Okay, Maurice Sendak is a classic and I love his books, in a general sense. Unfortunately my nephew loves Sendak with the kind of intensity, focus and immediacy that comes naturally to a child of sixteen months. I must've read Where the Wild Things Are five or six times to him while his parents were moving into their new apartment (and Dear Nephew ( Read more... )

Even though the evening-hours sweetshop has the cheapest and freshest walnuts and cashews in town (rancid walnuts are the worst experience in the world and you can't exactly test each one before buying), don't use it as your main source for them. Your feet will get the message that this is a legit place to visit, and then when it's late and you're ( Read more... )

Or I hope so, at least.

Sent in a job application today. My supply on copies of official documents was running low, so on the way to the post office I stopped by the photocopy business (thinking that I wouldn't have to make a detour to the university and my department, and have to switch on the photocopier to make five copies). Then went on my merry ( Read more... )

When life (or 4H, as the case may be) gives you an allotment overgrown with spearmint after last year's gardener has left the entire root systems in the ground...

get shitfaced on mojitos.

To make a long story short, I've been updating the local library's SFF department with some suggestions for new books (call it entitlement after I paid them over 20€ in late fees last year), and pimped His Majesty's Dragon to them before Christmas. Since it was Christmas and I wasn't in town, I didn't have time to claim it first, and after ( Read more... )

Spotted a big tough-looking bloke leaving my local supermarket on Friday, wearing bermuda shorts, a heavy neck chain and a tailcoat. Ms Rowling couldn't have invented a more jarring combination.

If I were a big-name LJ user, this could become a meme, but as I'm not, it shall probably remain private ( Read more... )

Feeling somewhat like a proud descendant of Sam Gamgee and Neville Longbottom after getting this one to burst into flower.

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Just need to get this of my chest in order to be able to concentrate on what I ought to be doing...

Do you know what they don't say in the festive speeches aimed at the Young Ones, Hope of Society (with the implicit aims of getting them into universities and thereby cleaning up the unemployment statistics, as well as pacifying them when they've ( Read more... )