Thursday, January 9, 2014

A Non-Event Involving A Car

We had a bit of excitement at school yesterday when this happened. Apparently someone spotted a suspicious car parked nearby -- I am not sure what made it suspicious -- and the authorities were summoned. Fortunately the hubbub turned out to be unwarranted. (If there was any sort of "controlled explosion," as the BBC story says, we saw no evidence of it. In fact the car was still parked there when I left work yesterday evening, with only a small broken window as testament to the police investigation.)

What it meant for us was simply an hour or so of standing outside at a safe distance. I guess you can never be too careful. Fortunately our winter temperatures are much milder than those in the states this week.

Coincidentally, bombs have been turning up in unexpected places recently, at least partly because of bad weather.

Other than that, yesterday was uneventful. I finally finished "The Charioteer" by Mary Renault, a remarkably subtle novel about gay men published back in the early 1950s. It only barely mentions homosexuality by name -- I believe "queer" appears a handful of times, in dialogue -- and much of the romantic action is alluded to, rather than specifically spelled out. Renault asks us to read between the lines in many scenes in order to understand what's going on. I suppose such circumspection was necessary back in those days. Anyway, I liked it a lot -- I became aware of it only after reading this fascinating article in The New Yorker several months ago. (The link leads to a synopsis, not the piece itself.)

Oh, and my dad's Europe photos have been making the rounds via Facebook. Everyone seems quite excited about them, which will make him happy!

(Photo: Wild broom growing in Norfolk at Christmas.)


  1. I read that NYer article too. So- did you enjoy the book?
    Bomb scares. Jesus. We live in some world, don't we?

  2. I wonder why someone thought that car was suspicious.

    That photo on my site was taken with a telephoto lens. I have exactly the same problem when I try to use the macro setting on my Nikon camera so I find myself using the telephoto instead. My Sony camera has a special macro lens so it works the right way all of the time.

  3. the car being suspicious makes me laugh a lot. The cartoon visual, you see? I have loved your photos from you Dad's trip, So cool! My gay birds are so lovey dovey, sweet. I wouldn't have it any other eggs in the nest is a good thing, too!

  4. I vote for non events for you!

    Oh those drops of water - tiny globes. They are exquisite.

  5. We had a bomb scare at work once - a suspicious box was delivered. It was summer and the box was wrapped in Christmas paper & it sounded suspicious. Turned out that the person was paying their bill in pennies!