Wonderfully important question!

If you make a firebomb out of a bottle of whisky and the tail of your shirt, because you're improvising and there's just no time to find petrol and soap and sugar and so forth for the proper Molotov, will it still explode? Is there enough oomph in regular retail alcohol, or will it just burn at the wick like an oil-lamp, or what...?

Dear Me

Walking into the Lit & Phil this morning - or dragging in, rather, barely in the morning at all, after yet one more bad night - my buzzy mind was buzzing rather more usefully than ofttimes before, and I had some geet handy ideas for Pandaemonium. I thought, I should make a note of these.

And then I was in the library and of course I didn't make any notes, because I am not the sort of person who does that sort of thing.

And then I'd packed up and was walking up into town, and out of nowhere I found myself singing "Gonna sit right down and write myself a letter." Why yes, all the way through. And round to the start and begin again, over and over.

Oh, I thought, okay then. I can take a hint.

And when I got home, before I made lunch? I made notes.

In other news, back in the '90s I had a student called Peter Straughan. I taught him all he knows. (The polite way to say that is "I taught him all I knew," but nah. He was just a boy, he couldn't take it all.) Also, I had a friend called Bridget O'Connor. I gave her my TV. I don't claim to have introduced Peter and Bridget, but, y'know. I might've done.

Then they went away and got married and had a kid, and put all they knew into effect.

Then Bridget died, which is miserable and we don't talk much about that.

But now? Peter and Bridget are sharing an Oscar nomination, for the screenplay of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

My chuffage is almost beyond measure.

A question! About the language of retail!

Really, this ought to be a poll but, y'know. I don't apparently do polls.

So you'll just have to tell me in words, my dears.

That thing where the shop assistant rings in your purchases: is it a cash register, or is it a till? And do you think this has changed in your lifetime? Or does it change in your travels, transAtlantic or otherwise?

(And does one actually still say that purchases are rung in, or is that helplessly old-fashioned?)

(Context)

See, the interesting thing is that I wrote about the guy behind the counter going to the cash register, and then I thought "hang on, don't they call it a till these days? I bet that came from America..." and I looked at Wiki and Wiki says what you-all say, that I'm exactly wrong, that it's a cash register in the US and a till in the UK. But I'm telling you, when I was a kid it was a cash register to us. I should know, I had a toy one, where we kept all the Monopoly money and the tiddleywinks and the chocolate coins (as long as they lasted) and so on...

Anyway. I have made it a till.

Gardening books: sort of another question

I wonder if there's any point taking any of my how-to-grow-herbs-and-veggies books? Given that California is such a different climate, and all? I don't know how much of the information would be universal, and how much would be not-useful, and how much just plain wrong...

*surveys pile of books, and thinks about leaving them all*