This came today
I ordered this from Amazon and it came today. It’s from China. It’s very nice and rather large. It’s a brush rest, carved to this shape (presumably laser-carved, because they’re all alike) from a hunk of rosewood tree root. It cost me less than five pounds and the shipping was free.
There is so much wrong with the thing I just typed, from the cost of the item to the free shipping to the fact that rosewood is more protected on the international market than baby fucking harp seals and shouldn’t have sailed through Customs without a bureaucratic fight to the death.
Are you guys getting this? Super cheap, excellent stuff from China with free (you have to assume, hugely government subsidized) shipping? Because we are. It takes two to five weeks to get here, but I mean…really?
November 7, 2017 — 11:50 pm
Comments: 12
Fire!
‘Tis the bonfire season hereabouts. I’m sure I’ve told you in years past, East Sussex doesn’t simply observe the Fifth of November; there’s a bonfire celebration somewhere in the county from late September through early December. That’s because East Sussex was particularly hard done by during the Marian persecutions (proximity to the Continent and free flow of new ideas is my theory).
It also means all the costumed bonfire societies can march in each other’s processions for weeks and weeks.
Most of the villages defer to the town of Lewes on the actual Fifth. They have the biggest procession, on account of they had the most Protestants burned at the stake. Seventeen of them.
Yes, it’s mostly fun and games these days, but I sense a surprisingly hard knot of anti-Catholicism in Britain still and it peaks out during the bonfire season.
We had a local celebration over the weekend and we’ll have another next weekend. Small, informal, neighborly things.
Pictured is the fire bowl from Saturday. I think we’d like to get one. We have a chimenea (and an incinerator), but it’s not the same as open fire, is it? Anyone have experience of these? Are they hard to maintain? Do the legs get super hot?
November 6, 2017 — 9:35 pm
Comments: 14
toot!
Roberto Benavidez is a “half-breed, South Texan, queer, figurative sculptor specializing in the piñata form; playing on themes of race, sexuality, art, sin, humor and beauty.” Which explains the butt stuff, I guess.
Honestly, why are artists always such insufferable twats? Dude makes custom piñatas. This one is part of a series based on the paintings of Hieronymous Bosch, which is awesome. I wonder if he actually fills them with candy or if he anticipates that no-one would want to buy a custom paper sculpture and then smack it to pieces with a stick.
I kinda like his bronzes, too.
Good weekend, everyone!
November 3, 2017 — 9:34 pm
Comments: 14
Uncle Badger’s lemon
Uncle B grew this here lemon. This is no mean feat in the UK, even in a greenhouse.
A bit unlovely on the outside, but it’s a perfectly cromulent lemon.
See?
November 1, 2017 — 10:22 pm
Comments: 9
Boo!
Happy Hallowe’en! They don’t really do this one here, or at least they haven’t until recently. Not even any scary movies on TV.
I love a good ghost story. I don’t even know why. I’m as psychic as a potato.
I live in a 400 year old house, I go to a 600 year old church and I handle ancient parchments all day and nary a spooky feeling or an aura or an orb or nothing. The only time I’ve ever gotten the willies was in the woods back home, and I’m sure our species is wired to get the willies in the woods sometimes.
Any spooky movie recommendations? We don’t have Netflix, but we have Amazon Prime. And YouTube, of course.
October 31, 2017 — 7:42 pm
Comments: 18
Go Lillith!
Lillith the lynx has escaped a zoo in Wales. I’m sure I heard Uncle B say they’d caught her, but the news doesn’t seem to think so.
She’s described as the smallest and sweetest of the three juvenile lynxes born in the zoo last year. They aren’t sure how she got out, but they think she got overexcited chasing a bird and…levitated, I guess.
This is my chance to post one of my favorite gifs. You look. I swear this cat climbs up air.
Stupid magpie.
October 30, 2017 — 10:06 pm
Comments: 10
Positively the last photo of apples
For the month of October, anyway. Yeah, this isn’t even half the apples. In the main hall.
My little cleaning project grew to encompass most of my workroom upstairs. This is not because I’m a tidy woman, but because I’m an untidy one. I have not given that room proper attention since I moved in nine years ago. I think I’ve scraped enough of a hole in the clutter to get some work done this weekend, anyway.
Oh, and if you downloaded and installed my ringtone, you’re one up on me. My SD card fell over and died this afternoon, taking my ringtone with it (I was fiddling with the card for another purpose and apparently killed it). Oh, well — at least I know where I can download it again.
Have a good weekend, everyone!
October 27, 2017 — 9:54 pm
Comments: 10
A gift from me to you
Another day of room cleaning, but I did have time to spend a few minutes with Audacity making myself a new ringtone. I think it turned out pretty well and thought you might want to download it for yourself. Depending on your browser, I hope that opens in a preview window.
I can’t wait to get a call at work tomorrow.
p.s. Let me tell you from experience: don’t use banjo music as your ringtone. Everyone has seen Deliverance.
October 26, 2017 — 8:30 pm
Comments: 18
…and then the band…
The Morris dancers were dancing to this snappy quartet. I have to assume the tuba is not generally a part of English folk music.
Is that a tuba? Or is it one of the odd ones, like a ‘baritone horn’ or something? My dad played a mystery horn of about that size toward the end of his life. He was very deaf. Said it helped him with his breath. Ye gods, was that fun to be around.
Short shrift again tonight. I’ve been cleaning closets. This is a bit of a lie, as they don’t have closets here.
They don’t have closets here. Let that sink in a moment.
But we have several funny little dead-end alcoves where shit gets stuffed haphazardly, waiting for the inevitable shit avalanche. It is now sorted into varieties of shit and stacked in neat boxes.
October 25, 2017 — 9:29 pm
Comments: 15
Also from the Apple Fayre
Morris Dancers. Yes, those are lady Morris Dancers, some of them. Yes, that’s a modern innovation. No, I don’t really mind.
But ladies singing sea shanties? Absolutely haram!
October 24, 2017 — 7:01 pm
Comments: 11