Goat Notes

I caught one! Right at the beginning of Katy Elflocks, before I knew or thought I'd need to care about the details of the wider kingdom, I had Luke's father give him his ridiculously destructive magic sword as a parting gift - and it is explicitly the case that the old king has borne it into battle and knows what it's like, albeit clearly he doesn't think it's that useful a treasure for a modern monarch. But in the light of the way the worldbuilding subsequently develops, this is slightly more out of context than Henry VII's handing over his invincible Excalibur to his frisky younger son Hal.  I shall have to revisit this, one way or another.

Went through the Puffin Superior's plotline before bedtime. Huge amounts of detail there which will never make the story, but give me a better handle on and a better set of questions about that enigmatical and seriously pivotal character in the latter chapters of Kate. Since I didn't foresee her in Katy, and used her Sisterhood only as a background detail in another context, that's going to be one important place for me to work on foreshadowing and incluing in the earlier story. Also, major worldbuilding chore: finally sorting out to my own reasonable satisfaction how the wider local religion works, both officially and in practice. That turns out to be another matter on which my ideas have changed considerably during the telling.

From last night's belated birthday treat, the memory of a large and luscious Chez Gérard steak followed by pear in red wine syrup is still suffusing me with feelings of tenderness and bounty towards the wide world.

I assisted at the harrowing of H___ by Emma Woodhouse.  This was planned with all the unerring foresight one might expect.  I was not Mr Knightley, but I might as well have been, except for the 'not marrying her at the end' bit and the 'being too busy running around trying to stuff Lamia and the Three Stooges back where we found them for any of that soppy stuff' bit.

This comes of eating devilled eggs in the evening.

I shall now attempt another hour of shut-eye, and hope that this nap leaves me less tired than I started out, thank you kindly Emma!

Yay!  I have my main computer back again!

When that I was and a little tiny boy, I was inspired by superhero comics and my dad's passion for electronics to build my own computer.  So I made me a diagram of circuit symbol salad, corrected it to allow for the rather limited number of components I actually possessed, and built it in a lunchbox.  My prototype boasted a big old screw-top 9V battery, a bunch of wires, and a large space in which to plug in processing unit upgrades.  One wrote out one's questions on scraps of paper, posted them through the lid, and they were answered with robotic and logical infallibility on the reverse side of the paper.

The output feed turned out not to work, so I was compelled to remove the scraps myself.  I then discovered a general output error, viz. the reverse sides were still blank.  So, until I had figured out the details of the improved processing mill beyond "I suppose the Mark II ought to actually have one!", my only way was to calculate what the computer would have written, and fill the answers in myself.  Applying these to reality, I found them to lack computerish infallibility despite the rigorous calculation and the battery, and abandoned the whole project of computer-building in disgust for the next decade.

Nonetheless, I still sometimes help computers to generate oracles for me.  So taking last night's titular message as a broad hint, the rest of the updates are:

Tired of poncing the help off other people at need, and yet still being unable to read Homer or Sappho in the original, a couple of weeks ago I finally began the study of ancient Greek.  It wants a bit of work.  Still, I progress, and already if I ever need unexpectedly to inform Socrates that the pirate is leading the hippopotamus away from the river, I shall be ready to roll.  Had my class been given material like this to work with at school, we'd have probably ended up speaking all the French and German anybody could ask for, not counting that special species of Parisian who could only ask for us not to.

Another hippopotamus in the room discovered for my Libertarian Challenge: OpenOffice added to my 'free stuff I ought to give something back for' list.  The solution to this is not like the others, and I shall post about it presently.

I am still working, or something, on Kate's great speech, because it is hard and my brain is soft.

I have very nearly refined the art of the meat pie to my personal satisfaction.  A dash of Worcester sauce in the mince-and-onion filling was what it wanted.  The pastry is nice enough, but wants some final tweaking.  Also, I want to find some Brussel tops, and see if they're as much better than regular greens as I remember.

Many travels to arrange over the next fortnight.

I need to research a Do The Housework cantrip.  There are clearly not enough hours in the day for other methods to keep up.

They don't always get on with one, as I am occasionally reminded.  On a medicine now that will hopefully pacify them.  I see much bland eating and even plainer drinking ahead for... some time.  I suppose small frequent meals does mean more variety, which is spice of a sort.

I slept reasonably last night for the first time in a while, which is probably why I didn't wake up fresh from the memory of roping James Stewart, Cyndi Lauper, Nicholas Nickleby and Campaspe into an amateur Anglesey production of You Won't Believe It!, the smash-hit musical based on The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

Yet.

Killer-Kate and Luke Lackland: 410 words of critically urgent instant diplomacy, and Elegant Elder Sister, who is not the sort of person who speaks much of 'guts' at all, nonetheless turns out to have even more of them than I thought.

Departmental beano last night.  If you should ever happen to eat at Vito's Bar & Ristorante in Battersea, prefer the admirable seafood, and shun the frumious gnocchi.  The goat has spoken.

Peroni's Nastro Azzuro lager is better summer drinking than I remembered.

My formerly excellent ISP PlusNet has now reached the point of prolonged broadband outages nearly every week - another one kicked in last night.  I am going to have to speak to them firmly.  I notice they're in the middle of a heavy expansion campaign at present.

250 words of Killer-Kate this morning: pipe and tabor, a barnadine dance, the man in the barnacle hat.

Wholemeal loaves make rubbishy eggy bread. Learn from my fall!

Also, I'm only another 300 words on with the yarn, and not particularly happy with them. Think I'd better just slog on, hope to catch fire again, and otherwise wait for the serious round of revision that beckons before I finish this arc.