Quicunque

Hello blog, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again..

You look so fornlorn and neglected, and  - let's admit it, friend to friend - dated.

Our estrangement is my fault, I admit it. The words dried up. I wonder if I even have anything to tell you about nowadays. Let's see, shall we? Let's give you a new streamlined theme and maybe a renewed purpose for your life will follow.

While I’m generally very negative about TV or movie adaptations of books I love (and usually with full justification), I’m never sure how I feel about adaptations of books I’ve simply quite enjoyed. I don‘t have the same possessiveness about them, but I do have strong mental impressions and thus certain preconceptions and expectations. It’s not just how characters might physically look on the screen, although that plays a large part of it, but how accurately the flavour, the atmosphere of the novel might be transferred to a visual medium, and how much might be lost in translation.

Apparently there’s a BBC tv adaptation of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell being made that’s due to be aired later this year, which for some reason I only heard about today (I know….). I have no problems with what I’ve seen of the cast list and what I recall of the names on it, but I do worry about how they are going to condense 1024 pages, 185 footnotes and a whole army of major and minor characters into 7 episodes, AND handle the fact that the ending – well, it isn’t an ending really, is it? At least, not for Strange and Norrell.

Although I didn’t love the book overall quite as much as wanted to, I did appreciate the dashing sweep of its scope and prose, the Englishness of its mythology, the erudition it wore quite lightly and its affectionate pastiche of all sorts of genres and styles. For me, the footnotes – stuffed full of minor stories and snippets of imaginary lore and literature – were as intriguing as the main story, maybe more so. None of this is something that will be easily or satisfactorily conveyed in a limited visual medium.

Still, I’m sure I’ll be tuning in to see what remains of the book when it hits the screen. And if I’m feeling generous and not too grumpy I might even try and judge it on its own merits and not pick too many nits.

Oh, and in response to the meme that doesn't seem to exist yet - I'm a Strangeite.

It's amazing the things that turn up when you're not looking for them, isn't it? We've made a start on packing stuff up ready for the move, and all kinds of things have come to light (or drifted to the surface, depending how you look at it). Long-forgotten stuff that hasn't been seen in years, and in some cases not since my partner got this house about 15 years ago. Today's haul of interesting discoveries include:

- Two packages of tea, Russian Caravan (unopened) and Pu-erh (opened but almost intact). 'Best before' date on both is 2009.

- A straw hat. Neither of us has ever worn a straw hat so we're completely flummoxed as to where this might have come from, but it might be useful if we ever decide to play a yokel in the amateur dramatic society at some point I suppose.

- A box of VHS video cassettes, presumably overlooked when our last video recorder passed away and was replaced with a new-fangled DVD player.

- A copy of Ancient Egypt magazine from March/April 2002. It features an article on "Humour and the Ancient Egyptians" which rather disapprovingly states, "one subject area a segment of the Egyptian population thought to be immensely amusing, namely bawdy jokes about sexual behaviours, which one can only hope were for a more mature audience, will not be examined here." Shame. Oh, and it's reassuring to note that the Papyrus font was still all the rage back in 2002,

Working for a cantankerous 83-year-old with the temper and logic of a spoiled toddler frays the nerves, but I've learned over the last few years that you just have to try and bite your tongue and suck it up if you want a pay cheque at the end of the month. It's not like employment opportunities are exactly hammering on the door at the moment, or look likely to in the foreseeable future. I just keep reminding myself that I do it to pay for the things I love in my own time and a roof over my head. But when I think of time ticking away and all the unproductive, unrewarding hours and days lost to this petty tyranny that I can never get back, never reclaim for myself, it's hard not to feel resentful sometimes.

But I don't want to re-start my blog with bitching and moaning! I'm just superstitious enough to suspect such a downbeat start would bode poorly for it! So, to lift mood a little, here's some things that I'm taking a lot of pleasure in at the moment:

- Reading. I'm about a third of the way through Douglas Hulick's Sworn in Steel, the second of his Tales of the Kin series, I read the first one a couple of years and loved it, and had been looking forward to the second book coming out. And I'm pleased to say, I'm not disappointed - our feckless rogue of a hero, Drothe, is as charming and misfortune-prone as ever, and I do enjoy the world he inhabits. So, good stuff. And there's some other much-anticipated sequels due out over the summer so my inner bookworm is squirming with happiness.

- Craft things. I haz a box of brand-new crystalline watercolours to play with! And multimedia ideas galore.

- Sunshine! It's a glorious sunny day out there and when I've finished my coffee I'm going to take myself off for a stroll down the lanes, which at the moment are bordered with rich greens topped by the white froth of cow parsley. May is definitely my favourite month, tra la.

Today I drank the last of the Secretos del la Alhambra tea I bought in Granada, from the tea and spice stall in the shadow of the Cathedral of the Incarnation. Even though more than several years old, it kept its flavour of rose petals and oranges and spiced sunshine right to the last golden drop. If I close my eyes it's a perfect antidote to England's chill and damp fog.

Moss grows so thick on the bare trees that brushing against it is like stroking a cat's back, sparkling with diamond chips of water held within its luxuriant pelt. A swathe of colour in a dull grey world.

Photo copyright myself 2012