They know how to draw you in...

... those British Library types. Headlining an e-mail "Prize draw, Jeremy Irons and live music" is a sure-fire winner with me ...

The Supremes, part 1

Sorry, couldn't resist the post title as a West Wing nut.

As ever in this country, radical change comes slowly, quietly and robed in tradition. You had to be quite interested in that sort of thing to notice the UK Supreme Court opening on October 5, despite it being the first formal division between the judiciary and the legislature since the late 14th century. But if you've walked around Parliament Square in the last couple of years, you'll have seen the most beautiful building (which Pevsner described as art nouveau Gothic - two for the price of one, then) being unearthed from a coating of air pollution and neglect.

I had heard all sorts of good things about the building - the Peter Blake carpet; the curtains by Timorous Beasties... So I took my courage in both hands and e-mailed the court from work to find out whether it was possible to visit. Within a day or so, I had an e-mail from the Librarian, inviting us over, and mailed my colleagues to see who was interested; in the end there were three parties of us, and I put myself in the second one. We had a fantastic visit last Friday - the Court rooms are beautiful and it was fascinating finding out how on earth an important legal library is built quickly using chunks of existing libraries and a minimum number of staff.

While we were there, though, we discovered that most of the building (apart from the library) is accessible to the general public, day in, day out. The Court doesn't sit on Fridays so the court rooms are wanderable-about as a tourist then, but anyone can visit the building (subject to airline-type security checks as with anywhere on Whitehall), sit at the back of the court and see proceedings, look at the architecture, visit the exhibition about the court (and watch proceedings on plasma screens) and generally see business being done.

Makes me (quietly, and in an entirely British way, you understand) extremely proud of what's been done. Not as flamboyant, or as scandalous, as many other things which have been happening recently, but possibly, potentially, more important in the long run. While the current members of the Court are Law Lords, the intention is that future appointments won't be; and six centuries of tradition will gently be severed...

(Part 2 of this post will be sorted out if it ever stops raining, and I can take some photos of the outside of the building, which is glorious. Check the links above for pictures of the inside.)

The day ended better than it started - having looked up the large number of cancelled trains this morning just before setting off for the station, I was somewhat aggrieved to find mine had joined them only 12 minutes later... Presumably the people who update the website don't get up as early as the people intending to travel on the trains... And of course it was raining...

However, I made an excursion to Muji at lunchtime (ostensibly for pens for Wibbo, who's exiled out of Mujiland) and the sun was shining, and after a reasonably productive day at work, I met a friend for dinner (the Papaya Tree on Kensington High Street; I'd recommend it for food and service; apparently, so would Michael Winner; but you can't have it all...) and the train home worked, albeit with only half the number of carriages.

Checking blogs when I got back, funniest LOLcats for a long while, if you've ever had one of those cats who's permanently on the wrong side of a closed door...

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Lazy(ish) Sunday

The weather is pretty terrible outside, and public transport is pretty limited on a Sunday, so I've had a fairly lazy time knitting and pottering around tidying up, paying the bills ready to post after payday etc... This is the only Little Ray of Sunshine this afternoon, and it didn't last long - not long enough to go out and plant the bulbs I bought earlier in the autumn, anyway!


I did produce my course blurb, syllabus and requirements list for next year's Cottenham Summer School (the link is to this year's programme but gives you an idea of what's usually on offer). Feedback last year said people had enjoyed it and would like an extra day, which is very flattering but will be pretty tiring - 4 days' teaching with the same class is a lot less tiring than multiple classes doing the same thing though...

I also had a good clearout of the spice rack in the kitchen. I got rid of some jars I don't really use, and made a list of what I need to refill (there are South Asian, South East Asian and Korean shops just on the main road around the corner from the Cambridge Blue so I can sort this out before knitting on Tuesday...) It's a big rack (about 90cm/3' by 60cm/2'), with 1-lb jam-jars, and one of the most satisfying things about getting a kitchen built a decade or so ago - you can draw something on the back of an envelope and a cabinet-maker will get together proper plans and produce something like this...

Anyway; got rid of the most out-of-date things including three separate quantities of yeast (haven't even bought bread for 2 years let alone made it) and some generic curry powders I never really liked... And although I really like star anise, I also seem to really like buying star anise more... Most of the jars came from the rather wonderful Daily Bread, but it's not the easiest place to get to without a car; I'll have to try and get there on a Saturday sometime after Christmas.

My hat from the Woolly Wormhead Mystery KAL on Ravelry is done and blocking - but I'll wait for the full reveal to put up a picture; and I started another Christmas present today...

The countdown begins - 5 weeks to go

It's that time of year again.

Christmas knitting 2009

Items on list: 15
Items started: 9
Items finished: 6

Hmmnnn... A couple of things on the list are smallish, but a couple are quite large... better get knitting!

Probably best that after many years of making my own Christmas cards I realised I was devoid both of inspiration and of time this year; found some nice charity ones online which arrived today... and realised the last overseas posting date for Christmas is actually only about a fortnight away!

Slightly funny moment in the library this morning - went to shelve some Young Adult books and there was this huge gap on the shelves in the middle, in a library which is chronically short of shelving. It took me a minute to realise that that was where the Twilight books would sit - if we ever actually had them in the library for more than 30 seconds or so at a time... Presumably they did come back at some point last week before flitting off into the darkness again...

Pretty, and not so pretty

Old news, I know, but I just went to find out what this year's Christmas stamps are, and my heart was made glad. Pre-Raphaelite stained-glass windows!!!!

The page was slightly marred by the quote from the Royal Mail’s Head of Speical Stamps, presumably produced by the Royal Mail's Head of Special Spelling without the intervention of the Royal Mail's Head of Special (or, indeed, any) Proofreading.

And then the not-pretty. I went to pull a scarf out of the cupboard today to wear, and found this:

It's not moth; fear not. I think it must have got caught on a door-handle in the cupboard under the stairs... But it's not exactly at the end of the scarf either...

There's a good 18" to re-knit; and it's the infamous "can't count to eight" scarf, and of course it's the end with 5 tassels rather than 4...

I may need to wait until after Christmas to sort it out.

Bluebird

Some knitting in today's post - this is my mam's Christmas present, Rosemary Hill's Bluebird. I can show you this because she doesn't read this blog, and my Dad is far too nice a man to reveal the secret...

This is the first end - I'm ploughing down the long stretch of very simple, easy-to-memorise lace in the middle, to the accompaniment of a lot of podcasts (finally starting to catch up after a stretch of audio-book-listening!) Either another 6 or another 14 repeats to go, depending on how much yarn is left... I think it might be the longer version, though. And then another end. There's a little bit of beading on the ends.

The yarn is a quite wonderful Knitwitches blend - 70% baby alpaca, 20% silk, 10% cashmere - which isn't on their website - and the colour is slightly greener than it is here - heading slightly towards the teal end of turquoise.