a kindle of kittens

[alexsarll]

Well apparently that's the collective noun!

Last night I watched a documentary by the Astronomer Royal* about whether we were alone. They had a chap on called Simon Conway Morris who was very big on convergent evolution. Now, I think he was overstating his theory a little (I'm suspicious of any theory which states that the way things are is the way they'll always be - too easy, and too many of them have been wrong), but I am prepared to support it in so far as it offers a belated justification for all those SF visions of humanity tooling around a universe full of other humanoid species. And even he seemed to accept there were sufficient loopholes to allow the odd sentient slime-mold or similarly mental alien.
Another bod, talking about the solar systems billions of years older than ours, offered scientific indications that the Cthulhu Mythos could turn out to be essentially true. This is possibly even cooler, in so far as ancient entities to whom we are practically beneath notice are cool rather than brain-shatteringly horrific.
After watching this programme about the possible appearance of alien life-forms, I watched the South Bank Show special on Iggy Pop. Insert your own punchline.

Perhaps it was because Ultimate Kylie arrived yesterday that I resumed reading Paul Morley's Words and Music - a history of music considered as a city towards which a robotic Kylie is driving, largely motivated by his obsession with 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head'. Like so much of Morley's writing it is terribly wise in part because it knows how often it's bullsh1tting, and encyclopaedic even as it filters through one man's idiosyncrasies. On the down side, it left me thoroughly intimidated about actually listening to the damn song.

And remember, you scurvy dogs - tonight's the Philip Jeays show on the Battersea Barge.

*Astronomer Royal is a great job - if only because one has a perfect excuse to say "Uranus" to the Queen

Comments

[drasticsturgeon.livejournal.com]

A watch of nightingales, apparently.

*sniggers*

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I shall be sure to use that one next time three or four of you are out!

[razorcheekbones.livejournal.com]

A conspiracy of ravens. How cool is that?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

They're watching you...

[martylog.livejournal.com]

Those collective nouns are fantastic. It's a big list of potential titles for blockbuster Jeffrey Archer novels!

A Skulk Of Foxes
A Sord Of Mallards
A Knot Of Toads
A Convocation Of Eagles
A Piteousness Of Doves
A Cry Of Hounds

etc

[invadergaz.livejournal.com]

Surely, A bush of Beavers

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I just wish it were a Sword of Mallards - the most random enchanted weapon ever!

[jamesward.livejournal.com]

Words And Music is a terrible, terrible book.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Is this just because it's the antithesis of your aesthetics of dumbness?

OK, I abandoned it for nearly a year, but only because I started it too soon after Nothing.

[jamesward.livejournal.com]

No, just because it is so boring. There are some really good bits dotted around, but how many times do you need to be reminded that this is a book, or that this is a footnote?

[martylog.livejournal.com]

Chas and Dave are the same person yet different people, driving one of those see-saw railway things along a track which is going in both directions at once and they are robots and the track might be going to a city which is made entirely of old Chas and Dave records which is both in the future and the past and both big and small but then again it might not

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

OK, he does periodically get carried away and your eyes start skimming but then in the midst of all that he'll suddenly say something so true that it brings you crashing to an astonished halt.

(That is a bloody good pastiche. Or else it's from further on in the book than I've got)

[jamesward.livejournal.com]

Reel 2 Reel feat. The Mad Stuntman are skateboarding in the carpark of the supermarket in a city made of music. The Mad Stuntman likes to move it, move it so he moves it, moves it but the it doesn't like to be moved, moved and so the it changes in to a ball of sound. A ball of sound bigger than The Mad Stuntman, bigger than the carpark of the supermarket, bigger than the city made of music until the it is so big that instead it moves The Mad Stuntman.

[cappuccino-kid.livejournal.com]

I'd like Paul Morley and Guy Peelaert to make a follow-up of Rock Dreams going from punk onwards. I got Rock Dreams<.i> the other day and although the pictures are wonderful, Nik Cohn's choice of artists is so muso and Wrong; PJ Proby gets about four pages and Scott Walker only appears as one of 30, standing at the back of a party making small talk with some idiot from the Yardbirds becuase he's got no mates of his own.

[ksta.livejournal.com]

are ye meeting in t' pub beforehand then?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

See my comment on your journal.

[butterflycaught.livejournal.com]

i had a book called A Kindle of Kittens when I were a lad...

[martylog.livejournal.com]

Was it a Jeffrey Archer potboiler?

[butterflycaught.livejournal.com]

nope, it was a picture book about a homeless cat trying to find homes for her kittens before christmas. it was pretty emotional in places but with a lovely heartfelt ending.

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

How come they only have one mythological creature on there? Aside from the fact that I am well impressed that there is a collective noun for unicorns, why not centaurs or griffins?

I always thought that unicorns were supposed to be fairly solitary, so feel it much more likely to see a group of eg satyrs larking about in a forst than a blessing of unicorns...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I think one of the sites we found had the word for dragons, though I forget now what it was.
And it's clearly a gangbang of satyrs.

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

well of course!
and perhaps the author was an ally mcbeal fan.

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

There's a children's book called A Kindle of Kittens with rather pretty illustrations. My parent bought it for me when I was three and for some reason I still own it.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I had never heard of this book until you and Chiara mentioned it, but now feel a little bad for luring you into the entry under false pretences.

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I ignored the rest of it. :p