Cooked Tarantulas
And a perfectly serious toxicological study thereof.

Violate Me (In the Violet Time)
Folk tune titles.

Complications
What was meant to happen was that today, sometime before I woke up, dad would get into the car, drive onto a ferry, travel from Northern Ireland to England and damn well stay there for nearly 2 weeks, giving me the chance to kick back, glory in having the place to myself, and be responsible for as close to fuck-all as possible.

What actually happened was that earlier tonight, when dad was packing to leave, we noticed this patch of damp on the wall in one of the bedrooms. Then Mark came over, and since he knows about stuff like that, we looked in the roofspace, and in other rooms, and found that a water tank is spilling water through the ceilings of 2 rooms. The water has even (just) made it down through to the kitchen on the ground floor. So we rigged up a system to stop the tank from filling up beyond the hole in it.

So what will actually happen is that tomorrow, when I get up, dad will have left, and I'll have to make desperate phonecalls to a plumber (who probably has a full diary), and then I'll find that it'll be new year at least before I can get it sorted. In the meantime, either: 1. ceilings will fall in - or: 2. The water tank will dry out and there'll be no water in the radiators and therefore no heating - or: 3. Some sort of combination of 1 & 2.

Self-reflexive joke
I just went through the RSS feeds I subscribe to, and was really pleased to find that the people whose writing I love most haven't updated their websites at all today because they have rich and varied lives outside the internet. :o)

Wintry links...
(courtesy of Wikipedia) - Christmas Eve, snow, Silent Night, mince pies, port, frost, ice, winter, food, presents.

0871 271 3100 - The Queen's phone number!
If you're Welsh, are in Iraq, hold a gun, and have a mobile phone, you needn't be denied Her Majesty's Christmas Message at 1500GMT tomorrow. Royal Regiment of Wales and TA troops were originally intended to be the receipients of this service, but anyone can dial in and have the pleasure of hearing HM sounding a bit tinnier than usual.

For the first time in ages, possibly ever, the address hasn't been filmed in Buckingham Palace, but at a barracks. Teamwork and all that. I wonder if she's recovered yet from having Tony Blair's hand up her arse for the umpteenth time this year...

Bared teeth, torn flesh...
...and a Christmas disaster for Her Royal Highness! (Not to mention the corgi.) Rumour has it that Princess Anne is in chains in the Tower of London, with her dog at her feet, awaiting execution.

(Or, if you want to be pernickety about punctuation, we could change it to "Princess Anne is in chains in the Tower of London, with her dog at her feet awaiting execution". :o) *evil grin*

Lemon, ham and herbs
I'm making stuffing. The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is on the radio. Bliss. :o)

My nights
I'm sitting here at 1 in the morning, knowing I don't have to go to bed at half one to get up for work tomorrow. This is actually really good. But I feel cheapened. Jobless again. Jonny came round tonight and we pissed ourselves laughing at a cat video, grinned at a Lemon Jelly cheesefest song, and I made rum and brandy butter and didn't spray all the sugar and butter all over the kitchen like last year. Then I came home after dropping Jonny off and right now, it just really really doesn't feel like the raw sparkling cold season it is. I need to find my accelerator and hoof it to the floor.

A *wonderful* book
The Tyger Voyage. Seeing it on this guy's blog just made me want to find it again. It's the one thing I'm going to do this evening even if I have to rummage through the entire attic.

80s TV commercials
From America, but good nevertheless.

Walking together what remains
I love this found poem. It caught my eye when I was in London and took me out of the rush to a cleaner, purer time when I was a boy interested in almost nothing apart from castles and medieval music and words. A time when I was so interested in words I'd peer at them over my glasses, so close I could see the grain in the paper and the way no letter was perfect.
I really like this colour poem too. It's more modern and at first you feel it postures too much but it's so gentle, notwithstanding a few jarring photos. And a perfect, imperious winter poem. A shy boy.

Nice Christmas present for them...
Santa Hussein drops by - and what do they do? Hold him in an undisclosed location. Anyone'd think they weren't pleased to see him!

What kind of kiss?
You have an entrancing kiss~ the kind that leaves your partner bedazzled and maybe even feeling he/she is dreaming. Quite effective; the kiss that never lessens and always blows your partner away like the first time. Take the test here.

So yeah. Here's a funny picture, and here's a very good example of why Oscar Wilde said the British Public are philistine. Goat Fucker. Holy fucking bloodstained shit. The joys of North London.

That's it for now, folks.

Hmmmmm.
Inspired by meeting Andy, I thought I'd look up 'friendship' in Wikipedia, to see whether I agreed with their expected incisiveness and wisdom. I'd expected 'friendships are... they start like... they're managed by the...." etc.

But it just redirects you to 'personal relationship'. 'Personal relationship', interestingly, fits under their umbrella of 'human love'. But a personal relationship with someone doesn't mean you love them. You can have a very real relationship with someone which is based entirely on hate... can't you?

Grin
Hehe. Oxo Tower. Heheh. Via Welshcake.