Today I have mostly been editing the book, coming across sentences the likes of
My heart crumpled like a Chinese lantern trodden underfoot.
See I know what I meant when I wrote that, but you can see why I have crises of faith.
I've also been searching the Internet for a riding crop, which is the item my father requested as a birthday present this year. My eyes have been opened to a whole new world, and one with very little to do with riding horses. And yeah, it did occur to me after I had found a suitable item (i.e not made of PVC and pink feathers) that it was perhaps not the most ethical of purchases. Fortunately, having already fulfilled my guilt quotient for the day, I decided that since clearly human beings seemed to get a lot of pleasure out of riding crops, so (probably) do horses.
No, I know that doesn't work. Sorry.
Two bits of stuff for you:
Disability Nation Podcast
An American chap called Larry Wanger has set up a new disability podcast called Disability Nation. I think this project has a great deal of potential; there are three episodes so far. I was unable to access the first one (the site still contains a few broken links), but I listened to an interview with a lady called Patty Dobbs Gross who runs the North Star Foundation, which breeds and places service dogs with children with autism. I found this very interesting - as far as I know, there is nothing like this in the UK.
The other episode I listened to had an interview with Lucy Gwin, the great character who founded Mouth Magazine. Larry himself is a very natural presenter and there's uh... no Jeremy Beadle (apparently, the next Ouch podcast is coming any day soon).
In other disability-related news, this was the funniest story of the last week.
The 2996 Project.
I am not keen to do this myself, but thought some folks may be interested in the 2996 project, to get 2996 different bloggers blogging about the 2996 different individuals that died in the terrorist attacks in the US on 11th September 2001.
The idea is that each blogger who wishes to do this is allocated the name of one of those victims and agrees to write a tribute to them on 11th September 2006 (the five year anniversary). Given that they're trying to get 2996 bloggers involved, I guess they need as much publicity as they can get.
(via Strange Culture).
5 comments:
Oooo, that riding crop portion was hilarious. I actually had a fellow ask to use one on me once. I thought, "Why not?" I got as much enjoyment out of it as a horse, of course.
Actually the Chinese Lantern sentance made a lot of sense to me. That's hardly a recommendation coming from me though.;-)
I'll try to dig out a record from Solefald for you. They are a norwegian black/avantgarde metal group. It's called 'When the Moon is on the Wave', lyrics straight from Manfred.
Pete mad, in bed and dangerous when wet;-)
The Autism Dog thing was very interesting. Lily got a cat from the protection league (she is called Pussy) and Sybil interacts with her very well. There were a couple of face scratches early on but now she is very good with her.
Sybil wouldn't stroke her at first but I managed to get her to do it. This was mainly by holding her hand to Pussy's fur. Nowe she sits and strokes her and reads her stories, which is very sweet.
I think this American project is fantastic. Autistic children do have a problem with interaction and if animals can involve the child with another living thing it can only be beneficial to their development.
I have been searching the internet for riding crops as well, for the simple reason that I did not have a clue what that could be. Errm...I know now. Very enlightening.
The disability related funniest story of the week was a good one. I will try that in front of my home next time when I am annoyed about cars that are not supposed to be there.
:-D
Marmite, yes I thought you would be interested in the dog scheme - as soon as I heard about it, it made so much sense that autistic children could benefit from animals. And they are service animals, not just pets; it isn't "Ah how sweet to give these poor disadvantaged kids something to cuddle" - they really are meant to help, even to help keep the children safe.
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