-- birds singing through its rattle against the oilcloth of the grille-cover --

"enormous morning, ponderous, meticulous".  And almost impossible to lift.

In der Klinik von Bologna wird eine Frau von einem Jungen entbunden und bittet den befreundeten Arzt um Diskretion; das uneheliche Kind möge in gute Hände kommen.  Der Arzt behandelt gleichzeitig den Bischof von Bologna an einer Blinddarmentzündung.  Nach der OP klärt er den Mann auf:  "Hochwürden, ein Wunder, ein Wunder!  Es war nicht der ( Read more... )

But he's gone now.


( Read more... )

Johns Hopkins, a chef slicing a baked ham.  Platters of shrimp, sushi, quichettes, fruit, what-not.  An open bar with top-shelf bottles ( Read more... )

There is no sorrow ( Read more... )

Along with the last bite of the piece of cherry pie left from dinner.  A drowned stinkbug.

They really DO get everywhere.

...left blooming alone / all her companions / are faded and gone.  And I have the last cold of winter.  Or the first cold of spring, with pain on swallowing here, a blocked nostril there, here a cough, there a cough, everywhere a cough cough.

When am I going to be in a position to crawl into bed and to stay there?  NOT TODAY.

From THE INIMITABLE JEEVES, I learn -- "On the occasions when Aunt is calling Aunt like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps...".  Something industrial, with signals passing loudly from venue to venue, is shuddering Ruskin Park with deep, shiphorn vibrations in call-and-response.  BLEAT...  and a moment later, just flat of a minor third up ( Read more... )

The Shard is becoming what St Paul's must once have been, visible throughout London. From the Walworth Road, climbing Denmark Hill...

Then the response.  "Does this mean you like it, or not?"

Which set me thinking, pondering, and eventually responding:

The afternoon was clear and the sun poured in low, turning the glazed bits of the tower bright ( Read more... )

No surprises.  Smiles rather than guffaws.  A serviceable production...  but since 1925 we've moved through WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF and Jerry Springer to the Big Brother house.  Is the idea that hosts, that persons in company, might behave badly so shocking, so outré, that an audience are necessarily jolted into laughter?  Or will we, ( Read more... )