Spoils
Stephen Moffat does write the best Doctor Who episodes. A planet which is one giant library? Yes, please! And that is all I will say as I do not want to give away any spoilers..
Now, as some longterm readers/friends may know, I'm absolutely obsessed by paratexts and paratextuality: tables of content, indices, illustrations, prefaces, typefaces, paper textures etc. Everything that makes a text a book, basically. I have found an absolute gem: A Book of Tables of Content. You can see a slideshow at the site and there is even a Flickr group where you can upload your own favourite Table of Content. Personally I have a thing about the ToC in Iain Banks' The Bridge (my favourite Banks novel, by the way). The novel takes place on the Firth of Forth Bridge and if you turn the ToC ninety degrees, it actually takes on the shape of that particular bridge. Nifty.
Finally, a very, very cool/scary photo of when volcanoes spew lightning.
PS. I have finished my first sweater and I'm very proud
Hanging Around With Scientists Gives Me Ideas
Experiment: sleep for X amount of hours (X being the amount of sleep I'd get pre-illness), try to be moderately active (i.e. go for a 20 minute walk), read a book, talk on the phone briefly and then see how this down-scaled version of 'normal life' works out.
Result: I'm not well. Head foggy, speech slightly slowed down and I need to search for words (and use spell-checker). Hands shaking if I'm not sitting down. Mouth dry. Was on the verge of collapsing during walk.
I'm going to counter this little experiment with jasmine tea, my jammies, some knitting and a flick through The Knitter's Handbook I found secondhand (just £1!) during my brief excursion..
Dammit.
Happy Birthday, Neil.
I missed it by one day (oh dear!) but Happy 50th Birthday, Mr Neil Finn, soundtracker to the Ms Bookish life for a very, very long time.
Three youtube links:
+ Crowded House: Don't Dream It's Over
+ Crowded House: Nails in my Feet
+ Crowded House: Silent House (live '07)
The Bonfire of Good Intentions
If I'm going to have to rip out another effing row on the neckline on my effing sweater, I swear I'm going to toss the effing thing on the bonfire I'm going to build in our backyard. What do you mean "Well, it's your first attempt at an actual garment and you did abandon the pattern after the first three rows"? That's not the point!
The bonfire I'm going to build will consist solely of good intentions gone awry: my copy of James Joyce's "Ulysses" that I took with me across the North Sea in the misguided belief that I'd read it (and left my vintage Georgette Heyer novels in the discard pile while I was at it); the tins of dry yeast that have been sitting in my cupboard for a long, long time waiting for my bread-making to re-ignite; the clothes I was going to mend last summer but haven't; the plants I forgot to water after having declared 2007(!) the year I was going back to have plants in my home. Let's not go into my decision to re-reinvent cabbage.
Okay, maybe the sweater will not go the way of the plants or the culinary plans. Knitting continues to astonish me - not just the process of taking a string of X material, looping it in various ways using fancy sticks and ending up with a textile, but also the actual community surrounding fiber arts and crafts. I may be frustrated by a sweater refusing to shape up exactly as I had envisioned it, but the frustration is countered by warm and witty encouragement from the knitting community.
Just three more rows of moss seed stitch and I swear this'll be it. Grrr..
PS. I have actually begun reading again! Hooray!
Euro ’08.
My personal favourite at this year's Eurovision is Bosnia-Herzegovina. David describes it as "Arcade Fire doing Rocky Horror". It won't win but it'll worm its way onto my iPod.
Five other countries of note:
+ Turkey has sent a local version of Manic Street Preaches with a hefty dash of Muse. Niice. A snowball's chance in hell, of course.
+ Azerbaijan is completely batsh*t crazy insane.
+ Sweden is strong as ever and I think it'll go top 3.
+ Israel has possibly the best singer in the competition.
+ Bulgaria is my outside bet. Regardless, it'll be a club hit across Europe this summer.
+ Switzerland is going for the boyband vote (without having a boyband).
Denmark? No. United Kingdom? Possibly too classy.
The Big Issues
Worryingly I watch the chatterbox a great deal more than I would like - but there is something about the format which suits my scattered brain. I get interested in something and just as I'm beginning to lose the thread, it's commercial time or time for the weather forecast (both strike me as similar in their inaccurate predictions of future happiness).
Yesterday I was watching In God's Name, a documentary on Channel 4 (the liberal, arty channel which has strayed in search of viewers). It was a look at fundamental Christianity in modern-day Britain filmed by a man going for cheap shots far too often.
Example: A late-20s driving instructor was asked if he had ever had sex, for instance. No, he had not as he was saving himself for marriage. I fail to see why being a male virgin in his late 20s should be material for prime-time TV.
However, other aspects of the documentary were more interesting. In Britain, they are currently reviewing stem cell research and abortion laws in parliament. Yesterday the updates to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill were passed. Today Parliament will vote on whether to lower the limit on abortion from twenty-four weeks to twenty. The documentary showed how closely certain certain members of the Parliament (as well as former) were working with hardline Christians in preparation for these bills.
I always take documentaries with a pinch of salt but I do hope this one might make aforementioned members of Parliament reconsider who acts as their advisors. Because it just looks a touch silly when you keep quoting scientific 'facts' you've been given by someone who believes that the Earth is 4,000 years old. And you still hope to be taken seriously. It's bad science, mate.
On a vaguely similar note: Not in my name - how scientists are asking to have their names removed from a list of "climate change doubters". So far almost ten per cent of the named scientists are having WTF moments from seeing their name on the list. Watch this one grow.
Must. Not. Buy.
Oh dear. Following a visit to the neurologist, I'm sitting here going: "I so need to buy myself some yarn as a treat." I don't exactly lack yarn, so I'm guessing that I've fallen into the trap of so many other crafters: buying supplies as a substitute for actually making something. Or perhaps I just really want something new and shiny to pet. Both?
The neurologist visit was surprisingly constructive although I find it difficult to explain exactly how it was constructive. I'm having some bloodwork done and am scheduled in for another MRI scan. It feels as though I'm finally heading in the right direction.
It is time for tea, some cookies and an afternoon nap. I still need naps, alas.
Airing the Closet
I don't know if anybody's keeping tabs on the Now Reading section of the sidebar. If you do, you will have noticed that it seems to have frozen. Could it really be? Has Ms Bookish given up on reading?
Of course not. I'm just reading books that don't really fit into my usual categories. Yes, I'm reading knitting books. Gasp! Shock! Horror! And when I'm not reading about knitting, I am knitting. Or listening to knitting podcasts. I'm even contemplating setting up a knitting blog because otherwise Fourth Edition might just crumble under the weight of my ruminations on yarn I want, patterns I adore and angsty reflections upon my knitting abilities. You know, same type stuff that I used to blog about at my former blog .. but substitute "first edition books" with "limited edition handdyed yarn".
I'll be mulling over the knitting blog idea for a few more weeks. Days. Hours. Oh sod it, here's a picture of my first sweater. It's colourful. Expect slightly more refined stuff from my hand, though.
PS. Happy and constructive vibes please as I'm seeing a neurologist tomorrow.
Run, Run..
I'm not the only crafty-creative person in this household. Far from it. Other Half has a degree in textiles, after all, and his latest project is customising shoes. These are his Day of the Dead shoes (aren't they fab?):
Speaking of shoes and craftiness, my crafty friend Lilith is going to run a 5k race later this year to raise money for cancer research. If you want to sponsor her, she'd be a very happy bunny. Lilith has even arranged a prize draw which any knitter (or friend of a knitter) should check out.
If Food Be The Music of Life.. Hang On.
Robert McLiam Wilson is an author from Northern Ireland who wrote a series of critically acclaimed novels in the early to mid-1990s. Unsurprisingly he was interested in exploring what constitutes 'nationality'. At that point I was interested in his works from a literature student's point-of-view: could I say he was 'post-colonial'? Could I yoke him in with writers in Scotland who were busy reclaiming their history, language and culture?
Nowadays I am an expat and I find myself wondering about nationality in far more personal terms. McLiam Wilson claimed that he could only define nationality negatively: "What gives it its chiaroscuro, its particular flavour is a dash of hatred and fear" (I quote this from memory). As a Dane, I find myself part of a history which is not unique - it is the history of any small nation fearing its bigger neighbours. Danes' attitudes towards Germany and Sweden are complicated. In recent years the 'dash of hatred and fear' has become more than a dash in Danish politics as right-wing politicians play upon fear of the Others to secure votes. But is that my definition of being Danish? That I support any football team playing against Germany (and to be frank, I actually do for some bizarre reason)? It'd be a poor way of defining oneself.
As the days are getting longer and as the sun starts to beam down, I find myself longing for koldskål - a dish which is the epitome of summer in Denmark. And so it is: the most obvious expression of my being Danish is through food. A positive definition, thankfully. I have found a near-by supplier of rye-bread and my local supermarket stocks food items I never used to touch in Denmark, but which I now happily sample ever so often: salami sausages, Danish cheeses and the inevitable bacon. Sometimes I even make frikadeller (meat balls) with kold kartoffelsalat (cold potato salad). It feels silly but in a comforting way.
Koldskål is not so easy to come by, though. Its main ingredient is buttermilk and that's not very easy to find (unless you want to go to another part of Glasgow and pay about £1 for half a pint from an organic food store). Here's the recipe and yes, it's a main dish..
4 cups of buttermilk
2 eggs
4 tbsp sugar
Dash of vanilla
Juice of 1 lemonBeat the eggs, sugar, lemon juice and vanilla together in the bowl the soup is to be served in. Beat the buttermilk and fold in a little at a time. Chill. Serve on top of small vanilla biscuits.
Yum.