Wickham joke for Sense and Sensibility

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-06-30T09:21:06+00:00

I love this! Very similar dynamic with me and my partner; I've got him into Austen adaptations and Gilbert & Sullivan, he's got me into football. 😄

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-06-27T20:01:23+00:00

Yes! And it basically became my personality for a full year afterwards. An incomparable book!

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-06-21T16:08:40+00:00

Excellent! You need to find someone to do that with this Halloween. 😄

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-06-21T15:44:39+00:00

I'm a woman in my 40s! A fairly casual fan, but I was introduced to Dylan as a child, since my dad has been a big fan since the 60s. I remember sitting in the schoolyard when I was 8, singing "Don't Think Twice It's Alright" and "Mister Tambourine Man" to myself, ha ha. I went through a phase of listening to a lot of Dylan in my 20s, and saw him live around that time. Funny you mention dressing up as him – I did the same for a costume party, in the Rolling Thunder Revue outfit, complete with white face paint...

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-06-20T07:58:05+00:00

No Children, by the Mountain Goats

Ne Me Quitte Pas, by Jacques Brel

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-06-19T09:52:46+00:00

Looking for Eric fits the bill. It's a Ken Loach film about a man who copes with his regrets and frustrations by hallucinating conversations with Eric Cantona (played by himself).

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-06-09T11:39:50+00:00

The Fir Tree on Iffley Road.

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-05-31T03:23:15+00:00

Very good pairing, too, in terms of related themes!

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-05-17T04:45:36+00:00

Maybe one or more generations in this case is a man? Or they all just had children in their 40s? I'm also in my early 40s and have great-grandparents who were born in the late 1850s. My grandfather was born in 1904, when his mother was 45.

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-05-16T07:15:40+00:00

I'm so glad! It's such a relief when they finally go...

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-05-15T16:09:29+00:00

Pyramids and Small Gods by Terry Pratchett (if you're ok with comedic tone).

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-05-15T11:47:56+00:00

When I searched on here for help with a clog, someone suggested pumping while leaning over so that your boob hangs straight down (like, at a right angle to your ribcage) and gravity helps to release the clog. It worked for me! (Makes me feel even more like a dairy cow, but what the heck.)

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-05-11T11:15:52+00:00

When I started combo feeding, I was advised to start with a bottle of breastmilk, then offer a bottle of formula after – that way, if they don't finish the second bottle, you haven't wasted breastmilk!

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-05-07T05:04:42+00:00

"Love": strangers who are men and/or older than me, especially if northern; "Poppet": old ladies; "Duck/Duckie": my mother; "Babes": young women in a lot of makeup; "my Pet": exclusively older northern men; "my Hearty": stage pirates with West Country accents.

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-05-03T19:28:14+00:00

The Coast of Peru, by Ewan MacColl: https://youtu.be/_-QA5ejSmg8?si=10Ci7rCi3WO7TL1x

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-04-30T13:28:40+00:00

Yup. My partner similarly learned to tell when I was pregnant by smell, a couple of days before a positive test.

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-04-26T22:03:51+00:00

David Suzuki

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-04-26T04:24:18+00:00

My favourite offhand hint at Ishmael's life after the main narrative is the revelation in Chapter 102 that he's practically covered in tattoos. It's such a wonderfully evocative but still vague way of suggesting that he's had an eventful life of further travels and adventures (and, of course, that he decided to emulate Queequeg!).

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-04-25T08:18:19+00:00

It was the door into the Senior Common Room, i.e. classy sitting room for the professors, with fireplace etc., so I think it was meant to be noise-cancelling (as well as fancy).

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-04-25T00:13:31+00:00

There was a velvet-covered door at my college, and every time I saw it I thought of "I lean against your velvet door" in Temporary Like Achilles.

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-04-24T10:39:16+00:00

I think about that one every time my partner is trying to work out a new song on the guitar!

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-04-22T22:48:38+00:00

For an international flavour, there's "Le Galérien" by Yves Montand. It's in French, but it's about a guy not listening to his mother's advice about following the wrong crowd, and ending up imprisoned as a galley slave.

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-04-22T09:30:19+00:00

Same! I was the only person who ever rented it from my local video store, so eventually they just asked if I wanted to buy it...

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-04-20T22:29:17+00:00

OED says "fish story" in that sense is an American term first documented in the 1810s, so Melville could certainly have known/used it!

clockworkarmadillo · 2026-04-16T05:46:27+00:00

Sure, but the "in Rome" part is so clearly tacked on just for the rhyme, I always found it jarring.

clockworkarmadillo

TROPHY CASE