Yes, this is my blog and I am talkign about cricket

I watched the cricket at the weekend and it wasn't boring.

Now I know who Shane Warne is.

He even looks smug when he loses.

some kakapo pictures surrounded by a load of weird gubbins

Vacuum flask

I'm not sure whether i@m in the middle of the pond or not. I think I know what a vacuum flask is, but I usually call it a thermos. Is there another word for it in British English, something that sounds a bit less Famous Five?

Split-site library plan turned down

Controversial plans for a split-site Birmingham library have suffered a serious blow after the Government turned down a request for a financial lifeline.

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell refused to approve a city council bid for a £55 million Private Finance Initiative.

A PFI contribution would have covered more than a third of the £147 million cost of the new library and Ms Jowell's decision has left the council facing a major funding crisis.

About page

You have entered the World of Marvin. If you are a friend: welcome! You already know the worst. (I DON'T LIKE TEA OR COFFEE. OR PARSLEY.)

If you are a chance passer by: welcome and be warned.

My blog is Not Very Interesting.

It really isn't.

I'm not being coy or modest.

It's Quite Dull.

Unless you like: The Lord of the Rings; dilemmas of a cataloguing archivist; Kakapos and other tales of near extinction; Anglo-American cultural misunderstandings; laughing at my friends, particularly Jerome; Anne of Green Gables; general dull waffle about nothing; MGM musicals; choral music; match reports about tennis played badly by the unfit and lazy; doleful tales of cartoon widowhood; the unsatisfactorinesses of domestic life as experienced by an expat cartoonist; ignorant moaning and ranting about the state of things, concluding that something should be done, but not by me.

I don't know why I write this blog. I never intended to have a blog. I'm quite shy and don't often say what I really think. Maybe that's why.

Read and enjoy. Maybe.

Or get back on the information superhighway and find something more interesting. Not difficult.

I can't write a profile; the whole idea makes me shudder. But I would like to tell the world that I DON'T LIKE TEA OR COFFEE. OR PARSLEY.

I hate committee minutes

they are too hard to catalogue.

Ent?

Why Dan thinks Jerome is like the Crazy Frog

Although I don't think Jerome looks anything like the Crazy Frog, I feel duty bound to give credit to others who may take a different view. Let's have a mature, grown-up debate here...

Dan says Jerome looks like the Crazy Frog because:

1) He's REALLY irritating but you can't help loving him.
2) Likes pretty rubbish music.
3) He does have warts. One once popped during a particulalry vigorous bout of air guitaring.
4) Strikingly similar smile.
5) He's pretty ugly, but girls are strangely drawn to him.

Here is a link to a picture of the Crazy Frog, in case you need to refresh your memory.

I love blogging.

I have to decide what to have for dinner. I'm scared.

Leaves - this is my mental image of an archive catalogue.

Leaves
Originally uploaded by Pete Ashton.

This is pretty close to my mental picture of an archive catalogue.

A list of reasons why Jerome does not resemble the Crazy Frog

1 The Crazy Frog has blue skin
2 Jerome is not a frog
3 The Crazy Frog has lots of warts. Jerome doesn't.
4 The Crazy Frog has green eyes. Jerome doesn't.
5 The Crazy Frog does not wear O'Neill clothes
6 The Crazy Frog has four toes on each of his feet. Jerome has five.
7 The Crazy Frog has small feet.
8 The Crazy Frog was not born in Stroud.

Please add to this list. I am trying to convince everyone in the world that Jerome does not look like the Crazy Frog.

Ha ha.

Tip 24
Originally uploaded by Pete Ashton.

Another photo

Tip 15
Originally uploaded by Pete Ashton.

More of Pete's photos

Tip 5
Originally uploaded by Pete Ashton.

Matching dates?

The archive I am cataloguing includes a tatty exercise book which contains reports from the Headmaster of the School to a Committee of the Council. But i don't know which committee and so I have been diligently reading the minutes of the most likely committee trying to make the dates of the meetings match. I have been looking at this for so long that I am not sure whether the dates actually do match or whether I am so desperate for them to match so I can look at something else that I am imagining that they match.

How dull.

non-conformist buildings in birmingham

Why blog?

I struggle with this question. I have a sneaking suspicion (ssh, don't tell) that it's all a bit of a waste of time really and I should be doing something more useful.

Here's a link to a manifesto for bloggers like me.

link

Today I saw Jeffrey Lewis in concert. He was very good. I was in a crowd of people who like him too. So I am in two clubs: the Jeffrey Lewis fan club and the Nonentity Bloggers club. It feels weird. I am not in the habit of being like other people.

(I don't mean to sound arrogant. When I was at school, I was the only person who admitted to liking J.S. Bach. When I was walking across the playground, sometime shouted, "There's the girl who likes Bach!" It isn't really that unusual to like Bach. In fact Bach is generally thought to be one of the greatest composers who ever lived. And I couldn't understand why we had to not like him for the sake of being cool. And I couldn't understand why liking him made me boring. And it did, according to the rules of school. But, taking this logic a bit further, if I was the only person in the school who liked Bach, didn't this make me individual and different because I liked something other people didn't? No. It made me boring. And practically everything I liked made me boring. And I couldn't pretend to like the things other people liked or talk about them in the right way. I was only good at the things that made me even more boring. So I decided to be boring with a vengeance. And to say as little as possible, because that would, quite clearly, make things worse. That was my strategy.

So now I am an adult and I've been to university, where everyone wanted to be individual and different (and, to my great delight, pretending to be boring and normal didn't work - people saw through it - and it was OK to like Shakespeare and Bach) and this stuff doesn't bother me as much. Although clearly it does still bother me cos I've written a longer than usual post about it. But it's still a bit strange to go to a gig and listen to a band and love it and be with a load of other people who love it too.)

Perhaps I should go to more gigs.

I am no longer addicted to any soaps or to any reality TV. I haven't even tried to give up. i used to watch EastEnders. Now I can watch an episode, find it moderately interesting, and never even consider watching another one. I occasionally see an episode of Neighbours on the big screen in town that James hates, and apart from thinking that the older ladies' hair looks rather nice and I wish I coudl have a haircut like that and marvelling how well-preserved Stefan Dennis is looking, I have no interest in it any more.

I'm not watching any reality TV either. Big Brother this year was unbearable. What a dull bunch of wannabees. The theme music makes me reach for the off button. The chaps at work discuss it with great glee, but I find it unbearable. Absolutely unbearable. Bored people being horrible to each other.

There's no-one more smug than a recovered addict.

Exercise your neck

A_07_018
Originally uploaded by Marvin Marblesons.

More dreams

What a strange dream I had last night. I was at our house in Hobbiton, with my brother and James and E, Prince of the Shire... A little rabbit or maybe a hare (it had very long ears) with fur like sheep's wool was running around the garden. It rained and the rabbit got wet and started shivering so I caught it and tried to dry it with a tea towel.

Then I was going to an evening class with my Mum and James. We were travelling through France but we had to get on a plane to Damascus. I lost them and wandered round France on my own and met some people who invited me for dinner and to stay the night.

R. Alcona to J. Brenzaida

Cold in the earth, and the deep snow piled above thee!
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my Only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time's all-wearing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains on Angora's shore;
Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover
That noble heart for ever, ever more?

Cold in the earth, and fifteen wild Decembers
From those brown hills have melted into spring--
Faithful indeed is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!

Sweet Love of youth, forgive if I forget thee
While the World's tide is bearing me along:
Sterner desires and darker hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure but cannot do thee wrong.

No other Sun has lightened up my heaven;
No other Star has ever shone for me:
All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given
All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee.

But when the days of golden dreams had perished
And even Despair was powerless to destroy,
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,
Strengthened and fed without the aid of joy;

Then did I check the tears of useless passion,
Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten
Down to that tomb already more than mine!

And even yet, I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in Memory's rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?

Emily Bronte

Our Community Access Officer overheard on the phone, "I don't believe in that strategic stuff. That doesn't mean anything. I want to work with people in the community."

A rhetorical question

Is this a good idea?

James and I played tennis with L last week. Half-way through the game, we swapped racquets. When we exchanged racquets, we kissed. (we've been married for some time and been together for even more, so it shouldn't come as that much of a shock.)

Tonight I spoke to my friend Hav, who had been visited by Jerome who had told her that "James and Marv are very lovey at the moment".

I am rather amused that all my close friends find this so very interesting.

Gammon day

Jerome declared that last Sunday was a Gammon Day. When we went out for lunch, we ate roast beef and mussels. When we got home, we said we'd been for a pub meal and Jerome asked in all seriousness if we'd had gammon.

Jerome really does believe that his underlings will go to any lengths to please him.

Dawdling, such a nice word

Far be it from me to claim that I am good at anything much. But one of the things I am very good at is dawdling.

Dawdle, dawdle.

Lovely.

As You Like It

The story really meanders; loads of characters are introduced for one scene and then their stories are tied up in a rather contrived way in the next, as if the story is a rather boring convention you have to use to get the characters to the to the witty jokes and the wordplay and puns.

I'd like to see another production of the play.

Doom

The permafrost will melt, causing a rise in global temperatures that will melt the polar icecaps, which are melting already anyway.

We're all doomed.

Marv dreams

If you lie down in a field and look at the grass, you can imagine it's a jungle and watch the insects going about their business: trading shares on the Stock Exchange and swapping racing tips and other commercial activities.

Anyway, I dreamed I was looking at the grass like that and I saw a pair of tiny lambs climb through the grass towards their mother, a tiny sheep.

Then the plants changed and they were all white, like cow parsley, and there were lots of spiders underneath the flowers.

Grind those grooves

Why, oh why, in the city of a thousand trades, can't I find anyone who can copy a key? I've tried ot copy it 4 times and got duds three times. I lost the third attempt, the one that worked.

Without the key I have to walk up 4 flights of stairs (or wait for the lift), get the key, walk down 8 storeys to the basement, get what I want, leave tickets for it all, walk/wait for the lift back up 8 storeys to leave the tickets and return the key. Getting the key cuts out the 4 flights of stairs bit.

Girlfriend in a Coma

I tried to read Douglas Copeland for our book group. I didn't get really far. It made me want to read a really good book.

Make some recommendations, lovely kakapo chicks.

Canal Sky

Canal Sky
Originally uploaded by Pete Ashton.

I like this one even better.

We have just been on holiday with a load of my friends plus a new boyfriend of one of them who is Dutch. He taught me how to pronounce 'Broersma' correctly. Finally, after ten years, I know how to say it properly.

I will carry on pronouncing it wrong. James pronounces it wrong too, but differently wrong from me.

Canal Sky

Canal Sky
Originally uploaded by Pete Ashton.

Pete took this photo. I htink it's great so I have stolen it.

Gibber

We're going camping in Wales this weekend. The forecast is quite good. I came home to find all the camping stuff efficiently heaped up in the middle of the sitting room. The efficient heaper of stuff is nowhere to be seen. We haven't got any skewers to skewer our veggie kebabs. Mmm... Veggie kebabs... nice and carbonated from the barbie. Lovely. I'm hungry.

Here's a boring archival dilemma. I want to rearrange the box order of the records into catalogue order and I'm trying to devise a system to keep track of locations. I'm sure I'll mess it up and lose things. So I've made an Excel spreadsheet with all the box nubmers on and, if the things in the boxes belong to more than one category, a list of all the things in the categories, and when I shelve them in catalogue number order I'll put the catalogue reference next to it. Sounds good, doesn't it? But my inner gremlin is longing to sabotage it all. I can feel it.

I wonder where James is. Perhaps I'll ring him up.

I haven't told you about the very satisfactory sink tidy he purchased recently.

Or shared the great news that he currently owns three pairs of comfortable shoes: the brown boots; the blue suede trainers (which I step on, obviously); and the boat shoes.

Or told you that we finally cleaned out the car. James used our Dyson and hung the cable of the exentsion lead out of our kitchen window.

Or mentioned how shocked he was by the bathroom fixtures catalogue. There are some very ugly baths in the world.

See you in a few days, loyal reader(s)

Gibber

I wish people would label the backs of their photos.

We looked at a house today and it needed a new kitchen. Matt is tryign to work out how much a new kitchen would cost. I don't think we should be allowed to do DIY. We're too stupid.

Moseley is slowly clearing itself up after the tornado.

Clare and Lucy have two new kittens. They are so cute. When we get our house, perhaps I will have a kitten to be my friend and to love.

Tennis championships

Lucy beat the pants off us tonight at tennis. She rules.

My post missed.

The last post was supposed to be on Jerome's blog.

Chair breakage shocker

Jerome broke one of our chairs playing that highly amusing party game "Run round the stick and sit on the chair"

For the record

I have not changed my name. I use my maiden name because most people find my married name is too hard to spell and pronounce. Apart from people in the Netherlands.

Sorry I didn't mention this two years earlier.

Profound observations on life and househunting...

i was going to write a post about the tornado. But that woudl really be too interesting for this blog, which faithfully delivers dull content every week for its author's friends and relations.

But instead I will have a little rant about househunting.

Househunting is pants. Large, grey, holey, frequently-washed Y fronts.

Pants, pants, pants.

Tomorrow we are going to look at three houses. I wonder whether:

i) one of us will like it and the other one won't, causing relationship traumua
ii) neither of us will like it, causing unjustified feelings of discontent and extreme poverty
iii) we will both like it although it is too expensive.

Do they sell sleeping pills in the General Store?

631408_12_013
Originally uploaded by Marvin Marblesons.