specialknives

There is a thing, which I do, which some of you may have been subjected to, which my sister just now has certainly been subjected to, which is on parting the turning-away peace sign flashed, unanswerable. There is also a reason for this, a basis for the positioning, which is imposed on you if you see it WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT, MAN!. This is that there was a film of Woodstock, which was shown on Channel 4* when I was an impressionable age (IE ALL THE TIME (IE but no seriously, probably about 15-20 years ago)), which featured at aone point a nun, flashing the peace sign, unanswerable, etc. And there was someone, in a Channel 4 editing suite, who was decided that that frame was the one which should be the into-ad/outof-ad frame for Channel 4, and this is how I was made.

PS it is possible that I am very very drunk.

*theoretically the ad-break could have been ITV, but I think it's fairly inarguable that it was Channel 4. One of Sue Townsends Adrian Mole books has an entry for "today Channel 4 was launched, it appears to be a channel for people who do the crossword", and my heart rejoiced and this is how I was made etc, except now I have been faced with the naked classism of that statement, but still never the less I think that the first 10-15 years of Channel 4 are the best TV channel ever anywhere and possibly this discussion is best suited to a forum other than a footnote, yes.

Seeing as it is my experience at the moment....

So here I am sitting in the semi-darkness at midday as the baby sleeps - he needs some sleep but isn't very good at getting it when its too light or his parents aren't in the room. Probably creating all sorts of problems for the future of moving him into his own room by being in the same room as him, but at least he is sleeping in his bassinet, rather than on his parents :-)

Time has passed swiftly since Owen was born - I can't believe that in 2 and a half months time I'm going back to work, when at the moment I feel like I can barely make it out of the house. (Well, actually I can't make it out of the house - I can't drive due to the caesarean, though I'm not so worried about the driving, the actual issue is getting the baby plus car seat in and out of the car at either end :-) People say it gets better.

Things i have noticed so far about parenting

- Whatever I do I feel guilty for doing the WRONG THING WHICH IS GOING TO DAMAGE MY CHILD FOREVER. Society needs to support parents, not make them feel like shite. It does an exceptionally poor job of this.

- Plunket line is completely unhelpful. When you ring them to say 'my baby is unsettled, these are the symptoms etc, they tell you about the 'feed, play, sleep' routine, and a bunch of techniques for settling the baby which are available from any website in the land. They also keep you on the phone for time that would be much better spent in actually trying to settle the baby rather than talking to plunket line. I was particularly not impressed when I said that we couldn't settle the baby and he'd been awake for three hours, and they told me I shouldn't have a baby awake for longer than 90 minutes. YES I FREAKEN KNOW THAT LADY, THAT'S WHY I'M TALKING TO YOU! Also mega-unimpressed when I said that the baby goes between four hours between feeds overnight and they told me I shouldn't leave the baby to sleep for longer than three hours. AND IF ITS FOUR HOURS BETWEEN THE START OF FEEDS THAT'S ABOUT 30-60 MINUTES OF FEEDING, NAPPY CHANGING AND SOOTHING BACK TO SLEEP WHICH MEANS ABOUT 3-4 HOURS OF SLEEP. HONESTLY, IF I SHOULDN'T LEAVE THE BABY TO SLEEP, WHEN AM I SUPPOSED TO SLEEP? They also didn't mention colic. Maybe the 'feed, play, sleep' routine completely eliminates colic. Ha Ha.

- which is another confusing thing about parenting - I thought demand feeding meant feeding the baby when it wanted food. Apparently not. Apparently it means waking the baby up at regular four hour intervals. So the only difference between demand feeding and the 1960s appears to be that instead of waiting four hours to feed your baby, you have to make sure you don't wait longer than four hours to feed your baby.

- I am currently not feeling very happy or confident with the advice of a significant proportion of the medical profession. There are some who are wonderful and reassuring, and provide assistance, not directions, and a lot who are completely judgmental and consider there is only one right thing that must be done for the baby, regardless of circumstances. I'm also feeling that a lot of the socially constructed mythology around natural childbirth and baby care is bollocks.

La la la, this turned into much more of a rant than I expected. Owen is lovely, he's smiling at us now, and has just started to take an interest in objects, including the elephant that plays a tinkly tune that his cousin sent him from Australia.

I need more sleep :-)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/hYKPEaI5pzw/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=166054

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/OjOiAPZe-Uo/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=165898

Cafe Ora in Wellington is completely gluten-free. Oh MAN. I'm going the next time I'm in Wellington!

Saigon Van Vietnamese restaurant in Dunedin has a completely gluten-free lunch menu, and the dinner menu may also be completely gluten-free (I have to get confirmation about the banana cake dessert). Even better, the food is outstanding, and very reasonably priced. What a little hidden treasure!

Venerdi toasting baps make great substitutes for English muffins, hamburger buns or rolls and the texture is as close to wheat as anything I've tried or made myself. They're expensive, but worth it for the occasional treat.

This is the best recipe for gluten-free bread that I have ever seen. Making the dough takes a bit of getting used to because it just... sits there, initially, and doesn't look like it can ever work. But then it DOES. The texture is just right, and it tastes pretty damn good, too. I've been making this regularly since I got the recipe, and now find myself using a lot less (expensive) spelt flour. Total win.

THE BATCAVE – two exclusive books
I’ve just self-published two huge photo books about The Batcave. Covers and all details are behind the cut. I realise it may not be specifically geo-centric, but hopefully it is of interest to anyone interested in Goth.
( Read more... )

The Pre-Raphs given the Tudors treatment

a.k.a. as allegedly in the Tudors case 'Is any of this actually true?' (yes, parts really are)

I look forward to it. There is obviously a great story in/ about/ and/or to be made of the Pre-Raphs.

It's like the story of Lewis and Tolkien which I knew in bits and reckoned would make a great story and then someone did that in Shadowlands. The story of the pre-raphs is obviously there for the taking - young people, sharing muses, making a stand against authority, keeping wombats in their back gardens, etc etc., - it needs to be made a drama of.

(OK, they've done that one, and the C.S.L./Tolkers, do I have any great stories left that I know about left? Douglas of the Douglas Fir, or the Voyage of Sibthorp and Bauer to Greece? Botanist/explorers. must contact HBO soon. (or Coleridge/Wordsworth, but I think that was already filmed))

You've missed me, you know you have. Mainly 'cause your aim is shit and you couldn't hit the barn side of a broad. It's ok, I still love you.

( Wedensday. Jesus, has it really been that long? )

( Thursday lack-of-comedy and dubstep. I like more step in my dub, thanks )

( Friday's child will smile winningly at you and try and get you to either tip her or buy her a shot, and Saturday's child killed a man in Reno once, just because he asked her what RTDs she had. )

Sunday's child has yet to take Saturday's Child's boots off. Oy to the motherfucking veh. Sunday's child is also rather excited about the Bastille day Masquerade party that work is hosting, and can't decide which corset to wear. I'm leaning towards the blue silk one, only I have to be careful because a) bar filth and silk means NO, and b) If I reach up high enough* the world gets to see my nipples, and that's not for work. However, corsets at work and I'll be able to talk at people in French for the night, which will be DAMN COOL. I anticipate many pretty people dressed up all nice and shiny and stuff. Do want.

Now, Sunday's child is hauling her sorry ass to bed before she gets properly belligerent.

*Like, to the top shelf for all of the nice booze what I like to have shots of.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/lq8MPSonJGU/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=166818

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/CuteOverload/~3/MoOlPq0uk9Y/

http://cuteoverload.com/?p=29292

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/I3yJeGdw1Nw/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=166812

Classics Karen Likes:

Pride and Prejudice
Emma
Northanger Abbey
A Tale of Two Cities
The Three Musketeers
Les Miserables
The Iliad
The Odyssey
The Frogs
Lysistrata
Most of Shakespeare's plays, except Titus Andronicus and A Winter's Tale, and the ones no one has read like King John because I also haven't read them.

Classics Karen Doesn't Like:

Mansfield Park
Juvenal's Satires, the ass
Everything else Dickens wrote
The entire catalogue of the modernist novel
ETA: Jane Eyre
Wuthering Heights

It seems to be included on the Likes list, one should include 1) humour and/or
2) swordfights, yo.

ETA 2: I forgot a MAJOR exception, which is Euripides' The Trojan Woman. No swordfights, no humour, complete downer of a story complete with child murder and female slavery and yet I love it the most.


Also! I got to make the donation to the Alannah and Madline Foundation! Behind the cut is proof of the collected donation. A number of people redeemed their pledges by donating separately, so the total of all donations was actually $1 381.

To me, that is big person money. Thank you all very much for taking part, and I'll be doing it again next year for sure!

( Donation number stuff )

I'm shooting the flower set today, but the model is stuck in traffic so I'm chilling out in the studio, on the grass, which is awesome and soo comfy, I want it in my living room. So yeah, I'm bored and thought I'd share the final photos of the wonderfulqueen_tea's jewellery collection Sacré Coeur...




( Snippity Snip )

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/Tryf1wlmNxk/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=165472