Friday 25 April 2008

Plant life


A warning to all my little plant friends.

Yay! It's spring. New growth. Shoots. Buds. Leaves. Wave it all about.

And she seems like a nice lady. Offers you a lovely terracotta pot. Maybe a hit of BabyBio. Your own place on the window sill with a view of the bins.

But she is Madame Plant Killer!

*scream*

Poor Mr Sprouty. Only a couple of weeks old. Happy in his little ceramic egg. Only yesterday he was looking good. Standing proud. Today - dead. Drowned.

Of course she says it was an accident. Didn't want Mr Sprouty to dry out. Hum. Once could be an accident. Twice would be a misfortune. But this is a serial offender. This space is filled with the ghosts of murdered tomato plants. Poor pots of basil who were promised a long and happy life but didn't make it to the end of week. Trays of mustard and cress seeds never allowed to reach their potential.

Be warned. She is looking for new victims to torment. Filling up the window boxes with poor innocent plants. Lambs lettuce to the slaughter.

Now would be the time to rise up and be a TRIFFID!

You have nothing to lose but your leaves. And stem. And roots.

Thursday 24 April 2008

Back again


Busy times = neglected bear = neglected blog :o(

Right. On to cheery things.

And it don't get more cheery than a new Biscuit album on the horizon - this time next week CSI Ambleside should be on its way to my fuzzy little paws. Causing joy and happiness. And maybe dancing.

Until then we'll have to amuse ourselves with a bit of online radio.

TV junkies can mock but we love our radio in this house. Did try one of those DAB radios a couple of years ago. Hum. Not quite as wonderful as we'd heard. I'm sure that the whole thing is genius but the only way we could get a signal was if Madame stood on a chair and held the radio up to the top of the window. A lovely Statue of Liberty effect but not really practical. Apparently. She does like to moan.

So we get the computer and - woohoo - there's Listen Again - oooooo, now Madame can have a life AND never miss an episode of The Archers. Hum.

No. Not going to make any jokes about The Archers. I've seen The Archers message board. Some of the scariest people on the interknit hang out there. One wrong word - you wake up with a llama's head on your pillow and the threat that Lynda Snell's voice is last thing you'll ever hear. *shudder*

Some good stuff on BBC7 and when they've run out of episodes of Round The Horne and Old Harry's Game we pop over to the OTR Network for some old time Lux Radio Theatre fun. Because sometimes we just need the sound of Marlene Dietrich selling soap flakes to get us through the day.

Not much time for music radio. Used to listen to a bit of Radio 2. The bits with Radcliffe & Maconie in them.

But now we have AOL radio to play with. Hours of fun. Read about it in Word magazine. Article on internet radio. Haven't had a chance to try any of the other recommendations yet.

Too busy playing with all the AOL options. How to chose? And how could you not love a site that offers a radio station that plays nothing but klezmer music, an All Mariah Carey station and channels with themes like Love Stinks - songs of heartache and disgust.

Just time for one more cheery thing - Joshua Allen Harris's inflatable plastic bag polar bear (as seen on BoingBoing) -