spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
- Pride: I have GAY Marmite! In the UK, branded goods claiming a tiny percentage of their profits goes to charity fundraising aren't uncommon, and Christmas / Easter branded items happen but I don't generally see event themed goods in High Street shops. However, my supermarket delivery this week included rainbow, Elton John, anti-AIDS, rebranded Marmite! Need to know: the Elton John AIDS Foundation is banned in Russia, and the EJAF knows where Lesotho is. It takes me ages to eat my way through a whole jar so I'll have cheering GAY Marmite to increase my happiness every time I open my eye-level kitchen cupboard for a long time. :-)

- Habitat: I sorted out and re-dyed everything old that could be renewed. I love the moment when all my favourites look at their best again.

- Pop: f'Keith Starmer and Lisa Nandy's attempts at government censorship of pop music are going about as well as British government censorship of popular media usually does (see also Lady Chatterley's Lover, Spycatcher, &c). "It’s upsetting that the way this country is going keeps our music relevant!"

- Birb log: 15 June, Jackdaws still flying off with beaks full of food.
16 June, juvenile ? Song Thrush in front garden (these are ringed locally and I hear them sing occasionally but I rarely see them).
25 June, Jackdaws in semi-juvenile plumage and with behaviours such as frequent vocalising and begging for food (including begging each other, lol, which helps establish the wider flock's pecking order). Most of the parents are very unimpressed with being harassed for food at this stage, although they do still voluntarily feed the kids, and adults will cheerfully put the youngsters in their place if the kids are failing to copy adult foraging behaviour or are trying to steal food the adults have found. This morning's flock was about a dozen individuals.

PSA

Jun. 29th, 2025 01:54 pm
rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
[personal profile] rydra_wong
Disco Elysium is currently 90% off in the Steam summer sale, making it a mere £3.49.

Play Disco Elysium, everybody. Yes, even if you don't play video games.

(It was the first video game I ever played -- apart from having once(?) played Pac Mac as a child, many many decades ago -- and it was a perfect choice.)

If you understand the principle of a Choose Your Own Adventure book, have a vague sense that "stats" and "levelling up" are things, and can grasp "click to go to a place/interact with an object," you are sufficiently equipped.
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
It's June and therefore, like unto a salmon swimming wearily upstream to spawn, I must find a cafe according to [community profile] flaneurs challenge III.(c). This year I was hoping for 100% less fail! :D

My destination which, unlike in 2023, I had checked was actually open (lmao) was the National Trust "Old Oak" cafe in Greyfriars which is a preserved Tudor £££ brewer's £££ house £££, built 1490, in the middle of Worcester. My starting point was the Royal Voluntary Service hospital shop, built 2002, at Worcester hospital. To the time machine!

First, catch a bus... with a rly big net? Or a public transport network. Hypothetically there are several buses passing (busses kissing?) this stop but in practice the 38 is much more frequent than its rivals. The bus route passed many points I've described in previous June challenges. We also stopped for a funeral procession of a black hearse, complete with coffin and lovely bright yellow flowers, led by a woman funeral director in a formal black skirt and frock coat with a low-crowned top hat and carrying a silver-topped cane.

Stuff what I saw (with links to some amazing art) )

Greyfriars: it's not grey and there were never any friars, but it was interesting to visit.

half an hour earlier tomorrow

Jun. 26th, 2025 10:30 pm
musesfool: a baseball and bat on the grass (the crack of ash on horsehide)
[personal profile] musesfool
Todd Zeile: Pete's been chasing breaking balls
My brain: don't go chasing breaking balls, stick to the sliders and the fastballs you're used to
*facepalm*

*
rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
[personal profile] rydra_wong
https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/06/25/trans-westminster-lobby-ehrc/

The organizers are estimating circa 900 people showed up, putting it on a par with the biggest LGBTQ+ lobbies ever (against Section 28).

Outstanding work from the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance, who also organized the legal briefing for MPs in May:

https://www.attitude.co.uk/news/trans-legal-experts-warn-supreme-court-ruling-could-be-breaching-human-rights-in-parliamentary-briefing-483801/

You can support them and get the "Maybe I'm trans?" badges or just support them without badges:

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/maybe-im-trans
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/solidarity-projects-campaigns-fund
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
Aurora Australis readalong 10 / 10, Bathybia by Douglas Mawson, post for comment, reaction, discussion, fanworks, links, and whatever obliquely related matters your heart desires. You can join the readalong at any time or skip sections or go back to earlier posts. It's all good. :-)

Text of the dream fantasy Bathybia by Douglas Mawson:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Aurora_Australis/Bathybia

Readalong intro and reaction post links:
https://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/662515.html

Links, vocabulary, quotes, and brief commentary ) Hurrah! We have read through the Antarctic winter, under the light of the Aurora Australis, with only members of the Nimrod expedition and our even smaller band of voyaging biblionauts for company. Champagne all round!
musesfool: Jason Toddler shows off his new costume to Dick (everybody starts somewhere)
[personal profile] musesfool
In addition to various Spider-Man and Captain America-themed items, I ordered a Batman shirt and a Robin shirt for Baby Miss L and then I was like, but does she know who Batman and Robin even are??? So I went looking for toddler-friendly Bat-stuff, and lo and behold, there is a show called Batwheels on Cartoon Network (and HBO Max) about the Batmobile and other Bat vehicles (the Redbird, Batgirl's bike) coming to life like the toys in Toy Story! With DUKE as ROBIN and CASS as BATGIRL!!! I love this!!! (mainly because I was afraid it was going to be Damian as Robin and Babs as Batgirl and that's just weird.) I don't know if any of the other kids exist, but there is a Batplane they call Wing, so maybe Nightwing is around? I didn't watch it, just read the wiki, but I mentioned it to my niece, so maybe Baby Miss L can get started early on loving Robin, and she can enjoy Tiny Titans when she's a little bit older. (I am still sad and bitter that Tiny Titans was cancelled so unceremoniously because it was the best.)

*
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
Please note that when Yvette Cooper claims Palestine Action have committed "violence" she actually means vandalism to property not violence against people. Violence is harm to a person or people, e.g. genocide or supporting genocide is "violence". One of Cooper's fellow Labour Party MPs, Apsana Begum, said: "Proscribing Palestine Action as 'terrorists' while continuing to send arms to a state that is committing the gravest of crimes against humanity in Gaza is not just unjustifiable, it is chilling. The ongoing crackdown on the right to protest is a threat to us all." NGO Campaign Against Arms Trade demonstrated the UK government increased licences to export military equipment to Israel after a "temporary arms suspension" was falsely announced in September 2024.

Link to the following article at Sky news:

Palestine Action supporters defiant as group faces ban

By Jason Farrell, Monday 23 June 2025 20:57, UK

What's happening to Palestine Action?
Palestine Action faces being proscribed as a terror group after activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and damaged two military aircraft.

"If they brand Palestine Action a terrorist group then - oh my goodness - I'm one of them too," said Eleanor, a mother from Rotherhithe, south London. "Whether I do something or not - I'm a terrorist," she said. Eleanor had come to support the group at a demonstration in Trafalgar Square. She had just heard a statement from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who said Palestine Action will be banned following "a nationwide campaign of direct criminal action".

It means not just the core members, but anyone coming out to support them in protests such as this one would be committing an offence punishable of up to 14 years in prison.

Eleanor said she started supporting the group after the previous home secretary Suella Braverman dubbed the pro-Palestinian protests hate marches. Eleanor added that this latest move by the government won't stop her supporting Palestine Action, but she worries what would happen to her children if she was prosecuted.

There are other, legal, pro-Palestinian groups that people can support, but those at Monday's rally believe their group was the one having the biggest impact. "They are scared of us," said another protester, Frieda. "Now they will make our lives hell and I don't know how anyone in this country can stand for that."

She was carrying a banner that read "Free Political Prisoners" and said several of her friends had been arrested for activities related to Palestine Action (PA). She added: "We won't be intimidated by this, and we will come out in bigger numbers now."

Full text of article for archiving purposes. )

Cinema Paradiso - Icon Update

Jun. 25th, 2025 06:37 am
magicrubbish: The Bear (The Bear - Sydney)
[personal profile] magicrubbish posting in [community profile] icons
 Preview
  
7 icons from 12 Angry Men and 17 icons from It's a wonderful life .


See the rest here @ [personal profile] magicrubbish

too many large crooked numbers

Jun. 24th, 2025 09:10 pm
musesfool: the ocean (your ocean refuses no river)
[personal profile] musesfool
So this morning I updated the board chair on expected attendance at today's board meeting, and she replied, should we just switch the meeting to zoom entirely, due to the weather? So that is what we did! And as much as I would have liked to have had dinner with Friend L this evening, I was much happier not having to schlep into the city in 101°F heat. The meeting went well, and now I can relax for a few weeks.

*
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
Rana Temporaria*

Beloved little frog,
how many varied words
will your long tongue tell
as it reaches from there to here?

Beloved little frog,
what diversity of speech
can fit in your generous mouth
extending from ear to ear -
from your ear to mine?

Oh, beloved little frog,
if I kiss you as you are,
and love you in your own skin,
will you tell us all a story?

- by spiralsheep

(* Temporary Frog, aka the Common European Frog)

i will lay me down

Jun. 23rd, 2025 05:37 pm
musesfool: "You think you know Nightwing. You don't know Dick." (you don't know dick)
[personal profile] musesfool
Mets just signed a guy named Dicky Lovelady! I am not making this up! Apparently he asked to be called Dicky instead of Richard. I am here for it! (Unless he's a truly terrible pitcher.)

In work news, after a while where I thought I might have to spend tonight baking cupcakes to bring to my board meeting tomorrow, I do not. Whew. I would have done it! But luckily someone else was like, "lol no, I'm buying a cake!" so whew. 😅 But this is the kind of last minute, half-assed nonsense our C suite does. If they had told me last week, I could have added a cake to our catering order, but nope! (Meanwhile, my boss: "Now I'm disappointed we don't get your cupcakes!" Me: "maybe next time I come to the office...")

*
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
I feel as if I haven't been inflicting enough questionable moments from history on y'all recently so... to the art mobile!

One of my favourite aspects of art is that even if one broadly shares many cultural influences with an artist it remains possible to be completely mystified by wth they were thinking when they painted THAT... ?! Anyway, meet Dosso (nickname for Giovanni di Niccolò de Luteri) whose patrons, male and female, liked him to paint cryptic allegories, i.e. even if you know the stories that inspired them you won't necessarily be able to decipher the message... if there is a message and the artist wasn't just messing with viewers... or drunk... or whatevz. All links to wikimedia, obv.

An allegory of Fortune, 1530-ish, in which a naked woman with only one sandal blows a giant bubble and a gravity defying gold cloth out of her... self, apparently, while staring at a handful of scratch-cards being waved by a man with slightly more dignified drapery.

An allegory of Music, 1522-ish, in which a partially naked woman (two sandals tho) stares at another naked woman's breasts, while a guy with the worst mankini in recorded history is distracted from retuning stringed instruments WITH A HAMMER by an angry arsonist toddler.

1535-ish, Hercules playing with a desk toy while a woman with her naked breasts in a fruit bowl stares at a goat... or possibly the head of the woman next to her who is sporting a marginally more fancy hat. IDK. Post your own explanation in comments plz. P.S. Beware of the baby magpie cos its got a knife... and some... I want to guess cheese? Cute dog tho.

Don't go yet... I have four more.... )

Seven seems like enough bogglement for one day, or one bogglement for every day of the next week and then if you're good I might share a few portraits from my collection of unlikely nuns.

(no subject)

Jun. 23rd, 2025 10:45 am
aurumcalendula: gold, blue, orange, and purple shapes on a black background (Default)
[personal profile] aurumcalendula
I'm fretting a bit about my VidUKon program and USB not arriving yet (I think some folks sideside have received theirs already), but I think there was a delay in mailing them out so I'm probably worrying over nothing.

On an unrelated note I'm wondering if I should track down the rest of the Justice in the Dark episodes  now that they've all aired. It sounds like people who liked the initial episodes enjoyed the rest, but considering those episodes didn't quite click with me, I'm debating if it would be worth the effort.

(no subject)

Jun. 23rd, 2025 09:16 am
aurumcalendula: Jing Yi, Leng Yue, Chu Chu, and Xiao Jinyu from 'The Imperial Coroner' (Imperial Coroner sedoretu)
[personal profile] aurumcalendula
I hadn't made much progess on it over the past year, but this weekend I finally managed to get a full timeline for my The Imperial Coroner vid!
musesfool: a baseball and bat on the grass (the crack of ash on horsehide)
[personal profile] musesfool
I maybe should have rethought making chicken cutlets today, which was one of the hottest days we've had so far and it only looks like it's going to get hotter this week before it cools down, but I did not - they were on sale and I bought them, so I had to cook them as there is no room in my freezer to freeze them!

I did nope out of the extra steps of making chicken parm, though. No need to put the oven on again - I did enough of that yesterday when I baked chocolate banana bread and then made bacon for lunch for several days during the week. I just need to get through Tuesday - our only in-person board meeting this year and gosh, I wish we had talked the CEO out of it since it's supposed to be 97°F on Tuesday, but we did not. Hopefully people show up! (if they don't, that can be the argument against doing it again, at least until we get a new CEO. Their poor showing last September let us convince everyone that we only needed to do it once this year.) And I am meeting Friend L for dinner afterwards, so that should be fun! Next week I have a 3-day work week and then 2 weeks after that, I'm off for a whole week for my birthday week, so really, it's just getting through Tuesday. *deep breaths*

I did not watch the Mets last night and they mashed, so I decided not to watch them again tonight (also ESPN is the worst), which seems like the right decision, since they are being soundly beaten, at least so far. Sigh. I know it's a long season, but couldn't they have saved some of those runs for tonight?

Sigh.

*
bethbethbeth: Stone with fossil bear paw print, with words "semi-zen" (Zen semi-zen (bbb))
[personal profile] bethbethbeth
On May 8th, I offered to read the first five books people recced - assuming they were available (preferably from the library) - and I'd give a short review [https://bethbethbeth.dreamwidth.org/701769.html].

This is the seventh recced book review.

It's been a long time since posting one of these (I had non-recced books to read!), but I just finished:

The Lost Flock (2023), by Jane Cooper (recced by marinarusalka on dreamwidth)

When this was recced to me, marinarusalka wrote, “I’m curious to see if a non-knitter will find it equally interesting.” Because here’s the thing. I know nothing about raising sheep, I’ve never knitted, I’ve never been to the Orkney Islands, and yet this is why I loved reading The Lost Flock. It’s the same reason I like reading science fiction and fantasy; learning about and getting immersed in a world you know nothing about is great.

So…if you want to know about Boreray sheep (a rare, primitive short-tailed breed) or how felting is done or how to spin without a wheel or about sails for Viking ships, this is your book.

i know there's nothing to say

Jun. 20th, 2025 10:15 pm
musesfool: a baseball and bat on the grass (the crack of ash on horsehide)
[personal profile] musesfool
ugh the Mets are killing me. I had to turn it off.

*
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