M.H. Thaung's Blog: Musings

Even for me, it’s not yet pantomime season, but Parody of the Rings came pretty close. It’s a fast-paced show that packs all three Lord of the Rings films into a 60-minute performance. The two cast members were brilliant with their use of props, the stage and the audience (they didn’t! oh yes they did!). One of my favourite scenes was the clash between Gandalf and Saruman. You can see a snippet of that on their trailer—I’ll leave it to your imagination what the other snippets are based on. They ...

I can’t believe we’re at the end of September already. It’s been a pretty busy month. At the start, I visited Cambridge for a conference. I’ve shared thoughts on St John’s College previously, but it’s worth another look if you enjoy old buildings and academic ambience. You have to be on your best behaviour for the Formal Dinner, with those portraits of distinguished alumni glaring down from the walls.

My freelancing work now has me travelling around the UK a couple of times a month. I keep worry...

August has been been a great month for appreciating creativity by other people. It started off wonderfully when a hot-off-the-press copy of Good Omens: The Graphic Novel arrived. I’d backed it on Kickstarter quite a while ago and then pretty much forgotten about it. Definitely worth the wait! I tend to gobble down books (including comics/graphic novels), but this one I’m savouring a few pages at a time

Then there was Worldcon. This year’s convention was in Seattle, so we attended remotely. With...

In my last post, I mentioned home-grown tomatoes. Here’s the proof They’re still on the green side, but I confirm the blushing one was perfectly edible. It’s rather weird. When we moved here 15 years ago, we immediately had the back garden paved over as we didn’t want to maintain plants or a lawn. Although we still have the patio (and I don’t think I’ll ever want a lawn), we’re enjoying the potted plants.

Other than admiring the garden, I’ve been decluttering my study, which I do 2-3 times a y...

Halfway through the year already! Our garden’s still flourishing, although I feel it’s now got a bit too crowded with plants. I’m assured they won’t all survive, so I guess this year will inform longer-term planting. We will also (so I am told) soon be enjoying home-grown tomatoes

I’ve now started some freelance work that entails a couple of trips away every month. Unfortunately that knocks off my swimming routine just after I’d actually started going three times a week… Still, the train journe...

I hope you’ve had a good May. We’re having mainly bright sunshine, though heavy rain for the last couple of days. The garden’s far more colourful than it was last month—an advantage of planting in pots. Even the potato plants have survived so far. That’s a surprise since we simply found a couple of forgotten spuds in the fridge and threw them into a box of soil.

My swimming continues (yay) though I’m still only managing once a week reliably (boo). Definitely need to up my game on that since I’ve...

Following on from last month’s post, we finally had a daffodil bloom. Just one, mind! A second bud waited patiently to flower for over 2 weeks until the first one wilted. We now have a third bud in the queue. At this rate, they’ll be flowering until autumn. The back patio does have some other colour, however. A few tulips and pansies, and some blue flower that I don’t know what it is. The flower came as a “mixed spring bulbs assortment pack” and I never claimed to be a botanist…

April’s been rel...

Spring has finally sprung—one of our bulbs is showing a touch of colour. I’m used to seeing daffodils in February, but we’ll have this year’s in April as we planted them so late. We need to plan further in advance! This weekend is also that slightly irritating time in the UK when the clocks go forwards and we’re cheated of an hour’s sleep. Or an hour’s Saturday night partying if you’re still of that age… I thought I’d read some recent article about getting rid of daylight savings time. It seems ...

It’s been a pretty busy and productive month here. Nothing especially newsworthy, but I got through some academic and professional bits and pieces. If you’re interested in my eye pathology work, I’m now posting cases on an educational website called KiKo. Here’s one of my recent ones—nothing gruesome or frightening (at least I don’t think so!)

On the domestic front, I’ve been experimenting on the food front with sprouting and microgreens. (We also now have a cheap greenhouse, though I fear it’ll...

I hope the year is starting well for you. This month, I’ve been exercising my brain with a course on logic. It’s going rather slowly since the concepts take a while to get my head round. So far, we’ve covered topics such as formal vs natural language, various sentence connective and truth tables. Already, I find myself looking more critically at what I say and write, wondering if my intended meaning is unambiguous (usually not…)

On the crafting side, I’ve been experimenting with sewing. With our...