Part of the joy of houseplants (for me at least) is observing their slow but steady growth. Despite the paucity of sunlight we’ve had this summer, my poinsettia is still cheerfully branching off new shoots every few weeks. I’m hoping it goes properly red come the winter season.

[As the above picture may suggest, I've not been out and about with my camera in the last week or so, as explained further down ...]

Terrorist or tourist?

One of the downsides of working on a Naval Base is the occasional bomb scare, often caused by some hapless visitor leaving a rucksack on the ground and forgetting about it. Not usually a problem, but today one caused the closure of the gate I usually leave by, necessitating a somewhat longer journey home. Such are the terrible trials of life.

Dawn of the Deadlines

Other than that, this week has been fairly devoid of exciting events, I’m afraid. I was a judge for the Wedgewood Rooms Showcase again on Tuesday night (it runs over the entire summer, essentially, wrapping up with the final in October), but that’s been about it as far as leaving the house is concerned. As I mentioned earlier in the week, a whole lot of deadlines have coincided on one small patch of time, so I’ve been focusing on getting things done that need doing … hence blog silence but for the daily link-dumps.

A similar state of affairs may well persist for the next few weeks, too - I’m covering for a colleague’s holiday leave for the next fortnight, which means I’m working the equivalent of full-time hours over that period, and hence my evenings will be largely consumed with various reviewing and writing tasks that I’m committed to doing. Hopefully I’ll find time to do something more substantial here once or twice. After all, you’d be destitute without my gritty pearls of wisdom. Or something.

But hey, at least people are asking me to write things for them - and while none of them are paid work, it’s a change to be asked rather than having to hustle. And one little project may turn into paid work in the long run - a friend is involved with the start-up of a downloadable gaming magazine, and they’ve asked me to do a column on Second Life. It’s gratifying to get a chance to write about things that you know well and care about!

Books and magazines seen

A slow week, really.

One magazine, in the form of July’s F&SF - arriving three days after the issue succeeding it, naturally. Three cheers for the weirdness of transAtlantic surface mail!

And one book of a totally non-science fictional nature - I am the proud possessor of a copy of the Catalogue of Oil Paintings in Public Ownership for the Hampshire region. Because there are some pictures from the RNM listed in it, they sent us a few free copies, and one of them has ended up with me thanks to my name being plucked from the metaphorical hat.

So I have a very classy and intellectual-looking coffee-table book of prodigious size … now all I need is a coffee-table to put it on.

Albums seen

In the absence of much literary traffic in my postbox, I’ll take the time to plug a few CDs that I’m very happy to have been sent in the last week-and-a-bit:

• Mercury by Laika Dog - Laika Dog are the current band of ex-Terrorvision frontman Tony Wright, arguably the most earnest and affable man in British rock music during the nineties. Laikadog aren’t quite so rocky as Terrorvision, but if you like Tony’s songwriting, you’ll not be disappointed by this at all.
• High by New Model Army - New Model Army should need no introduction to anyone who’s going to be interested in this album, so suffice to say it delivers exactly what we’ve come to expect from the band over their lengthy career. Good stuff.
• Transworld Ultra Rock by Electric Eel Shock - Japanese band who do a great tongue-in-cheek pastiche of classic Sabbath-style metal. Loads of fun, and if you ever get the chance to see them play live, rest assured you will not resent the very reasonable ticket prices. Real performers, and a great laugh.

Aaaah, free music. I wish I’d got onto the reviewing train earlier in my life, I’d have saved myself a fortune - and been far more clued up by now.

Coda

Well, that was comparatively brief and painless, wasn’t it? I always feel a bit disappointed when I have little to report on a Friday afternoon, though I don’t operate under the illusion that anyone else is that bothered. I think it just reminds me that my life isn’t really as thrilling as I might like to think … but then, that’s no one’s fault if not my own, I suppose.

Things would be simpler if the exciting stuff was more evenly distributed, but instead it appears to lurk like seams of mineral deposits in tracts of otherwise featureless stone. Selah.

Right. Friday afternoon, work and FPB done for the week - which means it’s nearly time for The Friday Curry Of Legend And Myth. I’m hoping to get enough of my writing work done over the weekend that I have time to get outside for a while, but having heard the weather reports I’m not sure if that’s going to be a wasted effort or not. Let’s hope the reports are wrong, eh?

Anyway, whatever you have planned for the weekend yourselves, I hope it goes well for you - indoors or out. Hasta luego, amigos.

The day: Friday; the subject: plants; the location: a blog. Yup. It’s Friday Plant Blogging time.

That’s the crassula ovata (or ‘Jade Tree’) that I got last summer; it’s grown considerably since I repotted it a few months back, and shows no sign of slowing down. The other week, I passed a Chinese restaurant that had one in the window … let’s just say they can get pretty damn large.

Slightly less impressive is my poinsettia:

Hmmmph. No red leaves. It seems to have settled down a bit now - I only realised after I’d bought it that it was an unrooted cutting - and is now growing in height, but at the expense of leaves (the lower of which are shedding at the same rate that new ones appear). It too may need repotting sooner rather than later … and seeing as the swiss-cheese plant in my front room has its pot propped with books to prevent it from toppling over, I guess I’d better get some compost fairly soon. Who says houseplants aren’t rock and roll, huh?

***

It’s been a moderately busy week, marred by the ongoing presence of this damned post-viral syndrome / exhaustion / malaise / whatever-it-is. I thought I’d go see a doctor about it, and rang up to enquire about appointments. Basically, if I’m about to keel over from blood loss or something, I can call at certain times during the day for an emergency appointment on the same day; otherwise, I can book a ‘regular’ appointment, with a waiting time of about ten to twelve days … so I decided to just forget it and hope that a weekend of rest will help shake it off. Makes you proud to pay your taxes, so it does.

Other than that, it’s been a week devoid of interesting things to tell you, really. The only major hoo-hah was John C. Wright’s misinterpretation of my literary elitism post, and my rant in reply - which was made to look very childish by Mr. Wright’s apology. Congratulations, me - I just proved the old (very un-PC and probably NSFW) aphorism about arguing on the internet.

I’ve not even received any reading material through the post, which feels like the first week in months. Probably a good thing, though, as it gives me a chance to attack the backlog.

From the world of self-employment comes a potential red-letter day, however, in that it appears I may have been literally sitting on a potential mass of copywriting work at the Museum. I’m having a meeting next week about it, so wish me luck - some steady paid commissions would be a good thing to get right now.

Next week also sees me trekking up to London to interview an obscure but incredibly influential Swiss indutrial rock band called The Young Gods, which I’m really looking forward to. They’re a great band, and I have some good questions lined up to ask them. If you’ve not heard of them, and you have any interest in avant-garde music using sampled guitars, go give them a listen. Industrial is almost a misnomer for them, really, they’re a unique outfit - and they still sound as way ahead of the pack as they did when they first formed over two decades ago. Provided the recording is listenable, I’ll be posting the interview in audio format here some time in the future.

***

Well, that’s about your lot, I’m afraid. Possibly the least exciting FPB ever - which in a format this fundamentally dull to start with is an achievement in itself. So I shall bid you all a good weekend, and faff around with a few things before going to fetch The Obligatory Spicy Indian Dish That Must Be Consumed On The Fifth Day Of The Week. Take care, folks.

I know you’ve all been missing seeing plants at VCTB on Fridays, so here’s a bit of seasonal foliage for you:

I was hoping to be able to display one or both of my christmas cacti in resplendent full bloom, but as neither of them have deigned to flower you’ll have to make do with the sprig of poinsettia there. One of the cacti has flower buds, but they only appeared a few weeks back and are nowhere near ready - which could have a lot to do with the very mild autumn we’ve had this year. Yes, that’s it. Nothing to do with my amateur plant husbandry skills, that’s for certain. Hmmph. Continue reading “Friday Plant Blogging! Holiday greetings”