Just come across my mate R’s writeup of our night in a pub a fortnight ago. It made me realise quite how much territory it is possible to gallop through in an evening’s chat with an enthusiastic conversation partner, especially when aided by a couple of pints of cider.
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I see the Italian education minister is now claiming the Italian government funded the tunnel [sic] from Geneva to L’Aquila along which the neutrinos in this week’s news appeared to travel fractionally faster than the speed of light.
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Just wanted to refresh the design a touch, so I’m now on another standard WordPress template. Down to 2 columns, sans serif font, lots more whitespace – monitors have gotten bigger since I picked the last one. Haven’t yet chucked my own header photos in, but they will (eventually) be back, honest.
Sat on Richmond Green, enjoying an excellent pistachio ice-cream from Gelateria Danieli (genuinely extraordinarily good; drop by). Watching kids running around with footballs and dolls. It all seems incredibly far away from sovereign debt and credit default swaps and service-oriented architecture… Does this say more about how amazing humanity is at tackling complex stuff when it would really rather be in a park, or something vaguely zen-ish about maintaining room for a little bit of play and even silliness in life?
Yet another snippet entering what passes for my consciousness more-or-less unbidden:
“As ridiculous as two walnuts judging a quilting competition and failing all entries for not resembling penguins.”
We all know know that everything is labelled in line with the principle that, whatever it is, it is fatally dangerous when misapplied; and must therefore be warned of to within an inch of its (and my) life, lest I accidentally snort a litre of toilet cleaner or try to put out a housefire with a teabag. I have just accumulated the latest gem, found on an air-freshener I bought to remove the scent of damp plaster from the flat: “Air fresheners do not replace good hygiene practices”. This means, presumably, that I will have to go and fish my toothbrush out of the bin….
I need to share the love. Please all feel free to Cornify darklooks.com to your hearts’ content. 
So, having never really been one for film, I’m now starting to go all filmnuts. Specifically, I’ve realised I want to see this, this, this, this, this and this; and that tomorrow, all things being equal, I’m going to see this;
and I guess also that I’m slightly dreading this. Oh, and over the last two weeks I’ve been to see this and I’ve also watched this. All of which makes me virtually contemporary and possibly even vaguely up-to-date, which can’t be right. Hmmm.
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Always nice to have a tercet to waft one off. Today’s is owed to the great Denise Riley, from “Wherever you are, be somewhere else” in her 1993 collection Mop Mop Georgette:
Stop now. Hold it there. Balance. Be beautiful. Try.
—And I can’t do this. I can’t talk like any of this.
You hear me not do it.
An occasional feature brought to you by this rattling round inside my head during a bout of insomnia.
In response to quite literally millions of requests*, two small changes to darklooks. First off, all the photography is now my own, including the Holkham skyline, some books from the library, a sunset in Richmond and some mountains in New Hampshire; and, second, users need no longer log in to comment on posts. Of course if you’d like to you’re extremely welcome, but I’m aware registering is a barrier to entry, and nothing seems to stop the Russian spambots anyway.
That is all. I thank you.
* i.e. zero to one