Shiny!

NASA needs your help to name Node 3 of the international space station. A short-list of names have been drawn up for your perusal .. and "Serenity" is one of the possible names. (For the ones among you going bzuh: Serenity?)

Time for some thrilling heroics: go vote!

I Thought Turkey Was The In-Flight Meal

A family who were bound for a week's holiday in Lanzarote are back home after a check-in desk mix-up meant they caught a flight to Turkey instead. (..) Mr Coray said they had not realised their mistake because their boarding pass stated only Bodrum airport and not that it was in Turkey.
(source)

On a vaguely similar note, try your American news IQ. The interesting bit is actually at the end where you can see the demographic make-up of results.

The other night the land-line phone rang and a tiny boyish voice said "im goin be big brotha". Yes, I'm going to be an auntie again. This time it feels even bigger than the first time. One of my best friends is also going to become a mother. This calls for Auntie Bookish to surf the net for things to knit, obviously.

My partner's sister and my friend may never speak to me again, of course:
(if this is your creation, let me know so I can give you credit for being a genius)

Spoils

Stephen Moffat does write the best Doctor Who episodes. A planet which is one giant library? Yes, please! And that is all I will say as I do not want to give away any spoilers.. Now, as some longterm readers/friends may know, I'm absolutely obsessed by paratexts and paratextuality: tables of content, indices, illustrations, prefaces, typefaces, paper textures etc. Everything that makes a text a book, basically. I have found an absolute gem: A Book of Tables of Content. You can see a slideshow at the site and there is even a Flickr group where you can upload your own favourite Table of Content. Personally I have a thing about the ToC in Iain Banks' The Bridge (my favourite Banks novel, by the way). The novel takes place on the Firth of Forth Bridge and if you turn the ToC ninety degrees, it actually takes on the shape of that particular bridge. Nifty.

Finally, a very, very cool/scary photo of when volcanoes spew lightning.

PS. I have finished my first sweater and I'm very proud

Twitching

Following Friday's unfortunate stroll, I decided I should probably take things easy. What brought it home? It was possibly the fact that when I passed out on Friday, I narrowly escaped having my forehead cut open thanks to broken glass lying on the ground. This time I was lucky and as for next time .. there will not be a next time. I'll be taking things very, very easy from now on. No more marathon computer sessions, no more computer games and I'll try very hard to squeeze as much sleep into my day as I possibly can.

I'm thirty-two, intelligent, out-going and occasionally I'm witty too. And some days I can't even manage the five-minute walk up to the local supermarket. I have no idea what on earth is wrong with me and I am seemingly stuck in a slightly chaotic health care system (apologies to all Britons, but my experience of UK vs Danish heath care definitely gives the Danish heath care system the upper hand - and I've had some pretty dire experiences with Danish doctors in my time). Right now I feel as though my doctor is expecting me to give her a diagnosis - not the other way around. It's quite, quite frustrating.

Also, I am suffering from cabin fever. Know what it's like being stuck in bed with a cold for a week? Try imagining yourself stuck in that situation for a few months. I've begun knitting. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy it but I knit whilst watching Crufts, for heaven's sake. And I wear slippers an awful lot. It is as though my life has decided to skip straight to me being eighty-four.

Good things:
+ A worrying family situation has improved.
+ Other Half has taken up making ice-cream. He is very good at this.
+ Friends and family send me beautiful, beautiful yarn.
+ Doctor Who is back on TV! AND the Ofishul Doctor Who exhibition is coming to Glasgow next year!
+ Elbow's latest album, The Seldom Seen Kid makes me beam.
+ And the daffodils are in bloom, so even if I end up with my face flat on the ground, I can look at pretty things.

Bad Things Not Mentioned Thus Far:
+ I try to knit fingerless gloves for Other Half (using organic Scottish wool - locally sourced too - gosh, I'm such a Guardian reader, am I not?) but I end up hating every thing I knit and frog it mercilessly. Grrr..

Eliot the Fanboy

TS Eliot was a Doctor Who fan fiction writer?!

While ‘Four Quartets’ has received due attention for its literary merits, until now no critic has touched on its merits as a piece of fan fiction.

Well, I laughed.