Shit, I only just realised that Atocha station is where we set off for Cordoba from. Never recognised it from the news shots because they didn’t show the palms. Shit. It’s the most beautiful station I ever visited.
Funny how something as insignificant as this realisation can make hundreds of new connections in the mind.
I dunno what’s going on here - a while back I added a JavaScript to this web page which tracks referrers, for no good reason other than I wanted to see once in a while where people are coming to my site from (I know I can get that from my logs as well, but they’re a lot harder to get at and analyse, and the software pre-installed on my web server is shite). So anyway, the JavaScript stuff has sat there in my links bar, churning out the odd link, nothing much of interest until the day I got metafied, which was a bit exciting. And then today it started slowing matters down inordinately, because the JavaScript loads off somebody else’s server which is obviously choking. So I moved it to the bottom of the page where it can’t do any harm (at least, can’t stop the rest of the page from downloading in the meantime).
So I’ve just looked at it again for the first time in weeks - and I see that people have, apparently, clicked here from Peep Show Stories and Daily Kos. But I went to those sites and couldn’t find where they link to sumption.org. Grepped my logs and didn’t find them as referrers. So… I’m baffled. I’m particularly interested in discovering what it is on my site that they link to, and in what context. OK, I’ll come clean (hmm, interesting choice of phrase), I’m particularly interested in discovering what it is on my site that Peep Show Stories links to, and in what context. I’m also wondering whether this links thing actually works, or whether they’re just confuzzing me with somebody else.
Whatever. I’ll probably never find out. But if anyone reading this does happen to have arrived via Peep Show Stories (or the Daily Kos), please could you take a moment to tell me a little more about how you got here (in fact, I wanna know that whoever you are and however you got here… please leave comments:)
I’m currently reading Scarlet and Black (Le Rouge et le Noir) by Stendhal. Came across this quote, which Stendhal attributes to Le Johannisberg (Pamphlet):
If self-conceit is pardonable, it is in early youth, for then it is an exaggeration of some pardonable trait. It needs a touch of love, of gaeity, of nonchalance. But as for pompous self-conceit! Self-conceit assuming an air of gravity and consequence! Such an excess of stupidity is reserved for the nineteenth century. And these are the people who hope to chain up that hydra-headed monster, Revolution!
How about I change a couple of words?
If self-conceit is pardonable, it is in early youth, for then it is an exaggeration of some pardonable trait. It needs a touch of love, of gaeity, of nonchalance. But as for pompous self-conceit! Self-conceit assuming an air of gravity and consequence! Such an excess of stupidity is reserved for the twenty-first century. And these are the people who hope to chain up that hydra-headed monster, Terrorism!
I’m gonna train my ears!
More pictures of our new living space, for anyone interested. We’re getting there.
Has anyone else noticed that the painting which was so blatantly hidden when Colin Powell went to persuade the UN to invade Iraq has been in the news again lately, for quite different reasons. What goes around, comes around. This is Combat, I Know.
Lola just came into the room and showed me the biro scribbles on the back of her hand. “I bin silly. I bin writing on my hand”.
Today’s Lola-ism: Lola and I were putting some pine cones into the chiminea, for burning at a later date. Lola said: “when we burn them they will go up into the sky and live in the sun”.
We were just sitting upstairs talking, Gill, Emma and I, while Lola sat drawing bubbles. Emma said “Jessie’s handwriting’s not the neatest in the class” and Lola piped up “Writing on your hand is silly!”