Any ideas?

Ok, so this is the new light above the stairs. The stairwell and the upstairs corridor are going to be painted purple in a shade that matches the light fitting, and the doors upstairs (four of them) are going to be painted metallic silver and will have silver handles. The doorframes, etc, will be painted the same purple as the walls, only SHINY! I want the whole thing to look really luminous.

In the upstairs corridor is another light - this one can't have a pendant fitting as the ceiling is too low, and Mr H will bump his head. I don't want an "oyster fitting" because I think they are horrible (last apartment had them in every room!) I *do* want something that will go with the silver and purple theme, I'd prefer something second-hand/upcycled/made of recycled materials or at a pinch, at least it should be recyclable.

Thoughts/ideas please!

Weird

Because I just popped into Kosminskys to look at an Essex crystal brooch with a Siamese cat on it that I have been eyeing off for weeks, I was doing some research on said crystal on teh trusty interwebs (turns out, mostly pictures of dogs, which probably explains the jaw-dropping price of kitteh brooch), and found this:

If you're thinking this brooch looks like the head of a bird, that's because it IS the head of a bird. A hummingbird, to be precise.

Can I just say, the Victorians? Fucking weird bunch.

I mean, what possesses someone to say to themself, "Hey, cute bird, I think I'll cut off its head and wear it on my cardigan"?

As the young people say, omgwtfbbq!!!1!!!

Relics

I'm reading the Otia Imperialia, a fantastic tome by the inimitable Gervase of Tilbury, one of the earliest writers to collect folk tales and write them down descriptively.

They are, of course, all mixed up with Christian stories, like this gem:

"Nicodemus fashioned the Image of Lucca. Inside it he enclosed the cloth [bearing the image of Jesus at his cruxifiction], with a flask of the Lord's blood, one of the three nails, and fragments of the crown of thorns, the sponge, and the clothing of the Lord and the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God; there were also pieces of the Lord's cradle and umbilical cord".

I just read this to Hugo, who said "Good Lord, it's a Holy Showbag!"

Gervase then goes on to describe how the Gauls insist that (despite the Pope having the holy foreskin of Jesus safely encased in a gold cross that is annually annointed with Balsalm) they have the holy foreskin of Jesus, which was given to Charlemange by an Angel:

"Hi, I'm Gabriel, and I bring you the Holy Foreskin of Jesus".

I tell you what though, if I'd lived back then I'd have made a total fortune selling fingers of saints, fragments of the true cross, holy umbilical cords (Batman) and crowns of thorns. Sainte Chapelle in Paris, which has the most magnificent stained glass ever, has "the" holy crown of thorns. It cost more to buy, in about 1400, than the entire chapel, glass and all, cost to build.

No wonder people back then were always exchanging cows for magic beans.

And the pug shall lie down with teh KITTEH

Gratuitous Friday photos of my pets. Or two of them anway...

Translation

I am having a google chat convo with someone where we are translating our comments into another language and then back into English. I just said I need to get a new key cut for our mailbox, because Hugo has lost his, which came out:

Is born with now us only in order for Hugo where there is 1 mailbox key to lose 2 sets of the key, the new key respects the mailbox and to be reduced must remember the fact that gets.

Moon kitteh

Apparently, we were promised the moon and we got LOLCATS instead.

I say, WE CAN HAZ BOTH.

Food television FAIL

Last night we made the mistake of watching Food Investigators on SBS. I should have *known* it was going to shit me to tears, with inaccurate scare-mongering about saturated fats being TEH EVILS and etc, but little did I realise just how inane and stupid it would actually be. Among other things, the story on preservatives in wine was completely inaccurate - they said it's not possible to get preservative-free wines.

Um, yes, it is. As even doing a google search would have showed you, you pack of airheaded dolts.

Here's a red. Here's a white. Another white - and at less than $12.50 a bottle it's not too exxy either. Here's a whole freaking website.

Srsly, don't you people have researchers??? Are their googling fingers broken?

Also, your piece about hamburgers was crap. Like we needed a reporter to tell us McDonalds burgers are higher in fat than home-made. Sheesh.

Having an organisational moment

I have lodged my tax return, called the electrician, and am on the phone to Vodafone to sort out why they are trying to charge me approx $1 million for internet when it is supposed to be included. They have me on hold.

And can we talk about how fucking annoying their stupid voice recognition system is. I do not want to hear some disembodied voice tell me shit about plans. I want to talk to a hooman.

Only the hooman turns out to be as useless as the disembodied voice. Sigh.

Having another house moment

Having regretfully decided that painting the ceiling in my living room to look like this* is probably not an option because (a) I am a talentless hack and (b) I can't afford the gold leaf, I am back to planning slightly less exotic things for my apartment.

On Saturday after taking Casper to the farmers' market in Caulfield (where he sat looking super-cute in front of the bacon stall until the stall holder gave him bacon, and where we saw two other pugs - I swear pugs can tell other pugs are like them, they get twice as excited by a pug as by any other dog) and dutifully visiting my grandmother, I put together my new Billy bookshelf and then put all my DVDs in it, in alphabetical order (I lead an exciting life, let me tell you). So now one small corner of the living room looks... neatish. Then, in a moment of enthusiasm, I (a) emailed my PU#2 to aks him if he had the electrician's phone number handy (I bought a new light for the hall, oh, approx two years ago, it's sitting in the spare "bedroom", along with the towel rail for the bathroom, about a million bags of fabric scraps, wool, etc, and all the pictures we still haven't got around to hanging up. Hey, we've only been living here two years) and (b) aksed everyone I know on facebook whether anyone knows where I can get doorknobs, and quite surprisingly, someone turns out to be able to help.

See, social networking = useful for more than just bragging about my uni marks/Bejeweled Blitz high score.

Anyhoo, I am now extra inspired and looking at paint on the Porters Paints website. I am totally going to paint the doors upstairs silver, and the corridor purple (and by paint, I mean "call the handyman") and it will look shiny. Although not quite as shiny as the hall of mirrors.

*This being the ceiling in the hall of mirrors at Versailles, where I took the photo.

I'm not sitting here waiting for lunch

I'm actually wishing I could go home and start assembling some Ikea furniture, sew some new cushion covers, vacuum the lounge room (when I pointed out to Hugo that the carpet was covered in pug and Meezy hair, he looked at me in a mystified fashion and said "But we don't own a vacuum cleaner". Oh Boris, how soon you are forgotten) (we *do* own a vacuum cleaner, btw, it's just that with polished floorboards in the whole house it doesn't get used very often as there's a magical contraption called a broom that we use instead) (and by we, I mean Hugo).

Where was I?

Oh yes, I wish to make my living room pretty. Also, I need a coffee, stat. And I'm no longer sitting here waiting for lunch as I went and et it. That is all.

If you've been enjoying utegate in lolz

Check out the new website from the team that brought you the election policy generator (i.e. me and Sean) - http://dailylolz.lolpolz.com/

Today's update features free travel for ex-Federal MPs. Yesterday you got double the goodness with John Hartigan, news ltd CEO, and the one about Malcolm flying to Afghanistan. The day before was Andrew Bolt's conspiracy theory - utegate was caused by aliens the gunman on the grassy knoll TEH EVIL LABOR PARTEH!

You can also get updates on twitter - http://twitter.com/lolpolz - so far I have only added new posts, but come the inevitable early election, you will get so many updates you'll be like child set loose in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. A good child. Not one of those ones who was bad and got sucked up a tube/tossed into the garbage by a squirrel/shrunk into a tiny TV person/turned violet, Violet/etc.