Weird dream

I had a weird dream last night. I was just about to get married and I suddenly realised that I needed to change into my dress. The wedding was taking place at a hotel in less than an hour. I thought my dress was in my hotel room, but then realised to my horror that it was actually at home under my bed, an hour's drive or train ride away. I asked my mum if I could go and get it and she said I should get the train but she had a grey suit I could wear instead if I liked. I plaintively thought that i wanted to get married in a beautiful dress. I wanted my brother to drive me home to get my dress, but that wasn't allowed for some reason. Then I remembered that the dress was scrunched up under my bed waiting to be taken to the dry cleaners.

Usually when I am stressed, I dream that my teeth are falling out. This is a new one.

I couldn't find any way to summarise this

You will notice that I have set out first a sort of Barhebraeus corpus. I feel that in publishing the Ausar Raze we could very well pre-empt some of those German dissertation that Rendel Harris speaks about in the introduction. In fact we should in some measure trace Barhebraeus’ refuted dependence back through Bar-Salibi and Ishodad of Merv to Henana.

This is the beginning of a letter to Alphonse Mingana. The content defeated me.

Vale latest

The stork has delivered a baby boy, Alexander James Vale, to Russ and Caroline. 8 pounds. Curly hair. Very satisfactory result.

What a strange world some people live in

Theodore of Mopsuestia.
Dionysius or Jacob Barsalibi. St Ephrem. Isho'dad of Merv. No, these are not my mother's latest piano pupils. They are not New Names for James Lee Pig. They are early church fathers whose obscure writings are discussed with boundless enthusiam by James Rendel Harris and Alphonse Mingana.

Look who it is! Why did he roll up his trousers?

The fabulous Mr Gene Kelly hasn't appeared here recently. But I haven't forgotten my second favourite American man. In fact if my favourite American man is looking for a present to give me, he might consider getting 'Anatomy of a Dancer'.

Bob Dylan and the Victoria's Secret ads

Mike blogged about this. I am very upset. I trusted Bob. And dont' tell me that he's being ironic. it doesn't make it better.

Property delusions

I haven't posted anything for a while because my session expired. I have just signed in with the kind help of Tex support.
I meant to write some stuff about our Africa trip, but first I have to talk about our property delusions. (Just to remind everyone, I write this blog to clear out the junk from my head. If it happens to amuse, so much the better.)

When I came back from Africa, James was full of enthusiasm. "Let's move back to Oxfordshire," he said. "I miss the family. Let's go and live near them. I've seen houses in Botley at a price we can afford. Let's go back next summer!"

I do like the idea of living near the family - I miss them very much. Dad and James were very sad when the Pylon View Film Club (Chairman - Mike Riggs; Head - Matthew Broersma) held its last meeting last year. The Pylon View Society for Amateur Gardeners (Secretary - Mary Riggs; Associate Secretary - Anna Riggs) was also forced to close. And the occasional meetings of Dan Bashford and his Band (Dan - vocals; Tom - guitar; Anna - fiddle) have stopped completely since the fiddle player moved to Birmingham. Bad.

So we muddled along through the week deluding ourselves that we could move back to Oxfordshire and start up our societies again.

But, in my view, a lot of decisions in life come down to sums. You can delude yourself with unrealistic dreams if you like, but if you actually want to buy a house in the south of England, you have to ask yourself: 'I earn X. The house I want costs Y. The difference between X and Y equals this much debt. Can I live with this or not?' This weekend, we looked on the web and compared prices in Oxfordshire with prices in Birmingham. This reminded us why we moved. For the price of our little house in Didcot, you can buy a very pleasant Victorian terrace in King's Heath, near the shops and parks, with a little garden. To buy a bigger house in a decent part of Oxfordshire, we would need an extra £20,000, which equals a lottery win or a miracle.

I've been feeling really unsettled all day because of this. Now i've been through all the sums, I feel much better.

It would be lovely to live somewhere like France, where you can buy a house without feeling like you're attaching a ball and chain to your ankle. Or so I delude myself. Go and do some more sums, Marv.

link

Back from Zambia

Hello, my cherubs, I'm back from Africa. Here's a quick list of some of the memorable moments of my trip. I'll write them up properly later. Being sick in a plane above Kasanka National Park while the others spotted Shoebill Storks. Driving around a game park for an hour with no sign of any animals, then seeing a huge giraffe walk delicately down the road towards our car. Warthogs. Dudes. Victoria Falls. Jawdropping. Cruise on the zambezi. partying with 40 drunken Zambians. getting a dress made of african batik. sitting in hot springs. eating much-needed pizza in an Italian restaurant in Lusaka. The abysmal service at the Zambezi Sun. Learning to say 'how are you?' 'I'm all right' in Bemba while eating a thali. Standing about 5-6 metres away from 3 rhinos. Backbreaking yoga class at Kapisha. Eating harissa at Kapisha. Mosquito nets, anti-malarial pills, and bottled water. Long dusty roads. singing songs in the back of the car. arguing in the back of the car. Abba. Zambians love Abba. Discovering my bootyliciousness. watching Ann's friend Doreen eat a huge crab in a Chinese restaurant. Coming home and seeing James again. Aah.