h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Good night all.

Anyone want to grade some papers analyzing Bacon using Aristotle's rules of rhetoric? They're hard going, since I'm bored to tears by the topic!

I have very few pre recorded DVDs I have bought~ a Sade concert, The Matrix and a recording of the Golden Jubilee concert which I only really bought as had problems getting my new DVD recorder set up and didn't have any pre recorded ones to check if DVD recorder was working, it was. I have a few Christmas DVDs which have been bought for me, not by me.
The thing is I record a lot of films from TV and to be honest I only ever keep one in a hundred as a recording, usually Christmas films, and delete most. My DVD recorder has been a boon for keeping historical recordings that are unlikely to be shown again. When I bought my first DVD recorder a single DVD recordable disc was £13! You can now get multiple packs where each disc can be as little as less than £1 each and sometimes nearly half of that which is cheaper than even cheap blank video tapes were and the quality is ten times better.
Clearly films recorded from TV aren't as new as cinema ones but they often end up on TV quite quickly,

The weather is conspiring against gardening at the moment: I need to put some bare rooted wallflowers in but it's started raining again.
My favourite film is Lawrence of Arabia, even though I know how historically inaccurate it is.
MR, sorry, but my knowledge of humanism is currently limited to sort of knowing about Leonardo Bruni and co.
*crosses fingers that certain people stop trying to play about in Sandy Places*

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I am sitting here in total silence.
Noisey Kid is asleep so either Mr Loud Voice is asleep too or keeping quiet for Noisey Kid. Mr DIY seems to be out upstairs, make that is out as there is no doubt when he is here as he is always doing DIY and thumping around with boots on the bare floorboards.
.
....I am looking up noise stopping systems to go under carpets in temporary blissful silence. I am thinking of something that can be removed and stored if Loud Voice and Noisey Kid come and go.

*whispers so she won't disturb Strangely's peace and quiet*

The Mystery Night went well. It was a lot of fun, and I was amazed at what a good job all of the characters did with their parts. We raised around $800 after paying off the caterers. Not a great amount, but we've had fundraisers where we made less.

Enjoy the silence!

We spent our extra hour (and then some...) cleaning up after a poorly pup. I won't begin to describe the sh...mess in the garage this morning, as some of you might be eating. But he did get to experience his first bath! No food for 24 hours, seems to be the recommendation. Poor wee sausage.

I have discovered that if there is one thing I hate more than marking essays it's writing them. It's not that I don't enjoy the research and the topic is interesting, but I've done all that now and the actual write up is seeing me rival DNA for avoidance tactics. I think it might be time to have another bath.

It doesn't help that the deadline is a good week away.

So I'll do your marking, MR, if you have a pop at writing about the tensions in the history education community caused by the British 14 - 19 curriculum and the wider educational goals to which history is expected to contribute.

I thought it might be something like that with the arrows, GDZ. I'm also going to claim that it's too easy to shoot people in the back if you stick the archers behind. Although why not off to one side? Eh well, perhaps I'm taking the one source I'm working with with a bit literally there.

We have an opera singer on our street, or at least someone who has that warbly and exceptionally penetrating quality in a latinate language. Luckily he only goes at it for short bursts.

Mind you, if I do take up the bass again as I keep threatening, I will probably become no 1 persona non grata on our row...

I have lots of favourite films... though the ones I really never get bored of watching are: Dog Soldiers, Clerks, Shaun of the Dead, Hellraiser and Braveheart (yes, I am aware that it was filmed in Ireland, features no Scots among the main cast and is one giant historical inaccuracy from start to finish... but hey, at least it casts the Scots in a positive light).

Went to the Living History Fayre yesterday... bought a pile of beef jerky made to historically inspired recipes (i.e. the recipes are not authentic but the spices and flavours used are), ordered a nice big hood in black and purple and the aforementioned hosen (self-supporting ones however, there are many sacrifices I'll make for LARP, but wearing costume that's more complicated than it has to be ain't one of them), and some new vambraces. Mrs. D got lots of fabric and a braiding wheel. Looked at some longswords too, but I don't reckon they were worth the £280 price that was being asked.

Well done Hyp,
there is an irrony that the noiser my neighbours are the quieter I am for several reasons. One reason is I give up and switch my TV off if I can't hear it or go out for some peace.
Also although I am enjoying this rare peace if I make a noise I will wake Noisey Kid up and get noise more so it is to my advantage to be extra quiet. Also I am extra quiet in the mornings in the hope that if Mr DIY sleeps for longer he will start DIY later so I gain more peace. So silence can sometimes create more silence.

Braveheart? Pah, for Scottish history try Rob Roy. Shame there doesn't seem to have been a decent Robert the Bruce (or Robert Bruce as he now seems to be called) film.

Sitting here in the old courthouse next to the big woodstove, wondering how I managed to use my day off so fast. I'm just not used to these structured weeks yet.

Oh, I already know plenty of Scottish history... I just really like Braveheart. And I always chuckle when I vist Scotland and see all the little statuettes of Mel Gibson for sale!

Damn essays. Damn them to hell.

Also, my husband is insane and has spent the entire, THE ENTIRE, day tidying the spare room and sorting paperwork out. He is only doing it to make me feel sheepish about the general essay-whingery. I know this, because all the little gremlins are out to steal my socks this week. Has anyone seen my grey hand-knited ones? They're the best socks for writing essays in and they've vanished. Also, the coffee machine has an air-lock, and the flat is full of laundry, and I'd need to clean the bath before I had a bath in it.

I have actually written most of the essay. But it stinks, it's rambling, it's poorly thought out, it fudges issues, and it sits on the fence. I hate it, but rewriting it is going to be just so amazingly painful I don't know if I can bear to. At least, not without warm grey feet and a decent cappucino.

*sob*

Sol, I know something about history education, but alas, not the British system. So I guess it's my own markings, then.

Ag, when's the paper due? If you have a couple of days, set it aside for 24 hours, then come back to it. That always works well for me.

Braveheart makes me quail. I'm waiting for a movie to be made about Owen Glendower. I like the Welsh, and I like that for a couple of years there, Owen and his gang really had the British crown nettled.

*waves of fellow feeling for Ag*

I have got 1000 words of the 2000 target I've set myself - it's supposed to be 2500 but did I mention that this is the draft? Which we and in, get feedback on and then retinker with? Which can only mean it'll get longer, I reckon, and my last one was already hopelessly over and the mere thought of reducing my lovely long rambly sentences in that to something pithy and cogent is too too depressing already.

Anyway, what I'm particularly not looking forward to is the bit where I have to go back and add in all the specific points where at the moment I've written [add suporting example]and the page references to other people ideas (most of the essay so far).

However, sod it all, now I am going to cook plum flavoured chicken with couscous and watch Top Gear.

Oh and MR, I suspect your students have had a lucky escape there as you may not know much about the British education system, but what I know about Aristotle and Bacon is bound to be less... well, actually, perhaps your students would be better off with me then...

I have a new favourite film. We went to the cinema today. Actually we went and had chinese (or oriental, as it is more fashionably now known ) then went to the cinema. It was the usual dilemma of Trog and the son&heir wanting to watch big bad boys beating up on each other whereas wants to watch Polyanna We compromised with the boys watching The Dark Rising (which they didn't understand ) while I dragged the little'un off screaming to watch Nancy Drew. Bite me. I loved the books.

She loved the film. I loved the film. We had icecream (dairy 'allergy' having mysteriously disappeared since she had chickenpox )after while waiting for the 'men' to emerge befuddled. Altogether a good afternoon

The Dark is Rising is one of my favourite books ever. I was just telling Ag that it changed my life completely as I swear I went to Russia because of it - it's the descriptions of snow. For this reason I am avoiding the film - the trailer had the lead character older, taller and with a girlfriend, which is bad enough, but now Ag tells me that it's also set in the US which is completely nuts as when it isn't about snow it is about British mythology (with bells on). I'm not surprised the menfolk came out befuddled.