I had the pin loom square "packages" all neatly arranged (12 rows, 9 in a row) when I left the room to get my camera and came back to find this. Rainy had struck. She loves to get on her back and wiggle around on anything I lay out. It's a real challenge when it comes time to make a bed. She looked a little embarrassed. When I tried to get her to look at me for this pic she wouldn't.
Let's try it again, this time with the gate shut so she can't get in.
The Dark Invader, Kapitänleutnant Franz von Rintelen (available on Gutenberg Australia) The autobiography of one of Germany's most successful secret agents in WW1. One of the good bits from my previous book was the mention of this autobiography in the author's note at the end, since Rintelen appears as a minor character in 'The Spies of Hartlake Hall'. So I looked it up and read it, and what a read it was. Rintelen is an absolute lunatic; what he most reminded me of was a German Miles Vorkosigan, including the bit where his superiors ship him off to cause problems for the enemy instead of having him meddling in politics at home. He likes coming up with wild ideas and carrying them out, he has bucketloads of chutzpah, he's not above creatively delaying his obedience to orders, he's not afraid of wading into just about anything and he's very cocky. He is exactly who you don't want as a coworker in headquarters, but exactly who you do want to send off to sabotage the enemy.
And since he spoke excellent English - the memoir is written by him in English, not translated from German - the Germans sent him to America to do something about the fact that America, though neutral, was supplying huge volumes of ammunition to the Allies. And so he sets about arranging the manufacture of time-bombs to put in the holds of cargo ships carrying munitions, he looks for ways to sabotage harbours, he tries to send money and weapons to Mexico to encourage them to invade the USA, he gets involved in organising strikes among dock workers and munition workers, and he makes friends with Irish nationalists and encourages them to help him with all of this. And, because this is real life and not fiction and he's not quite as lucky as Miles Vorkosigan, eventually he gets captured by the British on his way back to Germany, and put in a POW camp, and then later was sent for trial and imprisonment in the USA for his crimes there - he doesn't get back to Germany again until 1921, after four years of hard labour in pretty grim conditions which he makes plain in his memoir that he felt was extremely inappropriate as an enemy soldier.
But he did very obviously adore the British officers who captured him, he's incredibly Anglophile and the whole description of his being captured is interleaved with a description of him spending Christmas with one of the officers involved years later and how well they got on ('dearly beloved ex-enemies' is his phrase); he loves England and the British. He found that Germany wasn't the place for him when he got out - not least because von Papen, the Weimar chancellor, was his fellow naval attache in the US embassy while he was carrying out all this sabotage and they hated each other's guts and, according to Rintelen, Papen deliberately let his name leak out so that the British knew who he was and could arrest him. So Rintelen moved to London and settled there, and according to the Wikipedia article about him, it's possible that when WW2 came around he helped train SOE operatives in sabotage work, this being something of his area of expertise.
The memoir is very obviously written with his own biases and interpretation and grievances about various things, but it's a fantastic read and honestly even though he was clearly a complete nightmare in so many ways, I couldn't help but like him.
This is a film I might have guessed would score full marks from me. As you can see, it doesn't, because it's just that little bit too problematic when looked at with mid-2020s eyes. Don't get me wrong, this is still a great movie, expertly constructed and supremely watchable. There aren't any real weak links in the acting, and the atmosphere of 1955 America is wonderfully created. Even having a DeLorean break down about every ten seconds is true to life. For what it is, Back to the Future is pretty much spot on at first viewing, and it's strong enough to hold up to being seen multiple times, as indeed I have. That's not something to sniff at.
But those problems? There's the "Johnny B. Goode" scene, though in reality by November 1955 what you might call modern rock'n'roll already existed: Little Richard had released "Tutti Frutti" the month before, even if it didn't chart until December. The Libyan terrorists are comic-book villains and I can live with that. A bigger deal is how the film treats Lorraine. The "unintentional incestuous attraction" joke is slightly overdone, but the real issue is the plan Marty cooks up, which requires Lorraine to be genuinely emotionally abused to set up George's hero moment. Then an actual assault is played more realistically than you'd expect for a feel-good family comedy, yet the victim is completely fine a few minutes later.
None of this destroys the movie as a whole. Michael J. Fox is excellent as Marty, even if a little gratingly cool at times for these British sensibilities, and Christopher Lloyd is suitably manic as Doc Brown. Lea Thompson must also get a mention for a really fine turn in a tricky role as Lorraine, while Thomas F. Wilson's Biff manages to pull off both "comedy class bully" and "genuinely dangerous predator". The clock tower scene, the other callbacks, most of the humour, and the way it never lets up from start to finish make it a very fine film to this day. Still an easy four-star movie – but looked at through today's eyes, I can't quite see it as the near-perfect picture I'd half-expected. ★★★★
“Oh, my lost youth. Here are the ducks coming up for the remains of our sandwiches. Twenty-three years ago I fed these identical ducks with these identical sandwiches.’
‘Ten years ago, I too fed them to bursting-point.’
‘And ten and twenty years hence the same ducks and the same undergraduates will share the same ritual feast, and the ducks will bite the undergraduates’ fingers as they had just bitten mine. How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks . . . Be off, cullies, that’s the lot.’
If yesterday was an edge case, this one’s completely off the edge — when I was compiling the week’s words, I failed to notice this one is not Polynesian but Micronesian, and while the two groups do make up the Eastern branch of Oceanic languages, it’s still off topic. My bad. Especially as the history is too interesting to give up:
bikini (buh-KEE-nee) - n., a close-fitting, two-piece women’s bathing suit that does not cover the midriff.
The history is easier to explain in chronological order. One of the northernmost of the Marshall Islands is a coral atoll called Pikinni (stress on the first syllable) in Marshallese, from pikin, flat land + ni, coconut, so (is)land where coconuts grow. When the Marshall Islands were part of the colony of German New Guinea, the German adaptation was Bikini (still stressed on the first syllable), it became known by that in English (stressed first syllable) and French (stress typically on the second syllable, following that language’s norms). Japan took over the Marshall Islands in 1914 at the start of WWI, and the USA took it over following WWII, and from 1946-1958 they test-fired 23 nuclear weapons on Bikini Atoll. [Sidebar: They relocated the ~150 inhabitants first, and since in traditional Marshallese culture wealth is based on how much land your clan controls, this impoverished them.] Four days after the first test-fire on Bikini in July 1946, French designer Louis Réard introduced a new midriff-baring two-piece swimsuit, which he named bikini (stressed second syllable) after it, the idea being that it was just as much a sensation. Um. Yeah. [Sidebar2: Thanks to the swimsuit, the atoll now is just as likely to be pronounced with stress on the second syllable. Second round of Um. Yeah.]
I am at a loss for what to do with my almost 11-year-old.
He argues constantly about everything. Here’s an example of the arguing: We made gingerbread houses this weekend. He got home from school, and I gave him a snack. While he was eating, he said, “I’m going to smash the gingerbread house on Christmas.” I said, “Nope, we do it on New Year’s Eve.” He said, “I made mine, so I get to smash it when I want.” I replied, “Nope, we always do it on New Year’s.” He kept repeating himself until I finally said, “We are done arguing, just drop it.” To which he retorted, “You just drop it!” I then asked him to go anywhere in the house besides the kitchen because he was still talking about it after I asked him to stop. (I couldn’t leave, I was helping his sitter get a snack, and doing dishes.) He then yelled at me, “You leave! Why do I have to leave if you’re the one with the problem?”
This happens every time he talks to me. I don’t get it. I want to spend time with him, but he is so hard and angry right now. He is so exhausting. He is nice to everyone else except his little sister and me. Whenever she talks to him, he makes fun of how she said something. Please help!
—Argued Out
Dear Argued Out,
It seems as if your son is truly upset with something other than what you’re actually arguing about. For example, in the case of the gingerbread house, he seemed upset about the loss of autonomy in making decisions about the house that he created, rather than the actual fact of not being allowed to smash it on Christmas. Does he feel like you always make all of the big and little decisions, while he isn’t allowed to make any? During these tween ages, it’s totally normal to want more freedom. It sounds like that could be the case, but you’ll need to ask him directly. Approach him in a quiet moment—not when you’re in the middle of a squabble and try to get to the bottom of it and his emotions. But make sure to stress that there is a way to respectfully share his feelings, especially when talking to his little sister. Also, think about the small ways that you can let him make his own decisions. Smashing his own gingerbread house, for example, doesn’t really hurt anyone else. So, sometimes, consider letting him make decisions that aren’t necessarily the ones you’d make.
In these day-to-day situations, do your best to keep calm. If your emotions start to rev up, his will automatically do the same. Then ask him why he wants to do something and encourage him to rephrase what he is saying. The fact that he only gets angry with you and his sister shows that he’s capable of communicating and expressing himself, but is too frustrated in those moments to do so. I’m unsure of where this inability is ultimately coming from, but some conversations with a therapist—for the whole family—during calmer times when emotions aren’t running so high would be beneficial for everyone. Good luck!
I had completely forgotten about this old workaround until today, and honestly, it's a lifesaver in my loud office workplace. Since my iPhone doesn't allow me to charge and listen simultaneously without a bulky dongle, I finally remembered I can just tether it to my computer via a USB cable. By opening iTunes, I can access my entire library of 2,000+ tracks directly from the phone while it stays at 100% battery.
The real winner in this setup is my Etymotic IEMs. In our noisy workspace, their passive isolation provides an epic level of noise reduction. It's actually more effective than active noise cancellation (ANC) because it blocks out office chatter and high-frequency sounds.
Ahoy there, mateys! In 2026, littlerhymes and I have embarked on a Year of Sail, starting with C. S. Forester’s Mr. Midshipman Hornblower!
(This was apparently not the first Hornblower published, but it is the first chronologically, so we decided to start there.)
In this book we meet Horatio Hornblower, a cool, logical, mathematically talented all-around doofus who gets seasick on his very first row out to his new ship as midshipman. The seasickness fades but the general awkwardness does not, as evidenced in the story where a woman offers to hide dispatches in her petticoats and Hornblower is like: discussing stays? and petticoats? with a woman???? and then there’s a glimpse of her thigh WHERE TO LOOK??????
He’s also almost madly brave, as evidenced in the story where he purposefully climbs aboard a fire ship (that is, a ship that has been purposefully set on fire in order to set other ships ablaze) in order to steer it out of the harbor. Absolute madman. But it’s the logical thing to do, so calmly he goes ahead and does it.
Over the years I’ve osmosed that the Hornblower movies starring Ioan Gruffud are good and also slashy, so I decided that I might as well give them a go too. I watched the first two, then commented to littlerhymes, “These are good but they AREN’T slashy, the internet lied to me.”
So in the first movie, Hornblower and company are on their way to a surprise night attack on a French frigate when Hornblower’s friend Mr. Midshipman Kennedy has a seizure. Unable to think of any other way to keep him quiet, Hornblower knocks him over the head, which means that they have to leave him on the jolly boat as the rest of them attack the frigate, and the jolly boat is cast adrift with Kennedy still in it.
In the third movie, Kennedy returns! Specially, Hornblower is TAKEN CAPTIVE by the SPANISH and in his very cell in Spanish prison, he finds Kennedy, who greets him “GO AWAY.”
Then Kennedy turns his face to the wall. He just got out of the punishment cell which is so small that you can neither lie down nor stand up, and he can no longer straighten his legs, and he wants to die.
Naturally Hornblower tenderly nurses him back to health, which involves gently smoothing his lustrous hair from his brow. (The production team clearly threw realism to the winds with the lustrous hair, as I feel strongly that Mr. Midshipman “so depressed he’s trying to starve himself to death” Kennedy would probably not be bothering to comb his hair or indeed shave and would therefore have a beard like Santa Claus.) It does NOT involve climbing into bed with him to warm him with his own body heat, but I feel sure that fanfic has filled in this gap, and if it hasn’t (or even if it has) I might need to commit a little fic for the cause.
The "demand for perfection -- but only on one side" approach is, in fact, a major tactic and stumbling block in modern politics, and I should probably make that another post.
I did no art-a-day for the last couple days. Busy with people. We had our second family holiday party on Sunday and then yesterday we spent the morning with Johnny and Alison before they left, had coffee with Chloe at the Iron Furnace coffee shop in the afternoon and went shopping for a part to fix the bathroom sink. In the evening I made this amigurumi girl bear:
I'm learning more tricks on how to place the body parts and features and this one went smoother.
I have an appointment for Skye to get an xray on Thursday. She's been doing good recently (eating and pooping) so I was feeling hopeful but his morning she moaned for a while, threw up and wouldn't eat her breakfast. Then she went rogue and is hiding somewhere that I can't find her. Now I'm worried again.
Chloe got the materials for linoleum block printing for Christmas and I've seen a few of the things she printed so far. Really neat. Which made me want to try block printing again. I am fighting the urge to spend money on linoleum blocks (the rubber kind) and a new set of gouges (I can't find my old ones). I'll probably lose the battle. The desire for art supplies generally wins. But I think I will make myself put off the decision to buy till after I finish assembling the pin loom blanket that I'm making for Rowan. Who knows, maybe the desire to do block printing will go away by then. I know I am very compulsive especially with buying art and craft supplies. The Octopus of Wanting.
Posted this in response to someone, and realize it might have relevance to the handful of you what would actually read what I post, if ever I would actually post.
In part, I said, "Anemia plus upcoming hip surgery plus full time job plus being across the country this long have finally combined to eat any spare brain cells I might have."
Note that I am leaving out the state of the world (the insanity is not just limited to the US at present, but wow is it looming large), and the challenges of working in the particular areas of interest for Major NonProfit in the times such as these in which we find ourselves living. Those are just the lagniappe.
things melted last week and everything was mud, so I got a couple days break from spreading straw. weirdly, my problem elbow hurt more when I wasn't using it constantly than when I was. Not sure what's up with that. The temperature dropped again, so the ground froze again. Did another load at dawn this morning but discovered a belt had worn weirdly on the shredder, so I need to run to town today and get a new one before we shred more.
The pottery class I was going to take isn't actually available on Wed, their only evening hours are mondays from 5-8 and they only just updated that on facebook and haven't emailed me back. I'm busy that night, so that's out. I could theoretically do day classes but with how short the days are, any daylight is needed for work hours especially if I need extra warmup time between morning and afternoon. ETA: I found another studio with wed classes and easier signup procedures. done.
I did go to spinners guild on sunday and it was a gosh dang delight including one of the longer term guild members coming this time who is queer in so many ways and everyone was lovely to him. It was so so so nice and relaxing. I think for the next meeting I'm going to get either my electric wheel battery up and running or take my smaller wheel and start an alpaca spin on it. My CPW is too big and loud for the space we've been meeting in. I got there right at 1pm and was still one of the later arrivals, so clearly I need to get there even earlier :)
We have started the wood stove indoors back up, so that's nice. I missed it. We ran out of wood that size and it had gotten warm, so there was less point in running it. Dad got on the roof and cleaned the chimney out while it was off, so that was nice and split some of the wood at the rental into wood stove size for both their house and mine.
I did kickstart my parents into doing work on their house! I sanded their office floor and then mom cleaned it and we sealed and finished it together. Definitely one of those times where it would have been faster with just one person, but so be it. My dad has been working on their living room wall drywall which is next in line. They do have renters moving into the rental Feb 1, so there is painting to be done there, plus some other small misc stuff. Parents' house also needs paint so I will be helping with some amount of painting. I didn't do drywall in my upstairs bathroom yet as expected, but I'm planning to later this week when dad is around to help me move the drywall outside to cut and then upstairs to get in place. They do have an extremely firm deadline of house renovations of June when my dad's college buddies are coming to visit, so there's that. We did discover that nice foosball tables are extremely heavy and it would be good to have more than two people to get it in a bilco basement door. I didn't get squished but it was very very heavy. After we got it down there, my dad said, you know, I think it did say something about being over 200lbs. hmm. thanks dad. Although we would have had to get a cousin or something to come help, which my parents are slightly allergic to asking for help, so I dunno if that would have happened anyway. We do have a vague plan to get the floor done which is good and there is progress happening. Given my parents hated the smell of the seal and finish, we are waiting to move them into the house until the living room/dining room/kitchen are all sealed and finished.
Winter is one of those times where I am just sleepy a lot, so I do accept this as a fact of life but also am fully aware that I am relatively isolated from the local area. In NY, I had an established friend groups, I had places I could go when I wanted a little socializing or crafting with folks, all sorts of things. Here I don't have any of that, so I'm trying to find something. Over the summer, I was so busy with the farm that I didn't really notice, but now I really can tell. To be fair, I have three nights a week where I have weekly social opportunities, but they are all digital. I know I need to push myself and get out there but it's hard and farm work is a bit unpredictable with when we need to run for straw and things. So spinners guild was excellent. I'm hoping to go to a meetup this saturday, although I'll be missing gaming with Jade that night for it. I need to do something thur/fri nights. And maybe some saturdays during the day. Hmm.
“The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World After an Apocalypse” Lewis Dartnell The last chapters were timekeeping, location, and how to science. Finished Wednesday 7 January 2026. I enjoyed reading this, tho at times my suspension of belief snapped (an odd thing to say about non-fiction, but it leant into its premise of being a handbook for after an apocalypse and sometimes that just didn’t quite work). Having read it once I couldn’t reboot civilisation, but I can see if you had it to hand when you were trying to do so then it would be awfully useful (tho it would likely be good to have hold of it in time to also rescue chunks of the bibliography!). It was published in 2015, so I guess it was more of a distant thought experiment then …
“I Am a Strange Loop” Douglas Hofstadter Started this in December before I picked up the Dartnell, and am now back to it. It’s about consciousness and one’s sense of a coherent self, and I’m finding it hard to summarise the chunk I’ve read as the initial clause of this sentence is too high level but the paragraph I’d previous written was too granular. Which is apt, as some of what I read this week was about the various levels of abstraction that can be used to talk about what’s going on in the brain. Another key bit was that he’s using video feedback (point your video camera at the TV) as a central metaphor for the book; stable patterns emerge in ways that are opaque to the viewer.
Podcasts Note that I’m up to date on topical ones, but anything less tied to right now I’m about a month behind.
Empire Rudyard Kipling, his later life which includes the horrifyingly racist bits
Bunker. OBR (aired when it was topical, an explainer), weekly wrap up (Venezuela, Minnesota), Start the Week, why more people are single these days, the allegations about Farage’s teenage bullying.
More Jam Tomorrow Malaya, in particular the final years of British rule.
Starship Alexandria Still on advent calendar episdes: Babylon 5, Fargo season 5, Sapphire & Steel (which I didn’t know was SF), The Good Life, Scavenger Rain (Reign?), Midsomer Murders, What We Do in the Shadows.
The Rest is Politics Greenland, Venezuela, Moldova, domestic UK politics, AI, the release of historical government documents, Iran, Yemen, the Arctic.
The History of China Tibet & Xinjiang vis-a-vis their relationship with c. 1800 CE China.
Oh God What Now Special on Venezuela, normal panel show also on Venezuela and the lower tempo shitshow of UK politics, interview show with Jason from Sleaford Mods.
The Rest is Politics US Minnesota, Venezuela, Greenland.
The History of Egypt Looking at diplomatic relations between the Hittites & Ramesses II post the treaty after the Battle of Kadesh.
The History of Philosophy in China The Daoist view of rigidly enforcing your view of right & wrong on others as being wrong.
The History of England Shedcasts A Birth of Britain episode, we’re up to Roman Britain now, with the Romans having to boot up a whole economic/social infrastructure system in Britain to incorporate it into the empire.
The History of England A guest episode from The Art of Crime, about Anthony Blunt, art historian, MI5 employee, courtier, and Soviet spy.
Journey Through Time The start of a run of episodes about Black GIs in Britain during WW2.
The Rest is Politics Leading Interview with Anna Wintour who came across as surprisingly warm & charming, given the reputation I’ve picked up through osmosis.
Talk 90s to Me Italia 90, which I remember watching bits of (it’s the one where Gazza cried).
In Our Time: The Mokrani Revolt Algerian uprising in 1871 against the French, the brutal put down & subsequent treatment of the Algerians played a large part in creating a sense of an Algerian nation, and this revolt was woven into the story leading to the Algerian war of independence in the 1950s.
TV
Jools’ Annual Hootenany We half-watched some of it at New Year, but were socialising more than watching so we watched it properly.
2025 The Year from Space A surprising amount of stuff where I’d forgotten it had happened in 2025, there has just been too much stuff going on. Nicely leavened by the lighter & happier things they pulled out.
episode 4 of Civilisations: Rise and Fall, about Japan This one was the opening up of Japan by the US. The key driver here for the collapse was Japan’s prior successful isolation which meant the arrival of the modern world happened all at once. Overall the series was not as good as it could’ve been, and looked a bit too much like the great man theory of history even tho I don’t think that was their intent (too much focus on three key figures in each). The ones I knew more about felt pretty simplified tho not far enough to be wrong, just not very nuanced, so presumably the other two were similar. A bit heavy handed at the end with their references to “can we learn lessons”, but then I would probably have felt better about that if the dumpster fire of the world hadn’t intensified – it’s very clear that those who would need to learn said lessons actively do not care.
episode 1 of Valley of the Kings: Secret Tomb Revealed Following a team excavating the burial chamber in KV11 (tomb of Ramesses III), interspersed with bits on the history including the assassination of Ramesses III.
Music
Cyndi Lauper “Twelve Deadly Cyns”
The Bangles “Eternal Flame”
Games
Diablo IV Tier 54 Pit, also ticked off another Season Journey objective so everything in rank 5 & below is done. The Tower (leaderboards) beta opened, did up to a Tier 60 on that which opened up Torment IV (they are supposed to be equivalent levels to the Pit but it felt way easier), as they stand they feel a trifle pointless in game, it’s all for the bragging rights of one’s leaderboard position.
Talks
“All the King’s Men and Women: putting the people into Sais” Penny Wilson What the slim archaeological evidence at Sais can tell us about the people who lived there.
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