Rumour

Sweet-potato
Originally uploaded by MrNickyP.

So now I have fallen totally in a puddle and walked into a lamp-post in the last 48 hours. Give or take a few hours. I was late for work. I was walking briskly up the hill I live on. The next thing I know I am hit smartly in the face by a very solid lamp-post and sprawled on the floor in great disarray.

Matthew Pateman is a professor of literature (and expressive arts) at the University of Hull, and has been a member of famed boy band Bad Boys Inc and worked as an actor.

In TV, he played the role of outed gay singer in the series Doctors.

In his academic career, he received PhD from the University of Leeds, and became a teacher at the Scarborough unit of the University of Hull.

His major publications are:
• Matthew Pateman: Julian Barnes, ISBN 0 7463 0978 3, 128 pp, 2002.

Checkup

Surprise in the Underpass
Originally uploaded by Dolores Luxedo.

I was walking home yesterday and I stepped into a puddle and suddenly found myself in water over my knees. And then Anna's bike fell over and so did I and I was totally immersed in the puddle. It was very suprising. It was a bit like being baptised and being drunk at the same time.

Owl Fight!

Owl Fight!
Originally uploaded by wildgrizgirl.

I live in a residential neighborhood in a large city in the US. On three separate occasions in the past month a small (about 6" tall) owl has swooped down from behind me and clawed me in the head. It doesn't hurt, it's just very disquieting to be standing in your yard at night and out of the blue something with the mass a litte more than a tennis ball bounces off your head with its claws digging into your head. It only happens from behind, it only happens at night, and it only happens when I'm standing in a place that provides an unobstructed flight path. The blows are quite direct and they make my head move a litte. The claws have never drawn blood, but it is really annoying none the less. I want to sit in my yard at night and drink beer in peace and not worry about getting clawed in the head. The latest attack happend about 15 minutes ago and so I thought I'd go on line and see what other people do when they are involuntarily involved in a turf war with an owl. Haven't seen much on the net, so I am going to attempt to net it and release it 5-10 miles away. I don't care if it has a nest. I am tired of being held hostage in my own house. I respect the little guy for taking me on like that, but if the net strategy doesn't work I'm going to buy a pellet gun and shoot it.

This is the reply I got to my Fighting an Owl question.

Blowing my own trumpet.

I'm sorry about this. But if you go to myspace.cium / battlejam and listen to the song called "battlejamlivesession" you can hear me ranting about water and rats and 4th generation deformed incest rats at this thing we went to a few months ago. I'm not entirely sure how it happened.

COURAGE means MARROW!

Marrows
Originally uploaded by TomsFarmDiary.

This was why we attempted the marrow-stuffing. The best bits were the haloumi and the cherry tomatoes. Even though I might be saying it because they were the only bits I bought and Anna bought the marrow and the rice and the garlic and the onion and the ginger. In fact she grew the garlics. However it was not as COURAGEOUS as the stuffed aubergine. We filled it with mozarella (and other things I cannot remember) and baked it. That was amazing.

Actually it turns out it's meant to be courge means marrow. Hence the courgette.

Tom has the 'Tower"

Man and beast
Originally uploaded by squacco.

Needless to say, I haven't been around much at the moment. Our internet's gone, definately for good in this flat, which means I'm unlikely to post anything very regularly at all until mid-september. Which is probably a good thing as I've still got about 15 000 words to write and 15 days to do so. On the minus side, it means you can't see the amazing pictures I've made on photoshop. (The new thief of time. Since I've been writing-all-day I've cooked more meals than I usually do, made four grotesque photoshop pictures (well, some were quite beautiful), nearly embarked on the making-blue-cheese project, tried to get funding to start our "Giant Poms Here" business... that sort of thing.)

However, there are a whole host of well exciting things that have been going down that I would love to write about. I'm not really sure if I'll get the chance. But some of these things are;

- Hanover Day; (Community! Event! Breakfast! Romanian Brass Band!)
- Pride (Gays! Party! Lack of sleep! Bear Party! Guy with blood all over his hands and the morning papers! Anniversaries! Kids!)

and various poetry gigs, Evening Stars, funny animals and other adventures. I'll tell you about them another time.

In fact i was so drunk i slept with this indian grocer called Ramesh Ramesh

Afternoon. Darn. Sugar. Heck.

So on the plus side I have a new house to move into in mid-September.

So on the minus side I have nigh on twenty thousand words to write for the last day of August, and I still don't have a computer.

It's a Flaubert's Parrotesque look at Julian Barnes, concentrating on themes of authenticity and the nature of fabulation in history. I'm absolutely bloody darn terrified.