Forgive me, OS, this post may be a little chaotic - we've just won the Six Nations CUp by a Grand Slam after 61 years by 15-17, with a drop goal by O'Gara with 90 seconds to go and Wales missing a score in the final SECOND of the match.........I should… Read full post »

One of the first posts I read on OS was about the ‘Sunday Crowns’, the hats worn by black religious women to Sunday services. I’d come across the term ‘crown’ in an episode of ‘The Wire’ and found the post informative, provocative and entertaining. Her avatar… Read full post »

 

On Saturday I had to attend a conference.   I woke early and, rushing into town in my car, I caught the news.   'Two soldiers shot dead in Armagh' - I shook my head in annoyance.   I assumed I had hit upon some archivist weekend radio filler programme.… Read full post »

 See, Sheldon, you got it wrong.  

Those are not Leprechauns!    Those are Gnomes, poor homeless English garden ornaments on the run from the Chelsea Garden Show.   Diarmuid Gavin has declared war on these plaster-cast-hearted mini-Gandalf-lookalikes.   They had to… Read full post »

"It was a dark and stormy night," the husband said. 

“Right,“ the wife replied mordantly, “ and you were the radiant sun, sent to light her way home!”

“It wasn’t like that” he countered with a sigh.  “She needed my help, I couldn’t walk… Read full post »

 

Some of the recent comments and posts I've visited seemed so solipsistic I responded with exasperation.   Then I clicked on xkcd.com - thanks, Hippolyta!  

  

 

 

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/bored_with_the_internet.jpg

 

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As the lights went down the usual announcement began.... "please note the emergency exits....turn off all mobile phones -"  And my heart froze.   I'd forgotten my phone.    How had I done that?    I never went anywhere without my phone.   In fact… Read full post »

I am posting this in the wake of so much hysterical comment on the recent US multiple birth.   The focus of many comments has been criticism of this too-much mother whose selfish/narcissistic/ ignorant (a/c to viewpoints expressed elsewhere) wish to have children prevailed over common sense
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I was clearing out my wardrobe when I found a bundle of letters tied with a ribbon.   How romantic, how positively Austen!   I didn't recall arranging them like that, gift-wrapped for my later delighted discovery.   When I took them in my hands I knew them at once for… Read full post »

I first realised the problems associated with ‘black’ hair in a ‘white’ society in a novel I read many years ago.   At the time, the words ‘nappy’ and ‘kinky’ had entirely different connotations for me and the whole issue seemed completely irr… Read full post »

The pursuit of happy-ness, that is the modern  psychoanalytic dilemma; a generation has grown up heeding the parental and societal demand that they ‘just be happy’.   It’s an injunction that pervades the common discourse: ‘You’re worth it’, ‘Ju… Read full post »