It's getting really autumn-like here now, with snny weather and bouts of rain inbetween. Leaves are turning to yellow and red, the air has that smell of autumn, our car has its winter tires on... and I am really tired.

Some people get tired in spring. I seem to manage getting tired in both spring and autumn. Which explains why this blog post is rather late (I slept much longer than usual), and why it's not very substantial.

So instead of me writing proper and interesting stuff, here's a video where you can see the craziest harp player I know doing things that should be technically not possible to do on his harp...




Hint: watch his left hand...

A few years ago, when I was sharing office space with physicists (a long and wonderful story), there was a website up on the Internet under something like "www.isitfriday.xxx"*.

When you went on that website, there was either a black window with a red "No" or a black window with a green "Yes" on it. That was it. Nothing more - and still we'd have a lot of fun checking if it was Friday yet.

Then, after a while, the site was no more. But after another while... there is a similar page now again.
Not as black as the first one... but just as delightfully simple, and nonsensical, and nice to look up for that Thank-God-It's-Friday moment. Provided it's Friday, of course.

So... is it Friday yet?

* I don't remember if it was org, or net, or whatever. And since that page is dead and gone, I do not care, and nor should you.

It's probably a good thing that I have been so eager to get some work done on the one big project that I almost totally forgot to blog - hence the very late blog entry.

In addition to being busy, and forgetful, and totally overdoing it with adding books to my to-read list (or at least to the to-check-for-interesting-parts list), I have nothing new to tell you. So instead I will leave you with this totally awesome flashmob video, because what can be more awesome than a flashmob with a harp?

When in doubt what to blog, blog things like links.

Is that a blogger's adage? If not, can we make it one? I will at least do what it says and blog some links for you.

First of all, for those of you who know about the Maaseik embroideries, here's a direct link to their pictures (among others) from the kikirpa database. In case you don't know about the Maaseik embroideries, they are a series of 8./9thc century gold and silk embroideries. In case you don't know about the picture database of kikirpa.be, go take a look - it's worth it.

And in less serious at lest as important news, highlyeccentric blogs about the fate of a penis tree mural.

Finally, totally unmedieval but fascinating: Art from somebody who merges photos with pencil drawings. Really worth a look too. Text is in German, but the pictures are not, of course.

I have this habit of keeping browser tabs open and mails unarchived until I have blogged off the links that they contain (or reminded me of). And I really have to clean up my browser and mail window... so here you go.

A nice little video (well, not so little, with 15 min running time) about how linen is made today. There's plenty of newfangled machines, but there's also plenty of manual work involved.


BE LINEN MOVIE from Linen and hemp community on Vimeo.


If you don't want to watch the whole thing, here's a link to the short version (4.5 minutes).

There's a beautiful silk pouch with tassels on blogged by Medieval Silkwork. It's yummy.

And now for something completely different. I really cracked up over this post from The Bloggess, featuring a giant metal chicken. (Yes, I'm easily amused.) I stumbled over it via this video of her giving a speech and setting off the Zombie Apocalypse in Utah.

Now my browser has four less tabs open. Unfortunately, all the rest requires some proper action by me... which I'll be off to do now.

First of all, I'm back from Leeds, and I got or did everything that makes a conference: a conference pack (though it didn't include a pen, nor a writing pad), meeting new people, a few mindboggling papers, ideas for future projects, too much caffeinated hot drinks, book buying, and one night where I stayed up way, way past bedtime to chat with colleagues. That said, I'll give a more extensive review of the academic part in another post.

And I also learned things about Britain. For example that they have developed a really nasty habit of adding sweeteners to sugary soft drinks. And why on earth does anybody want to add sweeteners to a sugary drink? I just don't get it (and it tastes nasty). I like to have one of these sugary soft drinks once in a while, even if they are bad for you. But let's take one. There are two reasons why people drink it: To get the sugar or to get the taste. Or both. (The liquid is an added benefit, yes.) So I understand having a drink with sweeteners for those who only want the taste, even though that changes with the substitution. (In that case, I personally would choose a different drink then, but that's me.) But sugar and sweetener? Please. That's just stupid. Sweeteners are bad for the system, and I believe they are even worse than the sugars, who are undisputedly not the healthiest thing to consume (as one of the Leeds papers also showed with a nice graph correllating caries cavity frequency and sugar consumption over the last three or so centuries). They'll tell your body "calories come here! calories ahoy!", which then proceeds to get some insulin ready for the sugary bounty - which never comes, making your blood sugar levels plummet to new depths and the body react with the feeling of hunger. Which will lead to exactly the opposite effect of what the "diet" drinks promise you.

It took me several drinks to find out that they really do it to every sugary soft drink, after which point I stuck to either water or pure juice.

I also learned, unfortunately, that it is not possible to buy teabags at Manchester Airport. There's no real supermarket there (nor at the airport station). So I had to go home without a stash of teabags to replenish our quickly dwindling supply of Yorkshire tea (which really, as it promises, works splendidly in hard water), and we'll have to buy PG tips or something in a turkish grocery store when we run out. I also did not get lemon curd, because I was not willing to pay almost 6 quid for one glass - thanks, but for that price, I'll cook it myself. (Hint: it's not really hard to do.)

And I learned even more. That I'm not your classic conference-going medievalist, because then I should have checked my email about daily on the conference. (I firmly believe that the Out-of-Office autoreply was invented so that I can have times without having to check my email. And that includes conferences as well as vacation times.) That I'm not able of doing basic grocery shopping after doing bookshopping in a proper, large Waterstone's. That amazon.com has bought thebookdepository.co.uk (those *insert nasty new favourite swearword, also learned in Leeds, here*!) and I thus have to find yet another supplier of books. That the English rail system and especially their way of showing platforms and destinations on the tables in the station is really, really special and not at all what you are used to as a German. And that I really like duck with cherry sauce (part of the medieval theme dinner).

It's really nice and summery here - the strawberries are ripening, peonies and the rose are in bloom as well as a gazillion of other plants, and the tomatoes are doing their best to get nice and plump.

Apart from that, of course there's a lot of plants that grow where they are not really supposed to grow, so a part of yesterday evening was spent in the garden, doing necessary work. Among this was cutting back all the dog rose shoots and stems that were threatening to suffocate the "real" rose - which means that of a huge bush of greenery with thorns, three meager stems are left. But at least one of the stems is blooming, and it's now much easier to eliminate unwanted plants from below the rose.

And while I'm talking about garden stuff... here is my latest gardening insight: Neither tomatoes nor strawberries will turn red faster if you tell them dirty jokes. Which is a pity, really...