tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29720737482928669662024-03-21T08:45:35.964+00:00Marginalia... where a neat rivulet of text shall meanderAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-76628685634318210342012-02-25T10:05:00.003+00:002012-02-25T10:05:45.117+00:00Bye-bye, blogger - this blog has movedMy marginalia can now be found in my own Wordpress installation at www.sarahwoodall.org.uk. Please follow me there!
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-53592690182290641202011-12-27T10:58:00.001+00:002011-12-27T10:59:01.804+00:00Reasons to be cheerful in midwinter
Oranges are in season.
I am reunited with certain favourite winter clothes.
Underwear won’t show, so it doesn’t need to be chosen with any care.
Cats choose to spend more time indoors.
I wake with Andrew (not hours earlier).
If the garden is tidied, it stays tidy—weeds don’t grow back.
There must be more.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-71244342905152209612011-11-07T18:10:00.004+00:002011-11-09T09:26:37.249+00:00ReparteeAndrew: ... the weird thing, when you go to visit and actually look at what they are saying, is how moderate and reasonable the Occupy people seem to be. Most of them are only saying the same sort of things as most of the other people you hear. [As he talks he is approaching the wall with a new photo off the big printer, this one cropped to a tall portrait format.]I: [looking critically at the Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-14866109172393906232010-05-12T15:29:00.003+01:002010-05-12T15:55:59.363+01:00The coldest May night for some 15 years... so said the weather report on the radio. And it was.But it could have been worse. And at least now there is something definite to do: we have a referendum to win. I know it’s only for AV, but still it must be won.AV does at least solve some of the problems with the current system: it removes the need for tactical voting—you give your first preference to the one you really want, and your Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-69707091200846516562010-05-10T22:51:00.003+01:002010-05-11T08:10:19.821+01:00No deal without PR!I find that taking part in a demonstration is not compatible with photography. This is the only usable still photo I got. I made a little video, too, where you can hear the shouting.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-22112294532539556692010-05-10T09:13:00.003+01:002010-05-11T08:10:37.375+01:00To London, wearing purpleI’m off to London this afternoon to join in the shouting outside the Lib Dem meeting. Meanwhile I have set up a Facebook group in an attempt to get a critical mass of supporters for a protest event here in Cambridge. There are events being organized for this coming Saturday (the 15th) in several other places, so I hope we might manage one here, too.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-784808725038084312010-05-09T09:52:00.004+01:002010-05-11T08:16:27.509+01:00Electoral reform - can we do something in Cambridge?This is the moment electoral reformers have been waiting for—a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I feel inclined to do something active. I’d have been in London yesterday outside the Lib Dem meeting, shouting, if I hadn’t had a work commitment. I know that a lot of people here in Cambridge feel as I do on the electoral reform question. Can we get ourselves together and do something locally, in the Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-41475325463704476182010-04-17T23:14:00.007+01:002010-04-18T11:55:31.019+01:00Appropriate verseIn Hull on Friday for the funeral of my lovable though sometimes difficult aunt, who was keen on poetry, and particularly on the local product. Which set a recurring theme for the day, starting with one cousin’s reading at the crematorium,The trees are coming into leafLike something almost being said …and ending, after many hours of revisiting family history and several bottles of good red wine, Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-89747666066512687252010-03-31T14:44:00.002+01:002010-03-31T14:54:40.608+01:00Déjà vu all over againThe chapter I mentioned before concludes thus:… Achterberg, on the road, ‘delivered a whole disquisition about the Ford’s rear-view mirror as an object in which you could see what was past. Things were past yet still visible—that was the spirit in which he spoke.’And earlier the same day I found this:(My subject line here is not, of course, original.)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-39362930660843432292010-03-29T17:28:00.011+01:002010-04-18T09:07:26.469+01:00Déjà vuThese are notes for what might become an essay one day. It’s a big theme and I’m not sure I will ever write it up properly. The elements are:Chapter 12 of Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older: ‘In oval mirrors we drive around’: on experiencing a sense of déjà vu;My own experiences of revisiting, after an interval of three(?) years, the half-remembered city of Lecce (‘I went in there—I’m sure I Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-6529171114294132482010-02-22T12:00:00.067+00:002010-02-25T18:12:20.858+00:00In memory of MuppetThe morning fanfare is the first thing that comes to mind. As I descended the stairs she would swirl around the corner from the sitting-room in a flurry of huge fluffy tail, calling out at the top of her voice, in unmistakeably cheerful tones, a very distinctive greeting: two syllables, rising in both volume and inflection. It sounded a lot like “Hel-LO?!”, and she used it only to mean that (she Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-89575811015450923822010-02-20T00:02:00.003+00:002010-02-20T00:42:51.744+00:00Muppet has just diedMuppet was at the vet’s today (well, yesterday, I mean, since it’s now after midnight) for a very minor procedure—flushing out a blocked tear-duct, under sedation. I picked her up in the afternoon and she seemed just like her usual self all evening, only rather cross because she wanted to go out and we had been instructed to keep her in. Then, at about 11pm, Andrew went to get her (she was Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-22779480585354373072010-01-29T22:20:00.004+00:002010-01-29T22:40:42.380+00:00Why life speeds upA couple of years ago I was walking past the CUP bookshop in town and I saw a title in the window: Why Life Speeds Up as You Get Older. And I thought,‘Yes!’ And I bought it. But sadly I haven’t had time to read it yet.I’d been meaning to say that for ages—it was one of the numerous things on my blogging backlog—but it only appears here today because I wanted to play with twitterfeed, and posting Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-48780900418367766712010-01-01T09:42:00.037+00:002010-01-01T23:21:10.385+00:00Ten implausible yearsAfter dinner yesterday evening, in the final hours of the decade, the conversation turned to fiction that is based on counterfactual history (Fatherland and so on). Someone pointed out that this has an inherent limitation: it mustn’t surprise you too thoroughly, because of the need to keep the story plausible. Reality, on the other hand, is not constrained in the same way. And over the last ten Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-81056498976709844732009-11-22T11:20:00.003+00:002009-11-22T11:33:27.101+00:00Sincerity, backlog and this and thatJust been enjoying the new Norah Jones album. When young I would have dismissed quite a bit of it (I think) as sentimental and therefore insincere. Same with those fantastic late works by Johnny Cash. It takes time before you realize that someone really could feel like that, and, if they did, that they would want to make art out of it.This would have been a tweet, but it was too long.I am Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-15354951896469381582009-10-27T11:28:00.005+00:002009-10-27T11:45:36.362+00:00PreyI have mixed feelings about celebrating the achievements of my small and destructive feline friend (as my Dad is fond of pointing out, it cannot logically be reconciled with my opposition to fox-hunting—especially when, as on this occasion, she hasn’t even attempted to get a meal out of it), but I couldn’t resist making a record of this morning’s specimen. That’s a 12-inch ruler.How on earth did Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-24621045516955939742009-10-19T17:57:00.024+01:002009-10-20T21:16:44.644+01:00Venice Biennale 2009 - first impressions[Some jottings from my notebook]Lots of site-specific work (it’s a meme! —first saw it with that American guy a few shows ago—v powerful piece about slavery etc with the weird black Murano glass chandeliers). Examples this year: Giardini; the Venetian blinds in the Korean pavilion; giveaway postcards of Marghera in the Corderia.Stuffed cats so far: German, Russian.Stuffed dogs: Nordic; USA (Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-37724073096635873872009-10-18T21:57:00.026+01:002009-12-14T10:47:51.547+00:00Now I know where the river goesI knew it in theory before; but there’s knowing and then there’s knowing.I started walking, alone, from my own front door, at about 2pm on the last Saturday of September. I didn’t have time really but it was the last good chance of the year, with the weather set fair and dry and no work deadlines that couldn’t be made to wait. I’d spent the morning on my most pressing errands and chores, and thenAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-33753708060036926812009-10-09T08:23:00.002+01:002009-10-09T08:41:41.758+01:00OverloadThis is just a “me too”, but it’s a heartfelt one.Charlie Brooker in Monday’s Guardian: “Every day we humans gleefully churn out yet more books and films and TV shows and videogames and websites and magazine articles and blog posts and emails and text messages, all of it hanging around, competing for attention. Without leaving my seat I can access virtually any piece of music ever recorded, Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-36656766820300555752009-07-31T12:47:00.002+01:002009-07-31T12:54:53.811+01:00The places I've beenThis is pointless really, but I enjoyed doing it, so I suppose somebody might enjoy looking at it:Venice, ItalyParis, FranceAntwerp, BelgiumVienna, AustriaBolzano, ItalyDubrovnik, CroatiaPrague, Czech RepublicMenton, FranceBerlin, GermanyMunich, GermanyCambridge, UKAmsterdam, The NetherlandsCologne, GermanyLondon, UKBoston, MA, USABrussels, BelgiumNew Orleans, LA, USAEly, UKWells-next-the-Sea, Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-425073362187850772009-07-14T15:04:00.007+01:002009-07-17T10:35:18.558+01:00Garbage collectingI've discovered something that might be important.If you write a few words on a Post-it note and stick it to the windowsill next to your desk, the ink will eventually fade and it will become totally illegible. At this point the only sensible course of action will be to throw it away. But you will be unable to bring yourself to do so. Just in case its mute presence might still assist you in Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-89436363565144347302009-02-26T23:24:00.004+00:002009-02-26T23:59:02.672+00:00The last 36 years have just been a diversionContemplating, as one must at my age, the menopause (I shall be fifty this year, so it is something of a hot topic—pun intended), I happened upon a new angle from which to consider this transition: as the end of a temporary state, during which one’s true personality has been submerged. An article on the Guardian women’s page (where else?) quotes one Jane Polden, a psychotherapist: “She’s felt Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-42571476747660026442009-02-15T10:59:00.003+00:002009-02-15T11:16:43.702+00:00Joining the dotsNow I have set things up so that posting to this blog generates a tweet automatically. And, whenever I twitter, my Facebook status updates. Is this a good idea? Or will it just result in a lot of things getting mixed up that ought to have been kept separate?I’m not sure what I think about all this web 2.0 stuff. It makes life harder in some ways. It is certainly harder to say “Sorry, I was too Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-63762821914461310222009-02-12T07:52:00.006+00:002009-02-12T09:04:50.894+00:00FloodThe river’s up again this morning. Higher than it’s ever been since we’ve had the boat, though nowhere near what it was in 2001.More photos on flickr.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2972073748292866966.post-70406669902413988902009-02-08T10:19:00.012+00:002009-02-11T13:48:48.248+00:00FOSDEM photos onlineI finally got round to posting my 2007 FOSDEM photos (actually Andrew took some of them). And I’ve put up some from this year, too, and a few drawings I did last year.The whole lot are on flickr now. If anyone who is in them doesn’t want to be seen, please let me know ASAP.If there is a photo of you that you like, do ask me for a higher-resolution version of it.PS (11 Feb): I have now finished Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980934281073616199noreply@blogger.com1