Griechen-GAU.  The groesster anzunehmender Unfall, the worst-case scenario.  GAU, capital letters, short for nuclear-reactor meltdown.  And recently used for financial meltdown ( Read more... )

From the house door, looking toward the northeast; the entry into the old "smoke kitchen" to the left (to become a wheelchair-accessible shower area), and that to a front room to the right (to be used as a guest bedroom).  The cinderblock construction is a multiflue chimney; the house furnace and the front-room fireplace both vent into it.

That ( Read more... )

-- a dead laptop --

and no time to think, much less to post.

Monday, order new computer; perhaps the Monday after that, receive ditto...

-- I'm sharing an insight that came to me this morning as I looked over the papers at the newsagent's, seeing a headshot of Meryl Streep -- THE IRON LADY is to open here this weekend --

without her, we'd never have had BILLY ELLIOT.

-- is really tedious.

At least till I get home, when wine, etc., can begin.

ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS:  "When did we stop going to bed and just start passing out?"

From desmentir, I suppose, to de-lie, to contradict, officially to deny.

Chirac and la démence, Chirac dément?  Ah.  Chirac has dementia.  He is demented.  He has lost his mind.

And he has issued this communiqué, as reported and commented on in LE POINT; now is this the work of a madman?

"I did it all for French unity, for France, and for peace."

( Read more... )

The GUARDIAN has published an obituary of Christa Wolf.  It is scooped in great chunks out of Wikipedia, and fails to address an important aspect of her work.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/01/christa-wolf

My response will not be published there, so I ( Read more... )

Both gone.  Both for me still here.  Over decades I have picked up their books again and again, always new, always different, always (and more and more) familiar.  I buy them and give them away, I hope with the gift, I wonder -- will she, will he, show the soul-likeness that I hope for, will (s)he love these books too ( Read more... )

Pelting, pelting, against the dark windows before dawn.  Around 0730, the weather quietened, out I stepped to find dark cloud over the east and pink-fringed golden skies beneath.  The rain had moved on -- take that, France!

The house in Hungary has been plastered inside and out.  It begins to look good.

And tickets to Clive Rowe in THE LADYKILLERS later this week.

With Chinese food!

Well, to go to the Garrick and not to drop into Chinatown for some noms would just be silly.  Tsk.