Category Archives: memes

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Listography : Top 5 Photos of 2011

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I’m glad that Kate’s Listography this week has eschewed the temptation to ask about our New Year Resolutions — if only because I don’t believe NYRs!

No, this week Kate has asked us to choose our five favourite photos of 2011 from amongst those we’ve taken. This I like! I could easily do a lot more than five. So I decided that I’d give you my five favourite 2011 flower photographs from my Flickr photostream.

1. Crocuses (taken in our garden in February)

[7/52] Crocuses

2. Jonquil (taken in our garden in March)

Jonquil

3. Peony (taken at Kew Gardens in May)

Peony

4. Hebe (taken in our garden in July)

[29/52] Hebe

5. Hollyhock (taken in Chipping Norton in September)

Hollyhock
The Peony and the Crocuses appeared in my photobook (see on the right).

Enjoy!

Have a great 2012!
beliefs, books, food+drink, memes, music, personal, quotes

Ten Things of 2011: The Summary

Back in January I set out to write ten things each month so that at the end of this year you knew 120 more things about me: things I like and things I dislike. Just for the record, and seeing as it's the end of the year, here is the complete list …

Things I Like

  1. Sex
  2. Cats
  3. Steam Trains
  4. Koi
  5. Nudity
  6. Roses
  7. Beer
  8. Sunshine
  9. Photography
  10. Tea
  11. Beaujolais Nouveau
  12. Fresh Snow
 Things I Won't Do

  1. Play Golf
  2. Sailing
  3. Ballroom Dancing
  4. Bungee Jumping
  5. Wearing DJ/Tuxedo
  6. Wear Jacket and Tie on Holiday
  7. Parachute
  8. Eat Sheep's Eyes or Tripe
  9. Take any more Exams
  10. Halloween
  11. Plumbing
  12. Go Horse Racing

Something I want to do

  1. Visit Japan
  2. Take a Trip on Orient Express
  3. Expand my Family History
  4. Travel Wick/Thurso to Penzence by Train
  5. Have Acupuncture
  6. Have a Nudist Holiday
  7. Visit Scilly Isles
  8. Win £2M
  9. Get Rid of my Depression
  10. Fly on Flightdeck of an Airliner
  11. Visit Norway & Sweden
  12. Write a Book
 Blogs I Like

  1. Katyboo
  2. Emily Nagoski :: Sex Nerd
  3. The Magistrates Blog
  4. Art by Ren Adams
  5. Whoopee
  6. Aetiology
  7. Not Exactly Rocket Science
  8. Norn's Notebook
  9. The Loom
  10. Bad Science
  11. Cocktail Party Physics
  12. Postsecret

Books I Like

  1. Anthony Powell; A Dance to the Music of Time
  2. Brad Warner; Sex, Sin & Zen
  3. Mary Roach; Stiff
  4. Lewis Carroll; Alice in Wonderland
  5. Brown, Fergusson, Lawrence & Lees; Tracks & Signs
    of the Birds of Britain & Europe
  6. John Guillim, A Display of Heraldrie
  7. Diary of Samuel Pepys
  8. AN Wilson, After the Victorians
  9. Florence Greenberg; Jewish Cookery
  10. Nick McCamley; Secret Underground Cities
  11. Douglas Adams, Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
  12. Charles Nicholls; The Reckoning
 Music I Like

  1. Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here
  2. Beatles, Abbey Road
  3. Yes, Close to the Edge
  4. Monteverdi, 1610 Vespers
  5. Caravan, In the Land of Pink & Grey
  6. Carl Orff, Carmina Burana
  7. Amanda Palmer, Map of Tasmania
  8. William Byrd, The Battell
  9. Pink Floyd, Learning to Fly
  10. Moody Blues, Octave
  11. Handel, Messiah
  12. JS Bach, Christmas Oratorio

Food I Like

  1. Curry
  2. Pasta
  3. Sausage
  4. Butter Beans
  5. Whitebait
  6. Avocado
  7. Cheese
  8. Smoked Fish, especially Eel
  9. Chips
  10. Swiss Chard
  11. Pizza
  12. Treacle Tart
 Food & Drink I Dislike

  1. Egg Custard
  2. Carrots
  3. Sweetcorn
  4. Pernod
  5. Sheep's Eyes
  6. Green Tea
  7. Tapioca
  8. Absinthe
  9. Marron Glacé
  10. Milk
  11. Sweet Potatoes
  12. Butternut Squash
 Words I Like

  1. Cunt
  2. Crenellate
  3. Merkin
  4. Merhari
  5. Amniomancy
  6. Vespiary
  7. Numpty
  8. Halberd
  9. Verisimilitude
  10. Persiflage
  11. Mendicant
  12. Antepenultimate

Quotes I Like

  1. If you don't concern yourself with your wife's cat, you will lose something irretrievable between you. [Haruki Murakami]
  2. When we talk about settling the world's problems, we're barking up the wrong tree. The world is perfect. It's a mess. It has always been a mess. We are not going to change it. Our job is to straighten out our own lives. [Joseph Campbell]
  3. The purpose of our lives is to be happy. [Dalai Lama]
  4. The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. [Flannery O’Connor]
  5. I like small furry animals — as long as they're tasty. [Lisa Jardine]
  6. The covers of this book are too far apart. [Ambrose Bierce]
  7. It will pass, sir, like other days in the army. [Anthony Powell]
  8. The gap between strategic rhetoric and operational reality remains dangerously wide. [Prof. Gordon Hewitt]
  9. Pro bono publico, nil bloody panico. [Rear-Admiral Sir Morgan Morgan-Giles]
  10. Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And East is East and West is West and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste more like prunes than a rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know? [Groucho Marx]
  11. The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. [JBS Haldane]
  12. If we don't change our direction we're liable to end up where we're going. [Chinese Proverb]
memes

Listography : Christmas

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Kate’s Listography this week asks that we write about five things which make Christmas, Christmas for us. So …

King’s College Carols. The traditional service of Nine Lessons and Carols has been broadcast from King’s College Chapel, Cambridge on Christmas Eve afternoon since before I was born. There will be very few years when I’ve not heard it. For me this is the real start of the Christmas festivities and is always associated in my mind with the smell of baking mince pies!
Fairy Lights. There have to be fairy lights. As a very minimum fairy lights on the tree. But these days we usually indulge in a few more, depending on our fancy at the time. And I like to see twinkly lights anywhere and everywhere at Christmas. Somehow they bring out the spirit of happiness.

Royal Institution Lectures. Every year the Royal Institution in London puts on a series of science lectures for children (really aimed at young teenagers) and over the years just about every respected scientist in the UK has presented them. Each year is a different theme, by a single lecturer. And for many years now they have been televised; I remember some very early televised lectures by Prof. Eric Laithwaite on engineering! This year I’m delighted that they are once again being televised by the BBC; although they are now only three lectures (there used to be five or six) hopefully this means they will have been less dumbed down than of recent years when commercial TV has broadcast them.

Carols. I like carols. I always have done. Yes, I like a good sing, but I also have fond memories of singing carols in the choir at school and of carol singing. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas with out some good carol singing.

Opening presents round the fire on Christmas morning. This is a childhood tradition which Noreen and I have kept. Christmas morning sees us sitting round the fire, usually with a large gin & tonic, opening our main presents. Another present tradition from my childhood which we keep is having small (in size and value) presents under the tree which we open after tea on Christmas Day evening.

These are just some of the essential ingredients of my Christmas.

Happy Christmas, Everyone!