Oddities

I’ve just written a paragraph about how I don’t have time to do everything I want to do. But I’ve done that before on this blog, and I don’t see why I should keep making you read about how stupidly busy I make myself… that’s not what you’re here for. [I hope I'm not speaking to a big empty room...]

So, today I thought I’d tell you about some oddities I’ve come across lately.

Just hanging around

I was walking through Jubilee Campus the other day, and saw these two strange characters hanging around. It’s normal to see students loitering outside the buildings – usually smoking – but you don’t often see spades that have nipped out for a bit of ‘fresh air’…

Then I saw the resident heron being mobbed by a couple of nasty crows. You’d think that a heron, which is a big bird, wouldn’t be in the least bit bothered by this… but he was obviously panicking about the whole thing. He kept trying to put them off by pretending to fly away and then sneaking back, but the bullies weren’t having any of it. They chased the poor bugger mercilessly. The last I saw of the drama, the heron was sitting on the edge of the island in the lake looking VERY grumpy, while the crows were sneaking up on him in a pincer formation…

A duck that thinks it's a mallard

There are two ducks at Jubilee who think they’re mallards. One of them has most features of a mallard drake, but his neck and chest are brown mottled with white. The other is a female, shaped like a mallard, but her feathers are completely brown and white. She’s still managed to find herself a boyfriend though, so there’s obviously no racism among ducks.

I spent much of last Monday putting the new States of Independence webpage together. I uploaded it to the Five Leaves webspace… but it didn’t appear. All that came up was last year’s page. OK, I thought, it’s cached somewhere. I waited ten minutes, and sure enough, the cache refreshed, and the correct page appeared. But, for some reason, Google still has an image of the old page cached. So people are getting completely confused about dates, and I’m wondering what it’ll take for that particular cache to refresh…

“So, Pippa, what’s States of Independence all about?” I hear you cry… SoI is a mini-book-festival – a packed day of events celebrating all aspects of independent publishing in the East Midlands and beyond. It’s held in Leicester at the De Montfort University (Clephan Building), and runs from 10.30 till 4.30. There will be talks and panels and book launches and, for the first time this year, a performance of a play. And everyone who’s anyone in the independent publishing world will be showing off their wares – we have 23 stalls booked already, so bring plenty of money. One thing you won’t have to pay for is entry to the event – it’s all free!

I’ll finish with this little gem. 50p from Oxfam, and packed with entertainment value. It contains instructions for many projects that ensure your furry/scaly/feathery friends can live in your home even after they’re dead. It includes such things as ‘Gerbil Salt and Pepper Pots’, ‘Koi Carp Tie Rack’, and my personal favourite, the ‘Dachshund Baby Cushion’. Yes, indeed.

If there’s enough demand, I’ll devote my next blog post to this amazing book…