vital functions
Nov. 10th, 2019 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettReading. Actually made progress on Shaun Tan's tales from the inner city! Via the magic of my BookChair and a duvet nest on the sofa and the ongoing Problems With The Mass Spec. I started again from the beginning, and have been flipping back and forth between The Book Itself and the bonus accompanying notes, and liking them a lot. Favourites so far: butterfly, snail, crocodiles, owl, dog, tiger. Favourite in a different way: horses. I am finding the exercise of attempting to read the stories just as what they are, without seeking allegory and metaphor, an interesting challenge.
Lots of fic bits. <3
Exploring. A & I headed out, today, to the London Transport Museum, specifically to spend some time in the Hidden London exhibition, though en route we also took in the early history of the London transport network: I hadn't realised that the first passenger railway was horse-drawn! They correctly attributed to the steam engine to Trevithick! I'm deeply amused that, on a very little digging, it looks like they had the etymology for hackney carriage precisely backward (in that the LTM claim it's from the French haquenée). I was charmed by some of the your-next-station-is-... displays. A had not known about Leinster Gardens!
My other absolute favourite thing from the early-history-of-the-tube section was a letter to The Times, dated 13th January 164, captioned by LTM "Nothing changes." My only quibble is, having read rather more letters sent to The Times in modernity than is entirely good for me, that this particular specimen might feel itself a little out of place in any current edition because it's calling for nationalisation of the railways. Text reproduced below the cut because I was charmed and delighted.
From Hidden London: the Exhibition itself, I learned a bunch more about the politics etc around sheltering in stations during air raids; about icons of St Barbara (patron of artillery & mines) still being stationed at the entrance to major TfL works; about distances on the tube network all being measured relative to Ongar, a station long-since abandoned. (I was also, of course, delighted by the Highgate bat tunnel.)
By this point we were a little tired and overwrought, having not really had a proper lunch, so we retreated to the café with the firm intention of going back to Do The Ground Floor Properly at some time when we're not both autistic-overwhelm, since our tickets are good for a year's entry to the premises.
Creating. I'm a bit sulky about not being able to reproduce the precise shade of unappealing purple on the petals on the thing I'm currently chiefly working on Lewisia rediviva, though I am also slowly adding bits and pieces to a partially-coloured-in-when-I-got-it Lilium auratum & am much more pleased with that.
I am getting some more of a sense of how pigments blend and layer, or don't, as the case may be, and have consequently started very cautiously applying small quantities of the Fancy Pencils to this colouring book also. I am Learning Things about the differences in how they handle.
Growing. I'm a bit wary about how slowly the holy basil is going at this point; I'm getting some true leaves, but they seem to be moving Very Slowly from there and I'm a bit concerned they're going to fall over and die again.
Other things did: chopped up & treated some wood for the next bits of raised-bed-building. I might, at the rate I'm going, manage to make it to the plot... around Thursday, ugh. (Or maybe I'll manage a bit of time on Wednesday afternoon; you never know.)
I have resentfully moved the string-of-pearls onto a sheet of kitchen roll in an attempt to persuade it to Grow More Roots -- it's sort of trying but only in incredibly desultory fashion. (I am not quite at Crowley levels of Threatening My Disappointment but it is doing me a concern, okay.)
Oh! And I got my act together to pot up the lavender.
Playing. Just started the hexagons in I Love Hue, which means I'm in a patch of fairly quick-and-easy puzzles and have been tearing through them fairly quickly.
A & I have done some more Being A Horrible Goose; we gave up and looked at a walkthrough & got ourselves thrown over a fence tonight, and I have watched A successfully complete two of the speedruns with a certain amount of kibbitzing (we are not doing them cooperatively because one that sounds a bit miserable and two speedruns Do Me An Anxiety).
In another sense: Bizet Jeux d'Enfants, Dvorak violin concerto and Tchaikovsky Suite No. 1 for orchestra (Opus 43), all as second horn. I'm a little frustrated by how much of a gap there is between where I am now and where I was when I was doing best in terms of practice, but I was making some actually lovely noises and remembering to enjoy the performance some, which is always nice, and I am going to Make Another Attempt to keep practising out of term.
Lots of fic bits. <3
Exploring. A & I headed out, today, to the London Transport Museum, specifically to spend some time in the Hidden London exhibition, though en route we also took in the early history of the London transport network: I hadn't realised that the first passenger railway was horse-drawn! They correctly attributed to the steam engine to Trevithick! I'm deeply amused that, on a very little digging, it looks like they had the etymology for hackney carriage precisely backward (in that the LTM claim it's from the French haquenée). I was charmed by some of the your-next-station-is-... displays. A had not known about Leinster Gardens!
My other absolute favourite thing from the early-history-of-the-tube section was a letter to The Times, dated 13th January 164, captioned by LTM "Nothing changes." My only quibble is, having read rather more letters sent to The Times in modernity than is entirely good for me, that this particular specimen might feel itself a little out of place in any current edition because it's calling for nationalisation of the railways. Text reproduced below the cut because I was charmed and delighted.
RAILWAY GRIEVANCES.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
Sir,--I live, with hundreds of others, down the Mid Kent Railway, below Beckenham, ten miles from London-bridge, all of us requiring to be in town more or less punctually every morning. The recent "facilities of new lines," as the phrase goes, have only woefully obstructed our business journeyings, and made our homes practically now 20 miles off London. I arrived at the London-bridge station this evening to go home by the train appointed in the railway bills to start at 6 15, and found our train had taken a trip to Charing-cross, leaving 200 or 300 of us waiting about 15 or 20 minutes on a very unsafe, cold, exposed, narrow platform, kicking our heels about while engines and trains passed to and fro, like Cheapside omnibuses, in dangerous proximity ; and after undergoing this ordeal we arrived at Bromley precisely at 7 20, just 1 hour and 5 minutes from the time our train should have started, in making a journey of 10 miles. And this is no solitary instance, and far from being one of our worst Mid Kent grievances.
In the course of our 10 miles of railway journey leading to our homes, we ill-used travellers undergo another purgatory at Beckenham (about two miles only from Bromley). There that "enterprising concern," the London, Chatham, and Dover Company, pushing itself about here, there, and almost everywhere, stops our Mid Kent way, and will not allow its neighbour's engines to move us one bit further ; and here often we city folks sit shivering in our carriages or pace the cold station till it pleases our west-end magnate to arrive from Victoria, and to drag us on our two or three miles to Bromley or Bickley, while any of us might have better walked, were it not for cold wet weather, over dark roads.
The morning up-journey to town brings little if any better comfort with it. Our west-end magnate usurps again her obstructive dominion, and we are "taken on behind" as far up as Beckenham, and left there till some mysteries of shunting of trains and half-trains from main lines and "sidings" take place ; and also to wait often till one and sometimes two of the trains of our Chatham and Dover masters release us from our siding, and allow our poor snubbed Mid Kent to sneak up to the city with us,--often afraid, too, one would think from its snail-like motion as it nears its quarters, to show its humbled face in its own station.
This is no imaginary sketch, but "a true story" with more to tell. Your excellent suggestion in a leading article this morning to have more frequent trains into the country, in order to develope residential traffic, will, I much fear, have little or no effect with the traffic managers to whose care our travelling convenience and comfort on the Mid Kent line are unfortunately entrusted, unless you can so agitate this matter, so important to so many of us now who live out of town, that Parliament will step in and free the national highway, as the railway now is, from the selfish obstructions thrown in our way by the quarrels of rival companies and other causes. Our Mid Kent traffic arrangements are getting worse and worse. A year ago we had trains running almost every hour from London-bridge through to Bromley and Bickley. Now, should we be prevented getting home by the renowned 6 15 train, by which I had the misfortune to travel this evening, we have not another train till 8 10, just two hours after, and missing that again, the next and only one is 10 50, or nearly three hours after. The trains are so very slow, too, we might go our 50 miles to Brighton while we are creeping away our short 10 miles journey on the borders of London. Again, no fewer number than seven of our Mid Kent daily trains which used to run through are not allowed to go further on their journey than Beckenham, because the Chatham and Dover Company won't have their neighbour's engines run any further, and they as resolutely refuse to carry us on by their own engines.
We have tried all other means in seeking redress, by writing letters to railway secretaries and general managers, and waiting singly and in deputations on these and other officials, but these have been of no avail. Do, please, let our cry be heard in the columns of your all-powerful journal, so that we may have at least some hope of help.
Yours, &c., ILL-USED TRAVELLER.
From Hidden London: the Exhibition itself, I learned a bunch more about the politics etc around sheltering in stations during air raids; about icons of St Barbara (patron of artillery & mines) still being stationed at the entrance to major TfL works; about distances on the tube network all being measured relative to Ongar, a station long-since abandoned. (I was also, of course, delighted by the Highgate bat tunnel.)
By this point we were a little tired and overwrought, having not really had a proper lunch, so we retreated to the café with the firm intention of going back to Do The Ground Floor Properly at some time when we're not both autistic-overwhelm, since our tickets are good for a year's entry to the premises.
Creating. I'm a bit sulky about not being able to reproduce the precise shade of unappealing purple on the petals on the thing I'm currently chiefly working on Lewisia rediviva, though I am also slowly adding bits and pieces to a partially-coloured-in-when-I-got-it Lilium auratum & am much more pleased with that.
I am getting some more of a sense of how pigments blend and layer, or don't, as the case may be, and have consequently started very cautiously applying small quantities of the Fancy Pencils to this colouring book also. I am Learning Things about the differences in how they handle.
Growing. I'm a bit wary about how slowly the holy basil is going at this point; I'm getting some true leaves, but they seem to be moving Very Slowly from there and I'm a bit concerned they're going to fall over and die again.
Other things did: chopped up & treated some wood for the next bits of raised-bed-building. I might, at the rate I'm going, manage to make it to the plot... around Thursday, ugh. (Or maybe I'll manage a bit of time on Wednesday afternoon; you never know.)
I have resentfully moved the string-of-pearls onto a sheet of kitchen roll in an attempt to persuade it to Grow More Roots -- it's sort of trying but only in incredibly desultory fashion. (I am not quite at Crowley levels of Threatening My Disappointment but it is doing me a concern, okay.)
Oh! And I got my act together to pot up the lavender.
Playing. Just started the hexagons in I Love Hue, which means I'm in a patch of fairly quick-and-easy puzzles and have been tearing through them fairly quickly.
A & I have done some more Being A Horrible Goose; we gave up and looked at a walkthrough & got ourselves thrown over a fence tonight, and I have watched A successfully complete two of the speedruns with a certain amount of kibbitzing (we are not doing them cooperatively because one that sounds a bit miserable and two speedruns Do Me An Anxiety).
In another sense: Bizet Jeux d'Enfants, Dvorak violin concerto and Tchaikovsky Suite No. 1 for orchestra (Opus 43), all as second horn. I'm a little frustrated by how much of a gap there is between where I am now and where I was when I was doing best in terms of practice, but I was making some actually lovely noises and remembering to enjoy the performance some, which is always nice, and I am going to Make Another Attempt to keep practising out of term.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-11 01:18 am (UTC)Ooo, is there information about St Barbara's icons and Ongar?
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-11 01:50 pm (UTC)Ah, the Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells line!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-11 09:55 pm (UTC)