I have never been drawn to the work of Charles Dickens. The social needs of his era were enormous and I thought depressing. So when I had a choice in my English Lit. course at college, I chose to study Austen instead of Dickens.
Now, after several friends have told me how wonderful the BBC adaptation of Little Dorrit is, I have taken the plunge into the Dickens waters!
As a subscriber to Audible downloadable audio books, I was able to grab a real bargain – the full unabridged Little Dorrit, read by one of my favourite actors and voice talents, Anton Lesser. Over 35 hours of audio, for one monthly credit with Audible. It was so big a file that it took four separate downloads to grab it all!
So far I have listened to three chapters of the most wonderful description of places and people, got inside their heads, smiles at Dickens’ humour, wit and irony and am thoroughly looking forward to another chapter tonight! The reviews on Audible are right. Anton Lesser brings the very best out of this work, and makes the world of Dickens understandible to us.
It just would not play! I followed all the instructions about inserting video. Including this one which is as clear as a bell.
The image appeared in the Powerpoint, yet still it would not play in presentation mode. Finally, after much googling, I found the answer – a simple one! Videos in PowerPoint are not embedded, merely linked to. The problem lies in the player that Powerpoint uses being able to follow a path to the file (which should, incidentally, be in the same folder as the PowerPoint presentation).
This player is limited to following a path of only a certain number of characters (a hundred and something, as I recall). My video and Powerpoint was so deep in the folder structure, and the video loop had such a long file name, that the path exceeded the allotted characters.
Solution? Easy-peasy-lemon-squeazy…when you know how! Simply shorten the name of the video loop file. I suppose I could have copied the whole shebang onto my desktop and relinked the videos from there.
So now, job done! Everything plays nicely when it should It even works in PowerPoint Viewer, when packaged for CD. All that is left is to get the background music syncing with the voiceover and we’ll be done.
Whether it is rolling up hose on the allotment, or putting away guitar, microphone and speaker cables, I usually manage to get them put away nicely, but they all get in a tangle when I pull them out again.
What am I doing wrong? At last, someone has shown three ways of wrapping up cords and hoses – to preserve them and make them easy to unwrap.
Sorry the video is not embeddable, but if you go to the link below and wait while it loads, your visit will be worth while. >>How to wrap hoses and cords
I never thought of roasting cauliflower. Check out this blog. Keep scrolling…the recipes get better and better!! As I have planted caulis this year I can look forward to trying some of them.
I have been looking into this, as I thought I didn’t get scapes because I was too far north. But it seems it must be the variety of garlic that is the factor, not so much the latitude.
I have found a garlic grower in Nairn, Scotland (farther north than Edinburgh, where I am). They are the Really Garlicky Company . Click on the “More about the products” button to have all your garlicky questions answered. Including all about scapes. It is the hard-necked garlic that grows scapes, not the usual soft-neck one.
Here is what they say:
“Technically, it is allium sativum ophioscorodon. Unlike the softneck garlic grown commercially, especially in Spain and China, this garlic subspecies produces a hard, woody flower stalk. The flower (topset or umbel) often contains bulbils. Many varieties develop partial or full coils in the stalks (scapes). We have to remove the scape in order to increase the size of the harvested bulbs.”
What a fascinating subject! This certainly is new for me!
I had never heard of scapes before today. But it seems they are tasty, versatile, free (if you have planted garlic!) and a garlic-lover’s paradise!!
They are a shoot that grows from mature garlic, though I have never seen it in mine. Perhaps the weather in Edinburgh isn’t hot enough, or maybe the scapes are more common on autumn planted garlic (mine usually goes in the ground in February or even March).
I love garlic, so will look forward to trying out some of these recipes. This year I may try to get the garlic in the ground in the autumn and look for the tasty scapes next year.
Can you believe it? This is amazing – Deke McLelland really knows his stuff!
I am learning little by little how to use Photoshop and this video is a fun challenge to use the tools.
I met a lady who runs a garden centre in East Lothian (damp Scotland!). She was telling me that her dahlias had been badly hit by slugs – in previous years, that is. But this year she is trying a new remedy – garlic water! It sounded good to me, and she said it seems to be working so far.
Here is Cilla’s recipe for Slug Deterrant.
Take two heads of garlic. Peel and crush them.
Boil for 4 or 5 minutes in 2 pints of water.
Strain, and make up the liquid to 2pints
Leave the liquid to cool and bottle.
To use, take 1 tablespoon of the garlic water and add to 1 gallon of water in a watering can.
Water over your plants and leave to dry. Apparently this works best on a dry day, as the bitter liquid dries on the leaves. The slugs must not like the taste as Cilla’s dahlias are the best they have been for ages!
This I will be trying on the allotment. We are over-ridden with the wee slimy beasties!
As I use my eyes all day at work (mostly on the PC) I find reading very taxing. That is why I am especially delighted to have discoivered a wealth of audio books – free to download!
There are several sources, but the one I found for Cranford is here. Librivox has many of the out of print books already available, and more are being prepared all the time.
I have begun listening to Cranford and am enjoying it. Mrs Gaskell’s writing is more appealing to me since I have watched the excellent BBC adaptation of Cranford. It is intriguing to see how, from a few sentences in the original, the BBC adaptors have built rounded characters, and the actresses have added reality, flesh and heart to them.
Regarding the audio version, it is of note that the readers seem to be mainly American. That does not detract too much from the enjoyment but I did at first find it a little surprising to hear such English literature read with a Trans-Atlantic accent! But these downloads are free, and that bargain is not to be sniffed at!
At my age, I am forgetting more than I remember! But I still like learning new stuff. This blog is my way of keeping track of the tricks and information I am learning.
Some of it is dead simple stuff that millions already know - but it is new for me!
But maybe you, like me, will be interested in the tidbits of information I glean. Hence this blog.
