The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Maureen Speller:

Teresa, I will ensure his safe delivery to Glasgow.

Xopher, haggis pakora sounds fine to me! But then, I do actually like haggis ...

Kathryn Cramer says: 'At least it wasn't anthrax' – Channel 4 news produced the now obligatory report on 'white powder' found at one of the tube stations. Most likely plaster dust, given that most tube stations appear to be in a perpetual state of renovation.

tom p: while there seems to be no doubt that armed police are going through University College hospital with a fine tooth comb, it's entirely unclear what they're looking for. There seems to be some confusion as to whether the man with wires really exists (the description is a masterpiece of 'how could this man hide anywhere' elements; as I observed elsewhere, all he needs is red flashing eyes, spring-heeled boots and a cloak ...) . Much excitement over a person being stretchered into the hospital. Obviously, this never normally happens at UCJ.

And having spent much of the afternoon looking at news reports, it does seem to be either a copycat bombing carried out with staggering incompetence, or, and I hesitate to float this idea, some very strange kind of stunt. Some of my UK acquaintances are wondering if it's a demonstration of lax security is (though how one might strengthen security on the tube, other than forbidding people to use it, I don't really know), but I doubt even the UK red-top papers would stoop quite so low, not when there is more mileage to be had from embarrassing Sandhurst by infiltrating its hallowed perimeters.

Keith, there is a poison garden open to the public at Alnwick, in northern England. I've not visited yet but have a plan to – like you, I have fancied having a poison garden.

More details here

I am charmed by the thought of Jonathan Lennox's transcendentia ...varieties 'Concord' or 'Emerson', are fairly compact, although the latter can be colourful and exuberant on occasion, while 'Thoreau' is a little more prone to ramble, and has a preference for watery margins.

Teresa – advice on basil noted for future reference. Commercial dried basil is ... well, I assume it came from a plant once upon a time, but it's hard to tell. I'm also struck by the difference between the basil plants one buys at the supermarket, in yet another misguided attempt at triumphing over adversity, and the plants currently growing in my conservatory. They seem to be vaguely related

I'd just like to thank everyone for lending me the collective basil karma this year ... I have never had much luck with it before but this year I have seed trays full of it, in various varietal disguises ... I've grown 'bush' basil, 'sweet genovese' basil, red basil, lemon basil, dwarf lemon basil, cinnamon basil, anise basil ... and am now contemplating world domination through pesto.

It's a good year in the back garden. The parsley's been pretty good, the mint is in a pot and flourishing, I've managed to start zucchini and beans from seed, and having dug the compost heap last weekend and mulched a large part of the garden, the new compost heap is already cooking away happily (I turn my compost a lot for quick-composting results, and it has a huge population of composting worms – this bin easily takes care of chicken carcasses after I've made stock, although the usual advice is not to compost bones, etc. in a domestic heap. But we have no trouble with vermin, and it seems to work).

And the flower garden is just merrily self-seeding away.

Re: Shelby Foote's death, the Kincaid-Speller household is not surprisingly in mourning. The first books on the American Civil War that Paul Kincaid ever owned were the component parts of Shelby Foote's Civil War Trilogy, after seeing Foote on Ken Burns' series on the war. He totally stole that series. He will be much missed.

And presumably, out there, somewhere, is a sequel in which Orson Alden, bedridden as a result of fun, frivolity and being mown down by a horse, spends the entirety of the book contemplating the terrible fact of his having disobeyed his mother and how it has laid him low, and having renounced fun, frivolity and the attendant possibility of being mown down by a horse a second time, is miraculously cured.

One wonders what happened to the horse.

I really wish I was in New York rather than the UK. PaulK would get such a kick out of possessing a chunk of the Flatiron – it's his favourite building in NYC (my heart, alas, is given to the Chrysler, though the Flatiron runs it a close second).

If you recall the stone pillar that stands in my front garden, it is alleged to come from the old Waterloo Bridge, though I have only the word of a previous owner of the house. What it is doing in my garden is anyone's guess though I am of the opinion it definitely comes from some sort of balustrade rather than being intended to be a stand-alone garden ornament.

My sympathies. Flu, I've dodged, but only because I've been engaged with an ongoing something or other that turned into a lovely ongoing bronchial infection with added extras. I really should have gone to the doctor with this one, and put up with all the nagging about my failure to avail myself of all their other facilities, just to get the antibiotis ... but I didn't. My body is a temple, but a sick one. We can learn from this. Three and a half months is too long to have a low-grade illness!

Meanwhile, take good care of yourselves, both of you, and get well soon. And my best to the hamster.

I discovered today, while Googling the story about how several of the conspirators were injured while trying to dry gunpowder in front of an open fire (I wish I were making this up, but I'm not, honest) that there is a Gunpowder Plot Society. Their website is full of useful information.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the internet?

it’s like having a tame gas giant around

This is such a beautiful image ... and it reminded me of the paper lampshade Paul K. used to have hanging in the dining room of our old house, which I loved for the warm glow of light it gave out.

Re: blocked drains, cascading floods ...

We had a cloudburst here a couple of months back, and suddenly deep water was rushing past the back door and into the drain in the conservatory, and backing up because of all the crap it had washed in there; easy enough to scrape that out, but the waterflow just wasn't abating. As I slopped round to the back of the house in this raging torrent I discovered that the kitchen drain (shared with our neighbour, whose student lodgers have a poor relationship vis-a-vis drains and bacon fat) had chosen this moment to block and that all the water which was coming off the roofs and into the gutters and down the drainpipe was coming straight back up again.

So yes, that was me standing out there in the pouring rain, soaked to the skin, with my super-duper home-constructed (broomstick and circles of plastic tarp) industrial-size plunger, unblocking the drain. I reflect that it is cheaper and less damaging than calling a plumber and waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting, but really, I could use less fun in my life.

Let's hear it for the pasta strainer as drain cover.

Bob O observes: It's remarkable that we're using all this technology to talk about the weather - but with people all around the country instead of with the people next door.

And not just around the country ... I appreciate being able to log on from the UK and check that my friends in the US are safe, and to read about their experiences. It really is a small world these days; in some ways I like that.

PNH is also a fine person, for saving me from my fingers, and more particularly my ears, which are back in their usual places, in the usual quantity.

Bad Human:

Try to stop crying before you start typing, and also wipe your eyes. Your vision isn't so smeary then and you can see more of what's going on. Do not blame it on the ferret projectile-vomiting raisins, no matter how funny this image is.

Also, it is a wise move to make monumental typing gaffes in a rather less public arena.


Ahem ...

Teresa, were it not that one is required to be dead first, I would insist on your canonisation now, this moment. I am sitting here with tears literally streaming down my face, I'm laughing so much.

Thanks for a great start to my day.

And then I went to look at the snow in Jim McDonald's yard. Oh my. What an amazing photograph. I could almost hear the snow falling (that unmistakeable, highly pregnant silence that means nothing else). I now realise that yes, I want snow too.

I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures in the newspapers over here today. I've never seen that much snow in my life. I'd love to, but I wonder how I'd cope. Here it's just cold and I have a pile of sweaters which need to be washed because the cat slept on them. Is this bad timing or what?

I laughed when I read this ... sorry! Given I'm the person who at different times became briefly convinced that, flying in the face of everything I believe to be true, aliens really had landed in Washington and, at another time, on my local seafront, I shouldn't.

Of course, there's the UK Christmas holiday, which begins on Dec 24th and then goes on, and on, and on ... after next Christmas, nothing will start working properly until 5/1/04, and it will take another week for people to wake up again, which is a pain if you're a freelancer. We need National Go Back To Work Day here, I feel.

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