Lizzie Speller

“November”, Thomas Hood (b.1799)

No sun — no moon!
No morn — no noon —
No dawn — no dusk — no proper time of day.

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member —
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! —
November!

The Ghosts Of Cassiopeia!

It took 550 years for the light from these ghouls to travel through space to spook us today...

Happy Halloween, my friends!

Midas strikes again. Gold plated tap.
Women beware……

Hang on a minute, did Ozymandias just become the new This Is Just to Say? Someday I want to write a whole article on the memeification of famous poems...

(tired: leaving notes on your fridge about the plums you have eaten
wired: meeting a traveler from an antique land)

Sir Everard Digby night? ( Knight Night?)

Not a criticism of US fun. After all, we British burn an effigy of a Catholic and let off explosions a few days later.

I’ll never again bore my children by saying ‘Halloween is really an American ritual’ now that I’ve bought a bread pumpkin from the bakery!

Zohran Mamdani caught lying that he understood Plato’s allegory of the cave, yet when asked to explain it, he seemed to instead explain Baudrillard’s theory of Simulacra and Simulation where reality has been replaced by symbols and signs, which seems similar to Plato’s theory but is not the same

October Half term was always tatie (pitmatic, sounds like taytee) picking week. Back breaking work.

(Never picked. But my siblings raided fields for turnips)

Potato Pickers - Ernest Higgins Rigg (1868–1947), John Johnstone (b.1941), Jules Bastien-Lepage (1878), Frederick William Jackson(1859-1918)

Lego Museum break-in. Fortuitously timed Christmas present.

Karoline Leavitt officially announced the "Launch of a large-scale investigation to find the people behind 'No Kings.'"

I've saved her some time.

Country diary: A landscape transforming in front of my eyes | John Gilbey Afon Mawddach, Gwynedd: My riverside walk is met with bitter winds, frantic showers and bursts of sunshine. The change in the colours is remarkable

Rain, sun and rainbow colours across the Afon Mawddach in today's @theguardian.com country diary by @johngilbey.bsky.social.

#countrydiary #naturewriting

Yes. He started a book, but only discovered his paternity quite late in life. He very much enjoyed meeting his siblings, some of whom were at his funeral.

Courageous and effective. No violence, just a shared voice. Thank you all. 🫶👏👍

Guillermo del Toro quote "...think about wealth for me for example. A wealthy man that has enough..."

"not a man that needs more. If you have enough to invite somebody to beer..."

"...you're rich. If you have, whatever-"

"- yachts and planes and islands and you STILL need more? You're not rich."

Guillermo del Toro on wealth: "a wealthy man is a man who has enough, not a man that needs more. If you have enough to invite someone for a beer? You're rich. If you have a yacht, planes, islands, and you still need more? You're not rich."

Title: The leaves Image 1: Two leaves hang from branches. "Would you like to hear my new poem?" Says one "Is it another one about the inevitability of death?" replies a smaller leaf. Image 2: "It's autumn! What else am i going to write about?" says the poet leaf. "Well, we've all turned this lovely reddish colour." says the small leaf. Image 3: "Actually, that could make a very nice poem. Thanks!" says the poet. Image 4. The small leaf begins to reply but is blown away by a gust of wind. Image 5: Later. The solitary poet leaf recites a poem: "The year dies. I cling hopelessly. In the end all things fall."

A cartoon about autumn....

“Let me be bold and Dye for my Desire.
A Phenix likes to perish in the Fire.”

John Wilmot, Lord Rochester. 1647-1680

I love this image, but also the idea that your clenched fist is the same size as your heart

'When have I ever not loved the pain of love'

#poetry
#poemoftheday

Dark green background. In yellow it reads: Rescheduled Skeleton Restoration Drop-In. Thursday the 11th of December 11am-4pm

The skeleton restoration drop-in session has been rescheduled and will now take place on Thursday the 11th of December.
You will have the opportunity to observe our Human Remains Conservator in action and discuss with her the intricacies of preserving skeletons like these.

Updating my LEGO White House

Lechlade-upon-Thames church (1496 with additions).

“Here could I hope, like some inquiring child
Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight
Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep
That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (who visited it in 1815)

A painting of a very large hog.

AWS is down, post hog

A friend sends south a photo of today’s sunrise in Northumberland.

“Water glitters. Something lets loose
Its cry. A ripple. Rings dilate
Where once a river emptied out
Only uncertainty. Over and over
A curlew flings its loop of sound –
Flings it and captures wildness in its noose” Katrina Porteous

A prophetic 1934 novel has found a surprising second life – it holds lessons for us all | Charlotte Higgins Sally Carson’s Crooked Cross was written and set during the rise of nazism. It shows both how extremism takes hold, and the moral certainty needed to resist it, says the Guardian’s chief culture write...

By coincedence I’m reading this. Chillingly topical but also, beautifully written. It may be atmospheric, and send a warning over 90 years, but it’s also a very compelling story.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/144512...

I like the old words of London, a message from history: painted advertisements, names, long gone institutions. This smart Marylebone house was once Portland Chapel School.

Karoo by Steve Tesich Michael Bywater rediscovers a masterly comic tragedy

Having just finished the dark, funny, lacerating, spectacularly bleak New York / Hollywood satire KAROO by Steve Tesich, I need to take a moment for it all to land. But in the meantime, here’s an excellent essay about it by Michael Bywater in the New Humanist newhumanist.org.uk/articles/150...

Britons opening their curtains for the next 4 months.

This is brilliant. Illuminates my night!