2012 — 9 November: Friday
I caught the tail end1 of an item about mushroom picking. Far too risky for my taste. Though I did regularly go bilberry picking on Cannock Chase in the 1960s during my annual holidays with my mad aunt in the Midlands. I wonder why you never seem to see bilberries in the shops?
I have my next crockpot to stuff today, and an afternoon assignation over with Roger & Eileen to help them un-replenish2 their biscuit barrel.
Maurice Sendak
Anyone who knows that name will enjoy this interview with that amazing, funny, genius. Source and snippet (though you really should read the whole piece, which is both hilarious and poignant):
BELIEVER: What do you think of e-books?
MAURICE SENDAK: I hate them. It's like making believe there's another kind of sex. There isn't another kind of sex. There isn't another kind of book. A book is a book is a book. I know that's
terribly old-fashioned. I'm old, and when I'm gone they'll probably try to make my books on all these things, but I'm going to fight it like hell. [Pauses] I can't believe I've turned into a typical
old man. I can't believe it. I was young just minutes ago.
Ain't that the truth? And on a loosely-related theme:
These young design students spent only a single school year studying type design and they finish with fully formed, professional-looking type designs. But I am also struck by how conservative most of the work is. You're young only once, and that's a great opportunity to experiment, to do something out of the ordinary. It's the one time in life that you can claim innocence and get away with anything and in the process perhaps create something emblematic.
I hate grunge typography... (but then, I hated punk, too). And, though I take no great interest in bishops and arch-dittos, this made me giggle:
There is one other possible advantage to a Christian in attending Eton. It really would be impossible to graduate from there with a starry-eyed view of human nature. Nothing much shocks an Etonian because they have seen it all before the sixth form — they expect treachery and ambition to be the human norm (si monumentum requiris, Boris Johnson). And if God can redeem an Etonian, he can redeem anyone.
Is it time for breakfast? [Pause] No, but now that the crockpot is stuffed, maybe I could treat myself to a cuppa? It's 10:59 and getting rather grey out there. Yuk. Scratch "grey" and substitute "drizzly". Meanwhile, there's a certain circular humour to be derived from the observation that, in earlier times, I'd clean the house before my mother visited (sadly, Dad never lived to see our first house) and now I find myself cleaning it ahead of my son's visit. He and Peter's g/f expect to be here on Sunday.3
But I shall now put my feet up and join Inspector Montalbano in his 1994 adventure "The Shape of Water". Which goes very well with the original soundtrack to "Blade Runner".
Too go(o)d to miss?
Self-explanatory, I suspect. (Link.)
Back from my afternoon assignation in good time to hear Jack DeJohnette live on BBC Radio 3 before I unleash the latest batch of crockpotted magic on my tastebuds. My, it gets busy with commuters hereabouts. All eager to fling themselves under my wheels, too, it seems.