The Bluestocking, where Maud reigns supreme...

[ifIwerenotanandroid]

... & Magpie regularly drains the hot chocolate bowser.

If you understand that, or you're just cool with it, come on in & bagsie a chair by the fire.

Previous thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5410054-the-bluestocking-the-one-where-the-nights-start-to-draw-in?page=1

Brilliant scarf, Myrtle! I was thinking, 'Blimey, the size of her knitting needles!' but then I remembered the birthday present needle system thingy: was that its first outing?

I keep reading 'omelettes, live yoghurt, chicken' as 'live chicken' but I suppose that's acceptable for a lion. Oh look, Cake's gone home & there's a snack for you!

Five minutes later & the Walrus is thinking he'd better go downstairs & clear up.

To Myrtle and the Walrus. He definitely deserves his scarf.

Presumably if 300 stitches is long enough for a tall man, the number can be reduced if preferred.

The last thing I attempted to knit was a scarf for my DD when she was about 13, using jewel coloured mohair type yarn left from a jumper I’d made for myself when I was a student. I’d planned it as stripes (the other way round to myrtles) , symmetrical about the middle. But I realised I was going to run out of time and that it was going to be too long and it wouldn’t have looked right asymmetric. So that’s bundled in the bottom of my wardrobe along with the half of a jumper in a colour DH no longer wears. I’ll have a clear out when I retire and hopefully start afresh.

Myrtle’s glorious scarf reminded me of one I knitted for DS many years ago, when I was in my Wollmeise period. IYKYK. I think I persuaded him that he wanted one, he chose the style and the colour.

My notes for it start with “Cast on 800 stitches.” It used over 1000 yards of 4 ply merino and measured over 130” by 8.5”.

The things we do for love.

Beautiful scarves!

Just popping in to say Dr Swash came home yesterday, until Monday. I probably won’t be around until she’s gone as we’ll be hanging out. We’re going out for the day today, to one of Bear’s favourite places. She’s asleep next to me. I keep waking up at 6:00 these days (rather than my habitual 7:00). Today it was 4:48 and I surrendered at 5:00. Bit annoying…

Have a wonderful weekend with your girl. Swashy. Hope it's full of memories, a little joy and a nod to the future. X

Ooh, morning Fuzzy! And thank you.
Are you feeling any better?

I am, thank you Swashy. Vaccinations have a habit of knocking me a bit flat but this one was not too bad, considering. Just tiredness. DH had his yesterday without a single side effect. Unfair!

That’s good to know, Fuzzy. Happy for you ☺️.

Have a lovely weekend with Dr Swash, sending lots of love to both of you💙

You expressed your wishes for Swash and Dr Swash beautifully, Fuzzy, and I'm sure they express all our wishes for them this weekend, thank you for finding the words
Hope you have a good weekend too, after your post-jab fatigue.

Ditto best wishes for your weekend Swash.

I had a quiet but nice birthday <side-eyes Storm Amy>. I was taken out for my dinner to a nice local cafe and got my Chinese takeaway for tea.

I was bought a copy of Kurasawa's(sp?) The Hidden Fortress as a present! I'm not sure why. The only time I can remember mentioning it was squabbling with my eldest that The Seven Samurai wasn't the film that inspired Star Wars. Then googling to prove I was right (Ha! Take that sprog!). It was The Hidden Fortress.

Anyway, that was the film we watched. It was entertaining although I don't really see how it inspired Star Wars. I was expecting a story of a plucky band of heroes sent to infiltrate and destroy an enemy fortress (possibly hidden) that would have provided surprise reinforcements to a crucial battle. Maybe they crept in through an exhaust port a drain. Spoilers...the Fortress was hidden, wasn't a fortress, was pretty much abandoned and was destroyed, by the bad guys(!), off screen, quite early in the film. There's an argument that the two farmers inspired R2D2 and C3PO, if the 'droids had been a little more rapey 😳 and prone to betraying the Princess and Obiwan. I also missed the scene in Star Wars where Vader was inspired to turn his back on the dark side by Princess Leia's singing. There were barely any swords.

All that being said I would dearly love for a peak into the universe where Toshiro Mifune (whose picture should be in the OED next to charisma) played Obiwan. Although I don't know who they'd have cast as young Obiwan.

I’m glad you’re having a nice weekend with your DD @Swashbuckled . I hope to have a video chat with mine today - haven’t seen her in person since July and probably won’t until next summer unless I can wangle a solo trip to the UK before then.

I'm sorry I didn't make a fuss of you on the actual day, Cake,😞 sincere if belated HB!
I'm glad you had a nice day, and got to exercise your critical skills on : The Influence of The Hidden Fortress on Star Wars: discuss.

Your Star Wars interest must make you easy to buy presents for!

Hope you continue to have a nice birthday-weekend 🍾

May I wander over to Pedantry Corner & say it's not The Seven Samurai, it's Seven Samurai? 😁And DH says it should really be Seven Ronin.

Faves in this house are Ran (King Lear) & Throne of Blood (Macbeth) - can't watch the latter without thinking of a documentary in which Toshiro Mifune spoke of his fears about shooting the ending of it, in case he died - watch it & you'll see why.

Does HF have a nice staircase scene, or is that Kagemusha? DH says there's a good, 'friendly' spear fight in HF. I can't remember & can't quite imagine a friendly one.

ETA: Happy birthday Cake!

Hoping Swash & Dr Swash have a perfect weekend.

Genuflects to Pedantry Corner. I did briefly agonise as to whether or not it was The Seven Samurai, thought briefly about googling then distracted myself by mentally digressing that there weren't even seven of them.

There are scene with stone staircases, lots of climbing crumbly slopes and the, yes I suppose it was friendly, spear fight was preceeded by spear vetting which did pay off. Always, always vet your spears!

We've not got Throne of Blood. I'm thinking it might be something like James Cagney fearing for his life because they used real bullets. I always hoped that was apocryphal. Which reminds me George Lucas might have got the Storm Troopers being rotten shots from the HF. Yojimbo and Sanjuro are both cracking films. At least some of the bullet effects in the HF seem to be squibs.

I'm not really a big Star Wars fan. The original trilogy were entailing enough and I've seen the prequels and sequels. I can't get too exercised about Luke flouncing off to...Craggy Island?...was it. Ffs, space wizards after all! I'm not going to take narrative cohesion it too seriously. I do wish they'd not been so chicken and stuck with whatever was originally planned with Rose and Finn.

And Last Man Standing was based on Yojimbo.

We were trying to remember the name of the one with flowers floating into a garden & a stunning ?last scene with a sword (I'll say no more) - is that Sanjuro?

One for our resident poetry fans:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5421183-kelly-v-leonardo-employment-tribunal-thread-3?page=25

contains a post of haikus.

It's terribly Japanese in the Bluey today. I think I'll go & slip into a kimono.

The gerbils are practising for their upcoming production of 'Zatoichi'.

Thank you @MarieDeGournay - FIL is home, but had another fall in his flat yesterday, and the paramedics were called, but he refused to go to hospital to be checked (stubborn old sod) - but he does seem to have accepted he can’t stay in that flat, and needs to go into care. Dh is going down tomorrow, back on either Tuesday or Wednesday, to see him, and hopefully move the process forward. We have found somewhere with a vacancy, and they will be going to assess him, hopefully asap.

Ds3 will be at work, so we are putting the dogs in kennels, and that means I’ll be able to cope at home without dh.

Thank you, the instructions are here:

They suggested 300 stitches, but fewer are possible. And yes it was the first outing of the needle system. I knitted it with Aran wool on size 5mm interchangeable needles with two long cables joined together. It used up most of my stash.

I'm currently using the "magic loop" method to knit in the round. I had a 40cm cable to knit a 40cm circle and the additional length of the needles made it impossible. So I did some research and found this new method, discovered in 2002, which is amazing!

The chicken was lovely. And the Walrus was very helpful because I'm very allergic to feathers.

Yes, it was Sanjuro.

Woley.

Fella's parents came to lunch with us yesterday. His mum was insistent that she took sugar with her tea, she always has. Was news to all of us. She's still quite spry though and has many of her marbles. His dad is getting a bit frail, though no falls yet, and is finding it quite trying.

My simple sock pattern uses the Magic Loop system which DD and I swear by. She knits everything possible in the round.

As this is a thread where many strange things may happen, I will report a dream I had early this morning. I woke up earlier than usual and then went back to sleep, which is probably why I remembered it (rarely do). I was with a bunch of British politicians in some kind of secretarial capacity, and they were discussing the need for some kind of defence system for Britain like the Israeli iron dome system. Keir Starmer had grown a beard and looked very much like the actor Samuel West. The other politicians drifted off and I was left with Keir, who promptly put his head on my shoulder and fell asleep. Another person came up to us to remind him that he was supposed to go on the radio soon and talk about this and I shushed him and said “leave him alone, the poor man’s been boning up on atomic physics and he’s exhausted.” At which point I woke up.

I have lived in America for 23 years now so why tf I’m dreaming about British politicians god knows. Still at least it wasn’t Trump.

It makes sense now!

I am practising in the round on a pattern from my knitting magazine and was perplexed that your pattern said 80cm needles when the sock circumference is obviously smaller so I put it to one side to practise knitting in the round. Once this little project is complete, I'll look at it more closely.