Pig Sty Avenue

Bloody gorgeous tatties . We lifted the first hulm of these today, and cooked them tonight. Scrummy. Boiled on a low peep for 30 mins.

That's from the lens of David Moore . One of the best photos I've seen in ages.

George Monbiot wrote an interesting article here . The reference to the 1947 Swiss spa town meeting is perhaps unfortunate, smacking as it does of conspiracy theory. But the essentials make cogent reading. Indeed, it's blindingly obvious that the very rich work to maintain the system that made them rich, and tweak it to make themselves even richer. And I need to get a copy of the Lakoff book.

Forsooth!

Think about conversations you have with one other person, and whether you use their name and if so, why you use it. At first blush I'd say when I wanted to stress a point or let my addressee know I was a bit narked. But I do love you, er, Geraldine . Or I've already told you twice, Fred. I'm wondering why the politicians I hear being interviewed on the Today programme use an interviewer's first name so much, and why I find it so annoying. According to Huddleston and Pullum, the use of a proper name in this way is the vocative function. It can include substitution - darling is the most obvious example. "Vocatives can be used to call someone ( Kim, dinner's ready! ), to attract their attention, to single out one person among a group as the addressee, and so on. It will be clear that from the above survey, however, that vocative terms generally convey a considerable amount about the speaker's social relations or emotive attitude towards the addressee, ...

A year or so ago I was on the 319 bus, having that very day decided to stop carrying my D50 everywhere. What a numpty. Jarrow Elvis got on the bus in his white Las Vegas suit... What a photo that would have made. Try Google Imaging "Jarrow Elvis" . Nada. Of course, I see him quite often in the Long Bar, when he's stepped out of his stage persona and into ordinary clothes - though he always manages to maintain an aura of the superstar about him. I heard this weekend that he's been holding "business meetings" in the Long Bar with men in suits, and now the reason is clear: a comeback .

I was a trifle scoobied when I read that President Bush said in a speech last night, after introducing the "complex and painful subject" of Vietnam: In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called, "The Quiet American." It was set in Saigon, and the main character was a young government agent named Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism -- and dangerous naivete. Another character describes Alden this way: "I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused." After America entered the Vietnam War, the Graham Greene argument gathered some >steam. As a matter of fact, many argued that if we pulled out there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people. He goes on to refer to the dreadful aftermath of the war. This all looks a bit fishy for literary as well as logical reasons. The Quiet American 's a great book. The film wasn't bad, though painfully...

Here's a link to the review .

I don't mean selling tools, I mean tools . Most people are delighted with the plants, and leave positive feedback. A buyer in Germany recently waited patiently for THREE WEEKS for her plant (so much for the Teutonic efficiency of the German post office), but she was delighted when her plant arrived, alive and well but wanting a drink. Now however I'm dealing with a Parisian tool. He enquired initially (in reasonable g English) about the strain of the plant, and I replied with a long (not copied and pasted) email about why the strain doesn't matter, and how to look after the plant. And then a week later I got this: i dident see you plant I hate you garry nikkkon you said "i have pst tuesday and you reiceive fefore the week" i takl to you and receiveve nothing .. I receve norhing bye ma, The trouble is, when dealing with people virtually, you don't know wtf is wrong with them. Mental illness? Amphetamine/coke/alcohol abuse? They simply come across as tool...

This has made me smile a lot today.

...I never said anything about a bear !

Did they beat me!

It's interesting that Hollywood seems to have got behind the notion that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are less than fun for those fighting or caught up in them. It's interesting because it's another bit of evidence of a cultural shift to the left. Don't imagine for one minute that this is some kind of anti-war crusade. But the big cheeses in Hollywood have sniffed the political air and decided that they can make big time $$$$$$s by tapping into an anti-war sentiment. The point is, for those people, vast sums hang on reading the public mood correctly.

Far from it. For those of us non-Americans, it can even be Better Than Sex . Unfortunately, HST blew his brains out, so now one has to navigate one's own way through the inferno. Unless some one can suggest a new Virgil. Meanwhile. The funding gives us a clue to who is supporting whom. The one with cash from big cheeses, the other refusing lobbyists. Either of them have got to be better than whatever numpty the Republicans put up. But my heart's going with Obama, and my head's with Hillary. The Republicans look unelectable from here - but who knows what weirdness they'll pull out of the hat. And, bearing in mind that the likely opposition will be black or a woman, then... And if it's Clinton, you've got this whole polarisation fandango. Anyhoo. It won't be boring. Lives depend on the outcome.

All that God-given warmth and sunlight, and nothing but the spiders to benefit; (they love it, by the way). So I'm thinking of fenugreek to fix nitrogen in the main bed, and some herbs in containers to grow throughout the Winter. Basil looks likely : it's a brilliant herb especially when it's fresh. The trouble isn't heat - I can keep the greenhouse/shed warm with insulation and a bit of help from a propane heater; (we kept the manky-big allotment greenhouse going last year with the heater and bubble wrap on only a few litres of propane). The trouble is daylight length. Most plants slow-down during the short days, regardless of temperature, but some seem to shut down entirely. S. divinorum, for example. I suspect tomatoes are the same. There doesn't seem to be a lot of information online about this... And it all depends on your latitude, I suppose. The possibilities are vast, though: ginger, pineapple, all kinds of peppers, kava-kava, grape vines, turmeric....

When I was a little kid, we lived in South Street, Hebburn, only five minutes walk from where I am now. I remember a dog EXACTLY like this one. Horrible vicious thing it was, didn't like children. Well, now here it is being presented as some kind of oddity . Hmm. Someone must have brought it, or a forebear, back from sea. I wonder if any of its descendants are around here now? The way dogs interbreed, it could go unnoticed, and then one day down the road the two-nosed gene pops up again, to puzzle and alarm the populace with the sight of a two nosed puppy.

I have one more day and 1700 words to go.

I've spent all day on the assignment . Not written much, but got my head around a lot of ideas instead. I'm back at work on Monday, so easier access to books. Hell of a lot of work to do on it, (another 2500 words, plus a lot of editing and proofing), but the end's in sight. Really looking forward to getting it finished and sent off for marking at the end of next week. The timetable's squeezed down because I spent Thursday and Friday with The Old Man rebuilding what I referred to here as a "potting shed". Actually, it's a rather splendid half-shed/half-greenhouse now. We grow plenty of tomatoes at the allotment, and so I'm thinking of using this for something more exotic: turmeric? vanilla? ginger? a grape vine? It's late in the year, but it seems a pity to leave it plant-free until next spring... I'll put in some fenugreek as a green manure, if nothing else.

Thanks to Don for the link .