(Well, not technically, as she was spayed long ago.)
SCULLY: Ah, about time. Excuse me...
HUMAN: Hello, Scully.
SCULLY: Excuse me, waiter!
HUMAN: Hello, sweetheart. Did you miss me?
SCULLY: What? No. Listen, I was served my starter --
HUMAN: Aren't you good? Patient little cat.
SCULLY: Yes, quite. Listen, I was served my starter at 6:30 this morning, and I'm still waiting for my main.
[HUMAN makes strange kissing clucking noises.]
SCULLY: Stop that. And well, I can't help noticing that it's 5:30pm now.
HUMAN: You're noisy today, aren't you?
SCULLY: I have to warn you, I don't consider this adequate service.
HUMAN: Chatty little cat.
SCULLY: If you take this attitude I shall be forced to complain to the management in the strongest possible terms...
HUMAN: Isn't she a chatty little catling?
SCULLY: ...just as soon as she gets home.
[HUMAN starts on the clucking noises again.]
SCULLY: God, the staff they take on in these places.
[SCULLY stalks off in annoyance, leaving HUMAN bewildered.]
Showing posts with label domesticity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label domesticity. Show all posts
07 January 2009
18 August 2008
The Hanna-Barbera Act
A: If the U.S. really wants to get tough on vigilanteism, then it's not your masked-and-costumed hero they should be cracking down on. It's the gangs of teenage youths who roam the countryside in vans with anthropomorphic animals, solving all kinds of crimes without any kind of federal or state mandate.
B: You say "all kinds"...
A: Well, admittedly they're usually the type of of fraud which entails dressing up as ghosts, vampires or some other form of monster in order to scare people away from whatever secret the criminal wants to stay hidden, like an altered will or stolen deeds.
B: Or a newly-discovered gold seam?
A: Well, quite. I wonder why crimes like that are so prevalent in the rural U.S.A.?
B: Just their equivalent of muggings and petty thefts, I suppose.
[Pause]
A: You'd think the government would do something about it. Make impersonation of a creature from folklore or the horror genre for personal gain a federal offence.
B: You would, wouldn't you?
A: I wonder why they don't?
[Pause]
B: Pressure from the Trick or Treat lobby, I guess.
B: You say "all kinds"...
A: Well, admittedly they're usually the type of of fraud which entails dressing up as ghosts, vampires or some other form of monster in order to scare people away from whatever secret the criminal wants to stay hidden, like an altered will or stolen deeds.
B: Or a newly-discovered gold seam?
A: Well, quite. I wonder why crimes like that are so prevalent in the rural U.S.A.?
B: Just their equivalent of muggings and petty thefts, I suppose.
[Pause]
A: You'd think the government would do something about it. Make impersonation of a creature from folklore or the horror genre for personal gain a federal offence.
B: You would, wouldn't you?
A: I wonder why they don't?
[Pause]
B: Pressure from the Trick or Treat lobby, I guess.
14 August 2007
Largely Random Observations
Or, What I'd Be Blogging About If Only I Had The Time
1. I must stop mentioning the weather in my Surefish column. When this month's number goes live it's going to start "Gosh, isn't it marvellous that summer's finally started after all that miserable rain we were having earlier?" Aargh.
2. B. and I have been married for eight years as of today. Hurrah for us! Eight years is Sodium, if I recall correctly.
3. Thanks to the aforementioned balmy summer weather, I spent today wandering about the office in:
4. Trisyllabic words that should rhyme but don't: "kilobyte" and "trilobite".
5. When I was growing up in Worthing, my parents had a lean-to shed which they referred to -- in an act of 70s middle-class pretension which Margo Leadbeatter would have baulked at -- as "our loggia". It was only when I read A Room with a View that I realised that what I'd always heard as "losure" was an Italian word, rather than being short for "enclosure".
6. Heroes is -- so far, at least, which from our point of view synchronises with BBC3's advance showings but not with The Sci-Fi Channel -- pretty great.
7. Cryptic crosswords are surprisingly difficult, though. I've been making a vague effort to start doing them regularly, given that sources as diverse as B.'s granny and Toby off The West Wing inform me that they keep your brain supple well into old age. I'm finding the bastards almost impossible, though, suggesting that I've already descended too far into senility for any non-miraculous intervention to be effective. Oh well.
8. I can't work out quite why anyone would want to visit Ashton Court for the Bristol Balloon Fiesta, given that there are better places across Bristol's multiple hills for watching the launches and flights. On Saturday our preferred vantage point (and that of around 2,000 other people, most of them under the age of six) was up the cliffs near Clifton Observatory, where the balloons pass pretty much overhead. (Sometimes they dip right down into the Avon Gorge first, which apparently is Just Showing Off.) It seems particularly perverse to drive to Ashton Court just as some godblighted football match is finishing at Ashton Gate Stadium, which is what the entire population of Southern England bar those 2,000 were doing an hour or so before the launch.
9. The other day I read an ancient Dilbert strip which included the words "Now I have to hug this guy so it won't seem awkward." Five minutes later I had "Purple Haze" going through my head.
10. After nearly nine years of very occasionally killing mice or other small vertebrates, then sitting and watching the corpses in the forlorn hope that they'll start moving again, Mulder has finally worked out what being a predator is actually about. Or so the mouse B. found on the living-room floor last Wednesday would suggest... if it had any front half left to squeak the news with.
1. I must stop mentioning the weather in my Surefish column. When this month's number goes live it's going to start "Gosh, isn't it marvellous that summer's finally started after all that miserable rain we were having earlier?" Aargh.
2. B. and I have been married for eight years as of today. Hurrah for us! Eight years is Sodium, if I recall correctly.
3. Thanks to the aforementioned balmy summer weather, I spent today wandering about the office in:
- wet trousers.
- a wet shirt.
- a wet tie.
- wet underpants.
- no shoes, because they were wet.
- dry socks, because I keep a pair at work.
4. Trisyllabic words that should rhyme but don't: "kilobyte" and "trilobite".
5. When I was growing up in Worthing, my parents had a lean-to shed which they referred to -- in an act of 70s middle-class pretension which Margo Leadbeatter would have baulked at -- as "our loggia". It was only when I read A Room with a View that I realised that what I'd always heard as "losure" was an Italian word, rather than being short for "enclosure".
6. Heroes is -- so far, at least, which from our point of view synchronises with BBC3's advance showings but not with The Sci-Fi Channel -- pretty great.
7. Cryptic crosswords are surprisingly difficult, though. I've been making a vague effort to start doing them regularly, given that sources as diverse as B.'s granny and Toby off The West Wing inform me that they keep your brain supple well into old age. I'm finding the bastards almost impossible, though, suggesting that I've already descended too far into senility for any non-miraculous intervention to be effective. Oh well.
8. I can't work out quite why anyone would want to visit Ashton Court for the Bristol Balloon Fiesta, given that there are better places across Bristol's multiple hills for watching the launches and flights. On Saturday our preferred vantage point (and that of around 2,000 other people, most of them under the age of six) was up the cliffs near Clifton Observatory, where the balloons pass pretty much overhead. (Sometimes they dip right down into the Avon Gorge first, which apparently is Just Showing Off.) It seems particularly perverse to drive to Ashton Court just as some godblighted football match is finishing at Ashton Gate Stadium, which is what the entire population of Southern England bar those 2,000 were doing an hour or so before the launch.
9. The other day I read an ancient Dilbert strip which included the words "Now I have to hug this guy so it won't seem awkward." Five minutes later I had "Purple Haze" going through my head.
10. After nearly nine years of very occasionally killing mice or other small vertebrates, then sitting and watching the corpses in the forlorn hope that they'll start moving again, Mulder has finally worked out what being a predator is actually about. Or so the mouse B. found on the living-room floor last Wednesday would suggest... if it had any front half left to squeak the news with.
27 January 2007
Flogging Jehovah
Is it wrong to be polite to Jehovah's Witnesses?
I answered the door to two of them -- a mother and son, I think -- in my dressing-gown this morning, in the hope that they might be delivering my Doctor Who: New Beginnings DVD boxed set. (They weren't, but it's a tactic they might want to consider in future.) They were a little nonplussed by my déshabille, but launched gamely into their spiel before I cut them off, politely, and told them, politely, that I wasn't really able to discuss the Lord Jesus with them right now.
The thing is, I'm not a particularly tolerant person, where intrusions into my privacy are concerned. I have no difficulty being rude to cold-callers who phone up trying to sell me double glazing or new kitchens: they took the job, they're being paid for it (badly, but that's a matter between them and their employer), and they knew full well that my being bloody rude to them was a risk they were accepting along with the position. Also, they're bastards.
I can't bring myself to take that attitude with J.W.s. I doubt my beliefs have more in common with theirs than perhaps a third of the Nicene Creed, I think they show some worryingly cultish tendencies and they most certainly get the christian community (of which they're fairly marginal members) a bad name. But still, I can't help looking at it from their point of view.
As far as they're concerned, their calling from door to door is a desperate attempt to save their neighbours from eternal damnation. Out of sheer charitable love for people who they've never met, and are very likely to tell them to fuck off, they brave rejection, insult and physical violence on a regular basis as a working-out of their faith. That faith isn't mine, and I can't see any way it ever could be. But if I was in their position, I very much doubt I'd have that degree of commitment or moral courage.
Oddly, this isn't a respect I extend to evangelical "missions", Alpha Course organisers, or people who stand in the street shouting through megaphones that I'm going to Hell. They can fuck off, with their bullying rhetoric, their unchallengeable certainties and their smug middle-class haircuts.
The J.W.s, though, I can't help respecting even while I think they're deluded fools.
So... should I continue to be polite to them, and to tell them (as I did today) that although I don't want to talk to them I do appreciate their kindness? Or should I tell them to fuck off, on the grounds that this will discourage them from intruding into people's lives, risking their own safety and bringing religious people (slightly further) into disrepute?
...Actually, I think I know the answer to that. In most cases it wouldn't discourage them at all -- it would just confirm them in their belief that the world is fundamentally corrupt and deaf to their preaching of the truth.
It's difficult to know how you can affect a mindset like that, short of engaging them in actual argument. And sadly that's something I haven't the time or energy -- or commitment, or moral courage -- to do.
I answered the door to two of them -- a mother and son, I think -- in my dressing-gown this morning, in the hope that they might be delivering my Doctor Who: New Beginnings DVD boxed set. (They weren't, but it's a tactic they might want to consider in future.) They were a little nonplussed by my déshabille, but launched gamely into their spiel before I cut them off, politely, and told them, politely, that I wasn't really able to discuss the Lord Jesus with them right now.
The thing is, I'm not a particularly tolerant person, where intrusions into my privacy are concerned. I have no difficulty being rude to cold-callers who phone up trying to sell me double glazing or new kitchens: they took the job, they're being paid for it (badly, but that's a matter between them and their employer), and they knew full well that my being bloody rude to them was a risk they were accepting along with the position. Also, they're bastards.
I can't bring myself to take that attitude with J.W.s. I doubt my beliefs have more in common with theirs than perhaps a third of the Nicene Creed, I think they show some worryingly cultish tendencies and they most certainly get the christian community (of which they're fairly marginal members) a bad name. But still, I can't help looking at it from their point of view.
As far as they're concerned, their calling from door to door is a desperate attempt to save their neighbours from eternal damnation. Out of sheer charitable love for people who they've never met, and are very likely to tell them to fuck off, they brave rejection, insult and physical violence on a regular basis as a working-out of their faith. That faith isn't mine, and I can't see any way it ever could be. But if I was in their position, I very much doubt I'd have that degree of commitment or moral courage.
Oddly, this isn't a respect I extend to evangelical "missions", Alpha Course organisers, or people who stand in the street shouting through megaphones that I'm going to Hell. They can fuck off, with their bullying rhetoric, their unchallengeable certainties and their smug middle-class haircuts.
The J.W.s, though, I can't help respecting even while I think they're deluded fools.
So... should I continue to be polite to them, and to tell them (as I did today) that although I don't want to talk to them I do appreciate their kindness? Or should I tell them to fuck off, on the grounds that this will discourage them from intruding into people's lives, risking their own safety and bringing religious people (slightly further) into disrepute?
...Actually, I think I know the answer to that. In most cases it wouldn't discourage them at all -- it would just confirm them in their belief that the world is fundamentally corrupt and deaf to their preaching of the truth.
It's difficult to know how you can affect a mindset like that, short of engaging them in actual argument. And sadly that's something I haven't the time or energy -- or commitment, or moral courage -- to do.
20 January 2007
Scenes from a 21st-Century Life
LIVING ROOM. DAY.
[Enter Phil. B. is watching Holby City. On screen, the doctors have just performed a caesarian section.]
PHIL: Can I talk to you a sec?
B.: Just let me pause this.
[She pauses it. The screen is full of open torso and blood-smeared baby.]
PHIL: Erm. Preferably not while looking at that?
B.: Sure.
[She rewinds. The doctors put the baby back inside.]
[Enter Phil. B. is watching Holby City. On screen, the doctors have just performed a caesarian section.]
PHIL: Can I talk to you a sec?
B.: Just let me pause this.
[She pauses it. The screen is full of open torso and blood-smeared baby.]
PHIL: Erm. Preferably not while looking at that?
B.: Sure.
[She rewinds. The doctors put the baby back inside.]
08 November 2006
Middle of the Road
Well, I've now more or less recovered from my 35th birthday party at the weekend, which celebrated the halfway point in my biblically mandated lifespan with appropriate gravity. I'm still rather pleased with the grim and forbidding invitation I designed for the occasion, so I've webbed it here for those of you who haven't seen it already.
In practice, of course, the day was happy, fun and thoroughly enjoyable. Lunch at Zerodegrees (in my case caramelised pear and gorgonzola pizza, accompanied by black lager and pale ale) was followed by a cake which B. had bought and iced for the occasion. We then led a party to Bristol Zoo to observe the various fine animals on display there.
It was the first time I'd visited the new Monkey Jungle, where red-ruffed lemurs scamper freely around the visitors' paths and handrails without intervening bars or glass. The lions, penguins and gorillas were as entertaining as ever, although for some reason the capybara were nowhere to be seen.
In the evening we went on to the Portwall Tavern, which had kindly reserved us all space and got a chef in specially to provide Pieminister pies. They sold us Doombar, Barnstormer and various other beers that I was having too good a time to pay sufficently close attention to.
B. had kindly ensured that it wouldn't matter if I got drunk and embarrassed myself by assembling an activity that would provide a whole different order of embarrassment: a pub quiz based on my life, which she'd compiled by consulting friends, relatives and, apparently, pretty much everyone I'd ever met.
Subjects ranged from my first words and reaction to the birth of my baby brother, to my recent writing and participation in mailing-list controversies. The final round looked like this (click for enlarged image):
and involved identifying the contents of my DVD and video shelves.
My wife's devotion, and her creativity, never cease to amaze me. I'm so very lucky to have her.
It was lovely to see the nearly 40 people from different eras and aspects of my life, including university contemporaries, fellow authors, sisters-in-law, friends' children including my goddaughter, and various teenage and childhood companions, including some who've known me getting on for three decades now.
Too many of these are people I don't see nearly often enough these days, so it was wonderful to catch up with so many of them. People drifted in and out during the different phases of the day, but still there were only a few who I didn't manage to chat to properly.
Thanks to the extreme generosity of family and friends, I now have altogether more new books than I'm likely to get around to reading, which is just the way I like it. Titles I was particularly happy to be given included:
Other rather splendid things from generous people included the DVDs of Mirrormask (from B. again) and the 3-disc edition of The Wicker Man, a case of fair trade wine and a similar number of bottles of exciting beer, and (from goddaughter E. and family) the adoption papers for a two-toed sloth.
It was the kind of weekend which leaves you replete, slightly hungover, full of love for humanity in general and your friends in particular, and mildly dazed by the sensory overload of it all. In short, utterly lovely.
It's just a shame I can't justify having another one until I'm halfway to 80.
In practice, of course, the day was happy, fun and thoroughly enjoyable. Lunch at Zerodegrees (in my case caramelised pear and gorgonzola pizza, accompanied by black lager and pale ale) was followed by a cake which B. had bought and iced for the occasion. We then led a party to Bristol Zoo to observe the various fine animals on display there.
It was the first time I'd visited the new Monkey Jungle, where red-ruffed lemurs scamper freely around the visitors' paths and handrails without intervening bars or glass. The lions, penguins and gorillas were as entertaining as ever, although for some reason the capybara were nowhere to be seen.
In the evening we went on to the Portwall Tavern, which had kindly reserved us all space and got a chef in specially to provide Pieminister pies. They sold us Doombar, Barnstormer and various other beers that I was having too good a time to pay sufficently close attention to.
B. had kindly ensured that it wouldn't matter if I got drunk and embarrassed myself by assembling an activity that would provide a whole different order of embarrassment: a pub quiz based on my life, which she'd compiled by consulting friends, relatives and, apparently, pretty much everyone I'd ever met.
Subjects ranged from my first words and reaction to the birth of my baby brother, to my recent writing and participation in mailing-list controversies. The final round looked like this (click for enlarged image):
and involved identifying the contents of my DVD and video shelves.
My wife's devotion, and her creativity, never cease to amaze me. I'm so very lucky to have her.
It was lovely to see the nearly 40 people from different eras and aspects of my life, including university contemporaries, fellow authors, sisters-in-law, friends' children including my goddaughter, and various teenage and childhood companions, including some who've known me getting on for three decades now.
Too many of these are people I don't see nearly often enough these days, so it was wonderful to catch up with so many of them. People drifted in and out during the different phases of the day, but still there were only a few who I didn't manage to chat to properly.
Thanks to the extreme generosity of family and friends, I now have altogether more new books than I'm likely to get around to reading, which is just the way I like it. Titles I was particularly happy to be given included:
- The Prisoner Scripts Volume 1 from B.;
- Fragile Things and Watching the English from the aforementioned baby brother and his wife;
- Persian Fire, Collapse and (tokenistically) Promethea Book 5 and King Rat from my parents-in-law;
- Never the Bride and Accelerando from other relatives, again through the magic of book tokens;
- and River of Gods, Iron Council, 100% and Dying Planet from various friends.
Other rather splendid things from generous people included the DVDs of Mirrormask (from B. again) and the 3-disc edition of The Wicker Man, a case of fair trade wine and a similar number of bottles of exciting beer, and (from goddaughter E. and family) the adoption papers for a two-toed sloth.
It was the kind of weekend which leaves you replete, slightly hungover, full of love for humanity in general and your friends in particular, and mildly dazed by the sensory overload of it all. In short, utterly lovely.
It's just a shame I can't justify having another one until I'm halfway to 80.
25 October 2006
Love Is Blind. It's Also Cupboard.
Blogspot isn't letting me access my account at present, so I'm composing this in Word on Wednesday afternoon. Heaven knows when I'll be allowed to post it...
You’ll be thrilled to know, possibly, that both Collected Works and Time Signature quite definitely exist in book form. I've seen them both in Forbidden Planet, and very pretty they look too. Hopefully my contributors' copies will turn up from Big Finish at some point in the not too distant future.
This past week’s been a tad trying, as B. and (latterly) I have been redecorating our kitchen: papering and painting walls, painting and re-handling cupboards, putting in new shelves and blinds and all kinds of faff and fiddle. The results –- still incomplete though they are –- are looking good. Whereas before the kitchen was coloured
with
cupboards and a big patch of bare
plaster beneath waist level from when we had a damp course put in, now it's like totally
with cupboards that are all
and chrome fittings which are like
. Only more reflective.
(One day you'll be able to set the reflectiveness of your computer screen to any level you want. We'll have to think of a new word for mirror websites.)
As I've mentioned before, I don't react well to having my habitat mucked about with, so I've found all of this fairly stressful. (On the plus side, though, this has provided an excuse to eat plenty of cheese and chocolate -- which, on the minus side, my waistline hasn't been inclined to accept with any sympathy.) The cats have been very clingy, as well, and are suspicious of the way things smell in there now.
In particular, having the blinds missing for over a week has made me feel surprisingly vulnerable, although I'm quite sure none of our rearward neighbours has any interest in watching me cook, eat, or indeed screw (which I've been doing quite a lot of over the past few days -- there've been a good many fixtures and fittings to attach to things. Ho ho ho, I bet you all thought I meant "screw" in the sense of "copulate".)
Now, though, we have shiny venetian slatted things up instead, which are far nicer than the dangly fabric things we inherited from our predecessors. They're so reflective that they make the room feel daylit even when half-open, which is fantastic.
The whole thing's a big improvement, naturally, but I can't help feeling it's involved an great deal of effort. Still, that's just me -- certainly B.'s very happy with the whole thing, which is good, and she claims it will make the house more saleable when we move. So three cheers for that, even if they're rather weary and stressed cheers.
[Edit 29/10/2006: Better approximations of colours, courtesy of B. Although I'm not sure about the plaster, to be honest.]
You’ll be thrilled to know, possibly, that both Collected Works and Time Signature quite definitely exist in book form. I've seen them both in Forbidden Planet, and very pretty they look too. Hopefully my contributors' copies will turn up from Big Finish at some point in the not too distant future.
This past week’s been a tad trying, as B. and (latterly) I have been redecorating our kitchen: papering and painting walls, painting and re-handling cupboards, putting in new shelves and blinds and all kinds of faff and fiddle. The results –- still incomplete though they are –- are looking good. Whereas before the kitchen was coloured
with
cupboards and a big patch of bare
plaster beneath waist level from when we had a damp course put in, now it's like totally
with cupboards that are all
and chrome fittings which are like
. Only more reflective.
(One day you'll be able to set the reflectiveness of your computer screen to any level you want. We'll have to think of a new word for mirror websites.)
As I've mentioned before, I don't react well to having my habitat mucked about with, so I've found all of this fairly stressful. (On the plus side, though, this has provided an excuse to eat plenty of cheese and chocolate -- which, on the minus side, my waistline hasn't been inclined to accept with any sympathy.) The cats have been very clingy, as well, and are suspicious of the way things smell in there now.
In particular, having the blinds missing for over a week has made me feel surprisingly vulnerable, although I'm quite sure none of our rearward neighbours has any interest in watching me cook, eat, or indeed screw (which I've been doing quite a lot of over the past few days -- there've been a good many fixtures and fittings to attach to things. Ho ho ho, I bet you all thought I meant "screw" in the sense of "copulate".)
Now, though, we have shiny venetian slatted things up instead, which are far nicer than the dangly fabric things we inherited from our predecessors. They're so reflective that they make the room feel daylit even when half-open, which is fantastic.
The whole thing's a big improvement, naturally, but I can't help feeling it's involved an great deal of effort. Still, that's just me -- certainly B.'s very happy with the whole thing, which is good, and she claims it will make the house more saleable when we move. So three cheers for that, even if they're rather weary and stressed cheers.
[Edit 29/10/2006: Better approximations of colours, courtesy of B. Although I'm not sure about the plaster, to be honest.]
27 July 2006
Intense Neurological Paint
Substantial chunks of this week have been entailed in painting the bedroom, which prior to Monday looked a lot like this...
...and now, mercifully, looks rather more like this.
I'm a territorial animal, and like the cats I get unhappy at signficant disruptions to my habitat. Having all the bedroom furniture, and in particular the books, stacked up against walls and in crates elsewhere across the house has been distressing for all of us, but now everything is back where it goes, and there's a marvellously restful lack of eye-wrenching disgust involved in looking at the bedroom walls. I thoroughly approve of it.
Unlike B. I'm not someone who sets great store by interior decorating, but it's surprising (or perhaps under the circumstances it's actually not) how much more like part of my home the bedroom now feels. Obviously being reminded of a hideously misjudged decorating decision which I would never under any circumstances have made, every time I opened my eyes in there, has had a subliminal alienating effect whose strength I never realised.
Now all we need to do is stop the bathroom looking like this...
...and I'll be happy.
...and now, mercifully, looks rather more like this.
I'm a territorial animal, and like the cats I get unhappy at signficant disruptions to my habitat. Having all the bedroom furniture, and in particular the books, stacked up against walls and in crates elsewhere across the house has been distressing for all of us, but now everything is back where it goes, and there's a marvellously restful lack of eye-wrenching disgust involved in looking at the bedroom walls. I thoroughly approve of it.
Unlike B. I'm not someone who sets great store by interior decorating, but it's surprising (or perhaps under the circumstances it's actually not) how much more like part of my home the bedroom now feels. Obviously being reminded of a hideously misjudged decorating decision which I would never under any circumstances have made, every time I opened my eyes in there, has had a subliminal alienating effect whose strength I never realised.
Now all we need to do is stop the bathroom looking like this...
...and I'll be happy.
19 July 2006
Look! Up in the Sky!
I've been sloshing cold water over myself with a flannel every so often, and I don't appear to have spontaneously combusted yet. The Met Office have now changed their tune and are predicting that tonight will be cooler even in the absence of a thunderstorm -- although I see there's one due already in Cornwall, so maybe we're supposed to be getting the benefit of that.
I've been thinking some more about the cats' divergent attitudes to rotary ceiling-fans. It seems odd that Scully should be so afraid of them, since as far as I know (and it would be a little unlikely around these parts) she's never been threatened by an aerial predator. It's particularly odd since she's usually by far the braver of the two: Mulder has a terror of strangers, doors that suddenly open, suits, plastic bags and the like which borders on the existential, while Scully's usually serenely unbothered by anything except (not unreasonably) small children.
Presumably Scully's phobia[1] is a hard-wired instinct that would have been a survival trait in ancient Egypt, where eagles and the like were considerably more common than in modern south-west England. This does, however, raise the question of why Mulder doesn't share it. Surely if it's a survival trait for one individual, it should be generally useful to the whole species?
The answer, I presume, is one of genetic diversity. Certain humans suffer from a fear of spiders or snakes or decay, a healthy range of phobias in the population ensuring that the survival of the species is protected against many different dangers, while leaving most of its members able to deal with everyday occurrences like retrieving spiders from the bath, wrestling anacondas or coping with the compost bin.
I'm not sure of the mechanics of how such a diversity would actually evolve... but it certainly means that Scully will be the better placed to survive should Bristol ever be beset by an infestation of gigantic rotating predatory birds, especially ones which specialise in hovering just underneath ceilings to await their prey.
Mulder, on the other hand, will be much more likely to survive in the event of a heatwave.
In entirely unrelated news, if we're still alive this evening we're going to see Superman Returns[2]. Hurrah!
[1] Possibly rhipiphobia, if this is anything to go by. Although "fan for making it less bleeding hot in your bedroom" isn't listed among the options.
[2] B. and me, that is, not me and the cats. I think the idea of a flying man would traumatise Scully for life.
I've been thinking some more about the cats' divergent attitudes to rotary ceiling-fans. It seems odd that Scully should be so afraid of them, since as far as I know (and it would be a little unlikely around these parts) she's never been threatened by an aerial predator. It's particularly odd since she's usually by far the braver of the two: Mulder has a terror of strangers, doors that suddenly open, suits, plastic bags and the like which borders on the existential, while Scully's usually serenely unbothered by anything except (not unreasonably) small children.
Presumably Scully's phobia[1] is a hard-wired instinct that would have been a survival trait in ancient Egypt, where eagles and the like were considerably more common than in modern south-west England. This does, however, raise the question of why Mulder doesn't share it. Surely if it's a survival trait for one individual, it should be generally useful to the whole species?
The answer, I presume, is one of genetic diversity. Certain humans suffer from a fear of spiders or snakes or decay, a healthy range of phobias in the population ensuring that the survival of the species is protected against many different dangers, while leaving most of its members able to deal with everyday occurrences like retrieving spiders from the bath, wrestling anacondas or coping with the compost bin.
I'm not sure of the mechanics of how such a diversity would actually evolve... but it certainly means that Scully will be the better placed to survive should Bristol ever be beset by an infestation of gigantic rotating predatory birds, especially ones which specialise in hovering just underneath ceilings to await their prey.
Mulder, on the other hand, will be much more likely to survive in the event of a heatwave.
In entirely unrelated news, if we're still alive this evening we're going to see Superman Returns[2]. Hurrah!
[1] Possibly rhipiphobia, if this is anything to go by. Although "fan for making it less bleeding hot in your bedroom" isn't listed among the options.
[2] B. and me, that is, not me and the cats. I think the idea of a flying man would traumatise Scully for life.
18 July 2006
Lovely and Temperate, My Arse
It's 33°C today, apparently, and not getting any cooler tomorrow, at least until the scheduled night-time thunderstorm. 35°C is frankly insane: I've been cooler than that at midday in August in Athens.
Given that I'm supposed to be spending this week broadening my opportunities for freelance writing -- from, naturally, my study -- this is not a welcome fact. The study has a tendency to become preternaturally hot and airless, and yesterday B. got home from work to find me with some kind of mild heatstroke, feeling dizzy and weak and in need of dousing with cold water, despite having had the window open and a fan on all day.
I'm posting this from inside a pair of pants and nothing else, with all the fans, doors and windows I can find upstairs opened and switched on. This is distressing Scully, who is convinced that the shadow of the ceiling fan in the bedroom is a gigantic bird of prey which can get her if she's anywhere within sight of it. (Mulder, on the other hand, is happily sitting underneath it on the bed, in the nice cool draught, proving either that he's more intelligent than her or that he's even dimmer.) The poor love's cowering in the bathroom, but there really isn't anything I can do about it: if I turn off the fan or close the door I'll overheat and collapse.
In the winter, if you feel too cold, you can turn up the heating or put on another jumper. In the summer you have no choice but to swelter, and any measures you take by way of inserting your head into sinksful of water are strictly temporary. I hope it's clear why I prefer the former state of affairs.
Given that I'm supposed to be spending this week broadening my opportunities for freelance writing -- from, naturally, my study -- this is not a welcome fact. The study has a tendency to become preternaturally hot and airless, and yesterday B. got home from work to find me with some kind of mild heatstroke, feeling dizzy and weak and in need of dousing with cold water, despite having had the window open and a fan on all day.
I'm posting this from inside a pair of pants and nothing else, with all the fans, doors and windows I can find upstairs opened and switched on. This is distressing Scully, who is convinced that the shadow of the ceiling fan in the bedroom is a gigantic bird of prey which can get her if she's anywhere within sight of it. (Mulder, on the other hand, is happily sitting underneath it on the bed, in the nice cool draught, proving either that he's more intelligent than her or that he's even dimmer.) The poor love's cowering in the bathroom, but there really isn't anything I can do about it: if I turn off the fan or close the door I'll overheat and collapse.
In the winter, if you feel too cold, you can turn up the heating or put on another jumper. In the summer you have no choice but to swelter, and any measures you take by way of inserting your head into sinksful of water are strictly temporary. I hope it's clear why I prefer the former state of affairs.
02 June 2006
Imbalance of Power
Yesterday I composed a post about my recent reading, viewing and partygoing, with a few words about the weaknesses in season six of Buffy, and an explanation of my theory concerning alternative world history in Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Then my beloved wife started looking for what turned out to be a nonexistent electrical fault, and accidentally cut power to the whole house, including my PC. So, er, that's gone now.
I'll stick with the observation that makes me look the most intellectual, which is that I'm 40 pages into Jared Diamond's astonishingly ambitious macrohistory, Guns, Germs and Steel: a Short History of Everybody for the last 13,000 Years, which attempts to explain in terms of environmental, geographical, zoological and botanical factors why Europeans ended up throwing their weight around enslaving people and similar all over the rest of the world, rather than, say, Papuans.
It's a fascinating topic, and one I really want to know more about. Unfortunately the book is... well, pretty damn thick, and thus rather intimidating. I very much want to have read it, but going through the the actual reading process is a daunting prospect. It'd be a good candidate for making available via direct cerebral download or RNA memory-extension. I think I may be reading it for quite some time.
Now B. and I are off to Manchester, to stay in a hotel and go to pubs and eat nice food and do such touristy things as we can find to do. I'm overdue a decent city-break, and I'm looking forward to it.
More bloggery next week, with any luck.
Then my beloved wife started looking for what turned out to be a nonexistent electrical fault, and accidentally cut power to the whole house, including my PC. So, er, that's gone now.
I'll stick with the observation that makes me look the most intellectual, which is that I'm 40 pages into Jared Diamond's astonishingly ambitious macrohistory, Guns, Germs and Steel: a Short History of Everybody for the last 13,000 Years, which attempts to explain in terms of environmental, geographical, zoological and botanical factors why Europeans ended up throwing their weight around enslaving people and similar all over the rest of the world, rather than, say, Papuans.
It's a fascinating topic, and one I really want to know more about. Unfortunately the book is... well, pretty damn thick, and thus rather intimidating. I very much want to have read it, but going through the the actual reading process is a daunting prospect. It'd be a good candidate for making available via direct cerebral download or RNA memory-extension. I think I may be reading it for quite some time.
Now B. and I are off to Manchester, to stay in a hotel and go to pubs and eat nice food and do such touristy things as we can find to do. I'm overdue a decent city-break, and I'm looking forward to it.
More bloggery next week, with any luck.
27 February 2006
More TV
I didn't realise it at the time, but when I last mentioned B.'s and my epic Buffy rewatch, we were precisely halfway through the 144 episodes of the series, poised equidistant between the early promise of Welcome to the Hellmouth and the touching climax of Chosen.
Since then we've finished watching Season Four, culminating in the wonderful triptych of The Yoko Factor, Primeval and Restless. I'm amazed by how much better the season is than I remembered it -- I recently argued at some length to a friend (sorry about that, Silk) that it was the show's worst year, but leaving aside the dodgy start (arising mainly from ditching the high-school format and two of the regular characters) and the limp "acting" of Marc Blucas as Riley, it pretty much rocks.
After starting off the season looking terribly depleted after Angel and Cordelia's departures, and despite the additional blow of losing Seth Green's magnificent Oz halfway through, by the end of the season the regular cast feels very strong again. Admittedly the addition of Riley has done little to help, but Anya is still wonderfully acerbic, Spike is uniquely Spike, and Amber Benson blends awkwardness, power and an entirely different kind of hot-chickery as Tara. Moreover, this is the season where Willow grows up, losing her most vulnerable edges and gaining social grace as a functional adult. Even Adam has a screen presence and a cool quotient which -- Spike being the only possible exception -- no other villain on the show can match.
Admittedly the arc story leaves something to be desired -- namely, anything much by way of plot complexity -- and the half-time removal of a key player in Maggie Walsh makes what there is seem less coherent than it ought to be. But the basic conception of the Initiative, and its culmination in Adam, manage to depart from the formula (so far as there is one) for Buffy villains whilst making fine intuitive sense. I also love the way in which -- although this is never flagged in the episode in question -- the vital information used to defeat Adam (the location of his uranium power core) comes to the heroes courtesy of Jonathan during his ego-trip in Superstar.
There are some outstandingly good episodes in there, among them the silent-comedy-horror Hush, the painfully character-driven diptych of This Year's Girl and Who Are You, the hilarious Superstar and finally what may be the single best story of the series (or its most self-indulgent embarrassment, depending on who you talk to), the episode-length dream-sequence Restless. Even the episodes I remembered as pretty feeble -- Fear Itself, for instance, or Where the Wild Things Are -- have a lot to recommend them by way of jokes and character moments. (I've always had a soft spot for Beer Bad, despite the fact that it's widely considered the worst Buffy episode of all, so I won't comment on that lest I come across as an indiscriminate Whedonist cheerleader.)
So... an unexpected amount of enjoyment, there, which I hope will continue into the remaining seasons -- all of which, like this one, are slightly dodgy in their disparate ways. Which means it's time for Buffy's most accomplished genre parody, Buffy Vs Dracula, and the arrival of Dawn. I'll keep you updated.
Oh, and in not entirely unrelated news -- so OK, yes, on reflection I probably am a Whedon groupie -- our Serenity DVD arrived today. Wahey!
Since then we've finished watching Season Four, culminating in the wonderful triptych of The Yoko Factor, Primeval and Restless. I'm amazed by how much better the season is than I remembered it -- I recently argued at some length to a friend (sorry about that, Silk) that it was the show's worst year, but leaving aside the dodgy start (arising mainly from ditching the high-school format and two of the regular characters) and the limp "acting" of Marc Blucas as Riley, it pretty much rocks.
After starting off the season looking terribly depleted after Angel and Cordelia's departures, and despite the additional blow of losing Seth Green's magnificent Oz halfway through, by the end of the season the regular cast feels very strong again. Admittedly the addition of Riley has done little to help, but Anya is still wonderfully acerbic, Spike is uniquely Spike, and Amber Benson blends awkwardness, power and an entirely different kind of hot-chickery as Tara. Moreover, this is the season where Willow grows up, losing her most vulnerable edges and gaining social grace as a functional adult. Even Adam has a screen presence and a cool quotient which -- Spike being the only possible exception -- no other villain on the show can match.
Admittedly the arc story leaves something to be desired -- namely, anything much by way of plot complexity -- and the half-time removal of a key player in Maggie Walsh makes what there is seem less coherent than it ought to be. But the basic conception of the Initiative, and its culmination in Adam, manage to depart from the formula (so far as there is one) for Buffy villains whilst making fine intuitive sense. I also love the way in which -- although this is never flagged in the episode in question -- the vital information used to defeat Adam (the location of his uranium power core) comes to the heroes courtesy of Jonathan during his ego-trip in Superstar.
There are some outstandingly good episodes in there, among them the silent-comedy-horror Hush, the painfully character-driven diptych of This Year's Girl and Who Are You, the hilarious Superstar and finally what may be the single best story of the series (or its most self-indulgent embarrassment, depending on who you talk to), the episode-length dream-sequence Restless. Even the episodes I remembered as pretty feeble -- Fear Itself, for instance, or Where the Wild Things Are -- have a lot to recommend them by way of jokes and character moments. (I've always had a soft spot for Beer Bad, despite the fact that it's widely considered the worst Buffy episode of all, so I won't comment on that lest I come across as an indiscriminate Whedonist cheerleader.)
So... an unexpected amount of enjoyment, there, which I hope will continue into the remaining seasons -- all of which, like this one, are slightly dodgy in their disparate ways. Which means it's time for Buffy's most accomplished genre parody, Buffy Vs Dracula, and the arrival of Dawn. I'll keep you updated.
Oh, and in not entirely unrelated news -- so OK, yes, on reflection I probably am a Whedon groupie -- our Serenity DVD arrived today. Wahey!
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