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I Saw the Best Minds of the Rebellion Eaten by Sarlacc...

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Who on earth likes both Star Wars and 20thC poetry? ME! And this is one of the funniest things I have seen on the internet this week:

so much depends upon

a scarred young jedi

stitched with cyber netics

beneath the black helmet

Or how about

For I have ordered them, ordered them all— Have crewed the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have crewed my life with storm-troop goons; I know clones dying with a dying fall, And Alderaan, beneath the Death Star’s doom The soundless, vacuum-muted boom.

Or indeed

There died Hunter Fugitive. And the best of them, among them For old Boba gone in the teeth For a botched storyline.

There is just a smattering of Shakespeare in the linked post, which is fine by me, but I do think this cries out for some rock'n'roll 17th C poetry. A bit of Andrew Marvell - but sadly filking is beyond my abilities. I can but dream.

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Blogging & Mainstream Media

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The British newspaper, The Guardian, want bloggers to become part of its Life & Style network. I have a lot of time for the Guardian. It is the only newspaper I buy on a regular basis and I admire its recent editorial stance on the UK phone-hacking scandal. But I'm not so sure about its call for bloggers. The Guardian wants to hear from "[p]rospective partners [who] will need to have traffic figures of at least five figures". This is the really interesting bit:

The first possibility is a non-commercial content-sharing model, where we swap stories. (..)What's the advantage to you, as a blogger, you ask? The Guardian site has a huge reach (..). Your content will appear on our site, which we hope will give it the showcase it deserves, and get you higher up those all-important Google rankings than you might otherwise be.

This wouldn't bring you any money, though. For that, there's a commercial possibility, where the Guardian Select team sell premium advertising across publisher blogs and sites.

So, The Guardian gets a blogger with a proven demographic readership. From a marketing point of view, that is excellent news. The blogger gets to be associated with the Guardian brand. If I read this correctly - and I may not do so, because I do not know anything about detailed textual analysis mixed with cynicism - it does sound very 2004 to me.

I think it was Ewan Spence who pointed out that some bloggers have more of a readership than some regional newspapers. Food for thought: is it worth a blogger's while to associate him/herself with a newspaper?

In other news, the podcaster from A Playful Day has responded to my reluctance to knit in public and Fridica has responded to both me and A Playful Day. I'd be interested in hearing from other people's KIP experiences - both good and bad.

 

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A Mountain of Garterstitch

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Summer in Scotland is over after three glorious days of sunshine. Thankfully damp weather makes for excellent knitting weather.

This is my Sea Glass shawl. A mountain of garterstitch. Beautiful, earthy, bouncy garterstitch. Perfect for knitting group and late-night knitting when I just need something brainless to work on. The rows are long although I'm just one-third through the shawl. It is so therapeutic just to knit, though.

July has not been a fun month. It has been a long, hard slog of a month and just when I thought July was improving, things just went downhill again. I shan't be sorry to see the end of this month. Onwards and upwards. Autumn knitting is nigh and that is a cheering thought.

Speaking of which, Levenwick. It ticks my boxes. I even have a lot of Rowan Silky Tweed in a wonderful mustard yellow kicking about. However, I did buy that particular yarn with Acer in mind.. and I want to start knitting Finna as soon as I can get my hands on the book and the yarn. Decisions, decisions..

Thank you all for the thoughtful comments on knitting in public. I am still going to take a break from knitting in public, though. I feel the need to be vaguely invisible in public right now - I am one of those introverted types, you see, and I need solitude more than I need interacting with strangers. So, I'm going to stick to reading and I won't even choose outlandish books. Quiet and unassuming, that'll be me for the foreseeable future..

.. a bit like garterstitch, really. And hopefully I can get all bouncy at some point too (beautiful and earthy will be a stretch).

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Knitting In Public No More

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As a blogger and a social media type, I think frequently about privacy issues. It matters to me even if my face is plastered across Ravelry and my full name is easily uncovered. Yesterday I joked I was going to sue if my little private gathering of knitters were declared 'the next cool thing' in Scottish newspapers. Well, we just ended up having our photo tweeted by some UK television personalities. I might have thought it a fun little interlude (just like when we appeared on TV) if they had actually asked our permission before taking the photo. They had not and I am not amused. I respected their privacy; it would have been nice if they had afforded me the same courtesy.

(ETA Wednesday lunchtime: They have pulled the photo with an apology. I really appreciate that. Thanks.)

And then tonight I was knitting on the bus home. A rather thuggish group of ladies congregated around me and stared as though I were juggling sharp knives. That was a very long bus ride.

I think it is time to retire my knitting in public, at least for a little while. I'm tired of being a circus performer for other people's blooming amusement.

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Living in Interesting Times

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Summer has arrived in Glasgow (briefly), so we Sunday in the park. We found raspberry bushes nearby and enjoyed my home-made baked goods. I sat reading 5000 Years of Textiles (edited by Jennifer Harris). The book is both a fabulous visual source-book as well as an engaging non-fiction read. I do try to have a balanced reading diet, though I do gravitate towards light reading in the summer.

The good weather even continued throughout Monday, so I was lucky enough to have an unexpected evening of outdoors knitting with a handful of friends. To our surprise, we had our photo taken by some semi-celebrities who did not even ask our permission. If knitting in public is suddenly declared the 'new cool' in a Scottish newspaper, I'm going to sue..

.. I still cannot watch the news. I was going to write a great deal about why I am so affected by the Norwegian terrorist attacks (yes, it was terrorism) - but I can't. Maybe one day I will be able to write about being Scandinavian and watch everything good about being Scandinavian getting attacked by an inadequate soul. Today I am not that eloquent.

So, some random links instead!

I hope August is going to be an improvement on July. I have had enough of this month.