Furry Boiled Egg ...

POOR OLD BABY ITCHY has been "furry boiled egging" galore. Rambling through her ultra narrow magic wand tube. You blow through the front. She panicks inside and scoots out quick in reverse, thereby pushing up all her fur, in "boiled egg with eyes" fashion. Poor Baby Itchy.

My stew came out all the more wonderful for its lack of nonEuropean ingredients. Okra, I've really discovered, just denigrates into a seed-filled slop at the bottom. Nasty business. Why they sell it as "suitable for stews and casseroles" in Sainsbury's I'll never know...

I did add (not in place of courgettes/zucchini but because it was languishing in my fridge and would only have gone off) a cucumber. It actually went very well in the soup. Like the onions, it just turns into background "thickener" and only little bits of peel were left over. It was still rather pleasant though.

I followed Ruth's advice and preboiled my potatoes first (they're always sliced small so the size wasn't stopping them from cooking).... Also I had no option but to do dumplings made iwth marge and not Atora. But they still came out pretty good.

And here's my message to my Japanese fans:

良い一日をすべての日本のファンのブログにします。なぜこんなに多くの人が東京から他の地域とここで私を介してきたさまよえるまるで見当がつかないが、楽しんで読んでくれるといいけど私のハムスターやヘロイン"印" ！

Now Debs has tagged me for "7 bizarre things of myself". I'm sure this is a turnaround of the 5- and 6 weird things tags that have been doing the rounds all this year. As I myself did the five weird things about six months ago!

Well anyway here we go:

1. I've been on heroin for 7 years now.

2. The 1st drug I ever took was caffeine in a cup of tea. Cannabis aside: I am living proof that supping tea (especially with sugar!) can and does lead to heroin addiction so all you tea-drinkers BE WARNED!!

3. Part of the long, long process of my addiction involved finding a mysteriously lost or flung out stash of 10g of heroin on the street! (That was about 7 and a half years ago.)

4. When I was 8 years old I once sneaked downstairs in the dead of night in rising panick as an evil burglar vehemently chiselled away at our front door!

It wasn't a burglar at all. Just my bored first hamster (imaginatively named "Hammy") vigorously gnawing at the bars because he was bored out of his head and we didn't realize hamsters need exercise wheels to stop them going stir-crazy!

5. I think the pop singer with the best voice is Barbra Streisand. But some of the material she's chosen to sing is execrable!

6. I have longed to speak (and read and write) Japanese since I was 16 or younger. And yet nearly 20 years later I have still not learned the language that far beyond "konichi-wa"! (My stately Japanese messages have to come courtesy of Google Translate, I'm afraid.)

7. I have never really wanted to be anything in this life but a writer. Hence those painful memoirs!

And I had a horrible nightmare last night about being trapped on a haunted damp-&-derelict runaway train full of baggage thieves. Nasty business!

And I tag:

Merle
Evil Spock
Jim D
Ivy
Bimbimbie
Molson
Vi Vi Voom
Nicole
Puss-in-Boots
Jeanette
Welshcakes Limoncello
Liz
Audrey
Akelamalu
M-filer
Wat
Marty ...
(ooer ~ this is turning into such a comprehensive list I'm starting to quiver and quake lest I leave someone out. I'm expert at doing things like that. So basically I tag everyone ~ har har har!!

Video of the Day:
Ebony Funky Dancer

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Wonderful pike etc photos from bottom of a French lake...
http://waterproof68.blogspot.com

Amazing Canadian Sketches
http://sixforfive.blogspot.com

Sublime Sunday

OK WELL WE HAVE TO START OFF ON A NONSUBLIME NOTE, with the mystery of bloodstains by our bathroom door. Every day in the same place. Matran accused ME of doing it (for obvious reasons) but I put on my most innocent face and said I did not. (You still have to make a performance in my house even when your're telling the truth. That's the kind of house it is.) All suspicion is pointing at the Gnome - our other mysterious housemate not yet mentioned....

What a brilliant autumn day. Autumn is my favourite time of year because it gets cold again. Ever since a certain addiction crept up on me about seven years ago I have been totally averse to the summer and all it's hot-sweats. Yucgh!

Well there is no ground breaking news. I think my gremlins had a goblin in their midst last night: they were misbehaving something chronic. Pinging back and forth as if they were practising for school sports day. Itchy went berzerk. At one point she looked like she would take off and fly...


Now here's my Official List.
10 Sublime Things About London...
(I had to think about this for over five minutes!)
These are not meant to be particularly "imaginative" selections; they're the ten things you gotta see as a tourist:~

(In no particular order by the way.)

~ Theatreland When I was little I imagined "The West End" was an end... somewhere in the West. But it is not. It means basically the main area of town where you'd hang out anyway as a tourist. So unlike in New York there's no Broadway/Off Broadway/Offoffbroadway distinctions to fret about. Just lots of really good plays to see. And nowadays loads and loads and loads and loads of musicals.

~ River Thames "Sweet Thames run softly till I end my song/Sweet Thames run softly for I sing not loud nor long" said TS Eliot in The Wasteland, aparently quoting Spenser. Yes it's just a boring old river. But it does have rather nice embankments...

~ The Tube Well it's a bit grimy and noisy and overcrowded... but it IS the most convenient way of getting around and London would not be London without it.

~ Tate Britain There's also a Tate Modern but I think the best stuff is on Millbank near Pimlico Tube. Especially the PreRaphaelite collection...

~ St James's Park Smallest and prettiest of London's parks

~ Buckingham Palace Come on! Who can resist the chance for a poke round the Queen's own house... She has a Blue Drawing Room, A Yellow Drawing Room and so on... It's just a question of scale. Antiques aside, these rooms are big enough to play squash in...

~ St Pauls Cathederal/Westminster Abbey London's biggest churches. Very historical

~ Houses of Parliament (or Palace of Westminster, if you prefer). You can get tickets and queue up for the public gallery. Unfortunately because of a flour-tossing incident at Tony Blair it's now glassed off. But you can still have a good leer down during Prime Minister's Question Time (the bit most likely to be shown on the news)... great stuff

~ Harrods With one million square feet of selling space this ties with New York's Maceys as the largest shop in the world. What distinguishes this from Macey's is what distinguishes gold from rusty old iron for Harrods is a luxury emporium and if you like shopping you cannot say you've shopped in London if you've not shopped here. (Harrods Lights cigarettes are very good and no more expensive than Marlboros if you're a bit broke.)

~ The London Eye This is a giant ferris wheel on the south bank of the Thames almost opposite the Houses of Parliament. Being amid a medium-rise city you get a fantastic view all around...

O! By the way! If you click on my River Thames link you get a lovely shot of my (supposed) ideal home, the docklands' Ontario Tower...

And now changing the subject entirely, here is one of my alltime favourite Bible passages...

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

Revelation 21

Video of the day:
I can't believe this but some twat has gone and deleted the cosmic barber's adaggio so I had to dredge up this one
Azusa Pacific University Choir - Barber's Adaggio

If you like this, try for my extract of Ave Maria/Barber's Adaggio by SFX Liverpool Boys' Choir. It is pretty overpowering.

Video 2
Shostokovich Second Waltz from Jazz Suite
Aw! Innit cute all those old people dancing...

"Video 3" (sorry it doesn't move) (click here to see it for it's not on my blog)

Shostokovich Waltz

As featured in Eyes Wide Shut (with still from film)

There is something terribly compelling about this waltz. It is my favourite "waltz" of all time...