Wednesday, November 27, 2019


No news from Glasgow – that must be good news.

What a day for death! Gary Rhodes, Jonathan Miller, Clive James (a fairly meaningless list, perhaps, outside GB) – all of them appreciably younger than I am.

I completely forgot to say yesterday, that it was Andrew & Andrea Tuesday. And a good one, number 90. The main interview is with Amy Detjen. I have met her, and love her, as  anyone would, but the interview is well worth watching even if you have never had that good fortune. Andrew said that number 91 might be a few days late. We’ll have to nerve ourselves up for that.

The stitch count of the Dathan hap is now 487 – it will be 491 when I finish the current long, long right-side row.

I went into Craftsy – I’ve forgotten its new name – and downloaded the hap pattern in Gudrun’s class (which I already had). But my printer isn’t working, so that doesn’t get me very far. She does the centre square diagonally – that is, beginning at one corner. She begins every row with a YO which makes a delicious series of loops to slip the needle through when you are picking up stitches for the borders. (When did I knit Gudrun’s hap?)

Next, I must think about those South African colours and how many of each to order.

General culture

I watched some of Episode 4 of The Crown today, and gave up on it. It’s the one about Prince Philip’s mother and the making of a documentary about the royal family. Maybe I’d do better huddling in the kitchen and watching on my iPad.

I finished and dispatched my Italian essay. I wound up comparing Middlemarch with Il Gattopardo. I wish I were eloquent enough to do it more thoroughly. The former is about the Reform Bill of 1832, the latter about the Risorgimento and the Plebiscite of 1860.

I want to say something about Jonathan Miller – see among deaths. But that’s enough for now.

7 comments:

  1. I was introduced to Jonathan Miller by some university friends who had an LP of Beyond the Fringe. I look forward to reading more from you. I watched the first episode of this season of The Crown, but wasn't as taken as with the earlier seasons, I'm not sure why.

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  2. GB may have adopted Clive, as an Australian, claim him as one of our own - a remarkable writer, poet and raconteur - good innings, but a sad loss.

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  3. Anonymous8:33 PM

    Jonathan Miller and Clive James (I have his "Poetry Notebook" are losses for sure. Beyond the Fringe played in NYC and Miller was surely interviewed enough on US TV that some will know him. I had to look up Gary Rhodes - not so up on celebrity chefs.

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  4. Anonymous8:34 PM

    Meant to say how much I like making Gudrun's hap - three so far. The diagonal centre is lovely and stretchy.

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  5. Anonymous12:30 PM

    Jean you have me wanting to buy Gudrun's pattern. Just to force me to practice that central square. Could do that independently I suppose without buying a pattern, but I need the structure of a pattern to motivate me. Chloe

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  6. =Tamar4:53 PM

    You knitted Gudrun's hap in May and June 2016, according to Google. It seems to have gone very quickly. Or maybe I should say "they" - there was a mention of two half-haps.

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  7. Short cut Rhodes was a go-to cook book for a long time, and I have Clive James' Cultural Amnesia, an astonishing book; each page sends me down another 'rabbit hole' into a new wonderland. And Poetry Notes as well; an extraordinarily talented man.

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