memememe

[raven]

I decided early this morning that if I didn't leave the house soon, I was going to go stark raving insane. So I walked the thirty-five minutes into the village to get a pasty from Sayers - actually, let me have a point of digression here while I talk about how great pasties are. I did not know, until I moved to Oxford, that despite the fact there has been one everywhere I've lived - and there used to be one on the way into school, and I'd pop out during the afternoon and get flaky pastry all over the library carpet - Sayers are Liverpool-based only. I was delighted to discover, therefore, that there are in fact places that sell pasties in Oxford. But. But, these are pasties that you have to pay £2.50 for, that have, I don't know, ingredients, whereas a real pasty is made of indefinable vegetables and something-that-might-be-meat, all covered in astonishingly-bad-for-you pastry and is much too hot to hold, let alone eat, before you have carried it around with you for half an hour and made a glorious amount of mess, and it should be 79p, because more than that would imply that it were made of food.

Enormous digression aside, I bought a baked-bean-and-sausage pasty and a luridly purple fairy cake, and dropped in on the bookshop on the way home. I do like it when people are pleased to see me. At any rate, I stepped in and was greeted with, "Oh, fantastic, Iona, can you answer the phone and tell Assistant Book Monkey to give up smoking?"

I did both, to limited avail, and ended up idly stickering signed copies on the counter while they told me what I've missed through being away for three months. One of the reps has taken up astral projection ("Well, he said he'd spent a month in Birmingham sort of flying around, and people didn't believe him when he said he'd been projecting himself. There were a lot of Jamaican guys in the street selling weed. Yes, that is a funny coincidence, isn't it?"), Assistant Book Monkey is still in love with Her Upstairs ("She's gay, I'm an optimist"), Setch has gone to Loughborough and isn't at all falling into the insanely-sporty stereotype ("He came in the other day and told us he'd named his biceps.").

A customer came in at that point, but I just couldn't resist. "What has he named them?"

They looked at each other, looked at me, looked at the little old lady customer, and chorused, "Pinky and the Brain!"

Also, Anne Fine came in to sign books and, despite her epic amounts of kids' books (including Flour Babies and Goggle-Eyes, both of which I loved), she apparently doesn't like children ("Such bloody shrill voices!") or, indeed, Jacqueline Wilson ("I've been saying that for years, but no one ever listens to me," I sighed at that point); Katy Flynn has written yet another squidgy book of squidge and dedicated it to us; there are so many books exploding through the back of the shop that they've had to fill one of the toilets with proof copies and OS maps.

Situation normal, I said, promised to help out over Easter weekend, and paused to ask, before I went home with my luridly purple fairy cake, "If you could fly anywhere you wanted, would you stick around in Birmingham?"

"He's moved now, anyway," they told me. "In fact, you should look out for him."

("Passing through on a nearby jetstream?" I said, but no, apparently the Bloomsbury Astral Projection Rep now lives a couple of doors down from where jacinthsong and potatofiend lived last year. I take all of this as proof that all it takes for my life to get surreal again is for me to step out of the house.)

Anyway! I actually made this entry as an excuse to use this icon - which is great and marvellous, and probably indicative of much talking-about-philosophy I'm going to be doing - and for a meme, seen everywhere but most recently with glitzfrau:

Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post or comment about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on yaoi, favorite type of underwear, graphic techniques, etc.

I'm pretty sure I write about everything that pops into my head, but we shall see. And now I go back to doing some actual work, rather than eating cake and babbling.

Comments

[apotropaios.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't think I know much about your opinions on art. Who's your favourite artist? Do you have a favourite painting?

Also, that's a lovely idea, I may steal that meme-y thing.

EDIT: I get to edit comments now! Ok, I have no actual reason to edit this comment. It just excited me. Well, ok, I'll change the icon then.

[balthaser.livejournal.com]

Sayer's are Liverpool based only? How have I never noticed this?

Would Greggs be similar in their pastry-ness? Because they are nationwide. Or at least, they have them in London as well as Liverpool.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I know, right? Apparently Southport and Formby in the north, and there are some on the Wirral, as well as about a million in Liverpool, and that's it.

Greggs I never liked so much. I used to get the bright yellow Easter things from the Crosby one when we were at school, but I never liked the pasties as much.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oooh, that's an interesting question! I shall talk about that.

(Editing comments! Is great! It stops me making (as much of) an idiot of myself!)

[snowballjane.livejournal.com]

I don't often feel nostalgic for Maghull, but ZOMG Sayers pasties!

[snowballjane.livejournal.com]

When I lived in Wolverhampton, the Greggs there was called Braggs.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* I would make a joke here about how right you are in not feeling nostalgic for Maghull, but see me valiantly resisting. Sayers pasties = WIN. Baked bean and sausage without any sausage!

[slasheuse.livejournal.com]

I want to know about your only-child-ness! Do you mind? Was it deliberate on your parents' parts? As an only child myself I like to know what others think.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oooh! That is interesting. I shall definitely oblige.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Interesting topic! I'm an only child too. :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

You should write about it too! *grins* (I'm not at all demanding, me.) But it's a topic I do love hearing about.

[hips-lips-tits.livejournal.com]

i am so stealing that.

and while i, too, am fairly sure that you probably do write about everything that pops into your head, i would like you to write on.. hm. the subject of the very first book that you ever remember reading and why or why not it was remarkable. (terribly grade school essay-esque, i realize, but usually gains an interesting response.)

i will be reposting that challenge in my journal. hopefully someone replies so i can stop talking about work and tattoos.

[gryphart.livejournal.com]

Heh. Um. You may not want to ask for pasties in the US, though, or Hilarity Will Ensue.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thankfully for me, the words are pronounced differently! :)

[clubhopper15.livejournal.com]

Something mundane and less intellectual..like your list of hottest celebrities :P

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I like that one! I've spent a very cheering ten minutes thinking about it.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

She says, as though I post interestingly and intellectually all the rest of the time! :)

your wish is my command. *g*

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

I bought a baked-bean-and-sausage pasty and a luridly purple fairy cake

Heee, sometimes reading you is like reading a foreign language. I mean, now I finally understand exactly what pasties are, but fairy cake? Purple?

I'd actually like to hear MORE about your love of philosphy, because hearing people talk about the abstract intellectual things they love makes me happy. Like, who's your favorite philosopher? Who was the first one you ever read, and was it immediately clear to you that you wanted to Do Philosophy when you got the chance? Do you ever get those annoying questions from practical people about what you're going to "do with" philosophy, or what "use" it is? How do you respond? That kind of thing.

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

Greggs (at least, at home) do plain bread finger-rolls covered in icing and coconut. And sometimes, sliced in half with synthetic not-cream-at-all. This is the BEST THING EVER.

(Well, almost. The bacon and cheese turnovers are perhaps even better, but kill you faster)

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

And, uh, by that I mean "philosophy." "Philosphy" sounds like I got distracted halfway through the word and started writing about hammerheads (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphyrnidae).

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh, I seem to remember our having had impressively long debates about what pasties are, back when I was buying them on my way into school! Fairy cakes are cupcakes, I think. This one was iced all over in a quite extraordinary purple.

Philosphy = win. I will talk about this at some length, I am sure.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

"Philosphy" sounds like I got distracted halfway through the word and started writing about hammerheads.

...I love you. So much.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, that does sound familiar. And ohhhh, everything makes so much more sense now that I know what fairy cakes are. I was imagining some kind of little cake that was just dyed violently purple, which is WRONG.

[ladyherenya]

Also, Anne Fine came in to sign books
*does a double take*
That's so... so... wow. I love so many of Anne Fine's books and I'm very awed by the fact that you can have her walk into a book shop, as if it is something which happens everyday.
Partly because I don't know anyone who has read her books outside of my own family, and partly because I live in the wrong side of the world. But still. You met Anne Fine!

[sunlightdances.livejournal.com]

Anne Fine. ANNE FINE.

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[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* I didn't actually meet her! I haven't been here for a couple of months, and she visited a few weeks ago. I did get to see the ginormous stack of signed books she left behind, though.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heeee! I wish I'd actually got to meet her.