sweasel.com

Was a quick-quick Summer, seemingly, was it not? Been rather a coolish, dampish one, on average, in the upper Carolinas.*

Time does fly whilst having fun – or even whilst not…

Maggot racing?…is that some sort of U.K.-ish thing? Sounds a bit – slppery, and rather offputting.To each their own, though, I suppose.

Next weekend marks Labor Day here in these currently-united States, of course, and also in Canada – traditionally, official End Of Summer. Break time over for the kiddies; back to (what we sometimes refer to as) Eddification – or what passes for it in some quarters, nowadays.

Next up: Holloweeny!

Ignore valiantly, for at least another 6 to 8 weeks, those Christmasy-looking thingies which will commence popping out in various shopping venues in roughly seven to ten days or so…

[*Nemmine the Glowball Warmering/Coolering snark with reference to what should always properly be termed “weather” (which is constantly variable or variably constant, depending…), as opposed to “climate” (which is invariably geographical, but otherwise variably variable and constantly inconstant – IYKWIMAITYD).]

Well, just start celebratin’ Columbus Day & Thanksgiving. Sheesh, it’s like y’all are in some heathen place that don’t know about good holidays.

I thought mead was guzzled out of a flagon, not sipped from a cut glass wineglass?

Summer’s over…back to Hogwarts!

Where did the Summer go?

It was stolen by the collectivist redistributors who took 80% off the top and sent the rest to disappear into satraps’ offshore accounts.

We do have maggot racing here in the U.S. The big events take place every four years, with smaller ones every two. But with the extensive preliminaries, it seems sometimes the maggot races are continual.

Well played, Uncle Al!

Yeah, junior maggots go in the mid-term maggot races.

What books did you buy? Maggot racing you say. And a cherry pitter. When Husband’s great grandmother died, one of the things we ALL wanted was her cherry pitter! (well, I wanted her flour sack dish towels, too.)

I’ll wear white shoes this weekend, and then I’ll be done for the summer 😉
I wasted the whole summer, but I wilt in the heat and sunburn just walking to my car, so I don’t perk up until the temps drop into the 80s.

Time to break out the wellies.

http://tinyurl.com/ktfs7w5

This made me think of you: Assault Banjos

No idea if that is a legitimate article – the image looks old. So does the prose, given they somehow managed to convey every single important detail of a news story in a few, short sentences. (As a friend of mine noted, “When they had to set type by hand, they didn’t waste words.”)

I’ve been back at work for 3 weeks now, summer is already a fleeting memory. It wasn’t the best summer by any means, but I wasn’t at work, at least!

…he got a second banjo and continued the assault…

This sentence right here just raises all kinds of questions. For instance: did he have more than one banjo just lying around? Doesn’t that imply a love of banjos and thus a distaste for using them in a non-banjo capacity? Were they her banjos, and thus he was attempting to hoist her with her own jangly petard? Or were the circumstances even more sinister, and he held off completing the au fait in order to pop off for a tick, to purchase another banjo. This implies premeditated musical violence.

And now I go back to studying for the GRE.

That article makes the rounds of the banjo forum periodically, where it elicits gasps that anyone would do that to a perfectly good banjo. Or two.

Deborah, I bought a book about English miniature painting, one about how to paint portraits, one about how to capture likenesses…and a nonfiction book about a ship that protected the northern trade routes during WWII.

My mother was a very talented portrait painter, and I would love to have been one, but I can’t capture likenesses for beans. Also, can’t tell you why, I just love nonfiction books about ships plying cold waters.

Which ship? HMS JERVIS BAY deserved to have books written about her.

HMS Ulysses. I’ve only just started it, but I think it patrolled the route to Russia.

…he got a second banjo and continued the assault…

Well, DUH. I don’t see why everyone here is so surprised about him attacking her with a pair of matched banjos. Those weren’t assault banjos – they were dueling banjos

Am I banned yet? 🙂

Well played, Some Vegetable!

Upon googling – the story is confirmed as real, dating from 1991. (So – no type setting required. )

And he used them within city limits. This explains what the kerfuffle was all about. This also explains the other banjo; isn’t that the purpose of “seconds” in a duel?

Very good for 1 pound. I’d rather go to a book sale than a shoe sale 🙂

Where did the summer go? Indeed!

What do the maggots win?

Bob Mulroy: (Carrying on with Uncle Al’s very astute observation:)

The winners get access to a plum, non-Obamacare health care plan, and pork; lots and lots of pork.

With respect to non-fiction ships plying cold waters, if you don’t already know about her, perhaps you might try to find a book about Foundation Franklin, which began existence afloat as HMS Frisky, became (for a time) SS Gustavo Island, then (in 1930-31) began service with Foundation Maritime under her final renaming. Had some fascinating exploits, until 1948 when victimized to the point of unrepairability by extreme bad weather at sea.

Interesting ship, indeed. She was the subject of a book titled Grey Seas Under (IIRC), by Farley Mowat – perhaps you can chase down a copy.

The Grey Seas Under is my favorite. It’s about a salvage ship.

Something about sitting up in a warm, dry bed on a Winter’s night reading about pitching decks and freezing spray makes me all happy.

Something about a pitching deck and freezing spray, then heading home to a warm bed is even more awesome.

HMS Ulysses was a late-war British destroyer (commissioned December 1943) which did serve on the Murmansk convoy route in the last year of the war.

However, I don’t think anyone ever wrote a book about her.

I think what you have is HMS Ulysses by Alistair Maclean, a novel about a fictional Dido-class light cruiser serving on the Murmansk run in 1942, when things were a lot more… interesting.

Farley Mowat is a fun author to read.

“The Serpent’s Coil” is another of his, involving the Foundation Franklin and some misfortunate cargo vessel that managed to be struck by a succession of three hurricanes.

I also really enjoyed:

“The Dog Who Would Not Be”, and my personal favorite, “The Boat Who Would Not Float”

I think what you have is HMS Ulysses by Alistair Maclean, a novel about a fictional Dido-class light cruiser serving on the Murmansk run in 1942, when things were a lot more… interesting.

In that fiction genre, The Cruel Sea, by Nicholas Monsarrat was particularly good.

Also, going back to the Mowat books, I almost forgot about Grey Seas Under, which is the second of the Foundation Franklin stories.

Ach, you’re quite right, Rich. That is what I have. I’m not so keen on fiction in my old age, but I’ll no doubt read it anyway.

You know, steve, I’m not sure I knew Grey Seas Under was part of a series. I’ll have to get onto Abe books and find the rest. Thank you.

Eep! I didn’t realize Mowat was a radical environmentalist.

“Mowat’s advocacy for environmental causes and a writing style that allegedly “never let[s] the facts get in the way of the truth,” have earned him both praise and criticism: “few readers remain neutral.”

Also, still alive.

Mowat also wrote the book “Never Cry Wolf” that was turned into a movie by the same name.

It was billed as being an autobiographical story….so, if nothing else, Mowat’s environmentalist bona fides are somewhat earned.

Lots of cold….but, no angry oceans. So probably not your genre.

Never Cry Wolf…is that the one where Toad from American Graffiti eats a mouse? Because I saw that one…

I think that’s the one….

Ms. Weasel: one excellent work of non-fiction* about the Royal Navy in WW II, especially in the North Atlantic:

Heart of Oak by Tristan Jones. He wss a lifelong sailor; I don’t know half what he did, but I suspect he logged as many miles under single-hand sail as anyone in history. (The other book of his I’ve read described his quest to sail the Dead Sea and Lake Titicaca, thereby setting an altitude record for sailing.)

Heart of Oak is his memoir of service as a Boy Seaman – mostly in destroyers on the convoy runs.

* For a certain value of non-fiction. I’m sure all of it is authentic, and much of it is true, but I strongly suspect Jones of “revenging Poseidon’s Law”, in Kipling’s phrase.

I once met Tristan Jones.

He was more than half a looney, for what he chose to do for fun.

For example, he took an old lifeboat hull and turned it into a sailblat, and then intentionally froze himself into the polar ice-cap, so he could set the record for the firthest north under sail…. Which was kind of a cheat, since he counted on the polar ice cap drift to achieve his northernmost point….and by all appearances, it was not the sails that propelled him and the icecap to that point…..

All of which simply re-inforces my appreciation of the fact that he was more than half a looney….

BTW….Jones’ book about his sail into the polar ice cap is entitles “ICE”, if sweasy is interested.