC)Revenant!DLS vs JPW would be highly entertaining.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-12 07:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 07:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 08:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 08:11 am (UTC)Good luck with Yuletide! I don't sign up any more because I could never manage to do it before December, and by that point things were always incredibly hectic and it ended up being stressful. But I still look forward to reading the stories.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 01:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-12 09:04 pm (UTC)Jelly sounds interesting, I've not heard of Hawthorne jelly before.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 12:57 pm (UTC)I read about hawthorn jelly somewhere recently, and since there are lots about, thought that I would give it a go. Since the things are free, if it tastes ghastly I've only wasted time (and at least learnt the technique). It is definitely not going to be insipid. Though the raw fruits taste of nothing much, the cooking process seems to make them decidedly sharp.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 09:57 am (UTC)The thing that I objected to in the play was Sayers being a bit gloopy and the fact that it put her wanting a baby ahead of her wanting Cournos when it was the other way round, in her head babies being the proper consequence of True Love*, hence the sticking point. And I don't think she would have confided in anyone at the office, even subtly and hintingly, or contemplated an abortion even for five seconds. But I do accept that if it's a radio play, characters do have to talk to other characters if it isn't to be entirely interior monologue for an hour. And I do almost feel sorry for Cournos at the "What? How dare you sully our relationship with condoms!" moment.
*whereas if it's just sex, avoiding the babies is perfectly sensible, except that Fate had other ideas.
I have manufactured fruit straining fabric from the muslin cloths still hanging about the place but however many times they have been washed since, they still come with slight connotations of baby vomit.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 01:11 pm (UTC)I think I read somewhere that she does seem to have contemplated an abortion, but can't remember where. Confiding in the office does seem deeply ridiculous - or at least presented in that kind of way. If DLS were having the "A friend of mine has got into trouble" conversation she would surely have carried it off a lot more convincingly.
I have quite a bit of random sheeting knocking around, but for those kitchen spills for which one needs old terry towelling I have had to purchase Ikea's cheapest guest towels. Both have the advantage of no baby vomit.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 01:49 pm (UTC)Though I've always wondered if Miss Meteyard's problem with Dean involved a baby.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 01:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 03:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 04:12 pm (UTC)So if she had discussed it with the doctor, that makes the conversation with colleagues even less likely!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 05:09 pm (UTC)That is a very strange conversation for her doctor to be having with Eric Whelpton.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-15 01:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 04:23 pm (UTC)belowabove).I've wondered about something to do with a baby for Miss Meteyard, too. I feel it has to be something more than the typist's* comment about a relationship with a man, and ironically a bigger secret might be both better blackmail material if the subject succumbs, but less actually useful for the blackmailer if she calls his bluff. Whether it's a pregnancy and miscarriage, abortion, or baby serves equally effectively for the plot and I'm inclined to think the reader's mind is meant to go there.
*I forget which.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 05:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 09:43 pm (UTC)Oh, here it is: "With that instinct which prompts one, when depressed, to wallow in every circumstance of gloom, Peter leaned sadly against the hurdles and abandoned himself to a variety of shallow considerations upon (1) The vanity of human wishes; (2) Mutability; (3) First love; (4) The decay of idealism; (5) The aftermath of the Great war; (6) Birth-control; and (7) The fallacy of free-will."
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 09:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-14 05:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-15 03:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-15 04:15 am (UTC)Mr. H. Atwood seems to have had quite the luck with his wives -- twice widowed, twice divorced. Which makes me wonder -- I'd never speculated before on what happened to Mary Stokes after that delicate and dangerous operation abroad. How did that turn out for her in the long term? She's never mentioned again after the Gaudy but presumably Harriet would have noticed if she'd died.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-14 08:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-15 02:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-15 02:10 pm (UTC)Well, they are shallow considerations! I read a good comment on this section that pointed out that given all the stuff about Young Love in the book you could read this section as Peter wallowing in gloom about the failure of his relationship with Barbara (in which case he never gets to the birth control stage, but does end up there without her instead of being Rosy Idealistic Young Family). After all, first love is not necessarily a depressing subject, it's all Peter having a moody day.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-17 10:15 am (UTC)*hence Peter finding the thought of it depressing.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-13 09:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-14 05:54 am (UTC)I recently ran into another Cournos-related dustup when reading the latest volume of T.S. Eliot's letters -- apparently Eliot hired Cournos to do the reviews of recent Russian literature in his magazine, prompting co-contributor Richard Aldington to throw a fit because Cournos had apparently written about him, Aldington, in his latest novel. There's a lot of exasperated back and forth about the situation in which all of the participants sound approximately eight years old (it didn't help that Aldington himself had a penchant for putting real people in his own novels).
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-15 02:15 pm (UTC)That is an excellent anecdote. Much of the literary world appear to be about 8 on occasion.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-15 07:34 pm (UTC)