My Virtual Reading Room

Christmas To Do List

• delay • defer • equivocate
• make some tea • procrastinate
• look at phone • stroke the cat
• readjust the thermostat
• dawdle • dither • hem and haw
• eat mince pie • chew my jaw
• write one card • spin on chair
• play six games of solitaire
• take a break • make a brew
• review my list of things to do
• eat mince pie • paper scrunch
• stroke the cat • have some lunch
• prioritise new tasks to shirk
(more cups of tea + less housework)
• look at phone • spin on chair
• eat mince pie • loiter • stare
• consider shopping • have quick doze
• rest mince pie on bridge of nose
• stroke the cat • take a break
• write a card • eat some cake
• spin phone • mince cat • stroke tea • wallow
• write To Do list for tomorrow

Brian Bilston

(cross-posting from greatpoetry )

If you like HP...you gotta see this (it's short and surprising; and well-written):

order of merlin, drunk class

If you enjoy it, please leave kudos and/or a comment for the author.

Two versions of an ageless classic. The first one has English subtitles.

Santa Claus is coming to town, political cartoon edition

Don’t doomscroll about Trump. Do these five things instead.

Elections are important, but they’re not the only way to advance progressive policies.

The Question

Erm, well – I begin, shifting nervously in my chair –
if it’s true there is no heaven and no hell,
no eternity or long hereafter,
no divine plan or offstage direction from an invisible hand,
then how do we make sense of it all,
how do we make our way through this life,
this glorious, ridiculous, ramshackle world of ours,
with its wars and brutality, conflicts and petty arguments,
the ten thousand tiny acts of kindness
which happen unnoticed before breakfast,
and all that love and pain, happiness and loneliness
that comes to us unannounced, by turns,
as if we ourselves were pitched daily
onto the waves of one of its vast, mysterious oceans,
not knowing whether today is the day we drown
or we find ourselves washed up
on some strange but friendly shore?

Mmm – you say, after a lengthy silence –
what I meant was … do you have any questions
about the job?

(cross-posting to greatpoetry )

Cells have more mini ‘organs’ than researchers thought − unbound by membranes, these rogue organelles challenge biology’s fundamentals

(amazing, really, especially if you'd studied cell biology)

How the Ivy League Broke America
The meritocracy isn’t working. We need something new.

(an interesting and detailed historical perspective)

(thanks to those on my reading list--conuly and minoanmiss , I believe)

And--

Better living through chemistry (or not so much...)

Sulfanilamide Disaster

Taste of Raspberries, Taste of Death: The 1937 Elixir Sulfanilamide Incident

(one of the things I found interesting in this report was the reaction of the head of the company, versus that of the research chemist...)

amaebi pointed out this article:


1985 Austrian diethylene glycol wine scandal

(one of the things I found interesting in this article is near the end, under the subtitle "Destruction of the wine", what they had to do to get rid of it...)

People:

World’s tallest and shortest women meet for afternoon tea in London


Animals:

New Hampshire shelter faces ‘enormous’ breeding problem after man surrenders nearly 1,000 mice

(via lindahoyland )

Paws up! Police find shoe thief at a kindergarten is actually a weasel


Art:


The Gravity-Defying Land Art by Cornelia Konrads

They said a bear attacked their cars. It was a human in disguise, officials say.

California’s insurance department asked a state biologist to review videos that had been submitted by people seeking payouts for vehicle damage.

Bakery owner discovers longtime customer is her biological son

Lenore Lindsey said her customer’s laugh had always reminded her of her brother’s. Now she knows why.

Do join us at holiday_wishes if you can :)

The more, the merrier!

We've just had our first entry for the season ;)