Bluecat

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  1. In the story B collected from Siggi in Sweden, her grandfather told her (sometime in the early 1960s in Western Sweden) that a troll might pass through the garden from time to time, but probably wouldn't stick around if you did the right things (specifically, putting iron in one of the trees in the garden). But if you didn't do that, a troll which came along might decide to stay. It might even come and sit in the kitchen. You wouldn't see it, but a house with a troll sitting in the kitchen can never be a happy house. If you ever read the Moomintroll stories by Tove Jansson, the Groke has something of the same effect, even though she never actually does anything. Then Siggi saw something which made her think a troll was passing through their garden...
  2. Hey Stormy. Great to hear from you. All good wishes for your recovery. Sx
  3. You need to take that up with whatever international committee decided that people who behave in a certain way on the internet should be called trolls. It is, after all, a comment on behaviour, not on nature. Personally, I'm not convinced by that etymology of 'troll'. That kind of fishing is called 'trawling', in British English at least. Trawling does derive from 'troller', but that's French, not Norse. Convergent evolution, perhaps? I've always thought that it was to do with the supposed troll habit of lurking under bridges and trying to prevent the Billy Goats from getting to the fresh green grass on the other side - which is already moving some way from Scandinavian mythology to the realms of folklore and tall tale. The effects of the internet troll on the frank and free exchange of views are pretty close to the effects that are attributed to trolls in Scandinavian popular culture. But not very much like the effects of fishermen - not even on the fish. My book has a troll story which Bendigo collected in Sweden from someone who claimed it had really happened to her. Refer to that for the effect of trolls (buy now while stocks last! ).
  4. Yes, but 'don't feed the fishermen' seems a bit mean.
  5. If anyone would like a signed copy posted to them wherever they happen to be in the world, it can be arranged. Message me.
  6. Out with the worm farm at a local festival encouraging people to compost and introducing the worms, about 6000 of them. Telling the kids that they all have names, and all the names begin with W "look, that's Wilbur Worm, and there's Winnie waving at you..."

  7. Some time ago I added a new motto to my signature line: Nolite alimentare trollibus It's partly decent Latin, but I had to invent a word, because the Romans do not seem to have encountered the Scandinavian belief in trolls - or if they did, it has left no trace in their language. It's always tricky when you want to translate something unknown to the speakers of the language you're translating into. Do you look for an approximate? The Romans had a word for giants - gigantes, - but trolls are not exactly the same as giants, and some of them are not even very big. A Norwegian advert to encourage children to brush their teeth, for instance, shows tiny trolls of tooth decay being thwarted, and my Finnish friend Margarita was told as a child that trolls lived behind the chimney. You could call a troll a troglodyte - troglodytarum according to some Latin dictionaries - but the word actually comes from the Ancient Greek for cave dweller. So not only the wrong language, but associated with the Greek speakers who built underground cities in Cappadocia, and who had no trollish characteristics as far as I know. So... as the grammar could result in an ending ~ibus, and as 'trolley bus' is a thing in English, the last word is trollibus.
  8. Well... you could buy a copy and I could sign it
  9. http://elt.oup.com/c...age=en&mode=hub Working on the next one...
  10. Ramadan starts tonight with the new moon. Muslims fast from both food and liquids and abstain from smoking and sex during daylight hours for the lunar month until the sighting of the next new moon. As the month moves around the year (because lunar months are slightly out of step with the solar year) the fasting hours may be longer or shorter. This year, as Ramadan falls in summer, the hours will be long. Prayer, charitable giving and being with the family are especially valued during this month.
  11. Moggy - mog is a derivation of Margaret (Maggie etc) and means a non-pedigree cat. One of our cats is called Molly and there's a folk song "Sweet Molly Mogg" - though Mogg is also a surname. It is (I assume) British/Commonwealth English - none of our American friends know it, but the Australians do. Ours are your basic street cats with perhaps a smidgin of Arabian Wadi cat (they have extra back claws, as did their mum and their uncles). Yes, cats should be outside if they can do so safely. Our back streets are fairly safe - not many cars and those that come through move slow. Lots of little back gardens, walls to walk on, sheds, low roofs, places to prowl and lurk. Unfortunately a neighbour has two Devon Rexes - cartoonish-looking cats which like to fight. Our mogs are as soft as butter, so they sometimes get cornered outside and can't get home. We have to send out a patrol - but we can usually hear them if they are stuck. They don't seem to fight - just hide and wail. The birth was extraordinary!
  12. What he said! One of the interests of life is seeing what science discovers, establishes or disproves that we didn't knowor were wrong about before...(lots of things, in my lifetime to date). It's a work in progress, which doesn't mean the work so far is necessarily inadequate. But in the long run it is a self-improving entity. Science will still work whether we believe in it or not. One may remain ignorant of how one's digestion works (I am!) but I'm glad to say it will go on working or failing to work whatever we think or believe about it. The difficulty comes when science presents us with choices that we may not be well prepared to make. Scepticism can become a refuge for willful ignorance or bad choices. CP Snow wrote about there being two cultures: one with an understanding of the processes of science and one without. Scientists in a number of fields are better at communicating than they used to be - Dr Ben Goldacre, Orac and others are very good in the field of medicine. Goldacre's main thing is exposing poor, lazy or fraudulent science communication and his latest book is an attack on Big Pharma from a scientifically-informed viewpoint. I'm looking forward to it - his first book, Bad Science (really about pseudoscience) was excellent.
  13. The twins were born - on our bed and virtually into my hands - in the Arabian Peninsula and have only been in the UK for a year. This winter was a bit of a shock to them. They certainly appreciate our central heating and thick woolly blankets. But they seem to be thriving, and have developed complicated cat social lives with the other mogs that hang out around our back streets. They are of course vaccinated and (much as I'd have loved to see their kittens) also neutered.
  14. The mogs, enjoying a rare bit of sunshine on the pavement outside.
  15. Neither basil nor oregano are hardy plants - certainly not where I live. But I've got basil (along with geraniums, lettuce and tomato) on the windowsill. Three peppers, too, waiting to be potted on. Haven't got much room indoors, but we have the skeleton of a greenhouse on the allotment and I plan to grow oregano, tomatoes and peppers there when we get round to replacing the glass - maybe melons too if I can. Yum! Kimmy, did your mint plant get kind of skinny and discoloured in the stalks, just above the soil in the pot, before it died? If so, it may be a condition called 'damping off'. I've had a few promising plants die of it. It's caused by fungal infections in the soil, which usually originate due to poor hygiene in the place that sold the plant (or the place they bought the plant from themselves - it's always good to buy as far up the supply chain as you can). It's worse with indoor plants if the place where you put them is a bit humid, and if you water directly into the soil. I stand plants in a plant tray or on a saucer and water into that, instead of into the pot. I've just dried some of the black spearmint I planted in the spring. Just strew the leaves in a single layer on a dinner plate on the counter and turn them once in a while as they crisp. Then either store them whole in a tin for use as tea, or chop them and store in a small pot to use for seasoning. These are destined to be seasoning: I'm saving the moroccan mint for tea. I planted five different lavenders. Four are thriving, one has died. The thyme has purple flowers on it. The marigolds look a bit battered but some of them are threatening to flower. Marigolds - especially french marigolds - are a good companion plant.
  16. How do you get started if your garden plot is already full of thistles, goldenrod and couch grass? The end of our allotment has been covered for several years with heavy black 'weed deterrent' cloth - but the soil is still full of couch grass roots just waiting their chance.
  17. Great to hear you're getting better. Yippee! We've missed you and I've been thinking of you. Can't do without you round the way. .
  18. Great picture! We had loads of cold rain and then about five days of warm sunny weather. The beans on my windowsill suddenly sprang up - so this morning I have plantetd them and contructed a frame of bamboo which I hope will prevcent them falling flat on their faces. Peas - mangetout and ordinary one are in and looking OK, a bit bitten. Some sweetcorn and a couple of sunflowers might make it if we don;t have a frost (still possible). We cut the grass back on the undug areas and its turning into hay - smells great. And that ruddy couch grass is springing up all over the place. hey ho. Nexrt job is to construct a bird-proof cover for the strawberries.
  19. Indeed. The original question was 'what could cause you to kill'. No mention of justification or righteousness there, Yet it seems to have tacitly morphed into 'when would it be a jolly good thing for you to kill someone.'
  20. I could certainly imagine killing in anger, fury, frustration.... You didn't ask for good reasons to kill, did you?
  21. I'm going to need a pencil...
  22. I've eaten dog, though I didn't find out until the next day that that was what we'd been feasting on. In a hospitality situation one doesn't always ask - and the feast also included wasp grubs in honey and far too much dodgy Chinese champagne. Mike's original question was (I think) what wouldn't you do to get a million dollars that you wouldn't otherwise get. Then it moved on to the question of what would we do in order to survive. Both questions are related to where one draws the line. I wouldn't eat human flesh for a million dollars (I think: would anyone like to test me? Cos I could use a million... pounds sterling, at any rate). But if it was eating human flesh or certain death, and if the human was already dead, then, frankly, I'd rather live than not. But I would not torture even to survive, I hope.
  23. Hey, that made the news over here in the UK (I think it must have been the same one). Those tiny bits space rock are worth loads of money, apparently. The BBC interviewed a couple of people who were hunting for it and one said his Mum had found a tiny little scrap - interviewer said what's it worth and he said 'A car and a year's college.' Sounds worth hunting for!