I can haz weekend?

( TGI FRYDAI )

It's been a funny morning and it's not quite 9am:

~ I had one of those nights where you dream so much that you feel you've been up all night, and I finally made myself wake up at 4.30 just to get some rest.

~ For unfathomable reasons, I've had "Ode to Billie Joe" stuck in my head, which considering I can't get the lines in the right order is getting annoying.

~ I did a proper double take on the road just outside work when a weird elevated van drove past. That's the only way I can think of describing it - the chassis was obviously too big for the body work, and the wheel arches were about a foot about the tyres. The whole thing looked like a refugee from Scrapheap challenge and very out of place in the middle of Oxford.

~ I have a new handbag! It's big enough to fit my netbook as well as all my handbag gubbins in, it's smart enough for work and only cost £4.50. I love Oxford charity shops \o/

~ My Bobby!fic, which was supposed to be a short little background piece has morphed into a 3700 word monster, and I haven't got to the action yet. BREVITY FAIL!

~ bau_bigbang is almost ready to opening \o/ \o/

~ I have so many links for you, as well as some to post to my library blog, but for now, have a Star Trek/A-Team mashup (which I might have posted before but is still worth seeing) and Poetry at Tech, videos of contemporary poets reading their work. Not my kind of thing, but I know some of you are more into poetry than me.

~ *scuffs feet on ground* I'm kind of shy about asking this, but. Would one of you who's got actual graphic skills (as opposed to my pretend ones which mostly consist of pressing buttons in Picasa to see what happens) have the time to make me an icon? I just want one with text that says Hardcore Gen Ficcer in whatever format you think looks pretty. It'd take me hours, whereas I get the feeling that it's a five minute job if you know what you're doing. I have nothing to offer except unending gratitude and the credit, of course *puppy eyes*

*BOUNCE* I HAZ ICONZES! With huge thanks to caersmane for mad graphics skillz.

~ Am watching The Mentalist and kind of enjoying it. I'll probably put something in that_other_show about it later.

~ ETA: Gmail have sorted out the pesky 'inbox' problem, thank goodness. That's better.

~ DID I MENTION THAT IT'S FRIDAY?!?!?!?!?!

Housman and Horace

Before moving on to more serious things, seen on Broad Street today:

The definition of 'cheeky': calling out to people on an open-top tour bus and inviting them on your walking tour of the city.

---

Getting back to poetry month:

One of my favourite plays is The Invention of Love by Tom Stoppard. I was lucky enough to see the original production at the National Theatre, and while I was a little young to enjoy it properly, it still caught my imagination, and when I've read the play since, I've been able to 're-watch' it in my head. There are many wonderful lines, although the best are usually lifted from Housman's own writings.

When it comes to Roman poets, I prefer Catullus and Ovid to Horace in general, but this is one that has stayed with me. Housman's translation went unpublished until after his death, and when he was teaching, he would take all the other poems apart, but he would just read this one in Latin and move on. It seems to have touched him deeply, and in the play he says "There's no one like Horace for telling you you're a long time dead."

I'm still looking for that in Horace, if I'm honest, but I can see what he means about this poem.

( Diffugere Nives. )