Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Back From The Void

Yes, right, hmm, here I am, back from the lavender-scented wormhole in which I've been lounging for the past, hm, three weeks (crikey).

During my blogworld absence some, none or all of the following may or may not have occurred:

1. I made the lovely Mr BC drive to Somerset in a very large van in the pouring rain to pick up a sofa that is the identical twin of my existing wipe-clean cherry-red sofa that was once a recurring leitmotif in this very blog.

2. I accused South West Water of appropriating THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVEN POUNDS of my own money, and then pretending they didn't have it. A response has yet to be forthcoming.

3. In a partially inebriated state, the lovely Mr BC mistook a sculpture made of mussel shells for a tasty cake.

4. Flies got in.

5. I went to the launch of the lovely Miss-Cellany's new book, Things To Do Now That You're A Mum, and I got a signed copy and a glass of lemonade. I urge you to purchase copies for anyone you know who's about to become a mum*, or has just become a mum, because it is full of useful advice like 'join a samba band', which isn't covered in the NHS 'Birth to Five' book (I know, I've checked).

6. I watched two episodes of Bonekickers and now I think I've been swindled by Time Team - real archaeology is all about fighting with baddies in underground caves and setting fire to unimaginably important historical artefacts.

7. I got massively over-excited at the news that Condé Nast is launching a new UK version of Wired, and have spent the last 48 hours wondering if I can persuade them to commission me to write an article about, I dunno, the carnivalesque production of the self in disembodied space or something.

8. I placed a bet on the new UK version of Wired not lasting more than five issues.

9. I grew 12 pepper plants from seed, and now I feel like Percy Thrower.

10. [LATE ENTRY] I realised that this blog is six years old today. Awww. How it all began.


* On which note, many congratulations to Scroobious, a recent recruit to the ranks of forthcoming parenthood.

27 comments:

LC said...

>>>I placed a bet on the new UK version of Wired not lasting more than five issues.

Isn't that what happened last time?

patroclus said...

Yes indeed - Danny O'Brien's cyberpunk retelling of what happened last time is a jolly good read. But this time they've got the former editor of the Jewish Chronicle in charge, so it's bound to be a success.

(NB fear not, readers, that wasn't anti-semitism - it just seems like a strange career trajectory to me.)

LC said...

Don't worry, Mien Fuhrer, I don't think anybody noticed...

woollythinker said...

Ooh! That's me! Thank you. I'm still a bit bemused at how I find myself in the family way. Most odd. Anyway, I shall go out and acquire that educational tome forthwith.

And happy happy blogiversary to you!

Anonymous said...

Happy blogiversary to you :)

I have to admit, I didn't understand a word of your first post!

Tim F said...

Wired, schmired.

Welcome back, babe. The sphere's been tiresome in your absence. Please slap it around a bit.

Billy said...

Bonekickers was very silly. It made me want to become an archaeologist just so I could complain about how inaccurate it is.

I like the drunken lech guy though,

patroclus said...

Robynn: I'm very excited for you, and very happy to come across another person who's equally circumspect about this whole having-a-baby thing. It's a splendid excuse for knitting, though (for you, I mean, not me - I haven't a clue how to knit).

Nuttycow: Why thank you. Yes, I don't understand much of my first post either, although I like to think it made sense to me at the time.

Tim: I'm quite tragically devoted to Wired, or at least to a good handful of its contributors. I reckon if I ever got something published in it I could die happy. Arguably my horizons are quite narrow. But first I must slap the blogosphere about a bit.

Billy: I don't think you even need to be an archaeologist to complain about how inaccurate it is. I mean, have you ever seen Mick Aston engaging in hand-to-hand combat with a bloke in a Templar outfit before setting fire to a 2,000-year old Roman cross?

Billy said...

"have you ever seen Mick Aston engaging in hand-to-hand combat with a bloke in a Templar outfit before setting fire to a 2,000-year old Roman cross?"

No, but I want to now. So much.

cello said...

'Mmmm, Klippan'(sung to that very annoying Danone ad sting)

Bonekickers: Completely barking, but I have developed a very slight crush on Hugh Bonneville, despite -or quite possibly because of - his protuding hairy tummy. Do you think they will have an episode about the Picts? I am delighted they made an appearance in your very first post, by the way.

Wired: I was part of the advertising team that launched it the first time (with trendy-at-the-time 'blipverts'). They knew it wouldn't last then. I find it hard to understand why something championing the online world would resort to paper and ink. Unless it's supposed to be very cleverly ironic.

Thank God, you're back.

Annie said...

Hurrah! Starting as you meant to go on...

Um, is Miss-Cellany known as 'Frea' in Real Life? If so, I think she was in my year at college.

Unknown said...

Ah, welcome back. Can't help with with the flies, or the slightly short-sighted (and possibly subsequently ill?) boyfriend, but I *did* get both series of GW for my younger sister for her birthday, so feel (perhaps wrongly) that I've made a wee contribution to Mini-P's imminent upbringing...

Annie said...

"In a partially inebriated state, the lovely Mr BC mistook a sculpture made of mussel shells for a tasty cake."

Too cute.

miss-cellany said...

Aww - was lovely to see you there, and thank you. (To the best of my knowledge, NHS publication has yet to recommend Mum's poker using breast pads as chips too...)

Annie - yes, that's me...

patroclus said...

Billy: To assist your fantasy, might I remind you that not only is Mick Aston an enthusiastic naturist, but he's also a collector of WW2 memorabilia.

Cello: Hugh Bonneville definitely has the only halfway decent character. I hope there will be an episode about the Picts, but given it's all set in the Bath and Bristol area, that may not be very historically accurate...oh wait, what am I saying? Wired (certainly these days) is more about all technology (e.g. the technology of running shoes etc.) so I think it can claim dead-tree legitimacy. Whether anyone in the UK will buy a UK version is another matter. And what if they stop importing the US version so as not to cannibalise the market? I'll have to get someone to smuggle copies over!

Annie: The very same, I believe. Crikey, it's an even smaller blogworld than previously suspected!

Hannah: Ahh, your contribution to the future financial comfort of the Blue Kitten is noted and appreciated.

Annie: Fortunately it resisted all attempts at slicing and eating.

Miss-C: Ha, I'd forgotten about the breast pads/poker chips one!

Anonymous said...

On the knitting front, many years ago I knitted a very cute outfit for a pregnant friends bundle of joy.....15 years or so later when I had my first, she sent it back, how lovely of her I thought to have kept it, how sweet to send it back for my own bundle of joy......I unwrapped it, thinking back to when I had knitted it, carefree days in Guernsey and......IT WAS BLOODY HIDEOUS.....Oh the shame.

Dave said...

happy birthday, little blog.

GreatSheElephant said...

a) glad you're back - was a tad worried but didn't do anything about it as I only have your old email address (and indeed you only have my old email address).
b) splendid news about Wired.

GreatSheElephant said...

cello - I take your point about Wired and championing online but it's still so much easier to read from dead trees than screens. Plus the old UK Wired at least was aesthetically just such a desirable object.

patroclus said...

Spence: Fear not, it's probably deeply fashionable again now.

Dave: Thank you very much. The blog and I celebrated with tasty mussel cake.

GSE: Ooh, another fan of Wired - we're few and far between. Most people I mention it to are very sniffy about it. A UK version makes very little sense to me, though - we hardly have a technology industry to speak of, for a start, let alone a 'scene' like there is in San Francisco, so I'm not sure how they're going to get enough good content together without covering the same ground as the US version. Also with the 'recession' and all that we're surely about to hit even more of an advertising downturn than there already was. My feeling is that it'll end up being more of a media magazine than a purely tech one.

Boz said...

Bonekickers is a big pile of pooh!

Look, the internet wouldn't be interesting if we didn't have opinions.

Happy Anniversary. I totally missed mine, despite having it in big letters in my diary. Oh dear.

patroclus said...

It is a big pile of poo, Boz, but I am strangely mesmerised by its awfulness. So far the team have managed to set fire to a) a number of Roman crosses, one of which may have been the True Cross; b) all evidence of a refugee slave colony in the Bristol Channel; and c) the crystallised body of Boudicca. Tune in next week as they burn down Stonehenge while sobbing about how other archaeologists have no imagination.

Anonymous said...

Happy blogiversary!
My work friends and I texted each other a great deal mocking this last ep of bonekickers. I'd wondered whether I'd be annoyed by this episode as it's my area of expertise but it was far too silly. Boudica's preserved sparkly corpse? What words can there be?! Also, why do they have to burn everything?
It's very odd, my own experience of archaeologists as being smelly grubby people of indeterminate sex who can't actually talk to people or look them in the eye must just be some vast hallucination.

Unknown said...

Ah, that there first blog post right takes me back, back to the days when there were three of us gleefully interacting with our three separate computers, ignoring the Simpsons and occasionally cackling with laughter about the Picts, or Telewest, or the cat falling off the windowsill.

Happy blogbirthday!

word verification suitably Wired: xmlwbldj

Unknown said...

P.S. Who won the caption contest, hmmm?

Tim F said...

Incidentally, isn't a leitmotif by definition recurring?

Pedantry d'escalier...

llewtrah said...

I'm perpetually disappointed there isn't a Phil harding lookalike in Bonekickers going "ooo ... aaaarcheology"