Zombies!

"My understanding of zombie biology is that if you manage to decapitate a zombie then it's dead forever. So perhaps they are being a little over-pessimistic when they conclude that zombies might take over a city in three or four days" - Professor Neil Ferguson, Imperial College London

Science ponders "Zombie attacks" (BBC). It sounds wacky but apparently it can help scientists understanding virus pandemics. I knew my good friend M. (an international expert on infectious diseases) would eventually come up with a really good explanation for his zombie film collection.

Magic Tricks and Music Halls

Yesterday I found a new favourite place in Glasgow. Walking into Tam Shepard's Trick Shop is like walking into another world, another era. The shop could have been straight out of the 1930s - except for the Obama masks and the nu-rave-esque wigs. It is a place where the owner will start a Victor Borge routine when he learns you are from Denmark, where a shop assistant will disappear through a hole in the floor, you can choose between twenty different kinds of fake moustaches, and tiny kids stare with much fascination at plastic spiders. Tam Shepard's Trick Shop is a family-run business and it has been going since the 1880s. You can see faded music hall posters bearing the names of ancestors and old photos of dishy dames performing magic tricks. "That's my great-grandma," the woman behind the counter informed me. Glasgow has a very proud music hall tradition, actually, and tomorrow we are off to The Britannia Panopticon Music Hall for a steam punk craft show. The Panopticon is the oldest surviving music hall in Britain - the place where Stan Laurel of Laurel & Hardy made his stage debut, no less, and where a young Cary Grant performed while he was still Archie Leach - and it is a beautiful, almost derelict building. The Panopticon Trust has been trying to save the building for about a decade now but it is still fragile. For more information (and a bit of singing), this youtube clip from the AyeWrite literary festival features Judith Bowers, local historian and secretary of the Panopticon Trust, talking about the music hall. If you are local and you have never been, you can visit the building during the Glasgow Doors Open days in September.

Finally,  I recently subscribed to My Vintage Vogue which is a tumblr feed featuring glamorous photo shoots from the Vogue archives. And I refuse to believe there has ever been a woman quite as beautiful as Cyd Charisse..

The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron

Channel4 executive: "OMG, OMG! BBC just had their poetry season and it was so supercool! What do we do?!" Other Channel4 executive: "Is there anyway we can make poetry really sensationalist and entertaining? I mean, I am not not opposed to clever things but poetry is really stuffy, y'know?"

Channel4 Executive: "Uhm.... how about Lord Byron? He was not stuffy. He slept with his half-sister, was 'mad, bad and dangerous to know', wanted to liberate Greece, went a-roving with the Shelleys and wrote really amusing poetry about eating spaniels."

Other Channel4 Executive: "We need a celeb angle. We need.. we could send Rupert Everett around Europe whilst he settles into his botched facelift - and he could talk about Lord Byron's sex life. The incest bit  and how he fancied Percy Bysshe Shelley?"

Rupert Everett: "I'll only do it if I get to say naughty words, show off my naked bum, swim in my underwear with cute semi-naked boys, eat caviar with Donatella Versace, and pretend that Lord Byron is really me, me, me!"

Channel4 Executives: "You're on!"

The Knitting Basket of Doom

Hello FLS, my old friend,I've come to knit you again, Because pretty yarn came softly creeping, And I can knit you while sleeping, And the shawl that was frogged yesterday Still remains Within the knitting basket of doom.

In restless dreams I walked alone Wondered if I should knit Cobblestone, 'neath the halo of a second-hand lamp, I turned my eyes to the weather cold and damp When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of bright light That split the night And touched the knitting basket of doom.

And in the naked light I saw Ten thousand possible projects, maybe more. Projects without assigned yarns, Projects with double-sided lace charts, Projects that look fabulous - but not on me And not one made me Disturb the knitting basket of doom.

Head said you do know Your yarn stash like a cancer grows. Find some sweater amount for Hey Teach, Take these patterns and an FO this month you may reach. But my hands like idle raindrops fell, And rested By the knitting basket of doom.

And so to the great knitting goddess I prayed I looked at items I had previously made. And the signs were flashing, By the sweater amounts I had been stashing. And the signs said, top-down it shall be It'll be easy garter-stitch and fancy-free And suit that lovely wool-alpaca yarn you have kept in the knitting basket of doom..

(apologies to Simon and Garfunkel)

Friday Linkage And Such

Ooooh, nice location and a suitable size! I also like that it hasn't been refurbished beyond recognition (I have a particular bone to pick with developers putting Poggenpohl-knock-off kitchens into Victorian properties).  Shame about the price, of course. A few months ago David and I went to see the Swedish vampire film, Let the Right One In. It was more art-house than Hammer house and unsurprisingly it is set for a US remake so people do not have to endure subtitles or pale Swedish boys with bowl haircuts. While most aspects of the US remake fills me with dread - the director made Cloverfield and ambiguous gender portrayals are becoming significantly less ambiguous - I found it really interesting to watch the casting tapes of the three girls up for the lead which io9 posted recently. I know which girl I prefer but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. Also, do not miss the discussion on io9.

Psychotic Letters From Men was a recent MeFi find. Normally I would cast it a cursory glance, move on and not mention it here, but the site did remind me of the time I received letters from a blog reader who was convinced that a) I had an artificial limb and b) this was the biggest turn-on in the world for the guy. No wonder I let my old blog die a very quiet death..

Finally, Advanced Style cheered me up. It really proves that style ain't no age-thing.

In the Shadows of Trees

Mooncalf requested a picture of my Pine. As the picture reveals, the cardigan's green (which will shock and surprise many of my regular readers). I'm knitting it out of two threads of the same fingering-weight yarn which is an unusual experience for me.

First I thought I could cheat and use some lovely tweed worsted-weight yarn I have in my stash, but when I actually read through the entire pattern like a good girl, I realised that some parts are knitted using one thread. So two threads it is, although I suppose you could get away with using worsted-weight yarn and matching fingering weight. Something to consider if you are planning on knitting this.

The body consists of four "ridges" and I'm on my third already, so it is a relatively quick and easy knit. I'm still sliiiightly unsure whether or not I shall have enough yarn (i.e. I have just about what the pattern suggests but I've been told to be slightly wary of Helga Isager's yarn requirements), but I suppose I could always have the button-band be a contrasting colour?

As for where I was sitting this afternoon - well, the Glasgow Botanical Garden is a perennial favourite. It is a short walk away from my home, it's relatively quiet even on busy (i.e. sunny) days and I can go into the Kibble Palace (pictured) if it starts to rain.

After a long, stressful and utterly busy week, I took great joy in buying some sugary tea, getting my knitting out and just chill with my knitting for an hour or so before my Other Half came in to get me. I need more afternoons like this.

I also took some more photographs of my neighbourhood because I do love my West End and several of my Danish friends have requested a few photos of the place. Stay tuned.

Tonight, though, the concluding part of Torchwood Season Three (aka "Children of the Earth"). Scarily Torchwood S3 has been jumping the shark in reverse, so instead of going from good to bad, it has gone from being ludicrous in its first season to being absolutely compelling viewing. All I'll say is that this season had me at "Well, what else are the school league tables for..?"