Colourless green ideas sleep furiously

arifirh @ 2008-04-14T22:53:00

2008-04-14T21:22:16Z

Content soon. Much to post. This journal awaits tales of Parisian wanderings, exploding cider, Disneyland, forecasts of an exciting summer of travelling, and maybe even romance. For now, I will infuriatingly write nothing of detail whatever, and simply enclose largely for own reference Best Nightmare Ever.

I still live in the lycée, in my usual apartment, but it is an age when dangerous animals and dangerous people are to be expected. Sure enough, the lycee falls under attack by persons unknown, and the alarm rings enemy at the gates. All the power is cut by the attackers, the alarm is choked, and only a handful of the required candles and lanterns are in place around the building to be lit. It takes the janitors so long to check the damnable things, and after all, what could possibly go wrong?

I leave the apartment and enter the lycée proper to find more candles and see what I can do. Walking down the corridors, I hear a noise and go to the window, to find a few animals frolicking across the lawn in the moonlight. They are duck-billed platypuses. I open the window to look out at them, because I'd never seen them before except in story-books. There are three platypus, and one small confused rabbit, who plays no further part in this story. As I watch, I notice the platypus seem to be oddly determined. I hear faint whimpering, and see that it is coming from a fourth platypus who has climbed up onto a low flat roof just along the building, a little below my window. It seems to be injured, and cowers up against the wall of the building trying to make itself as small as possible.

The other platypus are hunting it. They work separately, each following its scent with bills close to the ground, drawing in gradually on its hiding place. One of them halts, cocks its head and listens, catching a whisper of the wounded one's whimpers. It lifts its head and hisses, displaying rows of short but viciously sharp teeth. Its brothers call with it, then they press forward together to the platypus's refuge.

I pull back and move to find another window closer to the injured creature, finding one just a few metres above the low roof. When I open it, the hidden platypus looks up at me blankly for a moment. As it turns back, there is no sign of the three hunting platypus, but in their stead dozens of velociraptors swarm up and over the edge of the roof, and make for the cowering beast. Each raptor being no more than two foot high, several are needed to drag the crying platypus down off the roof. It offers no resistance.

As it sinks out of sight, I notice another man watching the events below from a facing window. I manage to find my way to him. He is a scientist who has got lost in the dark and sprawling corridors of ~~Black Mesa Facility~~ lycée, and informs me that the building has been overrun by ghastly murderous ruffians, but not to worry, because he has plenty of spare candles so at least we won't be in the dark. He is deeply relieved at finding someone who can lead him to safety. I begin to explain that I might not be able to take complete responsibility for his wellbeing but he wanders off and begins restocking all the candleholders along the corridor with lit candles. I lead him back to our apartment miraculously unscathed.

Our apartment is tucked away, and I hoped that we might go undiscovered for a while; yet soon after bolting the door, there were gruff voices just outside, evidently emanating from dreadful barbarian larynxes, doubtlessly couched in unthinkable criminal throats housed under unkempt criminal chins, the whole topped off by the vile, insidious and prematurely balding ruffian pate. The intervening tracts of face are too horrific for polite comment. However, the fact is that there were voices.

Our door has two strong deadbolts, both of which I have locked, but the fixings of both have become loose. The door shudders as the attackers throw their weight against it, and it shifts a fraction out of its frame. I brace myself against the door, but with each jolt that follows I weaken. Each time I recover less and less strength before the next strike comes, and very soon will be thrown back along with the door.

There are new, angry voices outside. Sounds of a scuffle are muffled by the forgotten door. A moment later the door crashes inwards, knocking me down with it. It was not the blackguards who broke it down, however - the dust settles to reveal Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard, accompanied by half a dozen constables. His men are driving off our besieging villains, and checking on the inhabitants. I don't know quite why he felt the need to break down the door, but it is Lestrade. He smiles and looks pointedly from me to the kettle.

With ends mostly tied I decided it was a good point to wake up.

arifirh @ 2008-03-11T11:40:00

2008-03-11T10:41:21Z

Spent a marvellous weekend in Oxford with the OULES. The society has changed a bit, but the new ones are just as lovely as the others and damnedly talented. Apparently tales of me to the new folk led to me becoming a fictional character and several people tried to deny my existence after meeting me. Slight Needham moment, there.

The Aeneid was fantastic. Having been present at a single blurrily remembered scriptwriting thing, there were a couple of moments when I was watching where I went "That line sounds oddly familiar. I wonder if it's me... Yes! I remember the bit about the fanged sheep." That was fun. Then I got to be in it the next night, which was glorious. I got to play a shepherd (with very slight ad libbing), the middle head of Cerberus (with KISS make-up), and the back end of Monty (with back ache). Happy Phil.

Cast party was grand. There was some strange unpleasant loud hanger-on who didn't seem to want to leave but he did no harm and was ignored. There were lots of other lovely people, very fine gin, and some very relieved writer/directors, one of whom was rather overwhelmed by all the relief and slipped out of consciousness in the hall.

Back in France now. Despite maintaining my general contentment and unsinkable affection for the world, a small wave of homesickness came along at the beginning of the year...

Homesickness: wave "Hi."

...and was skulking somewhere in the corner of the apartment when I got back from my holidays.

BUT.

My contentedness is unendangered, for I have a mere couple of months left in France, and some joyous visitors at one or two points. Also I have lots of writing to do. Time for a cup of tea.

*potters to the kilogramme of tea brought back from the Cambridge Tea Man*

arifirh @ 2008-03-04T22:40:00

2008-03-04T22:43:42Z

Hello world.

I am home for the holidays, and have done the Cambridge visit. On Thursday I am doing an Oxford visit, more on which in a moment.

The CULES Golden Jubilee Ball was wonderful, as the many (260?) photos attest. I'm now one of probably very few who have played harp for and punned at Andy Hamilton in one evening. (I didn't know who he was six months ago, but that doesn't lessen my disproportionate sense of satisfaction.) Marvellous music - huge brass swing band during dinner, and lovely ceilidh band later.

Also wonderful was again seeing the Cambridge Tea Man. I now have another kilogram of teas to help while away my last few months in France. On an afternoon when we were meant to be busy with important ball-related organisation, benparker took me to the rather exciting new tea shop/cafe/thing and we accomplished tea while we contemplated accomplishing the more strenuous goals. They have a lovely cabinet on one wall made up of tiny drawers full of tea leaves. I had some China Blue Silver Needles, which costs £200/kg. A single pot was mercifully cheaper at £3.50. It was quite nice. Tasted slightly gingery. benparker and I later met a lovely but absolutely loopy lady who said that she'd tried that tea and cried at its beauty. She seemed slightly disappointed that I hadn't. Part of me was sad that I can't taste what she does. Another part of me thought she might have been a bit allergic to ginger.

* * *

I'll be in Oxford Thursday 'til Saturday. While I'll be mostly with OULES in the evenings, first of all watching then being in The Aeneid: The Pantomime, my days are empty and need loving friends to fill them with tea and cake and things. Oxford folk who I haven't seen in an age - I miss all of you lots. Communicate your shared desire for tea via phones, comments or wordless shrieks and manic flailing gestures. I will respond in kind.

Also in the news

I have bought an Irish flute. It's in the post. Excited.

arifirh @ 2008-02-11T20:06:00

2008-02-11T19:08:31Z

I believe I have a small project. This is a device which supposedly turns off all electrical things with infra-red receivers. This is a sonic screwdriver. The obvious thing to do is to cram the workings of one into the other.

Finally, I will have a small boring black box that makes a sonic screwdriver noise!

Now to locate a copy of Electronics for Dummies.

Afterthought: ...and if I could fit the little St. Hugh's door-opening magnetic widget on the other end, it would also unlock doors. Well, a few.

arifirh @ 2008-01-30T15:02:00

2008-01-30T14:08:06Z

The other day I was walking through town, and heard someone shout "Arrête de parler à cet hélicoptère!" They shouted it at noone in particular in the direction of a large antique carousel. There didn't seem to be any helicopters about. I feel fortunate to have heard what is probably a very rarely spoken sentence.

France continues well. Am rather missing England and its contents. Flatmate now has basic grounding in Doctor Who, The Prisoner, and the films of Terry Gilliam. We also have recently watched through all fourteen episodes of Mr. Bean. I tried her on Blackadder but with no subtitles it's a bit tricky to follow.

Have begun cooking interesting things. Recent dishes include chicken biryani, some sort of sausage casserole thing, various risotti (am working on Full English Breakfast Risotto), and marzipan pieces. My favourite is probably marzipan pieces. They are made of marzipan cut into pieces. It can be coloured marzipan sometimes. You can cut them into sticks or spirals or double helices but that is slightly complicated. I've started to develop a tendency to go to the supermarket and buy bacon and marzipan and entirely forget bread.

Teaching's still going all right. Part of this morning's lesson was animal noises. Lots of this was me trying to work out how to write up all the French animal noises my class was making, which I didn't do too badly at. Then they had to try the English ones. They liked cock-a-doodle-do (Fr.: cocorico), and I think they thought that moo was better than meugler. I quite like miauler for miaow, though. Because it's sort of got mewl in there as well it sounds sweeter. Like a kitteny miaow.

I gave an oral exam to Martha Jones on Monday morning. Really, she looked exactly like Martha Jones. It was very strange. I kept looking hopefully at the door (or windows, or ceiling. You never know.) expecting David Tennant. He didn't turn up.

arifirh @ 2007-12-10T18:00:00

2007-12-10T17:05:37Z

Marché Plus has bacon!!! Hahahaha!!!! Hahaha!!! Ahahahaha!!!!
Yrs,
The Opera Ghost

arifirh @ 2007-07-02T23:04:00

2007-07-02T22:09:11Z

I've just found a free Fiddlers' Bid concert! These chaps are utterly amazing. If I am honest they are in fact a bit more exciting than Fairport Convention.
http://www.visitshetland.com/about-shetland/music/
A little way down on the right. Nice quality webstream.

There is a lovely moment half an hour in when they're playing the Tangerine Dream Jig, and one of them goes into Jim Craig's one run too early, and you can almost hear him go 'Buggritbuggritbuggrit. Root note! Play the root note! Everything's fine.' Fortunately it's in the same key.

This reminds me (warning - dreadful pun at end of paragraph), I was looking around some folk music forums and someone had posted asking the history behind all of the hags in Irish tune names: Oh, Hag You Have Killed Me; The Hag With The Money; The Hag At The Churn; The Hag With The Lawyer, and so on. There were a few explanatory posts about witches and things. One of them said that he wasn't sure, but that his favourite hag tunes were Hag At The Christie and Haigín Deas, 'a chilling sort of tune'.

I think I might have to write those.

Doctor Who Quote Meme

When you see this post, quote from Doctor Who on your LJ.

Orum in Carnival of Monsters, speaking of the working class equivalent lower race: They've no sense of responsibility. Give them a hygiene chamber and they store fossil fuel in it.

The Master in Claws of Axos, on the Doctor's TARDIS: Overweight, underpowered museum piece... Might as well try to fly a second hand gas stove.

Oh, one more...
King Peladon in The Curse Of Peladon: There is no plot! I am being completely honest with you!

Speaking of Doctor Who, I have had a thought.

Look at the third picture here. Ignoring the caption, Sylar!Doctor?

Or is that just my love of Sylar?

arifirh @ 2007-06-27T22:17:00

2007-06-27T21:20:35Z

Through The Looking Glass

Monday evening, I got another Alice fix. I was allowed to be the Mad Hatter again.

We were wandering entertainers at the Jesus College May Ball. This means we were given free tickets to go in and be ourselves, but louder. Most fun I've had in ages and ages. We were the only wandering entertainers there, and, aside from a rather dubious group of thespy types, the only Wonderland characters at the entire ball! There were eight of us - short1sandwich, buffalo_gill, mr_coomber, r_e_mercia, Jill, Keith, Dan B and me. I stayed a Hatter all evening, and Jill stayed the Queen of Hearts, but other people swapped between the March Hare, the White Rabbit, The Dormouse, the Tweedles, and the Cheshire Cat. Ah, the Cheshire Cats. They were as frightening as they were oddly attractive. When that includes mr_coomber, it is a disconcerting thought.

We started off by entertaining the queue as they circled a huge lawn at the front of the college. In the middle of this huge lawn was a game of croquet, which was ours. We invited various people to play, and lots of time was spent chasing each other round the lawn. From here we went into the college proper, when it was time to serve the tea at the tea party. The Hatter's Tea Party. They made us our own tea party! Fittingly, it was a complete shambles and we had to rescue it. We served cakes ferried from right across college, and made tea from a giant samovar. They also had no milk, and we had to persuade people that Earl Grey shouldn't have milk, or that they'd rather have Lemon & Ginger or Camomile. Then we began to run out of cakes. When all this is seen through the eyes of a Hatter, it becomes wonderful fun :)

When not serving tea, we wandered around entertaining people, as per job description. This generally meant pretending you know everyone and striking up bizarre conversations about how much I like that chap's very fine invisible hat, and how I had one just like it but couldn't remember where I'd put the damned thing, and similar. In the queue at the beginning, I met a friend from my old school who was slightly surprised that I was in the wrong city, at the same ball, and shouting at people whilst juggling croquet balls dressed as a Hatter. It was rather nice that he said "The Hatter? Well, that's just you, isn't it?" There were so many wonderful things at the ball. Various musics - string quartets, clarinets, brass bands, an acoustic tent. And so much food... There was a pancake stall. There was aforementioned tea. There was a gin and tonic stall. A stall. For gin and tonic. Somehow, whenever we were walking from one place to another, we always seemed to walk past it. Odd, really. I'd commandeered a teacup which held all my drink for the evening. I did clean it out with my scarf between drinks, though. It mostly alternated between G & tea. Occasionally Pimms. That scarf's gone in the wash now.

Having started at eight o' clock, the ball carried on until five in the morning. The first of us dwindled away at about half three or four, I think. The last of us left a little before five. By the time Dan and I got back to the HoLE, the sun was well up. The next day was fairly quiet. Headed home the same day, after a trip to get buffalo_gill a guitar in an exciting music shop (they had banjos and mandolins and a purple fiddle!), and a lovely lunch with short1sandwich and some indescribably delicious banoffee pie.

Then home, while a small ocean floating somewhere up in the sky decided it could no longer live a lie, declared its undying love for the ground, softly kissed the clouds goodbye one last time and flung itself bodily downwards in a sort of big wet hug.

I failed to actually think of anything interesting to do with language today. More likely, I thought of several things and then forgot them.

However, I found this a little while ago when trawling Wikipedia for linguistics articles:

Article: Disputes in English Grammar. First line - The neutrality of this article or section is disputed. ^_^

arifirh @ 2007-06-26T22:22:00

2007-06-26T21:23:18Z

The slightly weaker middle section. All stories need a middle. This one just happens to have happened before the beginning. Good finish tomorrow. Through the Looking Glass. It has tea.

Chapter 1 - OULES

Our shows went fantastically. Absolutely exhausting, and brilliant fun. I'm very glad it got recorded on the last night - at least, until halfway through the second play when we ran out of tape. Or battery. I can't remember what it was this time.

There are some ways I'll miss this show quite a bit less than others. It's probably been responsible for the most decisions which have had no way of avoiding upsetting people, sometimes cast, sometimes audience. It's had the most bureaucracy - there were several mornings ringing up half a dozen Wadham officials, each of whom told me to speak to one of the other ones. It's been the show week where I've had the least sleep, which is quite an accomplishment. It also had lots and lots of lines. (Which I never sat down to learn outside of a rehearsal once. Hah! Principles successfully accorded to. Very pleased.)

On the other hand, I'm going to miss it a great deal, because when I'm back in OULES I'll be a finalist, an old ex-president and probably a bit busier. Not to mention that they were two marvellous, very clever scripts, which were so different in style they complimented each other perfectly. The audiences really enjoyed both of them. Just as importantly, most of the cast really enjoyed it all. I got to play two wonderfully written characters, which meant I got to wear two different suits, and my very long scarf, which was even used to tie up the first murderer. I like my very long scarf. I was also very pleased my parents spotted that Fetish the Butler had Peter Lorre's voice - especially since I've never actually seen Peter Lorre, and got his voice from half a dozen words of Peter Sellers doing an impression of him in a Parkinson interview. Very well travelled impression, that.

The society is huge now. There are many OULES I still don't really know. This doesn't seem right. It changes - but I know it will change into something weird and good. I leave it to grow and prosper, like some sort of interesting green thing in my fridge that may once have been yoghurt. May its sticky emerald spores glisten brightly in the fridgelight.

Miscellaneous languagey wondering number two.

Stunning, enchanting, enthralling, striking, amazing, bewitching, fascinating, alluring, charming, breathtaking, dazzling, enticing, captivating.

It's strange how many of these seem to have developed from words whose basic meaning is negative. The first meanings of stun, dazzle, captivate and so on aren't good things. The adjectives can still be turned back around and made nasty. Some more obviously than others, and of course there are plenty of similar words of the same genre in which I don't see any negative meaning - beautiful, handsome, divine, elegant. But still. Those aren't -ing words... The ones above are largely about disabling the observer, impairing sense and thought, and giving control to the person or thing described. None of which, it's generally implied, unpleasantly. But it's an odd thought. I haven't got a point to make with this, I'm just observing.

Something like radiant can have odd connotations when you've just been watching an episode of Heroes which prominently features the radioactive man who can't control his powers and disintegrates things by accident, but that's probably a more individual example.

Then there's pulchritudinous. This word is irrelevant to everything I've just said, but I have to add it for no other reason than because it's really jarring. Why is it in our language? Why? So that I can use it ironically? But then where's the challenge? It upsets me.

arifirh @ 2007-06-25T14:09:00

2007-06-25T13:08:50Z

Computer back to it's old self. Considering steampunk conversion, on the grounds that that would make it easier to invent kettle attachment. Read last week of Friends page. Watched Doctor Who. Had toast. Thrilling, these last couple of days.

New design of TARDIS. Want one.

Speaking of Doctor Who, those who liked the Master watching the Teletubbies may like to know his fondness for children's television goes back a long way.

Oxford is done with me for the moment. I shan't be going back there as a student for another sixteen months. In October I bugger off to France for an academic year, making a living from being English at people. Somehow I feel this suits me.

Large post about the last fortnight has been excitingly divided into chapters which brazenly disregard chronology and chapterification. Today, Chapter 2 - CULES.

Getting to Cambridge for their horrifically early shows (at two in the afternoon! TWO!) meant getting up at Evil o'clock in the morning, for a despicably early X5. The OULES contingent this term was a bit thin, being the Presidents elect and retiring - Dan B and me. We were later joined by sccye, although not until the cast party. Ostensibly good timing - he missed some bloody good plays, though. Special mention to filecoreinuse for destroying Sooty's and my innocence very effectively at the end of his one. Bit of deep-seated trauma planted somewhere in my head after that, I think. Good show.

Lovely cast party after that, and then pub. Went to Gardi's House of Grease for the first time, which was exciting. I recall being in a pirate hat when I went. I think I may have been in the lovely red pirate coat for some of the evening as well. Piratey sort of weekend, really.

When I woke up the morning after the cast party, David Tennant was there. This was a not unpleasant surprise. It took a few moments to register that I'd fallen asleep in front of the television and we were watching last night's Doctor Who. Damn good episode it was, too. Following that there was the traditional 6-hour-long brunch in 'Spoons. We colonised our traditional hovel in the back corner, which has become a home away from home away from home. I ordered Caesar salad, and an apple pie with custard. I ate them in the order they brought them. There was some debate as to whether this was the 'correct' order.

That evening was buffalo_gill and short1sandwich's birthday punting do. The themes were 'The Old West' and 'Myth and Legend', giving rise to various cowboys, indian princesses and pixie sheriffs. And one cow, strangely (yet wonderfully). Lacking much costume, I went as the Man Made Entirely of Scarves, Of Legend, Who Roams the Old West. He preys on unsuspecting cowboys in badly lit alleyways, on the third August of every Full Moon, and weaves scarves out of their souls. Perfectly reasonable legend.

Tomorrow, Chapter 1 - OULES.

Miscellaneous languagey wondering, number one.

Fixes. Things that get stuck onto words. There are boring pre- and suffixes, and then there are infixes. Some languages use these sensibly. English uses them for swearing.

e.g. Kanga-bloody-roo.
Kalama-gorram-zoo. (Somewhere in Michigan, apparently.)
Abso-bloomin'-lutely.

And the really interesting one...

In-fuckin'-possible.

It's not im-fuckin'-possible. It changes. Unless you deliberately say it slowly and carefully, giving enough stress to the m to keep it the same sound, it turns into an n! You anticipate the f which follows, and your mouth changes shape so you can slip into the f more easily. While you still make a nasal sound, the closure (where the bits of your mouth meet) changes from being your lips, to your tongue and alveolar ridge (hard bit behind your top teeth), so it's quick and easy to go into an f. If you were to deliberately keep it as an m, you'd end up with more of a softer 'imph' sound, as the change isn't as smooth.

And all of this is normally completely unconscious.

This had me entertained for about half an hour.

arifirh @ 2007-06-23T12:29:00

2007-06-23T11:33:34Z

I ATE'NT DEAD.

Same not quite true of laptop. Very minor overhaul of everything in progress. Done soon.

arifirh @ 2007-06-12T23:43:00

2007-06-12T22:47:54Z

I've just come home from the first night of OULES, and the cast dinner. More detailed post later when I have time to think.

I'm reading Le Mariage de Figaro for an essay in tomorrow morning.

Figaro. Come, come; let us study our parts well for the Play in the evening:
and do not let us resemble those Actors who never play so ill as on the first night of a
Piece; when Criticism is most watchful to detect Errors, and when they ought to play the
best—“We shall not have an opportunity of playing better tomorrow.”

Bugger that. He never saw OULES.

arifirh @ 2007-06-11T12:32:00

2007-06-11T11:38:28Z

Flosscars!

From the site:
This is our annual award ceremony. It is so called because the awards are not just any old small magnetic Oscars, no, they are small magnetic Oscars with dental floss tied round their necks. This makes them entirely different and original. Actually, though, they have only actually been small magnetic Oscars once, for the first Flosscars ceremony in 2000. In 2001 they were bendy men with floss tied round their necks and in 2002 they were flosscards, ie luggage labels strung up with floss. So the important point is clearly the floss and any casual resemblance to other award ceremonies is purely accidental.

Last year they were gold-spray-painted packets of dental floss.

Everyone please add nominations! This can include new categories if you see something that got criminally overlooked. Comment, and I will edit them in. Voting can be done either by ballot on Wednesday night, or by an anonymous comment to this post, which will be screened so they're not publicly visible. (Note that, if anonymous, this also means they'll be invisible to you after I've screened them. But if you saw them after you commented, then don't worry, I've got them.) If anyone has the means/time to turn this into an actual online poll that would be marvellous.

Please only vote if you are a current OULE, i.e. have been in the below shows or this term's show.

Relevant Plays:
Arabian Nights
Cinderella
Alice
Charley's Aunt

Best hero:
Marc - Prince Charming
Kirsty – Dandini
James - Buttons
Jon - Sir Gerald Spore
Kirsty - Hassan
Elizabeth - The King
Alex C - Charley
Olly - Jack

Best heroine:
Emily - Alice
Helen - Cinderella
Hannah - Princess Sunbeam
Kathryn - Amy
Lotty - Kitty
Siân- Scheherezade

Best villain:
Anna – Evil Stepmother
Emma – Queen of Hearts
Andrew – Malevolence
Elizabeth – Grand Vizier
Callum - Mr. Spettigue
Marc - The Sultan

The ooh you lovey award for actually being able to act (non-heros/heriones/villains):
Andrew, Malevolence/Caterpillar
Will, Cheshire Cat

Best Ad-Lib:
Phil & Chris, something about flaming sheep on bicycles
Dan A – The White Rabbit – *lights out* ‘I’m not finished yet!’
Andrew, Caterpillar - "Now how the fuck do I get out of here..."
Marc, on eunuchs: "What's the matter? Don't you have the balls to come and defend your sultan!?"

Worst Ad-Lib:
Phil & Chris, the fish paste moment. The Warden got up and left.
Gam, sitting in front of Sian with purple wig, and asking whether they were her pubes.

Best double act:
Phil & Chris, palace guards
Ugly Sisters
Tweedle Dum & Tweedle Dee

Best on-stage fuck-up/mistake:
Paul - The March Hare’s ears breaking
Duncan as Emphysema making a dramatic gesture and then forgetting what he was about to say.
Kate as the Duchess, falling and sending talc-covered carrots everywhere.
Beth for randomly throwing a bread roll onto stage well before they had reached the pun which required a bread roll to be thrown on stage.
James K announcing himself with the wrong name at the end of Charley's Aunt.

The 'Beyond the call of duty' award:
Helen and Siân for all the millions of facepainting in Alice.
Kate for continuing with all the multiple falling-over injuries.
Beth, Helen and Lyd for making the coach and all the other props.
Tom for sorting the hoodies and battling with Barclays.
Tom & Rory for teching on short notice.
Beth & Kate for the Cinderella backdrop.

Best quote:
Malevolence: "Well, fuck."
Malevolence: "Look at it cunn!"

Best last-minute oule:
Alex Craven, Buttons

Best drink:
The Hatter’s nice cup of tea (of neat gin) - Alice
Jon and Elizabeth, being a cup of tea

Best category:

Best inanimate object:
Ye Olde Door, Alice.
Emma, Tree of Truth, Cinderella.
Jon and Elizabeth, Milk jug & Teacup, Alice.
Joff's trousers, being swapped between him and Marc several times a show, with nowhere to hide.
The talcum powder. EVERYWHERE.
Rattigue.
Pig.

Best impersonation of a member of the opposite sex:
Duncan, Tom, Phil - Ugly Sisters
Kirsty - Dandini
Rob - Helen Highwater
Dan R - The last potential bride – ‘Ooh, I think I must be in a dream…’
Dan R - The Governess
Kirsty - Hassan
Gam - Spurious Dame
James K - Charley's Aunt

Best line-learner:
Emily, Alice
Helen, Cinderella

Best speech:
Andrew, Caterpillar's mad angry rambling – ‘like a blue herbivorous ninja’
Phil, Hatter's outrage in the Trial – ‘Somewhere the tea’s getting cold’
Marc as the Sultan complimenting Princess Sunbeam: "words cannot describe such perfection, unless they be words like... 'phwoooar'."
Kirsty, Hassan's hallucinatory rambling: "Bow down before me, puny morsels, for I am Queen of the Squids!"

Best costume:
Andrew, Caterpillar
Emma, Tree of Truth

Best impersonation of an animal impersonating an animal:
Monty as a camel, Arabian Nights.

Best corpsing:
Everyone when Andrew renamed Laurie's Caretaker 'Tarquin' during their romantic final moment.
Katie and Becky when knocking on the door didn't really work.
The rest of the cast when Gam had his way with Gemmell.

Best song:
The One You Wake Up With
The Situation
The Hunting Song
Miss You Like Fire
Jabberwocky
Croquet

AA for most alcoholic award:
Phil after the last night’s Trial
Beth and Nat for having a bottle of Tequila backstage

Tom Reynolds dodgy accent award:
Harry, the Swedish Chef

Best audience:
Last night of Alice & Charley's Aunt

Best caricature of oneself:
Andrew, Caterpillar
Jon, Sir Gerald Spore

Phil Gemmell award for nudity:
Marc & Joff for the trouser-swapping
Most of the girls in Arabian Nights
Nat at the cast party: "I'll take off my trousers if all the men in the room do..."

Phil Scott (CULES) Award for being a wally:

arifirh @ 2007-06-09T15:12:00

2007-06-09T14:22:50Z

See, foulds - this is why you need fifty buttons. So that you can remember which button is Super Pause.

neoanjou, Marc and I went to the Port Mahon folk night last night, and Sharron Kraus was there. I had never actually heard of her before, but her website has a long list of albums with excellent reviews, she has an incredibly beautiful voice and has just recorded an album whose guests include Spiers and Boden. And there were so many exciting instruments there than night - Sharron had a dulcimer (whose headstock had been fixed back on with superglue), one chap had a bouzouki, and the other fiddle player had a purple fiddle! I played more Chris Stout things which went down well, and I even remembered what I was playing most of the time. Nearly.

Also I have bought a tassley thing to put on my violin scroll like Chris Leslie's and Alisdair White's, which is fun and swishy.

Slightly less wonderful was that last night I managed to break my nice big mug by dropping it on my desk. While it was full of water. Lots of which went on my laptop. This was then hastily hard-shut-down and put upside down to dry out on my chair with a couple of packs of silica gel under the keyboard (Lord knows why there were on my desk. Possibly for this very eventuality.) Everything fine now, except for a slightly odd backspace key. It squeaked, so I took it off, and now it won't sit properly. It doesn't go back on quite as easily as the rest of the keys... Ah, my laptop has been through so much. Still in fine fetlock and fettle.

arifirh @ 2007-06-08T01:27:00

2007-06-08T00:27:40Z

Harry Potter and Edward Gorey!

Twice!

Those who don't know Edward Gorey, and particularly the Gashlycrumb Tinies which this is based on, ought to look here. The humour of Mr. Ogdred Weary is a bit black. But just look at Neville.

Something less macabre, more beautiful, and very, very odd is his first book, The Unstrung Harp. It's about a novelist who takes rather a funny turn. Quarter of an hour read. The lady who linked to it wrote "To all writers, to put us in our place."

D. Awdrey-Gore has the finest mind for beautifully strange names I have come across. (For example... "Mr. Earbrass escapes from Messrs. Scuffle and Dustcough, who were most anxious to go into all the ramifications of a scheme for having his novels translated into Urdu. [...] The night before returning home to Mortshire Mr. Earbrass allows himself to be taken to a literary dinner in a private dining room of Le Trottoir Imbécile. Among his fellow-authors, few of whom he recognizes and none of whom he knows, are Lawk, Sangwidge, Ha'p'orth, Avuncular, and Lord Legbail. The unwell-looking gentleman wrapped in a greatcoat is an obscure essayist named Frowst." Furthermore, Mrs. Regera Dowdy was very fond of anagrams.

arifirh @ 2007-06-07T21:50:00

2007-06-07T21:00:32Z

Port Mahon tomorrow evening - last folk night I'll be at for many a while. Pub, music, violins, mad old folky people, songs about pirates! Northerly people meet outside the Eagle and Child at half eight?

I've just found a lovely pair of authors' names:

Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) A University Grammar of English. London: Longman.

I imagine at least one of them had a large moustache.

arifirh @ 2007-06-06T12:53:00

2007-06-06T11:54:42Z

The one on understatement is now one of my favourite Wikipedia articles.

There is a terrifying advert from Orange which I saw on Facebook. It has a beehive, with a swarm of text message icons flying around. This is not a comforting image. Then I moved the mouse over to get rid of it (NukeAnything, lovely Firefox extension), and the cursor changed into a flower and they all attacked it. I panicked and changed tab. Haven't looked at it since.

I've decided my room lacks posters so I've put xkcd strips up.

Inspired by Mr. foulds's lovely classical summary, here are two or three excerpts from today's linguistics essay.

Sarcasm requires that conversational maxims be broken. The exclamation ‘What a delightful child!’ is an obvious flout of quality in the context of a room where a toddler is flight testing a guinea pig.

With metaphor, a statement is made such as ‘I am a leaf on the wind; watch how I soar’ with the effect that the listener infers ‘I manifest certain attributes of a leaf on the wind; soaring is one of them.’ It is evident to the listener that the speaker does not wish to convey that he is literally a leaf.

The maxim of quality can also be hedged. The statement ‘Soylent Green is made from people!’ can be qualified by adding tags to warn the listener that they are not as certain of the truth as might be expected: for example, ‘They say that Soylent Green is made from people.’

I also used the last example from the wikipedia understatement entry, the Boeing 747, as an example of litotes.

And something on memes.

Lolbrarians.

Philolsophers.

Even physicists have lolsingularity.

Where are the linguists?

There is but one I can find, from a post on the Language Log. (Which is basically this thought in different words.)

Although I did find Saussure.

arifirh @ 2007-06-02T18:23:00

2007-06-02T17:26:02Z

You scored as Carrot Ironfoundersson! You are Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson of the City Watch in the greatest city on the Disc - Ankh-Morpork! A truly good natured, honest guy, who knows everyone, and is liked by all. Technically a dwarf, but only by adoption. You'd rather not be reminded that you are the true heir to the throne, but that does explain why people naturally follow your orders.

Carrot Ironfoundersson

100%

Death

75%

Commander Samuel Vimes

69%

Gytha (Nanny) Ogg

69%

Greebo

69%

The Librarian

56%

Cohen The Barbarian

50%

Lord Havelock Vetinari

50%

Rincewind

31%

Esmerelda (Granny) Weatherwax

31%

Which Discworld Character are you like (with pics)
created with QuizFarm.com

Not Death! Not quite. There's a pleasant surprise.

arifirh @ 2007-05-28T14:22:00

2007-05-28T13:30:46Z

I had a dream that in the future, I am a secret agent working possibly on behalf of the RSPCA to save donkeys from being overworked at seaside donkey rides.

I have a child, critical to the whole operation, who's either my own or standard government issue for donkey agents. She's being given a ride on the donkey, and I'm talking to the chap who's running it...

"I love donkey rides. I remember when I was a lad, my dad got a chap to do donkey rides at my birthday. Fantastic, that was."
"Rarer nowadays, though. Less and less folks doing it."
"Still, I don't suppose you could be persuaded to do a birthday party, for the right amount? Only hers is coming up in a month or so..."
"Suppose I could, at that."
"Wonderful! Could I take down some contact details? I'll send you a cheque."
"Sure, sure... Here's my address. And I'm Snellwick, Ernie Snellwick."
"Thanks very much. We're up here on holiday for a week or so, actually... Are you here most days?"
"That we are - Monday to Sunday, rain or shine!"
"All day?"
"Yessir, sunup to sundown!"
"That's quite a bit of work for the poor thing."
"Oh, the old girl's used to it."
"Getting on a bit, is she?"
"Mid-twenties, now."
"Are you quite aware, Mr. Snellwick, that it is illegal to employ donkeys for more than forty hours a week, or indeed at all past the age of twenty?" [All donkey regulations fictional.]
"You're having a laugh."
"I'm afraid not. We've been observing you for some time now. If you'll glance through these timestamped photographs, you'll see we have evidence that you've been criminally overworking this poor animal despite our prior warnings."
"These don't prove anything."
"That's quite immaterial. Now that my daughter's ridden off with your donkey, I'll leave you to fume quietly. Thanks for the address, we'll be in touch!"
*Runs*

The donkey is hiding round the corner in a shed with anonymous child.

"Come on, you're getting an ice cream."
"Ice cweam sammich!"
"All right, an ice cream sandwich."

Things that I don't think happened in my dream but probably should have:

- The donkey ties up Ernie's legs with his own bit of rope and drags him through piles of sunbathers.

- Dramatic chase along the beach with both protagonists riding donkeys, which run over at least seven sandcastles, go through the middle of a game of volleyball taking the net with them, and knock over a old-fashioned changing booth in which someone is wearing only a towel. The chase then goes into the town and through a posh restaurant. One donkey stops to eat someone's spaghetti bolognese. The waiter offers it the wine list.

I looked up the donkey rides article on Wikipedia and apparently donkeys are only allowed to work from 10am to 7pm each day, with an hour off for lunch and Friday off too.

arifirh @ 2007-05-22T16:01:00

2007-05-22T15:02:25Z

Lovely thing I've just seen. If you ask Google to define hello, the second result is rather odd: the larva of a frog or toad at the stage when it lives in water and has gills and a tail.

This is because the poor thing gets confused, and has taken its definition from a Grade 3 vocabulary quiz which asks pupils to match up the jumbled words and definitions.

I can't actually finish that quiz and make it make sense.

arifirh @ 2007-05-21T22:10:00

2007-05-21T21:18:54Z

I was feeling creative and hungry, so just did the following.

- Boil kettle, and fill a big mug with hot water.
- Put a bowl on top of the mug, and fill with lots of chocolate spread. Wait until chocolate spread is melty.
- Mix in stuff. I used Fruit and Fibre.
- Fridge, on greaseproof paper. I had no greaseproof paper so I used an envelope.
(Best bit:)
- Clean out chocolatey bowl with banana. When banana runs out use tongue.

I've just booked VOLES, which is exciting. There should be fewer midges this time. Unless they followed us. How long does a swarm that size take to migrate the length of the country? A year?

arifirh @ 2007-05-05T13:37:00

2007-05-05T12:40:28Z

Reading through Understanding Language Change by Dr. McMahon, there's a chapter on language death, which is quite usual. The next chapter is on the somewhat rarer language suicide, in which a creole usually 'gets devoured by its parent'. The following chapter is Language murder: four case-studies. That made me smile.

One of the case studies is on Dyribal, which I've always liked - it has four genders, one of which encompasses 'women, fire and dangerous things.'

arifirh @ 2007-04-29T00:11:00

2007-04-28T23:12:02Z

Epic catch-up post. I've decided it's easiest to divide my life into the following. That's largely all there is to it.

Music

I've had an unusually musical week. For me to have an unusually musical week means near-continuous playing of something or other. But on Thursday, sebastienne and Marc came round for the singing of songs, and I indoctrinated them into the ways of Richard Thompson. We now have a small list of songs we're going to try and arrange with nice harmonies.

Then on Friday I went to the Port Mahon folk night and played the fiddle (after quite a lot of gin). This went very well. I was accompanied by sccye on his saxophone, who did some nice improv'd backingy things on a tune he'd heard me play once, ten minutes beforehand just outside the pub. (Probably only interesting to 9headeddragon: we played the first tune of Chris Stout's Hillswick, then I did Swarb's versions of the Friar's Britches and the Swallowtail Reel on my own.) That was very fun, and seemed to be fairly well enjoyed by the rest of them. At the end, there was a big final medley of me, sccye and a lady with a guitar following the other violin fellow in two tunes, neither of which I knew. That was very good fun, and I came home with a bottle of wine for my trouble.

Today, I went and met Dot's Funk Odyssey, the 20-odd strong band who I'm being a session violinist for at Wadstock. It's not actually for a funk song, though - they want strings for a cover of Gangsta Paradise. Not a terribly interesting violin part. Fortunately, there are two other violins as well, both of whom are classically trained orchestra types, which means they're happy to go through the whole song playing the same three notes over and over and over in exactly the same place while I have fun.

I was looking around Youtube yesterday, and SOMEONE HAS REMOVED HALF OF THE JERRY DONAHUE VIDEOS.

I have them saved on my harddrive. But nonetheless. *Seeth*.

However, this has been balanced by the discovery of all of Stoppit and Tidyup on there. Heehee.

Recently I had a moment of existential fear. Is my Richard Thompson collection part of my Fairport Convention collection, or is my Fairport part of my Richard Thompson collection? And then what of Jerry? He was first out of everything. Where does he fit in?

Lastly, I want it.

OULES

We are doing two murder mysteries this term, both of which are going to be excellent. This is despite the fact that I am in both of them! I have the lead in Will's play, which is fantastic and has lots of mad accents, and the best role in the darwinian_woman's. The best role in a play which also contains Holmes, Watson, Wilde, Graham-Bell, HRH Queen Victoria and a drug-induced hallucination of a squirrel which represents somebody's unconsciousness. This role is a butler called Fetish. He is actually quite minor, but I have given him a very special characterisation.

Also this means I get to wear two different suits!

Tea

I am slowly constructing a decorative wall thing out of bits of tea packaging.

Also, thanks to ktroo85, tomorrow I will have more Russian Caravan!

arifirh @ 2007-04-10T19:36:00

2007-04-10T18:39:22Z

Joy

This weekend was Toni's boat race party, which was marvellous. I enjoyed the morning after even more than the evening, although they are beginning to blur into one now. Everyone was lying on top on each other on the floor of the big bedroom, weaving a lovely huge lattice of light entertainers, and we were reading each other Mills and Boon for some reason, which was hilarious. Then we wrote each other Mills and Boon in Consequences style, which was better.

Slight worry

This is my last term in Oxford for another year and a half. Not quite the same as finals, but still a bit of a worry. On the other hand I don't have exams, or indeed terribly much else to do compared to some, so shall be generally around to witter at over tea should anyone want. Will be back on Sunday.

As for the going to France bit, that is also a slight worry. I think my coping mechanism when under stress in Forn Parts is to become more English, so that'll be interesting to watch. And I will have children. They are giving me children. To educate. What have they done to them?

Rapture

I love Richard Thompson. He is my favourite song-writer and a fantastic guitarist. He has written such vast amounts of music that I don't think I've listened to half of it yet. This means I occasionally find a new favourite song.

Abject despair

I was going to watch the Doctor Who Shakespeare one this evening. It seems that just after it began recording, there was a power cut. It isn't there.

Also, I have run out of Russian Caravan. I still have over two dozen other teas. But no more Russian Caravan.

arifirh @ 2007-04-03T18:18:00

2007-04-03T17:20:06Z

Stephen Fry is reading me Paddington Bear!