Between blotch and blok

First, from The Guardian:

• Dr Weiss in A Start in Life marries and is a widow by the end of the book.


• Blanche Vernon in A Misalliance is divorced and her husband returns to her at the end of the book.

I was in the process of configuring LL's email (via me for a human spam check) and got M to send a test. His nice secure email arrived in the spam folder.

"Ooh," I said, "you've been flagged as spam."

"What's spanked as flam?"

What does one say?

Or maybe half right.

When the news of the return of Dr Who first came out, there was much speculation as to who Who ought to be.

After a lot of thought, I decided I'd really rather like Danny John Jules.

But it wasn't to be.

Checking on Looby Loo this afternoon I find her watching M.I. High.

Ah well, not quite The Doctor. But Hong Kong Phooey's not a dog any more. (But then it was the cat that had all the brains.)

... and Space Commander Travis on Woman's Hour (or at least the drama part thereof). I've always liked Brian Croucher's voice.

Saw a family of jays on the corner of West Road and Grange Road. Not seen them there before--and I used to live just down the road from there.

But, can meteorological conditions affect broadband connectivity?

I only ask because yesterday, the first rainy day we've had in a while, Skype and dropped the call I made -- the first time I've had that happen -- and I kept losing my connection whilst editing spreadsheets on Google. I suppose the test is whether things work better today with the rain dripping down outside.

Of course this could be the same kind of coincidence as the apparent change in feline behaviour on rainy days. After all, why should indoor cats behave worse on wet days than dry ones?

There's a nice obituary in the Tory gruff (I think I'll keep that particular bit of Dragon-speak) for Ursula Moray Williams today. I hadn't realised she'd died, but then children's authors -- especially ones who seem to have fallen out of fashion -- don't always get listed.

I hadn't realised quite how much she'd written, but The Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse and especially Gobbolino the Witch's Cat were great favourites of mine when I was six or seven. I spent part of one Easter holiday rewriting Gobbolino (along with all the gory bits of 17th-century English history).

I suppose this is going to it an interesting test of just how good the Dragon is: I've got a cold (no, that's not a boast, I'm not sharing, but if you fancy taking it off me...). The cold's had the nerve to the lock-up the sinuses on the left-hand side of my face (so now you know the ravens sleep on the left-hand side) thereby causing toothache.

It's one of those colds that's caused me to feel down in the dumps. Hence:

• the appalling choice of music, see below


• the lack of progress in anything I need to do today


• and even greater desire than normal not to take Looby Loo swimming this evening

Still, we have an armchair, with another to follow. The living room may, someday soon-ish, finally resemble a proper, grown-up parlour and not the student squat it has done for the last fifteen years. Standard lamps and a coffee table to follow, maybe?
(The effect on the Dragon of a blocked up nose is apparently less than the effect caused by moving from upstairs with lower ceilings and carpets to downstairs with a hard floor and high ceilings.)