Lo these many years ago -- I think I was in sixth form, so 2006-2008ish -- I picked up a copy of mauve from a charity shop (probably the Oxfam bookshop on Sidney Street?).

Today, lo these many years later, I finally! caught up to the present day! of A Slob Comes Clean! which means that I can now stop dedicating most of my reading cope to that particular completionist digression, and can redirect to this year's planned Reading Project, namely "work my way through the stack of hard-copy books that probably don't actually meet my threshold for Want To Keep (In Hard Copy) at least to the extent of establishing that I no longer care about them and should Just return them to a charity shop*, and so I have once again picked up mauve, having got a whole five pages into it in late February.

Today I also made a desultory attempt to find out of there's anyone other than Ede & Ravenscroft who sell Imperial gowns* and in the process discovered that the reason they are quite such an egregious shade of that particular purple is -- and you can of course see exactly where this is going -- a specific commemoration of Perkin's mauve.

I am mildly peeved that (1) we apparently really don't actually wear hats for graduation, and (2) the purple velvet Tudor bonnet with white cord and tassel is, contra wikipedia, something only recipients of Higher Doctorates are entitled to. Upon my own head it shalln't, alas, be.

But: I really am charmed by this unexpected confluence, and it is delightful leavening for the ... something ... of bureaucracy. I think this metaphor has got away from me? I think perhaps it might be Time For Bed.

* They provide hire garments for the actual graduation ceremony, and deduct the cost of hire -- £58 -- from the purchase price, provided you make the purchase within 28 days following your actual graduation ceremony! They are also out of stock of the relevant items, and do not expect their stock to be replenished until the end of the summer, oh and also you can't place pre- or back-orders. They have confirmed, after I asked in very small words, that they really do mean that because they do not have stock I will not only have to pay £58 to hire the necessary accoutrements for the graduation ceremony, I will also have to pay full price with no discount if I make a purchase. I have not actually cancelled my attendance at the graduation ceremony in a fit of pique -- yet -- but I am going to be making a phone call on Monday in order to Ask Some Questions.

kaberett: oh goodness okay so I need to clarify
kaberett: that that post is wrong about the physics
kaberett: and rising plumes are not (for the most part) liquid, and nor is the mantle
kaberett: but that aside
kaberett: (whereas ~half the core IS actually liquid, which is slightly different to the core being "semifluid")
kaberett: (and also that's not the whole story of our current theory of How Plumes Initiate, which involves "slab graveyards", but I will stop there for now ;) )

• the biscuits??? Are a different shape???
  
• and contain... cocoa???
  
• and. do not Cronch. but are instead Sandy.
  
• meanwhile the chocolate layer is TOO THIN
  
• but the packet illustration still shows the Correct Friends (which is honestly the only reason I'm not entirely convinced I made their previous, Good, incarnation up entirely)

• The equinox has passed, and I'm now spending most of my waking hours in slipper socks again, as well as some of my napping ones. Warm feet yes.
  
• A spent a bunch of Wednesday-I-think evening Fiddling Around With Electronics, and now we have a bluetooth speaker that can be hooked up to the bat detector such that the latter can be left outside the other side of a closed door leaving the former to Chitter at us when we should be looking outside for BAT. It turns out they are active much later than we'd quite realised, being as they're quite difficult to actually spot once it's actually dark.
  
• Supervisor meeting today a combination of cheerful and useful. I have managed over the past week to actually work out what I'm trying to say with these last two chapters, or at least what topics I'm trying to address, and while I'm still shuffling sections around I'm mostly managing to remember that all the thinking I'm doing about it is useful thinking, and the back-and-forth is in fact progress even if it doesn't look like much.
  
• A Made A Request yesterday for Quiche Dinner, which I never get around to making just-for-myself, which meant that since I was making pastry I had Might As Well make enough to make a dessert pie as well, which means that for the past two nights we've had cheese-(allotment)tomato-(allotment)onion quiche, served with boiled potatoes and parsley (tastes like home) and, variously, more Cosse Violette and more roasted cherry tomatoes; with apple-and-(allotment)jostaberry pie with optional home-made vanilla ice cream for dessert.
  
• I bought a pot of Supermarket Basil in the last-but-one (or was it the one before that?) grocery order; I soaked it in water, separated the plants out, and dumped them in a trough with some more space and a lot of (home-made!) compost. They appear to have mostly survived and taken, and I am crossing my fingers for managing to keep this batch alive a little longer than I usually do.