There's nothing sends me into hysteria like lying on my bed in a pile of dictonaries, with the Rephlexions compilation wibbling away on the stereo, trying to translate the story-so-far in the front of one of my Prince of Tennis tanks (just to annoy you~!). And, of course, failing miserably. Ah, Japanese, the more I know the less I know.

At RoTa, yesterday, with A: the realisation that I've seen Ship's A Going Down too many times and now know how all of their songs go. So I picked up their record out of eternal-support-band solidarity, and a compilation of approximate mathrock. It's sort of... listenable, but not something I'd ever go crazy over.

Perspicacious readers might have noticed that my family owns a lot of crazy old recipe books (the gentle art of cookery! theodora fitzG!): I've been trying to find a recipe for Parkin, which is a Yorkshire oatmeal gingerbread, and ended up mired in the Concise Encyclopaedia of Gastronomy. It has this section on meat...

( 'bear paws are a celebrated delicacy' )

Sarah Waters (Tipping the Velvet, Affinity, Fingersmith) is on Radio 4's 'bookclub' at the moment - if anyone wants to hear it, you should be able to listen to it on realaudio.

(o she is so cuuute)