robot_mel

No bread made for reasons.

Friday night supper: I was intending having penne with bottled sliced artichoke hearts, except did not appear to have these in store cupboard: did a sauce of blender-whizzed Peppadew Roasted Red Peppers in brine instead.

Saturday breakfast rolls: basic buttermilk, 50:50% strong white/white spelt flour, turned out nicely.

Today's lunch: diced leg of lamb casseroled in white wine with thyme with sweet potato topping, served with buttered spinach and what really were quite tiddly juvenile baby leeks vinaigrette in a dressing of olive oil, white wine vinegar, and wholegrain mustard.

Tags:

cooking,
recipes

Happy birthday,

tree_and_leaf!

a.d. VII Id. Mai.

Quot annos e Britannia non peregrinavi ? Vix enim Anglia excessi -- bis ad Caledoniam semelque ad Cambriam, et praeter ea vix enim e Londinio iter feceram.

Septem abhinc annos ad Germaniam ferrovia vecti sumus. Transvehentes e fenestra Bruxellas vidimus et diximus nos quondam invisere debituros. Nunc igitur adimus.

imagines pulsa ut magnas videas

- - -

Deversorio attacto, primo vespere in veteri urbis centro ambulavimus. Forum Grand Place invenimus turba frequentissimum, quia dies erat Veneris. Signa Iridis ubique in vicinia, et in aedificiis muninipii : mox feriae cinaedorum accident. Sine consilio per vias erravimus. Tandem famelici popinam petivimus, cui nomen ignoro, quam hippies gerant. Triginta genera cerevisiae sola habet popina, qui numerus Bruxellis parvus videtur. Post cenam ad forum revenimus. In maenianis in primo tabulato Musée de la Ville de Bruxelles, inter signa urbis et Unionis Europaeae, DJ musicam hip-hop francogallicam canebat ut multa viatores saltarent et signa Unionis parva vibrarent. Absurdum, sed adorabile.

a.d. VI Id. Mai.

Primo die plano ad aquilonem ambulavimus quod Mel conventiculo Comicon adfuit. Ea inter equites jedi et milites Imperii Galactici relicta urbem solus explorabam. Consilium certum non feceram. Immo vero librarias nonnullas invisere volueram&nbps;; titulos enim LX exscripseram ad libros petendos. Quorsum nunc ?

a.d. V Id. Mai.

Mel ad conventiculum mane revenit. Eam iterum secutus sum, dein trans flumen ad orientem ambulavi, quippe antiquum aedificium magnum procul conspexeram. Consilio meliori carens sub aedificium ivi. Infeliciter Sol semper ardebat, ut nullum photographum huius ecclesiae (ut eam inveni) placet. Eheu...

- - -

In mensa, sub divo in pavimento iuxta thermopolium sedeo ut cum caffea scribam. Iamiam vigil in quadrivium autobirota vectus est et se stitit ut viae custos. Autobirotam circumambulat et radiophonio interdum suis cum sodalibus loquitur. Scelestum ubique anquirit. Nonnumquam signum autoraedae dat. Nunc viam turistis ostendit. Utinam muscas e mensis thermopolii fuget. Cum haec ita sint...

Librariam Évasions petivi. Primum inter thecas erravi. Sicut larva anhelitus in labyrintho circumvagabar, donec tabulam conspexi qui me monuit fabellas in primo tabulato esse. Ascendi ut thecas de industria scrutarer. Heu, ordo a thecis aberat. Libri secundum litteram primam nominis scriptorum solam ordinantur. Haud faciliter hunc seu illam invenis. Re vera, haud thecis librorum francogallicorum Londinii differt, attamen illic raro sunt thecae II, hic totum paene librariam impleunt (nonnulli videlicet Batavice scripti sunt). E turbine libros III tandem eligi : Aetnae (ps-)Vergilii editionem Budé, florilegium carminum Gerardi de Nerval perbellum, et libellum generis « ensis & veneficii » scriptricis francogallicae. Haud mirum, libros investigans me sentivi plane memet esse. Itaque thesauris adreptis debui thermopolium invisere.

Hanc inveni, Barbeton nomine, plerumque café-bar, ut Bruxellis solitum, sed non sum solus inibi caffeam (i.e. nec cerevisiam) bibens. Multi adsunt discipuli discipulaeque, et tabernaria II annulos in labro gerit. Bene igitur eligerem. Vere non magis e vita volo quam librorum venatum et lectionem aut scriptionem quodam in thermopolio. Aliter non necesse.

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In itinere a thermopolio ad locum conventiculi plures vigiles, et multos eorum curros quoque conspexi. Non crimen exspectabant, sed reclamationem fautorum Palaestinae, quae coram foro argentario (la Bourse), aedificio ingenti generis neo-classici, acturam iri. Quae, haud mirum, pacifice acta est. Sed vigiles sese ad bellum paraverant. Quinque armatos in linea (neque, feliciter, in agmine) praeterivi εὐκύκλους ἄσπιδες διαφανὴς ἔφερον, ὡς ὁπλῖται ἐκ τοῦ μέλλοντος χρόνου.

Post reclationem multi in foro manebant. Musici arabici instrumenta canebant et cantatrix dulce carmen tristeque cantabat. Via permagna et lata foro praeterit, cum tabernisque popinisque in ambobus lateribus quae pecuniam turistarum incolarumque captant. Ibi saltatores break-dance inveniuntur (Num sumus, inquit Mel, in pelicula 1980s ?). Utinam cibus (et umbra !) in foro adessent, quo musica bona in aëre volitabat.

a.d. IV Id. Mai.

Heri (tonitrus sonat cum primum verbum scribo) conventiculum peractum est ut hodie totum diem una ageremus. Sero e deversorio profecti sumus, quippe fatigati, et Porte de Hal petivimus. Turris est magna, saeculo XIII aedificata, munimentum in muro magna cum porta quae olim erat aditus Bruxellarum australis. Nunc in media urbe stat, et museum historiae urbanae facta est. Atque iamiam, eheu, contignatione circumdatur ut restituatur. Ante nos sescentes discipuli discipulaeque parvae advenerunt. Turris clamore resonabant. Feliciter infantes ascenderunt ; itaque primum in subsolium descendimus. Inibi sub fornicibus laterum enses, cultros, loricas, arcus, scorpiones, et scolpetos primitivos invenimus. Cum strepitus altius scandisset, ad solum scandimus, dein in primum tabulatum per scalas intortas ornatissimas. Saepe scandentes stetimus ut novis conspectibus frueremur.

Tabulatum altis sub fornicibus multa ex aetatibus medii aevi et renascentiae et reformationis continet, e quibus maxime equos archiducis Alberti uxorisque eius conditos amabamus, qui etiam cum lorica archiducis splendidissima stant. Coram eis tabula carmen latinum fert, quod gesta equorum laudat, qui vitam magistrorum in proelio conservaverunt. Pro certo libellum de turre exeuntes emimus. Scriptricem credo ex optimatis ortam esse : casu nomen eius est idem ac nomen viae deversorii nostri !

Museo relicto librarias petiimus. Fabulam Malpertuis Iohannis Ray, scriptoris belgici, emi (quod volueram hic adipisci) et Vies imaginaires Marcelli Schwob, quem Londinii saepius frustra anquisivi. Mel autem III libros abrepit : BD de magia iudaea Pragae inter bellos saeculi XX, fabellam de vampiris duobus ab scriptoribus francogallicis compositam, et tractatus taoistos aetatis Tang sericos cum traductione commentariisque francogallicis.

Vespere tabernam La Porte Noire invisimus cerevisias bibendas. Antiquis in fornicibus sub terra est sita, in hypogaeo quod Ye Olde Cheddar Cheese commonefacit. Ingens pictura muralis barbarum cum ense draconem oppugnantem depingit. Tabulam in aditu conspexi qui noctem ludorum personarum nuntiat — quam recte !

a.d. III Id. Mai.

Ruinas regiae Coudenberg exploravimus. Saeculo XVIII regia incendio deleta est. Regia nova in fundamine aedificabatur, ut nonnullae exedrae et camerae sub solo manerent, labyrinthus viis inaequis cum muris laterum saxorumque et fornicibus altis. Et cum arculis wi-fi ; minotaurus scilicet epistolas electronicas inibi mittere et accipere debet !

E frigore ruinarum suavi in ardorem viarum urbanarum a sole calefactarum. Duas invisimus librarias, e quibus multos thesauros autulimus. Prima in libraria eheu nihil invenimus (nisi opera quae die priori emeram !), sed quam amoenus locus cum thecis pulverulentis. Et musicam Ludovici Reed librarius aucultabat, quae perraro in librariis audimus. Alia in libraria multos invenimus : Mel libros III pueriles, qui peliculas primas (tempore nec ordine) Star Wars narrant, opus de fabulis sericis fantasticis, tractatum de morte a Francisco Cheng scriptum, et tractatum taoistum e saeculo XVII. Egomet fabellam Ameliae Nothomb, florilegium sententiarum Nicolae Chamfort, et « libellum libertinum » Therèse philosophe.

Vespere tabernam nomine Le Cerceuil (« sarcophagus ») petiimus, verum metal-bar, quo temeta cerevisiaeque nomina horrifica habent. Ornamenta tabernae quoque terrifica : μορμολυκεῖα, calvariae, coronae florum mortuorum, &c. Taberna multas cerevisias offert (quippe belgica) et temeta nonnulla mixta. Qui cerevisiam vult, e quantitatibus solitis eligere debet, 330ml & 500ml secundum leges regii, sed inibi parva nominatur « verre » (calix) et magna « crâne » (calvaria), quippe poculum fictile calvariae simulat.

prid Id. Mai.

Fortasse calvarias duas exhaurire non debui. Potens enim cerevisia belgica, et debeo cerealia evitare. Utinam crapula hodie patiar an cruditate nescio.

Mane thermopolium invenimus. Sub divo in mensa sedimus in ephemerides scribentes. Haud longe locus ferrovialis distat quo II post horas adire opus est. Otio sic tranquille fruimur, neque (propter sarcinam) per vias errare malumus. Locus sat amoenus ; pulcherrima coram me sedet. Praetereunt homines pede birotaque, multis linguis colloquentes. Arbores mensam umbrant et levis ventus calorem diei fugat.

Is it OK to read Infinite Jest in public? Why the internet hates ‘performative reading’

You know, I was completely unaware that 'The Internet' hated upon this (whatever it is) until I came across this article and I think we are probably well into a realm similar to journo constructing a phenomenon on the basis of '6 people I spoke to in the wine-bar last week'.

Or maybe I just don't do TikTok and am missing this, but in my experience, few forms of social media are entire monoliths, what?

Why shouldn't people read in public? They're not doing it AT other people, honestly.

Can't help thinking that those who get aerated at people reading on public transport or while sitting quietly in a restaurant or coffee-shop are very likely those who think you should 'rawdog' long planeflights, sad gits.

Okay, these days I am pretty much always reading on ereader when out and about, so nobody can see what I'm reading. But back in the day I have read a lot of things that I daresay some miserable so-and-so would have considered 'performative', like Remembrance of Things Past on the Tube.

And among other things Marx and Rousseau on the train when I was commuting in from suburban Surrey.

Which phase of my life I was reminded of by a review headed 'A darker side of Lawrence Durrell' - I was not aware that there was any other side, actually - I habitually got in the same compartment of the same train each morning and there was the same young man making his way veeeeery slowwwwly through the volumes of The Alexandria Quartet. Months and months of Balthazar.

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Happy birthday,

stillsostrange!

What I read

Finished The Islands of Sorrow and it is a bit slight, definitely one for the Simon Raven completist I would say - a number of the tales feel like outtakes from the later novels.

Decided not for me: Someone You Can Build a Nest In.

Started Val McDermid, The Grave Tattoo (2006), a non-series mystery. Alas, I was not grabbed - in terms of present-day people encounter Historical Mystery, this did not ping my buttons - a) could not quite believe that a woman studying at a somewhat grotty-sounding post-92 uni in an unglam part of London would have even considered doing a PhD on Wordsworth (do people anywhere even do this anymore) let alone be publishing a book on him b)a histmyst involving Daffodil Boy and a not so much entirely lost but *concealed unpublished in The Archives* manuscript of Epic Poem, cannot be doing with. (Suspect foul libel upon generations of archivists at Dove Cottage, just saying.) Gave up.

Read in anticipation of book group next week, Anthony Powell, The Kindly Ones (1962).

Margery Sharp, Britannia Mews (1946) (query, was there around then a subgenre of books doing Victoria to now via single person or family?). Not a top Sharp, and I am not sure whether she is doing an early instance of Ace Representation, or just a Stunning Example of Victorian Womanhood (who is, credit is due, no mimsy).

Because I discovered it was Quite A Long Time since I had last read it, Helen Wright, A Matter of Oaths (1988).

Also finished first book for essay review, v good.

Finally came down to a price I consider eligible, JD Robb, Bonded in Death (In Death #60) (2025). (We think there were points where she could have done with a Brit-picker.)

On the go

Barbara Hambly, Murder in the Trembling Lands (Benjamin January #21) (2025). (Am now earwormed by 'The Battle of New Orleans' which was in the pop charts in my youth.)

Up next

Very probably, Zen Cho, Behind Frenemy Lines, which I had forgotten was just about due.

***

O Peter Bradshaw, nevairr evairr change:

David Cronenberg’s new film is a contorted sphinx without a secret, an eroticised necrophiliac meditation on grief, longing and loss that returns this director to his now very familiar Ballardian fetishes.

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Happy birthday,

silveradept!

Well, in further conferencing misadventures, woke up around 5 am with what I came to realise was a crashing migraine - it is so long since I have had one of these as opposed to 'headache from lying orkard' - took medication, and after some little while must have gone to sleep, because I woke up to discover it was nearly 9.30, and I had slept well past the alarm I had set in anticipation of the 9.00 first conference session. But feeling a lot better.

I was only just in time to grab some breakfast before they started clearing it up.

The day's papers were perhaps a bit less geared towards my own specific interests - and I was sorry to miss the ones I did - but still that there Dr oursin managed the occasional intervention. There were also some good conversations had.

So the conference, as a conference, was generally judged a success, if somewhat exhausting.

I managed to get the train from the University to Birmingham New Street with no great difficulty.

However, the train I was booked on was somewhat delayed (though not greatly, not cancelled, and no issues of taking buses as in various announcements) and I initially positioned myself at the wrong bit of the platform and had to scurry along through densely packed waiting passengers.

Journey okay, with free snacks, though onboard wifi somewhat recalcitrant.

At Euston, the taxi rank was closed!!!!

Fortunately one can usually grab a cab in the Euston Road very expeditious, and I did.

So I am now home and more or less unpacked.

Given that Mercury is, I recollect, the deity of travellers, is Mercury in retrograde?

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Happy birthday,

stardyst!

— Adivi ut reliqua materia mea et utensilia ecferam. Postremus est mihi in collegio dies. Nolo abire !

— Reveni quidem. Titulum novum pete.

— Fortasse magistri titulum nanciscar. Fortasse post hac, doctoris.

— Quamobrem tunc sistes ? Titulos conlege !

— Hahae ! Mundus nostra est acervus stercae. Quid negotii, si in aere alieno sum ?

— Recte dixisti. Gens humana mortua erit anteaquam debebis debitum solvere.

— Hahae ! Et si delectum habeant, discipulas non eligant.

— Hem, nescio. Sed in manum artificum eas — est alicuius tormenta pingere.

For hedjog is going floppp.

Travel troubles today: being unable to see where the hell the alleged railway station near hotel was, and taking a taxi instead; railway out of order this evening, Ubers were summoned to take participants to hotel.

Yr hedjog was Living Bit of History in opening roundtable.

And in later sessions, there was a certain amount of That There Dr oursin going on in the questions/comments....

Some good conversation - even if hearing aids not too helpful in crowded rooms - but have noped out from evening meal, feeling too tired, will go for light meal here and early night (I hope).

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Wot a saga, eh, wot a saga, first time I have ventured significantly forth these many years -

And to start with, MAJOR HEAT EVENT.

In anticipation, I had - or so I thought - prudently booked a taxi via taxiapp, with a certain amount of leeway, just in case -

- which turned out very prudent, as when I went to check the booking this morning the app was showing 'network error' and this was clearly on their end rather than mine, and a little looking about suggests that this is not their first ~~rodeo~~ server problem.

So when, at designated time, taxi cameth not, I set out towards the Tube, not without some hope that a black cab might pass me on my way, but that Was Not To Be -

And on reflection, I should perhaps have waited for a Bank train, because getting out on Charing X platforms at Euston involves rather too many stairs.

However, Avanti kindly texted me the approx time my train would be boarding, and this all seemed set - although my (1st class) seat was aisle, backwards, there was nobody in the other 3 seats so I switched -

HAH.

When we reached Coventry, choochoo sighed and gave up, and we had to debouch and take the next Birmingham bound train - which was delayed....

At Birmingham New Street had considerable faff trying to discover a Way Out that would take me to a taxi rank.

When I finally arrived at hotel booked by conference organisers there was an immense performance trying to find the right group booking, as it was not under any title that I might have thought of but that of some hireling booking agency.

However, I am now in nice cool room and have had tasty room service snack. Even if I have had to wrestle with getting my laptop to talk to the free wifi...

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We're having to rebuild the search server again (previously, previously). It will take a few days to reindex all the content.

Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.

How is it the end of June already? Where did it go?

And tomorrow I have to travel to Birmingham for a conference.

I am telling myself that I survived the Hot Summer of 76 in an un-airconditioned office where, if one opened a window in came the noise and fumes of a heavily traffic-polluted thoroughfare.

Of course, I was Much Younger in those days.

I see that it is supposed to get somewhat cooler (and wetter) on Weds.

Current Music: Mad Dogs & Englishmen

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Last week's bread held out pretty well.

Friday night supper: ven pongal (South Indian khichchari).

Saturday breakfast rolls: the ones loosely based on James Beard's mother's raisin bread, 50:50% strong white/einkorn flour, perhaps a little lacking in the mace department.

Today's lunch: (this ran into several difficulties including oven problems and a pyrex plate going smash on the floor, but got there in the end) salmon fillets baked in foil with butter, salt, pepper and dill, served with baby Jersey Royal Potatoes boiled and tossed in butter, garlic-roasted tenderstem broccoli, and white-braised green beans with sliced baby red pepper.

Tags:

cooking,
recipes

Wow. The Brazilian kids next door (next building, garden flat) are having a party again . 😮 Last time they lasted around 30 hours or so. They seem to have a very good sound system -by 'good' I mean 'extremely loud'. And, as I may have mentioned before, the current standards of popular Brazilian music have declined to some sort of reggaeton-like thing. Mercifully not loud inside my flat 😃 (different story if I open the door..)

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But this is just plain bizarre: reading the AI summaries rather than watching the series or presumably, reading books.

What is even gained thereby?

It's so massively Point Thahr Misst about why one consumes story-telling that I can't even.

Why not just go straight to: this work manifests [whichever of the whatever the allegedly number it is of standard plots it is] tout court?

I guess these are the people that live on Soylent and pride themselves on 'rawdogging' airflights?

Have they completely eliminated enjoyment and fun from their lives, and if so, WHY????

Conversely, and in the interests of pleasure, there has recently opened a bookshop entirely dedicated to romance, in Notting Hill. (I do cringe a bit at calling it 'Saucy Books'.)

Back in the day, in Charing Cross Road, there used to be a dedicated Romance section alongside Murder One and the SFF section in the basement, all in one bookshop, but that has long been one with the dodo.

Current Music: Everyday People

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Happy birthday,

halojedha and

rmc28!

I was a little startled to see, quite so high up in the chart of UK's best and worst seaside towns, Dungeness. Which isn't really even a town (Wikipedia describes it as a hamlet), more a sandspit at the end of the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Light Railway, famed for lighthouses, shingle beaches, nature reserves, Derek Jarman's Prospect Cottage, and a decommissioned nuclear power station ('Long journey ahead' for nuclear plant clean-up).

[A] barren and bewitching backdrop for a getaway. A vast swathe of this shingle headland is designated a National Nature Reserve, cradling around a third of all British plant species, with some 600 having been recorded, from rugged sea kale to delicate orchids. Exposed to the Channel and loomed over by twin nuclear power stations, Dungeness has, over recent decades, become an unlikely enclave for artists and a popular spot for day-trippers, horticulturalists and birders alike.

Or even
The ghostly allure of Dungeness, Kent. It’s an arid and mysterious place, yet it’s precisely these charms that captivate visitors.

Looking at the criteria scored on, it really is rather weird: completely lacking in the hotels, shopping and seafront/pier categories and not much for tourist attractions but scores high on peace and quiet and scenery.

Perhaps there is a larger number of people looking for this kind of getaway experience, invoking a certain eerie folk-horror vibe, than one would suppose. Not really a Summer Skies and Golden Sands kind of experience, take it away, The Overlanders.

Surprised that somewhere like Margate didn't rate higher.

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Happy birthday,

coalescent!

Culinary

(no subject)

Bruxellae

I don't think there is any 'The Internet' in this sense, really

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Wednesday will be taking place on Friday this week

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Whoam, whoam, like a wounded maggit

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Conloquium cum discipula titulum collatura

Your regular Wednesday service has been deferred

Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, am in Birmingham

Rebuilding journal search again

Because the sun is far too sultry And one must avoid its ultry-violet ray

Culinary

Them on the other side

You know me, I am all 'diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks'

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Seaside fun for Goths?

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