I would have thought that the whole point of buying one's cocktails premixed in a bottle was, you know, so as not to faff around with mixing the ingredients, doing the poncey shaker thing, straining the stuff into an appropriate glass, but just sticking an appropriate measure into a glass, with or without ice, to taste.

However - the other week, ( Read more... )

Does anyone else have phases when material objects manifest hostility towards them?
(There was an English humourist of the mid-C20th who posited a philosophical school concerning what Things Think About People - unfortunately I can't remember what it was called - Object - something - 'Objectivism', of course, comes up with massive hits on Randian ( Read more... )

Yesterday I was supposed to be having an - already deferred once due to connection issues - video chat with a friend/colleague on academic matters (not entirely my preferred method of interaction), and I got this all set up, and was ready and waiting, and they never turned up. It transpired that they had been having a crisis due to their current ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished The Fall of Koli, which I felt slightly fell off from the previous volumes - a bit kitchen-sinky with all that was being thrown in.
Sherry Thomas, Claiming the Duchess (Fitzhugh Trilogy #0.5)(2014). This was very slight, especially when it turned out that about half the pages were a trailer for Vol 1 of the actual trilogy. ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished The Virago Story about which I was distinctly meh - noticed several niggling errors in names and titles of books and stories in areas where I have some expertise and honestly, where does she get off saying the Women's Library is closed? It moved, there was masses about it in the press, and she was talking about that same Women' ( Read more... )

My paper went well - various complimentary comments.
Other interesting papers.
Interesting/fun/stimulating conversations.
However, got a slight niggle of that thing of being somewhere that I don't quite see my way home from at the reception: tried calling the hotel shuttle as suggested (the conference opening reception being at some place downtown ( Read more... )

What with a not very good night last night, early rising, minicab a little late and heavy traffic -
- arriving at Heathrow to find the flight delayed -
- Well, I am finally here. My phone is doing that thing where it claims that I need to top up because my credit is O (no...), the fairly acceptable bar with food at the airport hotel has closed ( Read more... )

Yesterday my Freedom Pass died: it had been intermittently wonky for a bit, but sufficiently intermittently for me to wonder whether it was the FP or some problem with the particular gate or whatever I was presenting it at. But yesterday it was proved terminally cracked and non-operational (and I was obliged to purchase a 1 day Travel Card to get ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished Archive That, Comrade!.
Read Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs (2014), which people have been recommending hither and yon for ages, and I can see why.
Vivian Shaw, Dreadful Company (2018), in fact came out yesterday, and was sweet and charming (sequel to Strange Practice).
On the go
Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Blades ( ( Read more... )

You know I said I had nil publications last year?
Well, I went to the website of the society in whose journal an article by moi was, I thought, at the very least forthcoming, and find that the relevant issue appears to have been published.
I was not informed and have not (yet) received author's copies.
We feel this is Not Good Enough, srsly.
***
( Read more... )