Thursday, December 24, 2009

Sibling rivalry, butchers and Antarctica.

Joanne has emailed me to say that she's started to 3BT after a while of doing it on paper. "I kept running  out of notebooks," she says, adding: "It really helps me focus on the positive bits of my life, I hope in time to banish the negative nelly that lives inside me!" She's listed some lovely things -- love the use of flat cola to comfort a dicky tummy.

1. Robert has stayed the night. He complains that I didn't bring him breakfast in bed. I tell him: "You're not at Rosey's house." Rosey -- if she is to believed, always brings him breakfast in bed and bakes cakes for him. He says: "She never makes me breakfast in bed. She rings me up early on a Saturday and says I have to drive all the the way to Leeds and take her climbing in the Lake District and then drop her off at the station."

2. We stand together in the queue outside the butchers and watch the people ahead of us coming out with their turkeys in boxes.

3. We watch Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World. He went to Antarctica and interviewed some of the more outlandish scientists and workers. I like seeing how he deals with a stern and silent penguin expert. And the plumber descended from the Aztec royal family. The hydroponics shed is run by a disenchanted linguist -- he was ordered to burn his Phd notes about a dialect with just one speaker ("It's a long story," says Herzog in the voiceover).

Book treasure, worn and speaker.

1. Finding treasure in the Oxfam bookshop. I only popped in to look for a card. 2. Bettany doesn't wear makeup out and about, but noneth...