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Personally, I always used to carry a paperback with me and would read in the odd moments that this writer seems to recall as being so dull and soul destroying. I still do carry e-books on my phone of course and use them in exactly the same way - but also with the option of doomscrolling, of course.
As for TV, I was never one for TV - or radio - as background noise. With fiends, I had a bit of reputation of going round and turning such things off when I entered the room, so that we could talk without distraction. I would ask them first, of course.
2·1 year agoI didn’t get a lot further than the garden this weekend but, having moved to a rural spot (East Anglia, UK) only a couple of months back, we are still finding new things in and around the garden.
One of the most notable is that a Kestrel has recently fledged in the woodland at the end of the garden - so it and parent are quite prominent and vocal on the several suitable perches around and about. We have set up the bins on a tripod in the front window and are getting some great views.
We also have a red kite passing overhead quite frequently.
Otherwise, brown hare loping through the garden, plenty of grey squirrel and occasional muntjac, green and occasional great spotted woodpeckers. Most smaller birds are steering clear at the moment due to the predators though. Then a southern hawker made a few passes on Sunday, and a several meadow browns and a red admiral were flitting about. We have burdock growing along the edges in a few places and just noticed a cluster of lords and ladies at the bottom.
We also noticed a branch had fallen from one of the adjoining ash trees and was hung up on the power line. A call to UKPN brought them out to deal with it surprisingly quickly. Looking at the canopy, I fear that it is succumbing to ash dieback. I expect that we will have more falling branches and that it will need to be felled this winter or next.
3·1 year agoThe Shannara series by Terry Brooks has a reputation as being an homage to LotR, and they are quite enjoyable.
Waaay back, this was what I turned to after reading LotR. He had only published the first then and it was what made me understand the difference between good writing and bad. It gave me nothing else other than that lesson and certainly didn’t scratch the itch that I had for something like LotR. In fact nothing did and I found it best to look for something completely different that was good in it’s own right rather than poor imitations.
8·1 year agoA regular weekly schedule would look something like:
- Practical volunteering with a local wildlife organisation.
- Studying something, maybe with the OU.
- Working on the house and garden
- Reading
- A decent length hike
- Working on a particular project: woodworking, writing, painting, coding, maybe putting whatever I have learnt recently into practice.
- Visiting somewhere.
They can sleep for longer. There is the incident of a Egyptian snail that was collected for the British Museum in 1846 - seemingly dead - and which then woke up in 1850.
Yes, I thoroughly enjoy short stories, for all the reasons that you give.
I grew up on the classic fantasy tales: Conan, Fafhred and the Grey Mouser, the Dying Earth tales, and all of Dunsany, Clarke Ashton Smith etc etc as well as Lovecraft, Poe and M R James and the rest.
As well as focusing on a single mood or concept, as you suggest, short stories - particularly the more literary ones - are great as single character studies, or dealing with particular interactions in a way that isolates and brings them to the forefront simply by being given a beginning and end.
It is pretty clear that this is a joke sign/poster - akin to “you don’t have to be crazy to work here but it helps” and so on.
1·1 year agoDefinitely worthwhile!
Another BF listener here - I really liked Walker and McGann on screen in Annika too.
Otherwise, my SO and I have the Ted Lasso finale lined up. The third season (yes, I know, but I agree with the Americans that there is a distinction between series and season) has been a necessary conclusion to the material in the previous two, but not without some fun moments.
And - in terms of other UK TV - we are just on to season two of Jam and Jerusalem which I totally missed at the time but am enjoying now.
Otherwise, in non-UK shows, Drops of God and Shrinking are the clear highlights in our lineup at the moment.
A week.
I was in my teens and had no commitments at the time and just spontaneously decided not to eat or sleep for a few days - which I later decided would be a week. At the time, I had no idea of the world record for this or I probably would have tried for that - although, obviously, I was not supervised or anything.
The afternoons from the second day onwards were the worst - when I felt pretty lousy - but otherwise I was running on serotonin and was pretty much on a natural high for most the duration.
At the end, I cycled 12 miles during which one of my feet cramped and left me jabbing at the pedal as it went past, but I did it ok.
I slept extremely well when I finally did, but I took some while to get back into the whole eating thing again.
There is no way in hell that I could do anything like that now.
Ahh - ok. I had not met that bug before. I certainly did intend to post there.
Thanks!
A week.
I was in my teens and had no commitments at the time and just spontaneously decided not to eat or sleep for a few days - which I later decided would be a week. At the time, I had no idea of the world record for this or I probably would have tried for that - although, obviously, I was not supervised or anything.
The afternoons from the second day onwards were the worst - when I felt pretty lousy - but otherwise I was running on serotonin and was pretty much on a natural high for most the duration.
At the end, I cycled 12 miles during which one of my feet cramped and left me jabbing at the pedal as it went past, but I did it ok.
I slept extremely well when I finally did, but I took some while to get back into the whole eating thing again.
There is no way in hell that I could do anything like that now.
Some that I have enjoyed:
- A Spy Among Friends
- Slow Horses
- The Ipcress File (both the recent TV show and the 1965 film are great)
- Traitors (2019)
- The Night Manager
- London Spy
- The Game (2014)
- Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (both the TV show from 1979 and the 2011 film are great)
- Smiley’s People
1·1 year agoA) I have never touched tumblr.
B) I first heard it around 30 years back, so a little before tumblr.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
You can’t get a lot cooler than that.
My ‘big read’ this year is Finnegans Wake which I am reading weekly along with the reddit TrueLit sub. It would be a very different experience without the comments and interpretation from there, so that’s something that I will be thinking about…
Otherwise, The Twisted Ones by T Kingfisher, which is engaging and well paced, a Doctor Who novel from the '90s and am listening to Ron Hutton’s Queens of the Wild. This books are always authoritative and entertaining but I have only just started this one so can’t say a lot so far.
If I have to pick one, then the 1955 Ealing comedy The Ladykillers.
I know that the Coen brothers did a remake, and I am a fan of most of theirs, but I have no interest in this remake. The original could not be topped, IMHO.
I have three "!subscribe pending"s in my list after a session of joining a few days back. For me, they are showing up in my sidebar and I can post to them as usual, it seems. It is just that they don’t change from ‘pending’.
Presumably this was not a single snow crystal, but an agglomeration. More details on large snowflakes here.
Last was in May this year and the next - probably just camping - will be in September.
I am very fortunate in having a friend with a holiday chalet. A group of us go down to open in up and stay for a week or two most years. The only cost is the fuel to get there.
My SO and I usually aim to get another week away - maybe camping, maybe a holiday cottage - later in the year too.
We are in the UK and always go to other location in the UK for holidays. Neither of us have flown since the '90s and have no intention of doing so again.