‘I never said nothing,’ said Nanny Ogg mildly.
‘I know you never! I could hear you not saying anything! You’ve got the loudest silences I ever did hear from anyone who wasn’t dead!’ [said Granny Weatherwax]
– Lords and Ladies
#TIL that 290 million years ago wood-rotting fungus evolved, and after that, no more coal.
All of this, and also it will get easier if you write more longhand. You’re not used to it – like anything, it’ll get easier with practice.
Write on paper, with a pen. You cannot submit that to anyone (everyone requires electronic submission these days) so you’ll *have* to type it up, at which point you can, via the magic of editing, make any terrible bits good.
Keep muttering “I’ll fix it later” until you have most of a draft.
Tim Curry in The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Tim Curry in Clue
Tim Curry in The Three Musketeers
Tim Curry in Muppet Treasure Island
Happy 80th birthday to Tim Curry who has always, *always* understood the assignment.
That too. If I was taught anything, I think it was “serial comma”
I know, I see the irony 😆
But if you want them, fine, you do you. I’ll have my ‘ise’ endings, single quotation marks, ‘ou’s and double ‘ll’s and you… write the way you like. It doesn’t matter. You’re not right. I’m not right. It’s a style preference, not a personality type.
There is, for the record, no compelling reason for using them: if your sentence is so poorly constructed it could be laughably misunderstood, then you should rewrite the sentence. It’s a bad sentence. One tiny piece of punctuation is not going to buttress a whole bridge of messily connected items.
Let me tell you a secret. I care about Oxford commas only as far as knowing what they are and ensuring they’re used reasonably within a given piece of writing.
But I hate Oxford comma *discourse*. HATE. IT.
I hate it so much I had the term muted for ages. I will probably mute it again.
Ageing: the condition of becoming less serious about all you were once far too serious about and more serious about all that you once undervalued.
Here. Draw the line here. Adjusting the colour balance, exposure and sharpness doesn’t fundamentally change the image. This does. It’s a different… I was going to say bird, but it’s not even that. It’s certainly no longer a photograph.
The Facts About AIDS insert from the Like a Prayer album.
Publicity shot of Madonna with her dancers from the Blonde Ambition tour. All but one of her dancers were gay.
Madonna included safer sex information with every copy of the (patchouli-scented) Like A Prayer album.
There’s a reason why gays of a certain age (my age) will always love her, she had our backs when few did.
To enter with heart and mind into the world of the imagination may be to head deliberately and directly toward, or back toward, engagement with the real world.
Two hooded figures with lamps approach a moonlit, isolated cottage. A woman answers the door. We have come for the child, says the hooded figure So soon? she asks It is time, says the hooded figure. The woman is distraught. We should never have got him a library card! What is done cannot be undone, says the hooded figure We couldn’t see the harm! We just wanted him to enjoy reading! For most, it ends there, says the hooded figure, turning away and walking into the wilderness Oh lord, What have I done! says the woman, the child walks past her and out into the darkness with them. Do not cry mother. I am a writer now.
my latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com
Heh, thanks! If you ever decide to do a sequel, may I suggest Towcester (toaster)?
The Question Erm, well – I begin, shifting nervously in my chair – if it’s true there is no heaven and no hell, no eternity or long hereafter, no divine plan or offstage direction from an invisible hand, then how do we make sense of it all, how do we make our way through this life, this glorious, ridiculous, ramshackle world of ours, with its wars and brutality, conflicts and petty arguments, the ten thousand tiny acts of kindness which happen unnoticed before breakfast, and all that love and pain, happiness and loneliness that comes to us unannounced, by turns, as if we ourselves were pitched daily onto the waves of one of its vast, mysterious oceans, not knowing whether today is the day we drown or we find ourselves washed up on some strange but friendly shore? Mmm – you say, after a lengthy silence – what I meant was … do you have any questions about the job? Brian Bilston
Today’s poem is called ‘The Question’.
£15 lol. That doesn’t even pay for an eye test!
I paid a horribly large bill for new pairs of glasses today. They weren’t even expensive frames – I just have a complicated eye situation.
Thank goodness for good teeth.
Thanks!
Day 38 and the butterflies have finally been released. This one took a little rest on the way. But also, good news: we’ve got another pot of caterpillars! So more to release in another month or so… #KatsCaterpillars 🐛🦋
Remind me which service it’s on?
It’s April 18! You know what that means! In 1938 the world saw the first sustained appearance I one of the single greatest fictional characters to ever exist: LOIS LANE. Some other notable great chars also appeared in that same Action Comics #1. But none quite as awesome as Lois.
Last night I heard a child outside screaming 'I don't want to be tired! No!' and...same, child, same.
This. So much this. SO MUCH THIS.
No, he never made such a claim beyond saying he would “stand back,” which only meant he would recuse himself as showrunner.
The claim has been made by plenty of other people though, so I understand why people think it.
And I’m grateful to the people who’ve done as much as they could to enforce restraint and show consideration. I noticed. Thank you 🩶
… they have the absolute GALL to say this is what Terry Pratchett would have wanted. No. I don’t believe he would have approved of this distorted mess. Yes, I know who’s involved. I STILL don’t believe it. I will NEVER believe it.
The thing that upsets me most, after what is probably too much reflection on this whole mess, is the complete and utter disregard for the source novel. Its messages and themes – the themes that Terry Pratchett carefully wove into it – have been utterly missed by the majority of GO fans. All while…
