I’m rather tickled to see there’s an edition of the Swiss Family Robinson in words of One Syllable in Project Gutenberg.

Presumbly, the author permitted herself polysyllabic words like the ones in the title.  Or character names.

Today it has been, by turns, hot, cold, windy, rainy, and hailing.

This is not a good thing.  Only a week from now we are down to be under canvass in Sandringham.

I’ve never been camping so early as Easter before, even though Easter is late this year.  Brr.  Keeping an anxious eye on the long range weather forecast. Although it’s cold this weekend,  night temperatures are up 9 degrees to, er 9 degrees by Wednesday.  Let’s hope that’s an upward trend rather than a mid-week spike.

After this month’s various unreliabilities, I’m starting to think seriously about replacing my old car.

Where do you start when it comes to buying a car?  I have some vague ideas what I want — smaller, definitely, and with an engine that makes it cheap to insure and tax.  There have been times when having a huge great estate car has been handy, but not many.  And I’m not moving house again! Three doors, hatchback is probably enough. A convertible like my brother’s might be nice, but I don’t want to pay the premium to insure it.  It needs to be nippy on the motorway, but doesn’t need to so dangerously oomphy as the 1.9L Vauxhall hire car was.

I really don’t care what make or model it is so long as it works, and is comfortable.

And ideally,

• is green
• has a decent radio / MP3-CD player, and the luxury of more than one working speaker
• has a handy thermometer to tell me the outside temperature

My parents have a Yaris each.  I was impressed by a co-councillor’s Peugeot two-oh-something.  R’s new Micra is quite nice.  I like the shape of the new Polo (which has really come on since Mum had one in the early 90s) although my nearest VW dealer doesn’t have any second hand green ones. The new Fiesta is much nicer than the old one.

Decisions, decisions.  Back burner.

Will has a rather nifty meme to take Wikipedia‘s ‘On this Day’ function and find out things about your birthday.

Go to Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/). Type in your birth date (but not year). List three events that happened on your birthday. List two important birthdays and one interesting death. Post this in your journal.

Birthday:  August 3rd

Events

• 1914 – First World War: Germany declares war against France.
• 1923 – Calvin Coolidge is inaugurated as the 30th President of the United States.  (August is a weird time for presidential inaugurations.  Coolidge was Warren Harding’s VP and succeeded when Harding became the 6th President to die in office)
• 1990 – The highest temperature recorded in the UK until 10 August 2003 – 37.1°C at Cheltenham in Gloucestershire.

Birthdays
I’m not going to count Terry Wogan because I already knew about him.  And I want to give three not two:

• 1867 – Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1947)
• 1887 – Rupert Brooke, English poet (d. 1915)
• 1940 – Martin Sheen, American actor

Deaths

And three deaths, too.

• 1181 – Pope Alexander III (c. 1105)
• 1460 – King James II of Scotland (b. 1430)
• 2004 – Henri Cartier-Bresson, French photographer (b. 1908)

“Do you mind driving to Stockport?”

Hmmm.  Suspicious mind.  What do you want me to do when I get there?  Delivering leaflets? Canvassing?  Something strenuous and uncomfortable?

“Pick up urgent stationery and drive home.”

Oh, cool.  Yesterday was a gorgeous bright warm day, so I had no problem with a jaunt in the countryside.

So, where’s Stockport, then?

I remembered once they started to explain — I went through there to get to Cheadle. It’s a gorgeous route.  Up high over the hills and through the National Park.  Spectacular views.

So, top down (*), sunnies on, Fountains of Wayne on the CD player,  spend afternoon on the road.  Grab a sandwich in Romily, turn round, come home.
Perfick.

(*) Sunroof on MAX is about as close as I can get

“Do you mind driving to Stockport?”

Hmmm.  Suspicious mind.  What do you want me to do when I get there?  Delivering leaflets? Canvassing?  Something strenuous and uncomfortable?

“Pick up urgent stationery and drive home.”

Oh, cool.  Yesterday was a gorgeous bright warm day, so I had no problem with a jaunt in the countryside.

So, where’s Stockport, then?

I remembered once they started to explain — I went through there to get to Cheadle. It’s a gorgeous route.  Up high over the hills and through the National Park.  Spectacular views.

So, top down (*), sunnies on, Fountains of Wayne on the CD player,  spend afternoon on the road.  Grab a sandwich in Romily, turn round, come home.
Perfick.

(*) Sunroof on MAX is about as close as I can get

is

mentee

as in a person who is mentored, rather than the herbal drink or sea creature it sounds like it ought to be.
I’m not certain this is a real word, but it came up a lot in a presentation this afternoon.

is

mentee

as in a person who is mentored, rather than the herbal drink or sea creature it sounds like it ought to be.
I’m not certain this is a real word, but it came up a lot in a presentation this afternoon.

I think my chapters for Treasure Island on www.librivox.org are being podcast at the moment — Saturday’s and Monday’s editions are the ones I did.

My Yarr! pirate voice for Long John Silver really made my throat hurt at the time, and one listener has written to me to query whether I pronounced the author’s name correctly.  I’ve always thought he was Robert “Looee” Stevenson, but some others have said Lewis.
I should be recording right now. I’ve signed myself up to a record number of projects, all detailed on my podcasting page (at least they should be).  The enthusiasm is there, if the time a little short.

But the key thing stopping me right now is, erm, phlegm.  I’m bunged up, and you can hear it when I record.  And I have to stop every few minutes to clear my throat.  Urgh. I feel fine otherwise, apart from occasional achey throats.  And on the rare occasion when I have to use my voice extensively (training last weekend, for example) it gets raspy quickly.