Snap snap

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In which there is a god of small things, and of glorious miscellany.

Little bird, little bird

One can tell when one’s eyes are too flush with citations and thoughts about ‘economic integration’ when one wanders over to that bastion of useless, misspelled rambles who have mistaken brevity for the soul of wit. Yes. Twitter. In part, this is because there is only so much obsessive volcano stalking one can do before running into #ashtag in which lost souls wandering the world seek intrepid adventurers for road shares to London from…Los Angeles.

(?! How…?!?)

True stalkers have seized upon http://twitter.com/Eyjafjalla , @theashcloud and the sassy @Katla

It seems that everything you touch @Eyjafjalla turns to dust. Shame you’re not Midas, it would sort out Iceland’s money woes. #ashtag

Burn, baby, burn.

(Don’t worry, everyone’s favorite Big_Ben_Clock does not appear to be choking on all the hot air and ash in London, or from the volcanic effects; BONG BONG BONG remains the chime of the hour.)

Anyway between this and headlines involving “DisERUPTION in Europe!” [no, really? Really?] I am going mad. Very, very mad.

Minutiae

There is sun in the sky, yes, the actual sky, which is actually above England. Right now! I thought it was a mythical creature, like unicorns that shoot lasers, and Peanut Butter. But no. There is sun.

Sorry, folks, it’s week 9; the exciting events of term have given over to weeks of staring at the sky and idly considering whether “ecru” or “eggshell” is a better call. I’m talking about clouds, people. Because it beats the fascinating trip through pollen count and forminafera shells that comprise the history of marshlands in Wales, and North Somerset.

…though, if anyone has an unconfessed desire to learn all about pollen counts, by all means, confess thy sins.

Oxford, by this time, is a skeleton of the term time. At night, because the mist and fog make sense then, the only people out in the backstreets are idly smoking in corners; they’re too young for Oxford, or they’re already past their cap and gown years. To get a five mile path out of Oxford requires some degree of ingenuity, since even I decline the chance to walk down forest paths near the witching hour. After a quarter of an hour out, the houses have all changed; the spires are somewhere back in the distance, though in the dark, there’s no way to tell. Bridges over the canals and dark waters of the Cherwell rise up and fall, sharply. The route to the south is all boathouses and swans beating wings against the Thames, where ten minutes of fleet feet will get you to fields and canals filled with moor hens and sleeping mallards, and something evil under a bridge. I can’t believe it’s taken six months to see the city to its ends, to see the spires set against the heavy weight of the sky.

I regret to inform you

That I have found something worse than Tighty McSham Pants.

It is Jean Paul Gaultier for Target. The Print Mesh Leggings in what is fraudulently labeled as “blue/red”, when what they mean is, if ever you have wanted to look like scales erupted from your epidermis in a zen, yet chaotic, pattern, as if you had slept all night wrapped in old school fish and chip wrappers and then fashioned them into a decoupage cloak for your dainty bits, this would be that print.

Sadly, you can’t wear that print. Because it is sold out. Yes. Thousands of these stalk the streets where children live.

Folks, I don’t know if I can return to a land of Gaultier bikinis and Faux Pants.

Dear Ladies of England

I get it. We inflicted leggings on the world via our Lohan minions and pint-size actresses; American colleges allowed Uggs to escape from the Australian outback, and popularized a look best described as “things I went to bed with”, up to and including walk of shame hair.

“Leggings are not pants!” went the cry; and lo, American Apparel did actually verify this.

But no. No, that wasn’t enough. You didn’t learn the lesson, and seize the glory of pants. You took the bounty of Topshop, the primal pleasure of the hunt at Primark, the glory that is Hobbs’ tailored, sweet lines, and you created this:

(To be fair, we might have started it. But I have never actually seen this on an American, whereas I now know too much about the knicker habits of Brits.)

Where are the Emmas of yesteryear? Really. Would Mr. Darcy hit that?

Crimey

Never say never: mound call at five am sharp tomorrow for the purposes of hand measuring and drawing every significant rock, bone, tile, mudbrick (both pink and tan species), plaster and dip in every single profile in every single trench. And all of it color coded. Magnificantly, we have seven, a whole three more than the usual four sides. Yup. Waking up in the dark again. I love my trench, I love my job, I hate mornings, oh my gosh I hate mornings….